Winter, Faerstice

by Kevin Lawler

  “Are there that many witches that come through?”

  “It adds up over the years. You’re the fourth witch I’ve captured personally.” He made a four over the fork in his hand. “But I saw more before I was deputized. Of the ones I caught, the first two were out here stealing, and another ring was more than happy to take the living one off our hands. The third one...I let her go. Seemed innocent, enough anyways. I’m not sure what to make of you. Trespasser, most likely. We’ll get you to the marshals for that. They probably won’t even burn you at the stake. But uh, first you can take me through the tree so I don’t have to spend my stone. Who knows, maybe we forget I saw you. Anyway, won’t be any trespassing tonight. Time for sleep.” Will put his mess down and came over to where Winter was.

  Winter looked around at the blotchy, rock strewn patch of grass and sand she was sitting on. “So I’m sleeping here?” Winter asked. Will was already behind her running a piece of cord through her binds. Winter heard him throw the other end of it and it landed on the forest floor with a plunk.

  “Nope, you’re not sleeping there.”

  Winter looked back around at him for an explanation.

  He pointed at the tree boughs overhead. “You’re sleeping up there.” He yanked on the cord and Winter felt it go taught against the binding around her back. She tried to get up to run but he caught the slack and the next yank lifted her toes clear off the ground.

  “Seriously?” Winter asked.

  “Yeah, seriously,” Will said, “You won’t cause any trouble this way.”

  Winter groaned.

  A couple of more good pulls and Winter was swinging lamely from the tree by her waist. She kicked her feet at the empty air. The blood rushed to her face. From above Winter could see Will tying the cord around an exposed root.

  “I think this will work,” he said.

  “You’re a jerk. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “You aren’t now.”

  Winter stuck out her tongue at him, craning her head to make sure he saw. All of the world spun around her as she twisted on the rope. Winter frowned. The branch overhead creaked as she started turning the opposite way. Below her Will was getting his bed ready. She looked at the rocks where her bed might have been. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to be up here.

  Will sat down again by the fire. He rooted through Winter’s backpack, pulling out a bag of fruit snacks, which made her feel ridiculous. He looked at them and put them back. Then he unslung Winter’s knife from his belt and unsheathed it. He twisted it in front of the fire and watched the oily glow of the dark metal blade in the firelight.

  “Nice knife,” he said, “Is it poisoned?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  He touched the point with his hand. “Quite the seax.”

  “Quite the what?”

  “SAY-OX” he explained, “I guess you wouldn’t know that either.” He grabbed the point and balanced the grip over the fire. “It’s an old word that means this kind of knife. I’ll guess too then that you haven’t used it in many sacrifices.” The knife was long, almost a sword really, with a wide blade that tapered into a point like a scalene triangle. The handle was wrapped in black leather. “It does make me wonder though, how you came across it.”

  “It was my dad’s,” Winter said. Through the trees she saw red fireflies lighting up for their nighttime dance.

  “Your dad’s? It looks brand new. Odd. You name it yet?” His attention left the knife and then he looked displeased. “Ah, wisps,” he said, “More fun.” He put his hands on his thighs and stood up from where he was.

  The red lights wizzed into the clearing, small steady orbs. Winter could see that they weren’t fireflies at all. They swarmed around her in a kind of pattern, and then they spoke.

  “Witch,” the word echoed from the tiny orbs, “Witch.” The pattern of lights shifted as if coordinated. “Witch. Witch.”

  “He caught you. Caught you,” they said, “The witch hunter. Witch hunter. Caught. Caught. The little witch. Newbie. Newbie. Little witch.”

  One of the wisps started snorting. Then the others joined in. A chorus of pigs. The snorting came from every direction.

  The field of wisps drifted around her and closed in. A streak of light shot to the bottom of her field of vision, and Winter felt the sting of a new cut to the side of her left eye.

  “Hey,” Will called to the wisps, “That’s enough.” Winter felt a cut on her hand, then one her neck and the back of her leg. Will dipped a large unwieldy branch into the fire, and he waved around the flaming leafy ends at the wisps. As he shook it at them some of the tips passed a little too close to Winter for her comfort.

  The wisps shied from the flames. “Killer. Witch Killer. Randall Randall,” the wisps said at him as they backed away. Will stalked around Winter, rounding the wisps up and chasing them to the edge of the clearing, where they receded into the forest. A few remained at the edge, watching, their lights winking out as Will talked.

  “They only do it to get a rise out of you,” Will said. He tossed the smoldering branch over the fire and returned to his seat.

  The cut on her cheek smarted. Winter knew it was bleeding. She didn’t want it attracting bugs the way her bloodied nose had done, and certainly not while she was trying to sleep. “Could you get this?” she asked. She tried to indicate her cheek as best she good by swiveling her head.

  “What? Yeah,” he said, wiping his hands and standing again.

  He came over in front of her and she did her best to lean down so he could reach. He checked his pockets for something to wipe her with, but didn’t find anything. So he tried pull up the neck of her top to get at it.

  “Stop. Would you stop?” Winter said, “Forget it. Just leave it.”

  “Wait, I have something.” He went over and pulled some tissue out of a camping meal and swabbed her cheek. “See?” He pulled a couple of pine needles from her hair and then he left her where she was suspended.

  Winter stopped leaning over. She was quiet at first. “Thank you.” she said. Then she asked, “Who’s Randall?”

  “Supposedly an ancestor of mine. Randall the Witch-Killer. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but that’s what they say. After a while it’s pointless to argue it anymore. The wisps pick up on the rumor. They don’t care.”

  “He was famous for, what else, killing witches. Never missed, never showed mercy. Much different from what we’ve become today.”

  “I could use a good witch-killer,” Winter said.

  “What? You make enemies already?”

  “Not me. Agnes. She killed my sister.”

  “Your sister? Were they fighting?”

  “My ten year old sister. She wasn’t even a witch.”

  “That’s awful. Why?”

  “I don’t know. Some stupid witch thing maybe. Maybe she thought she was me. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.” Winter strained against her bindings. “What I do know is that I’m going to get to her, and finish her.”

  “Hmm,” he said, “You don’t look like much of a killer. You sound serious, though. Strange that Agnes would do something like that. Are you sure it was her?”

  Winter swinging was picking up momentum in her anger. “Yes,” she said.

  “Hmm,” he said again.

  Will collected some more firewood and threw it on the fire. Then he settled in for a rest. Winter had a hard time getting to sleep. The fire was close enough to keep her warm, but then the wind changed and blew smoke in her face directly where she was hoisted. It changed back and she fell asleep. Then she reawoke in midair, and her surprised reaction set her in motion. The ground and the campfire swung in her vision. Her seax was still in his belt and she had no way of cutting herself down. She clenched her teeth and started straight ahead.

  The seax. Her dad had showed it to her and said it would be hers when she was old enough. He had let her out to play with it. “I can’t believe you’re letting her out with a machete,” Winter’s mother said. �
�It’s not a machete,” said her father. Winter used it to cut flowers, to cut vines. To slice berries into a pretend stew. It wasn’t something she had much interest in, but it had seemed important to her dad, and so she carried it for a while. She left it in the backyard once after a day of playing. Winter was inside with her friends when her dad came back inside, disappointed, carrying the sheathed knife. He took the seax, cleaned it, and stored it again.

  Winter decided the swinging of the rope was more soothing than not. She unclenched her teeth. Eventually she drifted to sleep to the sound of Will’s snoring.

  In the morning Winter woke up still suspended in the air, feeling like she needed to bathe. Will was packing up his things from the campsite.

  He walked over to the root and Winter heard him fiddling with the cord. Before she could brace herself she was falling. Her feet hit the ground with a thump and she fell over on her side. She moaned from the impact but mostly because she was still tired from waking up and didn’t want to move. Winter rolled off her side onto her bottom and blinked a few times. Will undid the bindings on her hands. Winter didn’t protest. When the bindings had come loose Winter waggled her hands, waiting for the feeling to come back into them.

  “We’ve still got a lot of marching, so you should eat something if you can. I’ve untied you but don’t think that gives you a license to run. The pork is in the bag.”

  Winter was over by the bag digging for food. The inside of his green bag had the weird smell of the outdoors in it, like mulch and machine oil. The pork was in a metal tin along with some camping crackers. Winter looked over at him cautiously as she ate. She put her hand back in the bag and flipped him off through it.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  It was a long march through the woods. Will marched behind her with her crossbow. Most of the time he kept it aimed at the ground which Winter was thankful for because when he pointed it at her it made her feel uneasy.

  Something else had been bugging her. “What happened to the train out here? I was supposed to be able to ride it all the way. I had to walk,” Winter said, “I looked at the engine compartment. It seemed like a stone had been taken from it. Recently maybe.”

  Will shrugged. “Could’ve been anyone. Vandals maybe. Another thief. Stones are valuable. That’s why you’re taking me to the portal. It is a shame about the Old Line though, practically an institution. All of that old tech is breaking down now. No one left to repair it, or use it for that matter. It’s all going away. No sense in getting attached to any of it.”

  There were fir bushes on the side of the path and the poked Winter’s arms if she drifted into the branches. They travelled for hours.

  Winter could sense it before he said anything.

  “Shouldn’t be too much longer,” Will said, “The portal’s up that way.” Will indicated with his free hand.

  It was then that Winter heard the snorting. The pig. Winter stopped to turn. He was charging at them. He was charging at Will. Will backed away from Winter in a direction that would also give him a shot at the charging pig.

  Will fired a shot.

  “Don’t!” Winter screamed.

  The shot clipped the pig in the left hindleg. The pig bobbled but restarted his charge, slower this time.

  “Call your pig off then,” Will said, “I know you’re both green.”

  “Pig, don’t!”

  The pink pig slid past Will on the mulchy forest floor, kicking up dust and crumbles, and turned to charge again, but Winter put herself in front of him.

  “Don’t shoot him,” she said, shielding him from Will.

  “We’re not going to do this,” Will said. He had another crossbow quarrel loaded. At this range he couldn’t miss. “I thought he wasn’t your familiar?”

  “He’s not!”

  “Then can we eat him?”

  “No!”

  Safe behind Winter the pink pig with mottled black splotches sniffed at his wounded leg.

  Will looked at them piteously.

  Winter leapt for Will. She got her hands on his belt. She tried to lift the seax out of it’s sheath, but Will had his hand on the pommel and pushed down. Winter tried again to yank it up with both hands, but with Will’s hand on the pommel it wouldn’t move. She looked up and felt the wooden front of the crossbow move against her forehead, with the metal point digging into her scalp. She stopped trying to wrest the knife free and backed away.

  Will shook his head. “We’re almost done here. Keep him in line until then or you’ll be looking for a new one. Same for you and your forehead.”

  Winter stood. The pig marched in front of them, trickling blood on the rooty forest path. Winter was sweating. She was full of adrenaline with nothing to do but walk.

  The trailed ended in a tree with a giant black void where a missing bole should’ve been.

  “This is it,” Will said, “You need to stand close but I don’t recommend you coming through. It’s a longer way back. Take this. Seems like you really wanted it.” He removed the sheathed seax from his belt and tossed it to her. “Good luck,” he said. “You too,” he said to the pig. Then he popped through the portal unceremoniously.

  Winter was tired and bringing Will to the tree had taken her far out of the way.

  How am I supposed to get back?” she asked.

  The pig snorted to get her attention and Winter followed him.

  Chapter 11

  Isobel helped the prisoner get into position. The prisoner rubbed the side of her eyes as she took in the sights of the real world outside her coma. It set something off inside of Elodie, to see it. It was unjust. It reminded Elodie of the time Isobel had dosed her. For a laugh.

  The prisoner was in a white gown. She had fresh makeup on, Isobel’s doing, and if you missed certain details about her, you might mistake her for someone about to have a fancy night out: the deep bags under her eyes, which Isobel had inexpertly covered up; her carriage, exhausted; and the way she breathed, panting at this sober vision of reality. She had enough understanding of what was going on. She seemed happy to be lucid, and she seemed thankful to witches for giving her this opportunity. She knew they were holding her captive, but she was thankful nonetheless.

  “Cake,” she said.

  “What?” Isobel asked.

  “Cake,” she said again, “Chocolate cake. I want chocolate cake.”

  Isobel looked surprised. Touched even. “Well, we can’t do that right now. But after I can look.” Isobel looked over at Agnes. Elodie looked, too. Agnes’s face said nothing.

  They were in a long, dimly lit room with a window instead of a wall separating them from the night skyline of the city below. Agnes stood in front of the window and the city worked behind her, an aquarium of light and steel. The prisoner turned and her face gleamed in the low light.

  Isobel held onto a stick about the length of a flashlight. The first time she had brought it out she had explained that it was for Filipino martial arts. That was enough for Elodie, but Isobel kept on about how she would use it to break forearms. Elodie wasn’t sure whether she had tested it or not, but watching the prisoner then, she supposed Isobel must’ve had the opportunity at some point. Elodie wanted to test it on Isobel, to repay her for the time she dosed her. Isobel spun the stick around in her awkward manner. Elodie always hate-watched this; she was a pro now at tuning out the things Isobel said, but she could never bring herself to look away from the awkward way Isobel moved. Elodie was almost thankful to have Isobel to watch now, since it kept her eyes off the other happening in the room.

  Didrika had let her “familiar” into the room—a tall skeleton, bird-like, approximately ostrich-like in appearance, with vestigial wings and a giant hooked beak. The skeleton stalked around the room, inspecting, jerking its head this way and that. It looked at them with its empty eye sockets, its claws tapping lightly as it went. The skeleton’s movement seemed unreal. It reminded Elodie of a computer animation, which only added to the revulsion. The bird was universally loathed
. Close as she was to the arts of death, even Elodie hated it. Agnes allowed Didrika to have it only out of necessity. That it was here at all meant their task was serious.

  Didrika gave directions that sounded like she was repeating directions Agnes had given her beforehand:

  “This is the last piece we need to fix the work Jeff’s team has done. You’ll find this one simple to follow along. It would be better if Violet were here, since she’s a much stronger adept. But we wouldn’t do that anyway, for reasons you’ll see later. I know this isn’t our usual room—there’s a reason for that also.”

  “The blue-haired skeleton,” the prisoner interrupted, “the skeleton with the blue hair. I saw it.” Her outburst continued. There was no blue hair anywhere in the room, certainly not on the featherless skeleton. Didrika looked over at Isobel who was already getting the prisoner to calm down. The skeleton bird, attracted by the commotion, walked to a comfortable distance behind the prisoner and looked her over.

  Agnes and Didrika placed a big emphasis on keeping them happy for times like these, when they were very likely to expend a lot of resources on a plan that wouldn’t work out. As far as Elodie could tell, Didrika fully expected this attempt to fail. Not that Agnes cared. Agnes had little regard for the feasibility of anything she suggested. She wanted to try everything no matter how unlikely. Agnes would hear about it, and then she would pass it on to Didrika to figure out the details. If a plan sounded impossible, Agnes didn’t want to hear it. Her current obsession was based on a few snatches of text from a trove of archived military documents that had already produced two fruitless séances. The few documents the witches did have came to them in pieces, and it was always a guessing game which parts were truthful. They were all of dubious origin. Some read like medieval texts on alchemy—fanciful and useless. Some of them actually were medieval texts on alchemy, but witchcraft had no more success at producing (permanent) gold than the alchemy of the Middle Ages. So they were obviously lying. The authors must not have known any kind of magic at all. What they recorded were second-hand accounts, usually rumors that sprung from someone’s imagination, rather than from the direct witnessing of magical acts. The accounts that purported to be from practitioners were the least trustworthy. That was where Agnes had found this “recipe” - in an outlandish book from an author Elodie considered obviously fraudulent. It wouldn’t have surprised her if the book itself was a forgery.