by Jo Spurrier
‘You’re soft,’ I snarled. ‘Soft and weak, you always have been.’
‘Maybe,’ she said with a smirk. ‘But I’m alive, and you’re dead.’
I felt my lips draw back in a hiss. ‘Not for long, you little traitor.’
‘No?’ she tipped her head to one side. ‘So that’s your plan, is it? A new body for the old witch.’
‘Have you only just worked that out? You must have lost all your wits to the black smoke after you ran away from me. Oh, I know what you’ve been up to, Ally. Whoring around, hiding in opium pipes and bottles of rum, drifting about like trash on the tide. I saw you, always looking over your shoulder, waiting for me to come after you; so scared, so lonely. You’re pathetic! All that time, and you never realised I could call you home any time I wanted.’
Aleida’s half-smile faded, and her eyes turned to black stone. ‘Bennett,’ she said, with a voice like cold steel.
I felt my lips draw back into a smirk. ‘I told you, child. I told you, time and again. Friends, family — they’re nothing but a trap. A weakness. I told you years ago to get rid of the boy, or I’d do it for you. Did you think I was bluffing?’
Aleida clenched her fists. ‘I told him to go! I checked on him before I left. You couldn’t bind him here, I made sure of it!’
‘You didn’t have to. He was weak, too, bound with ties of kith and kin. Not that it would have made any difference. He could have run thousands of miles away, but when it was time to call you home I’d have found him one way or another.’
Aleida studied me with narrowed eyes, her face cold and hard. ‘It was you, wasn’t it, wearing his face, hounding me each night? Bennett moved on weeks ago, after he found me out on the islands. It was you waking me up at all hours, keeping me from resting. Trying to make me weak.’
‘You were always weak!’
‘No. You had to wear me down, didn’t you?’ She leaned forward, her eyes never leaving mine. ‘You couldn’t take me otherwise. And then Dee came along and spoiled that plan. Who is she, Gyssha?’
‘She’s nothing! Less than nothing! She’s worthless, pathetic, just like you!’
Aleida frowned for a moment, but then her face cleared. ‘You didn’t send her; that much is clear. So who did?’
My jaw clamped shut, clenching so hard I thought my teeth would break.
‘Gyssha,’ Aleida prompted.
‘I don’t know!’ I spat the words out, and they came with another puff of ash and smoke. ‘I’ve looked and looked but I can’t find the answer. That little wretch came from nowhere and she’s been nothing but a bone in my teeth ever since! But I’ll take care of her. You’ll see. When I’m back in flesh and blood I’ll take her apart, piece by piece.’
‘Empty words, coming from a dead woman,’ Aleida said. She reached into a fold of her skirt and pulled out her wand. ‘I’ve heard enough, Gyssha. Get out, and leave the girl alone.’
I felt power thrum as she raised the wand, and as she started to draw a symbol in the air everything around me grew hot and tight. I started to cough, and then to choke, but I couldn’t move and I couldn’t close my eyes or look away as my mistress drew the glowing shape, all jagged angles and slashing lines. Then, with one last convulsion within my flesh, I bent double and vomited, spewing up something that looked like thick black tar, and my world went black.
CHAPTER 11
I found myself lying on the stone, feeling dazed and sore and chilled to the bone. Why was I not in bed? The fur blanket had been thrown over me, but there was only so much warmth it could offer when I lay on cold flagstones. But why was I on the floor? I rubbed my eyes, and winced at the throb and sting of my arms. With a groan I pushed myself up as the memories of the night before came seeping back — the burning beast, the warlock, the scorching smoke, the screaming, then the ghost inside me, the rot and decay. I wanted to tell myself it was just a dream, will myself to forget it with the early daylight that was streaming through the window, but I knew it was all real.
I heard the tap of the walking stick near my head, and then a clink of pottery as my mistress set a chipped teacup on the floor beside me. ‘I figured I’d let you sleep for a while,’ she said. ‘Feeling better?’
It was a tie between a bit and not really. The taste of dust and ashes, the coldness deep in my chest, the invasion, the violation — they were all gone. But I was still smeared with mud and ashes, stiff and sore from the night’s misadventures. ‘I feel like I’ve been hung in a sack and beaten with sticks.’
‘Yeah, it’ll get you like that. Drink up, it’ll help.’
I glanced at the teacup, and frowned. I’d expected the murky green of mint tea. Instead, the cup held a little scoop of summer sky, a vibrant, endless blue. I heaved myself up and took a sip, and then closed my eyes as it rolled down my throat and into my belly. It tasted like . . . summer. Like grass warmed by the sun, like cool water flowing over sun-baked rocks, like the comfortable drowsiness of mid-afternoon. Like sun on bare skin. ‘Lord and Lady,’ I mumbled. ‘Is this what you brewed yesterday?’
‘Yep. A nice drop, if I say so myself.’ She had her own cup, and sipped slowly as she pottered about the room. I couldn’t see beneath the hem of her skirt, but from the way she moved I guessed she was walking on dog’s paws, not human feet. By the mantelpiece, she stopped to run a finger over the snakewood spider, and with a ripple of legs the creature turned to face her, just as it had faced me the night before. ‘Poor little poppet. You’d have got the job done. Ah well, I’m sure you’ll come in handy at some point.’
‘Did you get what you wanted, last night?’ I said. ‘I really don’t want to have to do that again.’
‘You won’t,’ she said. ‘I banished her. She could possess you again, of course, but you’re clean for now. And yes, I heard enough. Did you?’
I rubbed my face, and winced again. Every movement of my hands and arms set the burns stinging. ‘It wasn’t Bennett. I remember that. It was Gyssha, keeping you weak and worn down. But why?’
‘She wants to live again,’ Aleida said. ‘To take over my body, already trained and primed for magic. If she’d moved on me as soon as the laudanum hit, she’d probably have it now. But she had to get rid of the warlock first, fighting me for the body would have left her too weak to deal with him afterwards. If you’d died like you were supposed to — or if you hadn’t sent Laurel on ahead — she’d have been able to get a good hold before the drug wore off.’
Shivering, I set the cup down long enough to wrap the blanket around my shoulders. ‘What would happen to you?’
She leaned against the wall beside the fireplace. ‘Well, there’s two ways it could go. First is that she could kick me out, but that means I could try to take it back.’
‘What’s the other way?’ I said.
‘She swallows me up. Soul-death, basically. Guess which one Gyssha would go for. Go on, guess.’
I just grimaced. ‘But what about the death-curse? She’d still have to deal with it, wouldn’t she?’
She shrugged. ‘Honestly, I don’t know. I killed my mother in the craft, maybe surrendering my body to her is enough to lift it. Or maybe alive and cursed is just better than dead. Who knows? I don’t really intend to find out.’
‘And what if she decides she can’t take you, and goes for someone else? How would you find her? Would you even know?’
Aleida shook her head. ‘Can’t happen. Not like that. Remember how it felt while you were possessed — you must have felt her grip slipping, now and then? Like you were breaking free?’
I nodded, slowly.
‘The dead can’t just go around stealing bodies from the living, or else every bastard’d do it. Gyssha can do it to me because I’m her kin. So don’t worry about her coming after you, or your friends out here, they’re safe.’ She swirled the potion in her cup, looking thoughtful. ‘But she’ll try to kill you again. Watch out for that.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Great. Thanks for the warning.’
�
�It’s not all bad. She already failed once. There’s not many folk who can say they walked away after Gyssha Blackbone wanted them dead.’
I swallowed hard. ‘She’s not going to give up on getting you, though, is she?’
‘What, just shrug her shoulders and slouch off through the veil?’ She laughed, a dry, dark sound, and I shivered again. There was more life and energy in that laugh than I’d heard from her since I’d first arrived at the cottage. ‘Nope. Not Gyssha. She expected to beat me when I came back to fight her. The fact that she lost, well, you caught a taste of it, Dee. She’s consumed by rage. The old bitch lost, and she doesn’t like it one bit. She’ll never back down.’
‘And neither will you.’
She answered with a fierce grin. For a moment all I could think of was the warlock last night, and the instant we’d both seen the flames approaching. I knew there was no way I could fight it, that all I could do was escape, and that’s why I’d thrown myself down. But the warlock had stood his ground, ready for a fight; and because of that, he’d died. ‘So what are you going to do? You’re not going to go after her, are you?’
She tipped her head to one side, watching me with dancing eyes. ‘That’s exactly what we’re doing.’
‘But you’re not strong enough!’ I waved a shaking hand at her. ‘I mean, look at you! You’re staggering around half-drunk from that cursed laudanum still. And don’t try to tell me you’ve been resting while I was lying here on the floor. You’ve been up all night, and all the day before. You’re in no shape for this. It’s a bad idea. A really bad idea.’
Aleida shrugged. ‘True,’ she said. ‘But we’re doing it anyway. We can’t afford to wait.’
I scowled at her, trying to hide the fact that my heart was pounding and my palms damp with sweat. ‘Are you completely mad? You can’t do this.’
With a faint smile Aleida crouched down beside me — she would have been on her heels if she’d been fully human, but instead all I could see was the hairy dog’s feet as she put one hand to the floor for balance. ‘Let me rephrase that, Dee,’ she said. ‘You can’t afford to wait. Look, kid, you’ve thwarted Gyssha twice; once when she set you up to die with the warlock, and again when you sent Laurel back here to guard me while I was out of it. You’re a thorn in her side now. She’s going to try to kill you again, and this time she’ll take no chances. Let’s say we did hole up in here for a day or so to rest up — what do you think she’s going to do? We’re on her home turf! She’ll rouse every damn construct she’s ever made and have this cottage reduced to rubble before sundown. So yes, we’re going out now, because it’s our best chance to meet her on our terms instead of hers. Got it?’
I looked down at my cup, and the little piece of summer sky that remained. ‘But what if you can’t beat her? What if you’re just not strong enough?’
‘If I fail, we’re both dead. So we’re in this together.’
‘So you’re just going to go out there and see what happens? That’s your plan? Aleida, I just . . . I just don’t think this is a very good idea.’
She watched me for a moment, and then her face split into a smile, a kind of mad, manic grin. Then she patted me on the shoulder. ‘Bad ideas are my speciality, Dee. Drink up.’
I grudgingly followed Aleida outside. ‘I thought you liked working at night.’ The potion had helped, a little, but it had also left me feeling more strange than restored. My skin still felt cold as ice, while within me was a seething, spreading warmth, like a frozen skin over a steaming pool.
‘I do,’ she said. ‘Trouble is, Gyssha knows it. If we wait ’til nightfall she’ll have had all day to prepare. That’s why I let you sleep while you could.’
‘Gee, thanks.’ I’d had all of, what? Two or three hours? I’d had more sleep after little Jeb was born, and it was my job to bring him to Ma for his milk and then rock him back to sleep afterwards. ‘What do you need me to do, then?’ I said with a sigh.
‘We need wood for a fire,’ she said, ‘down there.’ She gestured down the field, where a little patch of earth was paved with the same flagstones as the floor inside. ‘I’ll need you to milk the goat, too, and bring some equipment down from the house.’
‘All right,’ I said, resigned. ‘A spot of breakfast first? Even just some bread and honey?’
‘Nope,’ she said, firmly. ‘After last night I’m not taking any chances — and neither are you. She could have you poison yourself as easily as you dosed me. You’ll get something in your belly before we set out, just not yet.’
I stifled a groan. ‘Fine. Um, Aleida?’
Her eyes cut to me. ‘Do not ask if you can ask me something.’
‘Umm, could you do me a favour? Maybe?’
‘What?’
‘When this is over, could you buy a bath? Just one of those little tin ones? I’d do just about anything for a hot bath right now.’
She regarded me steadily for a moment, and then her lips quirked up in a smile. ‘Yeah. All right. That’s a good idea.’
‘I have them, on occasion.’
She snorted. ‘Well for now, you’ll have to make do with the stream, or a bucket from the well.’ She glanced up then, looking out towards the lightening sky to the east. ‘Sun’s coming up. Might as well do it now if you’re going to, Dee, this is going to take me a few minutes.’
She started away from me then, hobbling down the slope with the walking stick. I thought about going down to the stream, but turned to the well instead. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d had to bathe in frigid water on a cold morning, and I remembered how Lem used to complain when he washed his face in the rain barrel on the way out to the barn. Colder’n a witch’s tit out here, he’d say, but only when Ma wasn’t near enough to hear it.
As I worked the winch to lift water from the well, I caught sight of Aleida wriggling out of her leather stays. She tossed it to the side, and then shrugged off her chemise, too, to stand in the chill air as naked as the day she was born. Her skin was the same golden hue all over, putting the lie to my earlier thought that she was tanned by the sun, but what most drew my eye were her legs. From the knee down — or rather, where the knee ought to have been — golden skin gave way to black fur, while her legs bent where no human leg ever should.
She held herself still for a moment, finding her balance, and then let the walking stick fall.
I leaned against the well-head, and shamelessly watched. As the sun rose and the first rays of light blazed over the far hills, she spread her hands wide, and, throwing her head back, slowly raised them up.
I squinted. Then I had to raise a hand to shield my eyes, and finally, I had to look away. As her hands raised, the light grew brighter and brighter, not the searing light of midday but the piercing brilliance of dawn, as though she was gathering it to herself, breathing it in.
It lasted only a minute or two at most — then the unbearable brightness receded to the normal soft glow of the break of day, and my mistress stood on the grass, dog’s feet gone, fully human once again. Or, I corrected myself, as human as something like her ever could be.
Aleida stretched, arms overhead, as though she’d just woken, then turned back towards the house, flipping her long hair back over her shoulder before stooping to gather up her discarded clothing, and the now unneeded stick.
‘Now that’s a neat trick,’ I called to her.
She flashed me a fierce smile. ‘One day, I might teach you how. Hurry up, little girl, daylight’s wasting.’ She looked happier than I’d ever seen her. Oh yes; now that there’s a fight brewing you’re all smiles.
And ‘one day’? I remembered what Attwater had said, and clenched my teeth. In or out. Soon enough, you’ll have to decide. I pushed the thought from my head. Soon, maybe, but not now.
It took longer than I’d have liked to bathe and dress, pulling on clothes that were only clean-ish instead of clean. Then I had to salve and bandage my arms again, though Aleida helped with that, smearing on ointment and wrapping the linen strip
s with a firm, sure touch. ‘Once this is all settled, I’ll brew you another ointment for it,’ she said. ‘There’s a few things that’ll help that I wouldn’t put in a general purpose mix like this one.’
‘There’s a lot that needs to be done once this is settled,’ I said, glumly.
‘One foot in front of the other, Dee. That’s what I always tell myself, anyway. Now go milk the goat.’
‘Yes, miss.’
I let the hens out too, and scattered some grain for them at the end of the garden, and by the time I returned with the milk pail Aleida had lit a fire on the flagstones in the field and laid a circle around it with a length of rope. Now she was bringing a cauldron and some other things down from the cottage. The effigy that had been at the heart of the first earthbeast torn apart by the tree was lying to one side, the grotesque construction of bones and wire and glittering beads curled up as though it was sleeping. It didn’t hurt my eyes anymore, but I quickly looked away from it all the same.
‘How much of this do you need?’ I said with a nod to the pail. ‘Only I’ll need to set the rest of it to cool, or else it’ll go bad.’
‘All of it,’ she said. ‘Just put it down by the fire and come here.’
She was dressed more neatly than I’d ever seen her, wearing a black dress over her chemise and corset, and over that a wide leather belt that held her wand at one hip and her knife at the other, and a number of little pouches besides. But the dress, I realised, wasn’t quite black. There was a subtle pattern to the fabric, and after a moment I realised they were flowers. It must have been a rather pretty floral print before it had been bundled into a pot of black dye, but the pattern was still there if you looked hard enough.
As I came to stand before her, Aleida pulled out the little pot and tiny brush again. ‘Before you ask, no, you don’t get a choice. I want to keep you close, and this will let you see what’s happening. Close your eyes.’
I did as I was told, and this time I didn’t flinch away at the cool, gritty touch of the ointment. ‘Can you tell me what the plan is? Or am I not to be trusted with that much?’
