The Girl of Hawthorn and Glass

by Adan Jerreat-Poole

  “It doesn’t want to be left behind,” said Cam. “What does that mean? And how do I know that?”

  “Maybe you can move through the wall beside me?”

  “No, that won’t work.”

  A few minutes of wheezing and swearing later, Eli heard a loud thud as Cam stumbled out of the wall.

  “You did it! Congrats. I thought I’d have to leave you here and come back with a witch or something,” said Eli.

  “Kind of.” Cam’s voice was heavy and strange. “It kind of worked.” Eli finally turned around and burst out laughing.

  “Oh my god.”

  “Stop it.”

  “Oh my god.”

  “It’s not funny.”

  “It’s very funny, Cam.”

  “Okay. It’s a little funny.” He offered up a half smile.

  From Cam’s feet to his shoulders, his body was covered in stones. Not a few solid plates like armour, but tiny pebbles and sharp rocks, clumps of splotchy granite and smooth freckled stones. There were flecks of agate on his knuckles and kneecaps. His T-shirt was already shredding.

  Tav grinned. “The punk rock look you always wanted.”

  Cam gave them a dirty look. “It wanted to come with me.”

  “It must know something we don’t,” said Eli, electrical currents humming through her arms and legs. “Maybe it wants to help.”

  “You think?”

  “No. I think it just got bored being down here. Looks like no one’s been in this spot for ages — doesn’t it feel dead to you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Is that why I can’t see the magic anymore?” asked Tav.

  “Could be. It’s weaker here.”

  Cam moved closer to Eli, picking at a piece of limestone on his elbow. “So where are we, exactly?”

  “Oh, lost again.”

  “You don’t sound too worried.”

  Somewhere overhead, the sounds of a great monster crying out for vengeance echoed across the Labyrinth and shook the walls of the cavern.

  “Better than being found,” she said grimly. Blackness pooled in her eyes, blotting out the reptilian irises. Now she could see every glimmer of magic. She found the golden thread. “Let’s keep going.”

  They made their way through the under-labyrinth. The tunnels were dimly lit by patches of phosphorescent moss and a few torches that burned with an eerie constancy, never flickering or fading.

  “Hey, at least now you can tell the boys you’ll really rock their world,” said Tav.

  He groaned. “How can I go home like this?”

  Eli wondered that, too, but kept her worries to herself.

  “Who put these here?” Tav asked, stopping before a steady white flame.

  “I’m wondering why,” replied Eli. “A labyrinth underneath the Labyrinth? I don’t think even the children know about this. It was just a legend, a story we told sometimes.”

  “Maybe they just didn’t tell you,” Cam said.

  The thought disturbed Eli so much that she fell silent, trudging along with her aching feet. She was running on adrenalin and caffeine and wondered how much longer her body would hold out.

  The tunnel widened, and a draft whipped around their hair and shoulders. The pebbles on Cam’s arms rattled faintly. “Maybe we’re getting close to an exit!”

  “I don’t know. Wind doesn’t work logically here, remember?”

  Cam shrugged. “Even magic winds can’t be trapped underground forever, Eli.”

  Eli stopped and stared at him. “That’s the smartest thing you’ve ever said.”

  “Rude!” Cam pretended to be offended, but a small smile slipped out. The stones on Cam’s body rubbed against each other as he moved, making a sound like rainfall on a roof.

  Their footsteps echoed now, thunderous, like the beginning of an earthquake. With each step, Eli felt they were moving further away from the world she knew and deeper into a world of nightmares and rumours, magical echoes and forgotten powers. She was colder than she had ever been. She felt cold deep in her finger bones and obsidian-speckled veins. She felt cold the way a human feels cold in the winter.

  “I’ll never take you for granite,” Tav was saying, flicking a pebble on Cam’s shoulder.

  “One more, White, you get one more.”

  Eli froze. “What did you just say?”

  “I said they get one more.”

  “He can’t handle the pun-ishment.” Tav winked at Eli.

  “Your surname is White?”

  “Yes, Eli. Most humans have two names.”

  Eli stared at the ground, watching her feet moving one after the other. Getting lost in the rhythm.

  It was a common last name. It was just a coincidence, nothing more.

  Her blades trembled at her hips. She ignored them.

  She looked up. Cam was watching her, his eyes clouded with mistrust.

  “Hey, now you can start over and have a blank slate — is there slate on you?” Tav was still light and energy, oblivious to the tension that was rising like steam between Cam and Eli.

  “I don’t know what slate looks like,” he said slowly. “I’m not a geologist.”

  “We’ll have to find you one,” said Eli, keeping her voice even.

  “I feel something!” Tav suddenly grabbed her arm. “We’re closer to the source of the magic, aren’t we?”

  Eli could feel it, too. The gold light was brighter now, the thread of magic strong and clear. They were getting closer.

  “I see it, too,” said Cam.

  The light felt familiar to Eli. Tav was laughing, the kind of laughter that bubbles out of your body like a shaken bottle of champagne. The fear fell from their bodies as they moved toward the light, breath quickening, palms sweaty. The light became blinding, and Eli slowed her pace and shielded her eyes, squinting through the glare.

  “Is it another door?” Cam asked.

  The light slowly dimmed, and a strong scent washed over their bodies, filling their mouths and ears and making their eyes water and burn —

  Salt.

  Sea salt.

  Pressed into the wall, like a fossil embedded in stone, was Kite.

  Thirty

  That morning, the one Eli could never forget, the easterly squalls had carried the scent of sage and mint into her room. She breathed deeply, filling her lungs with oxygen and hope.

  Today she would be free of her mother.

  The witches.

  The world.

  Eli had not slept that night, twitching in her skin. She felt electric, as if all of her nerves were firing at once. She had polished her blades until they gleamed and watched the glow of the moon through her single window.

  Eli didn’t leave a note for Circinae. It wasn’t unusual for her to slip out to meet Kite or frolic with the bloodthirsty children in the Labyrinth. Somehow, Circinae could always find her. The Coven could always find her. Something about her making, something about her body, about ownership and motherhood and power.

  Kite had told Eli those chains could be broken. And by the time Circinae discovered their treachery, it would be too late. They would be free.

  Eli slipped out the window and followed the path she knew so well, the steps and feelings and prayers that brought her to Kite. She walked away from the only home she had ever known.

  She didn’t look back.

  115 north, 48 northwest, counter-clockwise, a piece of hair as a sacrificial offering. The glittering icy river appeared. The trees. The island. Kite hadn’t arrived yet — Eli was early. She lay down on the rocky edge of their island and let her hand trail in the water. Closed her eyes and remembered Kite’s face when she told Eli they were leaving for good. You can be free, I know it.

  Eli wondered which of the heartstrings she had to cut to be free. Which tendon or bone tethered her to Circinae. She would cut them all out of her and be reborn.

  The sky turned rust red and then peeled into grey and white. Eli’s fingers pruned in the water and a chill set in. S
till, she waited.

  It felt like days passed, but she had no way of knowing. Before, Kite had always been waiting for her. Kite was here. Kite could find her. They found each other. A prick of worry stabbed at her fingertips and she wondered if the Witch Lord had taken her. No, surely if that were the case, Circinae would be dragging Eli home for punishment. Eli tried to force her mind to the future and the past — anything but the present.

  But the thoughts lingered. The threat of the witches who ruled the world without empathy polluted the sacred space she had carved out of the land with Kite. The river was empty. All the creatures that came to die for Kite, longing to be devoured by her, were gone. The sky seemed thin and strained, like a gauze bandage over a bloody wound.

  A whisper in the woods. Eli stood, hands near her blades, and turned around.

  A mirage, a glimmer, almost a ghost, but it glowed blue and bubbled a little, sending wet speckles over the earth.

  “What are you waiting for?” it whispered and then giggled. “I thought you were running away?”

  Eli’s nails bit into her palm. “Tell me what you’ve done with Kite.” The tracker, the bone blade, could give her answers. Her fingers slipped over the handle.

  The figure cocked its head curiously. “I am her. Part of her, anyway. The strange part with an affection for a wooden daughter. Did you really think the future Witch Lord could leave this world with you? That she could save you?” Another giggle, or maybe a hiccough, and then it popped.

  In its place was a single shell, a great spiralled horn.

  Eli walked over, heart hammering in her chest, and picked it up with both hands. She tipped it on its side, and a black substance poured out, flowing like blood. Eli tipped her head back and drank. It tasted bitter and felt thick on her tongue. It stuck to her teeth and made her smile dark and feral.

  When she had finished drinking, she understood that Kite wasn’t coming. That she couldn’t come. That she couldn’t free Eli.

  Kite was the Heir to the Witch Lord and could never leave this world.

  Eli made a decision.

  It was time to stop playing with children. It was time to stop being a child.

  Eli would harden her heart. She would become the weapon she had been made to be. She would take her place between worlds.

  Finally, after all these years and promises and plans, she understood.

  It was time to grow up.

  The body in the wall wasn’t Kite as Eli remembered her, all hair and arms and music, flowing and pulsing with life. She had been replaced by a sketch, or a mannequin, a thin outline of what Kite had once been. Distressed skirts and dirty hair. Stillness where there should have been slow, mesmerizing movement. Even her face was frozen in a blank doll-like expression.

  “Kite.” Eli’s breath caught in her throat. She stepped up to her beautiful friend and, fingers trembling, reached out and brushed a strand of silverblue hair from her forehead.

  Kite gasped like a drowning sailor.

  “Kite!” Eli grabbed her face and pressed her forehead against hers. “Kite, wake up. You’re okay, you have to be okay!”

  Cam slowly moved forward and pressed a hand against the wall. All the stones covering his body began to tremble, and the wall, too, started to shake. “Please release her,” he asked politely but firmly. Kite fell onto Eli like a dead fish, damp and limp. Eli managed to hold her head and neck as the two of them collapsed onto the ground.

  Kite’s eyes fluttered open.

  “Eli?”

  “I’m here,” said Eli, stroking Kite’s hair. “I’m here. It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”

  “Water,” croaked Kite. “It’s too dry.”

  Tav fumbled in the bag, rummaging through their supplies.

  “She doesn’t want that,” said Eli.

  Carefully, Eli took out the thorn blade. She pricked her wrist until a tiny well of blood formed on the surface. The blade started to grow buds. “Shhh,” Eli told it. “Not now.”

  She smeared the blood across her finger and lovingly fed it to Kite. Kite’s pink tongue lapped it up like a kitten.

  “More?” asked Eli.

  “No.” Kite pulled herself up until she was half sitting. Her eyes dimmed. “What are you doing here? You’re going to get yourself killed!”

  “We just saved you,” said Eli.

  “You might as well have killed me,” said Kite. “I was hiding here for a reason.”

  “Hiding? You were trapped in the wall!”

  “You sound like a human,” said Kite, standing and brushing dirt off her long skirts. Already she looked better. “What’s this?” She turned to Cam, who uncharacteristically started to stammer.

  “Uh … I’m — I’m no one.”

  “That can’t be true,” said Kite kindly, moving gracefully beside him. She touched one of the stones on his chest. “You are very interesting.” Her eyes glowed like a cat’s.

  “Don’t eat him; he’s with me.”

  “What?” Cam stepped back.

  “I don’t eat humans,” said Kite. “But you really shouldn’t trust witches you just met.”

  “It’s hard to keep track of all the advice I’ve been getting,” said Cam.

  “Survival is hard,” agreed Kite. “Even for those of us born into magic.”

  “Power,” corrected Eli. “You were born into power.”

  “Eli likes to talk politics,” said Kite. She sighed.

  “Aren’t you going to introduce me?” Tav crossed their arms. “Who’s the manic-pixie mermaid?”

  Eli chewed on the inside of her cheek and wondered how to answer that simple and incredibly complicated question.

  “I think she’s Eli’s ex,” said Cam.

  “I figured,” said Tav. “The name was familiar.”

  Kite stared at Tav for a long time without blinking. “You have dangerous companions,” she said to Eli. Her tone was both a warning and compliment. Then she sighed. “Well, you’ve ‘rescued’ me from my safe place. What now?”

  “We’re looking for something,” said Eli.

  “Something?” Kite’s mouth turned downward. Her voice dropped. “You still think I’m a spy for the Coven, Eli?”

  “We’re not children anymore, Kite.”

  “No, we’re not.” Kite stepped forward and gently pressed her lips against Eli’s. She stepped back. Her laugh was a spring brook. “Well, if I am a spy, once we find your ‘something,’ we can fight over who gets to keep it. I know you enjoy a good fight.”

  “Where do we go from here?” asked Cam, looking back and forth between Eli and Kite in confusion. “I thought you were leading us to the Coven.”

  Eli felt a blush break out over her skin. The thread she had been following wasn’t her connection to the Coven. The most powerful flow of magic and feeling was between her and Kite. She had led them to Kite.

  “Magic seems to be very emotional,” commented Tav. The scent of the sea was overwhelming, and it was making it hard for Eli to concentrate.

  “Are you going to tell me what happened?” asked Eli finally. “After … after the Vortex.”

  Kite’s eyes grew glossy and bright. “I’ve never felt anything like it.”

  Thirty-One

  The Coven had felt the Vortex tremble. It cut across the magic lines of the world like an earthquake, the gears of the two worlds stuttering and halting. There were rumours that a few members of the Coven had felt it was dangerous to cross between worlds so frequently. Some had hoped that all the made-girls would fail. Eli, remembering the floating heads, wondered which ones had hoped she would die. She shivered.

  The Coven had sent Kite. It was her first task since coming of age — and though there was some concern about her naive childhood attachment to a thing made out of thorns and glass (“She will cut you,” Kite’s mother told her many, many times. “It’s in the nature of the material.”) — the Witch Lord decided it was time for Kite to prove her loyalty.

  Eli shifted away from her fr
iend’s luminous face. Kite was loyal to the Coven. Not to her.

  Before she left the Coven chambers, Kite had been given a blade.

  “It was small,” she said, “like a pine needle. It smelled like the rain. They told me it had been made when you were made, Eli. And that if it pierced your heart, you would return to your original state.”

  Eli’s breath caught in her chest. “So you were sent to kill me.” She tried to make her tone flat and matter-of-fact. Kite reached out a hand and Eli managed not to flinch as a damp finger pressed against her temple. Strangely, it was soothing.

  “No, dear,” said Kite kindly. “I was sent to repurpose you.”

  “Eli’s not a thing!” Cam jumped in. “She’s not an object, not like a —”

  “Stone?” Kite let her glance linger over his new skin.

  Cam flushed and crossed his arms, frowning. “Weapon,” he said, meeting her gaze.

  “You made a friend.” Kite turned to Eli, wonder in her glassy eyes. “You always surprise me.”

  “Where is the blade?”

  “I’m not done my story yet.”

  When Kite entered the Vortex, something happened. Her corporeal body was ripped away, torn into shreds and burned. It was very painful.

  She was stripped down to her essence, her vulnerable magic self, in a place that had neither magic nor life nor heat nor cold. Naked, she went to the girl frozen in glass, trapped in a prism, suspended like a beautiful, breakable ornament. Kite knew that if she touched Eli and gave some of her essence to her, the magic would tip the scales and bring Eli safely back to the City of Eyes. But, as she neared her best friend, something strange happened. Eli refused to take her hand.

  Kite had never felt that kind of rejection before. This hurt, too, but in a different way. She didn’t seem to understand the feeling and struggled to explain. “Like when a bird forgets its migration pattern,” she said.

  In the Vortex, Circinae had touched Kite.

  Her touch burned.

  Circinae, newly exalted to the third ring of the Coven, had clearly been tipped off to this plan — the birds that built nests where the Coven slept were talkative and sly and always dealing in favours and secrets; at least, that was Kite’s theory.