Ottilie Colter and the Withering World

by Rhiannon Williams

  Skip stepped forward, unfazed. ‘We went to stop Whistler from freeing a sleepless witch.’

  Captain Lyre’s eyes lingered on the jagged cut on her face, and his anger seemed to deepen. To Ottilie’s surprise, he did not press for details or suggest it was a tall tale. Instead, he said, ‘And you didn’t think the directorate needed to know about that?’

  ‘We can’t tell you anything without risking being locked up or carted off to the Laklands,’ snapped Skip. She seemed taller all of a sudden. Ottilie glanced down to check she wasn’t standing on her toes.

  Skip was right. How would they have explained that Ned was having dreams because Whistler had marked him with magic burns – and that he was leading her to the sleepless witch’s iron coffin – and that they only knew about it because they had a secret goedl friend who had set himself up as the wingerslink’s carer, and become best friends with Maeve, who was a fiorn?

  ‘Do you have any idea of the danger you have put yourselves in?’ said Captain Lyre, his eyes flicking between Ottilie and Skip.

  Ottilie opened her mouth, but he cut across her. ‘I’m sending you back.’

  ‘Back?’ Ottilie repeated.

  ‘To the Usklers. You’re out. All of you.’

  She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. It was a joke … a mistake … surely?

  Leo hobbled forwards. ‘You can’t!’

  ‘I can,’ said Captain Lyre, thumping his cane. ‘Conductor Edderfed is at Arko, and the directorate has the authority to dismiss you in his absence.’

  ‘We’ve broken rules. We’re untrustworthy!’ said Ottilie, remembering what had been said at her own trial. ‘The Hunt won’t release untrustworthy people back into the Usklers!’

  ‘Would you rather I sent you to the Laklands?’ said Captain Lyre, jabbing his cane westward.

  ‘You have to vote,’ said Ned. His voice was raspy. It sounded as if thick frost coated his insides. ‘In the absence of the conductor, the entire directorate and a member of the select elite has to agree.’

  ‘Oh, they will agree,’ said Captain Lyre. ‘Any excuse to get Ottilie out – and they’ll agree on the Usklers instead of the Laklands because two champions are involved.’

  Ottilie knew what he wasn’t saying. If it was just the girls, they’d be off to the Laklands in a heartbeat. She had a sudden image of her and Skip living wild in a cave, a blackened, festering world around them, beating back dredretches day after day. They wouldn’t last long.

  She blinked and refocused. Morning light was pouring through the window, flecks of dust drifting like glittering snow. It was surreal, having this conversation here, in this bright room that smelled of wildflowers, with an old duck painting by the door.

  ‘You leave tomorrow morning,’ said Captain Lyre, moving behind his desk.

  Ottilie felt as if her stomach had dropped out of her body. They really were being sent away. They were out. Even Leo and Gully and Ned. After everything, all she had accomplished, everything they had discovered, it was over?

  ‘YOU CAN’T DO THIS!’ Leo bellowed, limping forward.

  ‘I CANNOT PROTECT YOU WITH HIM HERE!’ Captain Lyre thundered back, gripping his desk with white fingers, and Ottilie wondered if she’d misheard him. Him? Who could he mean? The king?

  The door flew open and they seemed to jump as one. Ramona stood in the entrance, meeting Captain Lyre’s eyes for just a moment before quickly pressing the door shut behind her.

  ‘Where have you been?’ she demanded, looking between them.

  ‘He’s trying to send us away!’ said Leo, ignoring her question.

  Ramona looked at Captain Lyre, her eyes searching. ‘You’re what? You can’t.’

  Captain Lyre looked like he was about to explode. ‘That is my decision!’

  ‘Wolt!’

  He flinched.

  Wolt? Captain Lyre’s first name was Wolt? Ottilie thought there was something familiar about it.

  Ramona tore her eyes from Captain Lyre. ‘Go down to the infirmary and get yourselves checked over,’ she snapped. They didn’t need telling twice. Ottilie met her eye as she passed, and Ramona gave her a look that quite clearly said, I’ll deal with it.

  32

  The Singing Duck

  The infirmary was exactly where Ottilie wanted to be. Not because she was bruised and shivery and scraped, but because she hadn’t seen Scoot in three days. As the group was tended to by the patchies, she slid behind the partitions into Scoot’s corner. What she saw stopped her heart. Everything was white. All but a speck on his chest, no bigger than a thumbprint.

  The walls seemed to curl over like barrelling waves. Tears welled. She tipped her head, pressing the room back into shape.

  They had to fix him. They had to do it now. A fierce purpose took hold of her. Careful not to knock his head, Ottilie crawled onto his bed and scrambled out the window.

  She felt as if she was breaking some rule, doing something wrong – but really, for the first time in nearly two years, there was nowhere she was supposed to be. No hunt or patrol. No wall watch or training. All the same, she feared running into some figure of authority and being locked in a room or hustled into a wagon heading for the Usklers.

  Like a fugitive, she crept past Montie’s kitchen. Montie and some kitchenhands were occupied with lunch preparation, but there was no sign of Alba, so Ottilie headed for the root cellar.

  At the sight of her, Alba leapt up. ‘I didn’t know you were back! Maeve said you were coming … wow, you look terrible. Are you hurt?’

  Penguin was curled up on an empty sack in the corner. Raising a sleepy head, his ears pricked and he scampered over and sniffed frantically at her filthy clothes.

  Ottilie pushed the door open and gave him a nudge. ‘He’s in the infirmary.’ She knew the words made no sense to him, but he bolted past her all the same.

  ‘Have you found anything to help Scoot? Can we make it slow down at least?’ Her words tumbled out hard and heavy, rolling in all directions. ‘There has to be something we can – how long has he been this bad?’

  Alba’s eyes drooped. ‘It’s been happening in big bursts. I haven’t found anything.’ She glanced sideways at her books, as if willing Ottilie to see how much she had read, how hard she was trying.

  It finally caught up with Ottilie – the terrible truth. It clung to her, threatening to sink into her skin.

  There was no fixing Scoot.

  She felt her back curve. Was she bent double? Was she on the floor? Her eyes were closed. She forced them open and hot tears spilled. She was tired, she realised, completely exhausted.

  ‘Come with me.’ Alba ushered her to follow. She slipped under the lowest shelf – the entrance to the tunnels. ‘I have to show you something. Maeve is there now …’

  Maeve. Ottilie had forgotten about her. Scoot had taken over her thoughts – how could he not?

  ‘Is Maeve in trouble?’ She slid under the shelf, following Alba. Her pulse beat hard into the ground, as if calling for help – trying to signal something greater, some force woven into the fabric of the world.

  Alba moved out of the way so Ottilie could drop into the tunnel. ‘Maeve left and came back looking like a bird, so no-one saw her go. Mum told everyone that she had a fever and we were looking after her in our room.’

  Ottilie nearly choked on her relief. Her feet thumped onto stone.

  Alba pulled a vial of glow sticks from her pocket. ‘But she told me about the pipe, and we’ve found out some things! I’ve left her in there, working through it all. I finally found an account of the sleepless witch in Whistler’s old books. It’s like a diary entry from one of the members of the coven who imprisoned it in the iron coffin.’ Alba turned and walked backwards as she explained.

  ‘It was Seika Sol’s coven. They, Seika among them, used the water from the healing spring to … cure it. Or at least that was their plan – to turn it back into a human. They got the witch into the coffin and lowered it into the well.’

&n
bsp; Seika among them …

  A memory broke – in Ned’s dream, Ottilie had seen the coven trying to imprison the sleepless witch. One member of the coven had been a girl, perhaps sixteen years old. Tall and very familiar. It must have been Seika Sol! She was said to be still a girl when she felled the fendevil. Ottilie blinked. Without knowing it at the time, she had actually seen the ancient princess – actually laid eyes on her face.

  ‘But it must have been beyond healing, because the water reduced the witch to bones.’ Alba ducked in a low section of the tunnel without even looking where she was going. ‘And that was the end of the healing spring. After that it just dried up.’

  So that was it – that was why the healing spring was gone. Seika and her coven had tried to undo the sleepless ritual with the healing waters.

  Here breathing bones lie. Breathing bones really meant living bones. The sleepless witch’s spirit was locked inside, conscious forever and unable to act. Ottilie shivered. What a terrible fate – the ultimate punishment. But where were the bones? Why was there only a pipe in the coffin? And what did Whistler want with it?

  ‘So, the pipe,’ said Alba, turning to face the front again as she navigated a tricky section of the tunnel. ‘I’ve been searching and searching, and there’s nothing in the books. But after Preddy and Skip found that old rhyme near the haunted stables, I started looking for more, and I found this!’

  They climbed through a narrow gap into a wide dead-end. Alba held the glow sticks aloft, revealing markings on the wall. Witch script. Ottilie caught the symbols shifting into the familiar alphabet, but there were great chunks missing – scrapes and scratches marring the meaning. She held out her hand to Alba, silently requesting the glow sticks.

  ‘You don’t need that.’ Maeve stepped out of the shadows.

  Ottilie twitched. She hadn’t even noticed her there.

  ‘I’ve been piecing it together,’ said Maeve. ‘I already showed Alba some, but now I’ve got it all. I can show you the whole story.’

  Maeve pressed her fingertips to the wall and a faint glow swelled. She held out her hand to Alba, who held hers out to Ottilie.

  Light enveloped them.

  It was like slipping into a story. Ottilie remembered the old days, when Freddie was absent and Mr Parch told tales to put them to sleep. She remembered closing her eyes and drifting into a new place. His words made pictures and sounds and smells. Sometimes fragments returned to her, as familiar as her own experiences.

  Whether her eyes were open or shut she did not know, but Ottilie watched it all unfold. The sleepless witch, once the thirteenth member of Seika’s coven, was hunted by the remaining twelve, bound by their collective power and subdued with fire and iron chains.

  She saw pieces from Ned’s dream, including the sentencing: ‘Your soul will live on, locked inside your immortal bones: but this will be your prison – buried, eternally alone.’

  She saw the chains break and the creature step out of the flames. The youngest of the coven, Seika, raised her hands. The others followed and, just as Alba had said, the creature was forced into the coffin and the coffin lowered into the well.

  They waited, then heaved it out and thumped it onto the stone. Seika opened the lid and boiling water spilled out – hissing and spiralling upwards as steam. And there were the bones, white as puppy teeth – all that was left of that terrible creature.

  The story shifted. Time had passed. Ottilie saw the fendevil, like a great wingless firedrake, swamp grey, with blue flame flickering from gaps in its scales. It wreaked havoc. She watched entire villages being set alight and people dropping dead from the dredretch sickness. Survivors came to the canyon caves begging for help, and Seika and the witches worked on a solution.

  They transformed the bones into a pipe, binding it with bronze threads.

  Ottilie gasped. The sleepless witch’s spirit was trapped in the pipe. It had been in the coffin all along, in its final form. And now Whistler had it …

  When it was done, Seika took the pipe and tracked down the fendevil. She blew into it, and a song played – an unworldly, thrumming call. The fendevil followed as if in a trance.

  Evil sings to them …

  It was both an instrument wrought of a terrible wrong and a cage for the creature who had enacted it. No wonder dredretches followed its call.

  They tracked familiar territory. A blanket of misery moss spread across a riverbank, peaking-pines beyond and mountains behind. Seika Sol lowered the pipe and ran the last few strides to the edge of the Dawn Cliffs. She threw her arms wide, gold-brown hair streaming, as she plummeted towards the pooling river that was swollen from recent rain.

  The fendevil barrelled after her and tumbled over the edge.

  Seika shifted mid-fall. A duck beat its wings, clumsily skimming the surface. The fendevil was swallowed by the water. A writhing mass, it bobbed to the surface and was sucked back down. Snatched by the current, it was dragged along the river, between towering cliffs, and out into the sea.

  Ottilie knew this was where it had truly met its end.

  Maeve pulled back from the wall. Light flared, and the world dissolved.

  33

  Sleepless

  They stood in silence.

  Maeve’s eyes were flitting from side to side. Finally, she said, ‘This is just one version of the story. They chose it because it made them happy. No-one saw her jump, so no-one knows for sure if she really did turn into a duck and fly away. Seika Sol was never seen again after the clifftop. Some think she sacrificed herself for the Usklers – jumped with the fendevil, to be sure it followed. Others believe she transformed into a duck and decided to live the rest of her days peacefully, as a bird.’

  Ottilie hoped the second version was true.

  ‘Her coven found the pipe washed up on the riverbank,’ said Maeve. ‘They took it out of the Narroway and sealed it in the tomb near the Brakkerswamp.’

  ‘How do you know all that?’ said Alba. It hadn’t been part of the story they had just witnessed.

  Maeve’s fingertips crawled over the wall. ‘There are whispers trapped in there. Memories and thoughts … sort of like loose threads … they must have got woven in when they made the markings.’

  Where her fingers trailed, a faint glow followed. ‘I can see flashes and hear snatches. I bet this is what it’s like inside Bill’s head.’ She squeezed her eyes shut and blew out a breath. ‘Makes you dizzy.’

  Ottilie’s eyes swept the dark stone and flicked down to her boots. They had still not dried since Whistler flooded the tomb. She pictured it: the coffin. The pipe. All the hints made sense now. The witches had left clues about how to access the breathing bones – the pipe that could control dredretches – in case it was needed in the future. They’d left diary entries, painted stories across walls, made up rhymes and passed them along – some all but forgotten, but others, like the lightning song, still chanted by children all over the Usklers. They worked a loophole into the tomb’s sealing spell. What had Maeve called it? A weak point before the turn of the age.

  Whistler had used the information. She had utilised that loophole and taken the pipe for herself. ‘What does Whistler want with it?’ said Ottilie. ‘She can already control dredretches.’

  Alba frowned. ‘The only thing that makes sense is … well, Whistler never had a child …’ She looked to Ottilie for confirmation.

  Ottilie nodded and tried not to think about the terrible fate of Maia, who Whistler had loved as her own.

  ‘So the sleepless ritual,’ said Alba. ‘It’s not something she could ever do.’

  ‘Or would ever do,’ said Ottilie. It felt strange to defend Whistler but, oddly enough, she just knew it was true.

  ‘But … here’s the thing. The sleepless witch isn’t dead. It still lives in the bones – in the pipe. It’s eternal and conscious and alive. So maybe Whistler thinks she can enact the sleepless ritual using the bones of a sleepless witch. All I can guess is that she wants to use it to make herself
invulnerable.’

  Ottilie wrapped her arms around her ribs and stared at the wall – at Seika’s story. She waited for her courage to kick in, but just felt sad and tired and afraid.

  34

  The Fall

  A cold weight settled, like a wet blanket she couldn’t shrug off. Ottilie wanted nothing more than to curl up in her bed and sleep for days. But she knew sleep was beyond her. She didn’t know where to go or what to do. Whistler had the pipe and they didn’t know where to find her. Ottilie couldn’t bear to look at Scoot, knowing there was no way to help him. She didn’t want to go anywhere she might encounter Captain Lyre, because for all she knew he would order her to pack up and leave the Narroway immediately. She had no shifts to distract her. She did not even know if she was still a huntsman.

  These might be Scoot’s final hours, and she was avoiding him. Finally, after wandering aimlessly around the largest pond, dodging the aggressive advance of the red goose, Ottilie found herself heading for the lower grounds to see Bill.

  She had thought herself beyond hope, her spirit too damp and dark to manage a spark – but here it was. Somewhere in that strange head of his, Bill had to know something about stopping the spread of heartstone.

  The wingerslink sanctuary was in chaos. The air hummed with distressed grunts, and everywhere she looked there were flicking tails and bared teeth. Ottilie clenched her shaky fingers into a fist, eyes searching. Were there dredretches near?

  She found Bill in a dark corner at the end of the row of pens. He was a tangle of limbs, coiled up with his arms over his face, only mutters and murmurs escaping.

  She approached cautiously. ‘Bill?’

  He mumbled something that sounded like yabbycrab.

  She knelt beside him and laid a hand on his sleek, furred arm.

  His eyes flew open. ‘Midges!’

  Ottilie jerked backwards in surprise, losing her balance and tipping sideways. ‘Midges?’ she asked, gathering herself.

  ‘Midges?’

  ‘You said it.’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’ He looked down at his arm as if the memory might be marked there.