by Paula Guran
The witch broke his gaze on the excuse of tucking an escaped strand of his long gray ponytail behind his ear, and relented. “Make me a cauldron,” she said. “An iron cauldron. And I’ll tell you the secret, Weyland Smith.”
“Done,” he said, and drew his dagger to slice the bread.
She sat down across the trestle. “Don’t you want your answer?”
He stopped with his blade in the loaf, looking up. “I’ve not paid.”
“You’ll take my answer,” she said. She took his cup, and dipped more ale from the pot warming over those few banked coals. “I know your contract is good.”
He shook his head at the smile that curved her lips, and snorted. “Someone’ll find out tha geas one day, enchantress. And may tha never rest easy again. So tell me then. How might I mend a lass’s broken heart?”
“You can’t,” the witch said, easily. “You can replace it with another, or you can forge it anew. But it cannot be mended. Not like that.”
“Gerrawa with tha,” Weyland said. “I tried reforging it. ’Tis glass.”
“And glass will cut you,” the witch said, and snapped her fingers. “Like that.”
He made the cauldron while he was thinking, since it needed the blast furnace and a casting pour but not finesse. If glass will cut and shatter, perhaps a heart should be made of tougher stuff, he decided as he broke the mold.
Secondly, he began by heating the bar stock. While it rested in the coals, between pumping at the bellows, he slid the shards into a leathern bag, slicing his palms—though not deep enough to bleed through heavy callus. He wiggled Olrun’s ring off his right hand and strung it on its chain, then broke the heart to powder with his smallest hammer. It didn’t take much work. The heart was fragile enough that Weyland wondered if there wasn’t something wrong with the glass.
When it had done, he shook the powder from the pouch and ground it finer in the pestle he used to macerate carbon, until it was reduced to a pale-pink silica dust. He thought he’d better use all of it, to be sure, so he mixed it in with the carbon and hammered it into the heated bar stock for seven nights and seven days, folding and folding again as he would for a sword-blade, or an axe, something that needed to take a resilient temper to back a striking edge.
It wasn’t a blade he made of his iron, though, now that he’d forged it into steel. What he did was pound the bar into a rod, never allowing it to cool, never pausing hammer—and then he drew the rod through a die to square and smooth it, and twisted the thick wire that resulted into a gorgeous fist-big filigree.
The steel had a reddish color, not like rust but as if the traces of gold that had imparted brilliance to the ruby glass heart had somehow transferred that tint into the steel. It was a beautiful thing, a cage for a bird no bigger than Weyland’s thumb, with cunning hinges so one could open it like a box, and such was his magic that despite all the glass and iron that had gone into making it, it spanned no more and weighed no more than would have a heart of meat.
He heated it cherry-red again, and when it glowed he quenched it in the well to give it resilience and set its form.
He wore his ring on his wedding finger when he put it on the next morning, and he let the forge lie cold—or as cold as it could lie, with seven days’ heat baked into metal and stone. It was the eighth day of the forging, and a fortnight since he’d taken the girl’s coin.
She didn’t disappoint. She was along before midday.
She came right out into the sunlight this time, rather than lingering under the hazel trees, and though she still wore black it was topped by a different hat, this one with feathers. “Old man,” she said, “have you done as I asked?”
Reverently, he reached under the block that held his smaller anvil, and brought up a doeskin swaddle. The suede draped over his hands, clinging and soft as a maiden’s breast, and he held his breath as he laid the package on the anvil and limped back, his left leg dragging a little. He picked up his hammer and pretended to look to the forge, unwilling to be seen watching the lady.
She made a little cry as she came forward, neither glad nor sorrowful, but rather tight, as if she couldn’t keep all her hope and anticipation pent in her breast any longer. She reached out with hands clad in cheveril and brushed open the doeskin—
Only to freeze when her touch revealed metal. “This heart doesn’t beat,” she said, as she let the wrappings fall.
Weyland turned to her, his hands twisted before his apron, wringing the haft of his hammer so his ring bit into his flesh. “It’ll not shatter, lass, I swear.”
“It doesn’t beat,” she repeated. She stepped away, her hands curled at her sides in their black kid gloves. “This heart is no use to me, blacksmith.”
He borrowed the witch’s magic goat, which like him—and the witch—had been more than half a God once and wasn’t much more than a fairy story now, and he harnessed her to a sturdy little cart he made to haul the witch’s cauldron. He delivered it in the sunny morning, when the dew was still damp on the grass, and he brought the heart to show.
“It’s a very good heart,” the witch said, turning it in her hands. “The latch in particular is cunning. Nothing would get in or out of a heart like that if you didn’t show it the way.” She bounced it on her palms. “Light for its size, too. A girl could be proud of a heart like this.”
“She’ll have none,” Weyland said. “Says as it doesn’t beat.”
“Beat? Of course it doesn’t beat,” the witch scoffed. “There isn’t any love in it. And you can’t put that there for her.”
“But I mun do,” Weyland said, and took the thing back from her hands.
For thirdly, he broke Olrun’s ring. The gold was soft and fine; it flattened with one blow of the hammer, and by the third or fourth strike, it spread across his leather-padded anvil like a puddle of blood, rose-red in the light of the forge. By the time the sun brushed the treetops in its descent, he’d pounded the ring into a sheet of gold so fine it floated on his breath.
He painted the heart with gesso, and when that was dried he made bole, a rabbit-skin glue mixed with clay that formed the surface for the gilt to cling to.
With a brush, he lifted the gold leaf, bit by bit, and sealed it painstakingly to the heart. And when he had finished and set the brushes and the burnishers aside—when his love was sealed up within like the steel under the gold—the iron cage began to beat.
“It was a blacksmith broke my heart,” the black girl said. “You’d think a blacksmith could do a better job on mending it.”
“It beats,” he said, and set it rocking with a burn-scarred, callused fingertip. “ ’Tis bonny. And it shan’t break.”
“It’s cold,” she complained, her breath pushing her veil out a little over her lips. “Make it warm.”
“I’d not wonder tha blacksmith left tha. The heart tha started with were colder,” he said.
For fourthly, he opened up his breast and took his own heart out, and locked it in the cage. The latch was cunning, and he worked it with thumbs slippery with the red, red blood. Afterwards, he stitched his chest up with cat-gut and an iron needle and pulled a clean shirt on, and let the forge sit cold.
He expected a visitor, and she arrived on time. He laid the heart before her, red as red, red blood in its red-gilt iron cage, and she lifted it on the tips of her fingers and held it to her ear to listen to it beat.
And she smiled.
When she was gone, he couldn’t face his forge, or the anvil with the vacant chain draped over the horn, or the chill in his fingertips. So he went to see the witch.
She was sweeping the dooryard when he came up on her, and she laid the broom aside at once when she saw his face. “So it’s done,” she said, and brought him inside the door.
The cup she brought him was warmer than his hands. He drank, and licked hot droplets from his moustache after.
“It weren’t easy,” he said.
She sat down opposite, elbows on the table, and nodded in sympathy. “It never
is,” she said. “How do you feel?”
“Frozen cold. Colder’n Hell. I should’ve gone with her.”
“Or she should have stayed with you.”
He hid his face in the cup. “She weren’t coming back.”
“No,” the witch said. “She wasn’t.” She sliced bread, and buttered him a piece. It sat on the planks before him, and he didn’t touch it. “It’ll grow back, you know. Now that it’s cut out cleanly. It’ll heal in time.”
He grunted, and finished the last of the ale. “And then?” he asked, as the cup clicked on the boards.
“And then you’ll sooner or later most likely wish it hadn’t,” the witch said, and when he laughed and reached for the bread she got up to fetch him another ale.
Ruby’s “conjure hand”—also known as a mojo, a gris-gris bag, or several other names—is a magic charm with traditions in West African culture brought to the New World by enslaved Africans. A sort of “prayer in a bag,” the contents vary depending on what the conjurer wants to achieve; inclusion of personal items make the charm stronger. As in Ellen Klages’ story, the color of the bag often has meaning, too. Red or pink flannel might be used for a love hand, white for fertility, orange for change or warning. “Feeding” the hand—alcohol, cologne, bodily fluids, various oils—is needed because the mojo, once created, is a live spirit requiring sustenance. The power of its magic is derived from spiritual inheritance: one’s ancestors can help or protect one through the mojo. The stronger the belief, the more powerful the trust in the magic, the better it works.
Basement Magic
Ellen Klages
Mary Louise Whittaker believes in magic. She knows that somewhere, somewhere else, there must be dragons and princes, wands and wishes. Especially wishes. And happily ever after. Ever after is not now.
Her mother died in a car accident when Mary Louise was still a toddler. She misses her mother fiercely but abstractly. Her memories are less a coherent portrait than a mosaic of disconnected details: soft skin that smelled of lavender; a bright voice singing “Sweet and Low” in the night darkness; bubbles at bath time; dark curls; zwieback.
Her childhood has been kneaded, but not shaped, by the series of well-meaning middle-aged women her father has hired to tend her. He is busy climbing the corporate ladder, and is absent even when he is at home. She does not miss him. He remarried when she was five, and they moved into a two-story Tudor in one of the better suburbs of Detroit. Kitty, the new Mrs. Ted Whittaker, is a former Miss Bloomfield Hills, a vain divorcee with a towering mass of blond curls in a shade not her own. In the wild, her kind is inclined to eat their young.
Kitty might have tolerated her new stepdaughter had she been sweet and cuddly, a slick-magazine cherub. But at six, Mary Louise is an odd, solitary child. She has unruly red hair the color of Fiestaware, the dishes that might have been radioactive, and small round pink glasses that make her blue eyes seem large and slightly distant. She did not walk until she was almost two, and propels herself with a quick shuffle-duckling gait that is both urgent and awkward.
One spring morning, Mary Louise is camped in one of her favorite spots, the window seat in the guest bedroom. It is a stage set of a room, one that no one else ever visits. She leans against the wall, a thick book with lush illustrations propped up on her bare knees. Bright sunlight, filtered through the leaves of the oak outside, is broken into geometric patterns by the mullioned windows, dappling the floral cushion in front of her.
The book is almost bigger than her lap, and she holds it open with one elbow, the other anchoring her Bankie, a square of pale blue flannel with pale blue satin edging that once swaddled her infant self, carried home from the hospital. It is raveled and graying, both tattered and beloved. The thumb of her blanket arm rests in her mouth in a comforting manner. Mary Louise is studying a picture of a witch with purple robes and hair as black as midnight when she hears voices in the hall. The door to the guest room is open a crack, so she can hear clearly, but cannot see or be seen. One of the voices is Kitty’s. She is explaining something about the linen closet, so it is probably a new cleaning lady. They have had six since they moved in.
Mary Louise sits very still and doesn’t turn the page, because it is stiff paper and might make a noise. But the door opens anyway, and she hears Kitty say, “This is the guest room. Now unless we’ve got company—and I’ll let you know—it just needs to be dusted and the linens aired once a week. It has an—oh, there you are,” she says, coming in the doorway, as if she has been looking all over for Mary Louise, which she has not.
Kitty turns and says to the air behind her, “This is my husband’s daughter, Mary Louise. She’s not in school yet. She’s small for her age, and her birthday is in December, so we decided to hold her back a year. She never does much, just sits and reads. I’m sure she won’t be a bother. Will you?” She turns and looks at Mary Louise but does not wait for an answer. “And this is Ruby. She’s going to take care of the house for us.”
The woman who stands behind Kitty nods, but makes no move to enter the room. She is tall, taller than Kitty, with skin the color of gingerbread. Ruby wears a white uniform and a pair of white Keds. She is older, there are lines around her eyes and her mouth, but her hair is sleek and black, black as midnight.
Kitty looks at her small gold watch. “Oh, dear. I’ve got to get going or I’ll be late for my hair appointment.” She looks back at Mary Louise. “Your father and I are going out tonight, but Ruby will make you some dinner, and Mrs. Banks will be here about six.” Mrs. Banks is one of the babysitters, an older woman in a dark dress who smells like dusty licorice and coos too much. “So be a good girl. And for god’s sake get that thumb out of your mouth. Do you want your teeth to grow in crooked, too?”
Mary Louise says nothing, but withdraws her damp puckered thumb and folds both hands in her lap. She looks up at Kitty, her eyes expressionless, until her stepmother looks away. “Well, an-y-wa-y,” Kitty says, drawing the word out to four syllables, “I’ve really got to be going.” She turns and leaves the room, brushing by Ruby, who stands silently just outside the doorway.
Ruby watches Kitty go, and when the high heels have clattered onto the tiles at the bottom of the stairs, she turns and looks at Mary Louise. “You a quiet little mouse, ain’t you?” she asks in a soft, low voice.
Mary Louise shrugs. She sits very still in the window seat and waits for Ruby to leave. She does not look down at her book, because it is rude to look away when a grownup might still be talking to you. But none of the cleaning ladies talk to her, except to ask her to move out of the way, as if she were furniture.
“Yes siree, a quiet little mouse,” Ruby says again. “Well, Miss Mouse, I’m fixin to go downstairs and make me a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch. If you like, I can cook you up one too. I make a mighty fine grilled cheese sandwich.” Mary Louise is startled by the offer. Grilled cheese is one of her very favorite foods. She thinks for a minute, then closes her book and tucks Bankie securely under one arm. She slowly follows Ruby down the wide front stairs, her small green-socked feet making no sound at all on the thick beige carpet.
It is the best grilled cheese sandwich Mary Louise has ever eaten. The outside is golden brown and so crisp it crackles under her teeth. The cheese is melted so that it soaks into the bread on the inside, just a little. There are no burnt spots at all. Mary Louise thanks Ruby and returns to her book.
The house is large, and Mary Louise knows all the best hiding places. She does not like being where Kitty can find her, where their paths might cross. Before Ruby came, Mary Louise didn’t go down to the basement very much. Not by herself. It is an old house, and the basement is damp and musty, with heavy stone walls and banished, battered furniture. It is not a comfortable place, nor a safe one. There is the furnace, roaring fire, and the cans of paint and bleach and other frightful potions. Poisons. Years of soap flakes, lint, and furnace soot coat the walls like household lichen.
The basement is a place between th
e worlds, within Kitty’s domain, but beneath her notice. Now, in the daytime, it is Ruby’s, and Mary Louise is happy there. Ruby is not like other grownups. Ruby talks to her in a regular voice, not a scold, nor the singsong Mrs. Banks uses, as if Mary Louise is a tiny baby. Ruby lets her sit and watch while she irons, or sorts the laundry, or runs the sheets through the mangle. She doesn’t sigh when Mary Louise asks her questions.
On the rare occasions when Kitty and Ted are home in the evening, they have dinner in the dining room. Ruby cooks. She comes in late on those days, and then is very busy, and Mary Louise does not get to see her until dinnertime. But the two of them eat in the kitchen, in the breakfast nook. Ruby tells stories, but has to get up every few minutes when Kitty buzzes for her, to bring more water or another fork, or to clear away the salad plates. Ruby smiles when she is talking to Mary Louise, but when the buzzer sounds, her face changes. Not to a frown, but to a kind of blank Ruby mask.
One Tuesday night in early May, Kitty decrees that Mary Louise will eat dinner with them in the dining room, too. They sit at the wide mahogany table on stiff brocade chairs that pick at the backs of her legs. There are too many forks and even though she is very careful, it is hard to cut her meat, and once the heavy silverware skitters across the china with a sound that sets her teeth on edge. Kitty frowns at her.
The grownups talk to each other and Mary Louise just sits. The worst part is that when Ruby comes in and sets a plate down in front of her, there is no smile, just the Ruby mask.
“I don’t know how you do it, Ruby,” says her father when Ruby comes in to give him a second glass of water. “These pork chops are the best I’ve ever eaten. You’ve certainly got the magic touch.”
“She does, doesn’t she?” says Kitty. “You must tell me your secret.”
