Of Witches and Wind

by Shelby Bach

  I’d been at EAS long enough to know that Rapunzel had good days and bad days. On some days, talking to her felt like shaking a Magic 8 Ball, and on others she spoke and acted like any other teacher.

  I guessed today belonged in the second category.

  “What? Mother gave her another one.” The snake-lipped witch pointed at Gretel, whose skirt flew up several inches, exposing her feet. Gretel’s metal foot was much smaller than the other—child-size and bare. No wonder she limped.

  I’d never known how she’d gotten it. I kind of wished I still didn’t know.

  “And we know how Gretel repaid her,” added the witch. We did know. Gretel had shoved the gingerbread witch into her own oven to save Hansel. That was how the Tale normally went.

  “Kezelda!” Now that Rapunzel was closer, I could see how stressed she looked. A thousand stray hairs had escaped from her braid, and egg slime streaked the front of her dress. “I assure you that your mother was no fool. She knew the danger of allowing a Hansel and a Gretel into a gingerbread house.”

  Oh. I guessed witches could read the Tales too—same as Characters.

  To the rest of the onlookers Rapunzel said coldly, “You have work to do, witches.”

  The kitchen filled with the sound of chopping knives, metal sifters, and scraping spoons again. Only Kezelda muttered to herself.

  “Reinforcements,” Gretel told Rapunzel before making her escape.

  Rapunzel looked at me and Mia for a second too long. I expected some sort of cryptic warning to pop out of her mouth, but all she said was, “Would you mind keeping an eye on Kezelda, right there by the window?”

  I sighed. I was stuck making a hundred Fey fudge pies with thirteen angry, “reformed” witches. Spring break was off to a great start.

  Kezelda stirred the molten mixture in a sauté pan almost as big as a cauldron. When she wanted us to add more, she just stabbed a crooked finger at one of us—me for another stick of butter, the green-skinned witch for another handful of Fey fudge chunks.

  The heat from the ovens was brutal. Sweat glued my collar to my neck. Even worse, the witches chucked food at us if we kept our backs turned for too long. The witch beating a big bowl of eggs nailed me in the elbow once, but otherwise I got a fair amount of dodging practice.

  Mia pretended not to notice, like I did around Madison and the KATs. She just bent over the counter and cut up the fudge. Floury bits of dough and butter collected in her long dark hair.

  My skin crawled every time I glanced at her.

  Nightmares sometimes came true at EAS. I’d started dreaming about falling off a beanstalk the weekend before Lena got her Tale. If someone at EAS had a nightmare about my head on a table, I would definitely want to know. But maybe I was worrying for nothing. You had to dream it three times to be sure it would come true.

  “You, girl. I need more butter.” The first words Kezelda spoke to me.

  I resentfully unwrapped another stick and dropped it in Kezelda’s pan. “My name is Rory.”

  “We know who you are,” Kezelda snapped.

  I flinched. My mysterious fame struck again. Mia looked up curiously. The knife in her hand was speckled with chocolate dust.

  “We have all heard your name linked with the Snow Queen’s,” the witch continued. “Do not give yourself airs, just because—”

  With a grunt Kezelda made a weird face like she’d seen something shocking, like a rooster covered in scales rather than feathers. She looked as if she almost swallowed her own tongue. Obviously, she had just remembered that she wasn’t supposed to tell me anything.

  • • •

  Kezelda didn’t speak to me again.

  When a hundred crusts were filled, and all the pies were in the oven, Ellie came to escort the witches to their seats.

  “So. The Director wants the results of her villain-rehabilitation program right in front of the foreign delegates,” said the green-skinned witch.

  “Doesn’t work as well when you have to shackle us to our table,” grumbled Kezelda.

  Seeing the mess the witches’ food fight had made of Mia’s hair, Ellie ushered the new girl off too—to get her cleaned up.

  That left me and Rapunzel to watch the ovens until the Shoemaker’s elves took over kitchen duty. I was trying to figure out a polite way to point out it wasn’t exactly a job for two people and ask if I could please go, when Rapunzel said, “Today you met his mother?”

  I was kind of used to her seeing the future, but it was weird how much of my life she seemed to see. “You knew I’d meet her today?”

  She shrugged. “Once or twice I have seen your face when you beheld Lady Aspenwind for the first time. But as with your dreams, and the dreams of Tales that all Characters have, I often don’t recognize how the past, the present, and the future fit together until what I have foreseen is upon us.” I must have given her a blank look, because she added wryly, “I knew that it would happen, but not that it would happen today.”

  She didn’t usually talk about her prophecies. “So, instead of just dreaming about your Tale, you dream about everyone else’s? Every night?” I asked.

  “Not always at night, not always in sleep,” she said. “But you have not told me about the introductions. How you feel.”

  I scowled. “Weird.”

  She just waited. Her eyes were startlingly dark beneath her pale gray eyebrows.

  “I’m mad,” I said. “I know why he did it, but it’s like he doesn’t trust me at all. And he cast a spell on me.” He hadn’t even asked. For all I knew, he’d cast dozens of spells over us without us even suspecting.

  “A Binding Oath?” Rapunzel asked.

  I nodded. “On my sword.”

  I was sure Rapunzel would be sympathetic, but she only sounded amused. “Then he must have trusted you a little. Or prized your friendship over his secret.”

  “This is one of those times when I can’t tell if you’re being accidentally cryptic or if I’m just not paying enough attention to piece together everything you’re saying.”

  Rapunzel pulled her long braid over her shoulder and brushed pieces of butter from it. “He arrived here seven years ago. He had not learned to hide his wings yet. They fluttered when he was anxious. You could see nothing of Jack in him. He could have been any Fey child. But he was so bold, rather reckless, just as he is now. He demanded that the whole Canon swear to keep his secret, a Binding Oath on our lives.”

  I could definitely believe that Chase had bossed around the most important Characters on the continent at six years old. Thinking of Chase as a tiny fairy kindergartner was harder to swallow, but what really weirded me out was finding out Chase hadn’t lived at EAS his whole life. I couldn’t imagine him anywhere else.

  I didn’t know Chase as well as I’d thought I did.

  “A Binding Oath is like a bargain with magic itself, a deal made with the force that manipulates and compels us. The most basic is to swear on your life. Life itself is a bit like magic—there is something fantastic about it. With it, we are a person; without it, we’re only a mass of bones and organs and skin,” Rapunzel said, and personally, I thought this was a creepy way of thinking about it. “If you fail to meet the requirements of the oath, if you tell, even by accident, magic will slip into you and rip the life from your body. Such a Binding Oath doesn’t take much magic of your own, only an extreme determination. But Chase was so small. I was the only one of us who believed that such a little person could bind seventy-two adults at one time. But he did. Jack included. Chase always had a strong will, Rory—as strong as yours and Lena’s. He just doesn’t yet know what to do with it.”

  At least the Characters in the Canon knew what they were getting into. It was a dirty trick to play on your best friend. “So if I accidentally tell, I’ll die?”

  Rapunzel sighed, almost impatiently. “No, Rory. I have just told you this. You didn’t swear on your life, though he could have asked this of you. You would not have known the difference, and he knew that. But
a person of little magic can perform a Binding Oath in another way—he can anchor it onto a permanent spell, even one cast long ago.”

  “Like my sword,” I said, understanding.

  Rapunzel nodded. “So he must trust you some. More than the entire Canon, more than his father.”

  “He still should have told me before he did it.” But I wasn’t as mad as I had been a minute before.

  “Yes.” Rapunzel untied her chocolate-streaked apron. “But do not cling to your anger, Rory. You need Chase’s friendship, the way you need Lena’s, the way he needs yours. You three will not survive without it.”

  I didn’t like the ominous way she said that, or the way she narrowed her eyes at the ovens.

  “I am concerned, Rory,” she said. “I dreamed of Solange, here, in this room, on this day, preparing this dish. She drew a pie out of the oven and presented it to me, smiling, the way she does when she has impressed herself.”

  My stomach churned. Prophecies about the Snow Queen invading EAS seemed a lot more important than explaining what a Binding Oath was, but I resisted the urge to say so. “How many times?”

  “At least once every day this week,” Rapunzel said mournfully.

  So definitely enough times to come true. I wished she’d told me earlier.

  Rapunzel shook out her apron and folded it, frowning. “I may be wrong. I saw no sign of her, no sign of foul play, and I watched the witches carefully. But take care, Rory.”

  ow mad are you?” Chase asked impatiently, as soon as I crash-landed in the seat across from him.

  Chase had found a spot near the front of the courtyard. A long wooden platform sat right ahead of us on the beach, its red curtain fluttering in the breeze, and the Tree of Hope loomed on our right. Fifteen rows of tables stretched all the way to the wall of doors, the tablecloths very yellow against the grass. Half of EAS was saving seats, and the other half was talking, laughing, and trying to find their friends.

  I shoved my phone in my pocket—the call I’d just finished had lasted barely long enough for Mom to tell me that she loved me and that she was late to dinner—and I shot him the dirtiest look I could muster. “On a scale of one to ten? We’re looking at maybe twelve and a half.”

  Chase scowled back. Over his shoulder was a long section with gold cloth—the high table. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  Now we were at fifteen and a half on the how-mad-is-Rory scale. “You cast a spell on me without telling me. You don’t do that to your friends.”

  “If I’d told you, would you still have taken the oath?” He clearly thought the answer was no.

  “Yes!” I said, so loudly that Darcy, Bryan, and some other eighth graders grabbing seats behind us looked over. I lowered my voice. “I mean, it would have still freaked me out, but I would have done it anyway. It could have been my birthday present for you this year. Instead you tricked me.”

  I didn’t care that I hadn’t sworn on my life. I’d trusted him, and—

  “I’m sorry.” That was the last response I expected. Chase even looked kind of guilty.

  A bell rang, and the courtyard filled with the slams of Door Trek doors and the hum of a hundred new voices. School must’ve gotten out on the West Coast.

  “You have to swear never to do it again, or—” I was about to say something really mean, like how we couldn’t be friends anymore if he tricked me like that one more time. But you don’t just replace your best friends. “Or you’ll have to back off during the next hunt—let me have first dibs on the next ice-griffin flock.”

  Chase glanced at me, and seeing me smile, he knew he was in safe territory again. “That price is too steep,” he said, mock-horrified, but now he was grinning back.

  “What price?” Melodie asked, as Lena set the harp on the table.

  I froze, not sure what to say.

  “The price of dwarf-made swords in Avalon,” Chase said. “I’m thinking about asking for a new one for Christmas.”

  He could think up a believable lie in less than a second. Great. Now, I had to worry about how many times he’d done that.

  “It doesn’t matter. This is important,” Lena said, sitting beside me. “What do we think about the new girl?”

  “Chatty?” I asked.

  Chatty stood in front of the gold table, her hands fisted at her sides, her toes curled in the sand. Beside her the Director folded her arms over a ruffly dress even pinker and puffier than usual. A man wearing a tuxedo squatted down to peer in Chatty’s face, and a woman in a kimono embroidered with cranes scowled. They must have been delegates from the chapters on other continents.

  “No, Mia. She’s been poking around my workshop twice in the past two days,” Lena said. “Yesterday, after you left, she came over to my section while the Director was giving a tour of the workshop. And today she was in my section. It’s all the way in the back. You can’t just accidentally wander in. And . . .” Here Lena glared at Mia with the pure loathing she only reserved for villains who tried to kill her friends, and Characters who dog-eared book pages. Mia was too far away to notice. “The elves said she was looking through my papers. So what do we think? Spy?”

  I had a hard time picturing it. No spy would let witches pelt her with butter.

  “Don’t mind me,” said someone standing over us—a very bald someone, with tufted gray eyebrows, a rumpled suit, and a wooden cane with a frog carved on top. The Frog Prince. His name was Henry. “The Director assigned us seats. Two adults to every table.”

  “Who’s the other one?” Chase asked, horrified.

  “Rapunzel.” Henry sat, his bones popping. “Have I wished you happy birthday yet, Chase?”

  “Oh, is it your birthday? Happy birthday!” said Lena.

  “Happy birthday.” I couldn’t remember if I’d told him yet or not.

  Chase went pink, all the way to the tips of his nonpointy ears. I wondered how many times he’d actually heard “happy birthday” in his life. “Thanks.” Then he added, much louder, “Please don’t sing.”

  Rapunzel slipped into the seat beside Henry, wearing a gray silk dress I’d never seen before. Clearly, this was a dress-up day for the grown-ups. Then Hansel appeared at the table next to us, and Chase’s horror multiplied by a thousand.

  “Here, Mrs. Taylor—best seats in the house.” Hansel smiled, tight-lipped, at a lady I didn’t recognize. She was very petite—Ben towered over her as he pulled out her chair. She wore a red suit and some ugly jewelry that looked like silver rope. I was pretty sure I’d seen the same outfit on some female politicians.

  “These will be perfectly adequate, thank you,” said Mrs. Taylor, as Ben eased the chair forward under her. Either she was naturally snooty, or she was a little freaked out by the fawn arguing with his sister at the next table.

  “I still think we should try the shirt of stinging nettles,” Bryan said. “Like in ‘The Six Swans.’ ”

  “I’m the one who would have to be mute. So I’m the one who gets to make the decision,” Darcy replied. “Besides, we don’t even know for sure it’ll break your enchantment.”

  The word “enchantment” pushed the woman over the edge. Wide-eyed, she clutched her purse and half rose from her seat, like she was ready to leave.

  “Not to worry, Mother,” Ben said with a reassuring smile. “I would need a brother or sister for that Tale. I doubt I’ll turn into a deer.” Then, taking a seat across from her, he leaned over the six inches dividing his table and ours so he could introduce us as “the fine seventh graders who saved me from the griffins yesterday.”

  Lena stared at him, like she couldn’t understand why an eighth grader was talking like a stodgy old man with patches on his elbows.

  “I’m sorry your husband couldn’t join us,” Hansel told Mrs. Taylor, probably hoping to distract her. “He attended EAS with my niece.”

  Mrs. Taylor opened her mouth and hesitated, but Ben didn’t bat an eye. “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, Hansel, but my father passed away. Four ye
ars ago. Heart attack.”

  Lena and I glanced at each other, not sure if we were supposed to say anything. Even Chase looked a little stunned.

  “I’m so sorry—” Hansel started.

  But Ben spotted a distraction, passing his table in her plaid uniform. “Mia!”

  The new girl looked up slowly—definitely not alert enough to be a good spy—and Ben busied himself introducing Mia to his mom.

  “Rapunzel, there you are.” Gretel strode toward us, propelling Chatty so forcefully that the mute girl winced with every step. “Can you take her?”

  “Say no. Say no. Say no.” Chase probably thought Rapunzel filled the weirdo quota at our table.

  “Still mad about her water-fountain trick, Chase?” I asked, and Chatty grinned at me.

  Rapunzel examined her thoughtfully. “Have we figured out which chapter she came from?”

  “Probably South America. Their representative is late. The rest of the delegates don’t recognize her,” Gretel said.

  Chatty rolled her eyes as if to say, Yes, by all means, talk about the mute girl like she’s not here. She won’t stop you.

  Then she spotted Ben, who pulled a chair out for Mia the same way he’d done for his mom and said, “Any girl who can fish me out of Lake Michigan on a school night is a girl I want to know.”

  Chatty clearly disapproved of the display. Scowling, she stomped over to the bench and dropped into the seat beside Lena, so hard that the whole bench shuddered.

  “Hey! Nobody said you were staying!” Chase said.

  Chatty stuck her tongue out at him halfheartedly, her chin in her hand.

  Just as Kenneth took the seat next to Mia, the Director stood up at the high table and raised both arms for silence. The sun was setting in a fiery way behind her, backlighting her dress. She looked as airy and fluorescent as pink cotton candy. Probably not the look she’d been hoping for.

  “EASers, juvenile and grown, foreign and domestic, parents, guests, instructors, and Canon members, we gather today to welcome the new Red Riding Hood to the Canon.” The Director gestured to two ladies sitting side by side at the high table. One wore a Sunday hat so giant that the African delegate seated at her other side leaned slightly out of the way. She waved, but the other Red Riding Hood, wearing a more manageable baseball cap, looked nervous.