The Iron Witch

by Karen Mahoney

  Navin ran a frustrated hand through his messed-up hair, holding his jacket almost protectively against his chest with the other hand. “Yeah, but I didn’t expect it to be this. I mean, having a paranoid aunt is one thing, but … elves? Come on, Donna. There’s weird, and then there’s completely bat-shit crazy.”

  “We can’t talk about this now; we need to get out of here.”

  Navin continued as though she hadn’t spoken. “And you were fighting it like you knew what you were doing. What’s that about?”

  Donna gave a snort of laughter. “Yeah, sure, I really knew what I was doing. Sink Plunger Girl.”

  “Well, you knew a whole lot more than me.” He glared at her, an unfamiliar tightness in his jaw, and then headed back into the workshop.

  “Don’t be mad at me, Nav. Please, I can’t stand it.”

  He sighed. “I’m not mad. I’m just … scared, I guess.”

  Throughout their awkward conversation, Donna had been casting fearful glances around them, half-expecting the elf to appear again although it was probably long gone. She shuddered as she remembered the sound it made, and its dark eyes. She wondered if she would ever be able to shake the image of its razorlike teeth straining toward Navin’s face.

  She shook her head and tried to focus on what Navin was saying.

  “Who is this Maker dude, anyway?” He was shrugging himself back into his jacket, and Donna was relieved to see that some of the color had returned to his cheeks. “Do you think that thing had something to do with him not being here?”

  “I don’t know.” Donna hated feeling so uncertain. She tried to think what to do next. Tell Aunt Paige? Or go straight to Quentin? Something had happened to Maker, and her first move should be to report his disappearance to Quentin Frost, the Order’s archmaster—their “leader” for as long as she could remember. Not to mention report the current state of his workshop, and the fact that there’d been a wood elf hiding out in the bathroom.

  “Donna, you’re not telling me anything,” Navin said, the frustration clear in his voice. “Help me out here.”

  She sighed. “I’ll tell you more at home.”

  He fixed her with determined eyes. “You promise? You’ll tell me everything?”

  Donna squeezed her fingers open and shut, wondering how much Navin could really take. “Everything” would be a lot for even the most open-minded person. “I’ll try, Nav. That’s all I can promise you.”

  It would have to be enough for now, and she turned her back on Navin before he could say anything else. What was she going to do? All these years of secrecy, and now the lid had well and truly been ripped off of Pandora’s Box. She didn’t think Navin would let her put the lid back on any time soon, and she trembled at the thought of the consequences if she started spilling the Order’s secrets.

  Donna wasn’t even thinking about the potential consequences for herself; she was far more worried about what it could mean for Navin. He was an innocent. (Quentin would call him a “commoner,” an archaic term that she hated.) But how could Navin Sharma really be considered innocent after coming face-to-face with a dark elf?

  Not even the alchemists could wipe someone’s memory. At least, she didn’t think they could.

  As she walked away from the building, Donna took grateful gulps of cold air. What mattered was that Navin was safe. He had his back to her as he fiddled with his bike, which he’d left by the door. She felt like crying, but knew that wouldn’t help things. Her duty was to the Order—to her aunt. That had to come first.

  The door to the workshop, which they’d been careful to close, suddenly banged opened. Navin almost got crushed behind it, and Donna’s heart began racing so hard she felt dizzy.

  Maker stood in the doorway, blinking in the brightening sun.

  “Maker!” Donna ran toward him. “You’re okay!”

  “Okay” was probably something of an overstatement. The old alchemist was leaning on his walking stick and looking frail. The fact that he wasn’t in his wheelchair was usually a good sign—it meant he had strength in his legs that day—but there was no denying how pale and drawn his lined face was. And Donna had already seen his wheelchair, tossed aside like nothing more than scrap metal. The sudden image made her mouth go dry.

  “What are you doing here, child?” Maker’s voice was hoarse. He doubled over into a coughing fit.

  Distressed, Donna wondered what she should do to help. Theirs was not a demonstrative relationship. She’d known Maker all her life and seen him frequently over the last ten years, thanks to the work he did on her hands and arms, but he wasn’t exactly huggable. She touched his arm tentatively.

  As her hand made contact with the dark flannel of his work shirt, she felt a burning heat radiating from his body. Even through her gloves. Pain shot toward her wrist.

  “Maker, I don’t think you’re well. Here, let me help you.” She shot Navin a glance she hoped he understood. Her friend was hovering nearby, having squeezed out from behind the heavy door, and looked as though he might try to take the old man’s other arm. Not a good idea.

  Maybe Maker was just tired, but there was a quality of strain about him that Donna wasn’t used to seeing. She could smell a sharp-edged sourness; it reminded her of the stale scent of water that had held flowers for too long.

  “Donna, please stop fussing. I’m fine.” Maker brushed her away with his free hand. And yet the fine sheen of sweat on his brow and the crease between his eyebrows told her that things were very far from fine. He took a breath and appeared to make an effort to steady himself. “Really, I’m quite well.”

  She bit her lip. “Is it safe to go back inside?”

  He nodded briskly. “Yes, yes. Everything has been dealt with.”

  “You mean, you … ” Donna let her voice trail off, wondering what Maker had done to “deal with” the wood elf. Last she’d seen, it was attempting to escape from the bathroom window. And the alchemist hadn’t been anywhere around at the time; she was sure of it.

  “The creature has been neutralized. It was just a stray.” Maker’s wintry blue eyes focused on Navin and narrowed.

  Donna cringed. How was she going to explain his presence? This was a breach of confidence that would surely be unforgivable.

  “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend, Donna?”

  Navin stepped forward and Donna reached down for his hand. She gave it a gentle squeeze. “This is Navin Sharma. Navin, this is Maker. He … works with my aunt.” She took a deep breath. “Maker, I’m sorry about Nav being here. It won’t happen again—it was a mistake.”

  Maker’s expression softened. “I think we can come to some kind of agreement, don’t you?”

  “Agreement?” Donna frowned.

  “I don’t want Paige worrying about you and what happened here.” He nodded in the direction of his workshop. “Normally my experiments don’t run away before I’ve finished with them.”

  Experiments? Donna’s stomach clenched. That didn’t sound right. Since when did the alchemists experiment on stray elves?

  Before she could interject, Maker continued. “If you take your friend away and promise that he will never return”—here he gave Navin a fierce look—“we will say nothing more about this. Any of it. Do you understand? I don’t want to share my findings with Simon until I’m sure of something.”

  Simon? Simon Gaunt? He was Quentin Frost’s partner—they’d been a couple for many years, at least for as long as Donna had known them—and he was also the official secretary of the Order, Quentin’s right-hand man. Simon Gaunt gave her the creeps, if she was honest about it, and it made Donna go cold to think there were secrets between him and Maker.

  She wasn’t exactly sure what was going on, but it seemed like Maker was willing to let the Navin situation go, so long as she didn’t tell about the wood elf in the workshop. At least, for now. It was a deal she could live with.

  Except that something definitely wasn’t right. Where had Maker come from? She’d been al
l over the workshop and the corridor out back, and there’d been no sign of him. Had he seen them come in? Also, it really was strange that Maker wasn’t angrier about Navin, since secrets were a fact of life for the Order. Then again, seeing how Maker was being oh-so-reasonable about Nav’s presence, it could be an unexpected gift. Maybe she shouldn’t be in such a hurry to risk messing with that.

  And of course, if she ignored Maker’s request and told Aunt Paige what had happened, what if she ended up getting everything wrong? Donna didn’t want to look like she’d been sneaking around, or worse, let on that she suspected something horrible had been happening in Maker’s workshop. Especially when he’d never given her reason to think badly of him before. Just the thought of telling Aunt Paige that Navin had encountered an elf made her feel sick. There could be no going back from that—not for her, and certainly not for Navin.

  She watched as a bead of sweat slipped slowly down the side of Maker’s face. He must be exhausted after handling the dark elf all by himself, despite the magic Donna knew he could craft. Alchemy—real magic—was all about transformation. It was a very different sort of power than the ridiculous things that regular people saw in movies. You didn’t just wave a wand and say a few words; there was a lot of work involved. Painstaking preparation and ritual. Maker always said “magic is technology,” and Donna hadn’t fully understood this until the first time she saw his workshop.

  Pulling herself upright, she smiled tightly at the old alchemist. “We’ll get out of your way, then. Don’t worry, I won’t breathe a word—and neither will Navin.” She raised her eyebrows at him. “Will you?”

  Navin had been watching this exchange while slouching against the wall with his arms crossed. He was doing his best impression of Harmless and Totally Trustworthy. Donna almost smiled despite the tension in the air. He was a terrible actor.

  “Huh?” he replied.

  “Nav, I said you’ll keep your mouth shut about all of this. Right?”

  “Right,” he agreed, nodding so hard she thought he’d lost control of his neck muscles. “I won’t say a word. Never. I’ll take it to my grave and—”

  “Nav?” Donna cut in.

  “What?”

  “Shut up.”

  “Shutting up.” He made a zipping motion across his lips, mimed twisting a lock shut, and threw the imaginary key over his shoulder.

  Rolling her eyes, Donna wished she could avoid telling him all the things she’d been forced to keep from him for so long. The truth was a slippery slope, and once it was really out there, it would be impossible to stop it from taking on a life of its own. While she didn’t generally believe in the power of prayer—she’d given up on all that when her father died and her mother got sick—right now she would try just about anything. Swallowing past the sudden dryness in her throat, Donna prayed that revealing her secrets wouldn’t be the biggest mistake of her life.

  She prayed that Navin wouldn’t turn his back on her, once he knew the whole dark and twisted truth.

  Donna sat cross-legged on her bed as Navin slouched (his usual position) into the oversized beanbag on her bedroom floor. They had done this for the last three years—talking far into the night in either her room or his, whether or not there was school the next day.

  “So,” said Navin.

  “So.”

  “Elves.” He raised an eyebrow.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “It didn’t look much like Orlando Bloom … ”

  Donna threw the nearest cushion at his head. “I wondered how long it would take you.”

  “What?” He gave her his best wounded expression, all big brown eyes and indignation.

  She forced a smile, trying to push down a rising sense of panic. She was so tired thinking about it all; why couldn’t she just have a normal life?

  “Earth to Donna,” Navin said.

  “Sorry. I was just … you know. Thinking.”

  Navin heaved himself out of the beanbag chair and came over to sit on the bed next to her. He put his arm around her and she gratefully leaned into his warmth, her head resting on his shoulder.

  “Donna, it’ll be okay. Whatever it is, you can tell me.”

  “Navin, it’s not that simple … ”

  “So make it simple. Just tell me what that thing was—what this means.”

  “It’s just that I’m not supposed to tell. Anyone. Not even you.”

  “I’m not going to say anything. Who am I going to tell? Dad? Nisha? She’d open her big mouth to her friends if I told her what color your bedroom walls are, never mind any of this stuff.”

  Donna bit back a smile. Navin’s younger sister wasn’t known for her discretion. “She’s just young.”

  “She’s fifteen and should know better by now. She’s such a little gossip.” Navin shifted on the bed and Donna lifted her eyes to his. “Anyway, forget her. Tell me about that thing back at Maker’s. The … elf. And who is this Maker? Is that his real name?”

  “I think we should start with him—and with the Order. You need to know that before you can understand the more crazy stuff.”

  Navin nodded, for all the world as if there was anything sane about any of this. “Right. The Order. You mentioned it back at the workshop. Is it, like, something to do with witchcraft? A group your aunt belongs to?”

  Donna sighed. Here went nothing. “Yes, it is a group Aunt Paige belongs to—a group she was born into, just like I was—but it’s got nothing to do with witchcraft or paganism. It’s actually short for ‘The Order of the Dragon.’ The members are alchemists, and it’s a secret society that’s been around for centuries.”

  “Please don’t tell me there are actual dragons involved.” There was a pained expression on Navin’s face. “I’m trying to be cool here, but that might ruin everything.”

  Donna couldn’t hold back a smile. “Don’t worry, it’s just a symbolic thing. There are four alchemical Orders, but ours is the oldest and one of the only ones that’s still actively involved in anything magical. The dragon has always been linked with alchemy, especially the great serpent, the ouroboros. It’s usually shown lying in a circle—mouth to tail—devouring itself.”

  “Magic?” Navin said faintly. “For real? Is it like in Charmed ? Because I think I could handle that. Maybe.”

  Donna knew that the only reason Navin watched Charmed was because of his huge crush on Alyssa Milano. “Are you listening to any of this?” she demanded. “You’re the one who insisted on knowing the truth.” She was trying to hide how afraid she was that every word out of her mouth would drive Navin further and further away.

  “I’m listening. I’m fine.” The expression on Navin’s face said that he was anything but fine, despite his enthusiasm for her blowing away his entire worldview. “What were you saying about … um … Oberon?”

  “Ouroboros. It’s a symbol. Here, let me show you.” Donna swung her legs off the bed and crouched down by her bookshelves, glad of an excuse to move. To do something. Grabbing a thick volume jacketed in a glossy collection of symbols from around the world, she flopped back down next to Navin and began leafing through the heavily illustrated pages. She jabbed her finger at what looked like an ancient bronze seal. It was stamped with the image of a simple yet highly stylized serpent, curled in a circle with its mouth and tail almost indistinguishable.

  “See? It has different names depending on the culture, but the most important thing is what it symbolizes. It’s something to do with ‘all being One,’ and it reminds us that the cycle of death and rebirth might be considered a natural thing. Although death is something that alchemy seeks to overcome.”

  The part of the mythology she didn’t tell Navin was the part she’d held close to her heart ever since her father’s death. In traditional alchemy, it was only by symbolically “slaying the dragon” that any kind of real transformation could occur. Donna knew that she had a long way to go before she was ready to face her own personal dragon—the monster that had destroyed everything good in her life—
but the belief that she would someday face it had kept her going through many painfully long nights.

  Navin was looking thoughtful as he stared at the image of the ouroboros, and she knew that he must be thinking of his own loss. His mother’s illness and passing had been hard on all the Sharmas, but Donna knew that Navin still mourned her every single day. They’d talked, before, about how his family’s Hinduism had helped his father to cope; back then, Donna had had to fake the whole pagan thing when they were comparing experiences. She wondered how Navin would react to the ideas she had really been brought up with—alchemy wasn’t exactly an easy subject to come to terms with, and it was more science than religion despite what many detractors would say to the contrary.

  “Okay,” Navin said. “So I get it. Alchemy, life and death, blah blah blah. What else? Tell me about the other three Orders—you said there are four.”

  Donna slammed the book shut and dumped it on the floor. She crossed her legs on the bed and began counting on her fingers: “The Order of the Crow, the Order of the Lion, and the Order of the Rose.”

  He frowned. “Rose?”

  “What’s so funny about that?”

  “Well, there are three Orders that are all, rah, scary creatures; and then there’s the ‘Order of the Rose.’ Sounds kinda lame to me.”

  Donna rolled her eyes. “That’s because you don’t understand Hermeticism.”

  “Hermeti-what?”

  “Never mind. Just go with it: Dragon, Crow, Lion, and Rose. That’s the way it’s always been. And like I said, the others aren’t so important these days. Well, apart from the Order of the Crow. We have what some old-school practitioners call Dragon Magic, and they have their Crow Magic in England. But each Order is very different and follows a separate mission. We don’t see representatives from the other Orders very often—like, once a year is pretty much it.”

  Navin smirked. “At the annual Alchemy Con?”

  “This is serious.” Donna swatted him with the cushion she’d been leaning against.

  Deflecting the blow with ease and grabbing another pillow, Navin pretended to suffocate her with it. “And this is my way of dealing with it.”