I tended the garden beds instead. My month with Akiva had taught me that her choice of which garden beds to work on wasn’t random; there was a strict circular order that made sure each bed was seen to three times a week. This morning I was supposed to be tending to the bed of something Akiva told me were aloes. The aloes were a spiky, pulpy kind of plant which either required or generated a kind of warmth around them. They had always fascinated me. The air about the aloe bed was constantly several degrees hotter in temperature than any of the other beds, and the soil was different; drier and sandier.
Only this morning the aloe bed was cooler than usual, almost the same temperature as the other garden beds, and the soil was damp from last night’s rain. It wasn’t until I was gazing at the rain-darkened soil that it occurred to me that I hadn’t ever seen this bed soaked with water, even if it had poured rain during the night. I frowned at my own stupidity: of course it must be Akiva who kept the garden beds at their different temperatures. I had been so certain, poking and prying around Akiva’s cottage for arcane supplies, that magic was batwings and mumbling and potions. I hadn’t seen the real, practical, plain magic going on under my very nose.
If I had known Akiva was singing spells, I thought injuredly, I would certainly have troubled myself to learn the words she sang to her garden. Or was that one of the things she expected me to learn by myself? Horned hedgepigs, how was I to learn anything if she didn’t teach me? I had no idea of the words I needed to correct the aloe bed. I did know the tune she used, since Akiva (unlike myself), didn’t use myriad different tunes to beguile the garden. She used only one: an old, oddly complicated but oddly familiar series of notes that stuck in my mind like the echo of an old familiar lullaby sung to me when I was too young to remember.
I hummed the melody under my breath to assure myself that I knew it well enough, then planted both my hands palms down in the slightly damp soil of the garden bed as I had often seen Akiva do, and began to sing without much conviction. I had a feeling that anything that was routinely bullied by Akiva would be unlikely to be very much impressed with me.
Still, I must have made some impression. The moment I began singing, the ground bucked and heaved violently beneath me. I was tumbled head over heels in the surge, biting my tongue: then, as suddenly as it had rocked, the earth was still again and I was able to pick myself up shakily. The salty taste of blood was in my mouth as I ruefully checked for damage. Evidently Akiva’s spells were not for my use. My pride, along with various other parts of my body, felt distinctly bruised, and I scowled at the aloes, feeling vaguely hard-done-by. If Akiva did expect me to learn this particular thing by myself, she would be woefully disappointed. I pulled on my lower lip, considering my failure with regret, and then reluctantly began the task of weeding. With any luck Akiva would be back before the cooling nights did too much damage to the aloes.
I was so much into the habit of singing to the plants by then that I didn’t notice exactly when I began singing. It was when I stopped to fertilize the freshly weeded soil that I realised I was singing a song that my father had brought back with him from the hot deserts of Lacuna.
Fold the warm night air ‘round your shoulders
Hang two heavy drops of rain from your ears
And you and I, my love, my rose,
Will drink in the scents of the arabah.
It was a crooning lullaby that Father had sung to me when I was small enough still to have my cot in with him and Mother. He had told me once that in Lacuna the nights were so heavy and hot that the air folded around you like a cloak, and that the most delicious scents of cinnamon and cloves floated in the air. Perhaps it was the aloe bed that had made that particular song spring to mind. Be that as it may, as I lightly watered the aloes it seemed to me that warm, scented air rose with each drop of water that hit the earth. I tasted cinnamon and cardamom, and when I poked a wary finger into the soil, it was noticeably warmer. I sat back on my heels, my eyes glittering in fascination, because in some inexplicable way, I must have done the right thing.
I didn’t stop for lunch. Instead, I checked once more to see if the paths had appeared again. They hadn’t.
“Oh, bother you, then!” I snapped, because there was a touch of cold fear in my stomach. I kicked the shovel but all that did was stub my toe, so instead of sulking I climbed the tall pine that stood against the back of the house, to spy out the extent of the danger. I climbed until the branches became too small to bear my weight and gazed out in every direction, clutching myself close to the trunk.
The view convinced me of the extent of my isolation. Just as the main road should have been in view through the trees, the village rooftops should have been clearly in sight. Yet forest spread as far as the eye could see, rising and falling like the moors. Some of the trees were higher even than the one I’d climbed. I clung closer to the tree trunk and thoughtfully considered the prospect. Maybe Akiva wasn’t coming back. Maybe I was stuck in this little patch of civilisation. What then?
I could venture out into the forest, I thought, excitement warring with a shrewd idea that magic in Akiva’s garden would be a very different thing from magic in the forest. The garden had some patches warmer than others, and weeds might grow unnaturally fast in it, but at least it remained the same size.
I looked around again, turning my back on the disturbingly wooded space that should have been the town, and then, with an unexpectedness that made my heart jump, there was a path. The fact that it was to the right of my tree and ran under the shadow of the hedge might explain why I hadn’t seen it before, but I was more inclined to think that it hadn’t actually been there a moment ago. More importantly, it began from a point in the hedge that I knew didn’t contain a gate.
“Sneaky,” I said gruffly, startling myself at the sound of my own voice. I slithered down the tree, accompanied by a shower of pine bark, and dashed through the garden to the hedge. And, do you know, there was a gate there. It was more of a door than a gate, green and covered with a pattern of lightly etched leaves and vines that seemed to shift and curl in the light breeze. I looked at the panels of the door with hard eyes. If it had been here all along, it was careless of me not to have seen it, since although the swirling pattern of vines made it strangely difficult to see, it was a very big door in a rather nondescript hedge. I gave it a last, narrowed look, and chose to believe that it hadn’t been there before.
It took me quite some time to decide on a course of action. Akiva had said not to leave the path. She had not, however, said anything about travelling on magical paths, and to a mind as well trained at spotting loopholes as mine, this practically amounted to direct permission.
I did have enough native caution to postpone my adventures until the morrow, when Akiva might conceivably be back and prevent the necessity of my going. It was with glittering eyes and a half hope, half fear that Akiva wouldn’t return the next day, that I presently returned to my work.
Akiva still hadn’t returned when I woke the next morning. The conviction that I felt upon waking that she would be there, however, was so strong that it wasn’t until I had searched all the rooms and both the front and back gardens that I could persuade myself I’d been wrong.
Horned hedgepigs! I thought, grumbling under my breath. That meant my work and Akiva’s to do again. The thought didn’t appeal to me; and since I could, I thought righteously, reasonably be considered as mounting a rescue attempt, I packed myself a lunch basket and broached the hedge gate with a rapidly ticking pulse.
I shut the gate carefully behind, and sallied forth, I thought in sudden glee, to make my fortune. The basket that I had bought with me only added to the light-hearted feeling, and all in all I forgot about magic and danger– and almost, but not quite, about Akiva.
The path began ordinarily enough. As I had seen from my perch in the pine tree, it ran for a little ways under the shadow of the hedge, but it very soon dove into the very heart of the forest, where I found myself warily walking before very long.
This path was narrower than the others, and in order to make sure that I stayed on the path as Akiva had constantly adjured me to do, I had to place one bare foot almost directly in front of the other as if I were dancing a slow strathspey through the forest. It was oddly exhausting work.
I hadn’t gone far before the forest began to grow darker and cooler around me. I cast a glance around cautiously; but forests did get darker the further in one went, after all. I hauled my basket up with a mulish thrust of my chin. I was settling it back on my hip when, from the corner of my eyes, I caught a brief, silent flash of grey between the trees to my right. I sucked in a breath through my teeth, my fingers tightening around the basket handle, and readjusted my ideas. The darkening forest was the least of my problems: whatever it was, that grey streak of menace was big. I automatically checked the tucked hem of my skirt and took in another deep breath with the idea that before very long swift and prolonged running might be required.
Nothing happened for quite some time. I saw the same streak of grey several times over the next hour: always too quick to see clearly, always keeping pace easily, and always perfectly silent. I thought I could make out a distinctly lupine outline to the thing, but it was travelling too swiftly to be certain, and the only thing I could be sure of was a blaze of brindled white on its chest.
I set my teeth and continued to walk, refusing to allow myself to be frightened. The idea that it was a wolf grew steadily on me, and to my mind, unbidden, sprang memories of Liz Gantry’s Wolf stories. It made a kind of cold hollowness in my stomach, which angered me enough to be brave.
I stopped once or twice and pretended to pick flowers by the side of the path, covertly darting quick glances into the woods, and managed in this way to catch a glimpse of a huge brindled muzzle.
A breath hissed through my teeth, and I blinked twice, very fast and wide. It was a wolf, and a very large one at that. Oddly enough, now that I knew for certain, I wasn’t frightened; I could hear my heart beating loudly in my ears, but my head was clear and my blood sang exhilaratingly. It didn’t occur to me for a moment that it was an ordinary wolf, but I had the instinctive feeling that as long as I stayed on the path, nothing from the forest could touch me. When the path widened slightly I continued to walk precisely down the middle of it despite the extra room.
I had hoped to find some trace of Akiva by now, but to my dismay there was no sign of her, or that she had ever travelled this path. In fact, there was no sign that the path was proceeding in any particular direction or for any particular reason, either. The only thing I was certain of was that the grey wolf following me was getting closer, and I began to stop more frequently at flowerbeds in the hopes of catching a covert glimpse of it.
I was carelessly rooting up daisies when a gravelly voice said in my ear: “Clumsy wench.”
I sat down rather suddenly in the middle of the path, startled in spite of myself, and found that the wolf was now lounging slightly to my right, huge and grey. It seemed to be grinning, which annoyed me.
“I’m not really that stupid, you know,” it said.
I caught my breath and scowled at it. Talking wolf or no, I disliked being made a fool of. “I don’t know what you mean.”
The grin widened. “Of course you don’t. I suppose you merely have a passion for wayside weeds.”
Belatedly, I remembered that I hadn’t collected any flowers for a posy, and went pink-cheeked with annoyance.
“I was looking for a particular flower,” I said, tilting a challenge with my chin. Since this didn’t even raise me to eye level with the wolf, it was less effective than I’d hoped.
“Yes, a weed,” suggested the wolf agreeably, as if he understood perfectly. I glared at him again.
“Why are you following me?” I demanded, scrambling to my feet and seizing my basket. I felt that I had been on the defensive long enough, and he didn’t seem to be upon the point of tearing out my heart.
Again he seemed to grin, but his voice was innocent. “I don’t know what you mean.”
I gave him a hard look and walked on at my best pace. Despite this he continued to slink along at my side without effort, and I regretted bitterly not having a longer stride.
“I know where to find what you’re looking for,” he said at last, breaking the silence.
I looked sideways at him and was unnerved to find that my eyes were not very greatly higher than his when I was upright. It hadn’t struck me before how very big he was.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re looking for a flower. I know where to find a flower.”
“A particular flower,” I repeated, annoyed to be taken up in my lie.
There was a suspicion of a growl from the wolf. “This is a particular flower. There are things in the forest that have special properties, things that you know nothing about. Akiva uses this one quite often.”
I stopped abruptly. “You know Akiva!”
“Of course.”
“Do you know where she is?”
“No. But I know how to find her.”
I eyed him with distrust. “How?”
“With the flower, of course. I told you, it has special properties.”
“What flower?” The wolf was being annoyingly roundabout. Also, he was smug. “And what properties? I think you’re just making things up to look important. ”
“It’s for finding things,” the wolf said, offended. His outraged stillness made me realise with a shock that he had been gradually edging further into the woods. I was only just in time to stop myself from unconsciously taking a step off the path to follow. “And people. Akiva dries and powders it, but it’s stronger fresh.”
I tilted my chin and looked at him narrowly so that he knew I didn’t really believe him. “Where is it, then?”
“Further in,” he said, sitting on his haunches a little further away.
“I can’t leave the path,” I said. I didn’t trust him at all. “I’ll just use Akiva’s powder. So there.”
“Not strong enough.” The wolf flattened his ears, suggesting impatience. “Just what do you have against the woods anyway?”
“Akiva said I wasn’t to leave the path.”
“Still with the path! Aren’t we Akiva’s precious poppet!”
My eyes snapped. “There are things in the forest.”
“Oh, if you’re frightened–”
“I am not frightened!”
“Then stop dawdling and come along.”
I took one step off the path, more in involuntary agreement than in decision to go, but in that one step there was a rushing of air accompanied by a feeling of sharp motion that threw me to the ground violently, lurching me into another world. The cool forest air around me darkened and grew silent as if the forest were watching, intent. The very air was heavier here.
“Horned hedgepigs!” I said, in a scratchy voice.
I climbed clumsily to my feet with the horrible knowledge that I needed to be back on the path now, and that it had disappeared. There was a queer little pulsing behind my eyes that I knew was my heartbeat, and I wondered coldly why it was so hard to draw in a breath all of a sudden.
“Now,” said the wolf silkily, and at that moment it really did seem likely that he would tear my heart out; “Now . . .”
I turned and ran.
I must have dropped my basket somewhere back on the path. I didn’t think of that then. I remember being thankful for my bare feet and kilted skirts, but beyond that was only the single, intent thought of flight. I felt the hot breath of the wolf at my back long before my own breathing had time to grow ragged, and I only had time to yell out the fragment of a song in wild appeal to the forest before his teeth snarled at one ankle and I tumbled head over heels. What madness or instinct led me to sing out those particular words I couldn’t tell, but when the world stopped rolling about me, I found myself cocooned in willow sapling. They knit together so tightly above my head and all around me that only slivers of light could squeeze through.
In the gasping darkness I took an instinctive inventory of myself: torn skirt, bloody knee, painful breath. Sharp pain in my ribs – ouch – that was a protruding tree root. So that was what I had winded myself on. My mouth was full of mingled blood and grass, and a hot streak on my lower lip niggled at me, telling me that I’d split it.
I spat, and said again, this time in a groan: “Horned hedgepigs!”
The wolf growled, low and savage, from just beyond the saplings. My cocoon seemed suddenly very fragile and useless.
“Where did you learn that spell?” His voice was close, but he sounded grey and old; beaten.
My voice came out raggedly as the words fought with breath for precedence. “It wasn’t a spell.” My knee had begun to hurt the way injuries do when once you know about them, and my head was aching. “It’s a nursery rhyme.”
“Willow basket, willow basket, weave the strands to make a casket; bend not break, casket’s safe,” the wolf’s voice said bitterly. “Of all the infantile– you infuriating little witch!”
“You’ve got a cheek, after trying to eat me!” I snapped, spitting out more blood and grass. I was badly shaken and that made me cross. “Anyway, I would have got away if I hadn’t fallen; I don’t have to do spells. I am not a witch.”
“Rubbish. If you hadn’t come up with that you’d have been nothing but a few bones and a hank of butter-coloured pigtail by now.”
I scowled at him through one of the larger cracks in the willow prison. “I don’t wear pigtails, and I’m not fat enough to eat! I’d be stringy and bony.”
The wolf gave a derisive half-snarl, half-laugh. “You’re not good for anything else; at your age you’re useless except as food.”
I kicked the willow saplings from which the wolf’s voice projected and was rewarded with a short, startled yelp and a flurry of movement. “I’m not anyone’s food!”
“You’re nothing but fodder! I need a woman to break the spell, and you are quite obviously not a woman.”
Wolfskin Page 4
