The Harp and the Ravenvine

by Ted Sanders

  “Come on around, then,” she said, beckoning them with a tilt of the head. “Climb in.”

  As they circled around the back of the van, April murmured to Isabel, “This is a person you trust?”

  “I trust her when I need her,” Isabel said in a whisper. “She can get us where we want to go.”

  April, still listening to that far-off beacon, couldn’t deny the thrill those words gave her. But there was a problem. “And what about Arthur?”

  “Bring him along,” Isabel said, as if that were the easiest thing in the world.

  April frowned inwardly. She took Isabel by the elbow and stopped her gently, trying to be patient. “You do know I can’t actually control animals, right? I can’t make them sit and stay, can’t make them follow, can’t make them be friends. That’s not how the vine works.”

  “I’m aware of that,” Isabel said. “But you seem to be doing fine so far.”

  “It might take me a minute to coax him into the van. What about the Riven?”

  Isabel scowled. “I told you not to mention that,” she whispered. “Ethel’s jumpy about the Riven. That’s why we had to come to her instead of the other way around. But don’t worry—that bird skull hanging from Ethel’s mirror? That’s a leestone. Protection against the Riven. Not terribly strong, but you’re less detectable standing beside this van right now than you have been since the start.”

  That was reassuring, but April still roiled with doubt. What if she couldn’t get Arthur to follow? And what about the strange animal she could sense inside the vehicle?

  “Everything okay?” Ethel called out.

  “Fine,” said Isabel, turning away.

  They rounded the van, and Isabel threw open the battered sliding door. A cloud of spicy scent billowed out, cloying and unpleasant. Joshua held his nose. The van had two bench seats in the back, the cargo space beyond crammed with junk. Up front, Ethel watched them intently from the driver’s seat. The passenger-side seat, meanwhile, had been completely removed. In its place was a large ornate rug that must have been colorful once but was dingy and slick now. Standing on that rug was a large tortoise, well over a foot long, its sinewy neck extended toward them.

  When he spotted the staring tortoise, Joshua jumped and burrowed against April. She could hardly blame him. This was the creature she’d been feeling, of course, and it looked every bit as unpleasant as it felt. The tortoise’s face was frozen in a permanent scowl of disapproval, its eyes as heavily lidded as its owner’s. Something yellow and vile was oozing out of one corner of its mouth. The vine continued to bring April the same steady flow of dreariness and cold indifference, as if the creature was beyond caring about anything at all. There was some intelligence there, but otherwise the tortoise seemed as flat and as soulless as a slug. And there was something else about the tortoise, too—a quality April couldn’t quite identify, much less name. Something unnatural. Something twisted and wrong.

  “This is Morla,” said Ethel. “She’s beautiful, I know, but you’ll have to resist the urge to get friendly. You’re likely to get bitten.” She grinned a long-toothed smile, making April wonder who exactly would be doing the biting.

  “We’ll try to control ourselves,” April said.

  “It’s only you I’m warning, love,” Ethel said coldly, her eyes locked on April.

  April didn’t reply. She nudged Joshua forward into the van. He scrambled into the backseat, as far away from Ethel and Morla as he could get. Isabel climbed in behind him.

  “One minute,” April said.

  When Ethel frowned, Isabel explained. “We’re waiting on one more passenger.”

  Ethel’s frown deepened. “Not another child, I hope.”

  “Not quite.” Isabel gave April a nod.

  April turned, pulling her attention away from the wretched tortoise and out toward Arthur. He was scavenging happily in the parking lot. She crouched down, holding out her hand to him. To her surprise, he skipped over eagerly.

  Ethel, craning her neck to watch, let out a laugh that could only be described as a cackle. “A raven,” she said. “You say you don’t believe in witches, but you’ve got yourself a familiar? And a raven at that? That’s witch business, through and through.”

  “Is that what Morla is?” April asked, trying to keep her tone polite. “Your familiar?”

  “Oh, she’s more than that, love,” Ethel said with disquieting glee. “She’s the dearest friend I have.”

  Arthur, listening to their conversation, was perturbed. He didn’t like the sound of Ethel’s voice. Didn’t trust it. Doubt and evasion. April was sure that if she got into the van and drove away with Ethel, Arthur would attempt to follow, but getting him into the van would be another matter entirely. “Quiet, please,” she said. “He’s still wild.”

  Ethel chuckled. “I can—”

  “Quiet, please,” April repeated calmly.

  She pulled a chunk of dog food from her pocket. Arthur hopped forward alertly, hungry again. Backing into the van, April laid the food on the doorstep. Arthur looked into the open van dubiously, then chirruped at her. Asking if it was safe. Locked doors. Imprisonment. April thought back to the crate at Doc’s house and understood.

  “It’s fine,” she told him. “It’s safe. Just for an hour or so, then you’ll be free again.”

  Arthur couldn’t understand the words, of course, but her tone got through to him. Trust. Friendship. To her relief, he croaked warmly and hopped up into the van with a beat of his wings. For the first time, April felt a ripple of change in Morla’s brooding consciousness as the tortoise saw the raven—a slow bubble of irritated surprise. Morla yanked her head back, still staring. Arthur, choking down his food, seemed not to even notice the tortoise.

  April stepped in quietly behind him and slid the door closed, trying to be gentle. But the mechanism was awkward and unfamiliar, and the door ended up slamming shut with a painful bang. Arthur squawked and rose into the air in a panic, flapping his great wings and calling out in alarm. One of his wings smacked Joshua in the face, knocking the boy off the bench.

  “Arthur!” April said, holding out a palmful of dog food. “Arthur, here. It’s okay!” But the bird was too frightened and angry to listen. He was trapped again, after only a few hours of freedom. Rage. Betrayal. He careened about ever more wildly, looking for a way out, still shrieking. He thumped his still-healing wing hard against the roof and April knew that it hurt. The bird blustered over the back of the seat and got his feet tangled in Isabel’s red hair. The woman cowered and cursed.

  Ethel, meanwhile, was watching calmly from the front seat. “Control your bird,” the woman said coolly over the din, “or I’ll do it for you.”

  What does that mean? April wondered, but she said only, “He’ll be fine! I just startled him.” But Arthur grew more and more hysterical, beating his wings madly about Isabel’s head. At last he pulled loose, yanking out a tuft of red hair and bashing his way toward the back of the van. Isabel howled in pain and in the next moment—

  April felt it before she saw it. Morla’s presence was a dull, smooth rock in April’s mind, a cool forgotten stillness all but asleep below Arthur’s red-hot panic. But now, abruptly, that presence was . . . taken. It was taken the way a cloud takes the sun, a towering shadow of interference. It was an alien presence, something not-Morla, taking Morla over and . . . pressing. Crushing. Subduing. There was no pain, just a terrible pressure, and April understood—Ethel was doing this. Ethel was in the tortoise’s mind, in her bones, her thoughts making a fist inside Morla’s being.

  Morla was Ethel’s Tan’ji.

  Scarcely had the horrid thought formed when something utterly new occurred. Arthur’s panic still bubbled ferociously in April’s brain, but now, inside that panic, a new presence began to sprout—a mind within a mind within a mind. It was Ethel, reaching out through her Tan’ji. April exhaled in shock, all her breath leaving her. This new presence was so cold. Icy calm. Numb surrender, dreamless sleep.

&nbs
p; Arthur’s panic froze into stillness like a waterfall in winter. He stopped struggling and dropped onto the backseat beside Joshua. He blinked his black eyes—oh so slowly, impossibly slow—and folded his wings to his sides. His thoughts were muddled and sluggish, moving like molasses, so slow they couldn’t be anything but calm. The sensation was so powerful that April had to shake off her own drowsiness, pushing the bird’s mind out of her own to avoid falling under the same spell.

  She kept herself open to Morla, unable to turn away. Her heart hammered. Ever so slowly, that cruel, clenching grip inside the tortoise subsided. The looming shadow retreated, and Morla was free.

  “There now,” Ethel said with a smile. “All better, are we?”

  April struggled to find her breath. “You’re disgusting,” she said. “You should be ashamed.”

  Isabel, who was fussing with her tangled hair, whipped around, her face a knot of anger and shock. “April!” she spat.

  But Ethel only laughed her bony, rasping laugh. “So some say. But it served you well, didn’t it? Got your familiar settled. Without me—without Morla—you’d have had to leave him behind.”

  “What did you do to him?”

  “I brought him oblivion. I slowed him, made him forget. I brought him peace. That’s what Morla brings—peace.”

  April felt terrible. Arthur was calm now, yes, and she was sickened by her own relief—because meanwhile Morla was flat and spent, like a blade of grass that has been trodden on too many times. No wonder Morla had seemed so sour, so corrosive. April’s distaste for the tortoise was swept away, replaced by pity. “You don’t know what you’re doing to her,” April said.

  Ethel rose out of her seat, looming. “You think you know my Tan’ji better than I do? If you’ve got a mind to step between a Keeper and her instrument, love, your second step can be right out that door and back onto the streets.”

  April bent her head, fuming, not feeling particularly chastised but aware that continuing to argue would only jeopardize the entire trip. She burned inside, burning for Morla, but she knew she couldn’t say more.

  Isabel said, “April’s just a neophyte. She doesn’t know any better. She’s still learning.”

  Ethel’s eyes flared. “I can teach her, if I have to.”

  “No,” April said. “I’m sorry, Keeper.”

  But Ethel wouldn’t stop. “You and the Do-Rights, you think you know what’s best. You forbid what you don’t like and then embrace it when it suits you.”

  “To be fair,” April shot back, “I don’t even know who the Do-Rights are.”

  “You’ll find out, I’m sure. The Wardens. The All-Stars. They’ll be happy to snap you up. They’ll be happy to teach you their rules. Isabel knows all about it. They did her wrong, didn’t they? Set her plenty of rules, then used her up and tossed her out. Left her broken.”

  Isabel sat up straight. Her face was cloudy and livid. Green light flickered inside the wicker sphere. Holding Ethel in her icy stare, she said, “You think you know all about it, do you, Ethel?”

  Ethel watched the red-haired woman silently, concern creeping over her face. No, not concern—something closer to fear. “I’ve heard your stories,” Ethel said at last, cautiously.

  “Then you’ll know it was a long time ago,” she said. “You’ll know that things didn’t work out the way the Wardens intended.”

  “I do know it, sister.”

  “Remember it. And take us where we need to go.”

  Ethel gave a deep nod and turned away.

  With the mood in the van suddenly heavy with tension, April kept her mouth closed. She wasn’t sure she liked the sound of the word Wardens—it made her think of prison guards. Prison, or worse. She’d left home for one reason, and one reason only—to find the missing piece. But she hadn’t imagined any of the obstacles she would face. She hadn’t considered the depth and scope of the world she was stepping into. She’d have to learn fast, or risk losing her way.

  She took a deep breath and told herself firmly that she could do that. She could find her place among these strange people, at least for a while. The missing piece was all that mattered. She sat back in her seat, calming her anger, listening to the still sleepy tranquility of Arthur’s mind. How long he would stay like this, she didn’t know, but the bird seemed at ease, resting easily beside her, barely startling when the van’s engine roared to life and they pulled away from the curb.

  Joshua pulled a book out of Isabel’s bag and began to read. Or no—not a book. A road atlas. No surprise there, April supposed. April considered getting out one of her magazines, but instead she watched Morla. The tortoise gazed back at her with lifeless eyes, her head bobbing slightly with the motion of the van. On an impulse, April pulled a piece of dog food from the bag and rolled it quietly across the floor toward her. It tumbled to a stop right between Morla’s front feet. Slowly the tortoise looked down at it, blinked, and then turned away. Not a flicker of hunger or interest came through the vine. Nothing. April shuddered.

  “What did I say about trying to get friendly?” Ethel said suddenly.

  “Sorry,” said April. She looked away and tried to push the wretched creature from her mind.

  No one spoke for several minutes. April jumped when Joshua finally broke the silence. “Isabel’s not broken,” he announced petulantly, not even looking up from his atlas.

  Isabel looked back and gave him a smile. “Thank you, Joshua. That’s very kind of you to say.”

  Up front, Ethel scoffed and reached for the radio dial, as if intending to drown out any further attempts at conversation. “Where you’re going, loves,” she said as she fiddled to find a station, “you’ll need much more than kindness.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Hints and Promises

  HORACE STARED AT THE LITTLE BLACK FLOWER IN MR. MEISTER’S hand. According to the old man, the Keeper of the Tan’ji from which this flower had been taken was coming here. Soon. And they had no idea whether it was friend or foe.

  Chloe said, “So basically, the Tan’ji this came from might belong to one of the Riven. One of the freaks could be out there right now, homing in on the Warren. And leading all the rest of them here.”

  “That is the worst case scenario, but quite possible,” said Mr. Meister. “On the other hand, it could be a harmless young soul out there, just as lost and uncertain as you once were, thick in the Find. Completely alone, perhaps. And with a crippled Tan’ji.”

  “But there’s no way to know which it is?” asked Horace. “Friendly human or unfriendly Riven?” He looked at Brian for an answer, but Brian seemed lost in his own thoughts, staring at the daktan and glancing over his shoulder now and again.

  Mr. Meister shook his head. “There is no way to know.”

  “And even if it’s a human,” Chloe pointed out, “that doesn’t necessarily equal friendly.”

  “Just so,” Mr. Meister said sadly. “We must act. Soon. The unknown Keeper is still far off, but—”

  Brian held up a hand and said, “Actually . . .”

  Mr. Meister looked at him sharply, then turned to the north again. The two of them stood there, Mr. Meister staring hard, Brian squeezing his eyes closed but clearly locked in concentration.

  “What’s happening?” Chloe demanded.

  “The Keeper of the daktan is on the move now,” Mr. Meister said. “Moving fast.”

  “How fast?”

  “Vehicle fast,” said Brian, opening his eyes. “Car or bus or train. Coming closer.”

  Horace tried not to look shocked. “But if they were only forty miles away, that means they could be here in less than hour.”

  “Forty miles as the crow flies,” Brian clarified. “By road, it might take an hour and a half to get here, all things considered.” He said this as though the extra half hour made it that much better, but Horace could see the concern in his eyes.

  “So what will we do?” Horace asked.

  Mr. Meister turned and leaned toward him. “That’s precisel
y what I was hoping you would tell us, Keeper.”

  Horace hesitated. He looked at the old man, his soft steady gaze. Brian had the same expectant expression, and even Chloe—though she was tugging grumpily at a lock of her black hair—seemed to be waiting for him to respond.

  “The lost Keeper is coming, Horace,” Mr. Meister prompted softly. “What will we do?”

  “You’re asking me,” Horace said, stressing the word asking.

  Mr. Meister nodded. “I am.”

  Horace glanced again at Chloe. She yanked at her hair and gave him a single brusque nod. “Fine, then,” Horace said. He pulled the Fel’Daera from the pouch at his side. He sensed a sudden rise in alertness from Brian, felt the boy’s keen and curious eyes on him. Horace tried to brush the attention aside. Instead he let his mind settle across the box’s presence, so much a part of him, so reassuring and constant. His inner clock, always accurate, told him it was 8:02.

  The box could show him the future twenty-four hours in advance—one possible future, anyway, here in this place, here in this room—but only if he concentrated hard on the path he already walked. In order for the box to see tomorrow truly, Horace had to think hard about the past, present, and future—where he was, how he’d gotten there, who else was with him at the moment. The path they all walked. The miserable daktan before them, calling out like a beacon. A new Keeper, a crippled Tan’ji—friend, or foe? What path forward could embrace both of those possibilities? The box would tell him.

  In chess terms, Horace knew he was more of a positional player than a tactician, more suited to considering long-term advantages instead of short-term attacks. So he thought long. And when he thought long, he kept coming back to one idea: whoever this new Keeper was, it seemed likely he or she would never stop hearing—and heeding—the daktan’s call.

  Cradling this thought, Horace pressed his thumb against the box’s silver seam and twisted it open. The lid split and spread wide like wings. And inside, through the box’s blue glass he saw—tomorrow’s workshop, sharp and clear, apparently empty; the fluorescent tube lights overhead burning like laser beams. He bent over the table where today the tiny black flower still sat.