Faith Hunter - Water Witch

by Faith Hunter

  He took hold of her wrist, his grip gentle enough that he did not hurt her, but so insistent as to offer her no hope that she might break free, at least not without a spell.

  The air was clear—she had no mist upon which to draw for a working. And the harbor was too far. They were closer to the Mill Pond, but even that distance would likely prove too great. Still, she tried. She had no time to trace a circle, and even if she had she couldn’t dig her boot into the cobblestones. So she cast, and she hoped it would be enough to make him let her go.

  She felt the working prickle the skin on her arms and neck. Kaille sucked a hard breath through his teeth, but rather than releasing her, he tightened his hold on her wrist.

  “Ow!” she said, trying to pull her arm away.

  “What did you do? Another spell?” He glanced around, as if expecting to see someone else approaching. “That was you, wasn’t it?”

  Before she could answer, he shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Come along.” He took a step, attempting to pull her with him.

  “No, wait!” She huffed a breath, conceding defeat. “Please,” she added. “Give me but five minutes to explain, and if after listening you remain unconvinced, I’ll accompany you to the sheriff’s home without any further argument.”

  “On your word? No more spells?”

  “On my word.”

  He released her, though seemingly against his better judgement. “All right. Five minutes.” He crossed his arms over his chest and stared at her, his eyes almost indigo in the sunlight. He didn’t appear as old today as he had in the gloaming the night before, and Hannah noticed that he had scars on his face, one below his right eye, and another on his temple. She wanted to ask how he had gotten them, but she didn’t dare. She didn’t think he would respond in anger, but there was something reserved about the man, a distance she did not believe she could cross.

  “There’s a man, older than you. He only recently arrived in Boston, and I . . . I fear him. He claims to be a sea captain, but there is something about him I don’t trust.”

  “A sea captain, you say?” Kaille asked, his tone sharp.

  “Aye.”

  “But older?”

  Hannah nodded. “Silver-haired, and heavy. He claims to be from Ireland, and goes by the name Cleary.”

  The thieftaker exhaled, looking relieved, though she wasn’t certain why. “How did you meet this man? What is he to you?”

  “I didn’t meet him, exactly. I . . . I saw him in Cornhill, and I overheard him speaking with another man, a merchant.”

  “How long ago was this?”

  “Several days now. Three, I believe. No, four!”

  “And you say you overheard them,” Kaille said, sounding skeptical. “Did you actually use a spell to listen to their conversation?”

  She felt her cheeks color. “I had to. One look at him and I knew— He doesn’t belong here.”

  “In Boston, you mean?”

  “In Boston, in North America. In this entire world! He is not supposed to be here!”

  He scowled. “What are you—? This is nonsense. Where does he belong then, if not here?”

  “He’s—” She thinned her lips and gave a shake of her head, nearly tossing her cap to the street. “You won’t believe me.”

  “He’s what, Hannah?”

  She steeled herself for his reaction. “He’s of the fae.”

  Kaille blinked. “What?”

  “I knew it,” she said, looking away.

  “There are no fae. They’re as much a myth as witches.”

  But I am a witch. “You’re wrong. I saw him, and I knew. I could see through his glamour. And as soon as he saw me, he left. I think he knew I was a— I think he knew what I was. He cut short his conversation with the merchant and fled to the waterfront. I lost him there. I believe he spirited himself to a ship. I don’t know which one, but I’m going to find him again. And then I’m going to defeat his glamour. That’s why I need the stone. To overmaster his sorcery.”

  “None of what you’re talking about is possible.”

  “I’m not lying!” It came out louder than Hannah had intended, and she glanced around to make sure no one else had heard. They were still alone on the narrow street.

  “No,” he said, drawing out the word. “I didn’t say you were.”

  “I’m not mad, either.”

  He said not a word in response to that, but he regarded her once more, considering, appraising.

  “When you cast just now—” He rubbed the palm of his hand, as if recalling the burn of the spell she had attempted. “What did you use to fuel your conjuring?”

  “I tried to use the Mill Pond.”

  Kaille frowned again. “But water—” He shook his head. “Why didn’t I see your spectral guide?”

  This time it was Hannah’s turn to frown. “My what?”

  For the first time since meeting him, Hannah saw uncertainty flicker in the thieftaker’s eyes. He drew a knife from a worn leather sheath on his belt. Hannah’s eyes widened and she took a step back.

  “It’s all right.” With a glance up and down the lane, he pushed up his sleeve, exposing the underside of his left forearm. It was marked with a lattice of white scars.

  He dragged the knife across his skin, and Hannah drew a sharp breath. As blood welled from the wound, he whispered something in what might have been Latin. An instant later, the blood vanished, as if wiped away by some unseen hand. Something growled in the cobbles beneath Hannah’s feet, and an ephemeral figure materialized beside the thieftaker.

  It appeared to be an old warrior, dressed in chain mail, bearing an ancient sword. He glowed with the color of rusted iron, except for his eyes, which shone as bright as beacons in his gaunt face. He stared hard at Hannah, with an expression of both alarm and distaste. She looked away rather than meet the gaze, and she pressed her hands against her stomacher, wishing Kaille would make the being—whatever it was—go away.

  “This is my spectral guide, and as fearsome as he may appear, I assure you he’s harmless. Splenetic perhaps, but harmless. My point, though, is that I can’t conjure without him. Each time I cast a spell, he appears. And I’m wondering why yours didn’t when you cast.”

  “I associate with no such creature,” she said. “And I do not cast spells. At least I don’t call them that. They’re workings, or castings.”

  “And you can use water to . . . to complete them?”

  “Yes. I’m a water witch.”

  He didn’t correct her this time.

  “Would you come with me, please?”

  Hannah edged away from him again. “Where are you taking me?”

  “Not to the sheriff, I assure you. I have a friend, someone I’d like for you to meet.” He gestured at the glowing figure. “She isn’t much more friendly than Uncle Reg here. But neither is she any more of a threat.”

  “Why do you want me to meet her?”

  Kaille took a long breath. “Because I don’t know what you are, nor do I know what this sea captain you found might be. But I believe you’re telling me the truth. And of all the people I know and trust in this world, none is more knowledgeable than my friend about all matters relating to conjuring.”

  “If she affirms that I’ve been telling you the truth, will you give me a few more hours with the brooch, as I’ve requested?”

  “I’ll do more than that,” Kaille said, grinning. “I’ll help you find and defeat this glamoured fae you’re after.”

  • • •

  Calling upon Kaille’s friend demanded a lengthy walk to Boston’s Neck, the narrow, lonely strip of land at the town’s southern extreme. Before they had covered half the distance, Hannah wished she had worn the tatters she donned in the streets over the previous several days. She wouldn’t look as nice, but she would be far more comfortable. Her shoes were two years old, and her feet had grown, her toes cramping in the tight leather.

  As they walked, Kaille explained that the woman’s name was Tarijanna Win
dcatcher. Most called her Janna. She owned a small tavern, the Fat Spider, and she was a conjurer, like him. She was also African, which surprised Hannah, since the only Africans she had encountered in Boston were servants.

  When they reached the tavern, Hannah almost refused to go inside. The building, which was constructed of ancient gray wood, stood at an impossible angle, so that it appeared to be one strong breeze away from collapse.

  Kaille kept walking to the door even after she halted. But he chuckled and said, “I know how it looks, but it hasn’t fallen over yet, and I don’t think it will today.”

  Reluctantly, she followed him inside.

  Within, the tavern was dark, but far nicer than it had looked from the lane. A fire danced and popped in the hearth, though the day wasn’t particularly cold, and the air was redolent of baking bread, and herbs and spices Hannah couldn’t name. Her stomach rumbled.

  A wizened African woman stood behind the bar, a brown woolen shawl wrapped around her bony shoulders. Her hair was white and shorn almost to her scalp, and her hands were bony and frail-looking. But she glared at Kaille with the intensity of a hawk on the wing, the muscles in her jaw bunching.

  “Kaille,” she said, drawing out his name. “What do you want? And who’s that with you?”

  “Good day, Janna,” Kaille said, removing his tricorn. “It’s a pleasure to see you, too.”

  If anything, this deepened her scowl. She dismissed him with a sharp wave of her hand, and narrowed her stare at Hannah.

  “You’re an Everhart.”

  Hannah could think of nothing to say.

  Kaille pivoted so that he could look at both of them. “How do you know that?”

  “I’ve had dealings with her kind. She has the hair, the eyes, the power. You Emma’s daughter?”

  She shook her head, unwilling to trust her voice.

  “Sarah’s then.” It was a statement.

  “Yes,” she managed, the words rough, as if she hadn’t spoken in days.

  Janna nodded, her expression softening fractionally. “I was sorry to hear about her passin’. She was a good girl.”

  “What is she, Janna?”

  The woman glanced Kaille’s way. “This one, you mean? She’s a witch of course. What d’you think she is?”

  “You mean she’s a conjurer.” This was also offered as a statement, but the thieftaker did not sound at all sure of himself.

  “You gonna tell me now what I mean when I’m talkin’?” She came out from behind the bar and took Hannah’s arm. “Don’t you worry about Kaille,” she said, steering Hannah to a table near the blaze. “He means well, but he doesn’t know a lick about magickin’. What kind of witch are you?”

  “A water witch.”

  Janna nodded. “Water witchin’ is strong, and Boston’s a good place for it. How long you been castin’?”

  “A few years now.”

  The woman frowned at that. “You had any . . . any problems?”

  Hannah shook her head. “I’m not sure I know what you’re asking.”

  Kaille had followed them to the table, and was paying close attention to their conversation.

  Janna cast a look his way. “Witches of the sort this one is, they get sick sometimes.” She shook her head. “Bad things.”

  “My mother died of a cancer.”

  “I know,” Janna said, sympathy in the lines around her eyes.

  Kaille lowered himself into the chair opposite Hannah’s. “All of this is beyond me, Janna.”

  “I know that, too,” she said, sounding far less sympathetic. “He doesn’t trust any magick he can’t do himself, and more often than not he won’t believe somethin’s possible until I show him how it’s done.” She sat as well and leaned forward, her eyes fixed on the thieftaker. “Conjurers like you and me, we’re common. There’s lots of us. Maybe not as many as the sheriff thinks, but plenty just the same. Witches like this girl, though—they’re like rubies or diamonds. I ain’t met more than six or seven my entire life. And three of them were Everharts.” To Hannah she said, “I knew your Grandma Edith. Fine woman, and a powerful water witch.”

  “Is their power like ours?” Kaille asked. “Is it stronger?”

  “It’s different,” Janna said. “Stronger, weaker—I don’t know about that. But she doesn’t need to cut herself or draw on herbs like you and me. And she doesn’t have a spectral guide. Her power comes from water, from the shift of a tide or the flow of a river. It’s just . . .” She opened her hands and shrugged. “Like I say, it’s different.”

  Kaille ran a finger along the brim of his tricorn, which rested on the table before him. “What about . . . what about fae?”

  “What about them?”

  “Are they real as well?”

  Janna rolled her eyes and leaned back in her chair. “You just don’t learn, do you? Of course they’re real. Why would somebody make that up?”

  “I don’t know. For the same reason they might make up . . .” He trailed off. “Never mind. I don’t think I can handle any more surprises today.”

  “I saw one a few days past,” Hannah said. “A fae, but glamoured so that he would appear as a man. I want to find him again and expose him.”

  “Why?” Janna asked, turning Hannah’s way.

  “Because he shouldn’t be here.”

  “You know that, how?”

  “It isn’t something I know. I feel it. I felt it the moment I saw him He’s . . . evil. Wrong. And up to a deadly mischief.”

  “What kind of mischief?” Kaille asked.

  “I don’t know that, either. But whatever his purpose, he can’t be allowed to succeed.”

  Hannah thought Janna would scoff at this, but she nodded and said, “All right then. Fae are rare, too,” she said to the thieftaker. “At least they are here. I’ve been told that across the ocean they’re as common as rocks. But they tend to stay over there. Exposing a fae is no small thing,” she went on, turning back to Hannah. “I’m not sure I could do it. Can you?”

  She hesitated, but then drew the glamoured brooch from within the folds of her gown. Whispering in Gaelic, Go bhfeice an uile dhuine—That all may see—she removed the working so that abruptly the brooch lay in her palm as plain as day, the diamonds and sapphire glimmering with the glow of the fire.

  “I think I can use this as the implement for my working.”

  “Is that sapphire?” Janna asked.

  She nodded.

  “That’s a powerful stone. And fae magick is tied to the earth, so it might work. You bein’ a water witch, it might take some power to make the stone do as you want. Then again sapphire has a little water magick in it, too, so you might be all right.”

  “Did you know that when you stole the brooch?” Ethan asked.

  Janna sat forward again, her eyes wide. “You stole it? That why she’s with you?” she asked Kaille.

  “I’m afraid so,” the thieftaker said.

  Hannah flushed and was grateful for the dim light of the tavern. But when she spoke, her voice remained even. “To answer your question, yes, I did know it. Or at least I sensed it.”

  Janna looked her over again, with what might have been approval. “Trust her instincts, Kaille. She’s an Everhart.”

  Hannah couldn’t help but smile. She had never taken much pride in her family name, but Janna seemed to think she should, and knowing now what she did about her mother, aunt, and grandmother, Hannah sensed power in the word: Everhart.

  “All right,” Kaille said, eyeing Hannah. “Any other advice?”

  Janna looked deadly serious as she said, “Yeah. Don’t let her face that thing alone.”

  “I had no intention of doing so.”

  Kaille and Hanna left the tavern a short time later and began the long walk back toward Cornhill.

  “I believe I owe you an apology,” the thieftaker said, after they had walked some distance in silence. He kept his gaze lowered so she couldn’t see his eyes, and she could barely hear him above the cries of g
ulls circling over the harbor. “I should have believed you.”

  Hannah lifted a shoulder.

  “For centuries, conjurers like Janna and me have been hanged as witches, and all my life people have called me a witch, despite my insistence that what I do is conjuring not witchery. I always assumed that there were no witches, that in fact all those accused of being such were men and women like me. Now . . . now, I don’t know what to think.”

  “I’ve assumed all this time that I was the only one like me,” she said. “I thought I was a monster. So no matter what you call yourself, and no matter what you call me, I’m glad to know that you can cast. I’m glad to know that Janna is here in Boston, and that she knew my mother. Thank you for that.”

  He smiled, and his face was transformed. He no longer looked so frightening, so remote. And even as the smile faded, Hannah committed that moment to memory.

  “So, where do we go now?” Kaille asked, surprising her.

  “You would let me decide?”

  “You’ve seen this fae captain; I haven’t. And you have the brooch. I’ll help you in any way I can, but the truth is, I’m beyond my depth.”

  Hannah’s heart fluttered uncomfortably. It was one thing to have the thieftaker believe her, but it was quite another to know he was willing to follow her into what might become a battle of spells and workings.

  “I’m not sure what to do,” she said.

  “Where exactly did you see him last?”

  “I first encountered him on King Street, outside a dry goods shop. He spoke with the shopkeeper, and then walked up Merchants’ Row. I followed him and listened as he spoke with a man who traded in furniture.”

  “Furniture?” Kaille said, clearly puzzled. “Why would a fae care about the furnishings of our homes? Do you remember what they discussed?”

  “He asked the merchant about the non-importation agreements, and whether the radicals still sought to prevent the import of goods from England. He said that Whigs in other cities were discussing dropping the agreements, and he wanted to know when Boston might do the same.”