by K. Ferrin
Her hood had fallen askew when Hanner had grabbed her, and Evelyn wished fervently she could free her arms enough to pull it back over her face. Every person they passed stopped to stare as Hanner hauled her through town. Evelyn expected at least a few smiles, but all she saw were narrowed lips and hostile gazes.
Fear quivered in her belly. They couldn’t all know. Maybe her parents had figured it out, but there was no way everyone could have discovered her secret.
“Let me go. Now.” She put steel into her voice. She’d seen her mother reduce grown men to tears, and she tried to channel that force now. Hanner grunted in response.
“My mother will fire you for this!”
Hanner didn’t even grunt this time. Instead he carried her over to an oversized wooden chair that someone had placed outside the town lockup. Her head cracked against the back of the chair as he shoved her into it. He snapped leather straps over her wrists and feet, pulling them so tight she could feel the straps cutting into her flesh.
Stark fear flooded through her. She had no idea what was happening. The harshest punishment for magic involved banishment, but not torture.
“Ow! Hanner, what are you doing? My mother will flay you alive for this! She hired you to enforce the law, not abuse her daughter!”
People were filing into the small area in front of the lockup now. Miss Tansey, the woman who owned the bread shop and had snuck Evelyn sweet pastries every day for as long as she could remember. Snider, who’d shown up ten years before with no money and no name but who’d ended up being the best cobbler the town had ever had.
“Let. Me. Go!” She punctuated each word with a yank, trying to free herself from the binds Hanner had used. It was no use. She wouldn’t get out of this chair until someone let her out.
She scanned the crowd. Rudy was there. Rudy, her dearest friend, a florist who created the most beautiful arrangements for her to paint. And Shera, who passed her notes all day long at school and waded out into the swamp with Evelyn to paint and gossip during the summers. Fernon, her father’s barber, and his partner, Bran, both of whom had shared meals and stories with Evelyn and her parents on multiple occasions. They were people she’d known her entire life.
“Rudy, Shera. Get my mother! Help me out of this thing!”
The crowd simply stared back at her. Some, like Miss Tansey, gazed at her with the cold regard a snake gives the rat it’s about to eat for dinner. Others, like Rudy, shifted their feet and slanted their gazes away, ashamed, afraid, unwilling to help. Shera stared impassively, pale but dry-eyed.
“Shut up, shut up, shut up! I’m sick of your filthy patter!”
Evelyn did shut up then. She forgot how to speak. Forgot what words were. Forgot how to breathe. She could only stare as her mother came into view from somewhere behind her.
Her skin was the same smooth, dark brown it had always been, and her silky black hair was pulled into its usual long braid that hung down the center of her back. Their eyes met, her mother’s calm mahogany staring into her own light caramel.
“As if you give one fuck about me or your father, you monster.”
There were a thousand things Evelyn wanted to say. A thousand questions screaming inside her head. But she couldn’t say anything. Her lips were wooden. Her tongue refused to move. She wasn’t even sure if her heart still beat in her chest.
“You know what to do.” Her mother’s voice was cold. It seemed as if it traveled a thousand miles before it landed in Evelyn’s ears. Without a word, Hanner began wrapping thick fabric around her chest—a swath of pure schor, naturally creamy white. It caressed her skin, obscenely soft considering the situation.
“Mom, what—” she choked, cleared her throat. “What are you doing? What is going on?”
Hanner twisted a thick zildeschor branch in the cloth, and the fabric tightened against her chest.
“Mother!”
Her mother’s eyes drilled into her own.
“Five years we’ve suffered. Five years we’ve searched for some way to break this curse, to bring our Evelyn back, while you have destroyed this family. I’m done waiting.”
“What—” Evelyn panted, trying desperately to control the fear throbbing through her. “What are you talking about? Mother, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I snuck in magic, I’m sorry for everything. Please, what are you doing? This is madness!”
“Yes, it is mad. Mad we’ve not done this already. Mad we waited so long to destroy the monster among us.” She shifted her cool eyes to Hanner. “Do it.”
“Mother,” Evelyn whispered.
“I know what you are, you monster. Even your weeping gives you away. No tears, you see, Hanner? Not even one.”
And in an instant Evelyn realized her mother’s words were true. She sobbed, but not a single tear fell from her eyes.
Hanner twisted the branch, and the schor fabric constricted her chest, expelling all her breath with it. He twisted it again.
“We know how to deal with changelings in Meuse,” her mother said. Evelyn stared into her mother’s eyes, pleading. But she was as implacable as Hanner’s chest had been. She glanced around, desperate for help. The townspeople stood silent, unmoving. Rudy wept openly, but did not object. Shera’s expression was as blank as a wall. Evelyn’s father was nowhere to be seen.
“If you die, if your death is painful enough, Evelyn will wake.”
Hanner twisted the branch again. The pressure was crushing. Evelyn strained against the cuffs at her wrists and ankles, but Hanner knew what he was about. She was going to die here. At the hands of her own mother. Betrayed by everyone she’d ever known, and she had no idea why.
“But I am Evelyn,” she mouthed the words. “I am Evelyn, I am Evelyn. I am your daughter.” She had no breath for speech, but her lips moved as she chanted the words in her mind.
A fist cracked against her cheek, and her head rocketed back and slammed into the wooden chair.
“You are not Evelyn.” Her mother spit on her, the warm globule splashing against her cheek before sliding slowly down to her chin.
Hanner twisted again, and she felt a crack in her chest. She struggled to take a breath, to scream, but she could do neither. She wrenched at her arms, trying desperately to free herself.
And suddenly, there he was. Her father stood on the edge of the crowd to her left. His brown face ashen, a wild tangle of unwashed hair on top of his head. He was not the fastidious type, no boatsmyn was, but that rat’s nest was highly unusual. His beard was long and, most shocking to Evelyn, heavily streaked with gray. He’d had no gray in his beard yesterday.
“Laera, she’s just a child.”
Her father’s voice was weak and barely audible over the angry shuffling of the crowd, but it cut through her just the same.
“She is not a child, Camden. You look at her and see Evelyn, but she is not Evelyn! She is a monster made of magic, not flesh and blood.”
Evelyn’s mind spun. A monster made of magic? Her chest heaved, struggling for air against the relentless pressure of the fabric.
But…it was just a seed. And it didn’t even work! She tried to tell her mother, to tell all of them, but she had no air to speak with. Her father’s eyes settled on her. There was love there. And that gave her hope.
“Magic she may be, but she has Evelyn’s face. She has Evelyn’s memories. She believes we are her parents. You can’t tell me you’ve not seen it in her eyes!” Her father spoke passionately, but low, as if he knew the argument was already lost.
“That face is not Evelyn’s face! It is dark magic, designed to take advantage of the love a father has for his daughter, and you keep falling right into the trap!” Her mother yelled these last words, her face livid in anger. “Look at her! How long since she’s taken a single breath? Any human would have died by now. She must be destroyed. It’s the only way.”
Dark magic? Was this some trick? She wanted to believe Rudy had put everyone up to this as some prank, but it was clear her parents were not acting. No one was.
Anger and despair sparked through her like a summer thunderstorm. A changeling. She couldn’t be a changeling. She had memories. Feelings. But her mother’s question rang in her mind. She hadn’t had a clear breath for how long? She was right. Any human would have passed out by now. Maybe even suffocated to death. What am I?
Her father stared at her mother as if he’d never seen her before. His eyes had a liquid gleam in the morning light, and tears had left glistening paths along both cheeks. She wanted to run to him, to hug him tight and tell him how much she loved him.
Her father’s body shrank as if it were collapsing into itself. He hunched in a manner suggesting he didn’t have the strength to hold his body upright any longer. “I’ll not destroy her.”
Evelyn’s heart swelled and broke all at once. She’d never seen her father so defeated. Yet obviously he loved her still. He was the only one here who dared to stand with her. What madness had taken all of them?
“Then you sentence your daughter to an eternity of sleep. She’ll outlast you, everyone you know. She’ll linger on long after that cursed cottage molders into the ground around her,” Hanner said.
“I’m not asking you to destroy her, Camden,” her mother said.
The way her mother emphasized the word “you” was terrifying. Her mother intended to kill her, right now and right here, in front of the entire town.
Her father visibly sagged further, something she would not have thought possible. Her father was a proud man. Strong, capable. But now he looked like little more than a hollow shell.
“You want to destroy a sixteen-year-old girl? Our own daughter?” Her father’s voice quivered like that of an old man.
“I want to chase a monster out of our midst,” her mother corrected.
Evelyn watched the two of them, her father empty and broken and slumped like a discarded marionette, her mother tall and rigid and straight as a sword, eyes blazing in fury. Perhaps Rudy had been right to fear magic. The only explanation for this madness was magic. That seed had blossomed, after all. Its madness was affecting everyone but her.
“Hanner,” her mother prompted.
Hanner twisted the zildeschor branch, and ribs splintered inside of her. For a split second, her eyes met her father’s. There was love, but more than that, his gaze begged her to forgive him. There would be no help from him. His fire had gone out.
“That is enough!”
The voice thundered in the small space, and suddenly the pressure was gone from her chest—all of it. She could breathe. She looked up to find Witch standing across the platform, eyes shining out of her dark, wrinkled face. The kindly herbalist had settled in Brielle twenty years before, and though the townspeople of Meuse still kept her at a distance, Evelyn had always been fond of the woman and thought of her as a grandmother. She was an outsider of no blood relation, but she was the only one offering help. That realization crushed Evelyn even as hope surged inside of her.
“This is none of your concern,” Evelyn’s mother said.
“Of course it is,” Witch corrected, moving closer to Evelyn. She held two glass globes aloft, one in each hand. Several more clinked in a pouch at her waist. “And you are a damned fool, woman. This will do neither you nor her a wink of good.”
“All the stories say—”
“I don’t care what the stories say! You know as good as I, she ain’t one of them sort. She wasn’t made the way they were; she won’t be unmade that way neither. Now step away.”
Hanner and her mother moved away. Hanner’s body was tight, ready to pounce when an opening presented itself. Her mother’s skin was blotched red with fury.
Witch set one of the globes down at Evelyn’s feet and released the cuffs that held her to the chair.
“Come with me, child. Hurry, now.” She stooped, scooping the bauble up and handing it over. Evelyn held it carefully in her palm as she stumbled down from the frame. She fell to her knees, clinging to Witch’s arm as the older woman pulled her to her feet. Evelyn had no idea what was in the bauble, but Witch had a way with herbs and the like. It wasn’t anything like magic, at least based on the stories she’d heard, but it was the closest you could find in Meuse, and Evelyn didn’t want to find out what it was by dropping it.
“You know what’s good for you, you stay right as you are,” Witch said to Evelyn’s mother. “You’re a right good woman, Laera, but you’re wrong on this.”
“Please don’t do this.” Her mother’s tightly controlled facade broke then, and tears spilled down her face. “I want Evelyn back. I want my daughter.”
“I see your face at my cottage, I’ll kill it. You hear me? You or him, or any of ya!”
Evelyn stumbled as Witch pushed her across the platform. She moved as fast as she could, holding the little glass globe against her chest as she tripped and stumbled along the wooden walkway. She’d never realized just how much her parents’ love had propped her up. With it gone, she found she could hardly stand.
“Keep your distance,” Witch said, shoving Evelyn through the crowd, holding her glass bauble high above her head.
They moved through town. Those few people who hadn’t been there to watch the scene at the lockup stared as they walked by. Not one friendly smile, not a single offer of help. Her eyes found indifference at best. Outright hostility at worst. They hated her. Every last one of them.
They crossed the Honey Bridge, which really wasn’t a bridge at all, just an expanse of wood connecting Meuse’s raised walkways to the low hill Witch called home. It was the highest ground around—high enough that it only flooded in the worst of the wet seasons. Back before they’d figured out how to make fabric from the zildeschor tree, the main industry of Meuse had been honey, and Witch’s island was where they’d kept the hives. Bees loved zildeschor blossoms.
The island should have been thick with mud given it was early spring, but Evelyn felt dry earth beneath the soles of her boots. After they crossed over the bridge, Witch finally put the baubles away, tucking them back into the pouch at her waist.
“What was in there?” Evelyn asked. It was a stupid question. The most irrelevant question. But it was the only question her mind could form. It was the only answer she thought she could bear to hear. She sniffed, though her nose was not running. No tears, no snot, she thought, rubbing at her cheeks. No broken bones. No need to breathe. Those last two really got her. She’d felt her ribs pop and break beneath the force of Hanner’s relentless hands. She shouldn’t be able to breathe or move even now, yet she did both with ease.
“Basil.”
She stared at Witch, and Witch stared back. “You faced down my mother and Hanner with…with basil?”
Witch began laughing so hard she could hardly stay upright. She clung to Evelyn’s arm as the two of them tripped up the steps into the cottage.
“Knowledge is the greatest weapon there is, child,” Witch said between cackling laughs. Evelyn settled into a chair at the kitchen table. “People fear what they don’t understand. They think because I can mix some herbs, I have some great magics. I use their fear against them.”
Evelyn leaned forward, resting her forehead against the tabletop, staring at her feet below. The bottom of her boots were muddy, but at her ankles and knees they were as clean as they’d been after she’d washed them last night; something that was never possible during early summer in Meuse. But it wasn’t early summer. Not any more. It had seemed dry at the raft, too, she recalled.
How long without a breath?
“What month is it?” Evelyn kept her forehead pinned to the table as she listened to Witch bustle about the kitchen. A metallic creak meant Witch had removed the pot of hot water that was always hanging above the hearth fire. A soft rustle followed by the sweet scent of jasmine meant tea was brewing. Minutes later, there was a thunk as a mug was set on the table beside her head and a liquid swirling sound as hot tea was poured into a cup. Witch moaned softly as she settled into the chair beside Evelyn.
Evelyn raised her head and studi
ed the other woman. Witch looked the same as she always did. Her face a pinched raisin filled with the marks of life. She had long black hair just like Evelyn’s mother’s, but it was frizzy where her mother’s was smooth. Witch left it loose, though it was long enough to be impractical. Her fingers were twisted with age, though they still moved smoothly enough. Her shoulders hunched, though she seemed to walk just fine.
It had always been so peaceful in Witch’s cottage. Evelyn had loved it from the first time she’d set foot in it. It didn’t hurt that Witch was the only person in Meuse who could do anything even close to magic. None of the real stuff, of course. There was no magic here to do anything with, even if Witch could use it. But she could mix herbs together well enough to heal just about any complaint.
She could mix up other stuff as well. Once she’d near blown her own head off messing with some sort of black powder she’d concocted. She’d been nearly deaf for a week after that one.
The people of Meuse allowed her to stay, and they were more than happy to take her healing tinctures and herbals. But they’d never accepted her as one of their own. She was an outsider, and as such, had been forced to live outside of town and over the Honey Bridge. They’d branded her Witch, both for her skills with herbs and because she was a Bremen by birth, though she had renounced all connection with that place long before Evelyn had met her.
Meuse was a port, and like all port towns, all sorts of people passed through her streets. But the people who lived here were surprisingly insular despite this influx of people. The people of Brielle had square jaws, square shoulders, and a square view of the world. The way they saw it, if you didn’t end your day with your hands tired and filthy from honest work, there was something questionable about you. Magic was too easy, they claimed. But Evelyn had always secretly believed their aversion to magic was simply because Brielle didn’t have any, while everyone else did.
“It’s not spring, if that’s what you’re asking. The leaves have fallen from the trees already. We’re nigh on winter, child.”
