by Deva Fagan
I looked toward the cluster of villagers over on the porch of the saloon. Mistress Porter stared at me, her arms crossed, looking as if she could set me on fire with the fury of her gaze.
“I’ll try,” I said.
Barnaby strode away to meet with a second group of villagers over by the gate, who were laden with shovels, tarps, and armfuls of sharpened sticks.
Squaring my shoulders, I turned and advanced upon Mistress Porter and her crew. They’d gotten a long table set up already, holding everything I’d told them to gather: sticks, glue, paint, salt, and various other supplies. Six of them sat on benches around the table. Halbert perched on the step below, a bound book of parchment and a stick of charcoal in his lap. I frowned. The boy looked oddly washed out, despite his warm red-brown skin and dark thatch of hair. I had the impression that a stiff wind might blow him away, like a mist off the mire. I was glad to see Cricket at his side, bolstering him up with her sturdy brown-and-black shoulder. He smiled as I passed by.
The half-dozen faces that greeted me on the porch were decidedly less friendly. No one moved to make me a place to sit down, so I stood at one end. I dumped the handful of loon feathers I’d gathered that morning onto the table. I hadn’t been able to scrounge up much: the feathers, a bundle of waygrass that had already been used for the seeming spells, a tiny smidgen of pyre root, some spiderwebs, and a single crow feather. On the other hand, the border between Uplands and Bottomlands was already blurring. Magic was all around, glinting in the air, settling over the shabby gray buildings and weathered boardwalks of Nagog. I’d even found, in the middle of the muddy street, a fishhook that had already picked up enough magic to be of use. But as much magic as there was, I was still just one bog-witch. I needed to arm the villagers with whatever defenses I could.
“We’ll start with the featherweight charms,” I said briskly. “First, take one of the sticks and a feather…” I scooped up one of each and waited for them to follow. Two of the women whispered behind their hands. Another tightened her grip on the baby slung across her breast. The old man took a slow pull on his pipe, while the younger fellow beside him kept looking toward the gate and mopping his sweaty brow. Mistress Porter only stared.
“Are you just going to sit there?” I said. “Do you want the frights to come in and murder you all, or worse?”
The woman with the baby shuddered. The sweaty man gulped. Mistress Porter stared.
“Well?” I rattled the rod and the feather. “And stop that whispering before I curse you with serpent tongues,” I snapped at the two women. They cowed, clutching each other under my glare.
Mistress Porter stiffened. “Have some backbone, Annabella! And you, Carolina, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. You drove off an alligator last month. Don’t snivel and shiver. It’s what she wants.” She sneered at me.
“What I want is to get these charms done so we don’t all die strangled by disembodied hands or lured away by will-o’-the-wisps,” I said.
“Is that what’ll happen?” said the woman with the baby, in a voice that sounded as if it had been blown back and forth across the moor.
“Nah,” said the smoking man. “The ghouls’ll get us first. Tear our flesh to bits and drink our blood.”
“No one is getting their blood drunk,” I shouted over the wails that followed the man’s lurid warning. “Look here, I’m not going to say it’ll be easy. It’ll be a lot more work than sitting here and letting some ward you didn’t even create keep all the nasties away. But you’ve still got a wall, and we’ve got time to do what it will take to fight back.”
I turned to Mistress Porter. “I don’t want you to snivel and shiver. I want you to get to work. Because I don’t want to get torn to bits by a ghoul any more than you do.”
Annabella and Carolina picked up rods and feathers. A moment later, so did the sweating man. Then the rest of them. Finally, Mistress Porter seized a rod, her hands grasping it so tightly I was sure she was imagining it to be my own neck. Fine. I didn’t need her to like me. I just needed her to believe me.
It wasn’t long before a row of fluffy wands lay proudly atop the table. I set the villagers to work on some simple talismans, painting sigils onto strips of cloth. I would need to add the featherweight charms to the wands myself.
I sat myself down on the step near Halbert. The boy had his book open now. Slowly, he moved the charcoal across the surface. He’d gotten the sigil almost right, though the lines were a bit shaky and the cross-marks were haphazard. It was enough to make me draw a breath of surprise. “That’s amazing,” I said, “I mean, considering…”
“Considering I’m blind?” Halbert smiled wryly. He ran one hand over the book. “Did I really get it right? Or are you just saying that to make me feel better?”
“You obviously don’t know me very well if you think I’d say something just to make a person feel better. Honestly, it’s good. All you missed was the little curl on the warding eye on the left.”
Halbert frowned in concentration, making the correction. I took note of the dozens of pages of his book that were flipped back. “Do you still do a lot of drawing?”
He shrugged. “It’s the only thing I ever wanted to do, really. Better to do it poorly than not at all. I thought maybe, if I tried hard, it would start to get easier. But it’s not. Lately, especially.” He rested a thin hand on the parchment. Cricket gave a faint whine, leaning in to lick the boy’s face. Halbert smiled, rumpling her long ears in return.
I stiffened, then squinted at Halbert. With the magic of the Thousandfold Night wafting about, it was hard to discern at first. A slight glimmering gust came with each of the boy’s breaths. Just as I’d seen when I looked at Mary Morland. No!
Something dark and fearful clutched at my insides. Was that Halbert’s fate as well? To fade slowly until he lay still and chill and hopeless? I would not let that happen. Halbert had helped me when no one else would, despite what had happened to him. If there was something I could do to make this right, I must do it. But for that, I needed to know the truth.
“Do you…did you…” I took a breath and forced the question out. “I don’t suppose you still have that picture of the witch who cursed you? Or did she take it?”
“She took one of them,” he said. “But my father says you should draw something three times to understand it. Here’s one of the others.” He flipped to the very front of the book.
I leaned away. My heartbeat pounded in my ears. I didn’t want to look. But at least I had the option of choosing what I saw. Halbert had lost that. I took a deep breath and turned to peer at the image.
It wasn’t Grandmother. It wasn’t Aunt Flywell, either, or any of my other relations. I frowned at the figure crouched in a coracle, reaching out to pluck a water lily. She had a prodigious nose and masses of pale hair. “It’s brilliant work,” I said. “The eyes, especially.” They stared up out of the paper, boring into my heart and withering all my courage away.
I squinted. “What’s that around her neck? It looks like a bird.”
“A peacock, I think. I could only see the necklace when it caught in the sunlight.”
“Hmm.” I sat back. “She’s not a Bogthistle. Unless she’s under some sort of seeming spell, but if so, why look like a different bog-witch? I wonder…would you let me have it?”
Halbert shrugged. “I can’t see it anyway.” He carefully tore the page from his book and held it out.
“Thank you.” I furled it up and tucked it into the pocket of my coat.
Halbert let the pages riffle back, returning to the page with the sigil. “So,” he said, tapping the mark, “will this be any use? I want to help.”
“Make as many as you can. We need them.”
And ten times more, I added silently. Featherweight charms and shielding sigils were all well and good; they’d keep off the disembodied hands at least. But what about the ghouls? The wights? Esmeralda preserve us if we encountered a spectral stallion. All I could do was to keep working. Soo
n enough, night would be upon us, and it would be time to fight.
By the time the sun had sunk to touch the western horizon, we had a goodly arsenal of charms, talismans, and shielding. Barnaby found me in the village square, handing out the feathery wands and dividing up the talismans. “Is that all of them?”
I nodded, handing Halbert his papers with their sigils, now charmed with shieldings. He tucked all but one into his pockets. The last he affixed to Cricket’s collar.
Barnaby handed me a mug of hot-leaf. It was tepid at best, but I drank it down gratefully.
“So,” I asked, around a mouthful of the corncakes he’d offered with the tea, “do you think we’re ready?”
“We dug a dozen good pits and set them up with those bloody rags of yours. With any luck, that’ll keep the ghouls busy. If we can just keep everything else on the other side of the walls, we should make it through.”
I could hear the doubt in his voice. He tried to cover it with one of his rakish grins. “How can we fail? The greatest thief in the lands, and the mightiest bog-witch of them all.”
“Hardly. Me, I mean. But I did…” I searched through the remaining charms and talismans I’d kept for myself. “Here.”
Barnaby stared at the medallion I held out.
“I know it’s not much to look at. Just be glad I didn’t still have the chicken foot. And it won’t do much against anything that’s actually alive,” I warned as he settled the cord around his neck. “But it should stop the spirits from ripping your soul to shreds.”
“Well, that’s something.” He looked down at the medallion for a moment, then back at me. “Don’t you have one for yourself?”
I shrugged. “Only one crow feather. No—you keep it.” I held up my hands, forcing lightness and confidence into my voice. “I’m used to dealing with the dark and horrible, remember? It’ll do more good for a dandy from the city. You’ve probably never even seen a bog-wight.”
We both jumped as a call rose from the lookouts on the southern wall. It was time.
“I’d better get up there before they start tossing our precious talismans at shadows and fog.”
Barnaby nodded. He would remain on the ground, along with the crowd of well-armed villagers prepared to deal with any material threat that made its way over, or under, the walls.
“Prunella,” he called, stopping me partway across the square. “Just…keep safe. If anything happened to you…”
“I’ll be fine,” I said, holding up my armful of charms. “Bog-witch, remember?” I took a deep breath to drive the tremor from my voice. “Thank you, Barnaby. And don’t get yourself killed, either. You’ll give me a bad reputation.”
Another shout rang out, followed by a sound no living lips had made. The moaning wail turned my blood to ice and nearly froze my feet in place. Then there was no more time. I ran, air burning in my chest, legs on fire, racing to reach the walls.
I clambered onto the scaffolding between Carolina and the pipe-smoking man. The old man shook his feathered wand challengingly and glowered down beyond the wall. As I reached the top, something pale and spiderlike scrabbled up over the hedge of spikes. It tensed, prepared to leap straight at me.
A fluffy wand struck it right in the palm as it leapt, sending the disembodied hand careening away into the night sky. The old man whooped.
“Good work, Elb,” cried Carolina. “You show them we’re not going easy!”
“So. They really work,” said Mistress Porter, from farther along the wall.
I sniffed. She needn’t look as if she wished they hadn’t. But this was no time for pique. The mist reached out, swarming up from the swamp, stretching to encircle the village with clammy tendrils. More spidery white hands were skittering up the walls. The few that got past the line of wands were dealt with easily by Barnaby and the others below. One did get a grip on the mayor’s neck, but Barnaby pried it loose before it could do any serious damage.
“We’re doing pretty well!” crowed Elb, puffing out a ring of smoke and punching his wand at the sky.
I only hoped we could keep it up. Between roils of mist, I caught glimpses of lumbering forms with softly gleaming eyes. Wails and moans echoed from the darkness in all directions now. It sounded horribly as if the ghouls were inside the walls with us. Then I grinned, hearing a different sound. A bellow of pain and anger. One of the traps had worked. We might just have a chance.
My hope winked out as a scream plunged deep into my mind, driving away all thought, all faith, all life. I clenched my chattering teeth to keep from biting my own tongue. I was dimly aware of Carolina and Elb bowed down along the wall, panting and moaning. Elb’s pipe fell from his lips, casting a shower of embers across the dirt below.
I clawed my way up to peer out over the swamp. Something great and terrible moved there, slipping forward from the mist, closer and closer.
It looked like a horse, but pale, as if lit from within. White bones gleamed beneath the luminous green phantom-flesh. The creature tossed a mane of smoke and ash. Its slitted eyes glinted green in the sockets of its skull.
“Spectral stallion,” I said, gripping two spikes in my fists, reminding myself that the world was solid and real. I pulled Elb upright. “Come on, we’ve got to get ready!”
The creature pawed the ground. Verdant flames shot up from each hoof strike.
“Up! Up!” I shouted. “The talismans! Use the talismans!”
Then it was thundering forward, and I didn’t care about the ghouls in the darkness or the spidery hands lurking in shadows. All I could see were those terrible eyes racing toward me. I clutched for one of my own charms. “Now!” I shouted.
A hail of ragged talismans fell across the path of the phantom horse. It reared, snorting. Blasts of green fire shot into the sky. Then it turned aside, disappearing into the mists. I let myself fall against the wall for a moment. That was close. And it wasn’t over.
Screams and yelps pulled me out of my momentary stupor. Something was happening farther down the wall. A lithe figure hissed at Mistress Porter from its perch among the hedge of spikes. She jabbed at it with her wand. It moved as quick as a cat, crouching down, slinking along the wall, away from her. The wight blinked its pale eyes, focusing on old Elb, pulling back thin lips to reveal a ridge of sharp teeth. It tensed. Elb swung his wand around as it leapt.
The creature twisted away, falling past the old man. I didn’t have time to see where it went, because suddenly Elb was floating several feet above the walls.
“Help!” he called, reaching for Carolina’s outstretched hand. His fingers clawed the air, inches away from hers.
Curse it! In a moment he’d drift out over the swamp. I dived for his fallen wand, caught in the spikes along the wall. I brought it down over my knee, snapping it. At once, the man flopped down into Carolina’s arms.
Several white spidery things fell as well, slamming into the ground. Barnaby and the others made short work of the hands, which stumbled around drunkenly.
Then it happened. A thunderous crash split the night. The world listed to one side. I scrabbled to grab something, anything, to stay upright. Every other noise was lost in the terrible tumult of the collapsing wall.
I fell. Darkness rushed at me. I slammed into the ground, and pain shot through my arm, my side. I forced myself up, pushing aside a litter of wood and bits of scaffolding. I turned back toward the wall.
Advancing through the great gaping hole came the spectral stallion. Green embers fell from its flaring nostrils as it raised its head. It opened that long snout, licking the air with a serpentine tongue of flame as it paced slowly into the village. The fall of each hoof tolled like a death bell. Moans of terror rose from the scattered clumps of villagers. We were lost.
“Hey, you! Horseface!”
“Barnaby,” I croaked. He swaggered forward all alone to face down the creature.
“Why don’t you try to feast on my soul?” He danced to one side as the horse snorted a gust of flames at him. “It’s a
tasty one, if I do say so myself.”
The stallion turned its massive head, leveling its eyes at Barnaby.
“Barnaby!” I struggled to get up.
He flashed me a grin, then turned back to the horse. “Come on, you old nag. Are you scared?”
The spectral stallion screamed. I bowed under the fury of it, struggling to keep my eyes on Barnaby. As the creature hurled itself forward, Barnaby dashed away. The next moment, they were both gone, out into the swamp. Another horrible cry sliced across me.
I ran toward the gap. Mistress Porter met me there, a talisman in each hand and a look of fury on her face. But for the first time, it wasn’t directed at me.
“That boy’s going to get himself killed,” she said. “What does he think he’s doing?”
“Saving the rest of us,” I said. “Or being stupid. But probably the first.” I started out into the swamp. Mistress Porter followed.
“Aunt Helen!” called Halbert, somewhere behind us.
“You stay back,” she said. “Keep Cricket close and stay safe. The bog-witch and I have to…What’s that?”
I followed the line of her finger to a distant flicker of light. Instantly I shut my eyes. “Don’t look at it!”
“Look at how it sways, like a dancer. A lovely golden dancer…”
“It’s not lovely! It’s a will-o’-the-wisp, and it’s trying to get you out into the swamp, where it can feast on your spirit!” Keeping my eyes tightly shut, I reached for her. I could hear her steps ahead of me. Curse it, the thing had gotten her!
I felt my way forward. Mistress Porter was moving more quickly now. Noises spun around me. The night was a chaos of screams and shouts and moans. The cry of the spectral stallion echoed across the swamp. Where was Barnaby?
I forced myself to concentrate on what was in front of me, whether I could see it or not.
“Prunella?”
“H-Halbert?” I stammered as a hand caught mine.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got you. Go on, Cricket, find Aunt Helen.”
I followed as the boy pulled me forward. A few moments later, I collided with Mistress Porter.
