The Witch Hunter

by Virginia Boecker

  “Poisoned a lot of people before, have we?”

  “What? No. Well, sort of. But that’s not the point.”

  Fifer shakes her head. “They’ll be fine. A little groggy, maybe, but I know what I’m doing. And why do you care what happens to them, anyway? Or maybe you just care what happens to one person in particular.”

  I feel my cheeks burn. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Fifer smirks. “Right.”

  I turn away from her. “We should go. We don’t have all night to stand around talking.” I walk to the window, push it open. “Look, there’s a trellis here. We can climb down.”

  “Hold on,” Fifer says. “We can’t go dressed like this.”

  I glance at our clothes. More of the duchess’s dresses: mine pale pink and brocade, hers mustard yellow and velvet. “Why not?”

  “Because we look like someone’s moldy old grandmother.” She walks to her bed and starts sifting through a pile of clothes. “I thought about the party before we left, so I packed accordingly. I couldn’t decide what to wear, so I brought a few things. Here.” She pulls out a dress and hands it to me. “Put this on.”

  It’s long and formfitting, made from white silk and patterned with tiny black, blue, and orange flowers. The neck, shoulders, and waist are decorated with shimmering blue and black beads. I’ve never seen anything like it before.

  “It’s pretty,” I say.

  “Too pretty for you, that’s for certain.” She wrinkles her nose. “All right. Jewelry. Where’s the stuff you wore at dinner the other night?”

  “My room.”

  She dashes across the hall and comes back with the sapphire earrings and ring.

  “Put these on.” She stands back and studies me. “I love this dress,” she sighs, a dreamy look stealing across her face. Then she scowls. “If you get it dirty, I will kill you myself. Got it?”

  “I won’t.”

  Fifer nods and starts getting dressed. She pulls on a shirt—a tight, black, strapless thing, more like a corset than a shirt—a long black skirt, and a pair of tall black boots. She glances in the mirror, gives her reflection an approving nod, then marches to the open window and leans out.

  “What is taking so long?”

  “What?” I say, startled. “What is what taking so long?”

  “Keep your hair on,” comes a voice from outside. A boy’s voice. What is going on? I hear a rustling of leaves and the voice grows louder. “You expect me to just drop everything and run every time you call?”

  “Exactly so,” Fifer replies, stepping away from the window. In a flash, a boy swings himself up and over the windowsill, landing gracefully beside her.

  “Lovely to see you, too.” He grins and kisses her on the cheek.

  Okay, so Fifer didn’t have a boy hiding under her mattress. But she did have one hiding outside in the bushes, which is just as bad. For some reason, I’m filled with a sudden, immense dread.

  “Schuyler, there’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

  Fifer takes the boy by the arm and spins him around to face me. I suck in a breath. I should have known by his speed, by the way he leaped through a window two stories off the ground. But it’s his eyes that tip me off. The second they meet mine: feral, hard, and knowing—too knowing—I know who this boy is. Rather, what he is.

  He’s a revenant.

  And I’m in a lot of trouble.

  I LOOK AT HIM, TRYING to figure out what kind of revenant he is. Is he the seventh son of a seventh son, relatively harmless? Or was he brought back by witchcraft, dangerous only to whom his necromancer bids him to be? Or is he the cursed undead, buried in unconsecrated ground, and dangerous to everyone? I don’t know. It’s difficult to tell just by looking.

  The only thing I can tell by looking is that he’s possibly the most attractive boy—living or dead—I’ve ever seen. Bright blue eyes, wicked grin, shaggy blond hair that falls to his chin. He looks to be around eighteen, but he could just as easily be a hundred and eighteen. Revenants usually favor clothes from the time they were alive, but his are too plain to offer any clue: black trousers, black shirt, long black coat ending in a pair of heavily scuffed black boots.

  “This is Elizabeth,” Fifer says.

  “All right, love?” Schuyler extends his hand to me, but I don’t take it. Revenants can tell a lot about a person through touch alone. They’re like seers in that way, but worse. Because a single touch from a revenant grants them access to your thoughts and feelings—forever. And I know exactly what he’ll see the second he touches me.

  Fifer knows it, too. “Go on, Elizabeth. Shake his hand.” Her eyes are alight with anticipation.

  Damnation.

  I give him my hand.

  “Nice to meet you.” He curls his fingers around mine. I can feel his immense strength even in the tiny squeeze he gives me. “Any friend of Fifer’s—” He breaks off and narrows his eyes at me, his gaze flicking to my abdomen.

  He knows.

  I take an involuntary step backward. What is he going to do? Attack me? I have no way to defend myself against him. No knife and no sword, though neither of those things would make a dent in him anyway. Salt can kill off the freshly conjured undead, but the longer they’ve been around, the more indestructible they become. And judging by his strength, he’s been around a while. He could tear my throat out or rip me limb from limb before I could utter a scream.

  Instead of yanking my arm out of the socket, Schuyler leans closer, peering into my eyes. I watch as a variety of expressions cross his face. He frowns, raises his eyebrows, purses his lips, shakes his head. It’s like watching someone read a book. Right before they rip it to shreds.

  Finally, he releases me and turns to Fifer.

  “D’you want me to kill her?”

  “Unfortunately, no. I need her.”

  “Oh?” He gives her a delighted grin. “Do tell.”

  Fifer tells him everything: Nicholas’s curse, the prophecy. The tablet. Caleb chasing us to Veda’s, the guards chasing us to Humbert’s. The thing we’re hoping to find at the party.

  Schuyler is silent for a moment.

  “What’d you call me for, then, if you didn’t want me to kill her?”

  Fifer looks affronted. “What do you mean? We always go to this party together.”

  “Last I recall, you said you’d rather lick poison from a privy than go anywhere with me again.”

  “Last I recall, you said you’d changed,” Fifer fires back. “Or did you lie about that, too?”

  “You know you’re the only one for me, love.”

  Fifer rolls her eyes. “Fine. But there is just one thing. John didn’t want us going, so we’ll have to be back by dawn. Quite a bit before dawn, actually…”

  “Better hurry, then,” Schuyler says. He leaps onto the window frame, his movements so light and fast it’s as if he has wings. Then he’s over the edge, slipping like quicksilver into the darkness.

  I whirl around to face her. “A revenant?” I say. “What’d you call a revenant for?”

  “You heard me,” Fifer says. “We always go to this party together. Besides, I’m not going anywhere with you alone. I need him to protect me against you.”

  “Protect you against me?” I repeat. “That’s like asking a wolf to protect you against a mouse!”

  “You dare call yourself a mouse?”

  “Never mind that! My point is, he’s dangerous. He’s liable to rip my hand off just for putting it in my pocket.”

  “Better keep your hands where we can see them, then.”

  I let out a groan of frustration.

  “I’m not going to hang around all day,” Schuyler calls from outside. I can hear the amusement in his voice. He probably heard every word we said. Damn revenants. And damn Fifer for bringing one here.

  She grabs her bag off the floor and slings it across her shoulder. Then she turns to me, a malicious glint in her eye. “Just because I’m taking you to this party doesn’
t mean I’ve changed my opinion about you.”

  “Which is?”

  “That you’d be better off dead,” she says flatly. “Racked, hanged, burned at the stake. It’s what you deserve. I guarantee no one would miss you.”

  I flinch at the hate in her words, at the truth of them.

  “But until you find this tablet for Nicholas, you’re better off alive. And for the next few hours it’s up to me to keep you that way. So when we get to this party, stay close to me. Be pleasant to people, but don’t talk too much. Not about magic, or curses, or, for God’s sake, witch hunters. Don’t say anything about Nicholas, or about his being ill. Don’t mention Humbert. Or John, for that matter, or George.”

  “Maybe I just won’t talk at all,” I mutter.

  “And whatever you do, stay away from other revenants,” she continues. “I can protect you against Schuyler, but you saw how fast he had you figured out. If any of the others realize what you are, I don’t know what might happen.”

  I do. It happened to a witch hunter, once. He tried to take on three revenants alone and wound up torn limb from limb, eviscerated. There wasn’t even enough of him left to bury.

  “Scared?” Fifer smirks.

  “You wish. Now get out of my way.” I push past her to the window, climb up on the ledge—hard to do in this dress—and look down. Schuyler is standing below me, grinning.

  “Go on, then, little mouse. This wolf isn’t going to hurt you.”

  I scowl. Schuyler laughs. Then I jump.

  With a muffled thud, I land securely in Schuyler’s arms. He stares at me a moment before setting me down. “Not as heavy as you seem, are you?”

  I don’t know what he means by that, but there’s no time to figure it out. He sets me to my feet and catches Fifer, who leaps out the window without hesitation. Then the three of us take off across Humbert’s vast property in the direction of the nymph lights.

  We walk along for several miles, Fifer on one side of me and Schuyler on the other. I feel like a prisoner. A tortured prisoner at that, since I’m forced to listen to their inane flirting. For a boy who’s been around as long as Schuyler probably has, you’d think he’d have more interesting ways of talking to a girl.

  “Where’ve you been hiding, love?”

  “I haven’t been hiding.”

  “Then why haven’t I seen you?”

  “You know why.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  On and on they go. Eventually I start daydreaming of different ways I could kill him. I’m halfway through a plot that involves a tree branch, a knife, a length of rope, and a sock full of gravel when Schuyler turns to me.

  “So, Elizabeth”—the way he says my name sounds like “Elizabef”—“you’re a bit bijoux for a witch hunter, hmm?”

  I haven’t a clue what he means, but Fifer leans around me and slaps his arm.

  “Did you just call her cute?”

  He shrugs. “She is a bit twee. Doesn’t look as if she could harm anyone.”

  “She’s a violent, deranged, lunatic murderer!”

  Schuyler laughs. “So am I. But you still think I’m cute.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  I go back to plotting his death.

  Eventually the nymph lights grow closer and brighter. When a shower of them erupts in the sky directly above us, Schuyler lets out a little whoop and takes off running.

  When we catch up to him, he’s lounging against a tree, an enormous grin on his face.

  “I hope you’re ready, Elizabeth. ’Cause this here’s an eye-opener.” He takes me by the shoulders and pushes me forward. I suck in a breath. I can’t help it. I’ve seen a lot in my life. But never anything like this.

  Through the trees is a valley, like a bowl sunk into the middle of a forest. Inside is a dizzying array of people, creatures, magic. And somehow, it’s not dark here. It’s as bright as a summer day: blue skies, dotted with puffy white clouds and brightly colored birds.

  I don’t know where to look first. At the beautiful naked women lounging in the lake? The lush grass that grows around the water, dotted with brilliantly colored flowers I know only grow in spring? Or the trees that sprout lemons, limes, and figs, fruits I know don’t grow here at all?

  Music drifts through the air, so beautiful, like nothing I’ve ever heard before. And are those butterflies? I watch one flutter by, its blue wings unnaturally bright, even against the unnaturally bright blue sky. Fifer looks around, nodding approvingly.

  “How is this happening?” I ask.

  “Nymphs,” Schuyler says, still grinning. “I love when they’re in charge of decoration.”

  We make our way down the hill. The vast space below is crowded; there are witches and wizards everywhere. Where did they all come from? Shouldn’t they be in hiding somewhere? How are they not afraid? And with this much magic in one place, why haven’t I heard of this party before?

  “Doesn’t anyone worry about getting caught?” I wonder aloud.

  Schuyler shrugs. “Who in their right mind would try to take on this crowd?” He looks relaxed, bouncing on his toes and looking around. But Fifer seems wary, looking from me to Schuyler to the crowd then back to me again, as if she’s afraid I’m going to charge in and start attacking.

  “Settle down, love.” Schuyler turns to her. “She’s not getting stabby, so stop worrying.”

  “She’d better not. But if she does”—she glances at me, a nasty gleam in her eye—“you have my permission to rip her to shreds.”

  Schuyler winks at me and blows a kiss.

  Finally, Fifer spots a group of people she knows. They see her and wave.

  “Fifer, where have you been hiding?” says one boy as we approach. He’s got dark hair and a nose that looks as if it’s been broken several times. “We were worried something happened to you.”

  Fifer laughs. “I’m fine, fine. Just keeping my head down.”

  “Studying, I imagine,” says another girl, short and blond.

  “How is it coming along? He as tough as he seems?” asks a plump, brown-haired girl. She looks at Fifer with admiration.

  “Is he well?” asks another boy. “We heard rumors he was sick—”

  Fifer grabs my arm and pulls me next to her. “I haven’t introduced my… friend.” She nearly chokes on the word. “This is Elizabeth.” She proceeds to tell them a story that paints me out to be some kind of nitwit: too dumb to know I was a witch until recently, too foolish to hide it once I did. The only truth she does tell them is that I came from Upminster, where apparently I spent my time wandering the streets like an idiot magical vagrant until Nicholas came along and rescued me.

  They look at me with sympathy.

  “We’re so glad he found you,” says the blond girl, Lark. “Imagine if you’d been caught! I hear the burnings are getting worse—”

  “And all those rebellions,” adds Bram, the boy with the crooked nose. “Just adding fuel to the fire, so to speak.”

  Another girl, who has been glaring at Fifer ever since we walked up, breaks in.

  “Where’s John?” she demands.

  “Hello to you, too, Chime.” Fifer gives her a cool look. “He couldn’t make it this year. He’s attending to some patients.”

  A shadow crosses the girl’s face, then she smiles. “That sounds just like him. So responsible! Well, that’s too bad. We had such a wonderful time together last year.”

  I look at her. She’s tall and pretty, with long, straight black hair and big blue eyes. Tall enough that she wouldn’t have to stand on her toes if she wanted to kiss him. I push the thought away immediately.

  “I’ve got a letter for him,” Chime continues. “Would you mind passing it on?” She pulls out a carefully folded piece of paper and hands it to Fifer. It’s got a bright red wax seal on it in the shape of a heart. Ugh.

  “A lett
er?” Fifer holds it gingerly between her thumb and index finger, as if it were a dead rat.

  “Yes. We’ve been writing each other since last year! Didn’t he tell you?”

  Fifer raises her eyebrows.

  “No? Well, John never was one to kiss and tell. As I say, very responsible!”

  I’ve got half a mind to grab a fistful of that black hair, drag her into the woods, and cram that letter down her throat, but then Fifer speaks.

  “Oh, Chime. I can’t believe John didn’t tell you. Well, so much has been going on, all the preparations. It’s been so whirlwind… but then, that’s what makes it so romantic!” She looks at me, a gleam in her eyes. “Go on, tell her the news!”

  I look at her blankly. Surely she doesn’t want me to talk? Especially when I have no idea what she’s talking about?

  “Oh, Elizabeth,” Fifer says. “You know I’m talking about you and John getting married!”

  My mouth drops open. It feels as if a thousand of those bright blue butterflies have flown down my throat and into my stomach, beating their wings inside. Lark and Reverie shriek with glee and start hugging me.

  Chime looks at me with undisguised hatred. “I don’t believe it.”

  “No? Elizabeth, show her the ring!” Fifer grabs my hand and shoves it in her face.

  Chime reaches over and snatches that hateful note out of Fifer’s hand and stomps off. Lark and Reverie besiege us with questions.

  “When is the wedding?”

  “We’ll be invited, won’t we?”

  “I can’t give away all the secrets!” Fifer laughs. “I promise, you’ll all know soon enough. Now, if you’ll excuse us, I want to introduce Elizabeth to some more people!”

  Fifer loops her arm through mine and leads me away.

  “Ugh, I hate that girl,” she barks once we’re out of earshot. “I saw her and John together last year, but I didn’t know they’d been writing. And all year, too.” Fifer shudders, then bursts out laughing. “I can’t believe I told her John was getting married. It was the ring that gave me the idea. He’s going to kill me when he finds out! Serves him right, though, for not telling me about her.”