The Reign of the Departed

by Greg Keyes

  “Miss,” one of them said, talking to Dusk. He was a muscular fellow with short brown hair.

  “Miss, I advise you to put off that gizzard-sticker. And you,” he went on, nodded at Errol, “whatever you are, just walk on back.”

  Errol realized he’d balled his fists and set himself as if for a fight. He glanced over at Dusk, who, after a moment’s hesitation, returned her spear to its place beside her saddle. Errol unclenched and tried to look harmless.

  “What do you reckon he is, Jobe?” another of the boys asked.

  “Deviltry,” another of them shot in. “I say we pitch ’im up and set ‘im afire.”

  There was a little murmur of agreement at that.

  “Why don’t you come over here and talk like that?” Errol said. “Without all your buddies in front of you.”

  “Easy, Errol,” Aster said.

  The boy who had suggested burning him was now blushing.

  “Ain’t no sense in going to fists with deviltry,” he muttered.

  “You ain’t much for going to fists with nobody, Jake,” Jobe chided him. “Hush up and let me deal with this.”

  He looked back at them, and then walked toward Dusk.

  “What’s this?” Jobe asked, pointing at the star on her forehead. “That looks pretty high-and-far-off.”

  “My homeland is distant from here,” she said. “Very distant.”

  “Uh-huh,” he said, sizing her up. Then he turned his attention to Errol.

  “What are you, then?”

  “He’s enchanted,” Aster broke in. “He’s just a normal person, but a witch made him like that.”

  “I know he can talk,” the boy said. “Let him tell me himself.”

  “Yeah,” Errol said. “Like she said.”

  Jobe frowned and then shrugged. “Your tracks come out from the edge, off toward the Ghost Country. Are you ghosts?”

  Errol realized that at least two of them were, sort of.

  “We’re just travelers, passing through,” Dusk said. “We were in the Marches for a short time, that’s all. We intend no harm to you or yours.”

  “No, of course you don’t,” Jobe said. “Nobody ever does. And yet harm seems to happen, just the same.”

  “We’re just leaving,” Errol said.

  “No,” Jobe said. “You ain’t. At least not right away. We’ve got questions for you, and it’s best we not ask them here, not with night coming. You can walk or we can carry you. And by carry, I don’t mean gentle.”

  “She’s hurt,” Errol said, pointing at Aster. “Any one of you tries to drag her or whatever, and we’ll see how many of you I can take.”

  “Well, I reckon you’ll walk, then,” Jobe said. “And lucky for you, we’ve got some as can doctor.”

  “As long as the doctor’s name isn’t Shecky,” Errol muttered.

  “Shecky?” Jobe said, and the others murmured. “So it was you who cut him.”

  “He was trying to eat Aster,” Errol snapped.

  A ripple of laughter passed through the boys.

  “I reckon he might have been,” Jobe said. “Now let’s go on—we don’t want to be out after sundown.”

  Only a few turns of the trail brought them to a rambling wooden building that looked as if it had been added onto a lot. It had a big covered porch that went most of the way around it. It had also seen better days; even in the fading light there was a sort of run-down look to it.

  Chickens pecked at the bare dirt yard, and a couple of harmless-looking old hounds were stretched out near the porch.

  They were led up the rickety steps and through the front door. Aster examined the details of the house, remembering Shecky’s illusion, and said a True Whimsy under her breath, but nothing changed in appearance. Weakness came and went over her like waves, but each time the troughs seemed deeper. She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them again, she realized that she had lost time. She was in a largish room, golden with candlelight. She was lying on a small bed.

  Besides her companions and the boys who had coerced them into coming here, she saw about fourteen more people. Most were girls; the oldest looked about sixteen, and she was pregnant. The youngest was probably around seven.

  Something is wrong, she thought. No adults.

  What were they talking about? She tried to focus. Then it all seemed to be over, and a couple of the girls came over to her while everyone else left. One had thick, frizzy hair caught up in a bun and eyes that tended to cross a little. The other was the pregnant girl, whose eyes were a startling green color.

  They gave her something hot and bitter to drink, then they undressed her and cleaned around the wound, which she felt pulsing like a living thing. She bit back a scream when they touched it.

  “It’s alright,” the green-eyed girl murmured. “Just you rest.”

  After a while she did sleep, but it wasn’t restful. She dreamt of a forest of giant spiders, a city made of glass, stone-lined canals, a tall ship in a storm. And she knew it was all real, all things she had really seen, and always he was with her. Her father, carrying her in his arms as Errol had, and she was hurt, worse than this. Her father speaking words that no man should know, parting darkness and flame or casting it forth as suited his purpose. And he told his purpose often, so often it had become a part of Aster’s flesh and bones.

  “I will keep you safe, Streya. I will find a place where they cannot touch us.”

  It all unrolled behind her closed lids in colors more vivid than reality, memories from before she could talk, spoken in the language of dreams.

  When she woke, she was talking.

  “Daddy, daddy . . .” She was whispering, again and again.

  A rooster was crowing, someplace. She opened her eyes, half-expecting that she would be in her own house, that everything had been a dream—but she was in the same room as the night before. The candles were out, and daylight filtered in through a little window.

  She touched her chest. Some sort of bandage was wrapped all the way around her torso, and they had replaced her shirt over it. The pulsing ache of the night before was gone, although it still hurt. But her head felt clear. She tried to sit up, and found she was able to without feeling dizzy.

  “Well,” she murmured. “At least I woke up. That’s a good sign.”

  She heard some girls chattering somewhere and followed the sound. The house seemed empty.

  Four girls, all on the younger side, sat in cane-bottom chairs on the porch. They were shelling butter beans, and they stopped their talk when Aster appeared.

  “You sure you ought to be walking?” one of the girls asked. “Mattie said to keep you in bed all day.”

  “I’m feeling fine,” Aster said. “Where are my friends?”

  “Are you hungry?” another of the girls spoke up. This one was missing two teeth, but she looked about seven, so that made sense.

  “No, thank you,” she said. “I just want to see my friends.”

  “You’ll see them when they get back,” someone else said. She turned, and realized a boy was on the other end of the porch. He looked about thirteen and he was cradling a shotgun under one arm.

  “Get back? Back from where?” she asked. “Where is everyone?”

  “Most are in the fields or hunting,” one of the girls said. “They left us back to look after you.”

  “Are my friends in the fields?” Aster asked, trying to keep her temper—and her fear—in check.

  “Heck, no,” the boy said. “I thought you knew. You was there last night when the deal was struck.”

  “I had a fever,” Aster said. “I don’t remember much of what was said.”

  “Well, we made us a bargain, us and your friends.”

  “What sort of bargain?”

  “Jake, I don’t think you’re supposed to be talking about this,” one of the girls said.

  “Aw, hush, Nellie. You’re just a girl. You don’t know nothing.”

  “I know Jobe can wear you out when he gets h
ome,” she shot back.

  That seemed to give Jake a little pause.

  “I think Jake knows what he’s doing,” Aster said. “He’s practically a man. After all, they left him with a gun, didn’t they?”

  “That’s right,” Jake said, and stuck his tongue out at Nellie.

  “You were talking about a deal,” Aster prodded.

  “Yeah,” Jake said. “We nurse you, take good care of you. Their end of the bargain is they kill the Snatchwitch.”

  “Snatchwitch,” Aster repeated.

  “On account of she snatches us,” Jake said.

  “Kushikanchak, they used to call her,” Nellie said. “Back when.”

  “You ain’t old enough to remember that, Nellie,” Jake said.

  “How come I know it, then?” She said.

  “Probably made it up.”

  Nellie looked defiant. “You ask Jobe, or any of the olders,” she said.

  Jobe? An “older”? Aster remembered that she hadn’t yet seen any adults.

  “Don’t you have any parents?” she asked. “Where are the grownups?”

  “Sure we have parents,” Jake said. “Of course we do. That’s half the trouble, ain’t it?”

  “Jake,” the other girl said. “Best you hush up, now, and remember what Jobe told you.”

  Jake’s brow lowered almost comically. “Well, I ain’t told her nothing, and you’re a liar if you say I did,” he said.

  “How long have they been gone? My friends?” Aster asked.

  “Left a little before daybreak,” Jake said.

  “Can you show me the way?”

  “Oh, no Ma’am. You’re to stay here.”

  “What if I don’t?”

  He hefted the gun. “Jobe said I couldn’t kill you, but I can sure shoot your foot off.”

  FIVE

  THE SNATCHWITCH

  That’s her place down there,” Jobe whispered.

  “Down there” was a muddy red-clay clearing in front of a gaping hole in the side of a hill. The wind was blowing from that way, and it brought with it the sweet scent of putrefaction. In the crooks of tree branches around the clearing, human skulls gazed about with empty eyes. Near the cave mouth stood a log about a yard in diameter and six feet high. It was hollow, or partly so; he could see a hole going down through the top.

  “Not exactly a gingerbread house,” Veronica said.

  “Reminds me more of where I found you,” Errol said. “Dusk, you know anything about this?”

  She shrugged. “I have some experience with witches and ogres and such, but I know little of this demesne.”

  “Have you tried shooting her?” he asked Jobe.

  “She snatches us up and eats us,” Jobe said. “What do you think? Bullets don’t hurt her.” He eased back. “Anyway, there she is. Good luck, and maybe we’ll see you back at the house.”

  “You’re not staying to help?”

  “I think you’re missing the point of our deal,” Jobe said. And like that, he slipped off.

  “We’re missing something, all right,” Errol muttered. “I just don’t know what.”

  There was a stir down at the cave, and presently she emerged.

  She was tall, very tall, and spindly as a spider except for her head, which seemed about twice the size it ought to be. She seemed to be grinning, a grin which literally stretched from ear-to-ear. Her tattered dress was made of skins—what sort didn’t bear thinking on—and her long grey hair was caught up in a ponytail.

  She went up to the log, bent her elbow, and stuck it into the hole.

  Thump! The sound echoed off into the forest.

  She lifted her elbow out and brought it back down again.

  Thump!

  “What do you suppose she’s doing?” Veronica asked.

  “Damned if I know,” Errol replied.

  “She’s pounding something,” Dusk said. “As with a mortar and pestle. Her elbow is the pestle.”

  “Pounding what?” Errol asked.

  “Bones,” whispered Veronica. “It smells like bones.”

  “That’s sick,” Errol said.

  Veronica shrugged and smiled.

  “The question is, how do we kill her?”

  “The question is,” Veronica said, “why should we kill her? She’s done nothing to us.”

  “She eats children,” Errol said. “Look at the skulls.”

  “She hasn’t tried to eat us,” Veronica said, “and probably won’t if we leave her alone.”

  “Jobe and his bunch have Aster,” Errol said. “If we don’t do it—”

  “Well, you know where I stand on that subject,” Veronica said. “But if you insist she’s worth killing for, why don’t we kill Jobe and the rest?”

  “That was well put,” Dusk said. “I mislike being used as an assassin.” She looked down at the clearing. “Still, she is a wicked creature, by the looks of things.”

  “Jobe and his boys have guns,” Errol said. “And there are too many of them.”

  While they were talking, the Snatchwitch stopped her pounding long enough to pick up some bones from the carcasses in the yard and toss them in the log-mortar.

  She was set to pound again, when a sudden yell came from inside the cave. It sounded like a girl, hollering for help. The witch turned and went back through the dark opening.

  “Okay, that does it,” Errol said.

  “Agreed,” Dusk said. “The question is one of strategy. Drake and I can come around from over there, where the slope is most shallow. If you can bring her into the open, Errol, I can try my spear on her. It has never failed me.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Errol said. “Veronica—”

  But Veronica was gone.

  The smell of death was strong in the clearing, and Errol had a sudden, vivid memory of his father, that last day. His dad had been a big, strong man. He would whirl Errol around by the arms like he didn’t weigh anything. He could kick a football as high as the moon. But in the end, his muscle had all been eaten away, and he looked so thin and fragile Errol could hardly believe it was really him. He had watched him waste away, had seen him the day before, but there was something extra missing that last day. Only in his eyes could Errol still see his father.

  The memory didn’t make him sad. It made him angry, so angry that when he shouted and the monster came back out of her cave, he wasn’t scared of her. He thought of Aster, as he had last seen her, stretched out on a strange bed, eyes closed, breathing so shallowly it was hardly noticeable.

  “Well,” the witch murmured, almost as if to herself, “not much to like about you, is there? No bone, no liver, no lights. You might be fun to take apart, though.”

  “You’ve got somebody in your cave,” Errol said. “I can hear her.”

  She stepped forward. The way her limbs moved seemed all wrong.

  “They sent you, didn’t they?” she said. “The little rascals.”

  At that moment, Dusk and her mount broke into the clearing. He could see the fierce, determined grin on her face behind the shining spear point, and he felt a sudden savage lift.

  What a woman! He thought.

  And then the Snatchwitch snatched him.

  He hadn’t imagined how fast she was, or how strong. Claws gripped into his wooden body; she yanked him off of his feet and held him up as a shield. For a moment he thought Dusk would hold her course, but at the last instant she broke to the right. The witch hurled Errol and he crashed into Dusk and her horse with enough force to knock them over. He rolled and came back to his feet, seemingly intact, and just in time to see Dusk hurling her spear at the witch.

  The Snatchwitch opened her mouth, and kept opening it. It was like her lower jaw was a zipper, unzipping her whole long body into one huge maw. The spear went in—and vanished.

  Then she closed her mouth.

  Dusk drew her sword and leapt forward. The lean, bright blade sliced right through the witch’s neck, and her head toppled from her shoulders and rolled along the ground. He
r body swayed, still upright. She didn’t bleed.

  “Wow,” Errol said. “Beautiful.” He didn’t just mean the wicked attack, but also the fierce expression on Dusk’s face. She regarded her weapon, saw it was clean, and sheathed it.

  “Jump back up,” said the Witch’s head.

  And that’s what it did. It sort of did a little bounce and then flew back up onto her neck. Dusk yanked her sword out again, but the witch slapped the blade from her hand and then grabbed her.

  Errol howled and leapt forward, punching the Snatchwitch’s belly. His fist did more than connect; it actually went through her skin, which felt sort of like rubber. When he tried to yank it out again, it wouldn’t come. He kicked at her with his leg, and that stuck, too.

  Dusk was as caught as he was. Drake had regained his feet and was stalking toward the monster.

  “No, Drake!” Dusk shouted. “You bide in the woods. Don’t let her get you, too.”

  The horse paused, and then—with seeming reluctance—turned and galloped back up into the trees.

  With a sigh, the witch started back toward her cave, effortlessly dragging them along. Near the opening, however, she paused, took a grip on Errol, and yanked him out of her. She held him suspended for a moment, at face level, but too far away for him to hit her in the eye.

  Then she set him down on his feet and continued on, Dusk still attached to her and writhing furiously.

  He fought back the urge to hit the witch again, knowing he would just stick, and instead looked around for Dusk’s sword. He saw it a few yards away and started to get it.

  Or at least he intended to start. His feet wouldn’t move, and he had a funny, tickling sensation all over his body.

  Leaves and tendrils began sprouting from every inch of him, with the speed of a time-lapse movie. He felt his toes digging through earth, deeper, deeper, yearning toward the center of the planet.

  Aster clenched and unclenched her hands, thinking about all of the things she might do to Jake. Several choice possibilities rose to the top of her mind, but the problem was that none of them would likely get him to tell her where Errol and the rest were, and if she made a mistake it might get her shot. So instead she tried to calm down and think things through. She sat down on the edge of the porch.