Cogling

by Jordan Elizabeth

  Edna pictured Ike slumped in a dungeon, soot demons running across his damp legs as he rocked, moaning.

  “It’s my fault Ike’s trapped. I couldn’t save Harrison and I can’t save Ike.”

  Ike sagged against the wall; blackness swarmed the corners of his vision as dizziness overpowered his mind. He reprimanded himself for using too much energy to create a key out of wood chips. His head lolled to the side, resting against his shoulder while his heart pounded, blood rushing in his ears.

  The door to his cell opened.

  A foot crunched on the broken slivers of wood on the floor. Adrenaline fought against his fatigue enough for his eyelids to lift. Light drifted into the room from gas lamps in the hall, illuminating a woman.

  “I’m here to question you.” Her hands rested behind her back. He dragged his eyes away from her naked bosom.

  “The Confident uniform hasn’t changed.” Ike blinked in the light.

  She stopped in front of him. The gold bands on her forearms glistened. “You could have been one of us. A Confident.”

  Ike shut his eyes, too weary to keep his head lifted. “I could never be an assassin.”

  “You had training.”

  He sighed. “I don’t work well with blood.”

  “Pity.”

  He opened his eyes to see her crouch, and she lifted one hand to him. A dagger glistened against her leather glove. He recognized the runes engraved on the silver blade.

  “That’s to kill a traitor,” he said.

  “Are you one of them?”

  He tried to see her expression, but the upper half of her face hid behind a white mask. “That depends on which side you’re on.”

  “You’ve had enough training to answer well.” She smoothed her other hand across her white silk skirt. The customary outfit of the Confident ranks included only the skirt, mask, armbands, and leather gloves. Armor runes were tattooed across her bronze skin in blue ink.

  “What do you want?”

  “To question you. Perhaps you weren’t paying attention.”

  “You’re going to torture me for answers?” He nodded at the dagger. “Confidents don’t question. You assassinate.”

  She shoved the dagger into the wooden floor between his legs and picked up his makeshift key. “Did you do this?”

  “The questions begin.” Ike leaned against the wall. He couldn’t feel his hands anymore, his arms shackled above his head.

  “Your mother was always proud of your magic.”

  He stiffened. “She was a traitor. She’s dead now. Don’t talk about her.”

  “A traitor, you say. She wasn’t on your side?”

  Ike narrowed his eyes. “What do you want?”

  “I want to know what she did,” the woman hissed. “I’m supposed to ask about you, but I don’t care. You were a boy who ran away because his mother left. Of course you wouldn’t stay when you could be with her, and of course you’d come back when she was gone. We’re your people. The only magic you were ever good at involved making things. However, she could do anything.”

  “She couldn’t live,” Ike whispered. “If you really want to know about my mother, why isn’t Sambucus here spitting in my face?”

  “She’s got her worthy little human sacrifice.” The woman sat back on her heels. She rolled the key between her fingers. “I get you. I knew your mother well. I trained with her. Tell me why she left.”

  “You know why.” Ike wished the key would stab the woman through her throat.

  “She liked humans. She didn’t want us hurting them.”

  “Or the animals,” Ike added. “She hated how you hurt the foxkins and Nix.”

  The woman flashed a smile below the mask. “Make me care about your mother’s cause.”

  “You’ve already assigned her to her fate.” Ike dared the woman to give the real reason behind all of her questions—he knew who had sent her. The head of Confidents, not Mother Sambucus. “You want to know what her death was like. If she suffered.”

  The woman leaned back. “You shouldn’t have returned.”

  He hated conversations that went nowhere. “Where’s the girl I came with?”

  “The human is gone. Is she your pet?”

  “No,” Ike scoffed. “Hags shouldn’t keep humans as pets, even if they once treated us as such. My mother always stressed that.”

  “Your mother is dead.”

  “Maybe I married the girl.” Ike frowned, daring her to hit him.

  “There’s a reason you returned and brought her. Tell me. You’re chained in a storage closet where once furniture was made. You can gain your freedom through words.”

  “Tell the Captain of Confident if he wants to talk to me, he’d better come in person.”

  The woman rose and threw the key at Ike. It bounced off the wall near his head. “Perhaps once you have suffered without sustenance, you will feel more cooperative.”

  “Kill me now. I used to train with the Confidents. I know how to not give in.”

  She nodded with a smile on her lips. “Then I shall look forward to the fun.”

  When she stepped into the hallway, her hand on the door, he called, “Tell the Captain I don’t know if she suffered. The Nix were with her when she died.”

  He hoped she might turn back, but instead she nodded and shut the door, sealing him in darkness. Ike waited until his eyes adjusted before concentrating on the air. The key lifted a few inches off the floor before he lost contact. Ike sagged, panting.

  Soon he would get the makeshift key to unlock the hinges. Then he would escape.

  The weapon still rested between his legs. He shifted his knee to bump against it; solid, dangerous.

  “Thank you for the dagger,” he whispered to the departed woman. So they weren’t all against him.

  Now he only needed to rest and regain his strength.

  Come along now, do not fear me.

  ou’re just going to anger Mother Sambucus if you try to escape,” Rachel said from the bed.

  “Mother Sambucus left a cogling in your place. Unless it doesn’t act right, like Harrison’s, Lord Waxman might not notice anything wrong. My parents won’t come either. Even if my mother and father tried to save us, they would be no match for a factory of hags.” Glaring out the window, Edna took in sprawling buildings of stone and brick, and other ramshackle mansions like the one Mother Sambucus had them trapped within. What had first seemed to be one dilapidated structure in the woods was in truth a hidden community. “Once we get out of here, Ike and I are going to King Elias. He won’t let the hags keep doing this. If he doesn’t want to listen, I’ll stand in front of him and refuse to budge. I’ll scream until I’m hoarse.”

  Rachel leaned against the wall, arms folded beneath her breasts. “The hags can say they did it to protect us. Maybe we were sick and needed to be quarantined. Hags bend truths.”

  “They’re using human children to make magical objects,” Edna sputtered. “The king can’t ignore their suffering.”

  Rachel held up her hand. “Objects which humans buy. I’ve purchased plenty of protection scarves and acne potions.”

  “Mum owns a protection scarf too, to keep her vocal cords supple for the Music Hall. Do you think a stolen child, like Harrison, fashioned it?” Her stomach cramped. “People wouldn’t keep buying if they knew who really made them.”

  “If the police came to investigate, the hags would cast spells on everything. Nothing would be recognizable.”

  Edna recalled how ordinary the factory looked at first. “They can’t hide all the children.”

  “They’re hags. I’m sure they’ll succeed.”

  She nibbled on her fingernail. “Ike’s going to show King Elias one of the unused coglings.”

  “Then you’d better hope he knows how to use it or the king’s going to call you crazy.”

  “Don’t you care what happens?” Edna whirled away from the window. “To any of us?” A tin tub rested in the corner of the room with a pile of clot
hing beside it. “What’s all that?”

  “Mother Sambucus had some of her ogres bring it before you got here.”

  Edna stepped toward the tub. “Are you going to bathe now, then?” Cleansing at the gin house, despite the awkwardness, had made her feel refreshed.

  “Absolutely not,” Rachel huffed. “I’m a lady, not a gutter brat.”

  Edna rubbed her fingers together. Grime coated her skin. “The king will probably listen to a clean girl faster than a grubby one. I’ll bathe, then. No use wasting good water.”

  “That’s vulgar. I bathed alone back home.”

  Rachel faced the wall while Edna stripped. She hesitated at her shift, but pulled that off too. She’d bathed without it at the gin house, and felt cleaner without the drenched cloth stuck to her skin.

  The water had cooled, but it felt as sweet as sugar. Although the ogres hadn’t brought soap, she rubbed the filth from her body and hair. Stepping out, water trickled down her legs. She sought through the pile of clothes until she found a towel, and located stockings, petticoats, corsets, and dresses. She held up the clothes until she decided which ones were smaller. “The hags must not have known what would fit you, so they brought an assortment.”

  The petticoat had buttons around the waist, which attached it to a sleeveless linen top, and the corset fastened up the front. The loose corset pinched beneath her arms, but made her back feel straighter, her body taller.

  The black wool stockings itched, and the garters, which fastened above her knees, pinched her skin. She pulled the cotton dress over her head, but needed Rachel to lace the back.

  “I’m not your maid,” Rachel snapped. “You’re mine.”

  Edna frowned. “I’m trying to find a way out, and you’re giving up. True ladies don’t surrender.”

  Rachel’s eyes flashed, but she leaned forward to help. Edna bit her tongue to keep from giggling and pulled on her fingerless gloves. Despite the tears in the lace and the mud staining the blue, their sense of familiarity and elegance seeped across her skin.

  The tub beeped and both girls jumped. Breath lodged in Edna’s throat. She expected to see an ogre leap out of it, brandishing a club. She crouched with her hands outstretched, feet firm against the ground.

  The tub beeped again and Rachel planted her hands on her hips. “You broke it.”

  Edna scowled, leaning over the side. A red light, the size of a penny, flashed in the bottom of the tub. With each blink, it beeped. “It’s a sensor tub. When the water turns dirty, the beep indicates it needs fresh. There’s one at your manor for washing dishes.”

  The door opened and two ogres entered, dressed in blue pants and stained shirts, with wide belts fastened at their waists. Studs protruded from the dark leather. The girls stiffened, silent. At seven feet tall, the ogres almost brushed the ceiling.

  Edna wrapped her arms around her chest. What if they’d entered while she was naked?

  The ogres hefted the dirtied tub and left.

  “Seems you missed your chance to bathe,” Edna muttered with a perverse surge of pride. Rachel might be nobility, but she reeked of stale body odor.

  While Edna combed her hair with her fingers, the ogres returned with a fresh tub. Two pairs of black boots, tied by the laces, hung from their shoulders, and they dropped the shoes beside the tub. As soon as the ogres departed, Rachel bounced off the bed.

  “Excellent. Clean, hot bathwater.” Rachel smirked at Edna. “Help me undress.”

  “Do it yourself.”

  “You’re still my maid. Mother Sambucus ordained it.” Rachel turned her back to Edna and held out her arms.

  Edna scowled, about to retort, when she noticed Rachel couldn’t undress herself. The gown laced up the back, similar to Edna’s new one.

  “I’m not scrubbing you.” Back home, she would have had to if Rachel’s mechanical maid couldn’t.

  Sighing, Rachel sank into the steaming water.

  Edna slid her left foot into the first pair of boots. The black leather swallowed her, so she kicked it off and tried on the second pair. Although her toes pinched, at least her foot wasn’t swimming, so she pulled on its mate. She hung the watch around her neck and hid it beneath the bodice.

  When Rachel finished and dried off, Edna helped her button the back of the clean dress. The tub beeped, indicating the dirty water. A minute later, the bedroom door opened. Instead of ogres to fetch the bathwater, the hag in the white dress stood with one hand on the brass knob. Edna sucked in a breath, debating between taking a fighting stance or backing away.

  “Come,” the hag sang, “we leave together.”

  “That’s the mad hag,” Rachel scoffed. “Mother Sambucus told me the wretch lost her mind. Doesn’t make a wit of sense.”

  The hag laughed. “We leave. I take. Come, come. Escape.”

  “We can’t leave.” Edna edged toward the hag. With her smooth skin and clear eyes, the hag couldn’t have been much older than thirty. Too familiar—the evil had given Edna a vision of this hag standing over Harrison when she’d ridden on the blimp. It could be a sign to trust the hag, since the evil did act to protect Edna. “Why would you want to help us?”

  “Because she’s mad!” Rachel laced her new boots. “Ugh, these are far too small.”

  The hag’s silver eyes glowed. “My son.”

  “Who’s your son?” Edna frowned. The hag had called out “love” when the ogre had brought Edna to the manor. Maybe he was her son.

  “She doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” Rachel scoffed.

  The hag swept her hands in an arch. “I know the way.”

  Rachel swallowed hard, shrinking away from the hag. “She’s insane. We can’t trust her.”

  “We go.” The hag scurried into the hallway.

  Rachel snared the hem of Edna’s dress. “We can’t leave!”

  Edna pulled Rachel up. “This might be our answer. We have to try her escape route.”

  My power is here, and so is yours.

  he hag in white led Edna and Rachel down the back stairs to the library, where leather-bound books and prisms of various shapes adorned the shelves. If she hadn’t been so scared her limbs quivered, Edna would’ve loved browsing the texts.

  “I wouldn’t have thought hags to be literate,” Rachel said.

  Edna pinched her arm. “Shush! They have to be intelligent if they can heal people.”

  “Are we going to find a spell?” Rachel asked. “These are spell books, aren’t they?”

  “Spells of the family. Spells for none. Spells for all.” The hag laughed.

  Edna shut the door. “Lets hurry.” She glanced around the library, seeking its other exit, and her heart thudded harder. She’d expected to see a back door, since the hag had brought them there.

  “Where to now?” Edna’s mouth dried. The hag had led them to a trap. How stupid for believing a madwoman could help. Mother Sambucus would drag them back to their room and Edna would be no closer to Harrison. The evil tickled her skin as a reminder of its prescence.

  “Hush,” the hag hissed. She pulled a plush chair aside and moved the rug beneath to reveal a trapdoor. When she tugged on the brass loop at one end, the wooden square creaked upwards.

  Maybe they were right to trust her. They didn’t have another choice. They could follow the hag or stay trapped in the room—which might be preferable after the hag finished leading them.

  Shuddering, Edna pushed her doubts aside.

  “I’m not going down there.” Rachel folded her arms. Edna wanted to shake her.

  “Fleeing from captivity isn’t the time to complain. I’m not staying up here.” Edna peered over the edge of the trapdoor. A ladder disappeared into dark depths, where an earthy odor arose. “At least it lacks Mother Sambucus.”

  “There isn’t any light.” Rachel waved her arms. “We don’t know what’s down there.”

  “Your eyes will adjust to the darkness. Whatever lies below has to be better than imprisonment in this mansion.” Edna
swung her legs over the edge, and the ladder held beneath her weight. She turned to grasp the top rung and began her way down. The white ruffles on the bottom of her skirt brushed the dirt on the ladder and her gloves stuck to the rough rungs.

  Wind caressed her cheek, and she stiffened. The darkness swallowed her sight. She slid to the next rung and slipped, grabbing the ladder so tight it pressed into her belly.

  “What is it?” Rachel called down.

  “N-nothing.” Edna counted the rungs to keep her mind off her panic. “I can do this for Harrison.”

  At the bottom, her feet planted on sandy dirt. Edna closed her eyes to better adjust to the absence of light. When she looked again, the darkness didn’t seem so solid. Scaffolding supported the earthen ceiling and walls. Behind her, the ladder creaked and Rachel dropped onto the ground beside Edna. Dust rose, tickling Edna’s nose. She wiped it on her sleeve, then rubbed her beads.

  “We’re below the mansion,” Edna murmured. Maybe this path would take them under the factory to sneak Harrison and Ike out.

  The hag bounced off the bottom rung. “We hurry.” She jogged, her white dress a beacon to follow. Against the dark walls, she glowed.

  The tunnel wove around corners, as though they were trapped in a labyrinth. They turned left, right, and right, left. Edna grasped the wall for support when the ground became uneven. Her fingers pressed against the compact earth and a worm slithered across her palm.

  Edna stumbled into Rachel. “What if the hags planned this and we run forever?” she whispered. A lump formed in her throat. The air thickened with a damp stench that reminded her of animals. “Do you think a beast died down here?” Or other humans who’d tried to escape?

  She needed to focus on reality.

  “Is this ever going to end?” Rachel’s voice quavered. When Edna grasped her hand, she squeezed back.

  “Soon,” the hag sang.

  They turned a corner and a light flickered in the tunnel.

  “I can see the exit!” Rachel pulled free of Edna and dashed past the hag toward the flicker.