Magic Bitter, Magic Sweet

by Charlie N. Holmberg

  “I’ll teach you respect!” he spits, and then he’s on me, kneeling his weight onto one of my legs. I cry out, and he slaps me across the face, then grabs me by the collar and lifts my head off the floor, only to slam it back down again.

  The ceiling spins in circles. Alarms screech through my skull and down my neck like I’ve touched a hot stove. I swat at him, trying to push him off, but he hits me again. My teeth slam together. Blood fills my mouth. The collar again. Something crunches.

  My vision is still swirling when his weight comes off me all at once. Shah screams, “No no no! She’s mine!”

  I blink tear-heavy eyes and make out the blurs of his bright colors against the slave owner’s; Shah has looped his arms under the man’s armpits and is heaving him back.

  A metallic crunch sounds. I struggle to stand, the pain in my head doubling. Shah throws the man into the oven door. Pins him there. I smell burning hair, burning skin—

  Shah grabs the man by the collar, just as I was grabbed moments before, and slams him, again and again, into the door. Over and over and over, until sizzling red streaks the iron and the man’s eyes roll back.

  “No, don’t—” My voice blisters my ears. The taste of iron seeps between my teeth. The thud of skull on oven echoes throughout the kitchen.

  Clenching my fists, I shout, “Shah, stop!”

  Shah stops all at once and finds his feet. Then he backs away from the grisly scene with the expression of one who had just happened upon it. The man is limp on the floor, head still propped against the stove and burning. His chest is flat. No rise, no fall.

  I gasp, both hands covering my mouth, my swelling lips. Oh gods. Oh gods.

  He killed him.

  He killed him.

  He killed him.

  Men shout in the hallway: “What’s going on?” “What’s that noise?” “Who’s in there?” It all blurs together. I feel sick. So sick. He killed him.

  The kitchen door, the one we used to enter the kitchen hours ago, bursts open. Two of the guards rush in.

  “Go go go go go,” Shah sings, clutching my arm.

  The vertigo of our escape overtakes my consciousness. It’s black before we land.

  Trade is when you give something and get something. No one had what I want but money makes their eyes look away. Money makes it all better. Money is my favorite.

  CHAPTER 16

  I wake up draped in sweat and sunlight, Shah’s clammy hands patting my cheeks, batting my head back and forth. When he notices I’m awake, he looks very closely at my eyes and—satisfied with . . . something—smiles and grabs my wrists, hauling me to my feet before I’m ready to stand. I topple into him, grasping the lapels of his coat to right myself. He smells wrong, like meat left too long on the block.

  I gather my senses and look around. The ruddy earth tells me we’re still in the Platts. I stand just off the side of a road unshaded by trees. The sun beats against us, and it’s harassed the untamed grass to either side of the road into brittleness.

  I close my eyes for a moment and rub my forehead with both palms as the soreness of my face returns to me. The inside of my mouth tastes like metal. Crouching as best I can with my broken foot, I prod the tender spots on my cheeks and mouth with my fingers. A lump is starting to form on the side of my head.

  As I remember the events that brought us here, the sharpness of the pain lessens, replaced by a dripping coldness that runs from my ears down to my knees. “You killed him.”

  “He was bad.”

  “You are bad,” I snap, glaring at him. His brows lower at the statement, but that is his only reaction. “I should thank you for stopping him, for saving me, but Shah, you killed him.”

  “He was bad,” he repeats. “I don’t want you to die yet.”

  Yet. I rub a pulled muscle in my neck and wince. I am so tired of this, of Shah, of the beatings, of being hungry and locked away and dragged back and forth, of having this heavy limp and hurting all the time.

  I try to will Fyel here in body as well as in spirit, so he can take me in his arms and fly me far, far away. But Fyel is not a god. He does not hear my prayers.

  I blink moisture from my eyes and stand slowly to reduce the effects of lingering vertigo.

  “You’ll go to prison,” I murmur. “Or be hanged. I don’t know what Umber’s laws are.”

  “No. Nope.” Shah shakes his head. “I’m gone now. No one will find us here.”

  “Where is here?” I ask, my voice raising. “Running away doesn’t make you innocent! Do they know where you live? Do they know your name, mine?”

  “No!” he shouts, gripping the sides of his head. He writhes, bent over, until his hat falls from his head and his skin begins to turn white. “No, no! Not Shah, it’s not. What is it? What is it?”

  I back away, stumbling over dehydrated vine weeds. I peer up the narrow road, but there are no people, no wagons. “What are you talking about?” I’m trying to keep my voice calm, but I just want to flee.

  “You!” he shouts, leaping for me. I shriek. He grabs both of my elbows and stares hard into my eyes. “You have to do it!” he spits. “You have to do it, you you you.”

  “Do what?” Don’t panic. Don’t panic. My entire body tenses beneath his killer’s grip.

  “My name,” he cries, as though it’s obvious. “You have to name me. Give me a name. I want a name!”

  “Y-Your name is Shah . . .”

  “No. No no no.” He releases me and shakes his head. Tangles his fingers in his hair. “No. What is my name? Pick a name. You have to pick a name.”

  I swallow, again looking for help, but the road stays empty. “I-I’ve always like Allemas.”

  He stills and looks up at me, hair still netted around his fingers. “Allemas.”

  I nod.

  He straightens and lowers his hands. His approving smile sends shivers down my spine. “Allemas. I like that.”

  He talks like he’s never heard the name before.

  “Allemas,” I repeat. I swallow again and say, slowly, “Allemas, where are we?”

  He takes his time answering, first picking up his hat and brushing off his clothes. They look newer than I remember. “Need money. I was here before, talking about you. There is a potential buyer, but he didn’t believe me when I said you can bake magic.” He smiles, frowns, and smiles again. “He wanted to meet you first and see for himself. I didn’t like him. But I need money. It’s all gone.”

  To illustrate, he grabs the insides of his pants pockets and pulls them out. He doesn’t do the same with his coat pockets, however. I try not to eye the one his hand slipped into when we transported. Could I reach into that pocket when he’s not looking and grab whatever’s in there? Stow it away until I figure out how to work it?

  Fyel told me to stay, but he hasn’t seen my newest set of bruises.

  I scan our surroundings, the sky itself. He’s not here, of course.

  My chest hurts.

  “It’s . . .” Allemas spins in a circle, scanning around, and points across the field of yellow grass. “That way. Gamba . . .”

  “Gamboge?”

  “That. Yes.”

  A clean breath enters my lungs of its own accord. Gamboge is directly north of Carmine, closer than Umber. Eighty miles, I think. If this buyer doesn’t work out, or perhaps after, if he does, I can try to convince Allemas to return to Carmine, either by telling him the truth or weaving together enough pretty lies—

  Something about that thought stirs the dark space in my mind, but which part? I stare inwardly at the shadows, pushing at them. Carmine. Weaving. Lies. They churn for a moment, almost letting out something—an image, a sound, a smell—but then darken again, sucking my memories back into their core.

  Allemas starts walking up the road, and after a moment I follow him, my aches working themselves out as we go, though the hot sun makes my face feel unnaturally swollen. I touch the forming bruises every now and then to gauge their puffiness. I presume my red skin hides th
e bulk of their discoloration.

  It is not Gamboge central that we enter, but one of its surrounding villages called Cerise, which is not too unlike Carmine, though it’s larger. A wave of nostalgia drags on my bones as we pass a bakery built with brick just like mine, its smells familiar and aching. My stomach growls, but as Allemas said, we have no money for honey buns or chocolate-studded cookies. I don’t, at least.

  While my silvery cuff remains in place, I am unchained—and unbranded, thankfully—so my slave status is not immediately recognizable. I do, however, earn plenty of stares over the color of my skin, and perhaps the bruises on my face. Stares that incite whispers, and I cannot decide if I should meet the eyes of these bold passersby or stare at the road beneath my feet. I waver between the two, sometimes staring between them in the hopes of seeing a glimpse of hovering white, but of course Fyel wouldn’t appear amid such a crowd. He always comes when I’m alone, which makes me desperate to leave the company of others. It’s as though there’s a pin-sized hole running through my chest, and the occasional breeze whistles through it, making me feel hollow. Hollower than I should be.

  My head throbs almost in beat with my footsteps, and I ask Allemas, “How far is it?”

  “Around a bend and over a bridge where all the people eat and sleep,” he answers. I sigh, and despite my disgust with the man, I hold on to his coat sleeve as we walk, dragging my booted foot behind me, focusing on staying upright. I’ll only hurt more if I collapse, and only the gods know how much patience Allemas would have for something like that.

  I hope he doesn’t find this customer, or that the man turns me away. I can’t bake anymore today. I want to sleep forever, even if it’s on the cold stone floor of a muggy cellar.

  The remembered sound of a skull striking against metal echoes in my ears, and I shiver, willing the dark void in my mind to consume it, too. I let go of Allemas and force myself to walk on my own.

  We pause as a horse-drawn wagon passes and cross the street to a two-story hotel. I smell baked chicken wafting from it, and my fatigue doubles. Instead of going through the front door, Allemas peers through one window, then another.

  “Is he the owner?” I ask, biting down a yawn. My jaw twinges with the effort. “Is he staying here?” He can’t be expecting us.

  “He was there when I met him.” He points to a barrel sitting outside the hotel. I sigh in relief. Surely the man was just a passerby, and therefore untraceable. I relish the thought of a few days’ rest.

  Allemas grips my upper arm and escorts me around the building. He peeks through window after window and then lights up. “There! There he is!”

  He bolts for the back door, stopping only briefly when I stumble to my knees. He tugs on my arms, and I try not to growl at him. Not to cry.

  The door is propped open with a wedge of firewood to let out smoke and steam, as it opens onto a kitchen. A busy one, judging from the pile of dishes in the sink and the clashing aromas of food cooked and cooking, though only one person occupies the space—a middle-aged man wearing a patched shirt sits in the corner, whittling something out of a small block of wood. The way he sits reminds me of Franc, though he’s too thin, and that thought weakens me further.

  “See?” Allemas says as though they were midconversation. “I brought her, like I said. She can do anything you want.”

  The man starts at Allemas’s voice and looks at us.

  All air escapes me, and my skin itches with a new chill.

  I take one heavy step forward, then another, tears watering my vision.

  I can barely push the name through my closing throat.

  “Franc?”

  The man stands up and tries to remove a hat that isn’t there. Franc always wears a hat—a wide-brimmed one to keep off the sun as he works.

  I blink, and tears cascade down my cheeks. It is him, but he’s lost weight and gained wrinkles, his skin is a little paler, and his gray stubble is thick. He stares at me, squints, trying to identify me. I touch a bruise on my face and wonder if my features have swollen beyond recognition.

  But Franc’s lips part, come together, and then form my name. “Maire?”

  And I can’t hold it in. I surge past Allemas on clumsy and sore feet, knocking something to the ground as I go. Franc opens his arms, and I slam into his chest, my arms encircling his neck, my tears soaking into the faded colors of his shirt.

  Franc hugs me tight, then touches my hair, and finally pulls back to look at my face. “It is you,” he whispers, shaken. “I thought . . . It had to be . . . But what happened to you? You look . . .”

  He doesn’t finish the sentence. I already know.

  His face hardens. Franc embraces me again, but when he speaks, he addresses Allemas. “This woman is not a slave!” he barks. “She’s one of mine! My daughter!”

  Allemas snorts as though Franc has told a joke.

  Franc pushes me behind him and takes a bold step toward Allemas. I grab his arm, the smell of burning hair and burning skin lingering in my nostrils. Allemas can hurt Franc, too.

  “I’ll buy her from you,” Franc says, though he couldn’t possibly have the money.

  Allemas’s expression darkens. “She. Is. Mine.”

  “Franc,” I say, turning him toward me, desperate to speak to him now before Allemas steals me away again. “Why are you here? What happened? Arrice, is she . . . ?”

  “Arrice is fine,” he answers, and I almost faint at the sweet-sounding words. “She works here as a cook—we’re trying to save enough to make it to Sienna, but the rent is so steep . . .” He grasps my shoulders and eyes Allemas, who watches our exchange with a confused, glazed expression. “Her sister lives there, you remember. Those bastards burned the farm and stole nearly all we had worth anything. We trekked north, but our coin ran out, and we’ve been here ever since. And you”—half a dozen lines streak his forehead—“you were . . . sold. Not killed. Sold.”

  I nod, placing my hands over his. Desperate to be amiable—to make Allemas stay—I introduce them. “Franc, this is Allemas, my . . . I work for him. Allemas, this is Franc. I used to live with him.”

  “And did Allemas do this?” Franc scowls as he touches a bruise.

  “No.” Allemas spits it like a reprimanded child.

  “No,” I confirm. He’s done worse. “No, we had a bad run-in . . .”

  He killed him. He killed him.

  “. . . with a customer,” I finish, and lick the residual truth from my teeth. I straighten my shoulders, and despite the fact that Allemas has heard that Franc has little money to spare, I say, “But we are in need of new customers.” I stare at him, trying to push my thoughts through my eyes and into his. “A-Allemas is all out of money, aren’t you, Allemas. That’s why we’re here, to find customers—”

  The door at the other end of the kitchen swings open. Noise from the next room trickles in, the sounds of many people talking at once, the words melding into an incomprehensible mumbling. I hold my breath as a woman enters the room, back first, her hands full of dishes. Franc hurries over to her, and my heart shakes in my chest.

  When Arrice turns around, her eyes bug out and she drops her load. Franc manages to catch everything but a wooden cup, which smacks the tiles underfoot and rolls beneath a short hutch. She drops them because she’s startled at the two bizarre strangers in the kitchen—a woman with skin nearly bloodred and a crazed man who smells like death and who stares at her with unnaturally green eyes framed between heavy tufts of orangey hair.

  But, like Franc, she recognizes me. Thank the gods, she recognizes me, and she wails and ignores the cup and runs to me and hugs me harder and longer than Franc had. Our tears mix until I don’t know which are hers and which are mine, and I don’t care. I hold on to the feeling of her, the softness and the warmth, trying to store as much of it as I can into my memory and into my skin. She smells like bread and paprika and sweat.

  I spy Allemas through the corner of my eye. He’s grown tense, and his hands form fists. He inch
es closer, confused and scared, paler than usual. I can hear his teeth grinding together.

  I pull back from Arrice and face him. “It’s okay, Allemas. They’re just happy, see? They’re happy that I’ll bake for them.”

  Arrice blinks several times, confused. Franc grasps her arm and pulls her back, speaking before she has the chance to gather her wits. “Yes, yes, we’ll pay. I have several things I want made. Cinnamon rounds, for a start.”

  I hold my breath and bite down a smile. Cinnamon rounds have to settle overnight in order to gather the yeast needed to form. They take a long time to make.

  Franc hates cinnamon.

  Allemas eyes me, then Franc. His brows take on a life of their own, crossing and raising and dropping, dancing over his forehead, sometimes separate from each other. “Cinnamon rounds?”

  To Franc I say, “I can make those. I can make them lucky, too. To help with . . . your situation. Which will help Allemas with his.”

  “Sounds perfect,” Franc says. His grip on Arrice’s arm tightens. She remains quiet, but her stare is wild, dashing around the room from Allemas to me to Franc, never staying in one place for too long.

  Allemas rubs his head. Taking a chance, I move closer to him. “This is your customer, right? And he’ll be nice to us because he knows me. It’s perfect.”

  “No, no,” he mutters to the floor. “They kept you away. They made it harder to find you.”

  A chill churns in my gut. How long, exactly, did Allemas spend looking for me?

  Has Fyel?

  Allemas scowls and glances over my shoulder. “I don’t like them. I want them to go away.”

  “You will not touch them,” I growl, surprised at my own boldness. Allemas is, too. His gaze returns to mine, and he leans back. I recall that horrible moment on his back doorstep, when his fists slammed into me over and over and I told him to stop, and he did, but not due to mercy. Again I wonder if I truly have some sort of sway over him. Is there something more to this one-sided attachment?

  I repeat myself: “You will not touch them, and you will not hurt them. We’re going to stay here because they are our customers and you can make money. We’ll all be happy. Understand?”