Hazel and Holly

by Sara C. Snider

  Hazel wanted to believe him, but a sickening weight had settled in her gut, keeping her from feeling anything but a heavy dread.

  The ride to the town square was long and quiet. The sun gleamed in the clear blue sky, shining upon a renewed world after the storm. They passed fields of rye and wheat with long, golden stalks that rippled in the wind. They even passed a field of sunflowers. The great yellow flowers had withered and browned, and their blackened faces drooped towards the earth rather than the sun. Amid the fields and orchards was an occasional house. Sometimes a person would be standing out front, shouting something incoherent as the wagon rolled by. Probably curses, given the circumstances.

  After they passed a few of these houses, people started to follow them. Some carried bulging burlap sacks as they hurried after the plodding wagon. Others carried long walking sticks as they briskly kept pace. Then on the road behind them, a rickety wagon came into view, and the people who’d been falling behind scrambled up into it.

  But one man with a sturdy walking stick kept pace with Hazel and Hemlock’s wagon. He drew close to them and asked, “So did you see it?”

  “What?” Hazel said.

  “The Witness. Did you really see it? Or was it all just stories?”

  “Why else would we be here if we didn’t see it?”

  The man shrugged. “I’d always heard a man’d get smited to ash if he ever looked upon the Witness unprepared. You’re not smited, so I’m wonderin’ which story is false.”

  “Use your imagination.”

  “See, now, I’ve been tryin’ for that. But my ’magination can’t fathom much when it comes to the Witness, you get me?”

  “I’m sure I don’t.”

  “So… did you see it or not?”

  Hazel fixed him in a level gaze. “What would you say if we didn’t see it? That this whole display was a ridiculous sham? What would you say to that?”

  The man blinked at her a few times, then scratched the back of his head. “Well, now… I’m not sure what I’d say to that.”

  “Best news I’ve heard all day.”

  The man stopped walking and stared at them as the wagon pulled away, and he soon fell out of sight.

  “Do you think that was a good idea?” Hemlock said. “What you told him?”

  “I don’t know. I just wanted him to leave us alone. So I guess that worked, at least.”

  By the time they reached the town, two wagons filled with ogling passengers trailed behind them, along with a pack of people on foot that had managed to keep up the entire way.

  The town consisted of a handful of buildings nestled between a pair of sloping, grass-covered hills. Signs in front of a few of the buildings identified them as a notary, a dry-goods store, and a barber. The rest were signless so probably just houses. In the middle of it all, a wooden platform had been erected and decorated with colorful ribbons, braids of woven wheat, and more of Francis’s dolls.

  “You have a hand in that?” Hazel asked, nodding towards the platform when Francis came around to help them out of the wagon.

  He beamed at her. “You’ve got a good eye. Benjamin did the woodwork—I’m useless with a hammer, see?—but the dolls will look out for you in your time of need.”

  “You seem awfully concerned for our welfare, considering what we’ve done.”

  “I don’t wish you ill, if that’s what you mean. I figure it was plain stupidity and ignorance what made you search out the Witness like that, rather than any sort of malice.”

  “How reassuring.”

  “But we got rules,” Francis continued, “and you broke ’em. So you get a good learning here, and then we can all have a good laugh and a picnic and then go home.”

  At first Hazel thought his reference to a picnic was just his addled wit, but then she noticed people sitting on blankets out in the grass while fishing goods from baskets and parcels. One of the wagons that had been following them slowed to a halt in the town, and people clutching bulging burlap sacks hopped off, ran to the grass, and set up little picnics of their own.

  “Looks like we’re the day’s entertainment,” Hemlock muttered.

  “I guess we should be glad they’re not throwing anything at us,” Hazel said.

  Francis looked affronted. “Wasteful to throw perfectly good food away, either for menfolk or the pigs. Now you two get up on the platform there and wait for Emmond.”

  “You mean he’s not here yet?”

  “He likes to make an entrance.”

  Wonderful, Hazel thought, but remained silent. Francis was eyeing her, so instead, she said, “Let’s get this over with,” and she and Hemlock walked to the platform and ascended the set of wooden stairs.

  Hazel fiddled with her skirts, feeling awkward at standing there on display. More and more townspeople began to take notice of them. Some left their blankets and food on the grass to come get a closer look.

  Emmond arrived riding a mule. The animal had been adorned with a wreath of wheat and wildflowers crowned around its long, twitching ears. Some of the townsfolk cheered, and he smiled and waved as if he were in a mummer’s parade.

  “Good grief,” Hazel muttered.

  “He knows how to charm a crowd, at least,” Hemlock said. “Let’s hope that works in our favor.”

  Emmond hopped off the mule, and the animal wandered off to graze in the grass. He was dressed in a finely tailored brown vest and linen shirt with the gold chain of a pocket watch glinting in the sunlight. He joined Hazel and Hemlock on the platform and raised his arms.

  “Friends!” he shouted as more of the crowd came forward. “We gather here on this fine day not for companionship, nay, but to right a grim wrong. This man and woman”—he pointed at Hazel and Hemlock—“I fear have committed a grievous crime. You may have heard rumors. You may have suspicions. Let me say it now: this man and woman have looked upon the Witness.”

  Murmurs and gasps rustled through the crowd. Hazel had to focus to keep her expression neutral and to not roll her eyes or do anything else inflammatory.

  Emmond nodded. “Yes, it is so. No one in the past hundred years has looked upon the aspect of the Witness unprepared, and it pains me greatly to relay this most unfortunate news.”

  “Put out their eyes!” a man shouted from the crowd. There were a few nods and murmurs of assent.

  Emmond nodded again. “We could do that, yes.”

  “What?” Hazel began, but Hemlock put a hand on her shoulder, and she bit the inside of her cheek and forced herself to remain silent.

  Emmond cast her a quick glance before turning back towards the crowd with his ready-made smile. “But are we not more civilized than that? Are we not more illuminated and restrained?”

  The crowd members glanced at one another with questioning looks. Someone coughed.

  “Are we not more merciful?” Emmond added.

  “Yes?” a woman said.

  “Exactly, goodwife Beatrice!” Emmond exclaimed, and Beatrice donned a smug smile as she looked around the crowd.

  “We are indeed more merciful,” Emmond went on. “The putting out of eyes is well beneath us, and I put it to you good folks to find a better form punishment for these two wayward, yet repentant, souls.”

  “Throw them in a pit!”

  “Tar and feather ’em and run ’em out of town!”

  “Cover their heads with sacks of bees!”

  This last suggestion came from a squat man in the middle of the crowd, and judging by the aghast looks of his neighbors and his reddening cheeks, he had gone too far. He shuffled his feet and wrung his hands and, in a meek voice, suggested, “Flog them?”

  Emmond smiled and pointed at him. “You always had a nose for justice, Ernie, along with the oddly dramatic.” This elicited a few chuckles among the crowd, and Ernie’s blushing cheeks reddened even more.

  “Yes, good folk, I put forth that these two make amends with a proper, honest flogging.”

  “Except it’s not honest,” came a man’s voice. The
crowd parted, and Hazel’s heart sank when she saw it was the same man that had been pestering her on the way over. “The whole thing’s a sham.” He pointed at Hazel. “She told me herself!”

  Emmond put on his smile and forced out a stiff chuckle. “What nonsense. Have you been spending your nights in the cider cellar again, Tobin?” He grinned around at the crowd, but only one or two managed to chuckle feebly along with him, the rest were scrutinizing Tobin, Hazel, Hemlock, and Emmond with dark gazes.

  “Did she not really see the Witness?” one lady asked.

  “Are you making fools of us, Emmond?” a tall, burly man asked, his ham-like hands balled into fists. “You know I don’t like being made a fool.”

  Emmond’s syrupy smile faded, and he put up his hands. “Nobody’s making a fool out of anyone, Dennet. I swear to you, they confessed to me they saw the Witness. Why would they lie about that, knowing it would bring repercussions?”

  “But they haven’t been smited into ash!” Tobin said. “They must be lying!”

  The murmurs surrounding the man grew louder, and beads of sweat began to collect on Emmond’s brow. He put up his hands again. “Friends, please!” But then someone lobbed an apple from the crowd that thunked against Emmond’s head.

  The crowd grew eerily silent for the span of a breath. Then chaos erupted. People started shoving each other. Those who came near Dennet soon found themselves facedown on the ground. Ernie scuttled away and hid behind a tree. For a moment it looked as if everyone had forgotten Hazel and Hemlock. Then Tobin cried out and started towards them and, in doing so, drew the attention of the others. Hazel and Hemlock backed away. Emmond hesitated, glancing between Hazel and Dennet, who was now advancing on him. He gave a quick bow, then hurried to his mule grazing in the grass and made a hasty retreat.

  Hazel went for the stairs, but Beatrice grabbed hold of her sleeve.

  “What do we do with them?” Beatrice shouted to the others.

  “Cover their heads with sacks of bees!” Ernie shrilled from behind his tree.

  “You’re a freaky little git, Ernie,” Dennet said.

  “Get out of my way.” Hazel yanked her arm out of Beatrice’s grip and tried to push past her. But Beatrice grabbed hold of her again, and as Hazel struggled to free herself, Dennet came up behind her and put a thick, heavy hand on her shoulder.

  Hazel froze and peered up at him.

  Dennet smiled a broad, gap-toothed grin.

  Hemlock cast a spell, and in the middle of the crowd, a towering man shimmered into being. He was head and shoulders taller than the tallest man there and wore a long black cloak that covered the narrow frame of his body. The face that peered out of the hood was sallow and lumpy with a fixed, vacant expression and empty blackened holes for eyes.

  “It’s the Witness,” someone said. A woman gasped and fainted. Ernie bolted from behind the tree and ran down the road until he was out of sight. Everyone that remained froze in place and stared at the Witness in wide-eyed wonder.

  The Witness raised a hand and pointed a long, pale finger at Beatrice.

  “She’s been marked!” Tobin shouted. Half the remaining onlookers charged at Beatrice, the other half followed Ernie’s lead and made for the hills. But Dennet remained unfazed. He tightened his grip on Hazel’s shoulder, and so Hazel summoned a sharp gust of air and hit him square in the gut with it.

  He staggered back, arms flailing as he struggled to keep his balance.

  Hemlock grabbed Hazel’s hand, and they ran.

  Holly sat on the steps of Emmond’s front porch, resting her chin on her palm with her elbow propped on her knee while Hawthorn paced back and forth behind her. Of all the stupid ideas Hazel had ever come up with, this one had to be the worst. If Holly had tried such a thing, her sister would have thrown a fit fierce enough to make her go cross-eyed. But when it was Hazel’s idea, Holly was supposed to go along with it and pretend everything was fine. It wasn’t, and she was getting tired of the game.

  “How long is this thing supposed to take?” she said. “They’ve been gone forever.”

  “They’ve been gone for an hour,” Hawthorn said.

  Holly turned and squinted up at him. “Don’t tell me you’re taking her side.”

  “Were we taking sides? I wasn’t aware. In that case, I’ll take my side and leave this place to find an establishment that will serve me a decent glass of wine absent of any local… flavor.”

  “You can stop the act. I know you’re worried about Hemlock just as much as I am about Hazel or else you wouldn’t be pacing like that. What I’m wondering is why we’re just sitting here doing nothing while they’re getting flogged.”

  Hawthorn stopped pacing and looked down the bridge of his nose at her. “Pretend flogged.”

  “Say that to me one more time and I’ll pretend flog you.”

  “What would you have us do? We have no means of transportation, having left our own carriage and driver at Francis’s house—a brilliant move in and of itself, by the way. Are you suggesting we take to foot and march down the road searching for them? We don’t know how far the town is from here or how long it will take for us to get there. So, if we’re lucky, it might only take us some hours, and when we get there, we’ll be exhausted and filthy and all the excitement will have long since been over. Marvelous idea.”

  “You got a better idea then?”

  “Other than waiting here as we all agreed to do? No.”

  “Well, that’s just great.”

  Hawthorn started pacing again, and Holly resumed waiting on the stairs when a man riding a donkey came trotting up the hill.

  Holly got to her feet. “Is that Emmond?”

  Hawthorn turned just as Emmond hopped from the moving animal and ran towards the cottage.

  “Hey!” Holly said as Emmond bolted past her. She followed him inside. “Where’s Hazel and Hemlock?”

  Emmond ignored her and walked into a snug room cluttered with a potion cabinet and desk. He rifled through one of the drawers.

  Holly marched up to him and slammed the drawer shut, causing Emmond to stagger back to keep his fingers from getting smashed.

  “I’m talking to you!” she said.

  Emmond jabbed a finger at her. “Your sister’s crazy, you know that? Has absolutely no sense of self-preservation, that one.”

  “What happened?”

  He threw his arms up into the air. “She blew the whole thing, that’s what! Why on earth would she tell Tobin of all people that the flogging was a sham? She soft in the head or something?”

  “Who’s Tobin? What are you talking about?”

  Emmond closed his eyes and took a breath. “Look, I like you. Honest, I do. You come here looking for your father, completely clueless about the kind of town you’ve stumbled upon. I get it. Really. But you people got to meet me halfway, see? Your sister getting a peek at the Witness was like her poking a hornet’s nest. Now her telling Tobin that the whole punishment thing was a fake, well, she’s done and taken that hornet’s nest, thwacked it against a wall a few times, and then thrown the ruined remains at me. The townsfolk aren’t pleased. They aren’t pleased a mite. So if I were you, I’d be scootin’ on out the door before they come here looking for justice.” He returned to the desk, rummaged around in the back of one of the drawers, and pulled out a little black wallet. He held it up and nodded at Holly before he hustled back out the door, hopped onto his donkey, and disappeared among the grass and trees.

  Hawthorn stood beside her as she stared at the road where Emmond had gone. “Why am I not surprised that your sister’s impetuousness has gotten her in trouble yet again?”

  Holly glared at him, but before she could say anything, Hawthorn started down the road.

  “Are you coming?” he said as he turned to look at her. “Or are you going to wait here for the angry mob to arrive?”

  Holly grabbed her skirts and ran after him. “What happened to ‘we agreed to sit and wait’?”

  “I never agreed to
get mauled.”

  They hurried down the road in the direction Francis had taken Hazel and Hemlock only an hour or so before. They had no idea how far the town was, and the expectation of an angry mob to come charging down the road at any moment made Holly tense.

  “Maybe we should get off the road,” she said. “Keep to the grass and trees.” She glanced at the surrounding farm fields and fallow meadows that, at best, boasted only a handful of trees. “Well, when there are trees.”

  “Do you know how much this jacket cost me?” Hawthorn said as he smoothed the lapels of his coat. The jacket was longer than usual—reaching down to his knees—with gathered material in the back and wide cuffs and dyed a purple so deep it looked black until the sun hit it. “You can’t get material like this in the Grove. I had it shipped from Sarnum, and the stars only know where they got it, given the price I paid for it. So, no, I will not go traipsing through mud and overgrown weeds to avoid a few toothless rustics and whatever pitiful display of pitchfork waving they have planned as a means of entertaining themselves.”

  As if on cue, a group of people appeared on the road ahead of them, headed their way.

  “Well, that’s just wonderful,” Holly said. “If you want to stay here and debate the quality of fabrics with them, then be my guest. But I’m guessing they won’t be nearly as impressed with your coat as you are. Getting a little mud on your sleeve will be a lot better than whatever they have planned. Me? I’m not staying.” She headed into a field, but Hawthorn just stood there, stiff-backed and scowling at the distant group that now grew closer. Holly didn’t care. She wouldn’t stop. If he wanted to be stupid and stubborn, well, that was his problem. She was leaving.

  Holly stopped, closed her eyes, and sighed. She headed back to Hawthorn. “What’s wrong with you?” she shouted at him. “You can’t possibly think protecting a stupid coat is worth getting throttled?”

  Hawthorn took off his jacket, folded it, and gently laid it on a thick patch of grass. He wore a white linen shirt under a vest made of the same material as his coat. He started to roll up his sleeves. “Look at them”—he nodded towards the approaching group—“frothing-mouthed lackwits out for retribution for catching a glimpse of a hideous, filthy mask. I mean, honestly. Ant colonies have a higher sense of purpose than these backwater, inbred dullards. So, no, I will not run. Not from them. We should have done this from the beginning instead of going along with the ridiculous fictional floggings our wayward siblings so strongly advocated.”