The Will and the Wilds

by Holmberg, Charlie N.

  I consider this as we step over the curls of oon berry that surround our log home like a fence, though the plants grow only a foot high. Mystings cannot cross oon berry without great suffering. All the mystings I know of, at least, and I know of many.

  Yet worry over the gobler rankles me as I help my father get comfortable in a chair by the hearth. They are predators, as nearly all mystings are, and would not traipse the wildwood without a sure purpose to be there. I pinch the icy Telling Stone in my fingers, not liking how close the mysting is. But it seems to be wandering, so perhaps it is simply lost.

  I set the mostly empty basket in the kitchen and walk down the hall to my room. It is simply furnished, with a narrow bed, an old bookshelf, a nightstand, and the rocking chair my mother would have nursed me in. On the shelf is a small collection of books, one of which is written in my grandmother’s hand. Her mysting journal, in which she recorded all her knowledge and theories about the nether creatures that lurk in the wildwood. Another, larger volume is written in my own script—a tome in which I transcribed all my grandmother’s notes and sketches, sandwiched between my own. Theories I’ve learned from townsfolk, passing travelers, ramblings, or my father’s half-forgotten stories. Some of the notes are pure speculation garnered from studying footprints or the like in the wildwood. Once, and only once, I used the Telling Stone to track down a rooter for my research, and thus I have an accurate sketch. I’ve never tried the tactic to spy on any other species. I value my life too much.

  I’ve attempted to share this knowledge, just as I’ve shared the warnings of the Telling Stone, but it’s earned me nothing but strange looks in town. Needless to say, I’ve learned to keep my findings private.

  I would desperately love to leave Fendell, to attend the king’s college, or even a lesser school, where I could earn credibility as a writer or a researcher. Where I could establish a background that would demand others listen to my theories or, better yet, allow me to publish them. Yet my education as a girl was not prestigious, and there aren’t enough mushrooms in Amaranda to afford the cost. Those impediments aside, I am a woman, and most advanced schools would never look at me twice, even if I were privately educated and rich. Fear of leaving Papa on his own pins me here as well, for it would take effort greater than I possess to convince him to leave this house. To leave my mother’s grave site.

  Pushing the thoughts from my mind, I look through my half-filled book for the page on goblers and study the lightly sketched picture of one, the charcoal lines half-worn from rubbing against its sister page. Chubby things, with too much flesh gathered beneath their wide, rounded heads. I’ve never seen one with my own eyes, and I don’t care to change that fact.

  I read my grandmother’s notes. Though they’re in my hand, they flow through my mind in her voice. Goblers are vengeful monsters who mark their prey with a simple touch. If one fails to destroy it, the mark guarantees others will hunt it down. They dislike pokeweed, tusk nettle, and red salt; all of the listed will help to nullify a gobler mark.

  Shuddering, I press my fingertip to the list. Pokeweed is a desert plant, but tusk nettle grows in my garden, and there are several stones of red salt in the cellar. I set the book back on the shelf, stoke the fire in the hearth, and set a kettle over the flames to ready some tea for my father.

  “Where are you going?” he asks when I pull on my gardening gloves. My left hand is stiff with the Telling Stone’s bite, but I dare not take off the bracelet.

  “To harvest some tusk nettle. To secure the house. I opened the window so you’ll hear me.”

  He grabs the armrests of his chair, as though ready to stand, but lets out a great sigh and relaxes back. “Quickly, Enna.”

  Promising swiftness with a nod, I step outside, scanning the wildwood as is my habit. Its secrets are cocooned beneath sun-warmed trees and the flitting shadows of flapping bird wings. Were I better able to defend myself, or perhaps had I academic funding for a team of armed men, I could walk deep into that forest and study its darkest workings. How beneficial would it be to mankind to know how to turn back a fevered pack of grinlers? To close a portal made from within the realm of monsters? Or, even, to communicate with mystings forbidden the gift of speech?

  I glance back to the house, to the open window. To my father. Perhaps I’ll take those risks someday. But not today. Today, I guard against a gobler.

  My mysting garden is small—a grave-sized plot I dug into the earth outside the kitchen when I was thirteen and had newly inherited Grandmother’s journal. Half of the plants within its fenced perimeter were harvested from the wildwood; the rest I gathered as bulb or seed from local farmers and the town apothecary. Oon berry and lavender are plentiful in these parts; the blue thistle cost me dearly.

  I step through the gate and lift my skirt—dark gray and perhaps a little uncomely, but the desire to draw attention has never been mine, and simple lines are the easiest to sew. I seek out the cluster of tusk nettle and kneel in the soil beside it. Tusk nettle is a weed and would overcome the entire garden if left untended, so I’m glad for the excuse to cut back its broad, spindly leaves. I gather a basketful, pull a few weeds springing up by the topis root, and make my way to the cellar.

  Our cellar is large, expanded by my now-deceased paternal grandfather after Papa gave up his sword. Great shelves fill the majority of it, reaching from floor to ceiling, sporting bits of dead log, moss, lichen, and composted soil. We grow four varieties of mushroom. The fungi button up from the beds, catching the light as I descend the ladder.

  The narrow space not occupied by mushrooms holds our food stores, meager preparations for next winter, dried herbs, vegetables pickled and pickling. A shelf at the end contains a collection of wood and stones, many taken from my grandmother’s home. Among them is a large chunk of red salt, which looks like rough, pink crystal. It weighs down my arm and crushes the tusk nettle in my basket. I’m a little out of breath when I ascend the ladder.

  When tusk nettle leaves and salt fill the windows and line the doorways of the house, I walk the perimeter of our property to be sure the oon berry guard has not been split, then weave together a few stems where the shrubs are thinning. Returning inside, I warm my left hand by the fire and make my father’s tea.

  “No worries now,” I say, though the Telling Stone persists in its chill. I eye the sheathed sword atop the mantel—its worn hilt, the depiction of a great stag in the center of the scabbard. Straightening, I brush dust from its length with my fingers. “I’ll make us some stew,” I offer, and wipe my fingers on my dress.

  I prepare lunch, sweep the kitchen, and tend to the daily chores. All the while, the Telling Stone hangs cold from my wrist. As the sun makes its descent, I lock the windows and doors, then hide away by the laundry and clutch the stone between both palms. I don’t know the language of sorcery—it is very old and no longer regarded with the esteem it once was—but somehow the stone speaks to me, filling my thoughts with its shadowy knowledge. A gobler, and it’s close. Closer than before.

  But we will be safe. I’ve taken all the precautions, and mystings don’t like trouble. It’s easier to prey upon an unsuspecting stranger than a fortified house, and we are not so very far from town. There’s no reason my father and I should be on this creature’s agenda.

  Still, I double-check the nettle leaves and salt before settling into a cold and restless sleep.

  It is the clamoring of the larger salt crystals hitting the floor that stirs me from half-lidded slumber. My left arm is frozen. I can barely move my elbow, my shoulder aches, and my fingers are curved into claws. The gobler is near. Very near.

  Shallow breaths burn my throat. I throw off my blanket and search for the silver dagger tucked beneath the mattress—the very same one my mother once carried. It did not save her, yet I clutch it in my one warm hand.

  Creaking boards sound in the living room. The stone whispers that they do not bend under the weight of my father. But if it’s the gobler, how did it get in? Why? No myst
ing could be so desperate.

  Thankful the fire in the front room still burns, I slip from my room, inching along the hallway. My hands shake with both fear and the ice emanating from my bracelet.

  Peeking into the living area, I see a thick form blocking part of the glowing hearth. Shorter than myself, and much wider. The dying flames highlight thick rolls of blubber around neck and wrists. It’s almost humanoid in that it has a head, two arms, and two legs, but the rest is pure monster. The gobler turns, searching, its large eyes shifting back and forth, its cavernous nostrils flaring. Wide gray lips roll above a nearly nonexistent chin. Burns and bluish blood mar its skin from where it encountered my wards.

  Its dark fist-sized eyes land on me and widen. As I lift my dagger, it launches.

  My scream echoes through the house.

  The beast is too nimble for its size, and it plows into me, knocking air from my lungs as we collide with the hallway wall. My fingers tighten on the hilt of my blade, but the mysting presses against my right shoulder, and I can’t bring my arm around to stab it. A desperate cry rips from my throat.

  Yet the gobler’s focus is not on my face. It grabs my frozen arm with stubby fingers, and I feel an unnatural heat from its touch—a heat that might be painful, were my skin not so permeated with cold. Lifting my appendage, it eyes the bracelet on my wrist and the deep, blood-red stone hanging from it.

  I hear a swoosh of movement through air, and the gobler’s horrible face tightens before going lax. Its fingers loosen. The mysting slides down me like a drunken lover until its fetid fat puddles on the floor.

  Looking up, I realize for the first time how hard I’m breathing, how angrily my blood pumps. My father stands behind me in his nightclothes, his hair mussed, his own breathing labored. He holds his sword in both hands, and down its blade runs bluish blood.

  He brings the sword around, his muscles remembering their training, and stabs the gobler again for good measure. The mysting doesn’t even flinch. The first blow had been true.

  Tears escape my eyes as I leap over the body and run into my father’s arms. He keeps the sword in one hand and embraces me with the other. Weeping into his collar, I bless this moment of clarity and swiftness.

  Yet though my left arm begins to warm, the Telling Stone quivers, warning of other dangers lurking behind the veil of the wildwood.

  CHAPTER 2

  It is painful for mystings to cross oon berry. Weaving a circle of the thorny plants around your home will act as a proficient safeguard.

  The gobler left a mark. An incomplete handprint mars the flesh of my left forearm, a deep gray that is almost black. It doesn’t hurt, and the skin feels no different to the touch, but the mark is undeniable. I’ve no idea how long it will last, but per the warning in my grandmother’s notes, I soak a cloth in red salt dissolved in water and wrap my arm, hindering the magic that would call other goblers to me. Between my precaution and the fact that goblers do not frequent the wildwood, I hope I’ll be safe.

  I add a footnote to the entry concerning goblers, then turn to a clean page to sketch the mark. Once I’ve finished, I measure the mark and jot down the numbers.

  Grandmother’s notes did not indicate whether the gobler mark would fade. Part of me is hopeful the salt soak will banish it. Another, foolish, part of me hopes it will not, for no one could doubt my credibility with such evidence to show. Closing my book, I let my mind wander for just a moment, imagining the volume in my hands as a true published work, studied by scholars. All of whom would believe my research, for I’d have garnered a reputation at a fine college . . . then I blink the fancy away and set my thoughts to the household.

  I suppose it is fortunate that I prefer prudent dresses, all of which are long sleeved.

  My father is confused in the morning, and I carefully explain to him what happened the night before, so as not to overexcite or concern him. He accepts this with clarity and, after cleaning his blade and returning it to its place on the mantel, builds a litter out of rope and wood planks and hauls the gobler’s body back into the wildwood. What he does with it, I’m not sure. Perhaps he will leave it for wolves, or for grinlers.

  My left arm is no longer ice, but the stone was cold when I awoke, and has gotten progressively colder. Another mysting is near. Never have I sensed two so close together. Clutching the Telling Stone in my fist, I step outside and walk toward the wildwood, kneading the stone, urging it to tell me what approaches.

  After some time, it does. A gobler.

  A shiver of my own dances across my shoulders, and I rest my hand over the mark left by the first gobler. Surely it is a coincidence, unless my grandmother was mistaken about the red salt. Or perhaps this new creature does not sense the mark, and is merely looking for its predecessor. I thought goblers were loners, but my knowledge of them comes solely from my grandmother. Folk around here have little experience with their kind. All I know is that the stone grows colder, the gobler closer.

  I head back to the house, into the thin protection of herbs and salts. The first gobler had been interested in my Telling Stone. There are many charms and baubles that whisper of the nearness of mystings. Why mine is of any particular consequence is beyond me, and there is nothing in my grandmother’s writings to answer my unspoken questions.

  The first thing I do is gather new cloth and, after stripping away its thorns, sew tusk nettle into it as best I can.

  I pull up my sleeve and study the murky print on my arm. Rub my thumb over it, as though it could be wiped away. The salt has faded its edges, but otherwise it remains unchanged.

  I’m so absorbed in the mark that I don’t hear my father approach, only startle when he takes my hand in his to study the mark himself. He twists it this way and that, his forehead wrinkling. I can see the war inside the mind, old knowledge battering against the fog left by the monster realm. How dearly I wish I could look into his eyes and piece together his memories for him. To have him be whole, and to see the monster realm for myself, for despite my fascination, I would never dare go there to study it.

  His hand slides down to the Telling Stone, and he frowns at the temperature. “Another comes?”

  I soak the new cloth in salt water. “Gobler.”

  He helps me wrap my arm. “If they are after you, that mark will help them find us again.” He rubs his temples. I wonder if my grandmother’s entry on goblers came from my father’s knowledge of the monster realm. Masking my thoughts and fears, I take my father by the elbow and lead him to his chair.

  “Does he want the stone?” I ask, crouching by his side. “He seemed to want the stone.”

  My father shakes his head, but in disagreement or confusion, I can’t tell.

  I grasp his hand. Recently cleaned, even the nails scrubbed. I mull over my words and tamp down the anxiety in my chest. “I can get rid of it.” The stone is a treasure and a shield, but it is not worth the danger of safeguarding.

  “No.”

  “There are other means of—”

  He turns his hand about and ensnares my fingers. His eyes lock on to mine. “You have lived longer than she did now.” He means my mother. “Because of that stone. And I lost . . .” His eyes glaze. “What did I lose, Elefie?”

  “Enna, Papa.”

  He lets go of my hand and breathes deeply through his nose. “Enna. I sacrificed . . . so you wouldn’t . . .”

  Standing, I rest a hand on his shoulder. “It’s all right. I understand.” The talisman is a rare one, stolen from the very realm it’s designed to protect against. There are many types of Telling charms, but none so accurate as this one. I palm the stone’s coldness, wondering why a mysting would batter itself against my wards to obtain it, when in all my twenty years, it has attracted little attention from my neighbors, and none from the other realm. Surely the gobler was after something else entirely, and the stone had merely caught its eye.

  My gaze drifts up from the stone to the silver bracelet encircling my wrist. The circle. Sketches copied from my g
randmother’s journal spin through my mind.

  A summoning . . .

  “There are other mystings, Papa,” I say, tasting each word before letting it pass my lips. I step around the chair to face him. “Intelligent mystings, less . . . harmful ones, who might prey on a beast like the gobler. Force it and any others to leave.”

  His expression closes. “They’re all demons. Evil.”

  “But they can be bargained with.” My own grandmother once hired a rooter—a docile, forest-dwelling mysting—to grow the great tree wall that surrounds her house to this day. As good a protection from predators as any, although I do not know what it asked of my grandmother in exchange, just that they made a bargain. No mysting knows the word charity.

  Not all human dealings with mystings have been entirely hostile. I suspect it was a mysting who warned the king twenty years ago about a possible war between realms, and a mysting who first spoke to my father of the Telling Stone around my wrist. But for every mysting who’s willing to cooperate, there are five others who will eat the flesh off your bones, if you but give them the chance.

  It would be safer, perhaps, to hire a swordsman, someone with more wit about him than my father. But this is Fendell. There are no sell-swords here, and there’s no time to request one to come from afar, even if we had the money.

  A sore lump that bears my mother’s name rises in my throat, but I swallow it down. I will not become like her. Nor will I let my father meet her fate. We will not sit in this house and wait for another gobler to attack us.

  “We will leave, then.”

  My father looks up at me. “Leave? Is it market day?”

  The conversation is slipping from him. “Papa, there is a gobler on its way. If you will not let me give up the Telling Stone or hire a creature to protect us, then we must leave.”