Chapter 17
“Apparently Alexander promised her first pick of the produce for two months,” I muttered to Maddox as he and I carried Edmund between us in the flimsy collapsible stretcher Beatrice had in her kit.
The poor man was still unconscious—or sleeping. It was difficult to tell.
“That’s worth bringing a sick stranger into her home?” Maddox whispered from over Edmund’s head. The pile of blankets between us should’ve concealed my view of Maddox, but we were on an uphill incline, and my burning legs made that hard to forget.
“Hurry, children! What are you two whispering about?” Beatrice asked a few feet ahead.
“Sorry,” Maddox called out.
We increased our pace.
Beatrice lit the way with a small witchlight lamp, though it did little to illuminate the debris underfoot.
It seemed that in everyone’s panic to get home, they had dropped a great deal of items: shawls, papers, gloves.
I was sure the loud crunch beneath my boot a few steps ago had been a pair of glasses.
There was nobody out and about, which was typical for Witch Village, but without daylight, the silence was unsettling.
Strange to think I had spent my entire life in an underground pit with artificial lighting.
“Beatrice, has something like this ever happened in the village?” I asked, wondering why the older witch hadn’t said a single thing about the blackout.
“Of course,” she said. “When Witch Village was first established, there were frequent weather malfunctions. For a while, the sky was green instead of blue, but the weather witches figured it out in the end. You kids grew up after all that trial and error, so I suppose this is shocking to you.”
“But for something like this to happen after so many years? Do you know what caused this?” I pressed. The weather had been flawless my entire life. What had disrupted it today?
“Not a clue. Maybe this is the work of an apprentice,” Beatrice said, waving a hand. “I’m sure the weather witches will figure it out soon.”
I blew a breath, a little appalled that she showed next to no concern about this, and figured that I wasn’t going to get any more answers from her. “How much further?” I asked Beatrice. My hands were growing sore from gripping the beams of the stretcher, which needed a good sanding.
“We’re here.”
Maddox stopped abruptly as I took another step. Edmund jostled in his pile of blankets. One of his arms fell limply off the side.
If someone decided to look out their window at that moment, I hated to think what conclusions they’d come to.
I squinted at our surroundings. We were about midway up the hill the village was built on. I didn’t recall Beatrice living here.
“I thought your cottage was closer,” I said as Beatrice turned the doorknob of a rather small building. Hardly a cottage, more like a shack. I would’ve missed it completely if I was walking past it, as it was sandwiched between two larger houses.
“Wait,” I said. “Isn’t this the Sinclairs’ storage shack?”
“They sold it to me,” Beatrice said, pushing the narrow door open. “Your guest will be perfectly comfortable in my new property.”
She levitated the lantern inside, the light bobbing up to a hook in the ceiling and bringing the interior into dim focus.
It was the size of a medium-sized bedroom, but there was a very small bed pushed against the corner of the far wall.
The rest of the walls were covered in shelves full of potion bottles, dried herbs, and books.
A stray bag of flour leaned against a rusted water pump.
The floorboards were unpolished, a few stray nails digging into the soles of my shoes.
“We can’t leave Edmund in here,” I protested. There was hardly room to keep his trunks, which still had to be moved.
“Of course we can, it’s perfectly accommodating,” Beatrice said, ushering us inside.
My shoulder bumped into one of the shelves as Maddox and I shuffled toward the small bed. With some effort, we managed to transfer Edmund and his heap of blankets onto it. The mattress—or perhaps Edmund—groaned.
I felt his forehead again. It hadn’t changed for the better, but it hadn’t gotten worse either. “Maybe it’s best if we send him back home,” I muttered.
Maddox frowned. “The King's Council will jump at the chance to tear Witch Village apart if we send him back in this state.”
“King’s Council? Tear us apart?” Beatrice asked in horror. “Who is this man?”
“It was a figure of speech,” Maddox added hastily.
“I’ll have to stay with him,” I said, looking in vain for a place to sit. “He can’t stay here all alone.”
“I’m staying too,” Maddox said.
Beatrice looked appalled. “You can’t stay here, Giselle. You might catch whatever disease these two humans have!”
“I don’t have a disease,” Maddox protested.
“Edmund doesn’t have a disease,” I said, though with less conviction than I intended. I sat stubbornly at the foot of the narrow bed. The sheets seemed clean, at least.
“Then you’ll be in the way,” Beatrice said, setting down her kit.
She took my elbow and pulled me aside to the corner of the shack, which wasn’t nearly far enough to grant us privacy.
She lowered her voice to a hushed whisper.
“Giselle, you ought to head back home. Your mother will be appalled to know you’ve brought these humans here.
Just what have you been doing aboveground? Fraternizing with human men?”
“What? No!”
She tsked. “They’re far more trouble than they’re worth. Just look what happened to Seraphina Barclay!”
I made a noncommittal noise, extricating myself to rearrange Edmund’s blankets. Maddox threw me a quizzical look, but I was in no mood to explain myself to him or Beatrice.
Beatrice shook her head. “I suppose it’s not up to me to question you,” she said aloud. “But Nasha is coming herself. Sit tight and wait for your mother. I can handle the humans.”
I froze. “Ma is coming?”
“Yes, I told her you were here yesterday,” Beatrice said, busying herself at one of the shelves. “I know you wanted to surprise her, but with the weather malfunction I thought it best to relay the information myself. And she wanted to come see my shack anyway.”
My blood ran cold. Ma was coming. She knew I was here. There was no running—not when Edmund was sick. There was no hiding. She’d hunt me down even if it meant marching all the way to the edge of the village.
Maddox reached over and touched my shoulder. “Giselle? Are you alright?”
Of course, it was at that moment the door to the shack flew open.
“Giselle Nuri Phula,” came a reedy voice that made my spine stiffen. “Just what do you think you’re doing?”