Chapter I.10
Chapter Ten
Seven Years Before the Wedding
Miria was tending to the illusion spells on the cottage when the stranger stepped off the path and into her presence.
Engrossed as she was in the magical working, she hadn’t noticed the woods shifting to allow the woman’s approach.
Nana had left yesterday evening on a short trip to visit another witch.
She did that more often as Miria had gotten older and could be trusted to maintain whatever passed for order around the cottage.
Miria was proud of her new responsibilities, and a touch nervous about them, too.
What if something important arose while Yali was gone? Could she really handle it?
So when the woman appeared in the cottage clearing, Miria’s veins filled with anxious excitement.
That the woods had just allowed this newcomer to find her way here was interesting.
The spells naturally gave way to children or women in immediate distress, and sometimes to people who had been granted entry previously.
Miria wasn’t sure what to expect from this woman, who appeared healthy enough and whom Miria did not recognize from any prior business, though that didn’t mean anything.
Sometimes Miria was gone for hours at a time, doing one thing or another on her own, and Nana didn’t call for her help unless she required it.
The woman didn’t see Miria immediately, and she began to yell. “You lied to me! Your trade was no good. We did everything you asked, and we got nothing! You horrible, evil, cursed woman—how could you?” She picked up a rock and threw it.
Tulip and Azalea had been around back, working on the cottage walls, but at this assault they came charging forward. Miria felt their feet pounding the dirt before she saw them, and she couldn’t stop them from running toward the woman as she detangled herself from her spell work.
The woman’s yelling turned into screams.
“Tuli, Aza, it’s all right,” Miria said, running after them.
The golems stopped abruptly, ten or so feet from the woman, who had sunk to her knees. She glanced between them and Miria. Her face was white. Her anger had morphed to fear, and her fingertips dug into the dirt. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I did not mean … Please forgive me.”
Miria turned to the golems. “Everything is fine. Please go back to work.” While the golems did as instructed, Miria tried to think of how her nana would handle this situation, which was a challenge since her nana would not likely have been in this situation in the first place.
Yali would have noticed the shifting magic and expected a visitor, but since that possibility had passed, Miria was forced to settle for the next best thing.
She straightened her back and did her best to project her nana’s calm, slightly intimidating presence. She neither wanted this woman fearful nor in such a rage that she was throwing rocks.
She also had no idea why she was furious to begin with, and that seemed like a good place to start.
Unless this woman had willingly reneged on whatever bargain she’d made with Yali, there was no way Yali would have given her a faulty spell.
Miria could not believe that. “What happened? Tell me everything.”
The woman did not stand, and she gazed at Miria with wide eyes. “The healing spell you gave to my Pipin—it didn’t work. I thought he might have improved, but he’s sicker than ever.”
She thinks I’m Nana. For a moment, the thought distracted Miria from the woman’s words. But why not? Everyone spoke of the witch in the woods, not the witches. And why could a witch not be an old crone one day and a thirteen-year-old girl the next?
As Miria saw no reason to dissuade the woman of this notion, and a few to encourage it, she pushed her confusion aside. She had to focus on the relevant issue, and that was: What would Nana say if she told her that her healing spell didn’t work?
The answer came easily: She would say the recipient was not sick.
“The healing spell was good,” Miria said, trusting that without question.
She could leave the matter there. If this Pipin’s condition hadn’t improved, the woman needed to look elsewhere. But where? Miria’s conscience was bothered. People only tended to seek out the witch as a last resort. The woman must have already exhausted her options.
“I don’t doubt your skill, it’s just …” The stranger hung her head.
“It didn’t work. Right.” Miria wiped her hands on her tunic. “May I see Pipin? There might be more to the situation than there appears on the surface.”
“Would you?” The hope in her voice scraped the very edge of Miria’s nerves.
She feared she was only going to disappoint, but Miria followed Pipin’s mother to one of the farms south of town, determined to do what she could.
Pipin must have been about three or four years old, tiny enough to retain his baby features but with the first signs that he’d grow into a strong, stout man.
Assuming he lived. He sat on a chair by a window, wrapped in blankets, although the room wasn’t cold.
His pale, freckled face split into a grin when he saw his mother, but it was a tired smile.
“He gets dizzy,” his mother said. “Some days, he’s too tired to walk across the room. And there are these.” She picked up Pipin’s arm. “I didn’t think to mention them when we last met, but they seem worse now. Show her.”
That was directed at Pipin, and he pushed up a sleeve.
Miria bent closer for a look. Although it was early afternoon and the sun’s angle was poor through the window, the red dots on his arm stood out starkly, even against his freckles.
They made Miria think of dozens of puncture wounds, but their placement wasn’t haphazard.
They trailed up his small arm in what was almost a straight line.
“How did you get these?” Miria asked.
“I think it was the monsters.” He whispered, as if fearing the creatures he accused could hear him. “They come at night.”
“You dream about monsters?” Miria asked. She was out of her depth for sure if that’s what this really was. Nana’s books and tales spoke nothing of monsters that weren’t of the human variety.
Pipin nodded, and his mother elaborated. “His father and I spoke to the priest. He thinks it’s evil spirits sending the dreams, making him weak. But why would they attach themselves to my boy? He’s a good boy.” She wrapped her arms protectively around Pipin from behind.
He squirmed in her grip, but patted her arm, trying to reassure her.
“Evil spirits are more a matter for the church than for me,” Miria said, recognizing the irony in those words.
The church would likely say someone like her was the cause of the evil spirits.
It was no surprise that Pipin’s mother had gone to the priest first. What stung was that Miria doubted she could do any better than the priest had.
Still, she had to try. Yali had assumed the boy suffered from some medical affliction, but since her healing spell hadn’t worked, it was possible her nana had been wrong. And since Miria couldn’t craft a healing spell more powerful than Yali’s, she would do something very different.
“I can create a protective charm,” she said. “I don’t know if it will work better, but it’s the only other idea I have.”
So Miria took some supplies from her satchel and wove one of her own hairs into a rough but functional bracelet of nettle, rose, and a chip of quartz.
It made for a rather crude protection spell, but she’d packed with healing spells in mind, and so it would have to do.
Her hair would ensure the magic lasted a long time, and when the spell settled, the bracelet resembled nothing so much as an unremarkable piece of twine with a slight crystalline shimmer if held near the light.
She tied it around Pipin’s wrist, and instructed his mother that she could always lengthen the bracelet if needed should he find it preferable to wear around his ankle or neck.
“As long as it remains on him, it will work,” Miria said. Whether it would do what they hoped, she had less confidence.
That evening, after Yali returned home, Miria told her what she’d done.
Her nana had returned carrying food, and they sat around the table, each eating a small pastry stuffed with cheeses and mushrooms that was very different from Miria’s normal meals, suggesting Yali had traveled far.
“You did well,” her nana said, and Miria sat straighter, pride spreading out from her chest. “There are no such things as evil spirits, so your protection charm is unlikely to do much, but it cannot hurt, and may help.”
“What do you think it is then?” Miria asked.
She’d been pulling a corner off the pastry to see how far the strange cheese would stretch, but Nana’s praise reminded her that she was supposed to be acting like the responsible witch she wanted to be seen as.
That probably meant not playing with her food.
“If the boy isn’t sick, and it’s not spirits? ”
Yali sipped her cider, one wary eye on Miria’s length of cheese.
“I don’t know. The boy might be doing it to himself.
He has magic in his blood—I noticed it when his mother first approached me—and his fear of it could make him ill.
If that’s the case, your charm might be what he needs—both to protect him from his own power and from his own mind. ”
“He has magic in him? He could be a witch?”
“Could but won’t be.”
Miria chewed this over literally with another bite of her dinner. “He didn’t seem afraid of my magic. And if he won’t be a witch, then how does he know how to use his magic?”
“Remember—I told you some children may stumble upon how to use their power by accident,” Yali said.
“Strong emotions can bring it out, and young children struggle to manage theirs. If he did that, it might have frightened him. Whereas if you use magic, it does not matter much to him, so he’s not scared. ”