Chapter I.11
Chapter Eleven
Two Weeks Before the Wedding
Even if she hadn’t told Otto she would look into whatever mysterious affliction was killing the town’s children, Miria would have felt it was necessary once she recalled where she’d first heard the story about children seeing evil spirits.
She’d never heard again from Pipin’s mother, so she had no idea if the boy she’d tried to help all those years ago was alive.
Although she dreaded the most likely answer to that question, intuition (or, more honestly, the lack of any better ideas), told Miria that finding out was her best lead.
Her preparations for helping Adaline (and by extension, getting revenge on her family) were coming along. She had time to investigate.
It had rained most of the day, and a thick evening mist blanketed the woods, the town, and the rolling hills around them when Miria flew to the farm.
The sun was beginning to set, and thanks to the clouds, the light was dimming earlier than usual.
In the fields, the farmhands hurried to finish their chores before the light was too far gone.
The scent of dinner cooking wafted out an open window as Miria knocked on the farmhouse door.
Behind the sturdy wood, she heard sounds of a minor commotion and unintelligible voices.
Then the door opened, and Pipin’s mother stood there, looking just as Miria remembered her, though maybe with more gray threaded through her reddish-brown hair than she’d had previously.
“You?” She swallowed audibly.
“Me,” Miria agreed. “It occurred to me that I never learned whether the charm I made for your son helped. I hoped …”
Here, she faltered as it dawned on her that the topic she’d brought up was not a casual one.
There was only one outcome she could hope for, but speaking it raised the possibility of another.
Miria did not believe that speaking things could magic them into being—yet another misconception Yali had cured her of—but she didn’t wish to draw attention to it either.
Although, if Pipin had died, then surely Miria’s mere presence would be enough to pain his mother.
Had she already done more damage here than she’d intended?
Perhaps she should have sought the outcome of Pipin’s fate another way, but it was too late. If it came to it, though, she supposed she could make Pipin’s mother forget their conversation, and let her grief fade away once more.
Fortunately, no such spells were required.
A beautiful smile lit up the woman’s otherwise plain face.
“It did! Oh, it did. You must come in. I should have returned to thank you. Excuse my manners. Please.” She gestured into the house, suddenly as flustered by Miria’s unexpected appearance on her doorstep as she’d been that day she’d tossed rocks at the cottage.
“You made a trade. There was no need for additional thanks,” Miria said. She was still unclear what the trade had been. If Yali had told her, she’d forgotten. All that was important was that the woman didn’t believe she owed Miria anything additional.
Well, except perhaps, some information, but she’d already provided that.
But Pipin’s mother was espousing dinner, ensuring Miria that she’d never eaten anything as fine as her roast, and if she would just come inside …
Out of politeness, Miria stepped through the doorway, and she couldn’t deny that the dinner smelled wonderful.
But being seated with company was not only far beyond her comfort tolerance, it would be a distraction. She had to think.
Her charm had worked—why? That was the question she needed answered next, and what did that mean with regard to evil spirits and child deaths?
“The illness never returned?” Miria asked after refusing another dinner entreaty.
“No, or I should say yes.” The woman rubbed her hands against her apron.
“It did once, when I removed the charm you made. You see, Pip had recovered, and I thought ‘Oh, the Overseer should know about this’ because I’d heard of other children being similarly afflicted.
But he and the priest said I’d made a mistake.
Your magic was dangerous, and I should remove the charm.
I confess, I allowed myself to be persuaded, but not long after I did, Pip took ill again.
I’d never actually tossed the charm—I have some sense—so we put it back on Pip’s wrist, and he’s been fine since. You’ll see. Pipin, come here!”
A groan came from somewhere in the back of the house. “I just got in from helping Da with—”
Pipin’s voice broke off as he stomped into the room and noticed Miria. The years had changed him far more than his mother, but Miria could see the tiny boy’s chubby face lurking beneath the fine layer of dirt he sported over his ten-year-old cheeks.
He inhaled sharply. “I remember you.”
“I remember you, too,” Miria said. What she did not remember was that his blood hummed with magic, but then, she hadn’t been able to see it in others seven years ago.
Nana had told her Pipin had the power, though.
She recalled that much. It was possibly the reason why her protective spell had worked.
And also possibly why he’d needed it in the first place. “I’m glad to see you’re well.”
He grinned and held up his wrist where he wore the charm.
Its magical shimmer was hidden by the years of imbedded dirt that no washing could remove, and the length had clearly been added to so that it continued to fit his wrist. But just as clearly, Pipin was one child in Gawfrid Province who did not fear the witch in the woods.
The thought made Miria smile, but her mind raced. She asked a couple more question, then gracefully (she hoped) backed out of the dinner invitation again as she heard men entering the house around back.
At home at the cottage, Miria paced in circles around the central hearth as her nana had on many an evening.
She’d obtained the information she wanted, but she wasn’t sure what to make of it.
Pipin had once said something about evil spirits attacking him as the cause for his illness, but had other children experienced the same bad dreams that he’d had, or were evil sprits an excuse the adults were using to explain what was happening?
Were the evil spirits bad dreams at all?
Just because they weren’t real, that didn’t mean there wasn’t another phenomena that was being attributed to evil spirits.
And aside from a mysterious illness, was there anything Pipin had in common with the children who hadn’t been as fortunate to wear a protective charm?
Magic might be able to assist Miria with that last question, so she dutifully set up the scrying bowl and cast her spell.
The key to magic of this type, however, was knowing the precise questions to ask, and Miria could only refine hers so much with what she knew.
Children in Swiftdok, in the province, in all of Waere died often with all sorts of illnesses.
Sometimes the symptoms made the culprit clear—flu, whooping cough, the poultry plague.
Other times, the illness was obvious but the cause was nebulous, and in those cases, it wasn’t at all uncommon for folks to blame the illness on spirits or magic or a witch.
Miria kept at it for an hour until her head began to ache too much to continue.
She pushed the bowl away and realized she should eat.
Without more to go on, there were far too many deaths to ever hope for her to find a pattern, and the whole endeavor was making her feel hopeless and depressed for reasons that had nothing to do with her futile search and everything to do with visions of so many tiny gravestones.
She made herself a quick and easy dinner of eggs and herbs from the garden, plus some leftover bread, and she was sprinkling salt over the eggs, courtesy of the saltcellar she’d stolen from her father, when a new thought hit.
“Are you feeling up to going downstairs?” The woman—a nursemaid perhaps?
—in her father’s house had asked that of her half-sisters.
And hadn’t the girls looked a touch wan?
It could mean nothing—Miria hoped beyond reason that it meant nothing—but her sisters and Pipin did have one thing in common. They all had magic in their blood.
Miria ripped off a hunk of bread and chewed without tasting.
Surely, it was a coincidence. Many children had magic in them, more than most people would believe.
Just as many became sick with perfectly common illnesses.
In fact, Miria didn’t even know if her sisters had been sick when she’d seen them.
But it was something to think about, although it made her stomach twist with worry. Especially when her father, the Overseer, seemed determined to hand out terrible advice to the town inhabitants, judging by Pipin’s mother’s reports of their conversation.
Miria finished her dinner but barely, and only because she couldn’t bear to waste food. This new task she’d given herself was becoming as personal as helping Adaline was, and this development did not please her, particularly as tackling it was going to be a lot more work than she’d anticipated.
It figured that given how straightforward and simple her plan for vengeance was, the universe had needed to push her into something far more complicated to keep her on her toes.
And yet, when she closed her eyes for sleep later that night, Miria could practically hear her nana’s voice in her head: The universe does no such thing, child. It’s witches who push.