14
P apa once told me that books were treasure chests of knowledge. It was the winter after I turned seven. We were in his study taking our tea near the warmth of the fireplace. The velvet drapes were pushed back from the window, heavy droplets of rain pounding against the roof and peppering the glass in clear, crystalline orbs.
I was leaning over his shoulder, watching him flip over the worn pages of a thick volume. The print was so small I had a headache looking at it.
“Papa, why must you read that book?” I whined, tugging his ears. “Can’t we join Genevieve and stepmother in the parlor?”
He laughed, the sound like warm honey to my ears. “Lydia has her own plans with Genevieve, my flower,” he said. He closed the book anyway, just to please me. I climbed onto his lap, glad to have his undivided attention .
“Would you like to learn how to read, Amarante?” Papa asked after a moment. I stopped playing with his cravat and looked up at him. He hadn’t shaved that day, the whiskers on his chin shadowing his face.
“To read? Mrs. Handel said I was too young to learn,” I said.
“You mustn’t always listen to your governess,” Papa said. He lifted me from his lap and set me down, reaching for a thin book on the shelf behind him. “Here,” he said, placing the book on his desk. “I will teach you.”
I stood on my tiptoes as Papa opened the covers to reveal vibrantly colored illustrations and large letters.
“That looks difficult,” I said.
“Ah, but don’t you know, Amarante? When you read, you will learn about the world, or be swept on fantastic adventures you could never imagine,” he said with great zest, pointing at the window to the great beyond. The rain had stopped and a hint of golden sunlight peeked through the dense, gray clouds.
“Really?” I said.
Papa smiled his knowing smile. “The more knowledge you gain, the wiser you’ll be. And books, my flower, are treasure chests of knowledge.”
I had never been a great reader, regretfully, for I was easily intimidated by the books Papa so loved. He often read volumes on philosophy or economics, or novels as thick as my mattress. I never could imagine myself comprehending any of it.
As a result, the books Lana gave me sat under my bed for several days. I was almost afraid to let them touch daylight, as if they would crumble to dust if the sun made contact with the pages. But I knew that Lana’s books were nothing like Papa’s. Even after days out of my sight, they held my curiosity. I eventually asked Tori if I could take a peek at their library, where I stripped off the dust jacket of Lady Strongfoot’s sappy romance novel to conceal what I was actually reading. This garnered some strange looks from Tori and Genevieve as I devoured the pages at every meal.
“Ah, the prime age for young girls to fill their heads with mush,” Lord Strongfoot said when he noticed my undivided attention to what he thought was A Sailor’s Seduction: Tales of Romance at Sea .
I was too distracted to be embarrassed. It turned out that Papa was right—books were treasure chests of knowledge. And books on witch magic were like pirate coves of rare gems and antique gold. My muddled ideas about magic and types of witches finally made sense. Like Lana had said, every witch’s magic worked differently. Whereas one witch could hear the thoughts of plants and animals, another could sense their usefulness or purpose in a potion or charm. I thought about the colors I saw and how I instantly knew what they meant.
The crystal Lana gave me was another odd change. With each passing day, I became more familiar with it and sensed that it became more familiar with me. It hummed whenever I touched it, as if emitting its own energy. Slowly but surely, I called upon the colors with ease and made them disappear just as quickly. I knew the jar on Tori’s desk emitting puffs of pale pink was meant to fade freckles and the tube of paste oozing indigo blue in Lord Strongfoot’s pocket tamed his hair and beard.
I stopped being startled by my witch traits and instead began to admire them. My cheeks glittered as if brushed with gold dust. My eyes, instead of the dark earthy brown I was used to, caught the light in quite an entrancing way. Genevieve teased me for staring at the mirror more times than I’d like to admit. She once told me all young ladies go through a phase of admiring their own beauty. I was embarrassed, but admittedly during that time, I found my features more pleasing than I had ever before.
As the days passed, another letter came from the palace, this time notifying us of the next event of the Season: a talent show. Hosted by the music mistress Madam Lucille, it would require the debutantes, as well as select young men who wished to join, to showcase their personal talents to the attendees of the Season. For me, this was cause for some anxiety.
“A talent show?” Tori said. She looked positively delighted. “Prime time to whip out my old lute.”
Genevieve decided to exhibit her watercolor paintings and do a live demonstration. Meanwhile, I was trying very hard not to think about all the things I was terrible at.
“I actually regret escaping stepmother’s lessons,” I moaned to an amused Genevieve. “Who would’ve thought this day would come?”
Lydia forced us to learn a multitude of ladylike arts, including playing the piano, painting, and embroidery, among other activities. I barely passed as mediocre on the piano and my embroidery was a definite disaster. Luckily, there were still two weeks to prepare.
Ash was similarly amused when I told him of my plight. I had returned to the library as promised and the two of us actually cleaned the east end, as he had requested the servants to leave the work for us.
“Why not try dancing?” he said, wiping the panes of the window with a damp rag as I swept the floor.
“You of all people should know I’m a mediocre dancer.” I had gotten surprisingly comfortable in his company .
He tapped his chin. “Sing a song, perhaps? I could play the piano. We’ll put on a good performance, you and I.”
I leaned over on my broom. “Only if you play exceptionally loudly to mask my terrible pitch.”
“Is there anything you’re good at?”
“Gardening.”
“Now there’s an idea! How do you feel about flower arrangement?”
“That is not the same thing, Ash.”
His face practically glowed. “You called me Ash.”
I masked my embarrassment with a scowl. “Well, it’s your name, isn’t it?”
His silly smile didn’t dissolve fast enough for my liking, so I spent the rest of the time in icy silence and calling him “Your Royal Highness” when I had to address him.
Though nothing came from the cleaning session, I decided to busy myself with Lana’s books and forget about the blasted talent show until it was close enough to worry about. A week before the event, my crystal vibrated, calling me to my first lesson with Lana. I deemed it much more important and enjoyable than a Season event, until I discovered that it involved toads.
“Bring it over here.”
I gingerly picked up the glass box in which a very large, very slimy toad sat and set it next to Lana. In addition to snails and cats, toads were creatures I absolutely detested, mostly because of their slick-looking skin and bulging eyeballs. When I came into Lana’s cottage first thing in the morning, I expected her to ask me about the reading she had assigned, but instead I was fetching things for her and bringing them to her potion-making room. One of them happened to be a toad.
I didn’t ask Lana what she was making, as she was too absorbed in her work to speak more than a few words at a time, the bulk of them commands. I stood to the side and watched her, fascinated, as she cut a wine-colored root into thin slices and scraped it into a stone pestle filled with a mixture of strange powders. I knew what each ingredient did. A good amount of them had detoxifying properties and some were meant to purify. Lana soon broke the silence.
“Open the lid.”
I jostled out of my trance. She couldn’t mean the toad.
“Well? Open it.” Her jab at the glass box melted away all doubt.
It was ridiculous to moan about my phobia of amphibians to Lana, so I swallowed my fear and lifted the lid. The toad’s eyes darted about, looking ready to leap out and attach itself to my face like a leech.
Lana selected a cotton swab from the multitude of tools before her and began stroking the toad below the chin. I watched with a mixture of disgust and fascination as a milky substance oozed from its back. Rings of fluorescent teal pulsed from the toad’s skin.
“Is that...?”
“Toad venom.” Lana ran the swab across the creature and then closed the lid. She wiped the gooey substance into her bowl and began grinding the mixture with a mortar. After a moment, she walked over to the stone fireplace where she had told me to prepare a small cauldron with salted water. It was boiling when she scraped the ground contents inside .
I looked at the concoction doubtfully, wondering why Lana was putting venom in a potion. I recalled that a neighborhood girl’s dog died by toad venom a few years back and treacherously wondered if Lana was making poison. Was it for the Witch Market I had heard so much about?
“This is an antidote for mild poisoning,” Lana said as if reading my thoughts. She stirred the cauldron with a wooden stick, looking every bit like the witch she was. Her face betrayed none of her thoughts. Though serious, she looked calmer than she did the first time I saw her.
“An antidote? With venom in it?”
“Have you not read anything I gave you?”
“I have!” I said, scrambling for the books in my bag. I didn’t want to disappoint her. “But I only started the third one. On potion making.”
Lana glanced at the book in my lap and raised an eyebrow. Only then did I notice the dust jacket of A Sailor’s Seduction was still wrapped around it, depicting a very saucy image of a bare-chested man. I yanked off the jacket and shoved it back in the bag, blushing. “That was a disguise,” I said.
The witch gave a nod. I thought I detected a twitch at the corner of her lips. “Potion making is the most important of the bunch, but I suppose you had to familiarize yourself with basic witch history first.”
I recalled what the volume on witch history said about King Humphrey’s Non-Magic Age. There wasn’t a hint of malice in the passage despite being written by a witch. It could have been in a standard book on Olderean history. I wondered how the witches could be so compliant as to willingly leave because a human king said so. Though, I supposed that they managed to live perfectly well underneath their homeland .
“I’ll try my best to finish it this week,” I said earnestly. “I’ve been a bit preoccupied.”
Lana’s gaze strayed to my bracelet of silver bells. I had gotten so used to its weight on my wrist that I barely took off.
“I see,” she said. “Well, no matter. I intend to teach you the basics of potion making today, anyhow.”
She covered the cauldron with a lid and beckoned me to the main room, which I began to refer to as her storage room if anything else. The chamber was cluttered with herbs and bottles and papers. Lana pulled out a bench near the fireplace and gestured for me to be seated.
“Today we will cover poisons and antidotes, the former of which is the first thing that comes to humans’ minds when they hear about witch potions,” Lana said dryly. “If you were wondering why I put venom in the antidote, it is meant to work with the purifying ingredients to stagnate and at some point, reverse the effects of any mild poison. I find that poison itself, if used in small quantities, can be used for healing. Antidotes, too, can be poisonous if used in great amounts. There is a delicate balance between the two, and any small change can tip the scale.”
I nodded, wishing that I had brought fresh parchment and a pen with me. My younger self would have scoffed, as my old governess’s lessons were as dull as a barrel of turnips. But this was different.
“Mind you,” she said, “making poisons with intent of killing humans or fellow witches alike is not allowed. No witch is allowed to use magic for malice. It is the only law we have.”
“So you can’t make poisons?” I asked, confused.
“We can,” Lana said after a beat. “I suppose it’s not a law. More of a code of honor, really. ”
Lana proceeded to list the most common types of witch-made poisons, which were only made to kill off pests or to get rid of mold, that wouldn’t be fatal to humans or witches if ingested. Most of them could be cured with the basic antidote Lana had made out of toad venom.
“And you will find that all witch-made potions will linger on any object it touches,” Lana said. “Magic always leaves a trace.”
I asked her what she meant by that.
Lana went to her cupboard and pulled out a vial of murky liquid and a dented tin mug. I touched my crystal when she uncorked the vial. Rat poison.
“Watch carefully,” Lana said. She dripped the poison into the mug, swirled it around, and poured it back into the vial. A puff of gold emitted from the tin when the poison made contact, then faded away. Lana went to her cauldron where she rinsed the mug with water.
“All witches can sense where a potion has been, in their own way. For you it will be visual,” Lana said, tilting the mug to me. “Do you see anything?”
A pulsing gold aura emitted from the mug where the rat poison had been, even though it was clean. “I do,” I said. “It’s like a magical footprint.”
“It is,” Lana said. I thought I saw a hint of satisfaction in her expression. “And luckily, it is possible to extract and identify that footprint with a special extracting potion. Very handy for witches who forget the recipe of something they previously brewed.”
“So you could make more rat poison appear from that mug?” I asked, amazed.
“That’s right. You will learn how to make that extracting potion in the future,” she said .
“Are there any other examples of magic leaving a trace?” I asked, wondering at the possibilities. “If a charmwitch casts a spell, does that leave a trace too?”
“Not quite. But magic works in mysterious ways. Sometimes things happen that even witches can’t comprehend,” Lana said. “Legend has it there was once a powerful witch who passed away. When she breathed her last breath, her enchanted object glowed and her body disappeared. The object was passed on to her granddaughter, who claims her grandmother has appeared before her many a time, as real and as solid as any living person.”
I stared at my crystal, wondering if I’d be stuck in there if I died. Lana seemed to read my thoughts. “But of course, it is just a legend,” she said. I realized she was looking at my crystal too. She tore her gaze away and cleared her throat. “Never mind that. It is getting late.”
The strong sunlight streaming through the circular windows told me it was near noon. My stomach gave an embarrassingly loud growl as I bent over to retrieve my bag.
“Will you stay for lunch?” Lana asked just as I stood.
“If you will have me,” I said, sitting back down. I’d be a fool to refuse Lana’s hospitality after taking such pains to convince her to teach me.
Lana disappeared into another room, and before I could react, dishes of food shot out and skidded onto the table. She emerged and sat calmly, as if levitating dishes were not out of the ordinary.
“Go ahead.”
A bowl of mixed grains sat before me. The other dishes held assorted vegetables and a hunk of steamed fish. I took a small bite, noting that the grains and vegetables tasted rather bland despite the spices speckling the surface. We ate in silence until we finished. Lana waved her hand and the empty dishes flew back into the room from which they came.
“Will I be able to do that?” I asked.
“Moving objects with magic? Yes, if you wish,” Lana said. “It is like any skill. Some witches never bother learning it and some find it immensely useful.” She gave no more explanation, and I didn’t feel like prying. I still felt hungry, oddly enough, but I did not say so. Hopefully, there would be something for me back at the Strongfoot manor.
“Thank you for the meal.” I lifted my bag over my shoulder again and slid off the bench.
“It’s a poor meal compared to what you are used to, I’m sure,” Lana said.
“Not at all, really. It was...er, delicious.”
She laughed. I noted that it was the first time she had done so in my presence. “There is no need to lie. I am perfectly aware of how tasteless it was.”
“The fish was fine,” I said. It was. I had eaten my portion much too quickly after discovering that it had ten times more flavor than anything else.
“I got it from the Market,” Lana said.
I was almost hesitant to ask. “The Witch Market?”
Lana nodded. “Illegal as it may be, we depend on it, especially for food. There are many shortcomings to living underground, no matter how much we make it look like the outside world.” She glanced out of the small round window near the door, an almost wistful expression overtaking her face.
“Do witches get all their food from humans?”
“No. We have land for growing crops at the perimeter of the village. It is not nearly enough to feed an entire village year-round, so we use magic to grow more and grow faster. And well...one could imagine the quality of rushed crops,” Lana said.
So that’s why I wasn’t full after eating so much. It never occurred to me that magic couldn’t accomplish everything.
Curiosity got the best of me. “When was the last time you went outside?” I asked. Lana’s face stiffened.
“Last week,” she said briskly. “To the Market.”
She went to the counter again. She had bottled up the antidote in small glass jars and began putting them in a shallow wooden crate. “Speaking of which, we are going next week. I’ll need someone to carry my wares.”
“Do you often sell at the Market?” I asked.
Lana turned around, hands on her hips. “Many of us have to, unless we wish to have bland food and no supplies.”
I felt ignorant and scolded as Lana loaded her wares. I had always heard the Witch Market referred to in whispers, a place where twisted people went to purchase twisted things. But now, despite not having been there, I saw it in a different light.
I decided to speak again. “But if it’s illegal, how do you manage to go?”
Lana’s lips pinched. “As powerful as your king is, he cannot control everything.”
Your king. Not our. I supposed it was fitting, as witches have technically been banished from the kingdom. Yet it made me wonder if witches had their own sort of leadership, and if so, who? I asked Lana just that, and she laughed again, but this time it was mirthless.
“We have no king and no leader. We are a reclusive, independent people.”
I recalled Miriam’s words. Witches were reclusive to a fault. But I sensed, for some reason or other, that Lana did not take well to the snail seller’s ideas.