Prologue #2
“Hussy! How dare you say his name?”
She raises the pipe again, this time to drive it into my cheek, but I’m too quick. I scrabble upright and make for the door, and in my hands is the Weave I finally managed to tie.
I channel into the thread as I run out of the library, then turn and kick the door shut. The spellknot in my hands flares white hot, and then the door vanishes entirely.
It’s only an illusion spell. In minutes Aunt Lenore will find the doorknob and escape; I have to make use of what little time I have.
Fighting back always makes Aunt Lenore twice as angry, and I’ve never dared use magic against her before. I don’t want to find out what the consequences of such naughtiness would be.
I limp down the dark hallway, gasping for breath. Aunt Lenore’s sharp kicks found too many bruises from my last punishment, and now they throb anew. I have to stop every few steps to let out a sob and work up the strength to go on. The burn on my neck screams.
The beating on the library walls sounds like the knock of a corpse come back to life, trying to escape its coffin. How long until Aunt Lenore finds the knob?
In my panic, I turn left at the end of the hallway instead of right toward the stairs and find myself trapped at a dead end. There’s nothing here but wood-paneled walls.
Then comes a crash down the corridor and Aunt Lenore’s voice calling out, “You’ll pay for that trick dearly, little witch!”
“I’m not a witch,” I murmur, looking around desperately. “I’m a Weaver.”
I press myself against the wall, hoping Aunt Lenore might overlook my small form in the darkness. My fingers find fine cracks in the wainscoting.
Cracks that are too evenly spaced to be an accident. There is a pattern carved into the wood, and it seems to whisper This way, this way!
I try to shut out the sound of Aunt Lenore’s footsteps as she stalks down the hallway, the stench of tobacco smoke searching me out. I cover my mouth and nose, afraid it will make me cough and give myself away. For a moment, terror blackens my thoughts, but I squeeze my eyes shut and force it back.
My fingers follow the cracks, which are arranged in the pattern of a simple concealing Weave. When I find the center of the pattern and press it, I hear a soft click. The wooden panel in front of me shifts inward quietly; my breath catches in my throat.
I carefully slide the panel aside to reveal a narrow tunnel. Without a second thought I dive inside, taking care to replace the panel behind me.
I crawl along until I feel the ceiling of the passage rise and find I can now stand. The space is narrow and colder than Aunt Lenore’s heart. I must be inside the very walls of the house. I swallow a sob, feeling as if they are closing in to crush me.
My progress takes me past the room where my aunt’s two ladies’ maids are ironing sheets. I hear their soft whispers through the wall and slow my pace. Would they help me or just give me away? As I raise my hand to beat on the wall and call for aid, they speak.
“Should we do something?” says the younger maid, Mary, who’s new to the house.
“Try,” replies the older one, Lillian. “You’ll only end up like your predecessor. She was blacklisted by the mistress for stepping in to protect the girl. She had to sail for the continent because no one in England would hire her.”
Tears burn in my eyes at the memory of poor Bess. She bravely stood up for me the day I got the scars on my wrist. It did neither me nor Bess any good.
With a shudder, I move on past the maids’ room, trying to remember what room comes next. No one will help me here. They’re afraid too. This whole house is soaked in fear, like water dripping down the walls. I’m drowning in it.
Gasping for air that suddenly seems gone, I beat a hand against the wall—only to feel another panel depress beneath my palm. It opens a hidden door. I fall through with a shout, into a dark, musty space, and land on a thick carpet smelling of cedar and thread and paper.
My heart misses a beat. I know that splendid smell, even years later.
I’m in Uncle Artie’s study.
It’s been two years since I was in here. He’d been alive then and had often shared his spellbooks and thread with me in hopes I might one day channel magic too. He spoke of sending me to a Moirene school to properly learn how to Weave and to make something of myself.
Scrubbing away a tear with the heel of my hand, I turn slowly, taking in the room with all its bittersweet memories.
Nothing has changed in that time. One shuttered window looks out to the street, letting in enough light to reveal the crimson walls, bookcases, and great desk.
A portrait of Uncle Artie hangs on the far wall, over a hearth.
He looks kindly in it. In one hand he holds a spool of thread, and on his chest shines the medal King George gave him for distinguished service in the Telarii Guild, Weaving defensive wards against the French in the Battle of Alexandria.
He used to love to tell me the story. How a person so good could end up married to someone like Aunt Lenore, I have no idea.
Moving slowly, I find the desk piled with all the spellbooks I’ve been forbidden to touch.
Even knowing the trouble I’ll be in if Aunt Lenore finds me here, I can’t help but feel a rush of excitement as I place my hands on those marvelous tomes.
How many wondrous spells lie within, spells that can protect me, make me stronger, set me free?
I realize then that I can no longer hear my aunt’s footsteps.
But beneath the barred door, in a sliver of sunlight, a shadow moves.
My heart stops.
“Oh, Rose. You have gone too far this time.”
I hear the sound of splintering wood as Aunt Lenore tears one of the bars off the door.
No point in caution anymore. I fling open the shutters, flooding the room with light. Aunt Lenore shrieks in response.
“Go on!” she cries. “Touch one thing, and I’ll have you hanged for thieving!”
I flip through the books desperately, eyes racing over the pages, looking for something—anything. There are books of healing magic, books of war magic, books of dangerous illegal magic, even. Some are so heavy it takes me both hands to even lift them.
When I reach for an old, battered book bound in soft leather, it flashes and stings my finger, and I pull away with a yelp. Popping my finger in my mouth, I squint at the faded title.
The Book of the Moorwitches.
I’ve heard that word before, moorwitch. They were the first Weavers in England, wild women who learned magic, some said, from the faeries.
They were terribly powerful, and fought the invading Romans with spells few today could wield.
Some stories even told tales of how they moved from one place to another in an instant—how useful a spell that would be!
Someone—Uncle Artie?—sealed the book with a complex ward knot, threads bound neatly around the cover. The pattern is mesmerizing, an intricate design that draws my mind in and turns it inside out. It’s the sort of knot that seems to have no beginning or end.
But for as long as I can remember, patterns have whispered to me. Whether it’s a spellknot illustrated on a page, or the veins on the back of a leaf, or the way the flour dances in the sieve when Cook tosses it, patterns make sense. They tell me their secrets as if they want to be understood.
This one is no different. I stare hard at the knot on the forbidden spellbook, mapping the lines, tracing them with invisible fingers, spiraling round and round until . . .
There!
I find the secret string tucked beneath the pattern which unravels the Weave all at once. The protective shielding vanishes.
I heave open the book as Aunt Lenore rips another bar from the door.
The pages are yellow and the script so faded I can barely make it out. The book has to be hundreds of years old. Uncle Artie left no notes in these margins; I guess he never had need for such forbidden magic.
Despite Aunt Lenore’s attempts to wall me off from all knowledge of magic, I know a little about the laws governing Weavers. Some spells can get you thrown in jail. Others can get your hands crushed beneath rocks.
But many of the spells in this book would result in a swift execution.
I hesitate, shivering at the gruesome images on the pages. I should not be holding this. I shouldn’t even know this sort of magic exists. Guilt twists like a snake in my belly.
But then another crash in the hallway startles me. How many bars are left over the door? Four? Five? I have only minutes to find a way to save myself. There’s no time to search the other books. Fear overcomes guilt. I continue turning pages.
I find no secret to transporting myself to some far-off haven. Instead, there are spells to stop the heart, to choke the lungs, to turn intestines into snakes. The images make me shudder, and my courage slips. I can’t do any of these, not even to my aunt. No wonder my uncle warded this book shut.
But then I find one that isn’t quite so gruesome: A Spell to Summon Immortal Protection.
That sounds promising.
I look up as the door begins to shudder. Aunt Lenore’s almost got it open.
Heart jumping, I scan the instructions for the spell, skipping the prologue about the price of certain magicks, searching instead for the important parts about which threads should go where.
It’s a complicated Weave, no simple cat’s cradle. I glance around and spot Uncle Artie’s pegboard hanging on the wall. Wooden, round, with two dozen pegs set around its perimeter, it is meant for Weaving more complex spells.
I take it down and set to work.
The thread slips in my clammy hands, a short piece breaking off. I use it to tie back my brown waves of hair, which are now damp with sweat. Across the room, the door shudders as the boards nailed over it rip with splinters and cracks.
I Weave as quickly as my fingers can move. Will this spell even work? Am I strong enough to channel the magic to fill it? What sort of immortal protection will it summon?
Despite my many unanswered prayers in the past, I hope for the Fates, the blessed Moirai: Clotho, Lachesis, Atropos. Spinners of life and determiners of death, who watch all humanity through their great looms.
“Help me,” I whisper. “Please, send an angel, send a demon, I don’t care. Please just save me!”
In moments, the Weave is done. The pattern looks like a winding spiral, an illusion that seems to stretch infinitely inward. I stare at it until the sound of a key in the door shakes me into motion. She must have torn down all the boards.
My time is up.
Planting my hand on the threads, I let out a long breath and then channel.
This time, I am not cautious.
I drain energy from the plants in the sitting room, sensing them wither and brown.
I wrench it from the ivy, from the vegetables in the larder, from the moss growing in the cracks of the walls.
In my desperation, I nearly pull it from Leo, Aunt Lenore’s grumpy old cat, but with a shiver I pass him over.
That is dark magic I will not draw upon, not even to save my own life.
Please be enough, please be enough, please—!
I gasp as the pattern of threads flares white, so bright I am forced to look away.
The room fills with a howling wind that pushes books off the walls and sends Uncle Artie’s portrait crashing to the floor.
I cry out and duck behind the desk, tasting ashes on my lips as the thread crumbles and is swept away by the unearthly gale.
Then, suddenly, all falls still.
The wind dies; the pages stop rustling. I’m trembling and dizzy, my eyes wet with tears.
My neck still pulses with pain from the pipe burn.
I can’t hear Aunt Lenore. Did she open the door?
Was I too late? I can only wait and quiver in a silence so deep I wonder if I’ve gone deaf.
Shadows thicken around me as if night has fallen all at once, snuffing out the sunlight.
Finally, after a long moment, I lift my head, letting out a long, shaky breath.
And feel a cold hand close on my shoulder.