فصل 43

43.

In Which a Witch Casts Her First Spell—On Purpose This Time

A whirlwind of legs and wings and elbows and fingernails and beaks and paper. Paper birds swirled around the knoll in a spiral winding tighter and tighter and tighter.

“My eyes!” the man yelled.

“My cheek!” Luna howled.

“My boots!” a woman groaned. A woman that Luna did not know.

“Caw!” screeched the crow. “My girl! Stay away from my girl.”

“Birds!” Luna gasped.

She rolled away from the tangle and scrambled to her feet. The paper birds swirled upward in a massive formation overhead before alighting in a great circle on the ground. They weren’t attacking—not yet. But the way they keened their beaks forward and menacingly opened their wings made them look as though they might.

The man covered his face.

“Keep them away,” he whimpered. He shook and cowered, covering his face with his hands. He dropped the knife on the ground. Luna kicked it away, and it tumbled over the edge of the ridge.

“Please,” he whispered. “I’ve met these birds. They are terrifying. They cut me to shreds.”

Luna knelt next to him. “I won’t let them hurt you,” she whispered. “I promise. They found me before, when I was lost in the woods. They didn’t hurt me then, and I can’t imagine that they will hurt you now. But no matter what, I won’t let them. Do you understand me?”

The man nodded. He kept his face curled to his knees.

The paper birds cocked their heads. They did not look at Luna. They looked at the woman, sprawled on the ground.

Luna looked at her, too.

The woman wore black boots and a plain gray shift dress. Her head was shaved. She had wide, black eyes and a birthmark on her forehead in the shape of a crescent moon. Luna pressed her fingers to her own brow.

She is here, her heart called. She is here, she is here, she is here.

“She is here,” the woman whispered. “She is here, she is here, she is here.”

Luna had an image in her head of a woman with long black hair, writhing from her head like snakes. She looked at the woman in front of her. She tried to imagine her with hair.

“Do I know you?” Luna said.

“No one knows me,” the woman said. “I have no name.”

Luna frowned. “Did you have a name?”

The woman crouched down, hugging her knees. Her eyes darted this way and that. She was hurt, but not on her body. Luna looked closer. She was hurt in her mind. “Once,” the woman said. “Once I had a name. But I do not remember it. There was a man who called me ‘wife,’ and there was a child who would have called me ‘mother.’ But that was a long time ago. I cannot tell how long. Now I am only called ‘prisoner.’ ”

“A tower,” Luna whispered, taking a step nearer. The woman had tears in her eyes. She looked at Luna and then looked away, back and forth, as though afraid to let her eyes rest on the girl for too long.

The man looked up. He drew himself to his knees. He stared at the madwoman. “It’s you,” he said. “You escaped.”

“It’s me,” the madwoman said. She crawled across the rocky surface and crouched next to him. She put her hands on his face. “This is my fault,” she said, running her fingers across his scars. “I’m sorry. But your life. Your life is happier now. Isn’t it?”

The man’s eyes swelled with tears. “No,” he said. “I mean, yes. It is. But no. My wife had a baby. Our son is beautiful. But he is the youngest in the Protectorate. Like you, we must give our baby to the Witch.”

He looked at the birthmark on the madwoman’s forehead.

He slid his gaze to Luna. He was looking at her identical birthmark. And her identical wide, black eyes. A lump in his jacket struggled and pecked. A black beak peeked from the rim of his collar. Pecked again.

“Ouch,” the man said

“I’m not a witch,” Luna said, drawing up her chin. “Or, at least, I wasn’t. And I never took any babies.”

The crow hopped across the bare rock and leaped upward, arcing toward the girl’s shoulder.

“Of course you aren’t,” the woman said. She still couldn’t keep her eyes on Luna. She had to look away, as though Luna were a bright light. “You are the baby.”

“What baby?”

A bird struggled its way out of the man’s jacket. That lichen green glow. The bird squawked and worried and pecked.

“Please, little friend!” the man said. “Peace! Calm yourself. You have nothing to fear.”

“Grandmama!” Luna whispered.

“You don’t understand. I accidentally broke this swallow’s wing,” the man said.

Luna wasn’t listening. “GRANDMAMA!” The swallow froze. It stared at the girl with one bright eye. Her grandmother’s eye. She knew it.

Inside her skull a final gear slid into place. Her skin hummed. Her bones hummed. Her mind lit with memories, each one falling like an asteroid, flashing in the dark.

The screaming woman on the ceiling.

The very old man with the very large nose.

The circle of sycamores.

The sycamore that became an old woman.

The woman with starlight on her fingers. And then something sweeter than starlight.

And somehow, Glerk was a bunny.

And her grandmother tried to teach her about spells. The texture of spells. The construction of spells. The poetry and artistry and architecture of spells. They were lessons that Luna heard and forgot, but now she remembered and understood.

She looked at the bird. The bird looked at Luna. The paper birds quieted their wings and waited.

“Grandmama,” Luna said, holding up her hands. She focused all her love, all her questions, all her care, all her worry, all her frustrations, and all her sorrow on the bird on the ground. The woman who fed her. The woman who taught her to build and dream and create. The woman who didn’t answer her questions—who couldn’t. That’s who she wanted to see. She felt the bones in her toes begin to buzz. Her magic and her thinking and her intention and her hope. They were all the same thing now. Their force moved through her shins. Then her hips. Then her arms. Then her fingers.

“Show yourself,” Luna commanded.

And, in a tangle of wings and claws and arms and legs, her grandmother was there. She looked at Luna. Her eyes were rheumy and damp. They flowed with tears.

“My darling,” she whispered.

And then Xan shuddered, doubled over, and collapsed onto the ground.