Cogling (21 page)

The hag turned. “What are you doing?”

She stumbled over her boots, forced to grab the wall again to keep from falling. The ugliness returned, spreading to the stairs, revealing them as rotting. When Edna looked at the hag, she didn’t see a young woman anymore; her face became gaunt, with sharp cheekbones and thick eyebrows over a warty nose.

Edna released the bricks and clasped her hands. The illusion took hold, shattering the truth.

The hag stared at her without moving before she tipped her head. “Don’t touch anything.” The hag resumed her walk.

“Don’t you want to get your brother?” Ike whispered in Edna’s ear.

“This isn’t what the place really looks like.” She gestured at the stairwell. “If things aren’t true, Harrison might be hidden in front of us.”

“Hags rely on enchantments to ensure their things look nice. Be silent. You can’t jeopardize this.”

“I—”

Ike’s glare cut her off.

The hag opened a door at the top of the stairs and they entered a new hallway that appeared the same as the last. They traveled around corners and up another flight of stairs. The hum of the machinery below burned her ears. Sweat beads broke out and her forehead ached beneath the headband. She hoped her brother would appear so she could grab him and they could run.

They would escape. Somehow. She couldn’t worry about that now. First, locate Harrison.

The hag pushed a door and stepped aside while it swung open. The voices in Edna’s head grew louder. She pressed her hands over her ears, wincing, and the evil crept out from her heart. Ike cupped her elbow and stepped into the room. The hag remained in the hallway, smiling sleekly. Edna suppressed a shudder as she entered.

The air smelled of jasmine and lavender. Muted light filtered through a barred window. The rest drifted off the gas lamps on the walls. A fire crackled in a small hearth, over which hung a copper teapot. A woman had her back to the doorway as she sat on a red settee, her body clothed in a maroon shawl.

The door shut behind Edna and she jumped. An elderly man stood with his hand on the brass knob, a pipe held between his thin lips.He stood seven feet tall, his body as thick as a log. Veins bulged from his long neck. His forehead peeked over his beady silver eyes in his egg-shaped head. He removed the pipe and blew smoke into the air.

Edna’s eyes widened.
An ogre.
She’d seen a few before at the Moser Summer Fair. With bulging muscles and arms so long their hands reached their shins, humans used them to pull carts around the fair. Passengers squealed in excitement and laughed at the deformed creatures.

Ogres were always male. They married hags, and their children were either hags or ogres, depending on the gender. Since Ike’s mother was a hag, if she’d married an ogre, Ike would’ve resembled an ogre, rather than looking human. Unlike the ogres at the fair who wore brown smocks, this ogre dressed in a white blouse with a black jacket overtop and matching pants, as though he were a gentleman. A red scarf tied at his neck.

“How can I help you?” The woman on the settee spoke, a guttural sound Edna had heard before.

Mother Sambucus.

Edna pressed her knuckles into her mouth to keep from whimpering. Shivers crawled over her body.

Ike bowed. “My younger brother and I are here to offer our services. We’re hunters, ma’am, and I’ve heard you’re eager for fresh Nix game.”

Mother Sambucus leaned forward, humming before she spoke. “Come here.”

Ike moved without hesitation. He didn’t motion, but Edna knew she’d better follow or appear suspicious. Stepping around the settee revealed what Mother Sambucus kept in her lap.

A little girl knelt with her hand held by Mother Sambucus. The child had thinning gray hair, balding spaces visible on her skull as though she were a tomtar. Like the girl downstairs, her silvery ears pointed at the tops.

“What else do you hunt?” Mother Sambucus lifted a sewing needle from her lap. Turquoise thread dangled from the end.

Ike shrugged. “Whatever you need.”

Edna wrapped her arms around herself to suppress a shudder, picturing the foxkin she’d freed from Waxman Estate. In her absence, how many others had Lord Waxman hunted? Other estates, other parties, other foxkins chased down to their doom. So much death and fear in the kingdom. Edna sucked on her lower lip.

“Do you poach?” Mother Sambucus tugged on the silk thread as though testing its strength.

Ike grinned. “Gotta eat.”

Mother Sambucus smiled, sliding the needle tip through the child’s thumb. Edna gasped, but the child’s glazed eyes stared forward.

“What are you doing?” Edna squeaked.

“Only what needs to be done.” The hag nodded. “I will sew her hand together. Then, I will sew her hand beneath her arm. I shall repeat that on the other side. Without her hands, wings will start to grow.”

Like the girl downstairs, this child had a family somewhere. That family looked at a cogling and thought their daughter was safe, but instead she suffered beneath a hag’s wickedness.

Edna curled her hands into fists, aching to sew Mother Sambucus together, to watch the hag writhe and beg. Edna would ask her, “How do you like the feeling?”

Mother Sambucus laughed as if she knew Edna’s thoughts, as if she reveled in her power. “Each time a pair of wings grows, I shall pluck them off, and a new set will begin. Fresh wings are a delicacy. All it takes is a little powder rubbed on her back.”

Edna blanched. If she grabbed the child, the hags and ogres would attack.

“We were saying, about hunting,” Ike prompted.

Mother Sambucus sewed the child’s fingertips. “How much do you want to be paid?”

“A pound a skin?”

“Or”—Mother Sambucus looked up with her brow furrowed—“perhaps you want your brother back, Miss Mather?”

Mark the way, and so you did.

he room tilted. Edna grabbed the back of the settee to stay upright and Ike flung his arms toward her.

She tried to think of how to deny the claim, but it felt as though a thick blanket had descended over her thoughts, scattering them.

Mother Sambucus smiled to reveal her crooked teeth. “Did you think technology and magic could trick me? Why don’t you take off those silly headbands?”

Edna fought to remain conscious as dizziness clawed her mind. From the doorway, the ogre chuckled deep within his throat. The evil raced along her body as though to push back the hag’s power.

“Ike.” Mother Sambucus pulled the thread tighter and the little girl swayed forward. “How did you like Moser City?”

Ike’s right hand twitched. “I wasn’t there.”

The blanket over Edna’s thoughts lifted a little as the evil surged in fuller force. Her heartbeat sped as she studied the square window. They couldn’t make it through the door—the ogre held a cane, and outside the other hag waited.

Mother Sambucus clicked her tongue. “I saw you. Why else have I been going to Moser City so often?”

“You don’t need me.” He lifted his fist. “You already took my mother.”

Edna gaped at him as his face scrunched.

“You can still do a lot. You were born of two noble bloodlines, a mixture of hag and human.” Mother Sambucus slid the needle through the girl’s palm, curling the child’s fingers. The hag put her hand over the child’s and squeezed. The room filled with an audible crack of bone.

“You broke her hand!” Anger bit at Edna’s belly. Why didn’t Ike fight for the child? She’d never seen him back down. They needed to stop arguing with Mother Sambucus and take action.

“I broke her knuckle. Her hand needs to be much tinier than it is now so she can’t claw free.”

The hags knew who they were; they had to escape and plan anew. Hoping Ike would follow her lead, Edna ran toward the window, but the velvet carpet lifted off the floor. She tripped and smashed into the wall. Pain flared through her shoulder, but she gritted her teeth. The carpet wrapped around her body, pinning her arms to her side.

“She hasn’t done anything,” Ike growled.

Mother Sambucus broke another of the girl’s knuckles. “I know why Edna is here.”

“Stop hurting that girl.” Edna struggled against the rug. “The child can’t fight back. Leave her alone.” Another crack.

“I’ve been waiting for you to come home, Ike,” Mother Sambucus purred. “Your father loves you, doesn’t he? Do you think he’s forgotten you yet?”

Ike paled. “I’m half-hag. Humans don’t care about me.”

“Your father does.” Mother Sambucus snapped the thread and pulled what remained from her needle. “Other hand, dear.”

The girl cradled her broken hand to her chest and held out the other, eyes still glazed. Edna tried to see a spark of resistance in them, or even a glimpse of fear, something to show the child was still awake inside her body.

“The other humans won’t let my father care.” Ike gritted his teeth.

Mother Sambucus nodded to the ogre at the door. “Take Miss Mather to the Hemlock.”

“You’ve got another Hemlock?” Ike roared.

“There will always be a fresh Hemlock.” Mother Sambucus rethreaded her needle with a new strand.

“Ike, what’s a Hemlock?” If Ike’s reaction meant anything, it had to be something dire.

Edna screamed when the ogre grabbed her face to rip off the headband. Her skin rippled, ruining the illusion, and pain exploded in her skull.

Ike rushed toward her, but a thread slithered from Mother Sambucus’s sewing basket to tangle around his legs, and he plummeted to the floor.

“Ike!” The rug stayed wrapped around Edna’s torso, but allowed her legs movement, so she slammed her heels into the floor. Grunting, the ogre heaved her toward the door. The evil bit at the rug, singeing the fibers closest to her skin. It burned through her skin to leave those fibers blackened, smoking. Did she dare give the evil greater reign?

“A Hemlock is a human.” Ike tore at the thread, but it held fast. “Forced to mate with a hag or ogre to mix human dreams with magic. Mother Sambucus, you cannot make Edna the next Hemlock.”

“I’ve already got one of those. Edna will be happy serving her.”

“That’s disgusting,” Edna spat. The door opened as they approached it and the hag in the hallway nodded to the ogre, with a smirk directed at Edna. The dream of freeing Harrison slipped from Edna’s horizon. Panic welled in her throat.

She glanced back into the sewing room, but Ike didn’t look up as he struggled with his bonds.

“Ike, I’ll find you,” she called. The door slammed, yet Mother Sambucus’s cackle followed them into the hallway.

“Release me.” Edna bit at the ogre’s hands, but couldn’t reach. He dragged her downstairs, each step jolting her body. Her teeth bit her tongue and blood filled her mouth. She spit it out, a crimson trickle on the carpet.

He paused beside a doorway.

“You’re a brute,” Edna screamed. “A nasty, foul…” Her rant trailed off as she caught a glimpse inside the room. Children sat on stools knitting scarves as colorful as a rainbow. Dream powder drifted toward the ceiling, rising from their graying bodies.

A boy dressed in a girl’s linen nightgown worked near the center. Dull brown hair hung around his face, his cheekbones protruding above his parted lips. Gray crept over his skin.

“Harrison,” Edna whispered. Rage swept through her veins and she fought harder against her bonds. The evil swept through her like a wave. “Harrison! It’s me, Edna.
Harrison
.”