Grayling's Song (5 page)

“Hear what?” the three asked in unison.

Grayling's hopes sagged. She sang again. “Can you sing it?”

They could not. The others could neither sing the song nor hear the grimoire singing back.

Auld Nancy shook her head. “The song and the grimoire belong to you.”

“Nay, they are my mother's.”

“Can you sing the song?”

Grayling nodded.

“Does the grimoire sing back?”

Grayling nodded again.

“You can sing, and you can hear it singing back. I would say 'tis yours. So, too, the quest is yours. You must lead us to where the grimoires are so we may unravel this mystery and put things right.”

Grayling's head ached. She was no leader, neither brave nor eager for adventure. She wanted none of this. She looked around the table at the others. Desdemona Cork was not trustworthy, Pansy knew nothing, and Auld Nancy thought she knew everything but had no answer for this puzzle. What would happen to them if they challenged the evil force?

The wind shrieked and shook the inn, and the door rattled and banged. “This is no natural wind,” Auld Nancy said. “I believe strong forces are clashing and fighting for control, and we are caught between.”

hey slept,
four in a bed, in an attic room high under the eaves. Grayling tossed and turned as the wind yowled like a hungry cat trying to get inside.

During the night, with a
grawk
and a
cronk,
Pook the mouse had burst from Grayling's pocket in a flutter of black feathers. After Grayling explained him to her gobsmacked companions, Pook—now Pook the raven—flapped his wings and settled on the windowsill, where he pecked at the glass all night.

Morning was quiet in the inn. The baldheaded waiter brought bread and honey and peaches from the south, where it was still summer, to their table. Grayling sat with juice running down her chin, waiting for someone to suggest a plan, but no one said a word. Finally she swallowed and asked, “How shall we begin?”

“We?” asked Pansy. “Must I go? They are preparing pigeon pie for supper.”

Auld Nancy pinched Pansy's ear. “I am responsible for you, so where I go, you go. We will follow the sound of Grayling's singing grimoire and hope to put an end to this dark witchery.”

As Desdemona Cork was too conspicuous, Pansy too afraid, and Grayling reluctant, Auld Nancy went first. She was the surest and the boldest, short of temper but full of vigor. Following Auld Nancy, Grayling thought, would be much like following her mother.

Autumn was upon them. Here and there, leaves struggled to turn color, and the day was cloudy and cool. Grayling sang and cocked her head as she felt the response. “That way,” she said, and she pointed to a path up a hill, rutted and muddy and steep.

Off they went into the gray-sky morning, with Pook the raven soaring above them. He gave a shrill cry, dove to the ground, and skidded to a stop, over and over. Pebbles flew before his claws. His shiny beak pecked at sticks, at stones, at worms and beetles, grains of wheat and crusts of bread. Cawing and cronking, he fluttered to Pansy's shoulder and picked at her hair. “Hellborn bird!” she shouted, and off he flew. Silhouetted against the sky, he spread his great wings, twisting and tumbling, drifting then diving then climbing again. If a raven could laugh, Grayling would have sworn he was laughing.

They trudged on. The road wound up and down and around soft hills bedecked with oaks and elms, and Grayling breathed deeply of the crisp air. In the distance, fields lay fallow, awaiting spring planting.
Perhaps,
Grayling thought,
this venture will not be too difficult. My belly is full, there is no rain, Auld Nancy is leading us, and I have naught to do but sing. Perhaps all will be well.

They walked on, over barren hillsides, through wooded groves, past villages where church bells were tolling. Breezes sang, trees rustled, dogs menaced them, nipping at their heels. Through crossroads and forks, on tracks and trails, paths and byways and lanes, they walked, following Grayling, who followed the grimoire's song.

Pook swooped in to land on Grayling's shoulder. “This Pook must thank you, Gray Eyes,” he said, fixing her with his beady black eye, “for your shape-shifting potion has allowed it to see such things as a mouse would never see—haystacks and hillocks, sheep cotes and steeples and streambeds.”

“But, Pook,” she asked, her forehead furrowed with worry, “what if the potion wears off while you are in the sky? Or you shift suddenly into a squirrel or a cow? Your plummet to earth would be sudden, messy, and likely fatal.”

Pook was silent a moment and then shuddered. “Ah, I see.” He looked up at the sky and said softly, “This Pook has soared with eagles. No other mouse can say that. It is now content to stay on the ground.” He flapped his wings twice and settled down to nap on Grayling's shoulder. She shifted to settle his weight, for a raven was much heavier than a mouse.

Midafternoon they came to a crossroads. To the south the ground rose in green curves up and up. Along the top of the rise marched a line of soldiers. Faint sounds of feet trudging and weapons clanking echoed. Grayling swallowed hard and looked away.

A town could be seen to the north, but the grimoire sang them west. “Makes no matter,” said Auld Nancy, dropping to the ground beneath an ancient elm and mopping her red face with her skirt. “I can go no more, neither to the west nor to the north, not up nor down.”

“Auld Nancy,” said Grayling with alarm, “are you unwell?” The old woman was so forceful that Grayling believed nothing but grave illness could stop her.

“Nay, I am but spent and weary. I am older than I look.” Gray wisps poked out from the woman's wimple, the hairs on her chin trembled, and the skin on the backs of her hands was coarse and freckled. It was difficult to imagine that she could be older than she looked. Grayling's heart thumped once. What would become of them if Auld Nancy could not go on?

With a whoosh and a whoop, Pansy, grown pale and haggard, dropped down beside Auld Nancy. Grayling looked at the heavy clouds above and then at her companions on the ground. Despite the need for hurry, they would go no farther. What should she do? What would Hannah Strong do? Nay, what would she bid Grayling do?

“I will find wood for a fire,” Grayling said, “and a bit of a clearing off the road where we can rest.”

“And I,” said Desdemona Cork, as fresh and lovely as if she had just woken, “am footsore and hungry. I will go now and find me some supper.”

Auld Nancy glared at her. “Selfish wench! You would leave the rest of us to eat grass like sheep? Even enchanters, haughty and sly and thoughtless as you are, must have a care for others now and again. 'Tis the rightful thing to do.”

Desdemona Cork huffed and blew a strand of dark hair from her face. She stared at Auld Nancy for a moment, blinking her eyes and frowning, and then said, “'Tis not that I do not care about other people, but I find I rarely notice you.” She shrugged a lovely shrug.

“Notice us? Notice
me?
” Auld Nancy pointed a gnarled finger at the enchantress. “I am shower breeder, cloud pusher, fog mistress, ruler of the elements, and I can call down rain, constant rain, upon your head now and forevermore! Would you notice me then?”

There was a long pause. Grayling held her breath. Finally Desdemona Cork said, “I agree to provide supper for us all. Will that satisfy?”

Auld Nancy nodded.

“How will you do that?” Grayling asked.

Desdemona Cork twitched her shawls. The air sparkled and smelled of roses.
Of course,
thought Grayling.
Enchantress.

Traffic was sparse, but now and then horses and carts passed by, and merchants and farmers, peddlers and soldiers and other folk heading from here to there and there to here. A fine gentleman on a gray horse drew near, heading east. Desdemona Cork twitched her shawls, and before Grayling could puzzle out how, the enchantress was seated before the gentleman on the horse, no longer headed east but instead north into town.
Such a useful skill to have, enchanting,
thought Grayling.
If I could enchant someone,
she wondered,
what
would I have him do? Bring me cool water? Brush my hair? Roast me a chicken?

Grayling watched until Desdemona Cork and her admirer disappeared. “Do you think she will come back?” Grayling asked.

“More important, will supper come back?” added Pansy.

So Pansy did have some wits after all. Grayling gave the girl an encouraging smile, but Pansy was once more looking down at her feet, her lips plumped in a pout.

Light rain began. Pook the raven woke, shook drops off his wings, and turned mouse once more. “'Tis quite an experience for this Pook, the shape shifting,” he said. “The tingling and trembling leave it breathless and most exceedingly tired.” He climbed into the pocket of Grayling's kirtle and began to snore. She smiled.
I myself have enchanted a mouse, and I find I like the company.

While Auld Nancy and Pansy rested under the shelter of the tree, Grayling headed into a thick grove to gather fallen wood for a fire. The trees grew close together, and the air was damp and chill. In her valley, the trees reached out to embrace and caress her; here they grabbed at her skirt and pulled her hair. Grayling pushed her way through, picking up small branches and twigs as she went. The air grew darker and colder, and she shivered.

The trees thinned out at last and gave way to a small clearing where a goat feasted upon the remains of a garden. Behind were the tumbled ruins of a hut. A breeze stirred the leaves on the trees with a rustling like the ghostly whispering of dark secrets. Prickles ran down Grayling's back. She peered over her shoulder and around. No one was here. Still she was uneasy, as if she were being watched. She'd been foolish to venture so far from the others.

“You, girl, here, to me!” Grayling jumped. The call had been more growl than voice. An old woman stood at the edge of the clearing, half hidden in the trees.

“What has happened? Who has done this?” the woman asked. “Was it you, or be you here to release me?” She broke off in a fit of coughing as Grayling went closer.

Before she had taken ten steps, Grayling could see that the woman was not hidden in the trees. She
was
tree, all the way to her chest. Her battered old face reflected both horror and hope, and she waved her arms—not yet branches—in distress.

Grayling's heart stopped and then hammered. Belike the woman was witch or wizard, and the smoke and shadow had come for her grimoire and left her turning tree! Did the evil force loiter still? Grayling could almost feel her own feet hardening and her ankles tingling. She dropped the gathered wood and, trembling and stumbling, crashed her way back through the woods. Behind her she could hear the woman shouting, “Come back, ye hag-born wench! A plague on ye, Mistress Do-nothing! The devil take ye!”

Right she turned, and left, and right again. Where were the others? Where was the road? Which of these trees had been a person, a person like her, like her mother, now a horrid creature of roots and wood and sap? Gasping and heaving, she burst through the forest onto the road where the others awaited.

“An old woman,” she said, once she could speak again. “Tree to her chest.” It was the stuff of nightmares. Was that how her mother looked now? Or was she tree entirely? Was there any turning back from bark to flesh?

“Aye,” said Auld Nancy, “as I told you, I have seen many such. Wise men and cunning women, magicians and wizards, gone to trees. 'Twas a pitiful sight.”

Pitiful and ominous and frightful. Grayling dropped down next to Auld Nancy, sitting close enough to feel the comforting warmth of the old woman's body. Seeing the woman becoming tree had made their venture more frightening and more dangerous. Would the smoke and shadow come for them, too, if they meddled? Grayling's toes tingled. What would it feel like, turning into a tree? Would it hurt? Would your feet and your legs know what was happening?

The rain fell harder, and travelers bustled or scampered or huddled within their cloaks. Auld Nancy wobbled to her feet. “Thundering toads!” she shouted to the drenching skies. “I be discomforted enough! Rain, away!” she cried, shaking her broom. And the rain stopped.

Suddenly murmurs swirled in the air like dandelion fluff.
Witch! Weather witch! She who commands the rain!
A young woman with a basket full of kittens quickly backed away, but others pushed forward, eager to secure a favor.

“Our hedge witches and hags are gone,” one said, “and we know not where. Will you serve? I wish a warm wind to dry my field.”

“Have you other spells?” asked another. “I would curse my brother-in-law.”

“The miller!”

“My pig-headed horse!”

Auld Nancy said over and over, “We are not
that
kind of witch,” and Grayling pulled her sleeves from grasping hands and shook her head
no no no.
If she had the magic they thought she had, she would see these pestering folks bewitched away, Or turned to stone, or frogs, or geese.