The Near Witch (13 page)

S
UNLIGHT, SUDDEN AND WARM
, pours across the bed.

I sit up with a start. My mother’s soft steps sound in the kitchen. Wren’s skipping ones thump in the hall. Wren. Home and safe. A shuddering breath escapes. I feel numb, dazed. How did I get here? The light filtering in is crisp and clean.

A memory ripples, as thin as a dream, of being half carried, half guided home, a low voice whispering as my boots slid over the tangled grass. I cast off the sheets. My cloak is sitting by the dresser. I cross to the window and push it open, looking down. My boots are waiting neatly beneath the sill. Everything is in its place.

When I bump into Wren in the hall, I kneel and throw my arms around her, ignoring her attempts to wriggle free.

“They’re all playing without me,” she pouts.

“Who is?” If Wren is here and safe, then whose bed was found empty this morning?

But the answer greets me soon enough.

“And Mrs. Harp says the same thing,” a voice says.

It’s Tyler, of all people, eagerly relaying the details to my mother.

And he’s talking about Mrs. Harp.
Emily’s
mother. The girl takes shape in my mind, doing a tiny, playful twirl, two dark braids trailing behind her like kite tails.

“No clues at all?” asks my mother softly.

I linger there in the hall a moment, still hugging Wren and listening for more fractured bits of conversation.

No evidence. I am no longer surprised. The wind came in and stole Emily from her small bed. I can picture it. A quilt peeled back neatly, exposing the pale sheets, cool and empty. Maybe they found her charm on the bedside table, cast off like blankets on a warm night.

Wren wiggles out of my arms, her own pouch still around her wrist, smelling sweet and earthy. I bring my fingers up to it as a breeze weaves through.

I shiver and see that the front door is open.

That’s when I realize how late it is, the sun already too high. As if on cue, I hear my uncle’s heavy tread across the threshold, and my breath catches in my throat.

Cole.

The planted evidence.

Wren escapes, flitting down the hall to Otto. She nearly runs into him, throwing her arms out at the last minute for a hug. He catches her, lifting her up and wrapping his heavy arms around her.

“Morning, Wren,” he says into her hair before setting her down.

His eyes meet mine for a moment, and then, to my surprise, he smiles.

“Good morning, Lexi,” he says, his voice even.

I try not to let the shock make its way into my face. “How are you, Uncle?”

Then I notice his sleeves, pushed up and dirty, a long scratch down one forearm.

“What did you
do
?” I ask, eyes narrowing.

Otto rolls down his sleeves carefully. “I did what had to be done.”

I try to rush past him, but his hands are too fast, grabbing my wrist.

“Did you go to him? Try to warn him?” he asks.

“What are you talking about?” I pull back.

His fingers tighten and I wince, trying to break free as Tyler spills into the hallway.

“So help me, Lexi, I told you not to disobey me.” Otto’s voice is choked. “Don’t you see what you’re doing? What you’ve already done?”

“
Otto
,” says my mother behind him, her voice stronger than I have heard it in months. “Let her go.”

My uncle abandons his grip at once, as if he did not notice he was hurting me, and I stumble back into Tyler, who seems all too eager to catch me.

I swallow all the curses rising in my throat as I push past him out of the house.

“I cannot save her now,” Otto mutters as I go.

There are red finger-shaped lines on my wrist, but I can’t feel anything but anger and frustration and most of all fear for Cole and the sisters. I take my boots from beneath my window, abandoning my father’s knife and my cloak, ignoring the brisk late summer air. I can’t go back inside. I don’t have time.

Otto’s threats rise in the air behind me, but I don’t look back.

The first thing I see is smoke.

But as the cottage comes into sight, I realize it’s coming from the chimney; the air has gone from cool to cold in a matter of days. The front door hangs open, and even from the path I can see the table overturned within, the floor littered with cups and bowls and leaves and other things that blew in. One of the kitchen chairs is sitting in the front yard, and in it, Magda. At her feet is a basket of sticks and stones, and she hums to herself as she works, as if nothing is amiss. Her tune mixes with the wind, so entangled that I cannot pick the two melodies apart. As I get closer, I can make out a few of the words of her song. They slip between her wrinkled lips with almost no consonants.

“…village door, watchful eyes turned out at night, keep the evils out of sight…”

She is building birds. Her gnarled fingers peel thread-fine strips from short straight sticks, and wrap the string around and between stones and scraps of wood. I hurry toward the house, scanning the moor for a swatch of dark gray between the pale green world and the pale blue sky. But all I see are rolling waves of grass. A fog has settled over everything. The backs of the hills bristle up from it like sleeping beasts.

“Magda!” I call as I draw near. “What happened? Where’s Cole? Is he—”

From the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse, a shadow. And then he’s there, in the doorway, waiting for me.

I run up the path and throw my arms around him. He staggers back a step but doesn’t push me away. His arms encircle me gently.

“You’re here,” I say, breathless with relief. “I thought…I don’t know what I thought. Otto came home and was saying these things…about doing what had to be done. He accused me of warning you.”

“I’m here,” he says. “It’s all right.”

“What happened, Cole? Last night…and then this? I thought…” I fumble my words and tighten my grip, inhaling the scent of his gray cloak, fresh air with a hint of smoke.

He bends his head, kissing the curve of my neck gently. I look past him into the house. “I warned Magda and Dreska,” he says into my shoulder, “but they refused to leave.”

“Of course we did,” snaps Dreska, sweeping up a few broken plates, using the broom at once as a crutch and a tool. She stoops to grab the leg of an overturned stool and rights it by the fire.

“What happened?” I ask, bending to pick up a basket.

“What do you think happened?” says Dreska. “Your uncle and his men came up here looking for our guest, and when they didn’t find him, they made a mess of things.” She picks up a bowl. “As if he could be hiding under dishes.”

“They came to the shed,” Cole adds, shaking his head. “I shouldn’t have removed their evidence.”

“All the things they knocked around have been knocked around a hundred times before,” Dreska grumbles. “Put the basket on the table,” she adds, “once Cole has set the table right.”

Cole slips away and turns the wooden table on its feet. Its surface is a web of scars and burns, but aside from the groan it gives at being set upright, it seems fine.

“That’s why he asked me if I’d warned you,” I say, rubbing my arms for warmth. Cole notices and pulls his cloak off, settling it around my shoulders. It’s surprisingly soft and warm.

Dreska hauls the kettle over to the hot fire.

A few moments later, Magda toddles in with her basket of finished stick-and-stone birds. She lets it fall to the ground beside the door with a rattle. “Their eyes were full of dark things. That man is the worst,” she says.

I feel the unexpected need to defend my uncle, even though he’s letting this happen. Even though there are still red marks on my wrist from his heavy fingers.

“Otto doesn’t—” I begin.

“No, not Otto,” says Magda, waving a hand. “The other one. The tall, bored-looking one.”

“Bo,” I say, and the word comes out like a curse. “Bo Pike.” Behind my eyes I see him kneeling, planting the scraps of children’s clothes, his nose and his hair both pointing down at it.

“This can’t go on.” I turn to Cole. “You can’t keep hiding from them. If Otto’s men manage to turn everyone against you, there will be nowhere to hide.”

“I’m not leaving, Lexi.” His stubborn expression leaves me no room for argument.

“Magda,” I say, meaning to change the subject. “Dreska.” The sisters do not look at me or stop their bustling, but I know they are listening, waiting for me to go on.

“The Near Witch didn’t just fade away on the moor, did she?” I ask, my voice shrinking. “Something must have happened. Something bad.”

Magda takes a deep breath and blows the air out. “Yes, dearie,” she says, slipping into a chair. Her body cracks like dead branches as she bends. “Something bad happened.” She casts a glance out the window at the rolling hills to the east, as though she’s afraid someone might be listening.

“What happened?” I ask.

Dreska stops sweeping, but only for a moment, and then redoubles her effort, the
swoosh swoosh
of the broom filling the room like static. The metal top of the kettle whistles as the water boils. Magda grabs a towel and, with both hands, hoists the kettle from the fire.

“Tell me the end of the story.” I hesitate, then add, “The real ending.”

The cups clank against each other as they’re put on the table with the kettle and the sliced bread.

Magda looks at me as if I’ve gone mad. Or I’ve grown up. It’s kind of the same thing. She opens her mouth, revealing the gaps where teeth are missing, but before she speaks, Dreska shakes her head.

“No, no, no reason for that, dearie,” Magda says, fidgeting with a wooden stick she’s found on the floor.

“I need to know,” I press, glancing at Cole. He’s taken up a place beside the open window. I wonder if it’s hard for him to be confined, if he needs fresh air. “If the Near Witch is stealing the children—”

“Who said she was?” cuts in Dreska.

“How could she?” adds Magda. “She’s dead and gone.”

But the way they say it, it’s so guarded. They don’t believe a word of it. Cole gives me a small nod of encouragement.

“I know you think it’s her, Dreska,” I say, trying not to crack under her stony glare. Neither sister speaks, but they exchange a series of glances. “I heard you with Tomas, in the village. You tried to tell him, and you both tried to tell Otto. They don’t believe it, but I do.”

All the sound has gone out of the room.

“And if we don’t find the culprit and the children soon…” My eyes flick to Cole beside the open window. Then to Magda, busying herself with tea, and Dreska, staring straight at me, almost through me, with those sharp eyes. This is my chance to persuade them.

“Things are going to get worse. No one can figure out who’s taking the children. They’ll blame Cole, but it won’t fix anything. The children are going to keep disappearing. Wren is going to disappear, and I can’t sit by and wait for that to happen while they look for someone to blame!” I stare up at the ceiling, trying to compose myself among the wooden eaves. “We have to give them proof. We have to put things right.”

Dreska gives me a heavy look, as if she can’t decide whether to tell me to go home, or confide in me.

“Magda. Dreska. My father spent his life trying to make Near trust you. Now please trust
me
. Let me help.”

“Lexi is the one who warned me, warned us about Otto’s men,” Cole finally adds.

“And why are you so convinced it’s the Near Witch, Lexi Harris?” Dreska asks.

“She could control all the elements, right? Even move the earth. She could cover tracks. And there’s this strange path, like a trail, on the tops of the grass.”

Dreska’s eyes narrow a fraction, but she doesn’t interrupt.

“So the only thing I don’t know is how she came back, and why she would want to steal the children in the first place. Will you tell me or not?” The words come out louder than I expected. They echo off the stone walls.

Dreska’s face wrinkles, all the cracks working in toward the center, between her eyes. Magda hums the Witch’s Rhyme as she pours hot liquid over the old wire mesh strainers and into the cups. Steam winds up through the air, curling around her.

Dreska casts one last glance at Cole, leaning up against the wall by the window, and shakes her head. But when she speaks, it’s to say, “Very well, Lexi.”