The Near Witch (14 page)

“Might as well sit down,” adds Magda. “Tea’s ready.”

“
T
HE
N
EAR
W
ITCH LIVED
on the edge of the village,” Magda begins, “on the seam where Near met the wild world. This was many, many years ago. Perhaps before Near was even Near. And yes, it is true that she did have a garden, and it is true that the children liked to go and see her. The villagers did not bother her, but they did not befriend her either. One day, so it goes, a little boy went to see the Near Witch, and didn’t come home.” Magda stares into a corner of the room.

Dreska is shifting around the space, clearly uncomfortable. She pulls the windows closed, and Cole winces, but she continues on, fiddling with the kettle and looking out through the glass at the darkening moor. The rain breaks at last, comes down hard and heavy against the house. Magda continues.

“As the sun sank, and the day wound down, the boy’s mother went to find him. She reached that little cottage on the edge of Near, just over there.” And now Magda points over her sister’s shoulder, out past the house. “But the witch wasn’t home. The boy was there, though, in the garden, among the red and yellow flowers.” Her fingers grip her teacup.

“He was dead. Dead as if he’d fallen asleep in those flowers and never thought to get up again. The mother’s screams could be heard, they say, even over the moor wind.

“Later, the Near Witch returned home with her arms full of tall grass and berries, and other things that witches like to gather. Her house was engulfed in flames, and her precious garden stomped and scorched. A group of hunters was waiting.

“‘Murder,’ they cried,‘murder!’” Magda’s voice cracks as she says it, and I wince. “And the hunters swooped down like ravens on the Near Witch. She cried out to the trees, but they were rooted and could not save her. She cried out to the grass, but it was small and flimsy, and could not save her.”

The rain pounds against the stones of the house, and Dreska seems to be listening to her sister’s story with one ear, and the storm with the other. Cole stands in the corner and says nothing, but his jaw is tense and his eyes unfocused.

“At last, the Near Witch called out to the earth itself. But it was too late, and even the earth couldn’t save her then.” She takes a long sip of tea. “Or so they say, dearie.” I can see it just the way she says, only it’s not the witch behind my eyes, begging the moor for help. It’s Cole. I shiver.

“Goodness, Magda, the stories you tell,” Dreska says from her place at the windowsill. She turns away then, continues to busy her hands, moving a pot, pushing away a few stray leaves with her cane.

Magda eyes me. “They killed the witch, the three hunters did.”

“The three hunters?” I say. “The men who formed the original Council? They were given their title for
protecting
the village.”

Dreska gives a short nod. “Weren’t the Council then, just young hunters, but yes. Men like your uncle, like that Bo. The hunters took the witch’s body out onto the moors, far, far out, and buried it very deep.”

“But the earth’s like the skin, it grows in layers,” I murmur, remembering Magda’s nonsensical words in the garden. The old woman nods.

“What’s on top peels back. What’s underneath works its way up, eventually,” she says, this time adding, “If it’s angry enough.”

“And strong enough.”

“It was a very wrong death for such a powerful witch.”

“Over the years the body grew up and up until at last it reached the surface and broke through,” says Dreska, darkly. “And now at last the moor has been able to save its witch.” After a long pause, she adds humorlessly, “Or so
we
believe.”

Again the sisters speak in their intertwining way.

“She climbed up and out onto the moor,” says Dreska.

“Now her skin really is made of moor grass,” adds Magda.

“Now her blood is made of moor rain.”

“Now her voice is made of moor wind.”

“Now the Near Witch is made of moor.”

“And she is furious.”

The sisters’ words echo through the cottage, winding like steam around us. I suddenly wish the windows were open, even if the rain poured in. It’s hard to breathe in here. The dirt floor of the cottage seems to ripple as Magda speaks. The stone walls jostle.

“That’s the reason that the children are disappearing now,” I say quietly. “The Near Witch is taking them to punish the village.…”

Magda is still nodding, as steady as a water drip.

The words from my father’s book, Magda’s words, slip back to me:
The wind is lonely, and always looking for company.
That’s exactly what the witch is doing, drawing them from their beds. I shudder.

“But why only at night?”

“Powerful though she is, she is still dead,” says Dreska.

“Dead things are bound to their beds until dark,” says Magda.

But there’s something in their tones, something I’ve been trying to pinpoint this entire time. A softness when the sisters speak of the Near Witch.

“You liked her,” I say, only realizing it as the words leave my lips.

Something almost like a smile flickers on Dreska’s face. “We were children too, once.”

“We played in her garden,” says Magda, stirring her tea.

“We respected her.”

I press my fingertips against my teacup until the heat radiates up my hands. All this time Cole has stood like a shadow on the wall, silent, unreadable. I wonder if he sees himself in the story, his own house burning to the ground. Or if he is witnessing darker things behind his eyes. But when he looks up from his corner, and meets my eyes, a sad almost-smile passes across his face. It’s thin, more for me than for him, but I mimic it, and pull my eyes back to the sisters.

“She didn’t do it, did she? Kill that boy?”

Dreska shakes her head. “Sometimes a life gets cut short.”

“And we need someone to blame.”

“The boy, he had a very bad heart.”

“He lay down in that garden and went to sleep.”

“And they killed her for it,” I whisper, teacup pressed to my lips. “You knew? All along you knew? Why didn’t you tell me? Why haven’t you done anything?”

“Believing and knowing are different things,” says Dreska, returning to the table.

“Knowing and proving are different things,” says Magda.

The sisters are wearing matching frowns, deep and creased. In the corner, Cole’s face is cast in shadows again. And beyond the window, the rain is ebbing, but the sky is still dark.

“We don’t know where the witch is buried,” says Dreska, with a long sweeping motion of her hand.

“And we tried to tell them,” says Magda, tipping her head back toward the village. “Tried to tell the searchers right from the start, but they wouldn’t listen.”

“Stubborn,” says Dreska. “Just as they were back then.”

“As you said yourself, Lexi.” Magda turns her cup in small circles on the table. “The villagers will never believe it. Otto’s men will never believe it.”

I look out through the gray day, light leaking back into the corners.

“What do we need to do,” I ask, “to make things right?”

“Well, first,” says Magda, finishing her tea and pushing herself to her feet. “First, you’ve got to find the witch’s body. You’ve got to find the bones.”

“And put them to rest,” murmurs Dreska, almost with reverence.

“Properly buried.”

“Properly kept.”

“That is the way with witches.”

“And with all things.”

“Where?” I ask, standing.

“Where she lived,” they answer.

The sisters lead us from the house. Outside, the air is cool, not bitter, but enough to make my skin prickle.

“Yes, I know it’s around here somewhere,” says Magda, scratching her wrinkled cheek with a dirt-caked nail. “Ah yes, right there.” She points to the second patch between the cottage and the low stone wall, the one beyond her garden. The patch that’s always seemed scraped clean, strangely bare in a place overrun with grass and weedy flowers. I lean down and realize that the ground, close up, is burned. Barren, devoid of grass. I run my fingers over it, the whole patch turned to mud from the storm. It doesn’t make sense. The fire would have been centuries ago. The grass should have recovered. And yet, I can almost see the scorch marks. As if the ground’s been freshly ruined.

“This was her house,” I murmur.

“And the garden’s almost ready,” says Dreska, gesturing down at the soil bed between the stone cottage and the scorched spot of land. Magda’s garden. It was the Near Witch’s first.

“The witch deserved respect, in life and death,” says Magda, so quietly that Dreska shouldn’t be able to hear. And yet they nod beside each other, heads bobbing at slightly different paces. “Instead what she got was fear, and then fire and murder.”

“But how will we find the bones?” I ask. “They could be anywhere.”

Dreska lifts a tired hand to the east, to the open moor.

“That is the way they took her body. That is the way you’ll find the bones. How far out, I do not know.”

A hand comes to rest against my shoulder, and Cole is there, behind me.

“We’ll find them,” he promises. Magda and Dreska turn back to the house, and we are alone at the edge of Near.

“It seems impossible,” I say, my back still to him. “Where do we even start?”

I look out at the moor, and my heart sinks. The world rolls away. Endless. Hill after hill after hill, flecked with trees. The moor always seems to be eating things. Half-digested rocks and logs jut out from the sloping hillsides. And somewhere out there, it has swallowed the Near Witch, too.

I
LOOK OUT AT THE UNENDING
hills, and all I feel is hopeless.

Cole takes a step forward, but I pull him back.

“Not yet,” I say, shaking my head. “We can’t just walk out onto the moor. We need a plan. And they’re going to come for you, Cole. Otto and his men will follow us.”

He just looks at me.

“There are people I need to visit. I can be as persuasive as my uncle when I need to be.” I won’t need long.

Cole still says nothing, and I realize how quiet he’s been since the sisters told their story. I turn in his arms, and his gray eyes are still strangely dead, looking in instead of out. When he finally speaks, his voice is hollow, almost angry.

“That’s a waste of time, Lexi.”

“What do you mean?”

“It doesn’t matter. What they think of me doesn’t matter.” The wind around us thickens, like a weight on my chest.

“It matters to
me
. And if Otto and his men catch you, and you’re put on trial, what people think will matter a great deal.”

He closes his eyes. I bring my hands up to his face, his skin cool against my fingers.

“What’s wrong?”

The crease between his brows lessens a fraction at my touch, but he keeps his eyes closed. I can hear his breath filling his chest in short, uneven gasps, as if being torn from his lungs the moment he draws it in. I keep my hands there, on his face, until his skin grows used to my touch, until his breathing grows easy, and the wind around us settles back into a gentle breeze. I could stay right here forever.

“I sometimes wonder what I would do,” he says at last, without opening his eyes, “if anyone had survived the fire. Would I have confessed and let them punish me? Would that have eased anyone’s pain?”

“Why would you talk like that?” I am surprised at the anger in me. “How would that have made anything better?”

His eyes float open, the lashes black against his pale skin.

“You heard the sisters. Sometimes people need something—someone—to blame. It gives them peace until they can find the real answers.”

“But they don’t need to blame you. They can blame the Near Witch, and we can prove it, as soon as we find the children.” I try to fill my voice with enough determination for the both of us. So this is what he was thinking in the sisters’ cottage, when he offered me his sad smile. Was he wishing there had been hunters alive to catch him, to punish him, so he couldn’t punish himself?

He softens, but it doesn’t go beneath his skin. He shakes his head a fraction, and then he’s there again, seeing me.

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “I didn’t mean to upset you.” His voice is bare, honest.

“Cole, you’re not a rock,” I say. “You’re not a tree, or a bunch of grass, or a cloud. And you’re not just something to cast aside, or burn down, or walk over. Please tell me you understand that.” He holds my gaze. “And you’re not just the wind, either. You’re here, and real, and it may be in you, but it isn’t all of you. It doesn’t make you less than human.”

He gives a soft nod. I slide my arms around his waist, his cloak wrapping around us both.

To every side, the moor is calm, the light is crisp, and the air feels warmer. Right now it does not seem as if any evil could pass through such a place.

In this small moment of peace, my uncle’s words creep in:
I cannot save her now.
What did he mean? I tighten my grip on Cole. He bends his head against mine.

“You have a gift,” I whisper. He smells like ash still, but also wind, the way clothes smell when left to dry in sun and morning air. “And I need your help. I need you.”

I reach up and brush the hair from his face, and his eyes fall shut as he exhales, the tension in his body ebbing.

“When do we start?” he asks.

“We’ll find the bones tonight.”

“I thought you needed a plan first.”

I flash him a smile. “By then, I’ll have one.”

I give him one last kiss, and I cannot hide the small pleasure I feel when the wind rustles around us.

“I’ll see you tonight, then,” he says.

I nod and let my arms slide away from him, unfastening the clasp of his cloak. Then I slip it back around his shoulders and make my way down the path. The wind around me weaves through my hair, which I’ve forgotten to tie up today. It plays with the dark waves, brushes against the back of my neck. When I cast a last glance back, he is not watching the clouds or the rolling moor. He’s watching me, and he smiles.

Smiling back, I head down the hill, eager for night to come.

But there’s work to do first.