The Ozark trilogy (27 page)

And then she hid her face against her shoulder and screamed into the darkness, over and over that same foolish word— “Witch! Witch! Witch!”—until I was nearly distracted. I suppose that was what Gabriel Laddercane Traveller the 34
^th
had used against her; all through the nights of their marriage, lying beside her in their bed, whispering while he stroked her thighs and that slim waist, convincing her to tackle magic far beyond what she was trained in or fit for or had any legal right to even think of. If he’d truly convinced her that she was doing battle against witchcraft when she raised her weak hand against me ... it did not excuse her; but I could see how he might have used that as a levee. Especially with her far gone in the sickness of Romantic Love; it would of served his needs well, and paid him for his long exile from his father’s house, and explained why he’d put up with it over these long years instead of taking her away. The threads that ran to this night were sticky ones, and they clung.

“Well, now, what am I going to do with you?” I asked her; and myself, out loud. “What am I going to do
about
you, Una of Clark?”

I’d lost all taste for harming her; she was only pathetic; but she couldn’t be allowed to go on with her mischief, bungling as it was, all the same. Nor could she be allowed to go back and talk about any of this, and I was by no means sure she had brains enough to see that.

“Una?” I said sharply. “Una of Clark? You look at me!”

“No! You’ll turn me into something horrible if I do!”

Turn her into something horrible? What did she think she’d done to
herself?

“Look at me, you foolish,
silly
woman!”

She lifted her head then, and her eyes were like two huge flat fish in her white face. Most unappealing.

“Una, what did you think you were trying to do?” I asked her “Maybe if you tell me that I’ll be able to see my way.”

To my astonishment, she raised her hands beside her face, spread her fingers wide as they would stretch, and recited straight at me—

ASS.

BEDPOLE.

CHAMBERPOT.

DEAD OF THE NIGHT.

EGG-ROTTEN BIRD DUNG.

FISTFULS OF MEALY WORMS.

NIGHT OF THE DEAD.

POTCHAMBER.

POLEBED.

ASS.

I was flabbergasted. As nasty a Charm as I’d heard anywhere, and bold as brass about it, terrified as she was. But no elegance.
No
style! And put together all cockeyed to boot.

I’d seen six-year-old girls do a sight better than that, and without anything nasty in it to help them along, either.

I said:

AIR.

BALSAM.

CINNAMON.

DENY ME NAUGHT.

EVERMORE WEEPING.

FOLLOW ME EVERYWHERE.

EVERMORE SLEEPING.

DOUBLE MY WORTH.

CINDERMAN.

BELLTONGUE.

AIR.

“And,” I added, “if you’d like to go on to twelve syllables and back, in twelve sets of rhymed pairs, I’m ready. But do hurry, Una of Clark, because I intend to be in
my
bed before breakfast.”

By that time, when she began to sob hopelessly, choking and sputtering, I wasn’t surprised. I wondered what her life was going to be like, from this night on; she wasn’t built for a burden like this, and her husband had chosen a poor instrument to break to his evil.

“See where foolish love will lead you?” I said to her sorrowfully. “See where it will lead you, woman? Into
folly
, into
shame
, into
disgrace
... Why didn’t you tell him to do his
own dirt?
What would your father and mother say of you, Una of Clark, if they only knew what you have done?”

She only blubbered harder. And I was sick of watching her

“I’ll tell you what I’m going to do,” I said, “and I suggest you listen to me more carefully than you’ve been listening to your Reverend these last few years. For I’m not playing with you, and I warn you—I’m no Granny, to just put toads in your bed and rashes under your armpits and keep your cakes from rising. You do understand that?”

“What
are
you, really?” she hissed at me. “What
are
you?”

“Nor am I a witch,” I went right on, ignoring that, “for if I were, you would have been at the bottom of that ocean long before this, and you know it very well. If I were a witch, Una of Clark, I’d set a Substitution Transformation. And another woman that looked just like you and talked just like you and walked just like you and moaned in the loving arms of Gabriel Laddereane Traveller
just like you
would go home from here—but she would not
be
you. You would be feeding the fishes and she would be only a Substitute, and nobody would ever know.”

“Go ahead, then—you can do it, why
don’t
you, and leave off torturing me?”

“Because I’m
not
a witch, I’m a law-abiding well-brought up woman, that you’ve caused a lot more trouble than there’s any excusing you for, that’s why!”

“Then what are you going to do?” she whispered. “Make me ugly? Make me crippled? Oh dear saints, Responsible of Brightwater, what is it going to be?”

“Your mind is a cesspool,” I said, staring at her “A cesspool. Make you ugly and cripple you indeed!”

“Tell me!”

“What I am going to do is set a Binding Spell on you,” I said. “That and nothing more. Seven years, Una of Clark, you’ll say no word about this night or about what you know of me, or about what you’ve done. And seven years, you’ll do no magic you haven’t earned the rank for. You not even a Granny or any chance of ever being one ... I’ll bind you seven years; and then you’re free to do your worst.”

She went limp against the rock; I was glad mere wasn’t any place for her to fall to.

“The reason I’m stopping there,” I went on as I made my preparations, “is because I am
not
a witch! And because I have no desire to go beyond what’s decent. You’re a woman—and you’re a Clark by birth. I am willing to wager that in seven years you’ll achieve enough wisdom, that when the Spell is at its end you’ll guard your own mouth out of shame and simple decency. I’m willing to take a chance on that.”

And if I was wrong, I could bind her then again, of course;

I’d be on the watch.

She just huddled there and bawled, every other word some stuff about what she was going to tell Gabriel Laddercane, more shame to her, and I got on with my work.

It took me only a little while, and then I Moved her carefully back to Castle Clark, to the bed where—might could be—her husband had not yet even missed her. If he had, that was her problem, and it was up to her to figure out some way to get out of it. I’d done all I was willing to do, and more than she deserved, out of regard for her Family, and pity for her folly, and out of the kind of distaste that comes from dealing with an enemy that’s really no match for your skills. There’s a game called shooting ducks in a barrel—I don’t play it. Never have.

And before the servingmaid tapped on my door with my pot of morning tea, everything was put away. Every sign of the wards and the pentacles swept deal; not a speck of sand from my shammybags on the Airy floor. And I lay there in my plain nightgown with the covers tucked up around my chin, and a smile on my face that suited my pose, like I’d not lifted a finger all that weary night.

Now I could go home.

I DON’T MIND saying that it went well, though it’s bragging, for it’s no more than the plain truth. My leavetaking may have had an unseemly abruptness due to my hightailing out of there before my common sense (or somebody else’s) could stop me, but my homecoming went off as slick as I could possibly have desired it. And the rough edges I well knew were there didn’t so much as show their shadows on the surface that was available for examination to others.

I timed it so as to fly in to Castle Brightwater right at the end of breakfast on a sunny April morning. And the last ten miles I rode Sterling along the winding roads of the Kingdom, between the hedges of butter-yellow forsythia newly in bloom, and the fields of fruit trees covered with blossoms thick as snowflakes. Every blade of grass and every new leaf and bud was that perfect green that comes only in April, and that was what the Brightwater green was meant to stand for (and never quite matched). And although the people didn’t cheer me—we didn’t hold with such display on Marktwain, and hadn’t for hundreds of years—I knew they were glad to see me coming back. I knew by the smiles on their faces and the fact that they were out in the fields working in their Sundy best, and this not Sundy. I kept my own face straight and pretended not to notice ... in fact, I worked at
really
not noticing, seeing as how if I arrived at Castle Brightwater puffed up with anything that a sharp eye could spot as pride the family would be on me like carrion birds on a new-dead squawker; and I’d come out of it blistered.

Nobody came out to meet me, which was reasonable enough. I wasn’t company here, I
lived
here, and I had to whistle for a stablemaid to come take Sterling off my hands. Then I stopped and indulged myself, just for a minute, since nobody seemed to be looking. I never would of imagined I could be so glad just to be home.

Ours was the first Castle built, and the Castle proper is not one of the shelters the Twelve Families set up when The Ship landed and they were new to this planet. The one the Brightwaters built was made of logs that can’t match Tinaseeh iroowood even halfway for durability, but have kept well enough under cover, and it sits within the front courtyard of the Castle as a constant reminder—lest we should ever forget—of our humble beginnings here. It had seven bedrooms round a common room; and forty-four Brightwaters—men, women, and children, and one fine hound that had quickly died—slept and ate and passed their very limited leisure time under that wooden roof.

When I was at home I hardly saw the loghouse, I was so accustomed to it, but it was new to my eyes this morning, and I let them linger on it, glad it was still there for the children of all the Twelve Families to visit and play at living in.

And then I turned my eyes to the Castle itself, and it pleasured me, too. It was perfectly square, and a modest but satisfactory two stories high. It had twelve towers; one at each corner, one at the center of each wall, one on either side of the front doors, and two extra in the front wall for fancy. The Brightwater flag flew from every one of the tower roofs, and I noticed that someone had polished the brass weathervane (an Old Earth rooster that was one of the few material things granted space in The Ship that could only be called a luxury), and that it turned briskly in the wind at the top of the tower spire where it had been fastened more than nine hundred years ago. I smiled; they’d claim that was done for spring cleaning, but I knew better—we were a good week away from spring cleaning time. It was done to welcome me home.

I knocked at the Castle doors, and they slid apart without a sound to let me in; someone had oiled them, too, for there’d been a grating scrape to them when I rode out in February. The Castle Housekeeper stood there casually watching three servingmaids polish the same banister over and over again, and she looked up as I stepped under the doorbeam and pretended to be surprised.

“Well, if it’s not Miss Responsible,” she said. “Good morning to you, miss.”

“Good morning to you. Sally of Lewis,” I said, and I greeted each of the servingmaids by name as well, including the one whose apron had a grease spot, for which there was no excuse in my front Hall. “I’m home,” I said.

“We see you are,” said Sally of Lewis. “And we’re glad— it’s been a long time.”

It had been that; nearly eight weeks, and at that I’d made a bit better time than I’d deserved.

“The Family’s still having breakfast, miss,” said Sally of Lewis. “They’re just finishing the coffee and there’s still hot cornbread on me table. The cooks happened to make extra this morning.”

It was amazing. I found that not only was I anxious for some Brightwater cornbread and butter, I was even anxious to see my mother. I believed I was even anxious to see Emmalyn of Clark, and I couldn’t remember that idea ever passing through my mind before. I had clearly been away too long and was going weak in the head.

I went down the corridors to the room at the back of the Castle where we liked to have breakfast and supper both. It looked out on a wide field mat was a riot of wildflowers in the spring and a riot of scarlet and golden leaves in the fall, and through which there flowed a quite respectable creek that you could catch glimpses of from the windows. That creek had been First Granny’s only condition for choice of the Brightwater land. “I don’t care what else it has or hasn’t,” she’d declared. “Volcanoes, canyons, banana trees, swamps, anything you fancy—but it has got to have a creek or I won’t build even an outbuilding on it. Keep that in mind!”

“Well, Responsible,” they all said as I went in the door. And various other equally original greetings. Gnumy Hazelbide settled for “Decided to come back, did you?” and a full-scale Granny glare.

“Sit down. Responsible,” said Patience of Clark, “and help yourself to the cornbread. Unless you want to change first, of course,”

I looked down at myself, at the black velvet corselet and the silver-and-gold embroidery and the scariet leather gloves, and all the rest of it. “No,” I said, “I’ll have my breakfast first. And then I plan to take all this off, and burn it.”