The Whispering Trees (12 page)

A single tentacle rose in the air and tensed like a python, but before it could strike, Taff sailed over Kara's
head and landed on the jellyfish, smashing it into oblivion.

Pulling his sister to her feet he shouted, “We're almost there!”

Sure enough, through shards of rain Kara glimpsed the canopy and dark trees of the Thickety, the familiar shapes that had terrified her throughout her childhood now a welcome beacon of shelter and safety. Her knee throbbed with pain, but she knew she couldn't slow down.

Just a little farther. . . .

They neared the end of the Draye'varg, and the creatures began to attack with even greater fervor. A raven with rippling wings like waterfalls landed on Taff's back, pushing him to the ground. Kara punched it with an open hand. It was like passing her hand through a spout of icy cold water, leaving an angry red welt across her palm.

When Kara looked up, they were surrounded.

Banding together, the simulacra had tightened their forces around the children so that there was no escape in any direction. Boulders swelled with waves of false
life, far too many to dodge, a glistening sheen of jaws and teeth and mandibles. Above the children looped waterbirds, tiny bolts of lightning snapping between their open beaks.

Kara knelt next to her brother, her injured knee making a disheartening popping sound. Taff's blond hair hung down in dripping tendrils across his forehead.

“Stay close to me,” Kara said.

She
listened
.

They were close enough to the trees that she could once again hear voices whispering
FEED
and
HIDE
and other common thoughts. Kara threaded her way through this storm of sounds, searching not for a particular animal but a particular
need
. When she found it she clenched her hands into tight fists and sent a message:
Come! I have what you seek! Hurry! Hurry!

A tiny shock vibrated up her right calf. She plucked a water worm from her leg and squeezed tightly, sending droplets onto a dozen other shapes scurrying for position beneath her. “Leave us alone!” Taff screamed, slapping at
his arms, his knees, his thighs. Some half-formed shape with four wings landed on the back of his neck, and Taff's mouth trembled as a particularly violent shock pierced his body. Kara—ignoring the pinpricks of pain exploding all over her own body—slid across the boulder and yanked the creature away, wringing it between two hands like a wet hand cloth. She enfolded Taff in her arms and covered him protectively as a dozen water-winged shapes plummeted toward them.

The simulacra never reached their target.

Something large and blue streaked across the sky and caught the water creatures in its gull-shaped beak. Kara saw at least a dozen of these new arrivals—with leathery skin stretched taut across long, sinuous wings—snatching the remaining simulacra from out of the air, or slurping the ones without wings from the surface of boulders with long, conical tongues.

Kara had not known what matter of beast would answer her call.

She had needed them only to be thirsty.

One of the creatures landed gracefully on the boulder next to her. It was somewhere between a reptile and a bird, with soft eyes and an absurdly long tail that sat coiled upon its haunches like a stored rope. A jagged scar split its flank, and its slightly protruding tongue was swollen with black mold. It wasn't completely Blighted—not yet—but it was well on its way.

The beast bent its head forward, and Kara, hesitating only briefly, stroked it.

“Thank you,” she said.

Must keep you safe
, Kara heard its voice in her head.
Witch Girl save us
.

“No,” she said. “I can't help you. I want to, but I can't.”

The creature looked up at her, its old eyes glowing with wisdom, and a hint of mischief too.

You will
.

And then, with a squawk so loud that Taff covered his ears, the creature lifted off. The rest of its tribe followed, their bellies happily swollen with water. Kara watched
them disappear into the leaves of the Thickety.

Taking Taff's hand, she skipped boulders until finally stepping onto black soil again, where Mary Kettle was waiting.

“Why didn't you help us?” Kara asked.

“You must learn to fight your own battles.”

“We could have died!”

“Kara,” Taff said.

“But you didn't. What exactly do you think Imogen is? A common sledgeworm? How do you hope to become strong enough to defeat her if I'm helping you every step of the way?”

“So this was, what? A test?”

“Kara,” Taff said.

“No. This was training.” Her voice softened. “If things had gotten truly dangerous, of course I would have helped you. But there was no need. You performed—”

“Kara!” shouted Taff.

Mary and Kara turned to face him. His face was ashen.
Blood dripped from a cut on his left palm.

“You're hurt!” Kara exclaimed.

“It's not that,” Taff said. He raised his good hand and pointed toward the Draye'varg.

In the distance stood a small figure. It was too far away to make out all the details, but Kara thought she recognized an unruly patch of sandy hair.

“My blood—it must have dripped between the boulders,” said Taff. “I'm sorry.”

Kara shook her head. “It's not your fault.”

“We can't let it live,” said Mary. “It'll follow us. Hunt Taff.”

Kara swallowed deeply and held out her hand.

“Give me your dagger,” she said. “I'll take care of it.”

Mary unsheathed the blade. She held it hilt-side out but as Kara reached for it Mary withdrew her hand.

“No,” Mary said. She looked somewhat confused, as though surprised by her own decision. “This isn't right. I can't let you do it. You're his sister.” With a look of
resolution she stepped onto the first boulder. “Let me.”

Kara looked past Mary. The figure had come closer. She could almost see the green eyes she knew so well.

“Thank you,” Kara said.

She led Taff into the shelter of the trees, where she bound his wound. A few moments later they heard a familiar scream. Kara held her brother close, grateful that she had not been the one to wield the knife.

A
fter dinner the following evening, Mary Kettle spread a scratchy old blanket across a patch of earth that had managed to dry beneath the feeble sun.

“It's time you know the whole story,” she said, looking directly at Kara. “No more secrets.”

Mary untied her sack and poured out the contents.

Toys in various degrees of disrepair cascaded to the ground: rose-colored marbles, a splintered wooden canoe, two tattered paper kites, a stuffed bear missing one eye, some kind of musical instrument with five
airholes, a handheld rocking horse whose paint was chipping off, and numerous dolls of every description.

“Look at all this stuff!” Taff exclaimed, his face flushed with excitement. He picked up a wooden top with stars carefully stenciled along the ridge, but Mary snatched it away.

“Don't touch,” she said. “Their magic might be weak, but many of these toys are still dangerous.”

“What's this one do?” Taff asked, gesturing toward the top.

“It spins,” Mary said, “until entire constellations of stars seem to pass before your eyes. You can't help but look. And as you look, you forget. Today. Yesterday. Where you've been. Who you are.”

Silence descended over the group. The campfire crackled.

“I don't want to play with the top anymore,” Taff said.

Mary was old that night, but as she shared the contents of the sack, her ancient eyes became as playful as a
child's. Some toys still retained their magical properties—though Mary could not always count on them working properly—while others had lost their enchantment altogether. Eventually, Mary stopped discussing magic and focused instead on examples of craftsmanship in which she took particular pride: a ship with sails that unfurled by touching a tiny lever, a wooden puzzle completed only by shifting colored squares into a particular pattern.

“You must have been an extraordinary toymaker,” Kara said.

“Aye,” said Mary, her eyes distant. “Men and women would travel for days just to come to my shop. It was my life's work. Before I found the grimoire, that is.”

“What are these things?” Taff asked. He held a small metal object between his fingers. “There's a bunch of them.”

“It's a gear,” Mary said. She leaned forward, her spine popping with age. “Do you know what a clock is?”

Taff stared at her blankly but Kara remembered
something Lucas had once told her. “It tells you what part of the day it is—if you can't read the sun and stars, I suppose. Some kind of meaningless entertainment for those with too many seeds to spend.”

Mary said, “Someone very special gave me a clock once—another story for another night—and I used the grimoire to enchant it. This was one of my most clever spells, actually. When I turned back the hour hand before I went to bed, I would wake up years younger, and when I turned the hour hand forward, I returned to my natural age—even older, if I so desired, though I certainly did not. You must understand, I had only just discovered my abilities when I saw the first hint of gray in my hair, and the thought of growing old when I had only begun to live . . .”

“After you stopped using magic,” Taff said, “the power of the toys began to fade. But the clock broke altogether, didn't it? You can't control it at all.”

Mary nodded. “The grimoire's ultimate punishment.”

“Where is your grimoire, anyway?” Kara asked.

“Far away from here,” Mary said. “Where I will not be tempted to use it.”

Mary turned her head, but Kara caught the look of longing that flashed through her eyes.

There's a part of her that misses it still
.

“I found another one!” Taff exclaimed, pinching a second gear between his fingers. “Help me find the rest.”

Noting Mary's confused expression, Kara said, “My brother has a talent for fixing things.”

“Hmm,” said Mary. “Perhaps that's why my little rabbit listened to you. It sensed your gift. Magic wants to be used—that's the one rule that never changes, no matter what type of magic we're talking about—so it makes sense that my toys would be drawn to a talented craftsperson. They think you can make them whole again.”

Taff did not respond. He was lost in the work of separating the mound into smaller piles, categorizing its
contents into groups that made sense only to him. Kara had seen him fall into these reveries many times before when working on a project back home.

“Taff,” Mary said, touching his shoulder.

He looked up.

“I appreciate that you want to help me. But you must be trained from birth to build a clock—it is a most complex trade, passed down from father to son. This little gear is one of dozens hidden within the pile, and there are hundreds of other parts as well. It is a job for a master clockmaker.”

“So you're telling me it's impossible.”

“Yes.”

Taff grinned. “Fantastic!” He continued searching for clocklike pieces with even greater enthusiasm. “That makes it even more fun. Besides, you've done so much for us—I want to do something for you for a change.”

Mary Kettle watched Taff for a few moments, her startled expression gradually giving way to a bewildered
smile. Absentmindedly she touched a hand to her eyes and seemed shocked to find a teardrop there. She flicked it away with two fingers, her smile suddenly shifting into a scowl.

“What's wrong?” Kara asked.

The old woman turned her back to the children and, hunched over, began sweeping the pieces back into the sack. “I shouldn't have showed you all this,” she snapped, plucking the clock gears from Taff's hands. “And I certainly do
not
want you trying to put this back together. Stay away from my things. Do you even know how these objects
got
their power? Do you?”

Taff shook his head, unable to meet Mary's eyes. “You've been so nice to us. I'd forgotten.”

“Well, that must be wonderful,” said Mary. “That must be just fine. But as for me, I can never forget.”

“Mary,” Kara said, but the old woman ignored her, all her attention focused on Taff.

“Such magic requires
ingredients
. You understand
what I'm saying to you, boy?”

“You used children,” muttered Taff. “I've heard the stories.” He blinked away his tears and met her eyes. “But the grimoire was controlling you, like with Kara. It wasn't your fault.”

Mary's gray eyes glinted in the firelight. She no longer looked like the woman Kara had begun to consider a friend. She looked like a woman who might linger in shadows or beneath the beds of unwary children.

“I lured them to my cottage with promises of sweetcakes and silver coins and then I boiled them in my kettle until their souls had leeched into whatever object I felt like enchanting that day.”