Grayling's Song (8 page)

And with that, the bridge crumbled and dumped her in the water.

“Figs and fennel seeds,” Grayling muttered. “This Pansy be more troublous than a stew pot full of snakes!” Taking Auld Nancy's broom, she scrambled down the bank to the stream.

She waded in near up to her knees and stretched the broom out to Pansy, who was floundering in the water, but instead of pulling Pansy out, Grayling found herself pulled in. She bounced and tumbled in the fast-running stream, while Auld Nancy scrambled alongside, calling, “Come back! Come back now!”

I would if I could, you foolish old woman,
thought Grayling.
After I pushed Pansy to the very bottom!
Holding tight to Auld Nancy's broom, Grayling bumped on rocks, scraped on boulders, and tangled with tree branches as she was swept downstream. Swallowed water spewed from her mouth and her nose. Sodden skirts ensnarled her legs as she was thrown hither and thither through the surging stream.

A tangle of branches ahead promised a handhold. Gulping and spitting, Grayling stretched to reach it, but the current spun her into a jumble of rocks. She knocked her head on the rocks again and again and felt dizzy with the pain, but finally, stone by stone, she dragged herself toward the bank while the churning water tried to pull her back. Finally she struggled out of the water and lay panting, lungs heaving, still clutching Auld Nancy's broom.

She was on the far side of the stream. Across the raging water, Pansy, who had also hauled herself out, stood with Auld Nancy. On the other side. The
wrong
side.

A plague on them both!
thought Grayling.
Let them stay there. I will go elsewhere. Anywhere.
She was weary with leading and deciding, with child minding and old-woman tending. She would find some other way to rescue her mother.

She wrung what water she could from her cloak and her kirtle. Cursing and grumbling, she climbed up the bank toward the woods but slipped on the slippery soil and stumbled into an old oak, its bark pitted and thick and its branches gnarled. She could almost make out a face—its eyes closed and a knurl of bark like an open mouth. 'Twas not a tree but a man, his final screams hardened into bark. And beside him a sapling, a woman, hair fluttering with every breeze, tree up to her terrified eyes, unable to make a sound.

Filled with pity and horror, shaking with cold and wet and fear, Grayling stood there. The evil force had been here and was gone. Grayling was alone with what had been cunning folks, rooted to the ground, their limbs and hearts and brains trapped inside trees, bark and branches nearly to the tops of their heads. She could feel their terror and confusion. And this was true all through the kingdom—mages and wise women, people with skills and power, now wretched and defenseless. This undertaking, she realized, was not just a matter of freeing Hannah Strong but of freeing them all. And the only rescuers at hand were Auld Nancy, Pansy, and Grayling herself. She shook her head. She would not run. They might not win this fight, but she would not run.

She pushed her wet hair out of her face. Her first task was to sing to the grimoire and pray that, now she was on this side of the stream, it would hear her and sing back. And indeed it did. Her heart leaped. She slid back down the bank and waved to Auld Nancy.

“Come back, Grayling,” Auld Nancy called.

“Nay! You must cross to this side of the water.”

Shouting back and forth across the stream, they walked along the banks on both sides until they found a spot where the water ran less deep. A fallen tree lay halfway across.

“Hold on to the tree and cross,” said Grayling. “Pansy, you help Auld Nancy.”

Pansy shook her head, and her wet hair flew about her. “I will not go back into the water.”

“Watch me,” said Auld Nancy. “'Twill be easy.” She waded into the water and grabbed for the tree. Hand over hand, she pulled herself along, her skirts swirling about her. Finally she was near enough so that Grayling could wade out and take her hand. The water came to their knees, and the strong current pulled them about. Auld Nancy fell and her hand was torn from Grayling's. For a moment Grayling thought the old woman would be swept downstream. She grabbed Auld Nancy by her skirt and held on. Together they staggered from the water and onto the bank, where they lay, breathing heavily and coughing up water.

“What about me?” Pansy called.

“Do as I did,” Auld Nancy called back. “All but the falling.”

“I cannot. I am afeared.”

Muttering “
Fie!
Fie! Fie!”
Grayling took her wet cloak off. She forced herself back into the water and paddled and pulled Pansy, mewling and whining, across.

Grayling wrung her skirt and her hair and emptied out her sodden shoes while Pansy wiped mud from her face with the hem of her kirtle. “You pigheaded, beef-witted noddypoop!” Grayling said. “This was all your doing. I should have just left you in the water at the beginning!”

“Do not waste breath, Grayling,” said Auld Nancy. “Her mother did say Pansy was foolish.” The old woman picked up her soggy broom. “Though it would be better for all of us, Pansy, if you were less so.” Pansy thrust out her chin and narrowed her eyes but did not argue with Auld Nancy.

The old woman removed her wet cloak and shook it. Out fell a fish, which lay flapping on the ground. “Oooh!” Pansy said. “Make a fire, and we shall eat.”

“No fire,” said Grayling. She took the fish by the tail and tossed it back into the water. “We are still pursued by half the ruffians in the kingdom. Let us move on.”

Damp and dripping, the three turned away from the stream and followed a path up to where it met the road. Grayling could hear no sounds of fighting. She hoped the edge dwellers had been driven off, with the soldiers giving chase.

A sudden wind rose with a bite and a howl. It drove away the remains of the mist and swirled around the three travelers, clawing at their faces and tangling their skirts. Grayling's hair danced, and her eyes watered. Wet and clammy though she was, she shivered less from cold than from sudden feelings of dread, foreboding, and a terrible hopelessness. Then as abruptly as it had appeared, the wind subsided, the darkness lightened, and Grayling's spirits rose.

She grimaced. What kind of wind brings such darkling and despair? Shaking her head to clear it, she took Auld Nancy by the arm and continued on, Pansy panting and lagging behind.

“Where might Desdemona Cork be?” Grayling asked Auld Nancy after a time. “Will she find us again, or has she left us to continue without her?”

“When shall we rest?” asked Pansy. “I am fair spent. And when shall we eat?”

No one had answers. The way seemed to Grayling much longer afoot than it had in the back of a caged wagon, but at least they were not captives.

t last they reached
the road west once more. There the setting sun illuminated a fantastical pavilion of marigold silk that flapped and fluttered in the breeze, making waves of golden cloth. At one side were a coach, paneled in green leather with brass fittings and scarlet window curtains, and a coachman asleep on the seat.

Before the pavilion stood a man. A very rich man, Grayling guessed, as she studied his velvet jacket, snow white breeches, and high-heeled black leather boots. He stood motionless, like a statue, like someone under a spell. A spell! Had the evil force been here? She took Auld Nancy and Pansy each by a hand, ready to flee.

Then from the pavilion came the aroma of roasting meat. And apple blossoms, out of season and unexpected, so all the more sweet. And lavender, mint, and rich honey.

Of course! Desdemona Cork! Grayling breathed out with relief. Desdemona Cork!

The lovely woman parted the silks and beckoned them in. Awestruck, Grayling looked about her. Draperies of crimson and indigo damask there were, and lavishly cushioned couches, beeswax candles and flaming torches, and small fires in bronze braziers warming the air.

While Grayling stood astounded, Pansy hobbled in and, with a great sigh, flopped onto a couch of ruby velvet. Auld Nancy, however, stopped at the entrance. “How come you by all this luxury?” she asked, frowning at Desdemona Cork. “You cannot be trusted, enchantress that you are. Who has given you all this to trap us?”

“Muzzle your tongue, grouching old crone,” said Desdemona Cork. “The mayor of the town found himself besotted with me and furnished all you see. You and your ill temper are welcome to share it or not, as you choose.”

Auld Nancy, bent with fatigue, shuffled in and dropped onto a cushion far from Desdemona Cork. Urged by Auld Nancy, Grayling, who still stood at the entry, related the story of their capture and escape. Pansy interrupted, saying, “Auld Nancy thinks Grayling was brave and a great help to us, which I could have been also, if I had wanted, but Grayling likes telling us what to do, so I let her do it.” She snuffled loudly as she removed her boots and wiggled her dirty, blistered feet.

They all turned to look at Grayling. She blinked. Pansy had nearly gotten herself and Grayling drowned. Twice. Pansy whined and grumbled and complained at every turn. And she thought she could be brave and helpful? Grayling gritted her teeth. She had not wanted to lead, but who else was there?

“That is all over, and we have survived. Now I believe we must hurry away before we are discovered,” she said, reluctantly, because of the warmth, the soft cushions, the aroma of the roast meat . . . and the still-missing Pook.

Auld Nancy, her face weariful and wan, said, “Desdemona Cork, be useful. Use your wiles to delay our pursuers for a time. Long enough for us to eat and to rest.”

Desdemona Cork looked confused, as if the idea of being useful confounded her, but she nodded slowly. “You will be safe here until dawn. I can make it so.” So Grayling, too, sat, choosing a cushion the green of the fiddlehead ferns in her valley.

Suddenly from outside the pavilion came the sounds of men shouting, the clanging of weapons, and the snorting of horses. The soldiers! Grayling jumped to her feet, her hunger gone.

Desdemona Cork stepped outside, and Grayling could smell roses. She moved closer to the entry and heard snatches of conversation.
Have you seen
. . . and
Whither the witches
. . . and
South. Due south, in a coach with four horses running fast.

At a sudden shrieking, Grayling pulled back the silks and peered out. One of the soldiers was thrashing about, shouting and tugging at his clothes. Was he in the midst of a fit? Possessed of a demon? Out from a sleeve fell not a demon but a toad, brown and warty. Desdemona Cork squealed as it crawled over her foot and into the tent.

“Gray Eyes, this mouse has found you,” said the toad to Grayling.

Grayling's chest swelled with joy. “Pook? 'Tis really you?” Although she much preferred Pook as a mouse or a raven or even a goat, she lifted Pook the toad and patted him gently on his bumpy back. “You are truly a remarkable creature to have found me,” she said.

“I could not have walked such a far way, so this soldier carried me,” said Pook the toad, “though he was unaware of his assistance.”

“By my reckoning, you have now saved me twice,” Grayling said, bowing her head. “My most grateful thanks to you and your mouse accomplices.”

“Nay, the mice did what mice do: chew. 'Twas great fun for a mouse.” Pook quivered, and Grayling, disinclined to put a toad in her pocket, held him gingerly on her palm.

After a few moments of shawl twitching and veil fluttering by Desdemona Cork, the soldiers, bowing and scraping, left, heading south as she had instructed them. The man in the high-heeled black leather boots still stood unmoving and unaware. Grayling gestured questioningly toward him.

“I grew tired of his attentions,” said Desdemona Cork with a shrug.

Inside the pavilion, Desdemona Cork handed something to Grayling. It was her basket, left behind when the three were captured. She put Pook inside, where, in true toad fashion, he hid himself beneath the few remaining herbs, now limp and brown but welcome cover for a toad.

Grayling kicked off her soggy shoes, curled herself onto a soft cushion, and ate her fill of beef and apples and bread with honey. What a day she had had! Would she survive another like it? She combed her still-damp hair with her fingers and pulled it into a braid, then fell into a deep and dream-free sleep.

Dawn sun, shining through the silk, brightened the pavilion. The mist was gone. The travelers woke, comfortably rested and full of roast meat. “Now we must go,” Grayling said. “I will sing to the grimoire, and we can follow.”

Pansy stuck her blistered feet toward Grayling. “See you these? And my ankle is not yet mended. Can we not linger for a day or more?”

“And I,” said Desdemona Cork, “I am weary—”

“Weary?” shouted Auld Nancy. “You, weary? I spent a night in a cage, crossed a river, and walked until my feet near fell off! And you think you are weary?”