The Near Witch (3 page)

“What of it?” asks Dreska, tapping her cane on the wooden floor. Outside, the rain comes down in waves, each one thinner than the last. It will be over soon. “We don’t know anything about him.”

The rain turns to a drizzle.

“You have not offered him shelter?” I ask.

The sisters stand there, stiff and mute.

“I don’t mean any harm,” I say quickly. “I just want to see him, to speak to him. I’ve never met a stranger. I just want to see that he’s real and ask him…” How can I explain? “Just tell me if you have him, please.”

Nothing.

I force myself straighter in my chair, keeping my head up.

“I saw him last night. Outside my window. Bo Pike claims to have spotted him first, on the western edge, and we’re due north. The stranger seemed to know the line that marks the edge of the village. He would have rounded it, to the east.” I tap the table with my index finger. “Here.”

The sisters would have given him shelter. It had to have been them. But still they say nothing. Their eyes say nothing. Their faces say nothing. It’s as if I’m speaking to statues.

“You were the only ones absent this morning,” I say.

Magda blinks. “We keep to ourselves.”

“But you’re the only ones who could have hidden—”

Dreska sparks to life.

“You best be getting home, Lexi,” she snaps, “while there’s a break in the weather.”

I look to the window. The storm has stopped, leaving the sky gray and drained. The air in the room feels heavy, as if the space is shrinking. The sisters’ looks are guarded, harder than before. Even Magda’s lips are drawn into a narrow line. I push myself to my feet. I haven’t touched my cup.

“Thank you for the tea, Magda,” I say, heading for the door. “Sorry to bother you both.”

The door closes firmly behind me.

Outside, the world is mud and puddles, and I wish I’d been able to trade these silly slippers for my leather boots. I make it two steps before my feet are soaked. Overhead the sky is already beginning to break apart, the clouds retreating.

I look to the west, to the village.

When I was Wren’s age, I asked my father why the sisters lived all the way out here. He said that, for the people in Near, something was either all good or all bad. He told me witches were like people, that they came in all shapes and sizes, and they could be good or bad or foolish or clever. But after the Near Witch, the people in the village got it into their heads that all witches were bad.

The sisters stay out here because the villagers are afraid. But the important part is that they
stay
. When I asked my father why, he smiled, one of those soft, private smiles, and said, “This is their home, Lexi. They won’t turn their backs on it, even though it turned its back on them.”

I cast a last glance back at the sisters’ hill, and leave. They’re protecting the stranger. I know it.

I head back for the worn path, passing the shed that sits just to the north of the cottage.

If the sisters are hiding him, there must be a reason—

I catch my breath.

There is a dark gray cloak hanging from a nail on the shed, its hems darker than the rest, as if the fabric has been singed. The moor is unnaturally quiet in the post-rain afternoon, and I am suddenly very aware of my steps, of the sound they make on the wet earth as I approach the shed. The structure seems to be losing a very slow war with gravity. It is a cluster of wooden beams stuck into the soil, supporting a messy roof. Between the slats, the moor grows up, weeds taking hold, doing as much to keep the shed up as to tear it down. There is a door beside the cloak, but no handle. The strips of warping wood have gaps between them, and I lean in and press my eye to one of the narrow openings. The dim interior is empty.

I step back, sigh, and bite my lip. And then, from the other side of the shed, I hear it—a soft exhale. I smile and slide silently toward the sound, bending my knees and begging the earth to absorb my steps without giving me away. I round the corner. And there is no one. Not even footprints in the grass.

Letting out an exasperated breath, I stomp back around the shed. I know the sounds that people make just living, and I know that someone was here. I heard him breathing, and I saw the—

But the nail is bare, and the cloak is gone.

I
QUICKEN MY PACE AS
I
HEAD HOME
, frustrated and chilled from sloshing through the wet grass. My slippers are ruined. The path splits, one narrow line leading into town, the other arching up around Near to my house. I veer toward home, slipping off the soaked shoes and walking barefoot up the path, succumbing to the mud. It coats my feet, my ankles, climbing up my calves, and I think of Dreska’s sharp tongue, telling me I could eat dirt and grow no closer to the moor. I don’t suppose covering myself in mud will do much good, either.

Eventually Otto’s house comes into sight, and just beyond it, ours. The moor takes over beyond our yard, fluttering out like a cape. A wood stack sits to one side of our house, a small vegetable garden to the other, clumps of green interwoven with orange and red. The garden belongs to Wren more than me. Few things flourish in moor soil, but Wren loves our little plot, and shows an odd streak of gentleness whenever she tends it. Sure enough, that’s where she is now, perched on a stone just outside the marked-off patch, gingerly plucking a weed from the dirt.

“You’re back,” she calls as I draw near.

“Of course. Where is everyone?” My exit from the town square wasn’t my most subtle departure, and my uncle will have words for me, I’m sure.

“Wren.” My mother’s voice wanders like smoke from the house, and a moment later she’s standing in the doorway, her fine dark hair curling in wisps around her face. Wren hops down from the stone and skips over to her. My mother’s eyes find mine.

“Lexi,” she says, “where did you run off to?” Her down-turned mouth confirms it. Otto will indeed want words with me.

“Helena had forgotten something for me at her house,” I say, the lie building in my mouth only a moment after I think it. “She was so swamped by her audience, she asked me to go get it myself.” I feel around in my dress pockets for proof, but they’re empty, so I pray my mother doesn’t ask for evidence. She doesn’t, only blows out a small breath and floats back inside the house.

I miss my mother. I miss the woman she was before my father died, the one who stood straight and proud and looked out at the world with fierce blue eyes. But there are rare moments when it helps that she’s become a shell, a ghost of her former self. Ghosts ask fewer questions.

I turn away from the house. I’m losing my lead. Soon Otto will figure out where the stranger is, if he doesn’t know already. If I’m going to find him, I clearly need to catch him off guard. But how? I smooth my hair back and peer up at the sky. The sun is still high and the wood stack by the house is low, and I feel the need to move. I set aside my ruined slippers, take the boots from the side of the house, and trudge off in search of kindling.

The ax comes down on the wood with a crack. My dress is dirty and my boots are caked with mud from stomping through the fields after the rain. They were my father’s—dark brown leather with old buckles, soft and strong and warm, the insides worn to fit his feet. I have to stuff the toes with socks so they won’t fall off, but it’s worth it. I feel better wearing them. And they look better this way, freshly stained. I cannot imagine them clean and in the cupboard.

Sitting still is not a skill I have. I never could stop moving, but it’s gotten even worse these last three years.

A bead of sweat runs down my face, instantly cooling in the late afternoon air. I put another piece of wood on an old tree stump that sits between Otto’s house and ours, lift the ax, and bring it down again.

This feels right.

My father taught me to chop firewood. I asked him once if he wished he had a son, and he said, “Why? I’ve got a daughter just as strong.” And you wouldn’t guess it by my narrow frame, but I am.

The ax comes down.

“Lexi!” bellows a deep voice behind me. I set the ax on the stump and begin picking up the split wood.

“Yes, Uncle Otto?”

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“Chopping wood,” I say, my voice on the narrow line between matter-of-fact and rude.

“You know to leave it. Tyler can come around and do it for you.”

“The stack was low, and my mother needs it to bake. I’m only doing what you wanted, Uncle. Helping.” I turn and head for the wood stack. Otto follows.

“There are other ways for you to help.”

Otto is still wearing his Protector face; his voice stern, edged with power. It may be his face and his voice, but it’s not his title. It was my father’s first.

“And where are your shoes?” he asks, looking down at the mud-caked boots.

I drop the wood into the middle of the stack, and turn. “You wouldn’t want me to ruin them, would you?”

“What I want is for you to listen to me when I tell you to do something. And more importantly, when I tell you
not
to do something.”

He crosses his arms, and I resist the urge to mimic him.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Lexi, I told you I didn’t want you to go off today. Don’t try to tell me you didn’t.”

I test out the lie a moment on my tongue, but it won’t get past Otto as easily as it did my mother.

“You’re right, Uncle,” I say with a patient smile. One of his eyebrows peaks, as if he suspects a trap, but I go on. “I did go in search of the stranger, and look what I came back with.” I hold my hands wide. “Nothing.”

At the stump, I lift the ax, my fingers sliding into my father’s grooves.

“It was a foolish task,” I add. “I couldn’t find him. He’s gone.”

The ax drives deep into the stump, sticking with a heavy thud.

“So I came home. And here I am. Relax, Uncle. All is well.” I dust my hands off, let one come to rest on Otto’s shoulder. “So, what did Helena have to say?”

“Not enough,” says Otto, looking down at my father’s boots. “Says she saw something, a shadow, maybe our stranger, in the clearing by her house. Claims she doesn’t know which way he went. That he just vanished.”

“Helena’s always loved a good story,” I offer. “She can make one out of nothing.” It is a lie, of course. She prefers to have me tell the stories to her.

Otto isn’t even listening. He’s looking over me, and his eyes are even farther away. Dark, lost eyes.

“What happens next?” I ask.

He blinks. “For now, we wait.”

I manage to nod calmly before I turn away, the frown creeping across my face. I don’t trust for a minute that that’s all my uncle has in mind.

Tonight there is no moon, and therefore no moonlight playing on the walls. Nothing to entertain those who cannot sleep. I am unbearably awake, but not because of the stranger.

It’s the wind.

That same sad note is back again, weaving through the air, and there’s something else, a sound that makes me shiver. No matter how I turn away or bury my face in the sheets, I keep hearing something—or someone—calling, just loud enough to pierce the walls. The voice is surely something more than wind, curling and twisting itself into highs and lows, like muffled music. I know that if only I could lean closer, words would become clear, distinct. Words that wouldn’t break apart before I can wrap my mind around them.

I push the covers back, careful not to wake Wren, and let my feet slide to the wooden floor. Then I remember my father’s words and pull my feet back into bed, hovering awkwardly on the edge, halfway between the motion of standing and slipping back down.

The trees all whisper, leaves gossiping. The stones are heavy think
ers, the sullen silent types.
He used to make up stories for everything in nature, giving it all voices, lives.
If the moor wind ever sings, you mustn’t listen, not with all of your ears. Use only the edges. Listen the way you’d look out the corners of your eyes. The wind is lonely, love, and always looking for company.

My father had lessons and he had stories, and it was up to me to learn the difference between the two.

The wind howls and I discard my father’s warning, stretching my ears to meet the sound, to unravel it. My head begins to ache dully as I listen, trying to make words where there are none. I give up, slipping back beneath the sheets, folding myself into my cocoon so that the wind song comes through broken.

Just as I’m about to find sleep, Wren shifts beside me. She rouses, and I hear the soft padding of feet as she slides from the bed and crosses the room, slipping out in search of our mother’s bed.

But something is off.

There’s a slight creak, the sound of footsteps over one of the two warped boards between the bed and the window. I sit up. Wren is standing, framed by glass and wooden borders, her blond hair almost white in the darkness. Without the shell of blankets, I can hear the wind again, the music on it, and the almost-words that hum against my skull.

“Wren?” I whisper, but she doesn’t turn around. Am I dreaming?

She reaches one hand up to the clasp pinning the window shut, and turns it. Her small fingers curl around the bottom lip of the window, trying to slide it up, but it weighs too much for her. It has always weighed too much. I realize for the first time that the shutters are open beyond the window glass. I don’t remember unlocking them, but there they are, thrown back, exposing the night beyond. Wren presses her fingers against the wooden lip, and somehow the window begins to slide up a fraction.

“Wren!”

I’m out of bed and at her side before she can get any farther, pulling her back into the room and closing the gap where the cool air is seeping in. I look for something out on the moor, something that would have drawn my sister to the window, but there is nothing. Nothing but the usual black-and-white night, the stray trees and rocks and the humming wind. I turn to face Wren, barring her path, and she blinks, the kind of startled blinks of a person waking suddenly. At my back the wind presses against the glass, and then it seems to break, dissolving into the dark.

“Lexi? What’s wrong?” she asks, and I must seem crazed, stretching myself across the window frame and looking at my sister as if she’s possessed. I peel myself from my post, ushering her back to bed. On my way I light the three candles, and they burst to life and fill the room with yellow light. Wren slides beneath the covers, and I climb in beside her, resting my back against the headboard, facing the candles and the window and the night beyond.