The Shepherd of Weeds (13 page)

“I found this in the wreckage,” Flux lied. He brandished a small box. It was dented and battered, but—to Rowan—cloyingly familiar.

“I have journeyed here, at great personal and physical expense, to simply give it to you in your time of need. And should you feel it appropriate to attach a small reward to its return—” Flux paused, examining the thing closer.

It was a small opaline box, a blue or silvery gray—really, the color of tears.

Flux continued, his courage returning. “I know not what’s inside, for it was not my place to open it.” He gave the thing an anguished shake, holding it to his ear, listening. The box showed signs of having recently met with a large rock.

Cecil snatched it away. “Whatever it is, it’s locked,” he said.

“That it is,” Flux muttered.

With a jolt, Rowan realized he recognized it. “It’s empty.” Rowan’s voice was hoarse. He swallowed hard.

“Hardly,” Flux scoffed.

Rowan ignored him, looking at Cecil. Flashes of his brief encounter with Ivy in Underwood were returning to him now, as if the box were freeing a few jumbled memories. “The box is Ivy’s. The Good King gave it to her, in Pimcaux. Inside was a set of stones, or pits, from some sort of fruit. The King told her to plant them only in Caux—saying that Ivy would know where when the time came,” Rowan spoke.

A strange look passed over Cecil’s face, and Rowan flushed.

“I, too, am familiar with the … stones,” Flux sniffed. He looked around. “And here it seems like we have come to an interesting juncture. Because unlike the boy—or, for that matter, the dead girl—I know exactly where these, shall we say,
stones
belong.”

“An interesting juncture indeed.” Rowan nodded, retrieving a closed fist from his pocket. The one thing he remembered about his return from Pimcaux was that Ivy had asked a very important favor of him.

“For you may very well know where the stones go”—Rowan opened his palm—“but Ivy gave them to me.”

s the dust settled at the Wayward Home for Indigent Orphans and Invalid Hotel, a chilling silence had set in—one punctuated only by the hissing of a broken steam fitting and the perpetual dripping of water from the rusted sprinkler system. Ivy stood, examining the scrapes on her hands and knees from where she had met the ground, and was amazed to see that Lumpen was still standing.

The well keeper had about her a more scorched appearance, her corncob pipe was blackened at the base, and the ends of her hair were nothing but wisps of ash. But the sturdy woman still cradled Rue, and had not let her fall.

“Storm’s a-comin’,” Lumpen said matter-of-factly.

“Uh.” Ivy squinted through the aftermath of the explosion. “I think it’s come and gone, Lumpen.”

Ivy scrambled over the hardscrabble hillside to the fetid well. There, in the gritty breeze, Ivy spotted something. A book lay perched precariously on the well’s rim, wobbling and threatening to pitch over and into the dank hole. Ivy’s hand closed around the thick leather-bound cover just in time. It was wet from its trip from the Boil Pile and lay dejected and soggy—yet still with a certain dignity. It was Axle’s masterwork,
The Field Guide to the Poisons of Caux
, and it was indeed a welcome sight. It lay open, the inner cover inscribed in perfect penmanship.

All appeared to be in good order: the gilt edges were only slightly singed—a few of the thumb tabs were missing—and the binding was, for the most part, intact. But the book bulged with knowledge. Ivy knew—because she had helped Axle write it—that the remarkable book contained, among many things, recipes for various restorative tonics, and suggestions and uses for ash (in particular, it makes a good ink). A section compiled reliable weather-forecasting tools, and another detailed the Cauvian night sky. There were remarkably thorough diagrams and sketches of all sorts of botanical finds—including tactics for negotiating the purchase of various herbal and flower remedies should you be unable to forage for your own. Within the numerous appendices, the eager reader could
decipher all matter of enigmas (including, but not limited to, the meanings of a secret language known as Flower Code). There were entire chapters devoted to birdcalls and to dowsing for water (yarrow sticks made the best divining rods).

Ivy snatched up the
Guide
. Its familiar weight, the feel of the worn leather in her hands, was a great comfort. Her own copy, ringed with failed potions and splattered with her experiments, had been left behind in Rocamadour.

“Now, Lumpen.” Ivy clutched the thick book to her chest. Suddenly the path ahead—with Axle’s fine reference work in hand—seemed much less daunting. She thought of her uncle, of the well keeper’s parchment. “If you would be so kind as to show us the way to Templar, I would be most grateful.”

The silence that had followed the explosion of Mrs. Mulk’s laundry room had faded away in increments. As Ivy’s hearing returned properly, the first sound she heard was of a soft wind, muffled by the powdery layer of ash and dust that coated the immediate area—but as the threesome made their way off the hill, and the quality of the air improved, there was a distinct—and unnerving—rustling.

Ivy looked to Lumpen’s vast skirts and straw stuffing within her patchwork smocks, but that was not the source. There was just the well keeper’s noisy breath, for she carried the sleeping form of Rue, wrapped for warmth within the dark carpet. The rustling was almost coy, coming from all around
them, matching their speed and progress, the sound of dry leaves and straw bales. It grew steadier and stronger, ever elusive, as they walked along. At Ivy’s insistence, Lumpen ceased her march for a moment, but—maddeningly—the rustling stopped as well. It seemed to be matching their pace.

And then in the silence, the most chilling sound of all—a hoarse howl of a wolf.

As they resumed their march, this time quicker, Lumpen shook her head, dismissing the strange rustle. But she pointed out one very particular thing.

“Nor do I hear a single bird, miss. Not one—and not for some time. Even in the heart of winter I can usually hear the little chickadees, the hoot of a grouse. And that, I say, is highly irregular.”

It was as if each and every bird had vanished.

here was, nevertheless, one bird—but he made not a peep.

He bobbed and weaved in the aftermath of the explosion at the orphanage, concentrating very much on the task of flying, for it had been quite some time since he had spread his wings. He was missing a tail feather, and his balance was impaired.

Over an open, windswept, dreary moor a fox chased him, and he flew recklessly and with all his might until he reached the safety of a dense hedge. But he did not rest long. The old stone walls would lead him to the ancient meeting place.

Mrs. Mulk’s caged warbler, whose name was Teasel, soon returned to the skies, for he knew—as only the caged can—the preciousness of freedom. He also knew something else. He
knew that a caucus had been called, and that his presence, like every bird’s, was required.

On page 973 of
The Field Guide to the Poisons of Caux
, in a chapter devoted to the migratory habits of Caux’s bird and butterfly populations, the author deviates a moment. He abandons his charts and seaside attractions and mentions in brief an event of such rarity that little more than its name can be confirmed.

The event is called a caucus.

Its location is secret. Its origins are murky. It is a rare and powerful phenomenon.

Here is what the
Field Guide
says:

Tiny Teasel, with his chipped beak and ragged form, felt the calling of the caucus deep within him and another welcome feeling—a shiver of great anticipation.

hey moved through a lifeless wintry wood, Ivy and Lumpen Gorse, with Rue slung over her generous shoulder. Ahead lay nothing but hoarfrost, slackened pasture, and open moor. But in their wake, there grew a small splash of color—as if Ivy trailed the very arrival of spring.

Before her the cold was apparent—in the form of icicles on the bald trees, in the mist from her mouth as she exhaled. But she could not feel it in her fingers or toes, no prickling goose bumps; in fact, winter did not seem to attend to Ivy at all. This, she knew, was the scourge bracken inside her.

And still, she could not shake the eerie feeling of being followed.

Several times, over her shoulder, Ivy had thought she’d
spied the drifting shapes of skulking wolves, weaving in and about the gaps in the crumbling stone walls. These creatures were hideous and hungry, stooped, their noses pinned to the ground in search of a scent. But they never drew close. Something was keeping them at bay—this invisible escort, this rustling that accompanied Ivy and her friends as they drew closer to Templar.

Lumpen took them along the path of tall, stone walls—evidence of ancient, ruined kingdoms. To either side were ghostly fields and farmland. Ivy tried to walk as best she could in the open sun, for when she stepped within the shadows of the hulking, crumbling stones, her vision betrayed her with frightening images of glittery, glowing eyes and repellent dark growth—a mossy blight like black velvet that grew in heaving clumps. This was the domain of scourge bracken: the crevices between the rock, dim and obscure. In it, Ivy knew, could be found the voice of her father, Vidal Verjouce, his evil inflection reminding her that she would never again be right in the shadows.

When the stacks of stones or the orientation of the sun above prevented Ivy from avoiding these dark places, the visions would resume. The world would ripple like a tapestry, a confounding apparition. She would see her father’s awful garden—his Mind Garden, dreary, morose—as if a transparent veil upon the snowy pastures of Caux. She would walk not the path that Lumpen Gorse plowed on ahead, but the
ambling rows of her father’s ruined vines—ravaged by scourge bracken. The slate-colored sky of the Mind Garden punctured holes in the clear afternoon of Caux’s; the turf turned hostile and murky. She walked between these two worlds, neither one quite real, a hostage to both.