Witch Fall (21 page)

He settled her on the dock and stepped closer. “You’re students?”

Slightly perplexed, she nodded.

He made a grumbling sound. “Well, then, goodbye.” He swung a crate onto his shoulder and marched off.

“What was that about?” Lilette wondered aloud.

“Is that a rhetorical question, or would you like an answer?”

Lilette jumped and turned to find Jolin behind her, thumbing through a book in her hands. “What?”

Jolin raised a single eyebrow. “Was it a rhetorical question, or would you like an answer?”

“Um, I’d like an answer. I think?”

“Students on Haven are forbidden contact with men. Had you not been a student, he probably would have asked to court you.”

“Court me?”

As Jolin turned to watch Galon head toward the cave mouth with a crate on his shoulder, a disappointed look crossed her face. “The ritual by which men and women fall in love—or not,” she said wistfully. “He would have taken you to dinner, perhaps. Or to some kind of jovial activity. After a sufficient amount of wooing, he would have asked you to marry him.”

“He asked about us, not just me,” Lilette replied. “And you were the one he was smiling at.”

Jolin grasped her hands behind her back. “I am sure you are mistaken. I know what I am, and I know what I am not. Attractive to men is certainly not one of my many valuable qualities.” She wouldn’t look Lilette in the eyes.

Jolin snapped her fingers at the sailors. “Follow me.” She marched toward the head of the cave, her head held high and her back straight.

Knowing it was all for show, Lilette snatched her small bag and hurried after Jolin. The bag contained only Lilette’s spare dress and her purse of jewels—she’d given the armor and clothes back to Han.

They left the dim cave and emerged, blinking, into the light. What struck Lilette first was how like Grove City everything was. There was the same riot of green—from the pale shoots of new grass to nearly the black of the plants tucked into the shadows. Heavy with water, the air carried the smells of growing things. Plants grew on top of plants, over plants, and crawled up trees. Moss grew on the muddy ground, but a path of gravel had been laid out. It wound through the vegetation, between trees that were short and stout compared to the ones in Grove City. There were no arched bridges between balconies. Still, windows winked from between curves of bark, and peaked doors were set between buttressed roots.

“They’re a different species,” Jolin answered Lilette’s unasked question. “I helped develop them.” Lilette gaped at her friend in amazement. Jolin raised her hands palm up. “What?”

“I thought you were a potioner!”

“I have an intimate knowledge of the composition of nearly every plant ever known. It’s not that hard to go from using a plant for a potion, to changing the properties between plants.”

They’d reached a tree. Jolin produced a key and unlocked the door. Inside was a table and stove. Every other square of space was covered in bottles and pots and clay jars. All filled to overflowing but meticulously labeled. “You live here?” Lilette asked.

Men followed them inside and deposited the crates of books beside a wide shelf before shuffling back out. Jolin was already depositing the little sacks of seeds from her satchel into clay jars with cork lids. “Obviously.”

Doranna appeared at the door. She waited for the last of the men to leave before shutting the door after them.

“Where’s my mother?” Jolin asked her.

Doranna took the jars, dipped a brush in ink, and began labeling them. “Last I saw her, she was headed to the southwest side of the island.” Her gaze shifted to Lilette. “You should avoid going anywhere near the cliffs. Rock fall can happen anytime here.”

“When was the last one?” Jolin asked.

Doranna shrugged. “It’s been weeks.”

“That bad?”

“We’re managing.”

Lilette looked between the two. “What’s bad?”

“Sometimes she’s a bit . . . volatile,” Jolin answered.

Lilette shifted her bag to her other hand. “Who?”

Jolin met her gaze. “My mother.” She moved to start stacking the books on the shelves.

“Ah, I understand,” Lilette said, though she really didn’t.

Doranna was still working on the jars. “Lilette, I have been asked to apprise you of the rules. You may not leave Haven without the headmistress’s permission. You must be in your rooms before full dark. Open flames are allowed only on bolted-down candlesticks, which must be blown out when you leave the room—except, obviously, for the one you carry to light another.”

Jolin had nearly finished with the books.

Doranna turned the bottles so all the labels faced out. “Haven is a near perfect circle, so all paths eventually lead to the center of the island. Just about everything important is around the circle—the headmistress’s tree, the food pavilion, the library.

“The bathing pools are by the cliffs opposite the entrance. Because there are no men allowed to live on the island, the pools are open to the air.”

She stepped up beside Jolin and began meticulously alphabetized each title. “Meals are served thrice in the pavilion. If you miss one, there are usually baskets of fruit, bread, and cheese, which you may take at any time as long as it is not wasted.”

“You’re to check in as soon as you’re settled.” She gestured a woven basket by the door. “Leave your laundry in the basket and I’ll see it’s washed and returned the evening next. Your tree will be cleaned in the mornings.”

Lilette poked around the chaos of potions, seeds, herbs, and baskets of rocks. “How do you find anything in this mess?” She held up a vial of topaz-colored liquid.

“Mess?” Jolin snatched the potion from her hand. “I know exactly where everything is, so mind you don’t touch anything.” She set the bottle down carefully.

“What’s that one?”

“I call it ioa.” Jolin’s voice was filled with sadness. “It can change a person into a fish.”

Lilette’s eyes widened. “Why would you ever want to be a fish?”

“That’s what the Heads said. A couple vials were stolen, though, by a witch who wanted to become a Head of Plants. The results were . . . less than favorable. After that, they moved me onto the island—it’s more secure. I also began leaving out a key ingredient to each of my potions.”

“Less than favorable how?”

Jolin took a deep breath. “A few dozen people are stuck as some kind of half-person, half-fish. Their skin turned a mottled green, their skelature changed, webbing grew between their fingers, and their teeth became pointed.”

Even though she knew she hadn’t spilled the potion on her hands, Lilette wiped them on her dress.

“The Heads won’t let me try it on anyone else, and the witch was banished,” Jolin continued. “The fish people have taken to living on an island farther south. They call themselves mettlemots. Apparently, they’re quite the fishermen.” She chuckled at her own joke.

At the look on Lilette’s face, she quickly sobered. “I’m convinced the potion is sound. It’s the method of transfer that’s off. My theory is that it needs to be applied to the body’s meridian line for the reversal of effects. But I can’t test any of this.”

Lilette’s mouth was suddenly dry.

Jolin lifted her brows. “So, mind you don’t touch anything.” She opened a door to another room. “Come on, Doranna.”

“Is that how you talk to me, girl?” Doranna continued unpacking the books and setting them on the shelves.

“I apologize.” Jolin sighed. “Would you please render your assistance?”

Casting a regretful glance the rest of the unpacked books, Doranna stepped up beside Lilette and turned the ioa potion so its label faced out. “And?”

“Thank you so much for your invaluable service,” Jolin ground out.

“I’ll teach that one some manners if it’s the last thing I do,” Doranna said with a smirk to Lilette.

Lilette had a view of pots and plants before the door shut behind them. She studied the organized chaos surrounding her and started toward the only other door in the room. Behind it was a single bed—she hoped that was remedied before nightfall. If not, she’d be sleeping on the floor, and she’d come to like beds.

The walls were covered in shelves of books. Lilette took out her spare dress and hung it on an extra peg, then tucked her bag of jewels behind a book called
Intraspecific Hybridization,
by Jolin Lyon. Her eyes wide, Lilette tugged the book off the shelf. She walked to the back door and opened it to ask Jolin about the book. What Lilette had thought was a room was actually a garden encased by glass—a garden with hundreds of potted and plants. Jolin and Doranna were planting the seeds from Harshen into large clay pots.

“You wrote this?” Lilette held out the book.

Her hands buried in soil, Jolin glanced up. “A few years ago. We keepers have long known that by crossing two plants that each have a desirable characteristic, we could create one plant with both.”

“So you wrote it when you were what, twelve?” Lilette flipped through more pages.

“Thirteen, I think. I couldn’t find a book that documented all our findings, so I wrote one.”

“How many others have you written?”

Jolin thought for a moment. “Fifteen or so. It’s hard to keep track anymore.”

“You’re really rather brilliant, aren’t you?” Lilette said, more to herself than anyone else.

“Obviously,” Jolin said.

“Why didn’t you tell me all this?”

Jolin’s hands stilled and she looked up. And Lilette suddenly understood. All her life, people had treated her differently because of her beauty, and now her voice. They’d done the same to Jolin because of her brilliance. Quite simply, people were intimidated by them, or resented them, or were drawn to them for all the wrong reasons. Lilette realized she and Jolin had a great deal in common. “Thank you for letting me stay with you,” she said quietly.

Jolin looked relieved. “Only because I need someone to sing for my potions.”

The corners of Lilette’s mouth quirked. “Mmm.”

“It’s true. Now put that book back and make use of that ridiculously pretty voice to help us grow these.”

Lilette returned the book and stepped into the garden, the smells of moist soil and green amplified by the glass. Reminded of the jungles around Calden, she felt a pang of sadness.

Jolin and Doranna had laid out dozens of pots, which Jolin had already planted with seeds. Doranna opened a jar of black paint and dipped in a brush. She added water before bending down to paint on a label in perfect letters.

“She has her first class,” Doranna chided.

Jolin waved the woman’s concern away. “This will be far more educational than sitting through a plant identification course.”

Lilette sang, and soon dozens of seeds had sprouted and grown into mature plants. Around them, the already-existing plants stretched and broadened and rustled. Lilette marveled at the power of her voice.

“This one.”

Lilette whirled to find Bethel standing behind them, a seed the size of a small pebble in her palm. “This is the one you’ve been searching for.”

Jolin didn’t meet her mother’s gaze. “How can you tell?”

Bethel set the seed on a table. It wobbled a little before going still. “I didn’t know what I was looking for until I found it.”

Bethel turned and left without saying goodbye. Jolin didn’t bother acknowledging her mother’s departure. She was picked up the
seed and held it to the light.

Everything was connected, bonds forming and events occurring exactly when they were needed. Only after that was I able to see it clearly. ~Jolin

As soon as Bethel was gone, Jolin slammed her trowel down and braced her arms against the table, her eyes pinched shut.

Doranna lifted her hand as if to comfort her, then seemed to think better of it. “She was worried when you were gone. She kept coming by your tree and staring at the door. She’s just not very good at showing that she loves you.”

Jolin let out a brittle laugh. “Love? The only thing she loves is the earth.” She began rearranging the pots.

“Jolin . . .” Lilette began.

Jolin wiped her dirty hands on her dress. “Now you understand why I have such poorly developed social niceties.” She waved in the direction her mother had gone. “Look what I had for an example.”

“Jolin,” Doranna said with a hint of warning.

Lilette had seen the way people looked at Bethel. “I don’t understand.”

Jolin went still for a beat. “Mother has always been paranoid—she’s convinced Grove City is on the brink of collapsing. It’s why she built the ramparts around it. It’s why she built Haven out of an island of cliffs in the middle of the sea.”

“Your mother—she made them?” Lilette breathed. “Then . . . why isn’t she the Head of Earth? Surely no one is stronger.”

“She turned them down.” Jolin’s shoulders sagged with the weight she must have carried with her every day of her life, living under the shadow of her mother’s accomplishments. “It was offered to her even though she’s rabid mad, while I create one wonder after another, and it’s never enough.” She wiped her face, smearing soil across her forehead. “And now you know why I don’t mention it.”

No wonder Jolin didn’t think writing a book at thirteen was much of an accomplishment. “I’m sorry,” Lilette said.

“Fetch the notes, will you?” Jolin asked Doranna. “We’ll start crossbreeding the plants immediately.” After Doranna had left the glass garden, Jolin fixed moist eyes on Lilette. “I’m not my mother. I never will be.”

Lilette tilted her head to one side. “Why would you want to be?”

Jolin grunted, but her bearing seemed lighter. “Help us crossbreed some of these plants, and then you better report for classes.”

Lilette stepped up beside her. “What exactly are you doing?”

Jolin watered the seeds her mother had pointed out. “The only reason I went to Harshen was to gather new seeds. There are entire volumes of recorded data on plants mixed with other plants to create potions, but almost nothing on plants mixed with the components of metal and stone.”

Lilette raised an eyebrow. “What good does it do to mix potions with rocks?”

“That’s just it!” Jolin waved her hand in the air, the quill swishing through the air. “No one knows. Imagine if you could make an unbreakable sword. Mix certain compounds to create an explosion. What if we could wake up the rocks, so they responded to us like the plants did? We could build entire cities!”

Lilette blinked. “You have dirt on your forehead.”

Jolin didn’t bother rubbing it away. “The point is, we don’t know the possibilities. Anything could happen. It’s so exhilarating!”

Lilette sang until she was hoarse. Doranna carefully categorized the new plants, and then she and Jolin began documenting each plant’s characteristics.

“I won’t need you again until I have my findings,” Jolin told Lilette. “You may as well head to class.”

Unease fluttered in her belly. “I don’t know where to go.”

Doranna rolled her head and rubbed at her neck. “I’ll take her and bring back some lunch.”

Jolin made a sound that could have been construed as agreement.

“Don’t mix those pots up before I have a chance to label them,” Doranna said, then started off without waiting to see if Lilette followed. “The island is quartered into four sections, each one dedicated to one of the elements—earth, water, plants, and light.”

Lilette’s studied her surroundings. “Why are there so many open pavilions? Don’t you worry about the rain?”

Doranna gave her an odd look. “Haven’t you noticed?”

Lilette slowed as she remembered that it only rained at night. “Do the keepers control everything?”

“Everything.” Doranna’s voice was laced with bitterness.

They stopped at a large pavilion covered in fragrant vines. Beneath it were long benches and tables. The smell of fish stew filled the air.

“Have some lunch,” Doranna said. “Then stop at that tree.” She pointed to one not far from where they sat. “They’ll give you your schedule.”

Lilette took a bowl of the stew, which looked like a congealed mess, along with some bread and fruit. She ate quickly. At the tree she received a schedule, and a wastrel who was assigned to take her on a tour. Lilette marveled at the variety of books in the library, and the clear, blue waters of the bathing spring, which was fed by an underground heated pool and a cold waterfall that tumbled off the cliff.

“Where does the water come from?” Lilette asked as she craned her neck to see the top of the cliffs.

The wastrel smiled. “Bethel made it—the water comes from inside the cliffs somehow.”

Sash had bathed in that pool, walked these paths, studied in these pavilions. Lilette had longed to come to Haven her entire life. But she would give it all up again to make her sister safe.

She was shown where her classes were—trees or pavilions filled to the brim with girls, all younger than Lilette. Her schedule included Potions, Earth Studies, Singing, and even a class on politics. Lilette balked at that one. “Why do I need to learn the finer points of politics?”

“Class schedules are catered to a witch’s potential,” the wastrel answered.

“What about what I want?”

“Apprentices have more choices.”

Lilette made a mental note to progress through her classes as quickly as possible.

The girl deposited Lilette at her last class, which, of course, was full of young girls. She was given a book and a slate board for her notes. Feeling a little humiliated, she found an empty seat, but of course the chair and desk were too small for her. Still, she tried to listen to the lecture. The other witchlings seemed a little intimidated, whether by the age difference, the strength of Lilette’s song, or her brief stint as an empress, Lilette wasn’t sure. Perhaps all three.

When she returned to the house, Jolin was bent over her pestle and mortar, grinding something that smelled like a weed that grew around the chicken huts on Lilette’s island. Doranna was busily scratching away at some parchment.

“Discover anything?” Lilette asked Jolin.

Jolin rubbed her neck. “Lots of things. Doranna’s been recording our findings all day.”

Lilette moved to the table and picked up a wooden cup, then filled it with water from a pitcher and took a drink. “They have me . . .” Her voice trailed to nothing as the world seemed to wrench to the side and pulse like an animal in its death throes. The cup slipped from her fingers, landing with a clatter on the floor.

“Lilette?” Doranna’s voice sounded far away.

Lilette braced herself against the table, eyes closed as something oily and dark seemed to pool in her gut.

Suddenly, Doranna stood beside her. “Jolin, something’s wrong with her.”

Opening her eyes let in too much stimulation, so Lilette kept them closed as Jolin and Doranna guided her to a chair.

“What is it?” Jolin asked.

Lilette cradled her head in her hands. “It’s like I’m dying, only I’m not.” But that wasn’t quite right. “No, it’s more like a part of me is dying, or being tortured.”

Jolin inhaled sharply. “You can feel it, can’t you?”

“Feel what?”

“There are very few witches who are so tightly bound to the elements that they can sense their discord.” Doranna sounded sad.

“It’s your witch sense,” Jolin explained. “You’re feeling the manipulation of elements. It feels wrong, because it is.”

“I’ve felt this before.” Lilette wet her lips. “When Sash and the others were singing their curse. But it wasn’t this bad.”

“More witches are singing now. It’s stronger,” Jolin said.

Lilette finally dared open her eyes. “That’s what this is, isn’t it? Grove City is singing a curse.” Her thoughts ran from her sister to her island to all the people she had met, even for a moment, while in Rinnish. She pushed back from the table and started toward the door.

“Where are you going?” Jolin asked.

“I can’t just sit here.” She shoved her feet into her boots.

“You can’t stop them!” Doranna moved to follow her. “No one can.”

Lilette didn’t look back. “No. I want to be alone.”

Doranna grabbed a cloak hanging on the wall. “At least take this. If you’re out after nightfall, you’ll be in the rain.”

Lilette slung it over her shoulder. Ignoring the paths, she tromped right through Haven’s mud. By now, the sky had darkened, the once-brilliant blue covered by a film of shadows. Eventually she found herself at the base of the cliffs, her heart racing. She prowled around, desperate for a way up. At last, she found it. Next to one of the waterfalls, stairs zigzagged toward the top of the cliffs. Hiking up her confounded dress, she started climbing.

By the time she reached the top, she was breathless and her legs ached. A sea breeze swept her hair behind her. The sky hard darkened to the deepest turquoise, leaving an orange smudge where the sun had turned to embers. Another woman stood at the cliff’s edge.

She recognized the woman’s stance, her long gray hair. Lilette moved to stand beside her, watching the waves below batter the cliffs as if trying to find a way in. “Bethel.”

“I wondered if you’d come.”

“What is the curse?” It wasn’t one to sink the island. It couldn’t be. 

Bethel closed her eyes and murmured in time with the twisted rhythm, “Rains to cease, winds to still, soil to harden, seeds to kill.” She’d spoken in Kalari instead of the Creators’ language, her words eerily echoing the discord.

Though they weren’t sinking the island of Harshen, Lilette thought of the gardens and orchards curling up and couldn’t catch her breath. With some of the men dead, her village would be hard pressed to survive off the sea. And Sash would suffer from this curse along with everyone else.

Bethel’s expression was hard. “This goes against everything we were placed here to do. It’s evil.”

“It was my idea,” Lilette said softly. “How could I suggest it so blithely?”

“The Heads were already planning to do it.” Bethel drew in a deep breath. “What the emperor did was an act of war.”

Clouds were rolling in from the west. A cool breeze picked up, chilling the sweat on Lilette’s skin. She wondered where Han was, what he was doing. If he missed her as much as she missed him.

And then she looked further east, toward Harshen, and she wondered if Sash was still alive. If she was hurt or injured or scared. “How much longer will this . . . singing go on?” Lilette asked.

“If the emperor doesn’t force his captives to counter-sing, not much longer. If he does—” Bethel shrugged “—it could go on for days.”

Lilette wrapped her arms around herself. “Won’t they just cancel each other out?”

“Let’s hope that’s all it does.” Bethel was silent a moment. “What I can’t figure out is what part you have to play in all this.”

“What do you mean?”

Bethel studied the distant lights of Grove City. “All of us are just pieces on the board, Lilette.”

Lilette swallowed hard. “Maybe we should get back. It’s late.”

“Don’t tell me you don’t see it. You were withheld from the game, and then you appear right as the final moves are being made.”

“I don’t think—”

Bethel’s hand snaked out, grabbing Lilette’s forearm. “What did she tell you to do? What are you here for?”

Lilette went still. “She?”

“Your mother.”

Lilette’s breath hitched in her throat.