Writers of the Future, Volume 28 (3 page)

Of Woven Wood

H
is head hurt. Now that was odd. His head never hurt. His head never felt much of anything, generally speaking. Well, there was that one time when the top shelf had fallen upon him. Then it’d been more of a . . . flat feeling, but Haigh had fixed him right up. Re-wove him a whole new face, much better than the first. And bigger. Big enough to hold a larger set of shears, among other things.

This was different.

He could sense something was completely out of place. No, not out of place, just . . . out. An incredibly
empty
feeling.

Lan sat up and felt over the top of his head. Nothing. Oh, no, Haigh would be furious if he’d lost tools. Then a thought occurred to him. What if his other . . .

He dropped his hands to his chest, checking each opening, his waist, his legs, then dropped his hands in relief. Nothing else seemed missing. Everything was settled firmly in its home. Even the dead rat that Haigh had embalmed was still sitting in its basket, its tail sticking out under the loose lid.

So it was just his head that was missing its contents. Maybe that’s why it hurt. Lan nodded to himself. Yes, that seemed reasonable. If he’d find everything and put it back, then things would be as they’d been and the pain would fade.

That seemed to be how Haigh’s body worked. He’d curse, then bleed, then the part would cause him pain until its skin had finally grown back. Although, for him, it’d take days for his body to bother creating such miniscule pieces of himself. And that one time when his side had been burned open, that one had taken weeks.

At the time, Lan had been less than half the size he was now, his body barely holding a third of what Haigh gave him. He’d figured that the pieces needed to be found and woven back in and that Haigh was just in too much pain to even manage to crawl around looking for his pieces. So Lan had tried to help, searching for them everywhere, but to no avail.

He smiled slightly at the memory, then cradled his pounding head for a moment. He wasn’t used to feeling this frustrating pain, and besides, if he didn’t find the tools, then they’d be missing when Haigh needed them. And if he couldn’t even be counted on to hold things for people, what good was he
?

He sighed. Or as good a sigh as he could make with his woven mouth. Then he gathered himself up to start his search. The shears would be large, too large to miss.

He cast about upon the ground, stopping when he saw Haigh. That was odd. . . .

No. Not so odd now that Lan thought about it. He pulled himself closer to the Apothecary and leaned over, staring into glassy eyes. There’d been shouts, and the vibrations of many feet. Haigh had been nervous and rushing about, shoving new things into Lan’s parts. He’d been so proud that Haigh was trusting him with such important ingredients. So proud.

“Haigh, please don’t be angry. I will find the shears and to make up for losing them I’ll gather Night Irises all week while you sleep.” He stopped when Haigh didn’t blink.

He started to reach out, to touch Haigh’s face, to beg him awake, then froze. His fingers had cracked and shredded. Only two of them, but those two looked awful. Just as his foot had looked after that stray mutt had nibbled on him. He couldn’t touch Haigh with those fingers. He’d be sure to strip skin.

A sound at the door startled him. Jaddi stood right inside the room, her frock covered in ash and her face streaked with tears. He’d seen her once before like that. The night of the fire that had torn up Haigh’s side. She’d been much younger.

Jaddi stepped carefully among the shards of broken glass about the room, coming closer and crouching beside Lan.

“Haigh will have a fit,” said Lan. “You’re not allowed in the workroom, Jaddi.”

She didn’t look at him. Then, after a moment, she reached out and ran her hand across Haigh’s eyes, closing off the glassy stare he’d been giving Lan. She reached out to Lan and squeezed his shoulder. “It’s all right now, Lan. Haigh won’t be needing the room any more.” She paused and sniffled quietly, then threw her hands around Lan’s neck. “I’m glad you’re all right.”

He patted her back, with three fingers since Jaddi’s skin could tear just as easily as Haigh’s. “Is he dead then
?
” The words felt wooden in his mouth. Most words felt that way, but these ones felt stronger, harder to form. And that had nothing to do with his baskety body.

She nodded, rubbing her cheek against his woven chest, her ear catching on one of his lids, tilting it, but not removing it. She couldn’t remove it, not even Haigh could remove it, but the lids occasionally shifted, and if not watched carefully could come open if they thought Lan was wanting their contents.

When she pulled away, he straightened it. That one held tiny frog eggs, the hole enchanted to not leak, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t slip out if the lid wasn’t fastened. Haigh had made it very clear when Lan was only a few baskets old that the enchantments were useless if he didn’t keep the lids in place.

That thought brought him back to his empty head. He reached up and felt again, hoping maybe he’d just missed the tools. No, his lid was still hanging over the back of his head. Empty.

He looked up when Jaddi gasped. She’d stood while he’d been searching and now leaned over him, a concerned expression upon her face. “Oh, Lan. This is horrible.”

Blanching, he bowed his head. “Yes, I know. I lost the tools. He will be so an . . .” He trailed off, staring at Haigh, noting there was nothing wrong. No pieces missing, no torn holes. But he was still dead. Even Jaddi thought so, so it wasn’t his own failure to miss something. “Jaddi, what happened to Haigh
?
”

She had her hand in his head, feeling the emptiness, he was sure. She shook her head. “Not now, Lan.”

Right. She would be angry with him too. He was useless, so useless. He wanted to cry at his failure and began searching the room again. It seemed fruitless though. The room was such a mess. Haigh just
could
not work in these conditions. Lan would have to help clean it up, and maybe find the shears and the needles and the prongs. He began to brush the glass shards and their dumped contents away from Haigh and into a pile when Jaddi grabbed at his arm.

“No,
not now,
Lan.” Her voice was firm, as firm as Haigh’s had always been. “Right now, you need to come with me before they come back.”

“Before who comes back
?
” He glanced about the room. Of course, he’d
known
someone else was responsible for the mess.
He’d
not done it, and Haigh would never have done such a thing, no matter how much he’d cursed when things went wrong. But it just hadn’t seemed important. They weren’t here right now, after all, and there was a mess to clean. And then there was his empty head. “But I’ve lost some tools, Jaddi. I must find them.”

“Never mind that; come.”

Lan took a last look at Haigh laid out upon the floor, then followed Jaddi, wondering if she would help him look later. As she led him out of the house, he noticed the blackened walls and curled books. A sharp scent hung in the air, of fire and . . . herbs. Lan frowned. That meant the herbs must have been burned too. And he’d spent many hours hanging his findings to dry for Haigh. But the fires must have been contained, whether by enchantment or an expert hand, for they had burned what was important, then stopped before burning down any part of the house itself.

Outside, he looked back. There was no telling that anything had happened inside at all. The burned spots had been localized, the workroom a wreck, Haigh upon the floor, quite dead, but with no obvious wound that could be put back together, and yet the house looked as tranquil as it normally did.

Jaddi sighed and he turned to see her with her hands upon her hips, waiting. It was never good to keep others waiting, that’s what Haigh had always said. Usually it was about his customers, but he’d told Lan that it was a good practice for all things one day when Lan had fumbled with the latch to one of his baskets. He ran a hand down his back as he caught up with Jaddi, making sure each of those lids was secure. They were.

All of him was secure, his outside smooth, with only the little latches to show where each new basket had been woven inside of him to make him grow in both size and use. And when he closed his eyes, he could sense that each was full, the fluids sloshing as he walked, the bark shavings and petals rustling, the hummingbird fluttering her wings (chest, center-left column, sixth down). All full—except his head, that was.

They didn’t walk far, just to Jaddi’s own house down the lane. Haigh lived—had lived—on the outskirts of the little town of Otaor. Far enough away he didn’t feel as if eyes were on him on a constant basis. People had to go at least a little bit out of their way to come see him, which was exactly how he liked it. Lan hadn’t minded either way, but at least that way the forest was closer and he knew he did not frustrate any neighbors when he came and went during his night collections.

In Jaddi’s kitchen, overly warm from a small fire where she’d been cooking, she made Lan sit. “Now, let’s see if we can fix that gaping hole in your head.”

He sat up straighter. “Yes, please. I hate having an empty space, especially my head.”

She laughed, though it came out strangled and did not reach her eyes. “That’s not quite what I had in mind. Somehow you’ve managed to rip a hole in the bottom of your head. You couldn’t hold anything right now if you wanted to.”

“Really
?
” Maybe that was why it hurt then
?
But, no, he looked at his fingers again. They were shredded and they didn’t hurt. Not one bit.

Jaddi must have noticed his gaze for she grasped his two fingers in her hand. They were bigger than hers, each at least the size of two of her fingers. Haigh had said it was so they could hold something bigger than dried mouse droppings—though one of his fingers had been relegated for that as well.

“Hmm, I’ll have to soak your hand to fix those; don’t want any more of you breaking.” She made him sit with his hand soaking until the wood was more easily bent and woven back into shape, while she went about working on his head. She used new sticks, after snipping off the broken ends. It was slow going, each new branch being woven in all the way around his head so that it would be as strong as it’d been before. Lan appreciated that.

“You take longer than Haigh did fixing me,” he noted.

“Well.” Jaddi paused and straightened her back. Lan heard a distinct snap as something popped, then she leaned back over to continue working. “Haigh generally didn’t care much what something looked like as long as it got the job done. I take pride in the way my work is presented.”

Lan turned to look at her, feeling her fingers fumble to hold on to what they were doing. “Haigh took pride in his work as well. He was a great Apothecary, knowledgeable in much more than simple tonics and antibodies.”

Jaddi laughed again, though this time it seemed she’d actually found something funny in what he’d said. He’d not meant it as funny, though. “That sounds like Haigh.” Then she patted his shoulder once. “I’d not been knocking his knowledge and abilities, but you have to admit, the man was much more interested in
what
a thing did than how it looked when it did it.”

“That
is
what is important.”

“We each have our priorities, of course, but I’d like to think the package is just as important as what’s
in
the package.” She gave Lan a kiss upon his head, then her lips froze upon his wooden skin.

A pounding came upon her door a moment later, followed by a shout. Jaddi grabbed the rest of the branches she’d been using and tossed them on top of her woodpile, then poured the bowl where he’d been soaking his hand into a bucket upon the counter.

“Jaddi, I don’t think those are fire worthy—”

“Shush.” She pulled him into the next room and made him face the wall with his hands outstretched, then threw a blanket over each and placed a vase of flowers in his head. “Don’t say a word and don’t move a muscle.” She went into the kitchen, then poked her head back out to add, “And you better not break that vase. It was my mother’s and worth a lot more than anything you’ve got in your pockets.”

The pounding knock came again and she was gone to the front door, shouting, “I’m coming, I’m coming,” before Lan could respond.

“They are
not
pockets,” he muttered under his breath. Then he was very aware of how heavy the vase truly was and how his head had just gotten worse under the weight of it.

He could hear the other woman’s voice, annoyed, and a man’s voice, that was too low to make out. “I’ve been told that you were a friend of Apothecary Haigh.” Then the man added something Lan couldn’t hear.

“We
were
neighbors,” said Jaddi. “It stands to reason I would get to know him. The man never washed his own clothes so I volunteered to take care of them for him.”

Volunteered
?
She’d run a hard bargain on that, demanding that Haigh always leave her a fresh bottle of medicinal cream for her hands every week when she dropped off his clothes, holding them hostage until he did. There’d been that one month Haigh had tried to resist, wearing the same two sets of trousers and shirts until an accident in his workroom set one on fire and the other became so sticky with resin it started to contaminate his work.