Rhea tilts her head, slits her eyes at me. ‘It looks the same to me as all the others.’
‘And so it will, for a while, but you’ll learn.’You’ll learn or it’ll be lonely, hard-working summers and cold, cold winters for you.‘You’ll recognise them when you see them.’ I gesture. ‘Now, this one is different. Not so elegant, no, nor so slender, but see? Joints all sturdy, no places where hairline fractures might easily occur; certainly not as pretty as the other, but what use is pretty when strength is required?’ I couldn’t help that one, so I smile to soften the edge.
I remove my backpack, lay it on the ground, then roll my shoulders slowly, feel them warm up, windmill my arms, loosening the muscles. When a sweat breaks beneath the bodice of my faded green dress, I pull the hatchet and a blue whetstone from the pack – even though the blade is already sharp enough to split a hair. I slide the stone over the metal a few times for form’s sake, hopeful that Rhea will take note of the habit and adopt it. ‘I’m careful with my tools; I know if I take care of them, they’ll take care of me. It’s the same with all witching.’
‘This is witching? I thought we were getting firewood – a long way from home.’
Home. I think we both pause at that slipping from her lips.
I put the stone away, lean forward and run my fingers down the sapling, thrill to the feel of not-quite-smooth-not-quite-rough bark (Skin, I think, and my heart beats a little faster). ‘This one. Green enough to bend, brown enough to be stable; biddable, tractable; ready to withstand any kind of weather, but the worst of gales.’
‘It seems a lot to ask,’ Rhea says, a smile in her voice.
‘My demands are not unreasonable,’ I say and we laugh. ‘It’sjustright.’
I take my hatchet, shiny and silver, swing back for leverage, then forward, aiming at the base of the young tree, just below where the feet will be.
***
It’s slim still, and relatively light. Easy enough to hoist onto my shoulder and carry home, switching sides when I need to. I could make the girl do it, but she’s not sure enough in thoseshoes. No point in having her drop it. It’s not like it’s a delicate thing, but still. I like to work with the best materials. Needless to bruise it before the time’s right. And no point in making either of us think I’m getting too weak for physical burdens. Still, I make her take the backpack.
These trails are narrow and Rhea has to follow behind, no space for companionable conversation. Her chatter has died off anyway; she’s getting tired, I can tell. It’s been a long walk, and not a restful stroll for which she’d hoped. Or perhaps it was what she needed – time outside not spent running for her life. Possibly she’d not expected it to take so much of the day, the there-and-back of it, and the meal I’d packed to be too small between two. Still and all, we’d found a blackberry patch, some wild raspberries, and cherry plums which added a sweetener to the bread, cheese and salted meat. Not a huge meal, no, and her stomach’s growled latterly. So has mine, and I think longingly of the pot of stew I left on the hob for dinner.
We talked for a while about what I will do with this sapling. We talked too about the process of scrying because we’ve seen no trace in our wandering of a small lost girl, no sign or indication that she might have passed this way. We talked about what I’ll need her to do for me when I’m done with the dark mirror, and I warned her of what might happen. She grew silent then and changed the subject soon after. I asked about her parents, and while she would speak of her mother, she baulked at mentioning her father, which lends weight to Fenna’s belief that he would have sacrificed his daughter to save himself. I think Rhea knows it now but had no inkling before – that she was a father’s darling until she acted on herown will, did not obey his wishes, put his plans at risk. Not the first woman to find out the hard way that a father’s love can be very conditional. Not all fathers, no. Didn’t know my own, dead before he had a chance to disappoint, although others have told me theirs were not entirely awful.
It’s getting darker but even beneath the trees the light stays a little longer on spring days. Still, I’d like to be home before dusk nips too greedily at our heels, so I walk faster. Rhea curses under her breath, but she won’t like being stuck in night’s forest any more than I do. When the path begins to broaden, she comes abreast once more and surprises me by saying: ‘We should keep searching for the girl.’
I shake my head.
‘But we’ve hardly done anything!’
‘You’vehardly done anything. I’ve kept my eye out all day, seeking broken twigs and disturbed underbrush, footprints in damp earth and dry, for some flash of pale skin or red cloak in places they don’t belong!’ I stop, exasperated. ‘Darkness is falling. There are rivers and lakes unsuspected, deep and wide, rock-filled and so cold they’ll steal your life between one breath and another. There are wolves and bears and worse – how do you think it will help anyone if you stumble into a den or a pit or a hunter’s snare? Do you think I haven’t also been checking for traps like the one I was already caught in? Don’t be an idiot, child, your death aids no one, nor does mine. Self-sacrifice without purpose, without caution, is sheer stupidity.’
We glare for a few moments, then I set off again. I expect her to hang back and sulk, except she doesn’t. She catches up again and keeps pace. I wonder if she’s considering what I saidor plotting revenge. About ten minutes later, from the corner of my eye I see her arm lift, hand outstretched, fingers pointing. ‘More berries!’ she cries, as if I’ve not recently snarled at her, and scampers forward. Stops.
Upon reaching her, I see what she mistook for a solid patch of cowberries or raspberries, perhaps. Up close, it’s clearly none of those. A scrap of fabric, the length and width of my hand, not overly large, a darker red limning the jagged edges. Ripped from a cloak of fine crimson wool, perhaps, something knitted by a loving grandmother for a granddaughter who liked to draw the eye. I’d brought us back a different route to teach Rhea another way, and in hopes we might, perhaps, find something of Ari’s passing or fate – and lo, here it is.
Or rather, here is an artefact. Can we be certain it’s Ari’s? Yet how many fragments of scarlet wool might be here in these woods? So distinctive?
A sign, then?
No more story to it than a broken twig – it might show a direction, but it tells no true tale, no details. It might as easily have been dropped from above, from a bird’s claws. Still I nod at Rhea. ‘Gather it up and bring it home with us. It’ll help with what I need to do.’
5
‘Ugh. Disgusting!’
Rhea has a hand over her mouth, and I can’t blame her. She watched as I carefully laid the sapling on a rack in the small purpose-built room at the back of the barn where it will dry. When I closed the door and shot its three bolts, I made her promise not to go in, not even for the slightest, quickest of peeks. ‘If you do, it’ll be ruined. Needs to stay in there for two full days, no more, no less, and an opened door will change the temperature, moisture will get in and mould will quickly ensue. And then I’ll have to start all over again and I’ll not be best pleased with you.’
Had we not spent so much time in the woods yesterday, I’d have started this task when we returned, but it was full dark by the time we stumbled home, and my limbs and joints were aching. Nor did any energy remain for scrying. Today has been spent in activities I’m sure she feels are a punishment for something she didn’t do. I had her help me remove the wooden lid on the old trough in the little yard behind the barn and the stench is almost overpowering; so it should be given it’s been fermenting since last year’s use.
The smell rose in clouds like the souls of the earth-bound released. I did tell her to stay back but she’s got a cat’s curiosity and will apparently only learn through painful experience; right now she’s leaning forward, staring down. Experience has taught me to tie a cloth soaked with lavender oil over my mouth and nose. The trough is filled with an unappetising mixture of urine, manure, water, wine, and more than a little blood from creatures foolish enough to catch themselves in my snares, and a little of my own. A similar concoction to that which others might use to grow homunculi.
‘How long?’ she asks, waving a hand in front of her face as if that will help.
‘Two months. The Church’ll tell you their Lord created the heavens and the earth in seven days, but that sounds unlikely to me. Takes a woman nine months to gestate… I think that’s just men trying to one-up everything when they know full well they can’t birth anything but ideas.’ I take up the long wooden paddle and begin to stir the liquid, which bubbles and pops, releasing even more odiferous gas.
Which is unfortunate for Rhea since she’s mid-snigger and gets a mouthful of the foul air rising from the surface of thebroth; gets a lungful too and stumbles away, coughing. Neither cows, nor sheep, nor goats and certainly not Fyren the ancient draught horse come near this corner of the yard at this time of year. Sometimes the cat will hang around for sheer perversity, but he doesn’t remain long, preferring to curl in the sunshine or chase mice in the barn.
