25
Leave it to Ma to dashcold water on my daydreams.I fumed all the way up the road, muttering things I wished I had the guts to say to her.
I’d assumed Ma had gotten over her initial wariness of humans after spending the majority of the week with Edmund.She hadn’t said a thing about Christabella dancing with Maddox.Why did she have a problem with me and Edmund?Was it because she figured that I was so repulsive that Edmund couldn’t possibly harbor any genuine positive feelings toward me?I gritted my teeth, alarmingly close to tears.
I wouldn’t let Ma make me cry.Not again.
The house and the First Oak came into view as the incline leveled out.Just as I reached for the door of our cottage, leaves rustled overhead.I paused.There was no breeze tonight, nor did Witch Village have any squirrels or birds.
Instinct told me to look up.
A familiar, hideous patchwork skirt was draped over the branch.Hidden behind a few oak leaves was a woman, pasty skinned with a thin face, gaunt cheekbones, and limp, dirty blonde hair.She froze when our gazes met.
“Who are you?”I asked, bewildered.Sometimes witch children would climb up the oak for games, but this woman was far too old, and everyone was at the village square celebrating, save for the most reclusive of witches who preferred to stay home.The latter certainly weren’t in the habit of climbing trees.
The woman muttered something under her breath and shook her head.“Caught, then.”She swung her legs, her ugly skirt swishing with her.I suddenly recalled the times I’d seen that garment.She had brushed past me in the fields, then I had seen the skirt hanging up in Maude Greenwood’s front yard, next to Maddox’s breeches after he had walked through the jinxed fence.Ma and Shauna had said there were three humans in Witch Village, yet I had only brought two.
“How did you get down here?”I demanded.Something told me she hadn’t been invited.
The human woman looked up.To my surprise, a rope with some sort of harness hung down from between the branches, but seemed to extend infinitely upward.I blinked hard, but I couldn’t make sense of it.The rope disappeared right through the night sky.
“Did you know the distance between this tree and your false sky is only one hundred feet?”she asked.
I rounded the house until I was at the base of the oak.“What do you want?What are you doing here?”Wariness sparked in my chest.Whoever this woman was, she was up to no good.“You had better confess or—”
The human trilled a laugh.“Or what?You’ll use your coercive magic on me?”
I startled, taken aback.“How did you—?”
“Oh, I know all about you, Giselle Phula,” the woman said, crossing her arms and leaning languidly against the tree.
This human was a stranger to me, yet she knew my name and my magic, the latter of which I had tried so hard to keep hidden even during my Witch Committee days.I tried to recall what Shauna had said about this mysterious third human.She had come by her candy shop to buy roasted peanuts.There had been peanut shells littering the backyard of Maude Greenwood’s cottage near the kitchen window.Maddox had said his family was deathly allergic to peanuts.Then the light in the village had gone out with the death of Manuel Greenwood...
I widened my eyes when I took in her features again.They were sharp and familiar.I had spent many months with the older version of this face.
“You’re Mrs.Lewis’s daughter,” I said in disbelief.“Prilla Lewis.”
She clapped slowly.“Clever.”
“What can you possibly gain from terrorizing us?”I asked, incredulous.
Prilla Lewis spat, a glob of phlegm hitting the leaves on its way down.I grimaced.She was as bad-mannered as her mother, evidently.
“What canIgain?”she asked.“It’s not just aboutme.I’m not so selfish as to abandon my family for my own pursuits.”
I stiffened.“Don’t act like you know me.Answer the question.”
Prilla narrowed her eyes.I was struck by how similar she looked to Mrs.Lewis—it was as if my crotchety landlady had traveled back in time, into a younger body to better torment me.“Have you ever wondered why my mother stopped being a milliner?”
“Because of her age and terrible disposition.I doubted she attracted that many customers to begin with.”
“My mother was the best milliner in Delibera,” Prilla Lewis hissed.“In her day she served King Humphrey himself.”
“Ah.The king who banished us all to live in a hole underground,” I said flatly.“Terrible man.I suppose like calls to like.”
