Tragedy does funny things to us all. It makes one either utterly useless or incessantly helpful, and no one can ever know which it will be until it strikes. Belchamber was, of course, the latter. His own wounds could wait.
It was not until that last of the heartbroken party was finally asleep that the spirit took up the armchair and had a quiet moment to himself. Only once he was certain that no one could hear him did he let out a small cry, no louder than a whisper, for the sweet red-haired lad whom he, too, had helped raise.
Dot’s world was a ship’s hull, rocking back and forth against a violent storm that grew more terrible with each bucking wave. She saw flashes of the sea, and then the cottage, waking and sleeping and all the while balancing her magic. At some point, the nauseabegan. She broke out in cold sweats and warm flushes. Hours must have gone by. Her energy dwindled. Soon, it was just her fingers tapping, but somehow that was enough to balance the magic.
‘There we go,’ came a gentle voice. ‘Drink this, Dorothy.’
And the familiar taste of tonic went down her throat.
Then, what seemed like years later, Dot’s eyes opened.
Pink sky filtered through the living room window and Dot shivered, her body damp with sweat. Archie slept in the armchair. Belchamber and Lio were on the floor, propped up on cushions. Dot grabbed for her tonic, which had been decanted into an old jam jar. Her amputated finger bumped the glass. A rush of cold shot up from the wound, and she almost fainted. Dot took a moment. She gently clasped the jar with her afflicted hand instead, unscrewed it and drank down the whole thing.
Then, she spotted Theodora’s raven-black hair outside the window.
Dot, with immense effort, rose and tiptoed around the sleeping bodies. From the coffee table, she picked up a paper bag of bread sticks. She took up a blanket from the basket by the door, wrapped it painfully around herself – for she kept bumping her right hand as she went – and stepped into the morning light.
The damp air washed over her, and the stone of the porch was cold beneath her feet. Theodora did not have her coat on. Dot sat beside her, pulled the blanket over Theodora too and offered her a bread stick.
Theodora did not move.
‘Thank you for making the tonic,’ said Dot.
‘Do not thank me.’
‘Theo—’
‘Don’t call me that.’
‘Whyever not?’
‘My name is Tessa,’ said the witch.
Dot had no response for this. Theodora sniffed and rubbed her eyes and then, after a moment, took a bread stick. They sat in silence in the brisk cold of the autumn morning. The door to the cottage opened, and Lio poked his head out at them. His eyes were red. After some hesitation, he came over and sat on Theodora’s other side, his head in his hands.
The three did not talk.
But after a while, Dot offered Lio the bread sticks and he too took one and they looked out over the valley and at the morning mist and the hills peeking out from the fog like islands across a moody sea. Dot, Theodora and Lio remained like that for a long time, each blaming themselves in their own way for the death of the boy whose body lay in the room that had once belonged to a girl named Tessa.
CHAPTERTHIRTY-NINE
Theodora and Lio dug the grave together, taking turns with a rusted shovel borrowed from Stephen’s shed, while Dot sat with her back against the wooden fence, wrapped again in blankets. The window to the cottage was open; they could hear the radio. So many had drowned in Alliaster.
Stephen went to work. Apparently, it was a Thursday. The group carried the body out at noon and gathered around the grave. Rupert had been wrapped in two sheets: one blue with stripes, one pale yellow. He was lowered gently onto the bed of earth. Did he not deserve a coffin? Did he not deserve a priest and a headstone? They had argued over it. Should they cremate him? Should they tell his parents first? At last, Theodora had simply decided to put him here by her mother, so that neither of them would be alone.
Belchamber hummed a forlorn melody as Theodora took the first handful of soil and sprinkled it over the body. It fell like raindrops against the bedsheets, landing on his belly, collecting at his arms. The witch said something too low for Dot’s ears to catch. Then came Lio who tossed down another handful of soil. Dot reached for the cold earth and scattered it at the boy’s feet. The bedsheet clung to his face beneath. She could not look at it.
Belchamber and Archie came next, each sprinkling handfuls of dirt. At last, Theodora raised the rest of the soil with her magic,levitating it over the grave. At this, Lio opened his mouth. He stepped forward. Dot knew what he wanted to say.
Stop. Maybe we were wrong. Maybe we should check his heart.
But they were not wrong. The boy was three days dead.
Theodora lowered the soil softly down like a blanket tucking him into bed.
‘. . . reports out of Alliaster indicate that rising oceanic levels within the city are in fact the work of missing Minister for Sorcerie and Magic, Bianca De León! To those just tuning in, listeners, we regret to inform you that our great capital is almost entirely underwater. The opposition Minister for Sorcerie and Magic, the spirit Marcidus, has in the last few moments sent in a telegram to the broadcast. His statement is as follows: “Water levels now reach the height of the lowest viewing deck of the Tower of Étienne. This is clearly the work of De León. In her failure to stop the amendment to Article Thirteen of the Prohibition on Magic, she is throwing the tantrum of a child and endangering Alliastrans in their thousands. Thank goodness the daemon Salamander is at hand to deliver relief packages to those most affected.” The daemon Salamander, of course, has no magic of his own, but we are receiving word here at the Calléan Broadcasting Corporation that Salamander has personally sent staff to fortify the doors and windows of the city, magicking in oxygen and essential supplies. The death toll has risen to over four thousand . . .’
Not for the first time, Dot washed her hair one-handed. Her curls reached her shoulders now, and she scrubbed them as she sat in the tin bathtub, careful to keep the bandages of her right hand clean. She had already spent too many moments staring at the stump, the whole right side of her body aching. Where in Alliaster was her finger? It made her wonder how many rogue parts of herself wereout in the world. She thought of all the nail clippings and baby teeth and haircuts, memoirs of past selves, shelved in the places they sent the rubbish. How many other pieces of herself had she grown to cast away as if they were nothing?
