Nettle & Bone(28)

The dead boy swam upstream, quick as a fish, and rose to his feet. Water streamed from his mouth and his empty eye sockets. His skin had swollen and split his clothes, a pale, bloated thing with flesh puffing out between strands of waterweed.

I will not be sick, thought Marra. I will not. There is no blood. It is not as bad as that time the farmhand broke his leg and the bones stuck out. It isn’t.

Whatever the dust-wife said, Marra missed it. She was only vaguely aware of the other woman speaking at all. Then the dead boy replied, a hard gurgling as if wires were piercing his drowned throat, and Marra stopped hoping not to be sick and began hoping that she wouldn’t faint instead.

“Good,” said the dust-wife. “Which way?”

The drowned boy lifted his arm. His fingers had swollen together into a white mitten. He pointed upstream and gargled an answer.

The dust-wife nodded. “Do you wish ending?” she asked as brusquely as if she were negotiating with a farmer for a loaf of bread.

Another gargle. His face turned toward Marra and she knew that she should feel pity, not horror, but there was something strange and leering about the way he moved, as if he knew that she was frightened and delighted in it. He made a beckoning gesture with his swollen hand and then gulped with laughter when she shrank back.

“Enough of that,” said the dust-wife. “She’s not for drowning.”

More laughter. He took a step forward, the water hilling up around his legs as if it were sand, then another.

The brown hen made a low, hostile noise. The boy froze, looking up. For a long moment he stared eyelessly at the bird; then he lowered his head.

“Cock’s crow and demon’s heart,” said the dust-wife. “Don’t test me, boy.”

He gurgled sullenly but retreated.

She reached into a pocket and pulled something out. Marra couldn’t make out the shape in the dimness. She tossed it over the stream and the drowned boy caught it with his bloated white hands.

“Go on, then,” said the dust-wife, flicking her fingers dismissively. “Back to the water, and mind you don’t pull down a traveler unless they break the covenants.”

The drowned boy hunched his shoulders and turned away. The moon dripped light over him as he walked down the riverbed, sinking deeper with each step, until he dove like an otter and was gone.

“Bleah,” said the dust-wife. “The ones who die by water go bad as often as not. Something about the water turns them dark. Give me bones in the ground any day.”

Marra held her hand over her mouth and concentrated on breathing until her stomach stopped lurching. “Why did you summon that?” she asked finally. What kind of monster is walking with me? What am I about to unleash? She’s not just an old woman with a chicken …

You knew that already, she answered herself. You knew that, which is why you came to her. You want to kill a prince. Don’t get squeamish now.

“Directions,” said the dust-wife. “Which he gave, although he would have liked to pull a much higher price than I was willing to pay.”

“Directions?”

“Indeed. Now, follow me, and let’s see what they were worth.”

Apparently, they were worth a great deal, because within twenty minutes they reached a gnarled tree that overhung the bank.

“There,” said the dust-wife. One of the tree roots stuck out over the water. “Earth and wood and water.” She reached into a pocket and pulled out a cord with a stone tied to the bottom, then tied it to the root so that the cord fell down into the water. “Hold your breath,” she said, almost as an afterthought, then ducked into the arch formed by the cord and the root and the overhung bank.

She took two steps, splashing, and passed through the arch. She came out the other side, looking just the same to Marra, and yet the sound of her footsteps in the water seemed to come from much farther away.

Bonedog cocked his leg meditatively on the tree root. Nothing happened, but it seemed to satisfy him. Marra supposed that he was already holding his breath, insomuch as he didn’t breathe at all. She took a deep gulp of air and walked through the root archway.

Nothing obvious happened. It wasn’t like the gluey sensation when she walked out of the blistered land. But a few steps later, her ears popped, and when she turned her head, everything seemed to move a fraction of a second slower than it should have, as if her eyes were struggling to catch up.

She scrambled up the riverbank. The dust-wife stood impatiently, tapping her staff. The brown hen grumbled.

“Does the chicken hold her breath?” asked Marra.

“She’s got a demon; she doesn’t have to.” The dust-wife turned and began to walk back the way they had come.

Wait—that wasn’t just a figure of speech?

“Do you mean that your chicken has a literal demon in her? Not that she’s just a … a bad chicken?”

The words sounded incredibly foolish as she said them, and the dust-wife’s look indicated that they did not improve upon hearing.

“Girl, have I given you any indication in the last week that I joke about anything?”

“How did you get a demon in your chicken?”

“The usual way. Couldn’t put it in the rooster. That’s how you get basilisks.”

Marra opened her mouth to ask what the usual way was, then stopped because there was an enormous staircase in the ground that had most definitely not been there when they had walked by earlier.