Nettle & Bone(52)

“It’s not the curse-child,” said the dust-wife. “All of you, get out of the way! It’s the magic. She poured it right out to keep the blessing going and pushed herself right to fainting, the little fool.”

She looked up at Miss Margaret, ignoring the puppet entirely. “Take us to the rooms. She needs rest and tea and quiet.”

Miss Margaret nodded. The puppet’s eyes were fixed on the brown hen, whose red comb brushed the ceiling atop the staff. The hen glared down at the puppet and snapped her beak.

Their landlady turned slowly. The puppet shifted, keeping his balance. She led them up the stairs, the dust-wife following, Fenris behind her with Agnes in his arms, Bonedog at his heels, while Marra carried the chick and waited for the puppet to launch himself at someone’s face.

He didn’t. They climbed the stairs to a whitewashed hallway lined with doors. Miss Margaret stopped in front of one and gestured inside, eyes downcast. They crowded in.

“The next one, too,” rasped the landlady, opening another door. “There is one meal … one m-meal—” The puppet yanked on the cord. She stopped, putting a hand to her throat, and gave Marra a pleading look.

“One meal included?” asked Marra. Listen to how normal I sound. I am having a normal conversation with a woman being strangled by a wooden puppet and we are all acting as if the important thing is meals being included with the price of the room.

The landlady nodded and fled. Marra inched farther into the room and closed the door. Fenris had arranged Agnes on one of the beds and stepped back out of the way. The dust-wife sat on the other bed, managing to look both annoyed and concerned.

“We can’t stay here!” hissed Marra. “That puppet thing—you can’t tell me it won’t do something awful!”

“It’s done something awful to the landlady, certainly,” said the dust-wife. “But it won’t do anything to the rest of us. It can’t. It’s just a curse-child.”

“Just?” Marra had a hard time imagining that clacking puppet as just anything.

“Probably a sad story,” said the dust-wife. “They usually are. Somebody gives a lonely child a toy and they pour all their hopes and fears and problems into it. Do it long enough and intensely enough, and then it just needs a stray bit of bad luck and the toy wakes up. Of course, it knows that the only reason it’s alive is because of the child. A tiny personal god with one worshipper. It latches on and … well.” She clucked her tongue. “Normally you get them pried off and burned long before adolescence. Impressive that it lasted this long.”

“We can burn it,” said Marra. “Burning is fine. I’ll get the kindling.”

“Not without her permission. You don’t go tearing off an adult woman’s god and setting it on fire.” The dust-wife gave her a sharp look, as if she were suggesting something rude.

“It was choking her!”

“It’s her neck, not yours. We can ask before we leave, if you like.”

“But it could be wandering the halls at night!”

“No, it would stay attached to her. They really don’t have power over anyone else. I suppose it could tell her to murder us in our beds, but any innkeeper could decide to do that, too, so I wouldn’t worry about it. It won’t risk losing its worshipper if we fight back.”

Marra opened and closed her mouth several times, completely unable to form words. How could the dust-wife be so calm?

“This works very much in our favor,” said the dust-wife. “She can’t tell anyone who or what we are. Nobody trusts a curse-child, and it’ll choke her if it thinks she’s paying too much attention to something else.” She nodded down to Agnes. “Her magic worked. Unorthodox and somewhat inefficient, but it worked.”

“Is the chick all right?” asked Agnes from the bed. Her voice was very weak.

Marra looked down at her hands. The chick’s fluff was a bit damp from the sweat on her palms, but it seemed fine. “Yes?”

“Oh good … I was afraid I’d…” Agnes closed her eyes. She was still very pale, almost shockingly white against the pillow. “I’m sorry to be so much trouble.”

“You drained yourself down to nothing on that bird,” said the dust-wife.

“Did I?” Agnes sounded bemused. “It’s never happened before … Normally the magic just takes or it doesn’t. But I kept redoing it in my head to make it stick…”

“Yes, and knocked yourself out in the process.” The dust-wife’s voice thawed a bit, and she patted Agnes’s pillow. “It’s fine. It worked. We’re here now. Now, you get some rest.”

“Wait!” said Marra as the dust-wife began to shoo her out the door. “What about—”

“We’re staying,” said the dust-wife. “This place is safe. Cheap, too.”

“No, I meant the chick.”

“What?”

“I don’t know how to take care of a chicken.”

The dust-wife’s angular face drew into tight triangles. “It’s a chicken. Didn’t they teach you at the convent?”

“No! Chickens were someone else’s problem. I knit bandages and helped deliver babies.” She wedged her foot in the door to keep from being left in the hall in care of the chick.