Grayling's Song(10)

The wind shrieked and shook the inn, and the door rattled and banged. “This is no natural wind,” Auld Nancy said. “I believe strong forces are clashing and fighting for control, and we are caught between.”





V





hey slept, four in a bed, in an attic room high under the eaves. Grayling tossed and turned as the wind yowled like a hungry cat trying to get inside.

During the night, with a grawk and a cronk, Pook the mouse had burst from Grayling’s pocket in a flutter of black feathers. After Grayling explained him to her gobsmacked companions, Pook—now Pook the raven—flapped his wings and settled on the windowsill, where he pecked at the glass all night.

Morning was quiet in the inn. The baldheaded waiter brought bread and honey and peaches from the south, where it was still summer, to their table. Grayling sat with juice running down her chin, waiting for someone to suggest a plan, but no one said a word. Finally she swallowed and asked, “How shall we begin?”

“We?” asked Pansy. “Must I go? They are preparing pigeon pie for supper.”

Auld Nancy pinched Pansy’s ear. “I am responsible for you, so where I go, you go. We will follow the sound of Grayling’s singing grimoire and hope to put an end to this dark witchery.”

As Desdemona Cork was too conspicuous, Pansy too afraid, and Grayling reluctant, Auld Nancy went first. She was the surest and the boldest, short of temper but full of vigor. Following Auld Nancy, Grayling thought, would be much like following her mother.

Autumn was upon them. Here and there, leaves struggled to turn color, and the day was cloudy and cool. Grayling sang and cocked her head as she felt the response. “That way,” she said, and she pointed to a path up a hill, rutted and muddy and steep.

Off they went into the gray-sky morning, with Pook the raven soaring above them. He gave a shrill cry, dove to the ground, and skidded to a stop, over and over. Pebbles flew before his claws. His shiny beak pecked at sticks, at stones, at worms and beetles, grains of wheat and crusts of bread. Cawing and cronking, he fluttered to Pansy’s shoulder and picked at her hair. “Hellborn bird!” she shouted, and off he flew. Silhouetted against the sky, he spread his great wings, twisting and tumbling, drifting then diving then climbing again. If a raven could laugh, Grayling would have sworn he was laughing.

They trudged on. The road wound up and down and around soft hills bedecked with oaks and elms, and Grayling breathed deeply of the crisp air. In the distance, fields lay fallow, awaiting spring planting. Perhaps, Grayling thought, this venture will not be too difficult. My belly is full, there is no rain, Auld Nancy is leading us, and I have naught to do but sing. Perhaps all will be well.

They walked on, over barren hillsides, through wooded groves, past villages where church bells were tolling. Breezes sang, trees rustled, dogs menaced them, nipping at their heels. Through crossroads and forks, on tracks and trails, paths and byways and lanes, they walked, following Grayling, who followed the grimoire’s song.

Pook swooped in to land on Grayling’s shoulder. “This Pook must thank you, Gray Eyes,” he said, fixing her with his beady black eye, “for your shape-shifting potion has allowed it to see such things as a mouse would never see—haystacks and hillocks, sheep cotes and steeples and streambeds.”

“But, Pook,” she asked, her forehead furrowed with worry, “what if the potion wears off while you are in the sky? Or you shift suddenly into a squirrel or a cow? Your plummet to earth would be sudden, messy, and likely fatal.”

Pook was silent a moment and then shuddered. “Ah, I see.” He looked up at the sky and said softly, “This Pook has soared with eagles. No other mouse can say that. It is now content to stay on the ground.” He flapped his wings twice and settled down to nap on Grayling’s shoulder. She shifted to settle his weight, for a raven was much heavier than a mouse.

Midafternoon they came to a crossroads. To the south the ground rose in green curves up and up. Along the top of the rise marched a line of soldiers. Faint sounds of feet trudging and weapons clanking echoed. Grayling swallowed hard and looked away.

A town could be seen to the north, but the grimoire sang them west. “Makes no matter,” said Auld Nancy, dropping to the ground beneath an ancient elm and mopping her red face with her skirt. “I can go no more, neither to the west nor to the north, not up nor down.”

“Auld Nancy,” said Grayling with alarm, “are you unwell?” The old woman was so forceful that Grayling believed nothing but grave illness could stop her.

“Nay, I am but spent and weary. I am older than I look.” Gray wisps poked out from the woman’s wimple, the hairs on her chin trembled, and the skin on the backs of her hands was coarse and freckled. It was difficult to imagine that she could be older than she looked. Grayling’s heart thumped once. What would become of them if Auld Nancy could not go on?

With a whoosh and a whoop, Pansy, grown pale and haggard, dropped down beside Auld Nancy. Grayling looked at the heavy clouds above and then at her companions on the ground. Despite the need for hurry, they would go no farther. What should she do? What would Hannah Strong do? Nay, what would she bid Grayling do?

“I will find wood for a fire,” Grayling said, “and a bit of a clearing off the road where we can rest.”

“And I,” said Desdemona Cork, as fresh and lovely as if she had just woken, “am footsore and hungry. I will go now and find me some supper.”