Grayling's Song(27)

Sylvanus looked. “Aye, ’tis strange.” He studied the beast. “I expect that this creature is not a serpent at all but a glamour, and my spell has caused the glamour to thin.” Grayling shook her head in puzzlement, so Sylvanus continued. “There be three kinds of serpents: serpents by nature, serpents by spell or curse, and serpents by glamour. A magic spell turns a person into a serpent. A glamour spell makes a person appear to be a serpent, but in truth he is not. ’Tis but an illusion.”

An illusion? The coils squeezing her had felt very real. “Can a glamour spell be overturned?”

“Someone must be brave and determined enough to reach a hand through the glamour and grasp the one bewitched through the beastly guise.”

“Be you certain, Sylvanus?” asked Auld Nancy. “It sounds too easy.”

“Easy, you say again? Easy?” Grayling spit and sputtered. “Easy for you, perhaps, who does not have to put her hand through a scaly, hissing creature.” For Grayling knew it must be she. She had grown fond of her companions—well, not Pansy—but did not think any of them brave and determined enough to approach the monstrous serpent. Was she? Could she risk the snake’s crushing grasp again?

Her heart was racing and her palms sweaty, and although she wanted only to run away, she went a little closer and looked up, up, up.

The serpent opened its mouth and flicked its tongue but spat no fire.

Breathing heavily, Grayling stepped closer, and closer yet. Slowly she reached out a trembling hand and touched it. She felt the leathery scales, the muscles beneath, but then her hand passed right through and met the solid, warm flesh of a hand grasping hers. Startled, she jumped back.

The very air quivered, and the ground shook. A great hiss rose from the creature, which twisted and thrashed. Flames blistered her nose and singed her hair. A shower of ashes, another deafening hiss, and the snake disappeared. And there in its place stood a boy—nay, a young man, strong of arms and shoulders but pale, as if he had spent his life indoors, with hair and eyes of honey brown, and a smile, thought Grayling, bright enough to warm a winter night.

Grayling fell back, her mouth agape, and her companions cried out in dismay. Who was this fellow? Was this another sort of glamour that made a hideous serpent appear to be a pleasant-looking young man so it could get close enough to crush them?

“I am relieved to be released but confused and stupid with not knowing what has befallen me,” the fellow said. “Shall I thank you, fair mistress, for freeing me from this monstrous guise, or was it you who cursed me at the start?”

“Nay,” Grayling answered, “not I. We but came upon you. I must confess I much prefer you in this condition. Who are you?”

“Phinaeus Moon,” he said with a small bow, “apprentice paper maker from Wooten Magna, at the end of the Great Stony Road.” He gestured past the trees. “Returning from delivering a load of paper to the stationers’ guild in Lesser Beamish, my bladder was so overburdened I stopped to let my water go. A great noise came, and I felt the earth shake and a voice thundered, ‘Be you now guardian of my house and all that is in it. Let no one pass or you shall be serpent evermore.’”

The company was struck dumb, all but Pansy, who moved to the young man’s side. “That was impressive, was it not?” she said with a smug smile. “I did labor long to word the spell just right.”





XII





pell?” Sylvanus spluttered. “You, you useless lump of a girl, have been meddling in magic?”

“Urk,” said Pansy. And then, “Urk!” The girl was trembling with rage. “Do not call me a lump! Or useless! I can . . . I could tell you . . . I have done . . .” She stopped. Her eyes were dark and cold, and she clenched her lips together.

“Pansy, child,” Auld Nancy asked, “what have you been playing at?”

Pansy backed away. Her face was ashen, but her cheeks flamed. “I am not a child, and I am not playing!” she shouted. “I have more power than you thought I did. I played the fool and you laughed at me, but I have surprised you, have I not? You did not know I had such skills. My mother did not know. But harken to me: I took your grimoires and rooted your cunning folk. I placed a glamour spell on this boy to guard the grimoires. You never suspected me, but I did it. Me!” She put her hands on her hips and smirked in triumph.

There was such silence that Grayling could hear her heart beating and the anxious twitching of Desdemona Cork’s skirts. Her belly grew hot with anger.

Finally Auld Nancy darted forward and grabbed Pansy’s arm. “Why, Pansy? Why have you done this?”

“I wanted to know what you others know, so I took the grimoires to learn. And I planted the cunning folk.” She shrugged. “I did not want to kill them, but prevent them following me.”

Auld Nancy scowled and said, “Spiteful, careless girl. You do not deserve the power you have.”

“My power, I found, has limits.” Pansy shook her head. “I conjured the force that comes as smoke and shadow, but it has grown ever more powerful, larger and fiercer and harder to control. I did not know what it would do next, or to whom, and feared I might be in danger. You seemed to have a plan, so I struggled to keep the force away, although it wearied and sickened me. I wanted you to succeed so I would be safe.”