Grayling's Song(28)

“Why was I spared? And Sylvanus and Desdemona Cork?” Auld Nancy asked.

“You? All of you with no grimoires, no real magic, and little power? I did not bother with you, thinking you no threat.”

Sylvanus spluttered again, but Auld Nancy waved him silent. “Where did you learn such spells? Your mother never taught you to be so selfish and careless,” she said.

“How soon,” asked Grayling, her voice tight with fury, “can you undo the damage you have caused?”

“And,” added Phinaeus, “retrieve my horse and wagon?”

They all looked at Pansy, who shook her head. “I can do nothing. ’Tis grown too strong, overwhelming my spells, taking the grimoires and guarding them fiercely. ’Tis a mighty force now, and I am empty and drained and so tired.” She took a long, shuddering breath, and her lips trembled. “We may all be planted ere long.”

Sylvanus scowled at her. “You forgot the third rule of magic: Do no magic you cannot undo.”

Auld Nancy grabbed Pansy by an ear. “Stupid, greedy, malicious girl! I will shake you until your bones turn to butter!” She shook the girl roughly. “Then I shall send you back to your mother and tell her what you have done.” Another shake. “That you are thoughtless and dangerous and a disgrace to your family.” And another. “That you should be sent to be dung heap tender or assistant pig keeper.”

“Huzzah!” Sylvanus broke in with a shout. “Huzzah! I have but now realized—the cheese was not useless. The lump of cheese pointed to this lump of a girl. I just did not understand. Yes, yes, I knew it! ’Tis a true soothsaying cheese!” His face fell into disappointed folds. “But now we have eaten it, and it is gone! Alas, alas. True soothsaying cheese, and we have eaten it!”

As Grayling watched and listened, the heat of anger rose from her belly to her face. Her hands itched to thump Pansy until she bellowed. Certain that thumping Pansy would not help, for they might yet need her goodwill, Grayling closed her eyes and breathed deeply, soothing herself with thoughts of moonlight, lavender wands, and sorrel soup with dumplings.

From somewhere behind them came an unearthly sound, a sound between a bellow and a bawl, a sound of menace and pain and despair. Grayling held her breath, prepared to face another snake.

Sylvanus shouted, “Nostradamus!” and ran toward the sound. What was that magic word he shouted? she wondered. And why hadn’t he tried it on the serpent?

A rustling in the trees startled her, and she turned to see. The branches parted, and there was Sylvanus and . . . his mule!

“Nostradamus did not run far,” said Sylvanus, beaming at the mule, “and now he is with us again.”

Only his mule! Grayling shook her head to clear it. The snake, the smoke and shadow, Pansy’s confession—they had left her most jittery.

Now that the clearing was serpent free, Grayling gathered wood, and Sylvanus built a fire; Desdemona Cork sat beside Auld Nancy and gently rubbed the old woman’s aching knees; Phinaeus Moon studied them all in bemusement. Pansy came to sit among them, but the others turned their backs, and she slunk off to sulk alone.

When the fire was blazing, the company warmed their toes as they emptied the saddlebags that had returned with Nostradamus and ate the remains of the ham, bread, and onions.

Grayling jumped to her feet, shuddering. Some vermin was crawling up her arm! Spider? Rat? Flea? “’Tis this Pook, Gray Eyes,” said a small voice. And there he was, pink nose, and pink ears, and more whiskers than any mouse truly needed. “Has that horrid creature gone?” He twitched his tail, charred at the end where the flames had found the raven.

“Aye,” Grayling said, “truly gone, and you are come back safely.” She settled back down by the fire, and the mouse curled against her neck.

“This Pook should not have abandoned you, but it is difficult for a startled raven to stay in a pocket.” Pook twitched his nose. “Might there be a crumb of something to eat?” Grayling gave him a bit of bread, which he nibbled before climbing into her pocket. She heard a tiny sigh and then a tiny snore.

“Was that mouse talking?” asked Phinaeus Moon, his voice quavering with alarm, suspicion, disbelief.

Grayling had forgotten that he was newly come. “Aye, he was,” she said.

“A mouse? But how?”

Grayling told again the story of the mouse and the potions. “And now whenever he be fearful or excited, the shape shifting takes him. He finds it thrilling, he says, but confusing.”

Phinaeus Moon stared at her. His mouth hung open, and his eyes were wide as dinner plates. “Who are you folk?” he asked at last. “A lady of surpassing loveliness, a mischief-making girl with powerful magic, a weather charmer, a bearded wizard, a talking mouse, and you with the courage to face a hideous serpent?”

So Grayling had to begin from the very beginning, with her mother calling to her. He listened and nodded until she finished.

Sylvanus lit a pipe, and Grayling smelled dried mint, sage, and angelica root. “Until you, I had not met someone glamoured to be a snake,” Sylvanus told the young man. “Could you feel it happening? Did you know how you appeared to others?”

“I felt little different. A bit queasy and dizzy perhaps, as if I had overdrunk of honey mead, but little different except that I moved as if through soup, a thick and warm soup—my granny’s dried pea with bacon perhaps.” Phinaeus Moon licked his lips at the memory. “Even my horse bellowed in fright and ran, the cart bouncing after him, and my companions fled. I looked into a stream and saw, oh, how very different I was. I wished I could run from me also.” He shivered. “I am no beauty, I know, but to be horrid, repulsive . . . and all thanks to this meddlesome, irksome girl.” He glowered at Pansy.