Grayling's Song(32)

“Pook! Go back to the others! Go back!” She ran through the house, twisting and turning. She feared she would never find her way out again. Finally she glimpsed light from the open door, and she hurried out. Lightning flashed here and there. Thunder shook the ground. Where was the path to the sea?

She burst through a holly thicket behind the house and there below was the sea, enormous, powerful, even monstrous. The crashing of the waves was like armies meeting. She held the grimoire to her as she raced helter-skelter, followed by the thrumming of a force, churning up smoke and shadow, heat and ice, freezing branches and shrubs, scorching her kirtle and her hair. Her breath came fast as she tripped and stumbled down the steep and treacherous path, over the pebbly shore, and onto wet and slippery rocks that reached out into the water. The sea was so vast, and she was so afraid.

Smoke and shadow howled up the path behind her. Her eyes and nose filled with smoke. Icy hands clutched her face, her neck, holding her, pulling her back. Enveloped in dark and cold, Grayling was overtaken by despair. She could not escape. It was over. But still, smoke and shadow behind and above and all around her, she made one last effort and plunged into the sea, into the water, which closed over her.





XIV





he seawater was bitter cold, salty on her lips, and stinging in her eyes. After her plunge to the bottom, she drifted there, quiet, at ease. Was she dead? The water was above her and around her, embracing her, enfolding her, cradling her. It was so lovely, so peaceful, until her chest tightened and her lungs began to burn. Which way was up? Which way was air? She paddled wildly. Her skirts billowed and snagged her legs, and her hair tangled in her eyes and her mouth.

Her struggles took her at last to the surface, where she gulped great gulps of air. The seawater she had swallowed roiled in her belly and spewed out like a fountain. No, she was not dead. She felt too miserable to be dead. She closed her eyes and bobbed gently in the water while a seabird screeched above her.

A sudden splash near her proved to be Phinaeus Moon, who had hurled himself off the rocks. He caught and held her.

“Let me go,” she shouted, batting at his arm. “You are pulling my hair.”

“Stop fighting and let me help. I am rescuing you.”

“Nay, let me rescue myself.”

They staggered to the beach, where they lay wet and gasping. “Fie and fie again, Grayling!” said Phinaeus Moon. “You were supposed to throw the book into the water, not follow it in.”

“I had no choice. The smoke and shadow and I, we were one, tangled together and not separable.” She shuddered, feeling once more the foul cloud, icy and afire at the same time, that had enveloped her.

The bird continued its screeching, accompanied by frenzied shouting from the cliff above. Grayling lifted her head to see. There were Auld Nancy and Sylvanus calling and waving and bouncing with glee. Desdemona Cork, wrapped in her fluttering shawls, pointed to the sky and cried, “Look there, look!”

Grayling looked. A great stream of birds poured from the rise where the stone house was. Birds of different sizes, different colors, strange birds, with no beaks or wings . . . Nay, not birds! Books! “Phinaeus Moon, ’tis the grimoires!” Grayling cried. And it was—large grimoires and small, old and new, artfully wrought and plain, more than a hundred grimoires sailing through the air and on. “What does it mean?”

Phinaeus Moon stood and craned his neck to see better. “Belike they are flying back to their owners!” He clapped his hands and laughed. “I think you have done it! Grayling, you have broken the spell!”

A smile lighted Grayling’s face as joy rose within her. “And their owners? Might this mean they too are released?”

With a shrug Phinaeus Moon said, “I am not the person to ask. Perhaps Auld Nancy could say. Or Pansy.” He took Grayling by the arm. “Come, I’ll help you back up. Certes, you will allow me that.”

Grayling, queasy, tattered, and wet but lighter of heart, nodded, and Phinaeus Moon led her up a steep but straight path to where the others waited.

Auld Nancy, twittering in a most un-Auld-Nancy-like way, grabbed Grayling’s arm and held her close. Sylvanus and Desdemona Cork danced delightedly. Pansy stood alone at the edge of the group and glowered.

“Here, come warm yourself, girl,” said Sylvanus at last, clucking with concern as he pulled Grayling closer to a welcoming fire. Desdemona Cork removed Grayling’s sodden cloak and wrapped her in a shawl of fine wool woven in stripes of gold and the silvery blue of the sea. It had a sweet, exotic spicy smell—spring flowers and fresh apples with a touch of cinnamon and—Grayling buried her face in it—warm wine on a cold night. She breathed deeply.

They gathered about the fire, Grayling safe and warm between Desdemona Cork and Auld Nancy. “Is the force gone now?” Grayling asked, when she had settled herself. “Is the horror over and all as it was before? Are my mother and all the wise folk released?”

“By meddling in magic,” said Sylvanus, “Pansy opened a door, and evil has come through. There may be more surprises in store, but for the moment, I would say the trouble is over.”

Phinaeus Moon came and crouched near Grayling. He took a drenched and dripping book from beneath his doublet. “I saw this sinking as I jumped into the water, and I was able to take hold of it.” Grayling reached for the sodden grimoire. “Soft, soft,” he said, holding it away. “The pages are soaked and fragile, and the ink is smeared in places.” He placed the book in Grayling’s lap.