Grayling's Song(33)

She opened the grimoire and for the first time saw inside. Here was a recipe for her mother’s rosehip jelly, there the ingredients for a love potion. Grayling examined page after page: a chant to find lost sheep, songs for healing and comforting and cheering, careful drawings of the leaves of deadly nightshade and monkshood root. Grayling had learned much of this lore by watching and listening to her mother. What Pansy had wanted to know so desperately that she conjured the smoke and shadow was not in these pages. There was no sorcery, no mysterious secret, no magic here.

“If you please,” Phinaeus Moon continued, “I will take it and repair it.” He took it gently into his big hands. “Most pages need only to dry. The others I will have recopied on my good paper. Creamy, thick paper, smooth to the touch but strong and altogether splendid”—he smiled at her—“just as you are.”

Grayling smiled back as she studied him—his eyes warm and deep, hair a soft brown. The very air around him seemed to shimmer. “Oh, figs and feathers, he’s an enchanter!” she whispered, and shook her head violently to break the spell.

“Nay,” said Desdemona Cork. “He is but an ordinary young man. ’Tis his gentle kindness that shines.”

Grayling gawked at Desdemona Cork. “I thought you did not notice us ordinary folk.”

Said Desdemona Cork, “I am learning.”

The scream of a seabird interrupted. Was it Pook? Grayling wondered. Or was he still a mouse? Had he come back as she ordered him? If not, where was he? And what was he? It was difficult keeping track of a creature that changed its nature so frequently.

Grayling looked at Pansy, across the fire. Firelight made shadows on Pansy’s face, which was not stupid and sullen as usual, but sly and malevolent. Had she done something else wicked?

Pook! If she had hurt Pook, Grayling would . . . would . . . what would she do? It would be something severe and horrid.

“Where is Pook?” Grayling asked.

“I am here,” said the mouse as he scrabbled up her arm. “’Twas a long way for a mouse to come. I hurried as fast as I could, but my legs are short and my heart is little. Now I am here, and you are safe.” With a contented huff, he climbed into Grayling’s pocket, damp though it was, and settled in for a well-earned rest.

Weary and hungry, the company dozed by the fire. When Grayling woke, the sun was setting over the sea, splashing streaks of pale oranges and golds and a tinge of lavender across the sky where it met the horizon. The air was rich with the smell of salt and seaweed. Phinaeus Moon had gathered clams and mussels and periwinkles from the shore. Sylvanus pried open the shells with his knife, Desdemona Cork rinsed them in seawater, and Auld Nancy wrapped them in sea lettuce and cooked them briefly on the hot coals. Grayling gathered berries and wild celery. It was not much of a supper for six, for they let Pansy share, but it did taste good.

“We must leave here,” Sylvanus said through a mouthful of berries. “We must see whether our deeds have truly broken the spell and what damage has been done.”

“What if nothing has changed?” asked Grayling. “What if the grimoires have flown off, but people are still rooted? What if the force did not dissipate in the sea but is still there, and Pansy cannot call it back, nor can you?”

Sylvanus wiped his mouth with his beard. “Soft, girl, soft. Don’t fall off the cliff until you get to the edge. We shall see what we shall see.”

That is the worry, thought Grayling. What shall we see?

In the morning, Phinaeus Moon bade them farewell. He would be going north along the seashore while the others walked east, back the way they had come. “How will I recover the grimoire?” Grayling asked him.

“Sing to it, and follow. It will be waiting.” With a wink, a grin, and a whistle, he was off, headed north.

Grayling watched him go, her heart suddenly sore. Soon the others would be leaving her also. She was at last free to see about her mother, but she could not imagine her days without them.

Stumbling and limping, the remaining travelers pushed through the woods, up hills and down, over ditches and fallen logs, until they came to a road. The walking was easier then, and the company had gone some ways when a small open carriage with a noble crest on the door came up behind them on the road. Desdemona Cork tossed her hair and twitched her shawls, and the carriage stopped.

“What about your cottage by the sea?” Grayling asked, grabbing Desdemona Cork’s arm. “Goat cheese and apples? Remember? You can stop enchanting and bake bread.” She untangled a leaf of wild celery that was stuck in the enchantress’s cloud of hair.

“I am what I am,” said Desdemona Cork. She flashed Grayling a smile of rare loveliness, and Grayling felt again the pull of the woman’s power.

Grayling unwrapped the gold and blue shawl from around her shoulders and handed it to Desdemona Cork.

“Nay, keep it,” said Desdemona Cork. “Think on me from time to time, wind in my hair, spinning by the sea. No matter that I will not be there.” She climbed into the carriage, which continued on its way, blowing a great dust storm up in its wake.

Those left behind coughed and rubbed their eyes. Auld Nancy, angry, lifted her broom. “We shall see how enchanting she be with rain in her face!”

Grayling took her hand. “Your rain, like your anger, Auld Nancy, will fall on all of us.”

Auld Nancy grumbled but put her broom down.