An Enchantment of Ravens(46)
That evening the fair folk gathered to watch the preparations for my Craft. We’d set up in the same clearing so we didn’t have to go back and forth, and it wasn’t long before the court arrived, more ethereal lords and ladies appearing unnervingly from thin air whenever I turned my back. Fascinated, they watched me grind up the berries, shells, and bark on a flat stone, then scrape them into a collection of porcelain bowls and teacups Lark had brought from the labyrinth. I cracked the tiny songbird eggs, strained the whites out with my fingers, and mixed the yolk and pigments using a twig. A campfire’s sticks popped and shifted nearby, producing the charred wood I’d need for soot.
Pigments were expensive. Before gaining the fair folk’s patronage I’d only used charcoal along with whatever colors I could make myself, and as I worked, my childhood experiments came back to me. Blackberries made the deepest, richest red. Elderberries dried with an ocher tint. Mixed with walnut shell, mulberries created a pleasant medium brown with wine-purple undertones. And blueberries often went on pink, only to darken to a deep indigo over the course of a day. Perhaps ironically, green was the most difficult of all colors to achieve from nature—I would need to experiment with the yellows cooked from onion skin and apple bark, and see what they looked like mixed with my blues.
So absorbed was I that for a time I forgot my audience, focusing on the rapture of color alone. The sun slanted lower and lower, casting a golden edge on all my makeshift tools and feathering my hair with light.
Finally I finished crushing the charred wood from the fire. “I think I’m done,” I said, meaning to address Rook and Lark, but found I spoke instead to an entire crowd of fair folk clustered around me.
“Marvelous,” Gadfly declared, as though I were a court alchemist transmuting lead into gold, while I sat looking up at him with egg slime all over my fingers. He offered me a square of peeled birch bark, and I wiped my hands off on the ground before I took it.
“Thank you,” I said. “This looks like it will do nicely. Would it be all right if I requested a favor?”
Gadfly inclined his head. “I did tell you you would want for nothing.”
“If I write a letter to my family in Whimsy, may I have it delivered? Even by bird, if that’s something that can be arranged. The earliest date possible would be ideal,” I added hastily, aware that otherwise it might arrive at the front door of our abandoned, tumbledown cottage a hundred years late.
“Certainly. I give my word that your letter will reach your home by sunrise two days hence.”
“And my aunt Emma will receive it?” I pressed, sensing another loose end.
He gave me a knowing smile. “Never one to forget a detail. I promise it shall be delivered directly into Emma’s hand. Now, I confess I’ve never had the good fortune to watch writing Craft!” And with that he seated himself next to me cross-legged to watch.
“Oh. Er, I’m happy to demonstrate,” I replied, trying to ignore his close attention. He peered at the bark in my hand as though I were about to wave my hand and transform it into a dove. I reached for the soot bowl but halted halfway with a sinking realization. “I haven’t anything to write with,” I said to myself aloud, casting about.
Wind stirred my hair, and Rook hopped onto the stump beside me in raven form, twisting his head to preen his tail feathers. Just when I was about to shoo him off, he seized the longest feather and yanked it from his body. This he handed to me with courtly aplomb. It was warm, and the end of the translucent shaft contained a bead of his amber blood.
I turned the feather in my hands, running my fingertip along its silky edge, to buy myself a little time. I wasn’t certain why I felt so touched by the gesture. The feather was one of many, and Rook could grow it back in an instant. When I could stall no longer, I cleared my throat and dabbed its tip on the ground to clean it.
That was, perhaps, a mistake.
Right away the grass bulged and a sapling pushed forth from the wildflowers, rapidly straining upward into a young tree, unfolding branches like a stage prop. Vivid scarlet leaves burst forth in glorious bloom. Its foliage spread across the spring glade triumphantly, and a bit obnoxiously, in what struck me as a truly Rooklike fashion.
“Have a care!” Gadfly exclaimed. “I won’t see you defacing my court, Rook. That’s terribly unsightly.”
Rook spread his wings and released a series of belligerent croaks. I hid a smile.
“Thank you,” I whispered to him, rolling the feather’s stem between my fingertips.
Gadfly soon forgot the offense as I began scratching out my letter in wet soot. Fair folk might not be able to write, but they could certainly read, so I needed to be careful about what I revealed.
Dear Emma, March, and May, I wrote. I am safe and well. It pains me to think of the distress my disappearance must have caused you. The truth is that I have been on an unexpected adventure—I knew Emma would understand how I felt about being on an “adventure”—and haven’t had the opportunity to write you until now. Presently, I’m demonstrating my Craft in the spring court. I was brought here by Rook, the autumn prince, who spirited me away quite suddenly. I look forward to seeing you all again soon. With love, Isobel.
This would give Emma more questions than answers, but I was running out of room on the little square of bark, so it would have to do. I waited for it to dry, then handed it to Gadfly.