Antebellum Awakening (The Network Series #2)(27)

I followed behind him with a growl, annoyed that he’d bested me in the silent game of wits. If Leda found out how quickly Merrick could silence my own personal brand of sarcasm, I’d never live it down.

“Merry meet, Sanna!” he called with a blithe smile. “Staying out of trouble?”

“Merry meet yourself. I’m probably having more fun than you!” Sanna bellowed back. I’d expected her speech to betray her age like Isadora’s did, but she sounded young and spry. Merrick laughed and turned off to the back of her cabin. I ignored him and followed the footpath leading to her front porch, crossing over a small wooden bridge above a tinkling brook. I was curious about this woman in the woods.

“You must be Bianca,” Sanna said as I approached. “Merrick told me that he’s your teacher now.”

Unlike most female witches, she didn’t curtsy. Instead she held out her steady arm and waited for me to grip her forearm in my hand, like a Council Member might do. Her eyes, cloudy and dim, gazed past my shoulder without seeing. I realized with surprise that Sanna was blind. How could she live alone? Especially here?

“Merry meet, Sanna,” I said, taking the offered arm. Her soft skin and braided white hair reminded me of my grandmother. She wore an old shawl across her thin arms. A peek over her shoulder and into the open door of her house revealed an old wooden table, a braided rug on the wooden floor, and a large claw on the wall that looked like an ivory scythe. My throat went dry.

This little old lady in the woods owned a dragon talon. Special indeed, I thought, grateful she couldn’t see my shocked expression.

“What’d you come here for?” Sanna asked.

“I’m not entirely sure,” I said, distracted by her necklace now that I stood close to it. Small beads of bright orange gleamed from the black scales. I wondered how long it had been in her possession. “Merrick said something about chopping wood?”

“They’re heart scales,” Sanna said, and I glimpsed a knowing grin on her face. For a woman who had no sight, she certainly knew what was going on. “I got them from a very special dragon when I was a little girl. They shed these scales from near their heart when they are young, you know. For the rest of its life, a dragon will loyally serve whoever gets its heart scales.”

“Oh,” I whispered, glancing from her necklace and back to her eyes. “It’s beautiful. You are a Dragonmaster then?”

“No, I’m a fairy,” she snapped, and I stared at her in open-mouthed surprise. Then she burst out laughing, a belly-deep cackle that made me smile, albeit hesitantly. “Of course I’m a Dragonmaster! You’re not very sharp, are you?”

“But you live out here alone,” I said, running my eyes over the forest. I’d grown up in a safer part of Letum Wood, but even there the dangers had been very real. “How are you a Dragonmaster by yourself?”

She snorted.

“What you’re really asking is how am I the Dragonmaster when I’m so old and blind?”

“Yes,” I admitted, feeling sheepish. “I guess that’s what I’m asking.”

She tapped the side of her head.

“It’s all in their heads.”

“Whose heads?”

A heavy line furrowed her forehead. “The dragons, stupid girl. The dragons! You don’t get out much, do you? Didn’t you just graduate from Miss Mabel’s School for Girls? I’m surprised my sister let you in.”

“Isadora?” I asked, my mouth dropping. “You know her?”

Sanna rolled her eyes. “Know her? The woman is my twin. She’s the hardest sister to grow up with you’d ever meet. She anticipates the punch line of every joke.”

“I didn’t know she had a twin.”

Sanna snorted. “Figures. She never talks about personal things. She’s much too high and mighty that way. I broke a china teacup once and she took years to get over it.”

“We’ll be done in no time, Sanna,” Merrick interrupted, striding around the corner with two axes resting on his shoulders. “I’m glad we came today. You’re almost out of wood.”

I was grateful he showed up at that moment. I needed a chance to recover. Sanna and Isadora were twins? Two more different witches never existed. Isadora, who was always proper and calm, the sister of this loud, obnoxious witch before me? Impossible. I shook my head to clear the collecting thoughts. An aged, blind Dragonmaster? None of this made sense.

Merrick shoved an axe into my arms as he walked past.

“Let’s go,” he said briskly, swinging the other ax off his shoulder with smooth, practiced grace. “You’ll want to get started soon. A girl like you will need as much of an advantage as you can get."

“A girl like me?”

Sanna gave a low whistle. “Sounds like a challenge!” she called out with another bawdy laugh.

“We are each going to make a pile of wood and see who wins,” Merrick said when I stepped off the porch and joined him. He’d already grabbed a rotten log from nearby and pulled it near a stump. I tested the weight of the ax in my hand. It didn’t feel too heavy.

“What’s the prize?” I asked.

“If you win, I’ll let you transport back. If I win, we run without complaint.”

One less chance to run into Mama’s memory and flounder in a magic I couldn’t control?