“We’re only blackbirds in that other world,” Jeck told me once after he’d moved to Mabon. “The enchantment that lets us shift shape wasn’t born in our bones and blood; it lies in the air of that otherworld. We breathe it in and we can change, but we’re not even remotely related to the corbæ in your friend’s stories.”
That’s true enough. There’s nothing whimsical or charming about these brothers of his; they’re just mean. I know, because I’ve met them before, when they were trying to drown the moon.
There’s seven of them all told, including Jeck, but he’s the youngest, which meant right from the start there were big things in store for him, this being a fairy-tale world and he being the seventh son and all. But he wasn’t having any part of it—chucked it all and came to live in Mabon instead. Maybe that’s why his brothers hate him. But while I don’t really know why they’ve got it in for him—Jeck doesn’t talk much about his family—it’s not hard to figure out why they don’t like me. I’m the one who rescued the moon from the watery grave that they and the bogles had prepared for her.
Even half fallen down, the tower looms above us, old stone, water-stained and overhung with vines and moss. At another time, I’d love to be here. I love old places like this. Unlike Jilly, who can call up an unfeigned interest in pretty much any place, I’m drawn primarily to these sorts of structures, buildings steeped in history. Doesn’t have to be big, important bits of history; just the sense that hundreds of lives have touched a place down through the years.
The bogles take us down into the tower’s basement—which is less than pleasant with its slimy stones and damp, cold air—and dump us unceremoniously on the floor. The place reeks of wet straw and old urine and my skin crawls at the thought of lying here in a bogles’ toilet. It takes us a few minutes to work free from the snarls of the net, but by then this huge warped wooden door has closed us in and we hear a crossbar drop into place on the other side. A barred window set high in the wall lets in a little light, but it’s not particularly comforting and the bars are too narrow for even a bird-shaped Jeck to slip through. Once we finally get the net off, we have a chance to look around a little more and realize we’re not alone.
Granny Weather sits there in a corner of the room, shaking her head at the bedraggled pair we make.
“How did they trap you?” she asks. “I didn’t think they’d be able to bring you back into our world against your will.”
“Actually,” I tell her, tugging a hand through my hair to remove bits of straw, “we found our own way.”
“Whatever for?”
“They thought I might kill you for them.”
It pops out of my mouth before I even realize it’s going to, but Granny Weather only laughs.
“And what made you decide not to?” she asks. “You did decide not to, I assume.”
She still looks amused, but a sudden dark light in her eyes makes me nod quickly. I tell her about Serth’s unwelcome visit.
“The best lies hold a breath of the truth,” she says when I’m done.
“You mean you are eating their babies?”
“Hardly. But an infant bogle is still an innocent, born to the dark or not, and the death of any innocent diminishes the world.”
“So who is eating their babies?” I ask.
She shakes her head in exasperation. “No one. They would have told you anything to bring you across.”
“I don’t buy that,” I say. “I can’t think of a lamer reason to get me here. I’ve never hurt anybody in my life. Why would I start with you?”
“But it was enough to make you feel you needed to speak to me,” she says.
“That’s true.”
“What they really wanted was for that one to bring you,” she adds, pointing her chin at Jeck.
There’s not much love lost between them either, though it’s more on her side than Jeck’s. She’s never trusted him and doesn’t think I should, but I don’t judge anybody by their family.
He gives her a steady look. “I grew up on stories of you,” is all he says.
“Yes, yes. The wicked witch in the wood. How original.”
He shrugs. “If I shouldn’t believe those stories, why can’t you trust me?”
“Because ...” Her voice trails off. “Because of habit,” she says finally. “You’re right. I can be as guilty of misjudgment as any.”
“Well, I hate to break up this Hallmark moment,” I say, “but don’t you think we should be thinking about a way to get out of here? And what do they want with us anyway?”
“Not us,” Granny Weather says and points to Jeck again. “But him. The heart of a seventh son—particularly one such as Jeck, who is the seventh son of a seventh son—is a potent ingredient for any number of spells. My guess is they plan to grind it up and feed it to the crack willow by Coffin Rock, to give it mobility and make it their brother.” She shook her head. “Imagine that evil old spirit given a blackbird’s wings and set loose upon the world. Bogles would be the least of our worries.”
I don’t even want to think about how they’ll get the heart to grind it up in the first place.
I look at Jeck. “They’d do that?” I ask. “They’d cut out your heart?”
He shrugs. “We’re related by blood,” he says. “Not temperament. They’ve always had large ambitions and need a powerful ally to achieve them. When they failed to give the old willow the light-blood of a drowned moon, they would have had to look elsewhere for a gift.” He placed the palm of his hand against his chest. “I can see how giving it my heart would amuse them.”
I turn back to Granny Weather. “But why are we here?”
“I, because I could stop them,” she says. “If they hadn’t caught me off-guard and separated me from my cronebone, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. The fens would be choked with the bodies of dead bogles and blackbird brothers.” She gives me a wicked grin. “I never could abide either of them.”
I was wondering how she came to be stuck here in the bogles’ toilet with us.
“And you’re here,” she adds, “because their brother would never have returned if it hadn’t been for you.”
She said something along those lines a few moments ago, but it didn’t really register the way it does now.
“Is this true?” I ask Jeck. “You’re only here because of me?”
I get another shrug in response and feel just awful. It never even occurred to me that I was putting him in danger.
“At least escaping isn’t a problem for you,” Granny Weather says. “All you have to do is wake up.”
I hadn’t thought of that. I suppose I could have done it the moment the net dropped onto us.
I shake my head. “I’m not leaving either of you behind.”
“But you must,” she says. And then she tells me why.
I wake up in my bedroom and nothing feels right. It’s not hard to figure out why. I’m safe, escaped from the dreamlands, while my boyfriend’s lying in a bogle toilet with Granny Weather, waiting for his brothers to cut out his heart.
Then I realize that we never discussed how I’ll get back to the fairy-tale world once I’ve collected the things that Granny Weather told me I needed to bring. And how am I even supposed to bring all that stuff over with me? When I enter the dreamlands, most of the time I can choose what I’m wearing, but I can’t bring objects with me. I’ve tried, but unless I can imagine it in my pocket, it doesn’t cross over with me. Knapsacks and purses don’t work either, and this stuff Granny Weather wants me to get sure won’t fit in a pocket.
So I’ve already screwed up, I think, until I realize that I can at least gather the objects in Mabon. That’ll bring me part of the way, already into the dreamlands. And if I can’t find a way over to the fairy-tale world on my own, I might be able to find someone else who can show me.
I go back to my bed and lie down again. It’s already getting light outside my window and I can hear the morning traffic starting up, along with a chorus of ro
wdy birdsong, but I’ve gotten good at dropping off to sleep whenever I need to.
I wake up in Jeck’s and my apartment in Mabon, already dressed for business: jeans, long-sleeved jersey, canvas jacket, sturdy walking shoes. The only concession to practicality is my digital wristwatch. I can’t wear them outside of the dreamlands because when they don’t stop entirely working, they tend to simply flash a random time. It’s like my real-world curse, what Jilly calls Jinx because she thinks everything should have a name. Ordinary wrist-watches run backwards and all sorts of mechanical and electrical things don’t work properly when I’m around. I can still remember the look on Christy’s face when I tried to use his computer and crashed the hard drive just by switching it on.
I don’t waste time in the apartment. Its emptiness simply drives home the fact that for every moment I’m here, Jeck’s that much closer to having his heart cut out of his chest.
My first stop is the Catholic church down the street. I’m not Catholic, and I’m not even sure how much I believe in God, but when I follow Granny Weather’s instructions and steal one of the votive candles—sneaking it out of the church while it’s still lit, and don’t think that’s easy until you’ve tried it—the nape of my neck prickles and I know I’m waiting for lightning to strike me down dead. But it doesn’t happen. Maybe the candle I bought and left in the stolen one’s place evened things out in the eyes of the angels. Maybe nobody up there was paying attention.
Once outside, I blow the candle out and stow it in the pocket of my jacket, sucking at my finger where the hot wax gave me a bit of a burn.
From there I go to Kerry’s Cauldron, an herb and witchery shop just down the street from Mr. Truepenny’s. Kerry herself is at the counter. She’s a tall, dark-haired woman, given to wearing Gypsy outfits—the romantic kind you see in movies: low-cut white blouse, flower-print skirt, hair pushed up under a red kerchief. I’ve met her before, but I’ve never been inside her shop. It’s got a wonderful smell, earthy and herby, with a touch of something feral, like a mix of deep forest loam and wild roses. Everywhere I look there are shelves of small bottles with handwritten labels, the dark glass hiding mysterious powders, dried herbs and other less identifiable things.
Kerry and I exchange pleasantries, then she asks me what I need.
“Do you, um, carry mouse hair?” I ask.
She nods. “Do you want a full pelt, a whole dried mouse, or just the loose hairs?”
I didn’t expect there to be choices.
“Just the hair,” I say. “I only need enough to roll into a small ball to put inside a loaf of bread.”
She nods again. “Of course. You’re making gifting bread.”
“I guess I am.”
“That’s a very old recipe for favors. You don’t hear much about them anymore, but I suppose that’s because they don’t work for everyone.”
“They don’t?”
My heart sinks.
Kerry shakes her head. “Not unless you’re an adept or have faerie blood. So you’ll be okay.”
Jilly started this whole business about me having faerie blood and she’s never even been to Mabon, but everybody here seems to think the same thing. I’ve given up arguing about it.
“Have you considered what good memory you’ll offer up to the spirit of the loaf when you bake it?” she asks. “It’s always good to think about that kind of thing in advance so that you don’t get all rushed at the end and give away something you’ll regret later.”
Granny Weather had said something about keeping pleasant memories in my head while I was baking the bread, a different one for each loaf, but she didn’t say why.
“What do you mean give away?” I ask.
“You don’t get it back,” she says. “Didn’t you know that?”
I shake my head. “You really know all about this kind of thing, don’t you?”
“Well, it is my business.”
Duh.
“Don’t mind me,” I tell her. “I left my brain in my other jacket.”
She smiles. “Do you need anything else?”
I name the other item on my list, kernels of dried Indian corn, and she saves me the trip to the feed store by pulling a jar of them up from under the glass-topped display counter that stands between us. While she’s packaging my order, I ask her if she knows Granny Weather.
“I’m afraid not. She sounds like an old goodwife. They all had names like that in the old days—to keep their true names private. Nowadays we just use our own, since the old naming magics have pretty much fallen by the wayside.”
“So when you say goodwife,” I ask, “you mean she’s okay.”
She turns from the table where she’s measuring out my mouse hairs to give me a blank look.
“I mean, she wouldn’t be a bad person,” I say.
“No,” Kerry tells me. “I mean like how we refer to the little people as the good neighbors as a sign of respect so that we don’t get on their bad side.” She pauses a moment, then adds, “Are you baking this for Granny Weather?”
I nod.
“Well, make sure you follow her instructions exactly,” she says. “You don’t want to annoy a goodwife.”
I remember Granny Weather’s bloodthirsty comment on what she’d do to the bogles and Jeck’s brothers, and find myself wishing I’d let well enough alone when the bogle first showed up in my bedroom. I should have listened to Jeck. Because if I screw this up…
“But I’m sure you’ll do fine,” Kerry says as she deposits two small paper bags on the counter. “After all, you—”
“Have faerie blood,” I say, finishing it for her.
She smiles. “Exactly.”
I wish I was as confident.
I pay for my purchases. “One last question,” I say before I leave. “Do you have any tips on traveling between the dreamlands?”
“Be very clear about where it is you want to go,” she says, “or you could end up anywhere.”
That wasn’t quite what I was hoping for.
“I was thinking more how to do it,” I tell her.
She turns away and rummages in one of the drawers that line the wall beside her worktable. When she returns to the front counter, she places a piece of twine with a knot in it on the glass.
“Find a place in between,” she says. “Do you know what I mean by that?”
I nod.
“Once you’re there, keep your destination clearly in mind and untie the knot. I’m afraid it’s only a one-way traveling knot. Return ones are very hard to find and much more expensive.”
“That’s okay,” I tell her as I pay for it. “I’ve got somebody there to bring me back.”
If we survive. If I don’t screw up Granny Weather’s preparations. If, if, if. I hate fairy-tale dreams.
Once I have the first loaf ready to go in the oven, I find myself stalling. What memory do I want to lose? None, of course. The better question would be, which one am I willing to lose?
I know now that it’s got to be a good one. Something of significance—to me at least—or it wouldn’t be a sacrifice. That’s the trouble with this sort of magic, you always have to pay for it and what you pay is never something normal like putting down a few dollars and change in a store.
I stare out the kitchen window. It looks out over the backyard and from my second-floor vantage I can see almost all the way down the block, a narrow quilt of backyards. A big orange cat is crying outside of Mrs. Rowling’s back door, trying to scrounge a meal. Mr. Potter is weeding his garden again—like a weed would dare make an appearance among his flowers and vegetables.
Sighing, I look back at the little piece of paper on the table in front of me. I write down on it:
The first time I sold a painting.
Then I get up and put the loaf in the oven. I think about that day, how amazing it was. I got a hundred dollars and I felt like a millionaire. Not so much because of the money, I suppose, as that it validated this crazy idea of making my living as an artist.
&
nbsp; I start to feel a little nauseous and I sniff at the air, figuring it’s the ball of mouse hair, hidden away inside the dough, but all I can smell is baking bread. The queasiness won’t go away until finally the timer on the stove goes off. I pull the baking pan out and all I’ve got is a black lump of a burnt loaf to show for my efforts.
I check the time in case I somehow lost track, but only an hour has passed—not nearly enough time to reduce the loaf to this. And how come I didn’t even smell it burning?
Not a powerful enough memory, I decide.
After another trip to Kerry’s Cauldron for more mouse hair, I try it again.
Think of something good, I tell myself. Jeck’s life is at stake here.
Jeck.
I hesitate for a long moment, then write down on the paper:
The first time Jeck and I made love.
I hate this.
But then it gets worse. Where the first time I felt a little queasy, this time a stomach cramp knocks me off my chair. One moment I’m reveling in the memory of that day in the barn, the smell of the hay, that first touch, our breath mingling, the amazing intimacy I’m finding in this handsome stranger that Jeck is at the time, and the next I’m lying curled up on the floor in a fetal position ready to die, alternately burning and freezing from hot and cold flashes. In moments I’m drenched in sweat, my pulse drumming so fast I feel like my heart’s going to pop out of my chest.
I feel like I’m going to faint, but that would be too easy, I guess. Instead I spend an eternity wracked with pain. When the cramps finally fade enough so that I can sit up, it’s to find that it’s only been ten minutes or so. I get to my feet on wobbly legs, wait for the spinning to subside, then stagger into the living room where I collapse on the couch. Drifting in and out of a daze, I almost don’t hear the timer when it goes off.
The loaf is perfect and smells like heaven, never mind that there’s a ball of wadded up mouse hair in the middle of it. I set it down on the counter to cool, then look at the paper I’d written my memory prompter on. I guess I was expecting to come up blank when I read the line, but the memory’s still there. It just has no life left in it. All I have in my head is the plain fact of the first time Jeck and I made love, no more detailed than what I’d written down.