Nieve (11 page)

“You!” chimed in a stranger, also seated by the fire. The speaker, glaring at her, was a boy about Nieve's age with a mass of auburn hair that sprang up from his head in flame-shaped tufts. He also had a badly bruised and swollen jaw.

“Gran!” said Nieve, confused by the boy's presence, but deciding to ignore him. She rushed into her grandmother's arms and received the warmest and most welcome embrace she'd had in weeks. She longed to stay glued to Gran forever, safe as a nub of wool on her comfy old cardigan, but broke away almost instantly. “Artichoke's
hurt.
”

“No wonder, if he was with
you
.” The boy stood and strode over to the dog, who was still standing by the open door, grinning uncertainly and barely able to wag his tail. “A
gyre carline,
eh, auld Shock?”

Artichoke neither agreed nor disagreed, but sank down gratefully at the boy's feet.

The boy crouched beside him and placed a hand gently on his head as he assessed the sores on the dog's body, his emaciated state, his lamed paw, the cuts and slashes freshly inflicted, and the one eye, closed and rimmed with congealing blood. “You've had a rare tangle, my friend.” He looked up sharply at Nieve. “What with?” A fair enough question, and yet he managed to imply that whatever had happened had been her fault.

Nieve returned his accusing look, but gave no answer. She was alarmed herself to see how badly hurt Artichoke was, wounds that had not been visible during their flight through the forest. Incredible, how brilliantly he'd navigated in the complete dark, and she had relied on him totally, clutching his collar the whole way. How she regretted now not making him slow down, not taking better care of him. This stranger on the other hand, this intruder . . . she didn't regret in the least that he was the one she'd clobbered.

Gran meanwhile had already secured a handful of healing ointments and scrolls of bandage from her medicine cupboard. “Nieve, bring the quilt from my bed, will you, dear?” Before kneeling down beside the boy to minister to Artichoke, she closed the front door firmly and looped the blue thread from her wrist around the latch. “And let's keep the night and its wandering spirits out.”

Once Artichoke's wounds had been cleaned and bandaged, they wrapped him in the quilt and moved him carefully onto the hearth rug. A chill had taken hold of him that wouldn't let go and he'd begun to shiver uncontrollably. While the boy piled more logs onto the lacklustre fire, Gran spoon-fed Artichoke one of her potions that smelled of cinnamon and bilberries and wild roses. “Good for heart and soul,” she said. Which it did seem to be, for after she got some of it into him, he stopped shivering and fell into a sound sleep. Nieve stroked one of his ears, wishing him a sleep so sound that no dream terrors would be able to find him. The night had been full of terrors enough, and real enough, too. Without him, she would never have made it to Gran's, let alone Twisden's back garden.

When Gran went off to fix tea in the kitchen, declining both offers of help, Nieve and the boy took seats by the fireplace, as far away from one another as possible. Alternately they stared at Artichoke, who was lying on the rug between them, and at the pile of still-smouldering logs.

After a long moment, Nieve addressed a weak flame that had spurted up. “I didn't
know
,” she said. “I thought you meant to hurt me.”

“Should have.” This comment was also directed at the flame, which began to flutter erratically.

“You've been spying on me,” Nieve said, recalling those footprints under her window. She glanced slyly at his bare feet, which were dirty and disfigured, the little toes on each foot missing.

“Trying to protect you.”

“I don't
need
protection.”

“You can say that again.” One of the logs belched a plume of smoke, which began to drift toward them instead of disappearing up the flue.

As he reached out to wave it away, Nieve glanced at him again. He was decent-looking, she had to admit, but odd, and it wasn't only his feet. His clothes were odd, too, more like something you'd wear to a costume party if you were going as a peasant from the Middle Ages. A peasant who'd been in a fight. His woolen pants and tunic were muddied and ripped, and one sleeve had been torn entirely off his filthy linen shirt, exposing a trail of claw marks on his arm, as if he'd been swiped by a bear.

Yikes
, she thought. She hadn't been the only one to do him harm. “Did that thing . . . what
was
it anyway?”

“The Nelly? She got me, but not for long.”

Nelly Long-Arms! She
knew
it (school projects weren't entirely useless), but shuddered to hear her suspicions confirmed. “Look, I'm sorry,” she blurted. Nieve had a personal rule about not needlessly apologizing, but still, she'd acted too impulsively.
As anyone would
, she added to herself.

Directing his attention away from the foundering fire, he studied her for some time before saying, “You can run.”

“I'm not a coward.”

“Didn't say that, did I?” He smiled faintly, then winced. His jaw was a mess. “Where's your torch?”

“My what?”

“Flashlight,” said Gran, setting a tray of tea and goodies on the table beside her chair. “Lias, if you won't use an ice pack for that jaw, why don't you let me fix a poultice? Goodness, I haven't even introduced you properly to my granddaughter.”

“Oh, we've been properly introduced,” Lias said, smiling again.

“Nieve, don't tell me that you . . . ?” Gran gave her a shocked look.

“No, Grandmother,” he said, “she wasn't the one who tried to rip my arm off. Though she did try to improve my looks.”

“I didn't–” Nieve began. Who
was
this person? And whoever he was, he had no business calling
her
Gran “grandmother.”

Lias raised a hand, stopping her protest short. Having arrived at the cottage not long before she had, only long enough to receive sympathy and some salve on his arm, he now filled Gran in on how he'd come by his injuries.

Gran shook her head. “Nieve, you were lucky to escape.”

“How
did
you?” Nieve asked him.

“Like this.” He snapped his fingers and a small bright coin appeared in his palm. He then flipped this into the fireplace where it landed on one of the sputtering and smoking logs, which instantly burst into flame. Soon the rest of the logs caught fire with a roar and an engulfing wave of light. “I warmed her up, cold-blooded creature.”

“Tsk,” said Gran.

Seeing as Gran was not much impressed with this performance, Nieve was trying hard not to be, too, but without much success. “How did you do that?”

“You mean you can't?” His eyes widened with mock-surprise.

“Come, you two. Get your mouths busy with these before they go stale.” Gran handed around the plate of jam tarts and fat raisin-studded scones and buttery oatmeal cookies pressed together with a date filling. They both tucked in gratefully and hungrily, while Gran poured the tea.

“We have to work fast,” she said. “And I don't mean with the food, either. I was expecting you to come hours ago, pet.” She handed a cup to Nieve. “So tell us what happened tonight and all that's been going on since I've been away. Lias knows some of it, because I asked him to keep an eye on you, but he has to be careful that no one sees him. Before you do, you'd better get those shoes and socks off, your feet are soaked.”

“Mm,” Nieve bit into a scone. “Walked through a puddle.” After she'd polished off the scone and had a sip of tea, she took off her shoes and socks and set them near the fire to dry. Then she began to tell them about the Weed Inspector, and Genevieve Crawley's jawbreakers, and Wormius and Ashe, and her parents' dysfunction and forgetfulness, and the pinky rings, and all the changes in town, and Malcolm's disappearance, and Alicia Overbury's black tongue, and Mayor Mary's abduction, and the truant officer, and the dead bodies piled at Twisden's wake, and Artichoke's fight with Gowl, and the bee box, and how they escaped through the woods . . . and
everything
. By the time she'd finished she was hoarse and had to gulp down her entire cold cup of tea to find her voice again. Everything that had happened in a few short days was truly frightening, and much of it unbelievable, but she was so relieved at finally being able to unburden the weight and worry of it that she unexpectedly felt a surge of happiness.

Not that she was jumping for joy. No one was. Lias gazed at her in a steady, thoughtful way, eyes as cool as Mr. Mustard Seed's, and nodded, as if nothing she'd revealed had surprised him. Gran was regarding her with a mixture of pride, concern, and resolve.

“Nieve,” she said quietly, “do you remember what I once told you your name means?”

“Yes. You said it means ‘fist.'” Nieve now made a firm fist with her right hand and held it up.

Gran smiled, “That's right, pet. Don't forget it.”

“You
are
a gyre carline,” added Lias.

“I'm not a . . . what did you call me?”

“A carline.”

“And what's that supposed to be?”

“A hag.”

“I am not a
hag
.” Her fist was still clenched.

“Och, Nievy.” Gran said, pouring more tea. “But you are.”

–Thirteen–
Two Pairs of Shoes

A
dmittedly, Nieve was taken aback, but then she had to laugh. Gran and Lias were watching her with such solemn expressions, as if they weren't joking.

“Gran,” she said, snatching up a strawberry tart. “That's not very nice! I thought you didn't go in for name-calling.”

“I don't, hen. Hag has more meanings than you realize. “
Megrim
” might be a better word.”

“Meaning?”

“Let's just say that I think you have a drop of something unusual in your blood, something . . . out of the ordinary.”

Nieve sighed. Here we go, she thought. “Gran, really. Things are weird enough without this, aren't they?”

“And will get weirder,” said Lias.

“Why do you think you've gone unharmed so far, dear?”

“Because of Artichoke, and because I can run, like Lias said.” This was the first time she'd referred to him by name, and in doing so she noticed that he was watching her very closely.

“Aye, pet, you
can
run, and it's a good thing. But you have other . . . abilities, as they well know. Whatever followed you the night you came to see me, the night I was away, I doubt it was Artichoke.”

“Okay, what abilities?”

“That remains to be seen. Outside of your fierce-eye, that is.”

“Right.” The last thing Nieve wanted to do was hurt Gran's feelings, but she was starting to get annoyed.

“Grandmother, does she not know that you're a Cunning Woman?”

Enough of this! “She's not cunning and she's
not
your grandmother.”

“Nieve, anyone may call me ‘grandmother,' it's a custom in the Old Country.” She sipped her tea. “Cunning Folk are simply healers. Like Dr. Morys, only dabbling in different cures and wares.”

“They do more than that,” said Lias.

“True, but I'm not much of one. Your great-grandmother Nievy, was a great one though, and your mother
could
be if she weren't so busy getting herself into trouble, serious trouble by the sounds of it.” Gran set her teacup in its saucer with deliberate care. She and Sophie had never gotten along particularly well. “Nieve, you have to help her. Your father, too, and Mayor Mary–” she stopped and reached over to take Nieve's hand. “I know it's too much, too much to take in altogether, but we need to decide what to do.”

Nieve responded by nodding dumbly. Of course she'd help, she'd do everything she could, but she still didn't understand what Gran was getting at.

“Are you telling me that I've inherited some kind of, I don't know . . . witch gene?”

Gran smiled, and squeezed her hand before letting go. “This isn't a fairy story, hen. It's real.”

“But no less dark,” added Lias.

Nieve certainly felt as though she were fumbling around in the dark. “Dunstan Warlock, it has something to do with him, right?”

“Fat nuisance.” Gran snorted. “Which doesn't make him any less dangerous. Meddling where he shouldn't be. ”

“That woman who tried to catch me?” If anyone was a witch, it was her.

“A nightborn thing,” said Lias, scowling.

“It's true,” said Gran. “These creatures, they arrive with the darkness of night and soon there's nothing but darkness
and
night.”

“Cold, too.” Lias shifted closer to the fire.

“Aye, no sun, no life.”

“But where do they come
from
?” said Nieve.

“Some might say the Old Country. That Gowl you saw tonight sounds very like a Bloody Bones to me. Very like, but they can take different forms and are just as much a part of this world. The order of nature is upset and they creep in through the cracks.”