The Hollow Girl Page 4

  “Look,” she commanded, and I did, trying to make heads or tails of it. She pushed a wooden fetish carved like a cat my way. It was no bigger than my pointer finger and painted black, some of the paint missing at the tips of the ears and tail, exposing the gold wood underneath. “Do you know why I allow no cats near me?”

  “Because they are unclean?” Anything from the waist down on people was unclean, and the same applied to the beasts. Creatures that groomed their lower halves with their mouths were particularly vulgar. We never allowed them inside our homes, nor did they make suitable food. If a dog or cat licked a plate or dish, it was contaminated and had to be thrown away.

  Gran grunted and shook her head. “Partially, yes, but also because a cat will perch upon your chest and steal your breath. I cannot abide the thought of it. A breath is a powerful thing—the first and last the most powerful—and yet a filthy cat would claim them? No. I am old now. I will not risk my most powerful breath going to an animal that will not know what to do with it.”

  I nodded, licking my lips and reaching for the figurine. She allowed me to take it, and I held it upright in the palm of my hand. It peered at me with its painted yellow eyes.

  “A baby’s scream, a death rattle. One gives you power over life, the other over death. A cat can be sent to collect those things for you, but if you take them yourself, they are much more potent. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “ ‘Yes’ what?”

  “Yes, Gran, I understand.”

  She pushed the second item at me, the leathery scroll tied off at the middle. This one worried me; I didn’t read well. I’d attended school at points over the years, but the teachers were impatient with my language gap and believed me to be stupid, despite my knowledge of Kååle, Welsh, and English. It was the same for most of my people. The prejudice was too much to overcome, so we received a homegrown education of oral histories. The chieftain, in particular, was a great storyteller, and he’d often say there was no better way to learn than to hear the accounts of our ancestors who had eyes to bear witness to events as they unfolded.

  Gran agreed to a point, but she said there were gaps in our education, too. She’d learned to read and write as a girl, and she’d tried to teach me the alphabet a few years ago, but I’d grown fidgety and bored, so she’d said she’d wait until I could better appreciate the gift she was offering.

  I wondered if the scroll indicated it was that time.

  “Unroll it,” she said.

  I put the cat figurine aside and reached for the scroll, tugged off the string. When the scroll unfurled, it was not what I’d expected. The puckered leather was a pair of bat wings sewn together with yellowing twine. There were no letters or symbols; this was another sort of education—one that began with the pale, emaciated remnants of an animal that had died long ago. Horrified by the tacky texture, I almost dropped the wings on the table, but I saw Gran’s mouth twitch and thought better of it.

  She didn’t appreciate my disdain for the unsavory part of her craft, but then, as the chieftain once said, a fox doesn’t smell its own hole. She wouldn’t find the tools of her trade unsavory.

  “A bat that circles a house three times invites Death. To curse another, you write his or her true name upon a paper and wrap it in the wings. I need not say this is only done to the foulest of people.” She pushed a jar toward me and tapped the top. “Dead spiders. To plague another with foul luck, you put one beneath their pillow and have them sleep upon it.” She thrust another jar across the table. “This is snake skin. It is very lucky, as are most snakes. We value them.”

  I rerolled the wings and nodded as she motioned at other jars, explaining what the contents of each did. To make a man love you, you put a sprig of rowan in his sock. Donkey hairs worn in a satchel around the neck brought good luck. To drown someone, you poured water over their discarded fingernail clippings. To plague someone with hallucinations, you threaded a sprig of dwayberry with the victim’s hair. To see through another’s eyes, you bled upon a hawk’s feather and carried it with you.

  “There are other things, blessings as well as curses,” Gran said, motioning at the drawers behind her. “Dolls you can make to inflict pain, ways to ward against the elements or control them. I hope you are ready to walk this road, Bethan. Once you begin the journey, it is difficult to go back.”

  She collected her totems and tottered back to the cabinet. I was overwhelmed and confused. I’d come home expecting her to censure me for being rash and using my limited knowledge of her practices against Silas, but here she was giving me a lesson in real, actual magic—something I’d yearned for as long as I could remember.

  “I’m glad for this, Gran. Truly. Thank you. But why now? Six hours ago you said I wasn’t ready.”

  “Because I have ill prepared you for some things, and in doing so have done you a disservice. No child of mine will…” She drew a deep breath and stared into the open drawer before her. “I have the tools to help you with people like Silas. He will not shame you if I can help it.”

  She looked at me with her brown eye, but her expression was guarded. In a person less severe than my grandmother, I’d have gone so far as to call it fear.

  Gran pulled dried herb bundles from the ceiling to assemble the next day’s poultices. I kept hoping she’d elaborate on why she’d changed her stance on my training, but she was lost to her own thoughts, not reacting at all when I jingled my profits so she could hear how much money I’d made at market.

  Deflated, I dumped the coins into her jar. The prank curse was aggravating, and Silas’s boldness was a problem, but neither thing warranted the grim look on her face. “What’s bothering you, Gran?”

  “Stop pestering me, child. I said I will teach you magic. That should be enough for now,” she snapped.

  I washed my hands and began sorting our gatherings into neat piles. Lavender. Willow bark. Our diminishing supply of fennel. Gran sat to my right, empty pouches splayed before her, working in silence. I watched her thin, knobby fingers stuffing garbage herbs into charm bags and tying them off. It was foolish to push her, but the tight knit of her brows had me worried.

  Nothing flustered her. Ever.

  I took a deep breath. “I heard you say Silas wasn’t in my stars,” I said. “Does that mean you know who is?”

  She jerked her face to the side to peer at me, her lips pursed in a grimace. “You are a tedious, annoying girl who asks too many questions.”

  “I know.”

  She snorted and went back to the herbs. I figured that was the end of it—her jaw was set, her nostrils flared like an angry bull—but then she dropped her peppermint leaves abruptly and spread her fingers on the tabletop, blinking at me through a veil of stringy hair.

  “A blood moon hangs low in the sky. I see Silas Roberts in the shadow of a giant. A serpent slithers into moist earth. A crow falls and the wind screams fury. There is fear. There are tears. Something is lost that can never be found. You are there, but I do not know how or why. You are not alone, but I am not with you.”

  She closed her eyes, her long lashes resting against her weathered cheeks. “Do you see now why I held my peace? It is a terrible, useless vision until I know more.”

  Despite the warmth in the vardo, the hairs on my arms and on the back of my neck stood on end. My heart beat like a drum in my ears.

  Fury. Fear. Tears.

  I said nothing because I didn’t want to know any more. Gran offered nothing because she had nothing else to give. I reached for the herb bags, my palms sweaty as I pulled open the tops and meted out the fennel.

  Blood moons were witch moons—a time of dark, potent energy that made the spirits restless. Crows were death eaters. Something was lost. She’d foreseen bleak portents that somehow revolved around me.

  Fury. Fear. Tears…

  Stop thinking about it.

  The work was an excellent distraction. Too much of any one component could be as bad as not taking medicine at all, so
precision was key. Fennel was best served as a tea—the hot water diluting it enough to make it palatable. I fell into a wordless rhythm of measuring and assembling, tying the bags off with yarn and laying them out in the basket for the next day’s market. Together, Gran and I completed a full eighty satchels—almost twice what we’d sold that day—but with Martyn’s help, I was confident I’d be able to sell them all before supper tomorrow.

  Gran’s vision did nibble at my thoughts, though. Every time I thought I’d shoved it away, it came back again, more insistent than before.

  What did it all mean? How much of it did Gran understand?

  The peepers screeched dusk’s arrival. Gran motioned at the hooks in the ceiling to let me know we were done. I sped through cleanup, hanging the sprigs that needed to be dried and storing the rest in wooden boxes stacked neatly in the corner. I wiped the table and swept the floor until our little home was once again spotless.

  Dinner would be served at the main fire, probably some roasted game or a vat of spicy stew and fresh bread. I worked at my cuticles with a hard-bristled brush so I could handle food without fear of contamination.

  “I’ll see if anyone sells lemons at market tomorrow. The farmer beside me would know, I think. His family lives next to Cotter’s Field.” I reached for the lavender oil in hopes of masking the funk. A delicate sniff proved it helped cover the stinkgrass, but there were still unpleasant traces.

  “Ahh, yes. The yellow-haired gadjo with the dirty fingers.”

  “No! He’s diddicoy. His grandmother is a Wood. And the soil is charcoal. He draws,” I said, then regretted it. It was not my job to defend Martyn, and Gran might think I’d formed an indecent attachment. I unrolled the sleeves of my blouse, which had dried over the course of our work, and reached for a shawl to cover my shoulders. “He helped me sell when I had a bad position in the square today.”

  Gran cast me a gleaming white grin before waddling to the corner to wash her hands. There were three basins on opposite sides of the vardo—one reserved for dishes, one for utensils specifically, and the last for our hands. More basins were stacked beneath the table as well—some reserved for personal hygiene, some for separating and washing our laundry. Gran dunked her hands in the hand-washing bowl, as I had a minute ago. She looked smug as she toweled off, and it took me a moment to figure out why: at no point since I’d come home had I mentioned Martyn, yet she’d plucked a yellow-haired man from my memory, her sight granting her access to my innermost secrets.

  “Gran! Stop that.”

  “Do not try to keep things from me and I will not feel the need. Now hand me my cane. I am going to the fire with you tonight.”

  “You are?” Gran almost never went to the fire, unless her presence was requested by the chieftain for official clan business. She said she liked to dine in the vardo because “I prefer my own company to idle chatter.” I suspected it had more to do with the challenges of the uneven terrain, but she was proud, and it would have bothered her to admit she struggled.

  “Perhaps seeing Silas will clarify my vision. Get my cane from the bucket, Bethan.”

  I gave her the twisted piece of oak handle first. It was about three feet tall and sanded smooth, a ball-shaped gnarl serving as her grip. Her fingers curled over the top and she made her way to the door. I offered her my arm and helped her down the steps, then ducked back in to collect our dishes and cutlery. The china was possibly the finest thing we owned, and I maintained it meticulously, as was our custom.

  We teetered toward camp, careful to avoid the tallest grasses. The fireside bustling had already started—I could hear music and chatter, children shrieking and laughing. The air smelled of rich, spicy things, of savory meats and breads. I guided Gran to the western side of the fire, where the elders gathered for their meals, but she shook her head and pointed to the other side.

  “No. Over there. I do not wish to sit with Wen’s brood. Mikel is gassy like a too-stuffed pig and Niku never stops talking.”

  I snickered and helped her to an unoccupied bench. Wooden tables circled the fire so people could comfortably socialize. Only the northern section was left open as a designated spot for things like dancing, ceremonies, and clan meetings. Gran settled onto her bench, her cane resting across her lap. People looked at her curiously, most bowing their heads in respect to the drabarni, but she ignored them. “I love them, but they are tedious. Now go get us something to eat before we starve.” She waved at the food tables with a sweep of her hand.

  I darted off, my stomach rumbling its agreement. It was a big spread with grilled meat, stews, and breads, and I stepped around the menfolk, never crossing in front of one for fear of insult. I’d just loaded Gran’s bowl and was reaching for a roll when a hard, angry poke jabbed me in my side. I spun around to find myself face to chest with Tomašis Buckland. Tomašis was a tall, skeletal oaf who’d been in Silas’s shadow since childhood. He had sandy hair, muddy eyes, and a nose that was both too wide and too long.

  His upper lip curled to reveal a line of crooked teeth tinged gray at the gums. “You’ll regret this morning, Half-Face,” he snarled, striking me again with his elbow as he reached past me. “We don’t forget.”

  I held my chin high. “My grandmother talked to the chieftain. It’s over.”

  “Maybe for you, but Silas’s face has burned since this morning. He says he’s in so much pain he can’t see.”

  “Then he lies. I didn’t curse him with burning spit.”

  A couple of people came to get food alongside us, and Tomašis dropped his voice, edging in close to whisper near my ear. I swatted him away like an annoying bug, but he was unperturbed. “We’re watching you, witchling. We know your type.”

  “My type? And what type is that?”

  “You know.”

  I didn’t, but I didn’t care enough to ask for explanations, either. His threats were beneath me. I circled to the other side of the table, but he stayed in pursuit, bullying his way into my personal space at every opportunity. When I reached for a piece of meat, he’d snag it and put it on his plate first. When I leaned to get bread, he stomped on my foot with his boot, my toes crunching beneath his weight.

  I cringed and motioned across the fire, to where Gran sat. “Stop or I’ll—” I didn’t finish the sentence. Unfortunately, sometime during my exchange with Tomašis, Gran had moved. I glanced at the elders to see if she’d changed her mind about sitting with Mikel and Niku, but she wasn’t there either.

  A half-crippled woman shouldn’t be able to disappear without a trace quite that fast. And yet…

  Tomašis grinned and pressed his leg against my skirt, breaking all rules of propriety and humiliating me in public, since Silas wasn’t around to do it himself. I wondered if that’s where Gran had gone—to find Silas in the growing swarm of people so she could spark her sight. It was a shame that her absence left me vulnerable. Tomašis whacked the bowl in my left hand with his elbow, sending it sprawling. Gravy spilled over the rim to splatter my shawl, gloppy smears dripping down to splash onto the table below.

  “Tomašis! Enough!”

  A weaselly grin oozed across his mouth. “I’m so clumsy today, Bethan.”

  “Stop. Please.” I removed the shawl and reached for a towel to attend to my stains. He took the opportunity to pinch my hip, his hand lingering far too long for comfort. My anger was fast and fierce—hateful words nearly split my tongue in half, but before a single one escaped my lips, Gran’s voice cut across the gathering.

  “What manner of mischief are you up to, Tomašis Buckland?” She pointed a spindly, crooked finger in his direction, and everyone around us froze in the face of her clear fury.

  “Nothing, drabarni,” he said, his voice cracking as if he’d hit manhood for a second time.

  “Fondling an unwilling woman is nothing, then?”

  Gran started to walk toward him.

  “No! I’m sorry. So sorry.”

  “You are not sorry for acting out toward my Bethan. You are s
orry you were caught,” Gran snarled. Tomašis looked like he’d erupt into tears at any second, and as she neared him, he scampered backward, fumbling over one of the dinner tables and falling into the grass.

  She advanced with slow, deliberate steps until her talon-like fingernail connected with his forehead. She knelt over him, pressing down, and Tomašis squealed like an ungreased door hinge, his hands tearing at the grass on either side of his body.

  It wasn’t until Tomašis’s mother separated herself from the wives and hurried to his side that Gran paused, her fingernail flicking against Tomašis’s pale skin.

  “Florica.” Gran sounded pleasant, like she greeted an old friend.

  Florica’s hands twisted in her skirt in obvious agitation, her gaze swinging from drabarni to son and back. “What has he done now?”

  “Your boy is too free with his person. He must learn a lesson.” Her wrinkly hand grabbed half a dozen brown strands at Tomašis’s temple and plucked them out by the root, ignoring his pained yelp. She held the plucked hairs in front of her ghost eye, twisting them between her thumb and forefinger. “Do you know what a witch can do with a young man’s hair, Tomašis Buckland? Do you know what kind of magic she can conjure?” Gran formed a fist around the hairs and blew into it before casting them into the fire by her side. It surged with the offering, rising high for a flash before resuming its steady, cheerful crackle.

  “What is his punishment? What magic is this?” Florica asked.

  “He will dream the dark dreams for a week. The next time he chooses to be so ill-mannered, he will not know such mercy from me.” Gran spat on the ground, her finger swirling in a strange motion before Tomašis’s face. It was a curse, a real one, done with all of the dark aplomb, to bring him nightmares. I could sense its presence, the thick energy in the air reminding me of the heavy moments just before a thunderstorm.