“You don’t say.” I shook my head. “No man born who likes it when there’s something they don’t get to touch, is there? But those of Adam just ain’t fit for what we do.”
“I know it. He didn’t.”
“You got the Mark on you yet, Doll?”
“No ma’am, and I don’t look to have one, either. I don’t need that sort of trouble.”
“Sound right knowledgeable, though, for someone ain’t interested.”
“I got some grammarye from an aunt of mine had Hoppard blood. ‘Nough to know not to mess with it, anyhow.”
“For fear of the Fire?”
“Naw, not as such. Just seems to take a toll, is all.”
“It does that,” I agreed. “Still, this here’s a hard world for them got given a gift, and don’t use it.”
“True, but this here’s a hard world regardless, ain’t it?” She gave me a sly look, from under pale lashes. “Does seem like we’re bound in the same direction, though.”
“Does, at that. Care to travel in company awhile, Miss Doll?”
“If you do, sure.”
“Well, then.”
We walked a while in silence; I thought hard on what to do next, and she let me.
“To move a whole tract of land like that...” I said, trying the idea of it out aloud. “Take a full coven, to start with, and one of the Fallen to help. But that leaves traces, and I don’t see none.” I frowned, reminding myself how no
t everyone was quick as my Momma’d been to lie down wide-legged for anything had horns; some young witches, in particular, found the thought of it demeaning. “So—witchery without goety, and plenty of it; these gals were pilin’ what they had together and usin’ it like a toolbox. But thirteen alone wouldn’t be enough. A coven of covens, then, like twenty-six strong, or thirty-nine...damn. That’s a lot of airborne pussy.”
Doll nodded. “That’s what Harlan said that bitch Orpah Cleves was schemin’ on, last time we spoke. Said she wanted to unionize.”
“Oh yeah?” I snorted. “And what then—collect dues? Do up a newsletter?”
“If he was privy to her full plans, he ain’t passed that part on to me. Just how he was goin’ t’court day after tomorrow, send her t’jail if he could; that’d cut the head off the snake. other ones’d go back to skin-changin’ and callin’ up storms after, or sendin’ scarce animals after folk interfere with their crops. Weed, mostly—that was what he was plannin’ on gettin’ her put away with.”
“Folk ‘round here don’t like it much when you truck with the Law, as I recall.”
“That’s still true. But sometimes...sometimes you gotta take help where you can.”
I laughed. “And he thought to get away with it, given the numbers? Gal. I’d guess you already full-well know just how bad one witch can be, let alone a whole army of ‘em.”
Her shoulders rose, making her hood bulge like a ruff, mouth all one white line. “Told you already how he only thought he was cunning.”
I almost shrugged myself, but thought better. From what-all she’d described, this Harlan Tearsheet sounded like someone worthy of respect, to me: Irrefutably wrong-headed, yet ambitious, too—for magic took effort, no matter what those barren of it might think. Took sacrifice, most often literal.
But then again, even if she no longer had it in her to respect that shiftless brother of hers, Miss Doll surely loved him still. or she wouldn’t even be here.
The woods got darker, true night. A moon rose up, then guttered, and a mighty rushing sound was heard from all corners, as something flapped ‘cross it—a mess of somethings. Above, the stars went out, scratched at by a horde of besom-tails dropping downwards, out of the sky. And high overhead this foul and foggy rising wind I heard all manner of feminine voices screeching to each other, like owls after bats.
“That you and yours, Orpah Cleves?” I called up, shading my eyes.
“You know it is, Alleycat.”
I almost thought I could see her hovering there, cocooned in ointment-reek and darkness, hair flapping like a flag. She’d always been the prettier of us, full-fleshed and long-legged with a high nose and flat cheekbones, those bold eyes set at a near-Indian slant. First gal I ever played ‘round with; I remembered us lying in the moss next to a trickle of cold spring-water, finding faces in the tree-bark, the wind-shook green leaves, each passing cloud. Remembered her following me down the mountain, too, begging me not to let her Momma drive me off—yelling how she’d been wrong-done as well by that not-Daddy of hers, and needed my help to flush the leavings out. ‘Cause I can’t have his baby, I just can’t, and who-all else can I cry to? God damn you, Allfair Chatwin, there’s nobody I know can do the things you do!
To which I called back: ‘Cept my Momma, you catch her sober, or any ten other witches. Or you yourself, you want it so damn bad, so long’s you’re willin’ to pay for it...