The Hex Witch of Seldom by Nancy Springer Page B

casting a sheen in the polished metal. The whisperer held the wand upright between his two hands, scrying in the steel, and there he saw a black stallion with a white brand on his neck and a tired girl on his back. And he saw an old woman in a mouse-colored hickory rocker, waiting.
    He smiled and lowered the dark cudgel so that his shadow fell across it and the sheen in its metal sheathing dimmed. “I knew he would come to her when he needed help,” he whispered. “I knew it before she knew it herself. Simple-minded old woman. Stupid with her own goodness.” Whispering, he sibilated the words, sending forth stealthy, snakelike sounds into the night.
    â€œSoon,” he whispered to the wand. “Very soon, now. Goodnight, my beauty.” Then with casual ease he passed one hard hand down the length of the wand while he held it in the other. Without even looking he laid it down, turned out the light and went away, out the large barn door, up the unlit yard to the house.
    In the dark a cypress-handled hammer lay where he had left it, on the anvil.

Chapter Eight
    Bobbi looked around uneasily for the walking stick and saw it in the next room, standing near the front door in a green ceramic urn shaped like an elephant’s foot, along with several umbrellas. She turned her eyes away quickly and did not look at the staff again.
    â€œSet down, Bobbi,” the old woman repeated. “Ain’t you hungry?” She placed a large bowl of homemade chicken corn soup on the table, then brought saltines.
    Bobbi stood where she was, staring because she saw the form moving behind the form. More plainly than ever before, she saw it, and her head fuzzed in confusion; a stumpy old woman in a housedress stood before her, but another woman stood there as well: hunchbacked, in a robe of white calfskin edged with the fine fleece of lambs, in a pointed hat and lappets of white fox fur. A veil covered her face. Her flowing silver hair rippled down her back to below her waist, a thick waist rounded by a belt of silver links; on each link was etched a mystic sign. From the belt hung a gleaming silver knife with no scabbard. On her spraddling feet were tall, white boots, fox-furred and leather-laced. In her white-gloved hand she held the sensate staff.
    Though it neither moved nor spoke, Bobbi shook her head hard at the sight of the staff, sending her own hair flying across her eyes. When she blinked and looked again, only an old Pennsylvania Dutch woman stood on the braided rug, holding a box of crackers. But what she had seen—it was like nothing she had ever seen before, or imagined. She could not possibly have dreamed it out of her own mind.
    â€œI know you’re hungry,” the old woman insisted, taking Bobbi’s gesture for refusal.
    Bobbi still didn’t move, but for some reason she blurted out, “Shane has a cracked hoof.”
    â€œI know it.” The old woman’s eyes, Bobbi noted now that she could see her clearly, were of an odd amber-brown color, almost yellow.
    â€œEpsom salts,” said Bobbi breathlessly. “You have any Epsom salts? He should soak it in a bucket of warm water with Epsom salts in it.”
    â€œI’ll take care of it. Stop your fussing.” Rotating her whole thick body, the old woman turned toward the horse. “Go straight on through to the parlor, Shane. The drapes are drawn in there. One of them nosy neighbors of mine might see you in here wunst I turn a light on.”
    Shane walked through into the next room.
    â€œThis here’s Seldom,” added his hostess with rueful amusement, “and folks watches out for each other all day long. Seldom anything better to do.”
    Bobbi trailed after Shane. She felt spooked and did not want to be separated from the horse, but what she saw in the parlor spooked her more. Loose hay lay strewn on the camelback sofa. Bales of it stood stacked behind the glass-topped end tables, sweet-smelling and