The Witch Queen by Jan Siegel

servant, the gypsy maybe a temporary worker. “Tell me about the cat.”
    “It was a goblin cat,” interrupted the queen. “A sallowfang. He was afraid of it.”
    “What’s a goblin cat?”
    “They were the cats of the king of the Underworld,” Mabb explained, with the complacency of a child who has access to privileged information. “They have no fur, and their skin is black or white, sometimes striped or piebald. They are bigger than normal cats, and very cunning.” She concluded, with a narrowing of the eyes: “They used to hunt goblins.”
    “A sphinx cat,” suggested Gaynor. “I’ve never seen one, but I know they’re hairless.”
    “These sound as if they’re magical, or part magical,” said Fern. “Could be a relative.”
    “This one chased him,” said Mabb, indicating Dibbuck. “He was lucky to escape. A sallowfang can smell a spider in a rainstorm.”
    “What about the household ghosts?” said Fern. “Skuldunder said something about an exorcism.”
    “She made the circle,” Dibbuck said, “in the spellchamber. I saw them all streaming in—they couldn’t resist—Sir William—the kitchen imp—little memories like insects, buzzing. I pinned myself to the floor with a splinter, so I couldn’t go. They were trapped in the circle, spinning around and around. Then she . . .” His voice ran down like a clockwork toy into silence.
    “She opened the abyss,” Mabb finished for him. “I thought my servant told you.”
    “You mean—Limbo?” hazarded Gaynor.
    “Limbo is a place of sleep and dreams,” Mabb responded impatiently. “It is a part of
this
world. The abyss is between worlds. It is—emptiness. They say those who are cast into it may be swallowed up forever. When mortals die they pass the Gate.
We
go to Limbo, until this world is remade. But no one may return from the abyss until
all
worlds are changed. I thought even humans would know that.”
    “We have our own lore,” said Fern. “It must take a great deal of power to open a gap between worlds . . .”
    “And for what?” Mabb sounded savage with indignation. “A few ragged phantoms—an imp or two—a handful of degenerates. So much power—for so
little
. She is mad, this witch. Mad and dangerous. She might do
anything
.”
    For all her eccentric appearance and freakish temperament, thought Fern, the goblin queen showed a vein of common sense. “Can you recall her name?” she asked Dibbuck, but he shook his head. “The name of the house, then?”
    “Wrokeby.” His face twisted in sudden pain.
    “Is there anything else I should know?”
    Dibbuck looked confused. “The prisoner,” he said eventually. “In the attic.”
    “What kind of prisoner? Was it a girl?”
    “No . . . Couldn’t see. Something—huge, hideous . . . A monster.”
    Not
Dana Walgrim, Fern concluded. “What else?”
    Dibbuck mumbled inaudibly, gazing into corners, seeking inspiration or merely a germ of hope. “She had a tree,” he said. “In the cellar.”
    “A tree in the
cellar
?” Fern was baffled. “How could a tree grow in the dark?”
    “Seeds grow in the dark,” said Mabb. “Plant magic is very old; maybe the witchkind do not use it now. You take a seed, a fortune seed or a love seed, and as it germinates so your fortune waxes or your lover’s affection increases. They used to be popular: mortals are always obsessed with wealth or love. If the seed does not sprout, then you have no fortune, no love.”
    “Not a seed,” said Dibbuck. “It was a tree, a young tree. It was uprooted, but it was alive. I smelled the forest; I saw the leaves move. She wrapped it in silk, and fed it, and sang to it.”
    “Does this ritual mean anything to you?” Fern asked Mabb, inadvertently forgetting to give her her royal title.
    But Mabb, too, had forgotten her dignity. Possibly the vodka had affected her. “I have never heard of such a thing,” she said. “A woman who wraps a tree in swaddling clothes and lullabies it to sleep