Druir’s connivance, for that shee and the Roke had made theyr ane pact tae scape the Fire togeyther, giving us over in recompense tae yuir guid companye. Which rang far more sensibly than Euwphaim’s version—yet what Dolores found herself watching play out on her mind’s fever-bright screen (popping and hissing like bad Super-8 film, stuttering counterpoint to the words spilled from her pen’s deep-dug nib) fell uncomfortably equidistant between the two: a transcribed vision which outran the text, informing and deforming it. First the word itself, page-plucked, followed gut-kick quick by meaning, image, sound,
feeling
.
As though I was there. As though, as though I—
—
am
there.
(
Right now.
)
Unable to stop, or help. Unable to look away, to shut her eyes. To do anything but sit there rigid, lids screwed open and a whimper throat-stuck, as the past unspooled its filthy phantom message on the air.
On the cold hill’s side we wake surrounded, Jonet bent over with pain, eye-socket dribbling. Alizoun jumps up into the air, dragging her along, as the witchfinders throw their nets. They tangle, hover and jerk sharply, caught—try to fight free, but fail. The finders haul harder, dragging them in.
I am on my feet already, red down my side. My cut breast flaps. Some fool to my right in uniform draws a pistol from his belt, but I put my hand on him, grasp his parts.
He gives a mighty cry as they wither in my hand. I laugh, spit in his face.
Snarling, Alizoun lifts her skirts and pisses vitriol, drenching those below: they fall, roll, flee. More soldiers lift weapons, let fly with salt shot, banishing her spell’s might. She and Jonet fall together in a heap, Jonet below. I hear her scream as one leg folds underneath, breaking at the hip.
I stand my ground, screeching. Cry out that my angel will come for me as I toss my head, hair catching flame and fire a-drip from my mouth like vomit, to make them turn and cringe—
But then there is another one, slashing his blade behind my knee so I tumble. Putting his boot to my chest, wound flaring bright, as he reaches down to blood my forehead, carve this cross between my eyes. And I go out all at once, a water-plunged torch.
:Not yet, my Euwphaim,:
my Black Man tells me.
:I am needed elsewhen, as other miseries call me—I am not like you, caught inside time’s folds, a straight line from birth to death. So put down your seed while you can, and I will use it to anchor us both. This will be the cord I draw us back together with.:
The soldier grins down at me, hoping to see me weep. I laugh instead, and open myself to him—pull him down on top of me, biting at his tongue, letting him slap my face ’til my jaw turns blue, hard enough that at last his prick rises. And then
—Dolores shook awake, pen skittering, fingers pain-cramped, every part of her aching. The box, jolted by her movement, tipped up and back, cracking along its spine; she lunged to catch it, exclaiming in horror. Saw a thin slot slide open in its base, some secret drawer sprung at long last, full of dust, and darkness.
Something else as well, though. Smallish and black, dried hard, odd-smelling even at this distance, like spiced jerky . . .
What
is
that?
she thought. And put out one hand, all unthinking, to touch it.
| six: the witch-house
(iii)—as above
Upstairs, in the room they shared as children, Ygerna Sidderstane sits waiting for her twin, dozing slightly—her eyes flicker back and forth under semi-transparent lids, skin tinted hazel by the cilia beneath. Though the lights are off and the curtains drawn, she can still be glimpsed distinctly, outlined by the glow of her own bones seeping up muffled through slimy meat, the low-grade, clustering light of her muscles and tendons.
Malt-brown when she was born, the underwater tangles of her hair now drift weed-like, green as her gaze. She is a work in progress, or perhaps a study in decay: first nix bred in almost seventy years of
feeling
.
As though I was there. As though, as though I—
—
am
there.
(
Right now.
)
Unable to stop, or help. Unable to look away, to shut her eyes. To do anything but sit there rigid, lids screwed open and a whimper throat-stuck, as the past unspooled its filthy phantom message on the air.
On the cold hill’s side we wake surrounded, Jonet bent over with pain, eye-socket dribbling. Alizoun jumps up into the air, dragging her along, as the witchfinders throw their nets. They tangle, hover and jerk sharply, caught—try to fight free, but fail. The finders haul harder, dragging them in.
I am on my feet already, red down my side. My cut breast flaps. Some fool to my right in uniform draws a pistol from his belt, but I put my hand on him, grasp his parts.
He gives a mighty cry as they wither in my hand. I laugh, spit in his face.
Snarling, Alizoun lifts her skirts and pisses vitriol, drenching those below: they fall, roll, flee. More soldiers lift weapons, let fly with salt shot, banishing her spell’s might. She and Jonet fall together in a heap, Jonet below. I hear her scream as one leg folds underneath, breaking at the hip.
I stand my ground, screeching. Cry out that my angel will come for me as I toss my head, hair catching flame and fire a-drip from my mouth like vomit, to make them turn and cringe—
But then there is another one, slashing his blade behind my knee so I tumble. Putting his boot to my chest, wound flaring bright, as he reaches down to blood my forehead, carve this cross between my eyes. And I go out all at once, a water-plunged torch.
:Not yet, my Euwphaim,:
my Black Man tells me.
:I am needed elsewhen, as other miseries call me—I am not like you, caught inside time’s folds, a straight line from birth to death. So put down your seed while you can, and I will use it to anchor us both. This will be the cord I draw us back together with.:
The soldier grins down at me, hoping to see me weep. I laugh instead, and open myself to him—pull him down on top of me, biting at his tongue, letting him slap my face ’til my jaw turns blue, hard enough that at last his prick rises. And then
—Dolores shook awake, pen skittering, fingers pain-cramped, every part of her aching. The box, jolted by her movement, tipped up and back, cracking along its spine; she lunged to catch it, exclaiming in horror. Saw a thin slot slide open in its base, some secret drawer sprung at long last, full of dust, and darkness.
Something else as well, though. Smallish and black, dried hard, odd-smelling even at this distance, like spiced jerky . . .
What
is
that?
she thought. And put out one hand, all unthinking, to touch it.
| six: the witch-house
(iii)—as above
Upstairs, in the room they shared as children, Ygerna Sidderstane sits waiting for her twin, dozing slightly—her eyes flicker back and forth under semi-transparent lids, skin tinted hazel by the cilia beneath. Though the lights are off and the curtains drawn, she can still be glimpsed distinctly, outlined by the glow of her own bones seeping up muffled through slimy meat, the low-grade, clustering light of her muscles and tendons.
Malt-brown when she was born, the underwater tangles of her hair now drift weed-like, green as her gaze. She is a work in progress, or perhaps a study in decay: first nix bred in almost seventy years of
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