Pacze Moj, page 8
People, he concluded, have lost their sense of shame.
It was still possible to do one’s duty while maintaining honour and pride.
He took a drink of coffee.
The witch would be found and she would be burned again. Of that, he was certain. He watched the guards have a go at checking every nook and cranny of the next wagon that had rolled up to the station. A family of nobles stood and watched. Nobody would get through his net.
Nobody.
The funeral wagon cleared the main gate with a bounce and spun its way out of the city toward the further reaches of the kingdom.
Chapter XVIII
The sun climbed above the horizon. Its light softened. The clouds dissipated as sunny morning turned to hot afternoon. Buried beneath the bodies on the wagon, Esmerelda stirred. Some time after leaving the city, sleep had taken her places. Bad places, bad dreams. She shuddered. She pushed her head out from under a lifeless arm.
The linen made the heat worse. The humidity was making the bodies smell. She had lost track of time but the sun’s faint outline through the thick material multiplied by an estimate of the current speed of the wagon gave her enough to guess how far she’d travelled. She assumed that that was also how much ground she’d put between herself and the city, give or take a few miles; there’d been no bends in the road, the driver hadn’t made any turns. At least none that she remembered. She wished she also knew how long she’d been asleep, but there was no estimate for that. Her aches and tiredness revealed little.
She breathed in the spoiled air and maneuvered up through the pile of corpses until her whole body was free. It was cooler out there, but not by much. The corpses made an uncomfortable bed but were otherwise quiet, respectful fellow travellers. It didn’t bother her to look at their faces. They were no more living than milk. Neither did the flies bother her, although she was surprised at how many there were buzzing round. She supposed that given the situation they had plenty else to occupy their attentions. She was the least of their prey.
She pulled back a linen edge and filled the gap with her face and let the fresh moving air flow across her cheeks. It had been dark underneath and the light hurt her eyes, so she closed them. The bouncing of the wagon was hypnotic.
When she opened her eyes, the sun had moved. For how long had she kept them closed? Perhaps she had fallen asleep again. Sleep was a priority. But she could afford it. The pursuit was not off, the witchhunters would come, but not now; not for a while. They were still threshing the city. They would scour it, they would wait for days for her to attempt an escape. That gave her time. Immediate danger had passed. She was in the wilderness. She was safe.
She felt the water skin inside her coat and slid it out. The water was warm but agreeable against her lips all the way down her throat. Shelter, sleep and more water: those were the priorities. Then food. And all the time progress toward the swamps, toward the Coven.
Through the space between the pulled-back linen and the wagon she watched the landscape slither past. Green, hilly terrain spotted by forests. It was good terrain for disembarking.
She moved her boot, slipping the linen aside even more, then hoisted herself over the edge of the wagon, making sure not to disrupt its balance. She counted to three and with one push disattached herself from the last vestige of city captivity.
She hit the hard dirt rolling.
The impact hurt, but the pain dissolved the moment her momentum spun her off the beaten path and into the tall wild grasses. They consumed her. She flipped onto her back and spread her limbs. She saw: neverending sky and twirling spores. She heard: the clicks of insects, the warbles of reptiles, the chirps of birds, the ancient rustling wind. Liberty was as sweet as the grass was bitter—a stalk had crept its way into her mouth. Another tickled up her nose. She laughed, arms and legs beating the happiness into the ground. It had been years since she felt this much joy. She thought she would never feel it again.
A cricket soared over her chest and landed on her thigh. She crushed it and licked the nutrients off her fingers. They no longer vibrated. She no longer feared.
Then it all fell over like a stack of bricks onto a careless mason. The feeling first in the gut, the hunger, then in the shoulders and knees, the muscle soreness, and finally down the long cracks on her parched lips, thirst. She stood and grabbed the water skin and drank until there was nearly nothing left. As she gulped, her eyes darted uncontrollably from one end of the road to the other and across the vast natural emptiness all around. There was too much to take in at once. She was out in the open, vulnerable. The road was empty and nature not a traitor, but suddenly danger felt like it was crouching on all sides.
The gemstone map in the church: the main city gates were on the west city limit, the road likely continued in that direction. The wagon had been going: South was—she spun and saw bare hills. North was—a ninety-degree turn and the sight of more hills, distant forests, more-distant mountains. The swamps were to the north.
She put back the water skin, tightened her boots and walked through the tall stalks away from the road, leaving only a trail of bent, slowly rebounding grasses.
Some were green, others yellow, some brown with purplish wart-like dots or without. The red ones broke. The blue ones were rare and fell before she even touched them, like sycophants before the King. Her favourite were the off-white thin reeds with bushy heads that released their airborne seeds at the slightest of touches. Such delicate plants, she wondered, in such a hard world.
When she heard two horses beating their hooves against the road, she knelt and the vegetation rose above her forehead. It was like descending into a cloud, nothing like being in a dungeon. Perhaps the difference was the sky, always visible, always changing. From her hiding place, she heard the hooves beat nearer, beat past and then fade out into the west. When she stood, see saw that her own path through the grass had disappeared. All that was left of the riders was a light, falling dust.
She reached the foothills soon and before the fall of evening the first trees. Wide, comforting spruces. By then, the road was but a thin auburn line in an expanse of green and she had stopped expecting to see pursuit branching off its vector. The mountains seemed no closer than they had been from the road, and dimmer. The clouds were coming back. The sun nestled in behind them and a light mist appeared. The night would be cool. She was glad for her coat and her cloak. She thought of Ustinov. His body must have already been discovered. Who found it; who would be blamed?
The spruces swelled and calmness started coming in with the dusk. It was the strange time between day and night when squirrels stop bounding through branches and owls open their eyes for the first time. As she walked, the spruce branches felt soft against her arms. She closed her eyes and let the needles brush her face.
She made her sleeping place where a dozen trees grew together like a family. Before it was completely dark, she broke off the lowest branches of the biggest tree and nestled underneath. The ground was hard but there weren’t any stones. She didn’t make a fire. She undid her cloak and wrapped herself in it like in a cocoon. She was thirsty but fell asleep without drinking, to the pleasantly repetitive hooting of an owl.
Chapter XIX
First light broke through the branches and fell upon her face. She awoke: her body ached and her waking thoughts were the viscosity of honey. She rolled out from under her spruce, stretched and fastened her cloak. The water skin weighed little and she drank what remained of the water. There were large cones pulling down on the spruce branches and she broke one off. She hesitated, turning it in her hands, but it seemed too oily, indigestible. She placed it on the ground where she had slept. For a second she considered hunting insects, but distance was more important than food. Today, there would be no breakfast. Today, her goal was to find fresh water.
She found north and set off, spitting in her hands and rubbing them against her face to wash out the sleep. Wooziness stayed with her, despite. She had not slept well. She could not remember her dreams. The northern wind was cold and carried on it the scent of animals. She hadn’t washed in days. She must smell like an animal, too.
The first hour felt longest, then routine began. Navigation was by the sun, which moved steadily across the sky. Sometimes the thickening trees obscured her view and the light cut through their branches in lines painting the undergrowth in blocks of colour. Spruces were soon joined by other conifers, which were themselves joined by big and small-leafed deciduous trees from which she sometimes licked stray drops of water. The forest filled out. Despite the naked sun, this day was colder than the last.
Her route was due north, she would deviate only to find water. That was her plan. Yet peeping mushrooms and other fungi and the edible-looking fruits of unidentified plants drew her eye and enticed her hunger. Berries called out sweetly, apples tartly. She listened and imagined her teeth piercing their flesh but didn’t reach out to pick and taste and swallow. Her hands became fists and her head stared at the invisible target ahead. She hadn’t survived a burning to foolishly poison herself on false fruits. Animals were safer, but she heard more than she saw and though her stomach grumbled after the frolicking squirrels and chirruping birds, she knew that the energy expended would not be worth that consumed. For now, food was a luxury. It was water that was necessary.
Once, she passed under a large bird’s nest. It was too high to reach with her hands and psychokinesis worked only in the presence of two other witches, but she knocked it down more mundanely, with a well-placed rock. The mud holding it together turned instantly to powder but the eggs were large and lavender. She cracked one greedily against her teeth and sucked on—nothing: the insides were empty, dry. The nest had been abandoned. All of the eggs were old.
By the time night fell she had found neither water nor food. She lay herself down in a clearing on soft grass and let saliva flow along the sides of her mouth and gather under her tongue. It was hard not to swallow, but once enough had pooled it was a reward to let it into her throat all at once. That night she had trouble falling asleep. She couldn’t stop her mind from wandering. Where was it going? If she knew she might put it to some use. Instead, her mind was like a machine that runs, consuming fuel but producing no meaningful output, just excess heat. Too much heat ruins the gears. She slipped in and out of consciousness until in the morning the sky turned grey and it began to drizzle, then made a slope of sticks and leaves to capture rainwater, but didn’t drink the capture. Instead, she poured it through a leaf-funnel into her water skin. She also squeezed out whatever her cloak had sponged.
She set out early—earlier than yesterday—before the clouds cleared but after the drizzle stopped. She altered her plan: north, but if she’d found no fresh water by midday she would branch off in the direction likeliest to yield a stream, river or lake.
The further north she went, the wetter the ground became. Her boots stuck and plopped. But overhead the clouds seemed to be always out of reach. They teased and receded and she stopped hoping she would catch their rain. After noon, the hills returned. The last hours of travel had been over flatland. Now, she crested one and looked out over the living landscape. She could feel the thirst in her lungs. She drank the rainwater she’d collected. It tasted faintly of leather. She shielded her eyes from the sun and searched for signs of watering holes. To the east she saw circling birds. That, she decided, must suffice. She scrambled down the rocky hillside and turned off her northward path.
They’d been perhaps three miles away, the birds, but travel was suddenly hard and slow. The ground was littered with deadwood and other decaying matter and there were treacherously covered crevices. She stepped carefully so as not to sprain an ankle or break bones. The trees, though not taller, grew different here. The species were the same but their lowest branches jutted out higher up on trunks and then spread wide, intertwining, weaving themselves into a ceiling. The feeling was of being in an overgrown amphitheater.
When she began to think the birds had been only a wishful thought, she found other evidence: the wet ground sloping downward, paw prints in the dirt, small sprouting plants in the most vibrant shades of green.
She heard the river before she saw it, the beautiful gurgle-gargle of moving water pulling her until her eyes finally fell upon its shimmering face flowing like ruffled satin over the sand and the rocks. The final distance was conquered at a run, carefulness giving way to desire, but she didn’t slip or fall or injure her ankles; no, she came to the water’s edge safely and fell to her knees and spread her hands on the shore and pushed her face into liquid.
She drank with eyes open. The water was clear. Underwater, little fishes swam away from her, surprised at their sudden visitor. She sucked in water and tried to suck them in, too, but they were good swimmers and evaded her mouth-made currents. When she’d had enough water and not enough air, she whipped her head out of the river—spray shooting off her hair in a thousand tiny streams—took a breath, and dove back in. Underwater, there were plants and vines, too. They were tiny and floated as if unaffected by gravity. All tickled her face with their tentacle-tips. When her belly was finally full, she undressed and bathed. The water was lukewarm and felt against her skin like cleanliness itself.
She relaxed against a tree until dry, then clothed and found a flaw in the leaf-ceiling through which she found the sun and knew that the river ran northwest. She decided to follow it. It was worth the delay in reaching the Coven to travel, at least for a day or two, alongside a water supply. She started to daydream, happiness came. It felt good to be clean and not smell wild. She walked confidently, her boots leaving deep marks in the dirt that mixed with the marks of other creatures and mammals. The branches thinned even more. They were now far above, wet-leaved and sun-specked like organic chandeliers.
Something splashed in the river.
She stopped and scrambled back into the cover of the tree trunks. She peeked out and it splashed again. She discerned scales and a tail. It was small, the size of a rodent. It wouldn’t be a danger. She picked up a sturdy piece of deadwood and approached. Although she wasn’t scared, the splashes were so sudden and unevenly spaced that she felt each echo within her own heart. When she was close enough she saw the dark shape of a fish. It was near her edge of the river, but the water wasn’t shallow as it had been before. The river must run underground, she thought, and made sure to step lightly lest the soil give way.
The fish splashed once more, then rose and settled just above the surface. Its shape and trout colours were visible as it waded in place. Part of its body appeared to be tangled in the underwater foliage, which was thick and mature. Saliva nearly dripped from Esmerelda’s mouth as she watched the fish that nature had caught for her. She imagined a fire, a meal and a long night undisturbed by an angry stomach. She licked her lips and remembered reading in the Coven library about an ancient race of humans who even ate fish raw. It was the various culinary possibilities that ran through her mind as she felt the sharpness of her own teeth and dipped her hand into the river.
But just as quickly as her fingers had closed on the fish, it slipped loose and swam away. She grunted and redrew her hand—
She tried to redraw her hand.
One of the vines had curled itself softly round her wrist. Pulling helped naught, so she reached into the water with her other hand—and the other vines pounced: dozens of them grabbing and holding her like so many sudden sea fingers. They cuffed her wrists together and held her captive.
The muscles in Esmerelda’s legs tightened as her legs pushed her feet against the shoreline. She strained to pull herself out. But the vines held. They even seemed to be pulling her in. She pulled harder; they held harder.
Her soles buried themselves in the sand, more and more until—the dirt caved and her ankles disappeared below its surface. She felt water against her toes. And a vine. She pulled one foot out but before she could pull the other a vine had wound its tube-like body round a toe, then around the width of her foot, and then more vines came digging through the sand and her ankle was as immobile as her wrists.
It was the sensation, that sensation. Of being held against her will, of fear and the need to get free and run forever without stopping that brought back the memory. It wasn’t her memory; it was: nighttime and the smell of chewed fish mixing with alcohol and the dirty fingers of the men dragging her away from the village, into the forest. The vines pulled her closer, held her tighter. Holding her down, touching her, their sooty fingers leaving imperfect black trails across her dress, across her skin. Her forearms felt the coolness of the river. The men slurring things she didn’t understand and laughing. Then one of them kissed her. The ground cracked, eroded into the water and her knee was wet. She had peed herself, that’s why they laughed. That’s why she cried. She rubbed her eyes with wet palms and one of the men kissed her and she felt like she was drowning. The water was nearing her elbows, her other leg was spent, she was half-kneeling. She didn’t want to drown but she could barely scream and when she did it was into his mouth and made no sound at all. She remembered her father and she remembered his name and how she had suddenly called out his name because it was the only word she could say and she had screamed it again and again. She was so young, then. Younger than Daniel McAlister had been. Coolness pricked past her elbow, at her bicep. But she pulled and the vines gave a little. The men had recoiled at the sound of the name. But then they swarmed tighter and she tasted their dirty fingers. The vines pulled, too. She bit: the finger then, herself now. And screamed. Her father’s name over and over until he came and the men scattered and she was safe and daddy held her in his arms and she cried into his shoulder as he carried her home through the lit streets. She no longer had a father. She could no longer scream his name. But the instinct—to call for help. In hopelessness to call out, it was a human instinct. She screamed again, and again, and then realized her screams weren’t meaningless, they were forming a sound, rough but audible, unmistakable: “Help!” she cried. “Help me!”
