The Near Witch

  Copyright © 2011 by Victoria Schwab

  All rights reserved. Published by Hyperion, an imprint of Disney Book Group. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Hyperion, 114 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10011-5690.

  ISBN: 9781423152576

  Table of Contents

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  6

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  8

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  Acknowledgments

  To my mother and father,

  for never once doubting

  IT STARTS WITH A CRACK, a sputter, and a spark. The match hisses to life.

  “Please,” comes the small voice behind me.

  “It’s late, Wren,” I say. The fire chews on the wooden stem in my hand. I touch the match to each of the three candles gathered on the low chest by the window. “It’s time for bed.”

  With the candles all lit, I shake the match and the flame dies, leaving a trail of smoke that curls up against the darkened glass.

  Everything seems different at night. Defined. Beyond the window, the world is full of shadows, all pressed together in harsh relief, somehow sharper than they ever were in daylight.

  Sounds seem sharper, too, at night. A whistle. A crack. A child’s whisper.

  “Just one more,” she pleads, hugging the covers close. I sigh, my back to my little sister, and run my fingers over the tops of the books stacked beside the candles. I feel myself bending.

  “It can be a very short one,” she says.

  My hand rests against an old green book as the wind hums against the house.

  “All right.” I cannot deny my sister anything, it seems. “Just one,” I add, turning back to the bed.

  Wren sighs happily against her pillow, and I slip down beside her.

  The candles paint pictures of light on the walls of our room. I take a deep breath.

  “The wind on the moors is a tricky thing,” I begin, and Wren’s small body sinks deeper into the bed. I imagine she is listening more to the highs and lows of my voice than the words themselves. We both know the words by heart anyway—I from my father, and Wren from me.

  “Of every aspect of the moor, the earth and stone and rain and fire, the wind is the strongest one in Near. Here on the outskirts of the village, the wind is always pressing close, making windows groan. It whispers and it howls and it sings. It can bend its voice and cast it into any shape, long and thin enough to slide beneath the door, stout enough to seem a thing of weight and breath and bone.

  “The wind was here when you were born, when I was born, when our house was built, when the Council was formed, and even when the Near Witch lived,” I say with a quiet smile, the way my father always did, because this is where the story starts.

  “Long, long ago, the Near Witch lived in a small house on the farthest edge of the village, and she used to sing the hills to sleep.”

  Wren pulls the covers up.

  “She was very old and very young, depending on which way she turned her head, for no one knows the age of witches. The moor streams were her blood and the moor grass was her skin, and her smile was kind and sharp at once, like the moon in the black, black night.…”

  I hardly ever get to the end of the story. Soon enough Wren is a pile of blankets and quiet breath, shifting in her heavy dreams beside me. The three candles are still burning on the chest, leaning into one another, dripping and pooling on the wood.

  Wren is afraid of the dark. I used to leave the candles lit all night, but she falls asleep so fast, and if she does wake, she often finds her way, eyes closed, into our mother’s room. Now I tend to stay up until she’s drifted off, and then blow the candles out. No need to waste them, or set the house on fire. I slide from the bed, my bare feet settling on the old wood floor.

  When I reach the candles, my eyes wander down to the puddles of wax, dotted with tiny fingerprints where Wren likes to stand on her tiptoes and draw patterns in the pools while the wax is warm. I brush my own fingers over them absently, when something, a sliver of movement, draws my eyes up to the window. There’s nothing there. Outside, the night is still and streaked with silver threads of light, and the wind is breathing against the glass, a wobbling hum that causes the old wooden frame to groan.

  My fingertips drift up from the wax to the windowsill, feeling the wind through the walls of our house. It’s getting stronger.

  When I was small, the wind sang me lullabies. Lilting, humming, high-pitched things, filling the space around me so that even when all seemed quiet, it wasn’t. This is a wind I have lived with.

  But tonight it’s different. As if there’s a new thread of music woven in, lower and sadder than the rest. Our house sits at the northern edge of the village of Near, and beyond the weathered glass the moor rolls away like a spool of fabric: hill after hill of wild grass, dotted by rocks, and a rare river or two. There is no end in sight, and the world seems painted in black and white, crisp and still. A few trees jut out of the earth amid the rocks and weeds, but even in this wind it is all strangely static. But I’d swear I saw—

  Again something moves.

  This time my eyes are keen enough to catch it. At the edge of our yard, the invisible line where the village ends and the moor picks up, a shape moves against the painted night. A shadow twitches and steps forward, catching a slice of moonlight.

  I squint, pressing my hands against the cool glass. The shape is a body, but drawn too thin, like the wind is pulling at it, tugging slivers away. The moonlight cuts across the front of the form, over fabric and skin, a throat, a jaw, a cheekbone.

  There are no strangers in the town of Near. I have seen every face a thousand times. But not this one.

  The figure just stands there, looking out to the side. And yet, he is not all there. There is something in the way the cool blue-white moon lights his face that makes me think I could brush my fingers right through it. His form is smudged at the edges, blurring into the night on either side, as if he’s moving very fast, but it must be the weathered glass, because he’s not moving at all. He is just standing there, looking at nothing.

  The candles flicker beside me, and on the moor, the wind picks up and the stranger’s body seems to ripple, fade. Before I know it, I am pressing myself against the window, reaching for the latch to throw it open, to speak, to call the form back, when he moves. He turns his face toward the house and the window, and toward me.

  I catch my breath as the stranger’s eyes find mine. Eyes as dark as river stones and yet somehow shining, soaking up moonlight. Eyes that widen a fraction as they meet my own. A single, long, unblinking look. And then in an instant the stranger seems to break apart, a sharp gust of wind tears through, and the shutters slam closed against the glass.

  The sound wakes Wren, who mumbles and peels her half-sleeping form from between the sheets, stumbling through the moonlit room. She doesn’t even see me standing at the window, staring at the wooden slats that have blotted out the stranger and the moor. I hear her pad across the threshold, slide open our mother’s door, and disappear within. The room is suddenly quiet. I pry the window open, the wood protesting
as it drags against itself, and throw the shutters back.

  The stranger is gone.

  I feel like there should be a mark in the air where he was wiped away. But there is no trace. No matter how much I stare, there is nothing but trees, and rocks, and rolling hills.

  I stare out at this empty landscape, and it seems impossible that I saw him, saw anyone. After all, there are no strangers in the town of Near. There haven’t been since long ago, before I was born, before the house was built, before the Council…And he didn’t even seem real, didn’t seem there. I rub my eyes, and realize I’ve been holding my breath.

  I use the air to blow the candles out.

  “LEXI.”

  The light creeps in between the sheets. I pull the blankets up, try to recreate the darkness, and find my mind wandering to the night before, to shadowed forms on the moonlit moor.

  “Lexi,” my mother’s voice calls again, this time penetrating the cocoon of blankets. It burrows in beside me along with the morning light. The night-washed memory seems to bleed away.

  From my nest I hear the thudding of feet on wood, followed by an airborne pause. I brace myself, staying perfectly still as the body catapults itself onto the bed. Small fingers tap the blankets covering me.

  “Lexi,” says a new voice, a higher-pitched version of my mother’s. “Get up now.” Still I feign sleep. “Lexi?”

  I shoot my arms out, reaching through the linens for my sister, trapping her in a blanketed hug.

  “Got you!” I call. Wren lets out a playful little cry. She wriggles free and I wrestle the blankets off. My dark hair nests around my face. I can feel it, the climbing tendrils already unruly, as Wren sits at the edge of the bed and laughs in her chirping way. Her hair is blond and stock straight. It never leaves the sides of her face, never shifts from her shoulders. I bury my fingers in it, try to mess it up, but she only laughs and shakes her head, and the hair settles, perfect and smooth again.

  These are our morning rituals.

  Wren hops off and wanders into the kitchen. I’m up and heading to the chest to fetch some clothes, when my eyes flick to the window, examining the glass and the morning beyond. The moor, with its tangled grass and scattered rocks, looks so soft and open, laid out in the light of day. It is a different world in the gray morning. I can’t help but wonder if what I saw last night was just a dream. If he was just a dream.

  I touch my fingers to the glass to test the warmth of the day. It is the farthest edge of summer, that brief time where the days can be pleasant, even warm, or crisp and cold. The glass is cool, but my fingertips make only small halos of steam. I pull away.

  I do my best to uncoil my hair from my forehead, and wrestle it back into a plait.

  “Lexi!” my mother calls again. The bread must be ready.

  I pull on a long simple dress, cinching the waist. What I wouldn’t give for pants. I’m fairly certain my father would still have fallen for my mother if she wore britches and a hunting hat, even once she’d reached sixteen, marrying age. My age. Marrying age, I scoff, eyeing a pair of girlish slippers despairingly. They’re pale green, thin-soled, and they make a very poor substitute for my father’s old leather boots.

  I stare at my bare feet, marked by the miles they’ve walked across the rough moor. I’d rather stay here and deliver my mother’s bread, rather grow old and crooked like Magda and Dreska Thorne, than be bound up in skirts and slippers and married off to a village boy. I slide the slippers on.

  I’m dressed, but can’t shake the feeling I’m missing something. I turn to the small wooden table by my bed and exhale, eyes finding my father’s knife sheathed on its dark leather strap, the handle worn from his grip. I like to place my narrow fingers in the impressions. It’s like I can feel his hand in mine. I used to wear it every day, until Otto’s glares got heavy enough, and even then I’d sometimes chance it. I must be feeling bold today, because my fingers close around the knife, and the weight of it feels good. I slip it around my waist like a belt, the guarded blade against my lower back, and feel safe again. Clothed.

  “Lexi, come on!” my mother calls, and I wonder what on earth the hurry could be, since the morning loaves will cool before I ever reach the purchasers, but then a second voice reaches me through the walls, a low, tense muttering that tangles with my mother’s higher tone. Otto. The smell of slightly burned bread greets me as I enter the kitchen.

  “Good morning,” I say, meeting the two pairs of eyes, one pale and tired, but unblinking, the other dark and furrowed. My uncle’s eyes are so much like my father’s—the same rich brown, framed by dark lashes—but where my father’s were always dancing, Otto’s are fenced by lines, always still. He hunches forward, his broad shoulders draped over his coffee.

  I cross the room and kiss my mother’s cheek.

  “About time,” says my uncle.

  Wren skips in behind me and throws her arms around his waist. He softens a fraction, running his hand lightly over her hair, and then she’s gone, a slip of fabric through the doorway. Otto turns his attention back to me, as if waiting for an answer, an explanation.

  “What’s the rush?” I ask as my mother’s eyes flick to my waist and the leather strap against my dress, but she says nothing, only turns and glides over to the oven. My mother’s feet rarely touch the ground. She’s not beautiful or charming, except in that way all mothers are to their daughters, but she just flows.

  These, too, are morning rituals. My mother’s kiss. Otto’s appearance in our kitchen, regular enough that he could leave his shadow here. His stern eyes as he gives me a sweeping look, snagging on my father’s knife. I wait for him to comment on it, but he doesn’t.

  “You’re here early, Otto,” I say, taking a slice of warm bread and a mug.

  “Not early enough,” he says. “The whole town’s up and talking by now.”

  “And why is that?” I ask, pouring tea from a kettle beside the hearth.

  My mother turns to us, flour painted across her hands. “We need to go into town.”

  “There’s a stranger,” Otto grunts into his cup. “Came through last night.”

  I fumble the kettle, nearly scalding my hands.

  “A stranger?” I ask, steadying the pot. So it wasn’t a dream or a phantom. There was someone there.

  “I want to know what he’s doing here,” adds my uncle.

  “He’s still here?” I ask, struggling to keep the curiosity from flooding my voice. I take a sip of tea, burning my mouth. Otto offers a curt nod and drains his cup, and before I can bite my tongue, the questions bubble up.

  “Where did he come from? Has anyone spoken to him?” I ask. “Where is he now?”

  “Enough, Lexi.” Otto’s words cut through the warmth in the kitchen. “It’s all rumors right now. Too many voices chattering at once.” He’s changing before my eyes, straightening, shifting from my uncle into the village Protector, as if the title has its own mass and weight. “I don’t yet know for certain who the stranger is or where he’s from or who’s offered him shelter,” he adds. “But I mean to find out.”

  So someone has offered him shelter. I bite my lip to swallow the smile. I bet I know who’s hiding the stranger. What I want to know is why. I gulp my too-hot tea, suffering the heat of it all the way down to my stomach, eager to escape. I want to see if I’m right. And if I am, I want to get there before my uncle. Otto pushes himself up from the table.

  “You go on ahead,” I say, mustering an innocent smile.

  Otto lets out a rough laugh. “I don’t think so. Not today.”

  My face falls. “Why not?” I ask.

  Otto’s brow lowers over his eyes. “I know what you want, Lexi. You want to go hunt for him yourself. I won’t have it.”

  “What can I say? I am my father’s daughter.”

  Otto nods grimly. “That much is clear as glass. Now go get ready. We’re all going into the village.”

  I lift an eyebrow. “Am I not ready?”

  Otto leans across the table
slowly. His dark eyes bear down on mine as if he can bully me with a glance. But his looks are not as strong as my mother’s or my own, and they do not say nearly as many things. I stare calmly back, waiting for the last act of our morning rituals.

  “Take that knife off. You look like a fool.”

  I ignore him, finish my toast, and turn to my mother. “I’ll be in the yard when you two are ready.” Otto’s voice fills the space behind me as I leave.

  “You should teach her properly, Amelia,” he mutters.

  “Your brother saw fit to teach her his trade,” replies my mother, wrapping loaves of bread.

  “It’s not right, Amelia, for a girl, and certainly not one her age, to be out and about with boys’ things. Don’t think I haven’t seen the boots. As bad as walking around barefoot. Has she been in town taking lessons? Helena Drake can stitch and cook and tend.…” I can see him running his fingers through his dark hair, then immediately over his beard, tugging his face the way he always does when he’s frustrated. Not right. Not proper.

  I’ve just begun to tune them out when Wren appears in the yard out of nowhere. She really is like a bird. Flying off at a blink. Alighting at another. Good thing she’s loud, or else her sudden appearances would be frightening.

  “Where are we going?” she chirps, wrapping her arms around my waist.

  “Into the village.”

  “What for?” She lets go of my dress and leans back to peer up at me.

  “To sell you,” I say, trying to keep a straight face. “Or maybe just to give you away.”

  My smile cracks.

  Wren frowns. “I don’t think that’s why.”

  I sigh. The child may look like a bundle of light and joy, but she doesn’t scare nearly as easily as a five-year-old should. She looks up, past my head, and so do I. The clouds overhead are clustering, coming together the way they do each day. Like a pilgrimage—that’s the way my father put it. I slip free of my sister and turn away, toward Otto’s house, and beyond it, hidden by hills, the village. I want to get there as soon as possible and see if my hunch about the stranger is correct.