The Thickety: A Path Begins Read online

  She did not feel the pull of the grimoire until later that night, when she lay in bed listening to Taff’s worrisome cough and wondering if leaving his window open a crack had been the right decision. The need to touch the book started in the pit of her stomach and spread to the tips of her toes. It wasn’t as bad as before, not yet. But it was rising.

  She thought of the three-leaved weed the Clearers called tagen. “It may not seem it,” Lucas had told her, “but it’s the most dangerous thing in the Fringe. Just a bit of it under your fingernails, and you won’t be able to stop smiling for two days. You won’t feel any pain either. But by then the tagen has started growing inside your body, and it creeps into your heart and makes you want more, and you will want it even after it begins squeezing you from the inside out and your teeth have rotted away and the skin has begun to melt from your bones. With your last, strangled breath, you’ll beg for it.”

  Kara wondered how long it would be before she reached that point. To where she’d rather die than not use magic.

  Maybe you’re there already.

  There came a steady tapping at her window.

  Kara flipped over in bed. Grace was standing outside, fingertips splayed against the glass.

  “Were you thinking about me, Kara?” she asked. “I was thinking about you. That’s why I came.”

  She continued to gently tap the window with the pads of her fingers.

  “Why don’t you let me in, Kara?” she asked. Her eyes were silver lakes in the moonlight. “Do you have it there? Can I see it?”

  “It’s not here,” Kara said.

  “Yes, it is. I already checked the farmhouse. Your secret spot. Father mentioned it to me. He might not have known what it was for, but I did. So clever of you to move it before the graycloaks came. Your mother’s treasure.” Grace paused, considering. “Do you think that when she touched my mother’s stomach and made me like this . . . that she also made me like you?”

  Grace continued to tap against the glass. The rhythm was completely out of sync to her words, as though her hand had a mind of its own.

  “She would never have done that,” Kara said. It was one of the many stories that had developed after her mother’s death, when the villagers seemed intent on blaming all their misfortunes on the dead witch.

  “Of course you would say that. But I know the truth.”

  “I’m sorry, Grace. The truth is, there was no magic involved. You were just born wrong. No wonder your father didn’t pick you to take his place.”

  The tapping stopped.

  “You’re not a very nice girl, are you? Can I hold the book? Just for a moment.”

  “No.”

  “Has it ever occurred to you how alike we are? We’re practically sisters, Kara.”

  “No.”

  “Who knows? Maybe we are sisters. I’ve seen the glow in my father’s eyes whenever he talks about the beautiful Helena Westfall. Father used to be quite dashing. Stranger things have happened.”

  “You need to leave.”

  The sound of Taff’s coughing broke through the night.

  “Oh dear. The whelp has a leak.” She looked up at Kara, honestly curious. “Why haven’t you fixed him yet? Just think it, and the book will take care of the rest. Do you not want to waste the page?” Noting Kara’s downcast expression, Grace broke into a huge grin. “Wait! It’s not that easy for you, is it? You have limitations.” She clapped her hands together. “He told me I was more powerful than you!”

  “Who did?”

  “You know who. He sends me the most wonderful dreams. Can I have the book, please?”

  Kara pressed a hand against the windowpane.

  “Grace. You can’t listen to Sordyr. He’s evil.”

  “Yes. The book? Can I have it? You might not be powerful enough to fix your brother, but I am. Give me the book and I promise I’ll do it.”

  “Don’t go near Taff! Ever!”

  Grace’s eyes widened. She drummed her fingers against the window. Her left hand had begun to shake.

  “You are being so unreasonable, Kara Westfall. I walked all this way. Can you imagine how hard that was for me? I don’t even need to hold it. Just let me see it. That’s all. Just hold it up against the window.” Grace folded her arms around her stomach and in the process lost her grip on her cane. She slipped to the ground. “Please, Kara. It hurts. You of all people should understand. I need to see it. He won’t let me sleep until I do.”

  A coil of guilt twisted in Kara’s stomach. If she hadn’t been so careless, Grace would never have seen the grimoire, would never have known such suffering. No one deserves this, Kara thought, even her.

  She drew the grimoire from beneath her pillow and pressed it against the window.

  “Here,” she said. “And now that you’ve—”

  Grace hurled herself against the glass like a rabid wolf, her mouth stretched in an inhuman snarl of rage. Using the palms of her hands, she slapped the window so hard that Kara was certain it would break.

  “Mine! Mine! Mine!”

  Kara dropped the book. It fell open on the bed, and the pages turned until settling upon a meticulously rendered illustration of a squit. It looked different from the one she had plucked off Lucas but no less deadly.

  Here, the book seemed to say, try this one.

  Kara did not remember speaking the words, but that didn’t matter: The result was the same. The first squit landed on Grace’s arm and touched its corkscrew tongue to her skin. Grace yanked it off quickly before it could start to burrow. The second squit got farther, managing to dig into the flesh below Grace’s elbow before she could pinch it out with two fingers and squish it to pulp. Kara felt a tiny pain in her finger, nothing more than a momentary ache. I’m getting used to death, Kara thought, and then the squits were everywhere, blanketing the bedroom window until Grace vanished behind a swarm of shifting bodies. Kara ran her finger down the inside of the window and a dozen squits clamored for position, longing to be close to their queen.

  The book is mine. No one is going to take it away.

  Grace screamed—the sound desperate and pure and surprisingly childlike—and Kara gasped. The world jumped into clear focus again.

  “No!” Kara exclaimed. She pounded on the glass. “Stop it! Get away!”

  As one, the squits flew off into the night. Kara pressed her face to the glass and watched Grace limp away. She had abandoned her cane, and her useless leg dragged behind her. She’s alive, Kara thought. Thank the Clen. Grace turned back, once, and there was just enough moonlight for Kara to make out the expression on her face. Not gratitude, as it should have been, but a promise of revenge. Kara laughed. That’s what you think, cripple. Just try it again. See what happens. She laughed some more, and while a part of her realized that the laugh sounded wrong somehow, the majority of her body—still warm and satisfied from spell casting—rejoiced at the feeling.

  “I’m better than you,” Kara said. The grimoire nestled into her hands, home at last. “I’m better than all of you!”

  She thought about conjuring something else to chase Grace all the way home. Her hand stroked the book. It would feel so good. So right. She would even choose something slow—a magslov, perhaps—in order to give Grace a chance. She touched the book again; this time it moved against her fingertips. We have such fun things to do, you and I. I am my mother’s daughter, after all. A part of Kara that had grown disturbingly small wondered why all the noise had not woken anyone else in the house, and that’s when she heard it: The sound that had been camouflaged by pounding glass and wandering thoughts and the buzzing of the squits.

  Taff’s screams.

  Kara dropped the grimoire and ran to his room. Father sat on his bed, holding Taff in his arms. There was blood everywhere.

  “Towels!” he exclaimed. “We need towels!”

  There were two wounds—one in the center of Taff’s forearm and the other behind his neck. The latter was nothing more than a deep scratch, but the forearm wound wa
s deep. When Kara pressed a towel against it, blood bubbled to the surface, along with the body of a drowned squit that had burrowed too far.

  Father picked it up between two fingers and flicked it outside. He shut the window.

  “This is my fault, Kara,” he said. The desperation in his voice brought sudden tears to her eyes. “Everything that has befallen our family. I didn’t stand by her like I should have, and now we’re all being punished!”

  No, Kara thought. It’s my fault for thinking I could control the grimoire.

  She cleaned and bound Taff’s wounds and made him a poultice for the pain. He grimaced but fought tears the best he could. Eventually Taff fell asleep, and she watched him, his slightly flickering eyelids, the gentle rise and fall of his chest. Her beautiful brother, who had never hurt anyone.

  He could have died tonight. I did this to him. Me.

  No. Not just her.

  “Where are you going?” Father asked moments later, when Kara swept through the kitchen, satchel swinging from her shoulder. He was sitting at the table, halfway through a jug of moondrink. “Kara?” he asked.

  But Kara didn’t answer. She just grabbed a handful of matches and continued on her way.

  By the time sunlight streaked the sky, Kara had built a nice stack of branches. She dropped the grimoire onto the pile. The book crashed through the makeshift firewood like an anvil and plummeted several inches into the earth.

  Kara took out the first match.

  She wondered what tricks were in store for her. Would the grimoire suddenly come to life, grow legs, and skitter across the field? Perhaps Sordyr would materialize before her eyes and tempt her with promises of power and happiness.

  At the very least, there was no way the match would catch on the first try.

  But it did.

  Kara watched the flame dance, waiting for a supernatural breeze to extinguish it. The morning remained calm. Still expecting something to stop her, Kara cupped the tiny flame and touched it to the wood. The branches, though slightly damp, caught easily enough, spreading the flames gleefully through the pile. Heat snapped at Kara’s skin, but she remained still and watched the flames engulf the cursed book, certain that it couldn’t be this easy.

  But there were no tricks. The book did not rise up into the sky. It did not possess her mind and force her to reach into the flames to save it. A black dragon did not swoop from the sky and snatch the grimoire away.

  It simply didn’t burn.

  When the fire worked itself out, Kara retrieved the book, dusted off the ashes, and returned it to her satchel. It wasn’t even warm.

  The skies opened up at dawn, and the rain continued throughout the morning. Angry darts of water pummeled the scarecrows that lined the village square and sent vendors hawking candy sticks and painted marbles running for cover. Within hours the outdoor area reserved for dancing had been reduced to a worthless quagmire. Optimistically wearing their costumes, anxious children pressed faces to windows and prayed for the rain to stop. The older girls gathered together and combed one another’s hair with funereal anticipation, wondering if they would be able to wear their dresses at all.

  The final day of the Shadow Festival was a disaster.

  Even morning Service had to be held inside the schoolhouse, and though it was the most important sermon of the year, the fen’de’s words of wisdom were swallowed up by the incessant cascade of raindrops. But as the sermon came to a close the rain suddenly stopped. Fen’de Stone, who never wasted such an opportunity, said it was as though “Timoth Clen himself had reached out his battle-worn hands and squeezed those offending clouds shut.”

  By late afternoon, sunlight reigned supreme, and though there was hardly enough time for the mud to dry before the festivities began that evening, the residents of De’Noran were in high spirits. Villagers and Clearers worked side by side to make minor repairs and lay down plywood in the dancing area. The girls, laughing giddily, slipped into their dresses—the feel of them so different from the stiff, starched clothes they wore every other day of the year—while younger children spilled out into the streets, eager to see their friends’ costumes. By the time the sun fell over the horizon, straining for a final look, the somber village of De’Noran had been invaded by foreign forces: ghosts and goblins, chatter-walks and woldy-beats, music and laughter.

  Only two figures seemed out of place, hesitantly standing on the fringe of the merriment. Taff’s black frock was long enough to conceal his shoes, but a simple metal wire sewn into the hem kept him from tripping and gave him the appearance of floating along the ground. His mask was a monstrous assemblage of tree branches, acorns, random bits of fabric, the bottom half of a broken spoon, cord, and shiny buttons. Peering out from two tiny eyeholes, Taff saw the mouths of the other children drop in awe. He smiled and squeezed Kara’s hand.

  She smiled back.

  Unlike the other young ladies, her dress was black and plain. She wore her long hair straight. The only notable thing about Kara’s attire was her locket, which hung outside her dress for all to see.

  A group of Clearer children crossed their path, the sounds of their youthful laughter drowning out the distant fiddles. Lucas glanced in Kara’s direction, and she raised her hand in a slight wave. I haven’t spoken to him since the start of Shadow Festival, Kara thought, but before she could say a word, Lucas’s friend pulled him along. Last Night came but once a year, and there was no time to waste.

  Kara and Taff joined the crowd of children going from house to house, filling their burlap sacks with candy apples and sticky figs and other treats. When no one was looking, Kara touched the object inside her satchel and made sure it was still there. The weight of it made her shoulder throb with pain, but that didn’t matter. By the end of the night, she would return it to the Thickety and be free of it forever.

  She found Father serving pumpkinade at the center of the game booths. Kara had volunteered his services, and though he had grumbled about it at the time, he certainly looked happy now. She watched from afar as he chatted with the children in line, acting frightened when he saw their costumes up close. She remembered how much her father had once loved this village.

  It wasn’t too late for him.

  Kara approached the table, and the little ones scattered.

  “At least I don’t have to wait in line,” she said.

  Father handed Kara a cold glass of pumpkinade. When she’d woken that morning, she had found him sitting by Taff’s bedside, changing his bandages while humming an old song. Instead of driving him deeper into madness as she expected, his son’s need seemed to be pulling him back to the world of the living.

  “Taff having fun?” he asked.

  She motioned behind her. Taff was attempting to toss a beanbag into a small, wooden barrel. Pretty Tammy, once again wearing her Leaf Girl costume, cheered him on.

  “Taff is having the time of his life,” she said.

  “I see that.”

  Kara tried her drink. Usually pumpkinade was too sweet for her taste, but this was perfect. She took another sip. If she was going to ask him, it had to be now. This might be the last chance she ever had to discover the truth. All she had to do was say the words: Why did you betray her?

  The problem, however, wasn’t the question—it was the consequences. What if talking about the past broke him again? Or what if the truth was so terrible that Kara was better off not knowing at all? It was a lot to risk just to satisfy her curiosity.

  “Something on your mind?” Father asked.

  Kara took a sip of pumpkinade.

  “Actually,” she said, trying to sound as though she had just thought of the idea, “do you think you could do me a favor? Taff wants to do the rounds in the houses just outside the village—”

  “That boy’s got one serious sweet tooth.”

  “He does. But afterward—” Kara paused, forcing her voice not to crack as she told the lie. “I wanted to try my hand at some of the festival games. The ones for the older children.
And so I was wondering if maybe I could send Taff back here, and you could take him home. Do you think that would be okay?”

  “Of course.” He shrugged. “Actually, it looks like the kids are getting tired of pumpkinade. I could just call it a night and take him off your hands now. You shouldn’t have to miss your fun.”

  “No! Don’t worry. I want to . . . be with him for a little longer.”

  “That’s fine.” He placed a hand on her shoulder and looked into her eyes. “You sure there isn’t anything else?”

  Kara leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

  “Good-bye, Father,” she said.

  The crowd of children moved as one toward the farmhouses that dotted the periphery of the village. The ground was wet and slippery, but since everyone’s boots were already caked in mud it didn’t seem to matter. Although one could still make out the sounds of laughter and singing, these had grown more subdued and were intermingled with the occasional yawn. It was getting late, particularly for the younger ones.

  There was no one home at the Wilcox place, but the owners had left behind a bucket of lemon drops wrapped in cinnamon leaves, Taff’s favorite. Kara let him take two. They did not have as much luck at the next farm: dried cranberries and splintered wooden tops.

  “Had enough?” Kara asked Taff.

  “Just one more,” he said.

  Kara kissed him on top of the head.

  “Just one more.”

  The Miller house was a healthy trek from the village, nearly twice the distance as the last farm. Nevertheless not a single child turned back. Widow Miller spent all year preparing for this night, and her legendary treats were not to be missed. Although Kara was anxious to return the grimoire to the Thickety before it grew any later, she couldn’t bear the thought of denying Taff such a joyous experience. This night would be forever ingrained upon his memory, and in case something went wrong, she wanted his final memories of her to be happy ones.