XIII

rayling watched the sky lighten from murky dawn to the bright blue of a fine autumn day. The sky should not be blue this morning, she thought, but cloudy, dark, and ominous.

She stirred the embers of the fire and sat beside it, reluctant to face what was to come. One by one, the others woke, stood, and stretched, until only Desdemona Cork still lay on the ground, curled around herself like a puppy.

She raised her head. “I am sore afraid,” she said. “For myself, for Grayling, for us all. This is nothing I can enchant away.” Auld Nancy dropped creakily down beside Desdemona Cork and took her hand.

“What if she does not succeed?” Desdemona Cork asked. “What if we all are rooted? I can almost feel my skin harden into bark.” She shuddered.

It proved the seriousness of their plight, thought Grayling—the bold and bossy Auld Nancy, who mistrusted enchanters, bringing a measure of comfort to Desdemona Cork, no longer arrogant and assured but doubtful and in need of solace.

Grayling inhaled deeply. She would do what she could—for her mother, for the other rooted folk, for all those in peril. Taking the sleeping Pook, once more a mouse, from her pocket, she asked, “Will one of you safeguard Pook while I am occupied?”

Phinaeus Moon, with a small smile, reached for the mouse. Pook, however, would have none of it. “Nay, mistress,” he said with a squeak, “this mouse shall go with you.”

“Ah, you are still compelled by the binding potion,” said Grayling. “Perhaps Sylvanus can counteract it.”

“Mistress Gray Eyes,” said Pook, “in truth the binding potion wore off long ago, but still this mouse will go with you.” He clambered up to Grayling’s shoulder and settled himself against her neck with a soft huff.

Grayling’s heart grew warm. Mice were not known for their loyalty, but here was Pook, facing danger with her and for her. Loyal as a mouse, that’s what people should say.

Sylvanus muttered some words over Grayling and sprinkled her with mint leaves to bring good fortune. Auld Nancy struggled to her feet, joints cracking and creaking. “Have a care, child,” she said as she smoothed Grayling’s hair and her skirts. “See you don’t trip as you run, and come right back if the deed seems too fearsome.”

Pansy bid Grayling no farewell nor wished her well. She but watched silently from behind a tree.

Grayling climbed through the bracken and up the rise. She heard a howling in the distance that set the back of her neck a-prickle. Was it wolves? The sea? The wind? None of those betokened anything good for her. She climbed on, her heart beating frantically.

The day grew cold and sunless, and the wind began again to blow. It howled and bit and bellowed. Dried leaves crackled and scurried along the ground, and seabirds screeched like wild-haired hags about the fire on All Hallow’s Eve. Tall evergreens bent so far that their branches swept the ground. The very earth shook.

A blast of wind like a massive hand pushed Grayling back. Her hair tangled, and her skirts swirled. She stumbled and fell. Righting herself with some effort, she bent into the tempest and followed the path until the house loomed right before her, its walls streaked with moss and darkened by damp.

A tall wooden door, hanging from rusted hinges, banged in the wind. It whined on its hinges as she pushed it wider. Inside, it was dark and dank, for the high, narrow window slits let in little light. The very stones in the wall, slimy with the damp of centuries, exuded cold. She could feel the chill right through the thin and tattered soles of her shoes, and her breath spun clouds.

Grayling shivered but not just at the iciness. Evil chilled her like the frost of a winter night. Her belly cramped with fear and revulsion. “What is it I feel? Is the force here?” she asked aloud, her voice echoing in the emptiness. She stroked Pook softly to comfort him—or maybe herself. “Might you, my Pook, shift into something huge and menacing to frighten it away?”

“You well know, Gray Eyes, that this mouse cannot choose the time or manner of the shifting,” Pook said. “But a mouse is good at scampering and sleuthing unseen. Put this mouse down, and it shall see what is here.” She dropped him gently down, and he ran off, slipping on the slick stones of the floor.

Grayling wrapped her arms about herself to stop her shivering. The room seemed large but empty, of people, of furniture, of life. She called whoo hoo, whoo hoo to hear it echo but stopped with a gulp. “Blast, but I am a goose,” she said in a frightened whisper, “making it so easy for me to be discovered.”

Taking a deep breath, she sang to the grimoire and, hearing it sing back, smiled in relief for a moment. The grimoire was indeed here, and it knew her.

Away from the entry hall, the darkness was so deep that she had to feel her way through the house. The walls were damp and sticky, and she stopped often to wipe her hands on her skirt. Through doorway here, step up here and down there, hallway here, blank wall there, she moved slowly, following the grimoire’s song.

One dark, cold room followed another. Grayling grew dizzy with the turns and turnabouts. From somewhere behind her came the moaning of wind gathering, and a sudden blast of icy air slammed her against a wall. Grayling struggled to flee as the wind battered her face and sucked out her very breath. “Why don’t you just root me like the others,” Grayling shouted in defiance, “or leave me alone!” She ducked and shoved her way through, but where was she? The air grew yet colder and darker, and she tripped and fell over something.

Books. Many books. She examined them in the dim light from a slit window high in the wall. Grimoires! Grimoires higgledy-piggledy, here and there. Grimoires in tottering stacks, big and small, some thick with pages, some as thin as a maple leaf, silk covered and leather covered and bound between rough skins. There must be near a hundred, Grayling thought. She never knew there were so many cunning folk in the kingdom.

With the tick ticking of little nails, Pook skittered to a stop.

“’Tis the grimoires, Pook!”

“This mouse does not know what is a grimoire.”

“’Tis a book of spells and songs and recipes.”

Pook shook his soft gray head. “This mouse sees only piles of paper marred with ink and not good for eating.”

“You silly mouse, that is just what we were looking for.” But something evil had settled on the grimoires like dust, and she was loath to touch them further. Likely the evil force would fight to retrieve any grimoire she took. Should she take the time to search for her mother’s or simply lay hands on the nearest one?

Nay, she thought, who knows what curse or protective spell has been laid on another’s grimoire. I must find our own. She sang, as clear and strong as she could, and the air above the grimoires shivered and glistened. Grayling listened carefully. “’Tis here,” she said, with a small smile of relief. And she sang again. “Here.” She plucked a book from the pile and recognized it as her mother’s, the faded blue cover marked with a burdock leaf in a circle. As she pulled it toward her, she felt the chill of a shadow behind her. No time, no time!

“Pook! Go back to the others! Go back!” She ran through the house, twisting and turning. She feared she would never find her way out again. Finally she glimpsed light from the open door, and she hurried out. Lightning flashed here and there. Thunder shook the ground. Where was the path to the sea?

She burst through a holly thicket behind the house and there below was the sea, enormous, powerful, even monstrous. The crashing of the waves was like armies meeting. She held the grimoire to her as she raced helter-skelter, followed by the thrumming of a force, churning up smoke and shadow, heat and ice, freezing branches and shrubs, scorching her kirtle and her hair. Her breath came fast as she tripped and stumbled down the steep and treacherous path, over the pebbly shore, and onto wet and slippery rocks that reached out into the water. The sea was so vast, and she was so afraid.

Smoke and shadow howled up the path behind her. Her eyes and nose filled with smoke. Icy hands clutched her face, her neck, holding her, pulling her back. Enveloped in dark and cold, Grayling was overtaken by despair. She could not escape. It was over. But still, smoke and shadow behind and above and all around her, she made one last effort and plunged into the sea, into the water, which closed over her.