XIV

he seawater was bitter cold, salty on her lips, and stinging in her eyes. After her plunge to the bottom, she drifted there, quiet, at ease. Was she dead? The water was above her and around her, embracing her, enfolding her, cradling her. It was so lovely, so peaceful, until her chest tightened and her lungs began to burn. Which way was up? Which way was air? She paddled wildly. Her skirts billowed and snagged her legs, and her hair tangled in her eyes and her mouth.

Her struggles took her at last to the surface, where she gulped great gulps of air. The seawater she had swallowed roiled in her belly and spewed out like a fountain. No, she was not dead. She felt too miserable to be dead. She closed her eyes and bobbed gently in the water while a seabird screeched above her.

A sudden splash near her proved to be Phinaeus Moon, who had hurled himself off the rocks. He caught and held her.

“Let me go,” she shouted, batting at his arm. “You are pulling my hair.”

“Stop fighting and let me help. I am rescuing you.”

“Nay, let me rescue myself.”

They staggered to the beach, where they lay wet and gasping. “Fie and fie again, Grayling!” said Phinaeus Moon. “You were supposed to throw the book into the water, not follow it in.”

“I had no choice. The smoke and shadow and I, we were one, tangled together and not separable.” She shuddered, feeling once more the foul cloud, icy and afire at the same time, that had enveloped her.

The bird continued its screeching, accompanied by frenzied shouting from the cliff above. Grayling lifted her head to see. There were Auld Nancy and Sylvanus calling and waving and bouncing with glee. Desdemona Cork, wrapped in her fluttering shawls, pointed to the sky and cried, “Look there, look!”

Grayling looked. A great stream of birds poured from the rise where the stone house was. Birds of different sizes, different colors, strange birds, with no beaks or wings . . . Nay, not birds! Books! “Phinaeus Moon, ’tis the grimoires!” Grayling cried. And it was—large grimoires and small, old and new, artfully wrought and plain, more than a hundred grimoires sailing through the air and on. “What does it mean?”

Phinaeus Moon stood and craned his neck to see better. “Belike they are flying back to their owners!” He clapped his hands and laughed. “I think you have done it! Grayling, you have broken the spell!”

A smile lighted Grayling’s face as joy rose within her. “And their owners? Might this mean they too are released?”

With a shrug Phinaeus Moon said, “I am not the person to ask. Perhaps Auld Nancy could say. Or Pansy.” He took Grayling by the arm. “Come, I’ll help you back up. Certes, you will allow me that.”

Grayling, queasy, tattered, and wet but lighter of heart, nodded, and Phinaeus Moon led her up a steep but straight path to where the others waited.

Auld Nancy, twittering in a most un-Auld-Nancy-like way, grabbed Grayling’s arm and held her close. Sylvanus and Desdemona Cork danced delightedly. Pansy stood alone at the edge of the group and glowered.

“Here, come warm yourself, girl,” said Sylvanus at last, clucking with concern as he pulled Grayling closer to a welcoming fire. Desdemona Cork removed Grayling’s sodden cloak and wrapped her in a shawl of fine wool woven in stripes of gold and the silvery blue of the sea. It had a sweet, exotic spicy smell—spring flowers and fresh apples with a touch of cinnamon and—Grayling buried her face in it—warm wine on a cold night. She breathed deeply.

They gathered about the fire, Grayling safe and warm between Desdemona Cork and Auld Nancy. “Is the force gone now?” Grayling asked, when she had settled herself. “Is the horror over and all as it was before? Are my mother and all the wise folk released?”

“By meddling in magic,” said Sylvanus, “Pansy opened a door, and evil has come through. There may be more surprises in store, but for the moment, I would say the trouble is over.”

Phinaeus Moon came and crouched near Grayling. He took a drenched and dripping book from beneath his doublet. “I saw this sinking as I jumped into the water, and I was able to take hold of it.” Grayling reached for the sodden grimoire. “Soft, soft,” he said, holding it away. “The pages are soaked and fragile, and the ink is smeared in places.” He placed the book in Grayling’s lap.

She opened the grimoire and for the first time saw inside. Here was a recipe for her mother’s rosehip jelly, there the ingredients for a love potion. Grayling examined page after page: a chant to find lost sheep, songs for healing and comforting and cheering, careful drawings of the leaves of deadly nightshade and monkshood root. Grayling had learned much of this lore by watching and listening to her mother. What Pansy had wanted to know so desperately that she conjured the smoke and shadow was not in these pages. There was no sorcery, no mysterious secret, no magic here.

“If you please,” Phinaeus Moon continued, “I will take it and repair it.” He took it gently into his big hands. “Most pages need only to dry. The others I will have recopied on my good paper. Creamy, thick paper, smooth to the touch but strong and altogether splendid”—he smiled at her—“just as you are.”

Grayling smiled back as she studied him—his eyes warm and deep, hair a soft brown. The very air around him seemed to shimmer. “Oh, figs and feathers, he’s an enchanter!” she whispered, and shook her head violently to break the spell.

“Nay,” said Desdemona Cork. “He is but an ordinary young man. ’Tis his gentle kindness that shines.”

Grayling gawked at Desdemona Cork. “I thought you did not notice us ordinary folk.”

Said Desdemona Cork, “I am learning.”

The scream of a seabird interrupted. Was it Pook? Grayling wondered. Or was he still a mouse? Had he come back as she ordered him? If not, where was he? And what was he? It was difficult keeping track of a creature that changed its nature so frequently.

Grayling looked at Pansy, across the fire. Firelight made shadows on Pansy’s face, which was not stupid and sullen as usual, but sly and malevolent. Had she done something else wicked?

Pook! If she had hurt Pook, Grayling would . . . would . . . what would she do? It would be something severe and horrid.

“Where is Pook?” Grayling asked.

“I am here,” said the mouse as he scrabbled up her arm. “’Twas a long way for a mouse to come. I hurried as fast as I could, but my legs are short and my heart is little. Now I am here, and you are safe.” With a contented huff, he climbed into Grayling’s pocket, damp though it was, and settled in for a well-earned rest.

Weary and hungry, the company dozed by the fire. When Grayling woke, the sun was setting over the sea, splashing streaks of pale oranges and golds and a tinge of lavender across the sky where it met the horizon. The air was rich with the smell of salt and seaweed. Phinaeus Moon had gathered clams and mussels and periwinkles from the shore. Sylvanus pried open the shells with his knife, Desdemona Cork rinsed them in seawater, and Auld Nancy wrapped them in sea lettuce and cooked them briefly on the hot coals. Grayling gathered berries and wild celery. It was not much of a supper for six, for they let Pansy share, but it did taste good.

“We must leave here,” Sylvanus said through a mouthful of berries. “We must see whether our deeds have truly broken the spell and what damage has been done.”

“What if nothing has changed?” asked Grayling. “What if the grimoires have flown off, but people are still rooted? What if the force did not dissipate in the sea but is still there, and Pansy cannot call it back, nor can you?”

Sylvanus wiped his mouth with his beard. “Soft, girl, soft. Don’t fall off the cliff until you get to the edge. We shall see what we shall see.”

That is the worry, thought Grayling. What shall we see?

In the morning, Phinaeus Moon bade them farewell. He would be going north along the seashore while the others walked east, back the way they had come. “How will I recover the grimoire?” Grayling asked him.

“Sing to it, and follow. It will be waiting.” With a wink, a grin, and a whistle, he was off, headed north.

Grayling watched him go, her heart suddenly sore. Soon the others would be leaving her also. She was at last free to see about her mother, but she could not imagine her days without them.

Stumbling and limping, the remaining travelers pushed through the woods, up hills and down, over ditches and fallen logs, until they came to a road. The walking was easier then, and the company had gone some ways when a small open carriage with a noble crest on the door came up behind them on the road. Desdemona Cork tossed her hair and twitched her shawls, and the carriage stopped.

“What about your cottage by the sea?” Grayling asked, grabbing Desdemona Cork’s arm. “Goat cheese and apples? Remember? You can stop enchanting and bake bread.” She untangled a leaf of wild celery that was stuck in the enchantress’s cloud of hair.

“I am what I am,” said Desdemona Cork. She flashed Grayling a smile of rare loveliness, and Grayling felt again the pull of the woman’s power.

Grayling unwrapped the gold and blue shawl from around her shoulders and handed it to Desdemona Cork.

“Nay, keep it,” said Desdemona Cork. “Think on me from time to time, wind in my hair, spinning by the sea. No matter that I will not be there.” She climbed into the carriage, which continued on its way, blowing a great dust storm up in its wake.

Those left behind coughed and rubbed their eyes. Auld Nancy, angry, lifted her broom. “We shall see how enchanting she be with rain in her face!”

Grayling took her hand. “Your rain, like your anger, Auld Nancy, will fall on all of us.”

Auld Nancy grumbled but put her broom down.

Two were gone now. Grayling would never smell sweet blossoms or feel soft sun on her face without thinking of Desdemona Cork.

They began again to walk, away from the sea, away from their adventures, toward home.

Pansy dawdled behind the rest and whined. “Sylvanus, I want to ride the mule. My feet are blistered and sore tired, and my head hurts.”

“If you hadn’t wearied yourself with devilment, you would not be tired out now,” Sylvanus called to her. Pansy opened her mouth to speak, but Sylvanus silenced her with a wave of his hand. “I will not burden him. Nostradamus has a far way to go to Nether Finchbeck.”

Pansy dragged and shuffled her feet but finally caught up with the others. “Tell me more of this place,” she said to Sylvanus.

“Nether Finchbeck?” His eyes unfocused, as if he were looking far into the distance and back into the past at the same. “Nether Finchbeck. A glorious institution of learning and spelling and necromancing, where mystery and manifestations of brilliance share the day with sheer befuddlement.”

“I long to be a powerful magician,” said Pansy. “Take me with you.”

“Nay, never,” said Sylvanus, shaking his head. “Or leastwise, not now. You have much to learn before you can be considered for Nether Finchbeck. You will go with Auld Nancy for the learning of it.”

“Nay,” said Pansy.

Sylvanus frowned at her. “’Twill be worth the effort, girl, to achieve mastery, and power, and a thoughtful nature. After all, ‘an empty head makes noise but no sense.’”

Pansy was silent, though her face was stormy.

The day was cold but sunny. Thin clouds made pictures in the sky and then passed on. Grayling and Auld Nancy now lagged behind the other two, for Auld Nancy’s weary bones slowed her down and Grayling was loath to leave the old woman’s side. Folks passed to and fro on the road, often gawking at the four bedraggled strangers with the mule, but none stopped to engage them. Had any of them been rooted to the ground and then set free? Grayling wondered. Or were the trees at the roadside more than they seemed?

Long past noon, they reached a crossroads. “We part ways here,” Sylvanus said. “I must make certain the evil has passed and all is as it was before.”

Pansy grabbed Sylvanus’s sleeve. “Take me with you! I have skills. You have seen them. Teach me to do great magic.”

Sylvanus pulled his arm away. “Nay, I said. I have seen your skills overcome by emotions you could not control. Your envy, greed, and anger burst forth in the power of the smoke and shadow, and you endangered us all. Auld Nancy has much to teach you.”

“I do not want to learn. I want to do!”

“And that is the primary reason you go with Auld Nancy.” Pansy’s face crumpled. “And, you,” Sylvanus said to Grayling, “you have proved yourself clever and brave.”

“Nay, I was most fearful, for I knew I had no magic to help me.”

Sylvanus whistled to his mule. “Only the very stupid do not fear danger,” he said. “And as for magic, the great wizard Gastronomus Bing of happy memory said true magic is like a sausage.”

Auld Nancy and Pansy listened intently, while Grayling’s jaw dropped in befuddlement. “Sausage? How sausage?”

“Made of bits and pieces of things everyone has—not pork and spices but tricks and charms, aptitudes and powers, some herbs, some skill and training, and some luck.” He tightened the straps of the saddlebags on the mule, and Nostradamus grunted. “The world is full of mystery. Not everything can be explained. Does that make it magic? You could sing to the grimoire with no words and no music and hear it singing back. How? Was this magic? Was it in you? In the song? Or does it speak of a bond between you and the grimoire?” Sylvanus pushed a wisp of hair from Grayling’s face. “And there is magic of sorts in your courage and your keen wits, the songs you called upon, and your caring heart.”

Grayling sniffed. Whatever skills she had were not at all awesome and astounding, not what she would call magical. She could not command smoke and shadow or shroud a boy in a glamour spell as Pansy had. But Pansy’s magic just caused trouble. Did magic always bring trouble? Would having magic be worth being as irritating and vexatious as Pansy?

“How was it, Sylvanus,” Grayling asked him, “that you knew nothing of the smoke and shadow and the damage it caused when we found you?”

“I was elsewhere, traveling,” said Sylvanus, “partaking of the pure aether there beyond the moon . . .”

Grayling ruckled her forehead in suspicion.

“Aye, you have the right of it. In truth,” he said, “I knew of the smoke and shadow, and I had concluded that the force’s magic was so strong it could not be defeated by more magic, but might feed off it and grow stronger. The force would be vanquished, I determined, only through courage, cleverness, imagination, good judgment, and good sense. I waited for someone with those qualities, for you. And you proved me right.”

Grayling looked at him in wonder.

“I do have some useful skills,” Sylvanus told her. “The school at Nether Finchbeck does not employ me merely for my handsome face. Now I must go.”

He dropped a handful of copper coins into Grayling’s hand. “Fare thee well, lass. Perchance we might meet again.” He touched his hand to his head in a salute as he walked off, leading the mule one way, leaving Grayling and Auld Nancy and Pansy to go another.

Grayling called to Sylvanus, “You never told us—what is the first rule of magic?”

He spun round and called back to her, “’Tis the hardest rule to learn: magic is not the answer. Magic may be convenient, brilliant, even dazzling, but it is not the answer.” He waved once to her before he turned and walked on.