28 
Ottilie couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Bill looked just the same. Two blunt horns peeked up out of his thin muddy hair. His eyes were a little too close together, the eyelashes spidery, and his nose was long and narrow. His slightly stretched-looking limbs were coated in fine pinkish-grey fur that even this far from the swamp seemed sleek with damp.
Ottilie was so glad to see him she thought she might burst. She launched herself at him in a suffocating hug. He let out a strangled gasp and stood with his arms pinned to his sides, breathing in short, wet breaths.
‘Bill! How are you here?’
‘Who are you?’ said Maeve.
‘What are you?’ said Scoot.
Bill turned to Scoot. ‘Not a person like you.’ His eyes flicked to Maeve. ‘Not a bird like her.’
‘Bill, this is Maeve Moth. She’s not a bird, she’s a person,’ said Ottilie. ‘And this is Scoot.’
‘I know a bird when I smell one,’ said Bill.
Ottilie ignored him. ‘Scoot, this is Bill, I’ve told you about him. He helped me get here.’
Scoot’s eyes widened.
Bill turned to Ottilie. ‘What is your name?’
‘It’s Ottilie,’ she said, with a watery smile. ‘Did you forget?’
‘Yes,’ he said, blinking.
‘What are you doing here, Bill? You didn’t come here to give me my hair?’
‘Why does he have your hair?’ said Maeve, looking disturbed.
‘He cut it off for me.’ Ottilie ran a hand over her head, remembering the short, uneven tufts.
‘But why did he keep it?’ said Scoot, with a hint of amusement.
‘I’ve been having … I’ve been seeing … you were supposed to come back,’ said Bill.
‘I know,’ she said, her smile faltering. ‘I was. But things … changed. It’s complicated.’
‘They’re going to start the pickings again soon,’ said Bill, twisting his hands. ‘Winter came, and I remembered. They’ll take them soon, when the season changes. I remembered where you’d gone and the birds …’ he glanced at Maeve. ‘They told me where you were. And I wanted to come here, to warn you … warn you …’
‘Warn me about what?’ said Ottilie, stepping closer to him.
Bill wrapped his webbed fingers around one of his horns, tipping his head to the side. ‘I can’t remember,’ he said.
‘Convenient,’ said Maeve.
‘Maeve, shush, he has a … memory problem,’ snapped Ottilie. ‘But, Bill, how did you get here?’
‘I hid in one of the food supply carts. I only got here yesterday. I hadn’t found you yet and then there was clanging and fuss … so I hid.’ He shivered.
‘Here?’ said Maeve, glancing at the rafters.
‘These things seemed nice.’ Bill gestured to the dark wingerslink. ‘I felt safe.’
‘I wouldn’t exactly call them nice,’ said Scoot.
There came a nettled snarl from the pen behind him. Scoot twitched and crossed to stand by Ottilie.
‘Bill, you have to remember what you came to warn me about,’ said Ottilie. ‘You have to try.’ What could it be? Something worse than Gully’s kidnapping, worse than Gracie controlling the wylers? Or was it about the bloodbeasts – whatever they were?
Bill nodded, crossed his eyes and said nothing.
She sighed and turned back to Maeve. ‘We weren’t finished. Maeve, I don’t believe that you had anything to do with all the bad things that have been happening, but I do think … I think you’re a witch.’ Ottilie struggled to soften the last word, to utter it as if it were neither insult nor accusation.
Maeve clenched her jaw tight.
‘She’s not a witch,’ whispered Bill. ‘She’s a bird.’
‘What were you doing out there?’ she asked, accusation creeping in. ‘How did you get past the walls with no-one stopping you?’
Bill’s arm slunk into Ottilie’s field of vision. One long, webbed finger stretched out and touched Maeve on the side of her head. ‘She’s a bird,’ said Bill. ‘She flew out.’
‘Get off me!’ said Maeve, swatting his hand away.
‘He’s bonkers,’ said Scoot. A smile tugged at his lips but didn’t quite form.
‘Bill, stop it! This is serious,’ said Ottilie.
He looked confused and hurt. ‘She just showed me,’ he said, holding the pad of his finger in front of Ottilie’s left eye.
‘What’s on his finger?’ said Scoot eagerly.
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Bill, what are you talking about?’
Maeve closed her eyes. ‘He’s right,’ she whispered. ‘You both are.’
Scoot raised his eyebrows. ‘He’s right, is he? You’re a bird. Of course! How did we not see it before! Look at you. You’re a giant bird!’
Ottilie nearly laughed, but then a memory broke. The cave paintings in the Swamp Hollows. The stick figures with wide mouths and feathery crowns. Old Moss said they were fiorns. Fiory’s chosen children.
‘You’re a … you can turn into a … what do you mean we’re both right?’ said Ottilie. Could Maeve Moth really be a fiorn? Ottilie had always imagined them as part bird, part human, or like their fearsome depictions on the cave walls. Maeve had been looking a little ragged of late, but she was by no means a monster.
‘It started slowly,’ whispered Maeve. ‘I could make the air move … bring sparks from nowhere … boil water by looking at it. Then I started having dreams and losing time. I’d wake up in strange places … I’d find dead things around me – mice, lizards … sometimes just bones that looked like they’d been spat back up.’
Scoot screwed up his face.
‘That’s why they found bones with your things?’ said Ottilie.
‘I started keeping them. I was trying to understand where they came from. I realised … I thought I might be a witch and so I tried to draw memories from them, because I realised I could do that with people when I touched them.’
‘Is that what Bill just did to you?’ Ottilie stared at Bill’s finger.
‘You’re a witch too?’ said Scoot, regarding Bill with wide eyes. ‘How many witches are there in this place?’
‘That was different … I don’t know what that was,’ said Maeve, glaring at Bill.
Bill shrugged and patted the top of his head. ‘Birds show me things. They like to talk. You’re no different. Just bad-tempered.’
Scoot stood up and started waving his arms around. ‘So Bill can talk to birds? The birds show him things? And you’re a witch and a bird! Why am I the only one who’s confused here? Am I the crazy one, or is it you three?’
‘She’s a fiorn,’ said Ottilie. ‘A witch that can turn into a bird – am I right?’
‘I started remembering,’ said Maeve. ‘I still mostly can’t control when it happens to me – I’m working on it. It’s often when I’m asleep, but I started to be aware when it was happening … and remembering things. I snatched a jivvie once, right in front of you.’
Ottilie’s mouth fell open. ‘You were the owl that saved Leo when we were on wall watch?’
Maeve nodded.
‘And I suppose we don’t owe you anything for that? You were just doing what good people do,’ said Ottilie, looking her square in the eye.
‘I didn’t even know I was doing it,’ said Maeve, looking away. ‘I remembered it months later, and I’m not a good person.’
‘You’re a good bird,’ said Bill, as if it were the answer to a riddle.
‘So that’s really why you were past the boundaries?’ said Scoot, with narrowed eyes. ‘You flew out?’
‘I was trying to control it – trying to fly back and turn back into … me. But I messed it up. I changed back beyond the walls. Then Igor and his fledge found me and, well, you know the rest. I didn’t know anything about what had happened that day. I didn’t see any of it …’ The remaining colour drained from her face.
‘That’s why you didn’t say anything when they accused you?’ said Ottilie. It was all starting to make sense.
‘What could I say? That I’m a witch? That I was past the boundaries because I flew out there? It would have ended the same. It would have been an iron box either way. But then you came … and then Gracie …’ Her eyes slid shut, as if she was in pain.
‘Why did she protect you?’
Gracie didn’t need to say Maeve was innocent. In fact, she could have declared Maeve truly a witch, which would have forced her to escape with her – but she hadn’t. She’d given Maeve a choice.
‘Because she’s my … she was my friend,’ said Maeve, her voice shaking.
Scoot cracked his knuckles.
‘Why didn’t you go with her when she asked?’ said Ottilie, determined to understand everything.
‘Because I’m not what she is. I don’t want to hurt people,’ said Maeve, in a hoarse whisper.
‘Did you know that about her?’ said Scoot, dangerously.
‘No.’ Maeve shook her head frantically. ‘I’ve known her for two years. But I didn’t know … I knew she could be cruel but I never knew … I liked her because she was different. I’ve always struggled with people. People don’t like me, they leave me out.’
‘Have you ever thought that if you weren’t such a hideous bully they wouldn’t do that?’ said Scoot.
‘People always treated me differently, even when I was little, like I smelled wrong or something, as if they were scared. So I guess I started scaring them off on purpose,’ said Maeve, blinking away tears.
‘Oh, you poor witch. You’re forgiven,’ said Scoot.
Ottilie shushed him. ‘Scoot, that’s not helpful.’
‘Gracie was never like that,’ continued Maeve. ‘She was never scared.’
‘Of course she wasn’t scared of you,’ said Scoot. ‘She’s a ranky lunatic!’
‘The fact that you’re both witches probably helped,’ said Ottilie.
Maeve frowned. Ottilie could tell she still didn’t think Gracie was a witch. But how could she not be?
‘I think she and I together … we made each other worse,’ said Maeve. ‘But, I swear, I didn’t know she could be so bad, so evil.’ She looked up, her eyes pleading.
‘I believe you,’ said Bill.
‘You’re just saying that because you like birds,’ said Scoot.
‘I believe you too,’ said Ottilie.
‘Are you going to tell anyone about me?’ Maeve asked, in barely a whisper.
Ottilie didn’t need to consider her answer. ‘We’ll keep your secret.’
Bill pressed a finger to his lips, nodding. After a moment, he lowered it and said, ‘What secret?’