The candle’s tiny flame flickered, then failed. Wren swore, her voice barely a whisper, more of a suggestion than a sound. If her father woke, he would beg her not to go, and it would be another hour before she could lull him back to sleep. By the time she made it to market, everyone would have gotten their eggs from Lensla, the miserable woman who lived near the bog, and Wren would be without coins. Again.
She’d heard a rumor that girls in the North had offered a stiltzkin their names for the ability to turn straw into gold. What she would have given to make such a trade. Wren didn’t need a name. Not if it meant she’d have gold to spare, a full belly, and proper medicine for her father. She had been named for a bird, after all. It wouldn’t be a terrible loss.
Tiptoeing carefully across the small room, Wren cringed as she stumbled over her father’s boots at the foot of the bed. She paused, keeping her breath trapped in her lungs. There was no sound from her father. Exhaling gently, Wren stayed rooted to the floor until her eyes grew accustomed to the darkness. Only then did she bend down to grab the boots, the leather soft and worn from their many years guarding her father’s feet. She settled them carefully in the corner so she would not trip again.
She fumbled with the door, opening it just wide enough to slip through before shutting it quickly to shield her father’s sickbed from the sunlight spilling through the cottage’s front windows.
Wren sighed again, at full volume this time. It had been a particularly unpleasant night, her father complaining of a headache so searing he was unable to keep down even the smallest spoonful of water. She had finally lulled him to sleep with a warm mustard-seed compress and the hint of a song, her voice low and husky from her own lack of sleep.
“I’d be dead without you, little bird,” her father had murmured, minutes before falling into a fitful slumber. Wren wished she could chalk the sentiment up to feverish exaggeration, but it was the truth. You must promise never to leave me, Wren, her father had said, the day after her mother died, for without you, I do not think I would survive. In the five years since, he’d never let her forget it.
Wren ran a hand through her hair, her fingers catching in the tangled plait, the same fiery-red shade as her mother’s. Most days she wanted to chop it all off, but that would break her father’s heart. And so she kept her hair, the weight of it always on her shoulders. A memory she always had to carry.
She quickly washed her face and hands, the cold water shocking her senses awake. She retied her hair into a neat braid and pulled on her boots, lacing them with quick efficiency. She rolled out the crick in her neck and stretched her hands to the ceiling. Her pale fingertips brushed the bottom of the roof’s wooden beam.
Wren was beginning to outgrow her life.
Each day she struggled to fold herself up into the small, perfect pieces the world demanded. The freckle-faced village girl who peddled eggs at market to support her family. The dutiful daughter who spent every waking moment nursing her perpetually ill father back to health. The quiet girl who was trying not to drown in an ocean of her own secrets.
For sleep was not the only thing Wren had sacrificed for her father.
Wren gathered two large baskets and lined their insides with soft, brightly colored cloth. A basket on each arm, she headed outside, around the corner of their small, thatched cottage toward the chicken coop. The air smelled of freshly clipped lavender, the scent wafting across the morning in a purple haze. Of course, it wasn’t actually lavender Wren was smelling—it was magic.
Ignore it, ignore it, ignore it.
She couldn’t. The magic swirled around her even as she turned her back, caressing her cheek, light as a feather, while she shooed her hens away from their nests. She gathered their small, warm bounty determinedly, wiping the eggs clean and tucking them carefully between the worn tea towels. The magic draped itself around her like a scarf. Wren swatted at the air, trying to dispel it. It wasn’t like she could do anything with the purple haze of magic. She wasn’t a witch.
She was a source.
For years Wren had believed that everyone saw the world the way she did. That other people could see magic’s shining colors twisting through the sky like ribbons, could recognize its pungent scent. Wren couldn’t imagine life without magic’s soft, soothing whisper, without being able to touch its pillowy lightness or taste its hint of sweetness, like a ripe berry ready to burst. It wasn’t until she was met with the blank stares of her playmates that Wren realized that there was something different about her. That no one else could see the swirling, colorful cloud of magic that always hung above her head.
She should have gone straight to the Witchlands. The Coven required any ordinary folk who believed they possessed power to enter the Witchwood, the border of enchanted trees surrounding their country. Were they to make it through the Wood to the Witchlands, they would train with the Coven and carve out a place for themselves in the world of magic. Should they refuse to come of their own accord, they would be tracked down and taken by force, never allowed to return to the world beyond the Wood.
Wren was supposed to be there. Sources were highly valued: They housed pure magic, magic witches could draw from in order to supplement their own power. The Coven would have taken her in without a moment’s hesitation and kept her well compensated for the rest of her life.
But magic had torn her family apart once before. During the Year of Darkness, when her parents were young and newly married, they’d had a child, a boy who was only days old when he caught the sickness cast by the dark witch Evangeline. Wren came along nearly twelve years later. By then her parents were old and haunted, grief-stricken and set in their fear and hatred of all things magic. When her mother died, her father became even more delicate.
And so Wren kept her true self hidden. She would run a hand through her braid, tugging loose the plait so her father wouldn’t notice that when the wind blew, not a single hair fell out of place. She forced herself to shiver in the winter, despite the fact that she was never cold, not even when she walked barefoot through the snow. The world bent toward her, like recognizing like. Magic recognizing magic.
Her father could never know. So Wren tried to ignore the way magic pulled at her. She chose not to go to the Witchlands to train, the way the Coven’s edict required. She kept her distance from any and all magic lest she be found out and punished for her defection.
Wren did her best to pretend she hadn’t wanted that life anyway.
After slipping the final egg into her basket and tucking the cloth protectively around her precious wares, Wren closed the latch on the coop and moved swiftly through her front gate, which slammed behind her. She winced despite herself, thinking of her father and his already-unsteady slumber.
A deeper, darker part of her hoped it had woken him up.
Before her feet met the path, soft black fur brushed against her ankle—the scruffy stray cat that often hung around her house. Wren knelt, balancing her baskets as she scratched him behind the ears. She’d always had a way with animals—birds settling on her shoulder as she walked to town, dogs following dutifully at her heels, even horses occasionally coming to nuzzle her neck despite her empty pockets.
“I know, I know.” Wren rummaged in her basket for a crumb but came up with nothing. “You’re hungry. I’m sorry.” The cat’s yellow eyes stared accusingly up at her. “So am I, you know. Not that you care.” The cat let out a soft mewl.
Wren ran her hand across the creature’s matted back, extracting a burr that had stuck near the base of his tail. The cat nipped affectionately at her finger. “That’s all I can do,” Wren murmured apologetically. “Unless I have a very good day at market.” Though of course that wasn’t likely. The cat nuzzled her knee, leaving black fur clinging to the green wool of her trousers. “Okay, greedy. I’ll do my best.” Wren gave the cat a final scratch behind the ears, then hauled herself up, careful not to jostle her eggs.
The cat shot Wren an affronted look.
Wren glanced back up at the purple haze of magic. It pointed down the path to the left, toward the town of Wells. She glanced to the right, toward Ladaugh. It was a similar walk to each town’s main square, but the sky in that direction was a clear, normal blue.
It wasn’t even a choice, really.
Magic made Wren a bit… odd. She was forever shooing it away, constantly smoothing down the hair that stood up on the back of her neck in its presence, always trying to explain why she’d stopped a conversation midsentence, listening to a shriek no one else could hear. Sometimes she gave in to it, closed her eyes and tried to will it in her direction, to parse its dazzling ribbons and unravel its secrets. But there she was less successful. Mostly she just waved her hands about and felt ridiculous.
Still, the purple ribbon felt like a sign. If she followed, it might lead her to a field of wildflowers or to a tiny creek running with the freshest water she had ever tasted. It might take her to a den of baby foxes that would chase their tails and nuzzle her arm with their wet, black noses.…
Wren’s baskets weighed heavily on her arms as she let her daydream die. She needed to head to market to trade for food and herbs for her father. She could not afford the distraction. And so Wren turned right, leaving the magic—and her desperate glimmer of wanting—behind.
Her footsteps crunched on the road to Ladaugh, kicking up dust that danced around her ankles. Her baskets swung jauntily as the path wound its way through Farmer Haddon’s field, where his four sons chased one another with sticks. The wheat was tall, nearly to Wren’s waist. It had been a wet spring, but summer had driven away the clouds, leaving the days crisp and bright and warm. The sun was hot against her cheek. Soon her face would bloom with freckles, and the bridge of her nose would turn a perpetual pink.
Wren walked past towering hay bales and endless fields of corn, stopping once to offer her hand to a field mouse, which settled on her shoulder, its tiny claws tangling in her hair. She waved at Amelia, the butcher’s wife, who was loaded down with three baskets and nearly as many crying children. She crossed a great stone bridge, passing others carrying their market wares in baskets or strapped upon their backs. Despite their friendly greetings, their faces were set.
Something had shifted since she’d crossed the river. It hung sourly in the air, was present in the townspeople’s grim expressions. Even the field mouse had scampered down her back and into the tall summer grass. When she came upon a family—a father, mother, and little boy, doubtfully older than three—pulling a wooden cart loaded with everything they owned, her curiosity got the best of her.
“Hello, friends.” She raised a hand in greeting. “Where are you headed this morning?”
“South, of course.” The woman looked at Wren with wide eyes, her face frantic. “Haven’t you heard? There’s a plague sweeping its way through the queendom.” She shivered, pulling her child close.
“Were you not at the meeting?” the father asked, noting Wren’s confusion. “Queen Mathilde has fled from Farn and headed to the Winter Palace. The capital has been completely ravaged by the sickness. Once the plague makes its way over the mountains, we will be next.”
“What are the symptoms?” Wren tugged sharply on the end of her braid. Her father could not afford another sickness. He was already feverish and bedridden, his illness unresponsive to her remedies. “The usual sorts?”
The woman shook her head sharply. “It isn’t a physical sickness.”
That was a relief. Her father’s symptoms were very much physical. Whatever he had wasn’t this plague.
“They said…” The woman paused, putting her hands over her child’s tiny ears. The boy squirmed beneath her touch, burying his face in her linen trousers. “They said it creeps inside your mind, siphons out your memories and your joys. Leaves the afflicted bodies empty, like”—the woman glanced side to side, her voice dropping to barely a whisper—“walking ghosts.”
Wren’s body went cold. What sort of sickness was strong enough to rob a person of their soul?
The father looked over his shoulder, down the road to Ladaugh, eager to move on. He put an arm around his wife. “Excuse us,” he said, smiling emptily at Wren. He ushered his family forward, their backs bent with the weight of their cart, their heads bowed in fear. Wren raised a hand in parting, but the family did not look back.
Ladaugh’s bustling town square assailed Wren’s senses with the shrill scrape of knives being sharpened and the savory scent of meat roasting over an open flame. Vendors called across the market, chiding their competitors; children played tag in front of the bookseller’s cart. Wren, distracted by their game, tripped, her toe catching on a loose cobblestone.
“Whoa there, girlie.” A strong hand gripped her elbow as she struggled to steady herself.
“Tor.” Wren smiled easily. The tailor was a kind man and, perhaps more important, a consistent customer. She squinted at his vest. The fabric was shimmering with magic, as though it existed behind a curtain of smoke. The pattern was beginning to make her a bit dizzy.
“Wren?” The old man waved a hand before her eyes to reclaim her attention. She tried to look apologetic. Tor smiled stiffly. “How’s your da?”
Wren’s own smile slipped several notches. “Not well.”
Tor’s grip on her arm grew tighter. “The plague?” The bags beneath his eyes were nearly black. It appeared that Wren was not the only one who had gone without sleep.
She shook her head. “The symptoms aren’t the same.”
Tor loosened his grip. “Be careful, will you? My cousin in Farn sent a raven last night, said the sickness has ravaged the capital like I wouldn’t believe. The afflicted are empty-eyed, and even the earth is affected. He said the ground shook until it opened up and swallowed a hundred people whole.”
A chill ran up the back of Wren’s arm. She shifted her baskets nervously.
Tor’s eyes were dark and hard. “You weren’t alive for the Year of Darkness, but this is how the sickness started then, too. There’s a new dark witch. I know it.” He ran a hand through his thinning hair. “The Coven claimed they would protect us, but why would witches care about ordinary folk?” He laughed darkly. “Anyway, even Queen Mathilde has denounced the Coven. If our queen is willing to turn her back on witches, well…” He trailed off, pursing his lips. “It must be bad. Watch yourself, will you? And that da of yours.” His eyes lingered on Wren, his pity nearly tangible. “I’ll take five eggs, if you have them.”
He offered her three needles, six mismatched buttons, and a spool of black thread. Wren accepted his barter gratefully, passing over her eggs one by one as Tor nestled them carefully into his sack. She bid him farewell and continued on, grateful for the silent, solid ground beneath her feet.
Wren continued to circle the market, trading her speckled eggs for a purple-leafed head of cabbage, the bones of a turkey, and a loaf of dense brown bread. She exchanged pleasantries with the other vendors, but despite the usual niceties of market day, the air in the square was stilted and strange.
Wren stopped to browse a small cart of polished pink apples, her fingers lingering longingly on their waxy skin. It had been close to a year since she’d tasted the crisp, sweet fruit. A woman in the South had tasked a wood nymph with poisoning a single golden apple to kill her stepdaughter. But the spell had gone rogue. The southern orchards had withered away, and an entire year’s harvest had burned. The ghastly green flames had been seen all the way in the West.
That woman had been a fool. Even Wren, who was the first to find any excuse to avoid an encounter with a witch, who nursed her father back to health with herbs and broths made from the jelly marrow of bones rather than seek out spells and enchantments, knew better than to trust a nymph with poison.
“She didn’t even come to the meeting,” a woman whispered, pulling Wren’s attention from the apple’s smooth skin. “I bet she already knew.”
“I bet she caused the entire thing,” a second woman replied, her face pinched.
Wren shifted her baskets and made a show of polishing the apple on her skirt, listening closely.
“I wouldn’t put it past her. I always thought there was something wrong there. I mean, her prices,” the first woman said. “It’s not natural.”
“Nothing about that witch is natural,” said the other. “She’s so young. Too young, if you ask me.”
A shiver of magic crept down Wren’s neck. It felt like the insistent eyes of a stranger, but stronger. Magic danced around her body, wrapping her in an embrace. She tried to shake it, but in her haste, the apple tumbled from her hand and rolled all the way across the market, landing at the feet of a tinker displaying a lush purple cloak with seemingly endless pockets. The apple’s once-bright skin was left broken and bruised.
The women stopped talking and stared at Wren, scandalized. The merchant started yelling, his voice low and gruff, his long brown beard trembling as he glowered down at her.
Wren tried to slow her hammering heart. The price of apples was twice what it had been before the poisoning. The fruit was a delicacy she could not afford.
Wren tried to stammer out an apology, but the words caught in her throat. The slithering feeling of eyes on the back of her neck returned, but this time it wasn’t magic. People had started to stare. Wren’s face was on fire, the merchant’s loud voice ringing in her ears. She offered him the buttons and thread from Tor as well as her loaf of bread. The man scowled but accepted her payment. Wren tried not to cry as she picked up the bruised, brown apple, repositioned her much lighter baskets, and turned away.
Only two eggs remained, their speckled brown shells delicate and smooth. Two was hardly enough to barter for dry crusts of bread. Still, she had to try. Wren swallowed the lump in her throat and called out to the crowd.
“Did you say eggs?” The voice behind her was lush as velvet, dark as midnight.
Wren wheeled around, her eyes widening as she took in the face of the girl who had spoken.
Tamsin, the witch of Ladaugh, stood before her, buried beneath a sweeping cloak of forest green. Wren took a step back. She’d been so desperate to trade that she’d forgotten to look for the source of the magic that had sent the apple tumbling to the cobblestones. She had failed to watch for the streaks of earthy red magic, ruddy like wet clay, that radiated from Tamsin. Had forgotten to turn and run, unsold eggs be damned. Had broken the one and only rule upon which her life depended: Never come face-to-face with a witch.
“Well, do you have eggs or not?” Tamsin snapped. She brushed back her hair, dark as a raven’s wing, a thick eyebrow arching up with scorn.
Wren was having difficulty finding her voice. She rummaged quickly through her basket, nearly shattering the shells as she scooped the eggs into her hand and held them out to the witch.
Tamsin took them, eyes narrowed. “How much?”
Wren shrugged, waving her other hand in the air in an uncertain gesture, all the while fighting the urge to bolt. She was acting a fool, but she had never been so close to a witch in her life, and certainly not one as powerful as Tamsin. She squirmed beneath the witch’s stare. The green flecks in Tamsin’s brown eyes were the same color as her cloak.
Tamsin clucked her tongue impatiently and dropped a handful of coins into Wren’s basket before turning on her heel, her cloak flaring out behind her like a cape. Wren gaped after her, catching a hint of fresh sage on the morning breeze.
She scrambled to collect the coins, nearly ten times what the eggs were worth, the heat of them sparking excitement in her chest. Perhaps she had been wrong to steer clear of witches. Wren had always assumed they were just as awful as her father said. But it was clear to her now that Tamsin’s sour expression did not accurately reflect the fullness of her heart.
Wren breezed through the market, handing over a copper coin for a loaf of coarse, dark bread five times finer than the one she had parted with. She purchased fresh herbs and a cut of venison, little luxuries she normally wouldn’t dare dream of. And still, despite the weight of her replenished baskets, one solid silver coin remained.
Wren made quick time of the walk back home. She sauntered through the front gate, a smile playing about her lips. It slipped as she heard a noise from the back room. Wren settled her baskets on the table and scooped a ladleful of water, which she carried carefully to her father.
She inched the door open slowly, drops of water falling on her boots. “Papa?”
He made a soft sound, his lips curling into a weak smile. Wren helped him sit up, tipped the ladle gently toward his parched lips. Several drops dribbled down his chin.
“There’s my little bird,” he said, his voice a thick whisper. His skin was slick with sweat, his hair grayer even than it had been that morning, fading into shocks of white near his temples. He looked a fright. But he recognized her. His mind was still his own. Wren exhaled a soft sigh of relief.
Her father put a hand on her cheek, his skin flaky and paper-thin. “You know I’d be lost without you. Dead, even.” He tried to grin, but it was more like a grimace.
“Don’t say that,” she whispered, her tongue stale. “You always say that. You’re going to be fine.” She removed his hand and settled it back at his side under the heavy pile of rough wool blankets. “I’ll make you a broth.”
“Damn the broth,” he said, his grimace widening. Wren faked a laugh, though they both knew he could stomach little else.
“Sleep,” she commanded, and it was testament to her father’s frailty that he didn’t even try to fight her.
She slipped back into the main room and put water, turkey bones, and herbs in a pot to boil. She hung the empty baskets on their hooks near the door, then folded the tea towels and tucked them safely back into their cupboard.
Once everything was in its place, Wren pulled a chair in front of the fireplace, using it to reach the brown jug on the top of the mantel. The jug was innocuous and plain, like Wren herself. The most unlikely place to hide something valuable.
Wren glanced warily at the door to her father’s room. He knew nothing about the meager savings she had scraped together, the meals she’d skipped in order to hear the satisfying clink of coins. The hens were old. They couldn’t lay eggs forever. Wren needed a backup plan.
She uncorked the jug and let the coins spill out onto the worn wooden table. She sorted them into piles—several copper, two brass, and one precious gold, already reserved for the tax collectors come autumn.
Still, there was so much she could do with this money. She could pocket it and run off to a new life. There was enough to serve her until she got on her feet, found a job and a room with a proper bed. Perhaps she could even go to the Witchlands and finally learn everything about magic. About who she was.
Wren turned Tamsin’s coin over in her hand, soothed by the warmth of it. She had sacrificed everything for her father—her heart, her future, her magic. Surely she was owed something too.
There was a splutter and a hiss from the hearth. Guiltily, she swept the coins and her daydreams back into their respective hiding places. Her father was all she had left. She couldn’t turn away from him now. Wren sighed as she replaced the jug on the mantel and peeked into the pot. She was back to the bleak reality of her life. The water had begun to boil.