I feel tears begin to form, as I sit there, powerless. But they don’t come. I don’t cry easily.
I feel sick, though. The Crone is going to turn me into her tomb, and I’ll never be free of her. The knife has almost finished cutting me a thin slice of heart, and it glistens sickly.
She told me she was the bane of unwary children, and I believe her.
No—wait.
Two of those words snag on briars in my mind, get caught there while the rest of the thought goes on like a disappearing deer, ghosting into nothingness.
Children.
Believe.
My hand is going back and forth, cutting into the heart while my other hand holds it still with the fork, but my mind is churning.
I remember Mark saying, Remember you’re an adult. At the time I didn’t understand. I still don’t, not totally, but …
I remember him touching that iron, by mistake, not even being aware of it, and nothing happening, no scorching sizzle, no burning, magical or otherwise.
The people of the Dreaming can’t touch iron because they believe they can’t, I think. I bet if Mark had reached out and touched it, knowingly, it would have hurt him, because of the strength of his belief.
Belief, I think.
Children.
Belief and children …
What are you doing, child? says the Crone, and I look down, and see that the knife and fork are not moving; they are perfectly still in my hands. There is strain and tension in her face; veins show in her forehead.
I stare at her.
And then it all clicks into place, all bolts together. She said it herself, even, didn’t she? That Crones are the bane of unwary children.
Children.
Child.
She called me child.
But that’s just it, I say, out loud.
That’s just what? she replies.
I’m not a child, I say. I’m an adult. As I say this, I know it’s true. Sure, in my world, there’s like a month to go before I’m legally not a child, before I can live on my own. But here? I’m fully grown. I have gone through puberty. The Dreaming is older than the stars; in the Dreaming, the laws of the United States of America are less than nothing, and in the Dreaming, I am not a child, not anymore.
Fear distorts the Crone’s features, as if her whole face is clenching around something bitter.
And your magic only works on children, doesn’t it? I say.
No, not just—
On children who believe, I add. It only works on children who believe.
Storm clouds burst behind her eyes, darkness falling there, cold, shot through with lightning. But she doesn’t scare me anymore.
I remember my (mother), sounding so impotent in the hospital, saying she told me to stay at home, that I knew what could happen to me out there in the world if I strayed. But that only works on kids, doesn’t it? The spell of telling children what to do is this: they believe that if they don’t do it, they will be hurt, they will fall prey to the monsters under the bed, they will be lost.
They believe.
Like I believed that without my (mother) to protect me, I would be nothing but another weak victim, a morsel for the men who roamed outside the circle of firelight that my (mother) created for us.
But look what I have survived.
Like Mark believed, Coyote, with that iron cage: he believed it would cause him pain, and who knows, maybe it even would have, if he had touched it knowingly.
But it didn’t hurt him when he didn’t know he was touching it.
The spell of telling children what to do: that is what the Crone is doing to me, I realize; she is telling me to eat the heart, telling my hands, only she is doing it in some way that doesn’t involve speaking, some older way, and because I was thinking like a child, because I was believing I couldn’t stop her, it worked.
I don’t believe you anymore, I say. I don’t believe anything you say. I don’t believe you can force me to do this.
The knife trembles in my hand.
Nonsense, says the Crone. I can make you do anything. I can—
No, I say. No, you can’t. And it’s true. The knife and fork remain motionless in my hands. I am not even having to struggle to hold them like that. Mark told me, I say, he told me I was an adult, and now I know why he told me.
She snarls. Curse him, she says. I will feast on his entrails.
He’s dead, I say. You showed me, on your embroidery—him falling from the bridge.
She nods quickly. Oh, yes.
And I think: no, you idiot, you are believing again. What if he isn’t dead at all? Just like in those books, in the Flagstaff store, what if he can come back? What if I manage to kill the Crone, and rescue the Child somehow, and he can make it rain again?
I push my chair a little back from the table.
Stay right there, says the Crone.
No, I say. And I stand up.
The Crone’s face is twisted into a mask of anger. How dare you disobey me!
Shut up, I say.
Blood drains from her skin; she is white with shock. Nobody speaks to—
How do I free the Child? I say. How do I break the ice?
You can’t, says the Crone, sneering.
I bet I can.
She shakes her head, but I don’t believe her, so I begin to turn, to leave her behind and return to the grass outside, to the prison of ice. If I can hold firm against her spell, then who knows what magic I can work?
Maybe I can break the ice with my mind.
Oh no, says the Crone as I move. If you will not eat the heart, I must kill you. I cannot let you leave me.
But then she draws a dagger from the folds of her clothing. It is literally like something from a fairy tale—shiny, tapering to an incredibly fine point, vicious looking. It’s like it was made for cutting out hearts. Then I see a streak of blood on it, and I know it was used for that. Recently.
You are still unarmed, she says. Unless you count that thing in your hand. But that’s not a knife. Not like this. I will have slit your throat before you even raise it to defend yourself.
She moves toward me, still with that surprising grace, like her body wastes no energy at all, like her every step is precisely calibrated, economical, and she is raising the blade.
Time turns to ice; invisible, solid.
I reach for the feather and pull it out.
Please, says the Crone. Eagle has no power here. But is that a shiver of fear in the smallest muscle beside her eye?
No, it’s not, because she’s still coming forward. She lifts the blade up high, and it flashes through the air as she brings it down, hard, toward me, stabbing me.
For the second time in like ten minutes I am about to die.
Shit, I think.