To Kill a Kettle Witch (Novel of the Mist-Torn Witches) (13 page)

Helga

When my power as one of the Mist-Torn manifested, I was only seventeen, and my family rejoiced.

Before that, I had few attractions that any of my people might value. I was short with wide hips and a stocky build. I was considered somewhat bad-tempered. My face was pleasing enough and my hair was a dark, rich brown, but I couldn’t sing and I certainly couldn’t dance.

I did tell a good story.

Even so long ago, I remember those times as if they were yesterday, traveling through each year with my father, mother, and younger sister, Alondra. There were five wagons in our caravan, and my uncle, Gaelan, was the leader of our group.

He and his family lived in the largest of the wagons, and his eldest son, Griffin—who was one year my senior—was fated to be our next leader when his father passed. I never trusted Griffin. He’d always struck me as someone who would do what best served himself,
but tradition is tradition, and the Ayres were led by the eldest male, followed by the son of the eldest male.

Who was I to question tradition?

I was happy then. I loved my parents and my sister, and my spirit thrived under our yearly cycle. We spent the autumn camped outside the great city of Kéonsk, with hundreds of other wagons and farmers and merchants, for the great harvest fair. All through autumn, we put on shows of music, dance, and magic for the people visiting the fair, and they’d throw money into our hats. We used these funds to resupply.

In early winter, we rolled southwest, through a series of towns or large villages, one after the other, where we’d entertain people weary of the cold gray skies and hungry for amusement. Uncle Gaelan had carefully arranged invitations from the town councils or leaders years ago. I learned as a girl that my people weren’t always trusted and sometimes even turned away—or chased away—and that we needed a proper invitation.

In the spring, we’d begin the long journey southeast, to Yegor, where we summered in a meadow with other families in their caravans, and we harvested crops for the prince in exchange for our welcome.

Not all Móndyalítko families lived by such a cycle. Some traveled far and wide, to other countries like Bela and Stravina, and they varied their adventures each year. But my uncle preferred a safer routine, and my parents followed his judgment, for he’d always kept us fed and safe.

I first felt the nag at the back of my head during the early days of the Kéonsk fair in my seventeenth year. At the time, I had no idea what it meant, but when it
didn’t go away within the hour, I grew alarmed and told my mother.

She went still, staring at me.

“Tell me what you feel,” she said.

“It’s like an itch, but not an itch, as if I’ve forgotten something, and I must remember what it is, but I can’t.”

Hope flooded her face. She grasped my hand, leading me up inside our wagon. There, she lit a single candle and set it on the table.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Come and sit.” Her voice trembled. “I believe you have your grandmother’s gift.”

I nearly gasped. Among the members of our caravan, we possessed no Mist-Torn and no shifters. This was an embarrassment to my uncle. My grandmother had been Mist-Torn, but she’d died when I was young.

With the vanity of a seventeen-year-old, I liked the thought of taking my place as the only Mist-Torn witch in my family. Foolish girl.

“What do I do?” I asked my mother.

“Focus on the flame and on the prompt in your mind, repeat this litany in your thoughts to help you concentrate:
Blessed fire in the night, show me what is in the sight, show me what brings fight or flight, blessed fire in the night
.”

“But it isn’t night. It’s broad daylight.”

“The words will simply help you to focus.”

I did as she instructed, eager to prove her right, that I was indeed Mist-Torn. This caused some distraction at first, but then I focused on the flame, on the nag, and on the litany, repeating the phrases in my mind.

The wagon around me vanished, and to my shock, I
found myself surrounded by a sea of white and gray mists. They cleared, and I was standing in a field that I recognized. It was not far from the vast campground of the Kéonsk fair. It was a place our men sometimes took our horses to graze.

I saw three horses grazing and a fourth one was sniffing something on the ground. Moving closer, I looked down at the prone form lying in the grass. It was Uncle Gaelan’s youngest son, Gustavo. His eyes were closed and his head was bleeding. When I looked at the horse beside him, I saw red on its right rear hoof. Gustavo must have startled the creature somehow and been kicked.

The mists closed in, and the scene vanished.

I was once again back in the wagon.

“Mother!” I cried. “Gustavo is hurt. He’s been kicked in the head, and he’s lying in the small field where we take the horses to graze.”

She didn’t wait or bother to answer. Running outside, she called to the men, who began rushing for the field. The next few hours were a blur of activity as Gustavo was found and brought back and his wound tended to and everyone worried for him.

But in the early evening, my mother, father, and Uncle Gaelan came to me, and I could see their excitement.

“How is Gustavo?” I asked.

“He will recover thanks to you,” Gaelan answered. “We reached him in time.”

He’d never spoken to me with such respect. He rarely spoke to me at all.

“Your mother tells me you felt the prompt and looked into the flame and saw Gustavo,” he went on. “Is this true?”

“Yes.”

“She is Mist-Torn,” my mother added.

“Your own mother is long gone,” Gaelan said to her. “Can you guide Helga yourself?”

“I can.”

My uncle was pleased, beyond pleased.

And so a new world began for me. My mother explained how my grandmother’s abilities had worked. They were twofold. The first possibility involved the mists reaching out to me, telling me that something was amiss or needed to be seen. This was the case with Gustavo. Such prompts mustn’t be ignored.

The second ability was for me to read individual people who might come with a question. I could focus on another place or person and see exactly what was happening in the moment. I knew well that seers from the line of Fawe, with their lavender eyes, often saw the future and the past, and at first, their gifts seemed more useful to me.

How many people wanted to know what was happening someplace else right
now
?

“You’ll see,” my mother said. “A good number.”

I soon learned she was right.

My uncle set me up in the largest, finest wagon—his own family’s wagon—a few mornings later. I wore a new red velvet dress with gold hoops in my ears. He then walked around the fair announcing that the line of Ayres boasted a seer who could read the present.

Not long after, people began arriving.

I was nervous. I’d seen other Móndyalítko women who were not Mist-Torn put on mesmerizing shows as they pretended to read futures. I was no show woman. I simply sat at the table and waited.

The first man to enter the wagon appeared to be a farmer. He looked askance at the silk cushions and hanging crystals, but he had a kind face.

“How can I help?” I asked, as my mother had taught me.

“When I traveled from my farm to bring the first half of the harvest to the fair,” he answered, “I left the other half in the fields for my sons to bring in. But bad weather threatened. Can you see my farm and tell me if the rest of the harvest has come in safely?”

At once, I was at ease and began to see how useful my powers could be to other people.

“Come and sit,” I said to him.

My mother had explained what I should do, but this was the first time I’d put this ability to the test. Reaching out, I grasped his hand and closed my eyes, and I focused intently on the spark of his spirit and the image of his farm.

The wagon vanished, and the mists closed in. When they cleared, I stood on the outskirts of a mown wheat field. To my right was a cheerful cottage with a thatched roof and just beyond that was a large barn where I could see young men working. All the fields in my sightline had been cleared of their crops, and the wheat was bound and ready to be threshed.

The mists closed in, and I found myself back in the wagon. I was pleased to give him good news.

“The harvest is safely in, and I saw your sons working with the bound wheat in the barn. All is well.”

He thanked me with a smile and paid me well.

This went on all morning. Some of the news I delivered was not so pleasant. One woman sought to see if a sick friend left behind had recovered from her illness, and I saw that the friend had died.

By noon, I’d grown weary, and Uncle Gaelan called the readings to a close, but he was pleased when he counted the coins I’d earned.

That night, everyone made a fuss over me. I didn’t have to help with the cooking, and I was served dinner first—and only the best portions.

I might have let some of this go to my head.

Strangely, even though Alondra was my sister, and therefore naturally placed in a position of rivalry, she held no resentment toward me at all and only rejoiced in my elevation. She was a sweet soul and ever mindful of the feelings of others.

Perhaps it would have been better for her to inherit my grandmother’s gift.

It was Griffin, my uncle’s eldest son, who would someday be our leader, who frowned that night when I was served dinner as I sat by the fire like a spoiled princess expecting her proper due.

“I don’t see why Helga suddenly has no duties,” he said, “and gets the best cuts of meat simply because she sat in a wagon all morning doing something that requires no skill or effort on her part.”

His words stung a little because they held truth. A kettle witch often underwent years of study to cast spells, and the women of my family who read or pretended to
read fortunes were all practiced in how to put on a show for each patron and to listen and tell people what they needed to hear.

My ability was natural. It required no study and no skill.

But my uncle turned on Griffin angrily. “Hold your tongue! Your cousin earned more in a single morning than the entire family has earned at the fair so far this year. You should be thankful we have a Mist-Torn among us, and we can hold our heads higher. Next autumn, we’ll be given a camping spot at the front of the fair, closest to the city. Mark my words.”

Griffin glowered at me, but he obeyed his father and held his tongue.

The next morning, Gaelan once again set me up in the largest, finest wagon, and I went to work. For the first time, I wavered in my joy and my pride as I wondered how many days in a row I’d be expected to sit in my red velvet dress and my gold earrings and earn coins as a seer.

That morning also showed me the pain my gift could bring to someone else, and I never quite recovered from understanding the power I held.

Early on that day, a woman in a peach silk gown stepped carefully inside the wagon and looked at me. I could see desperation and fear in her eyes, but the rest of her face was calm and guarded. She was nearly fifty, but she must have once been quite beautiful, and the remnants were still visible in her blue eyes and small straight nose. Her near-black hair was piled elaborately on her head, and only a few strands of gray showed.

Moving closer, she sat down across from me, and I could see the tiny lines in her face.

Before speaking, she held up a fat pouch and slid it across the table. I knew she was going to ask me to see something difficult.

“How can I help?” I asked.

She opened her mouth once, closed it again, and then tried for a second time. “I live inside the city walls. As a young woman, I was married to a man old enough to be my father, and I served him well as his wife. He died last year, leaving me well provided for, and this year . . . this year, I married a man younger than myself.” She closed her eyes as if making a confession. “He is handsome and perfect, and all I’ve ever dreamed of. I’ve tried to convince myself that he loves me. In recent weeks, I’ve come to fear he is . . . cavorting with my maid. I hope I am wrong, but I must know. This morning, I dressed myself as you see and announced I was going to visit a friend and that I would be gone for hours.” She paused. “Can you see what is happening right now, inside my home?”

I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. I didn’t want to do this.

Still, I didn’t see how I could refuse, and I understood her reasons for wanting to know. Reaching out, I grasped her hand and focused on the spark of her spirit and on her husband and on her house. By this point, I’d learned to feel exactly when I made the connection.

The wagon vanished, and the mists rose. When they cleared, I found myself standing in a lavishly decorated bedroom.

I faced the bed.

A tall man with sandy blond hair and hawkish features lay naked upon a cream silk comforter. Beneath him lay a smallish woman with large breasts and wavy red hair. She was perhaps seventeen.

His hand stroked her stomach as he kissed her.

“This is too brazen,” she whispered, pulling her mouth away. “Not in the mistress’s bed.”

“Yes, in her bed,” he whispered back. “It’s now my bed, too, and you deserve the feel of silk beneath you.”

He kissed her again, harder this time, and she gave in, kissing him back.

The mists rose and vanished, and I was once again in the wagon, facing the woman in the peach gown. My expression must have betrayed me, because hers crumpled.

“It’s true, then?” she choked.

I didn’t want to answer, but she deserved to know. “I saw a blond man in a bed with a cream-colored comforter. He was with a red-haired girl.”

The woman closed her eyes again, and I don’t think I’d ever seen such grief. This was my first real glimpse into a world outside my own. This lady had spent much of her life married to a much older man, and then when she finally believed it was her turn for some happiness, it was only to learn the man she’d married by choice was unfaithful.

“I’ve been a fool,” she said. “Everyone told me, but I didn’t want to believe.”