To Kill a Kettle Witch (Novel of the Mist-Torn Witches) (26 page)

Malcolm did not. He cared for his lands and his home and his family and the people who lived under his rule, and those were the extent of his interests.

“How will I ever meet anyone?” Jenelle pressed. “How will I find a husband and get out of here?”

How ironic that Jenelle’s only wish was to leave home as soon as possible. At her age, Anna had only wanted to stay.

“You’re too young to be thinking of husbands,” Anna said. “But I will try to speak to your father about entertaining more guests here.”

She did try, but little happened in that regard.

Time flowed on. Every summer Malcolm had a flagrant affair with a different girl from the meadow encampment, and he grew more careless and blatant each year to the point of bringing them up to the castle. It grew harder for Anna to pretend she knew nothing.

When Jenelle turned eighteen, Anna knew it was time for the girl to be introduced into society, and in the spring, she asked Malcolm for permission to take Jenelle to Enêmûsk for a visit. This was the home city of the Äntes, and a good many nobles made their homes there.

To her surprise, Malcolm agreed readily, saying he would arrange the guard contingent himself. “Go and enjoy yourselves,” he said. “You both deserve a change of scene.”

When Jenelle heard, she was overjoyed, hugging Anna fiercely. “Thank you so much.”

Preparations began. Such a trip took planning and Anna wrote several letters to announce their upcoming arrival: The princess of Yegor and her stepdaughter were making a journey to Enêmûsk.

Grand Prince Rodêk’s secretary wrote back, inviting them to stay at the castle. Jenelle could barely contain herself. Anna had new gowns made for them both, and she even began looking forward to the upcoming visit.

This was tarnished one afternoon as she walked toward the open front doors of the castle and overheard two guards standing outside.

“The girl he’s picked this year is a nasty piece of
work,” one man said. “But he’s hot for her. Yesterday, he just left us to take her off into the woods as if he couldn’t wait to get at her. I’ve never seen him like this.”

The other man murmured in agreement.

Anna drew back before one of them realized she was there. No wonder Malcolm had agreed to let her go for a month. He wanted to enjoy time with his newest camp girl. Still, perhaps that was best.

Clearly, he needed something from these girls—something she couldn’t give him. In the beginning, she’d believed this was physical passion, but now she thought it might be something else. Perhaps he sought lost youth? Perhaps he needed more admiration than she was capable of giving?

Whatever it was, again, if this was his only vice, she was determined to overlook it. At the end of summer, the girl would be gone, and next year, he’d choose another.

A few days before the journey, in the evening after dinner, Anna was alone in her room, going over the list of what still needed to be packed, when a soft knock sounded on her door.

“Yes?”

The door opened, and Helen, the cook, peered in. “May I enter, my lady?”

“Of course. Is something amiss in the kitchens?” Looking over, she saw Helen’s face. The aging woman was distraught and trembling. “Helen, please come in. Are you unwell?”

She’d brought Helen with her from the keep and named her head cook here.

Slowly, Helen came in and closed the door. She held a torn piece of paper in her hand. “My lady, I would never trouble you or cause you pain, but you are in danger.”

“Danger?”

As she came closer, Helen’s distress only seemed to grow. “Yesterday, a letter came for me here. I don’t get many letters, but my nephew is coming through Yegor, and he asked if I could put him up in the servants’ quarters. I can manage that, and I wanted to write back to tell him.” Her eyes dropped. “But I didn’t have any paper. The only place I could think to look was the prince’s study.”

“Oh, Helen, you know no one is allowed in there.”

“I know, my lady, and I wasn’t trying to steal. I didn’t think he’d miss a single slip of paper, and I wanted so much to answer my nephew.”

“Were you caught? Are you in trouble?”

Helen lifted her eyes again. “No, my lady. But I found something in one of the drawers, a draft of a letter.”

Anna shook her head. “I don’t understand. Did you take a letter from Prince Malcolm’s office?”

She could hardly believe it. She’d have trusted Helen with the entire treasury.

“It’s a draft,” Helen said, holding it out, “but it’s addressed to Grand Prince Rodêk. It’s a request for a marriage annulment.”

Anna went cold and took the letter.

The handwriting was Malcolm’s, but it was messy and slanted. Several words had been crossed out and rewritten. There were spots of red wine splattered across the top.

But the letter was a request for an annulment of his marriage to Anna on the grounds that she’d not provided him a healthy heir and that as he had first been married to her aunt, the family bond was too close. He wished to marry a younger woman who could give him sons. Malcolm promised that in return for this favor, he would back whomever Rodêk chose in the upcoming election.

Anna looked up. “Have you any proof that a final draft was written, sealed, and sent?”

Helen’s right hand clenched into a fist. “This morning, that camp girl, Lilah, came to the kitchens to boss us around. She said she’d soon be the mistress here, and we’d better lick her boots. After seeing that piece of paper, I believe her.”

Lilah
.

Gripping the stained letter, Anna managed to say, “Please go, Helen. Leave me.”

“My lady . . . ?”

“Go.”

Still trembling, Helen turned and hurried for the door.

Once alone, Anna sat in stillness, letting the ramifications of the last few moments sink in. Malcolm was going to annul their marriage, make his own son illegitimate, and marry a Móndyalítko girl.

She would never have believed it had she not seen the words written in Malcolm’s hand.

He would make his own son a bastard.

He would discard her like last night’s refuse.

She thought on her husband smiling at her that morning at breakfast. Her mind flowed back to the
night Lysander was born, when Malcolm had burst into the room and stayed with her all night.

And now he would thoughtlessly throw all that away as if she and Lysander were nothing.

Aunt Siobhan was right.

Malcolm was unfaithful. Ever unfaithful.

For the first time in her memory, anger rose inside Anna. As a young woman, she’d given up the man she loved, the home she loved, and the life she wanted because Malcolm had asked for her hand.

She’d married him and served as his lady and borne him a son and risen above his infidelities.

Opening the drawer of her vanity, she drew out the old letter from Adrienne and read the last paragraph.

Please don’t hate me. You always have my love. Try to take comfort in the thought that I will be living in a small cottage and growing white grapes for my living, while you will be the princess of Yegor.

Anna looked at herself in the mirror.

The princess of Yegor.

Anger continued to rise until it turned to rage. She felt the spirit of Siobhan beside her. Her aunt had loved Malcolm too much to punish him, but Anna suffered from no such affliction.

Intentional crimes must be punished; these were the teachings of Aunt Siobhan. That night, so long ago, on the edge of her father’s lands was burned into her mind as if the events had happened yesterday.

Rising, Anna stored both letters in her vanity and
then left the room. She went downstairs, straight to the kitchens. Helen wasn’t there, only a few girls scrubbing the last of the pots.

“Leave,” Anna ordered. “You can finish those later.”

The girls scurried off.

Alone, Anna looked around until she found an iron hook with a stand, used for cooking over an open fire. Then she found a flask, poured water into it, and tightened the stopper. She found a large cast-iron pot with a handle, a sharp knife, a flint, and some thin-cut firewood used for the stove.

Finally, she took up a canvas bag and put all that she’d gathered inside it.

She left the castle. It was a spring night and not yet fully dark. A few guards glanced her way, but she often took a short walk in the early evening.

Leaving the courtyard, she walked to the berry fields first, breaking off leaves and dropping them in the sack. Then she went to the apple orchards, moving through the trees until she was deep inside them and out of sight of anyone else. She cut several snippets of branches.

There, she built a fire and hung the large pot on the hook and sat cross-legged before her makeshift cauldron. Unstoppering the flask of water, she poured it in.

“Aunt Siobhan, be with me,” she whispered. “Lend me your strength.”

The water in the cauldron boiled, and she looked up at the sky.

“Hear my cry!” she called.

Then she looked into the cauldron, and tore at the hem of her gown, ripping off a piece of fabric.

“For the one who was wronged,” she said, dropping the piece into the water.

Picking up the knife, she slashed her hand open, letting blood run into the water.

“Life force from the one who seeks justice,” she said.

Then she picked up the bits of branches from the trees and leaves from the strawberry plants and dropped them in.

Closing her eyes, she whispered, “A curse upon the crops and fields; only those that bring in wealth; death and dust upon the spoils, but nothing else will be touched.”

With her eyes still closed, she raised her head again.

“Hear my cry! Feel my strength!”

She chanted.

A curse upon the crops and fields.

Only those that bring in wealth.

Death and dust upon the spoils.

But nothing else will be touched.

She focused, channeling her aunt’s strength along with her own and letting it flow into the earth.

The apple trees beside her began to change color, fading and dying. The white blossoms withered and fell to the ground. The earth grew dry.

This began to spread, and she stood up, watching it as it moved through the trees. It would probably be morning before anyone else saw the damage.

She would say nothing of any of this for now. She would not confront Malcolm until he confronted her
with the news that she was no longer the princess of Yegor and her son was a bastard.

Until then, she would hold her head high and carry on with dignity.

Malcolm might indeed get his annulment. He might marry his camp girl. But those two betrayers would have nothing to celebrate.

They would inherit a kingdom of
dust.

Amelie broke contact and pulled away, gasping for breath.

Sitting on the floor, facing her, Anna asked, “Did you see all that?”

Unable to speak yet, Amelie nodded.

“See what?” Malcolm demanded, shoving again at Jaromir.

This time, Jaromir let him go. Jenelle and Céline both stood to one side, watching in silence.

Rising from the floor and smoothing her gown, Anna turned calmly to her husband. “I am the one who laid the curse.”

For a long moment, no one spoke.

“That’s impossible,” Malcolm returned. “How would you know how to do such a thing?”

“Siobhan showed me. Long ago.”

At that, rage passed across his face, and he started forward toward his wife. Jaromir moved to cut him off again.

“How could you do this?” Malcolm shouted at Anna. “To your son? To the villages?”

For the first time, her calm expression wavered. “I didn’t think about the villages, and I had no idea what this would do to Lysander. I only wanted to leave you and your new wife with nothing.”

Malcolm stopped. “New wife? What are you talking about?”

This was too much for Amelie, and she found her voice. “Don’t lie or play the innocent. She saw a draft of the letter. She knows what you’ve done.”

His face shifted to complete confusion. “What letter?”

“For the sake of the gods,” Anna said. “Will you be honest for once in your life? I have a draft of the letter you sent to Prince Rodêk requesting an annulment. You would make a bastard of your own son! That girl you plan to marry has been down in the kitchens ordering our servants about as if she’s already mistress here.”

Malcolm stumbled to one side and then steadied himself. “The letter,” he whispered. Some kind of realization seemed to dawn, followed by a flash of horror. “You laid this curse on our lands?” he asked Anna as if he still needed convincing.

“What would you have done in her place?” Amelie asked.

“It isn’t the same,” he answered.

“It’s exactly the same!” she shouted back. She had no pity for him.

His eyes were on his wife. “I had those people in the meadow imprisoned. A man was killed, and you said nothing.”

Anna’s back was straight. “That was none of my
doing. You ordered those events.” She pointed to Amelie. “Were it not for her forcing this from me, I would have waited until the day you and your bride-to-be, Lilah, came to tell me and my son to leave this castle. Then I’d have told you.”

When she spoke the name Lilah, he winced, and Amelie thought on her reading of Anna’s past, of how Malcolm couldn’t stand to face up to his own infidelities, how the truth embarrassed him.

Anna knowing the name of his current mistress seemed to cut him. It was as if she’d poured all his sins out on the floor to be seen.

After running a hand over his face, he looked at Jaromir. “Let me pass,” he said quietly. His anger was gone, and Jaromir stepped aside.

Malcolm walked to his wife.

“Anna, listen to me. You cannot think I would cast you off. Or disinherit our son. You are the crowning jewel of my life, and every day I marvel that you stand at my side. You are the lady of my house and the princess of Yegor.”

Again, her calm expression wavered. “But what of the letter?”

He winced again and then began biting off words as if they pained him. “It was a game. You had gone to bed, and I had . . . I had Lilah come up to the castle. We were in my study so no one would disturb us, and we began drinking wine, too much wine. She wanted proof of my love, and somehow we began writing a letter together. I was drunk and our first attempt was a mess. We laughed and drank more wine and rewrote
it. I used my seal and promised to send it off. Of course later, I burned it, but I forgot about the draft, and it must have been put away with my other papers.”

“You never sent any letter?” Anna asked, incredulous. “But what about the girl? She believes you did. She thinks you will marry her. Why would you let her go on and on believing such a thing?”

He closed his eyes. “I told you. It was a game. It pleased her to believe and . . .”

“And you fed upon her admiration and excitement?” Anna finished.

“So what did you think would happen at the end of the summer?” Amelie asked Malcolm. “That you could give Rupert a pouch of money and Lilah would just go quietly?”

Céline and Jenelle had been watching this exchange in silence. Jenelle appeared stricken.

But Céline spoke in a clear voice. “None of this matters. All that matters is reversing the curse.”

Anna put one hand to her mouth. “It can’t be reversed. If it could, I would have already. I would have reversed it the moment my son fell ill.”

Jaromir’s jaw twitched. “There has to be a way. If we can’t reverse it, people will die of hunger this winter. The economy of this region will fail.”

“Do you think I’ve not realized that?” Anna asked, her voice breaking. “If I could, I would undo what I have done, but I don’t know how.”

Céline turned and began walking for the archway. “Then come with me. If anyone knows how, it will be someone down in that meadow.”

*   *   *

Céline stood inside the white wagon, back near the bunks, shortly after Helga had collected a small gathering of women. The wagon was crowded, but everyone had enough room to sit or stand.

The group consisted of Helga, Alondra, Céline, Amelie, Sinead, Anna, and a thin woman in a threadbare dress from the line of Klempá named Isadora.

Anna showed no hesitation in explaining exactly what she had done, including the details of the spell she’d used.

To their credit, none of the women judged or chastised her. They simply listened.

“Why did you cast it?” Sinead asked.

“I believed my husband was going to put me aside and make our son illegitimate so that he could marry a girl from this encampment. I decided to leave them with nothing.”

None of the women showed surprise.

Sinead nodded and looked to Isadora. “Can it be reversed?”

Helga stood near Céline and leaned closer. “Isadora is a skilled kettle witch. Her grandmother trained her.”

“No,” Isadora answered. “It was a call for justified revenge. She flowed her own strength into the earth and called on the strength of her dead kin from the sky. It cannot be undone.”

Could this be true?

So far, Céline and Amelie had never failed in solving a crisis once they were set to the task. Had they come all this way and then found the person responsible, only to fail?

“There must be something we can do,” Amelie insisted, clearly thinking along the same lines as Céline. “Now that we know what was done and how it was done, we can’t just give up.”

Sinead looked to Isadora, and Céline couldn’t help noting their stark differences. Though both women were Móndyalítko and about the same age, Sinead was tall and lovely with glowing skin, wearing a fine sapphire blue gown. Isadora’s face was pinched and thin. Her hair was brittle, and her faded dress was coming apart at the seams.

“Isadora, is there anything that can be done?” Sinead asked. Her voice held deep respect.

The other woman was quiet for a while and then said, “We could cast the restoration blessing, but you must know the . . .” She trailed off.

Anna’s head swiveled back and forth between them. “What? What is it we must know?”

Céline stood rooted in expectation. What was Isadora suggesting? Helga frowned and Alondra glanced away in discomfort.

Sinead spoke directly to Anna. “In generations past, in desperate times, our people would sometimes take money to cast restoration spells on land that had been played out. The land would be restored to its former health.”

Amelie stepped forward. “Well, let’s do that. Why hasn’t anyone suggested it before?”

“Because we did not know what we were dealing with here, and because there is a price,” Isadora answered. “To cast this, our people join hands on the dead lands and they provide a conduit, but one of us must function
as a single anchor, and it is his or her life force that restores what had been damaged.”

Céline’s body went stiff. “Does this person die?”

“No, but years of life are taken, and the process is painful.”

“Then that idea is out of the question,” Céline said, “and we’ll think of something else.”

“I’ll do it,” Sinead said quietly. “The land must be healed, and there is no other way.”

“Not you,” Anna said. “I’ll be the anchor. No matter what the price, I’ll pay it. This is on my head.”

Sinead studied her face. “All right. If that is your choice, my lady, I’ll go and gather the people.”

Céline wanted to speak up and argue, but she didn’t. Something told her to be silent.

*   *   *

Amelie had never taken part in anything like this.

In a surprisingly short time, every person in the Móndyalítko encampment had gathered in the nearest strawberry field.

Anna stood a good ways into the field with Isadora on one side and Sinead on the other. They joined hands, and then Isadora and Sinead took a step back. Helga grasped Sinead’s hand and Alondra held Isadora’s, but they, too, took a step back, so that the five women formed a V shape.

“My girls,” Helga said.

Céline took her hand and Amelie took Alondra’s.

Marcus took Céline’s other hand, and Jaromir took Amelie’s.

Without being told what to do, half the Móndyalítko came to Marcus’s side and the other half went to
Jaromir’s, and they joined hands to create a large V with Anna as the front point.

There was no cauldron and no fire.

There was only the dead land and the formation of the people.

Prince Malcolm was not there, and that was probably a good thing. Amelie had no idea what Anna was risking, but she had no doubt Malcolm would have stopped his wife.

Isadora looked up at the sky, and Amelie wavered in unease, wondering what was about to happen.

*   *   *

Céline grasped Helga’s hand on one side and Marcus’s on the other and bit the inside of her mouth to keep silent. She wanted to grab Lady Anna and stop this, but she kept hearing Sinead’s voice.

The land must be healed, and there is no other way.

If this was not done, and it was not successful, many, many more people would suffer.

“Clear your head and focus on helping us,” Helga said quietly. “We need you.”

Céline nodded.

“It’s time,” Helga whispered.

Isadora spoke in a strong voice. “Marcus and Leif, call to the sky.”

Before Céline could even think, Marcus threw his head back and howled. A similar sound came from down the line. The dual howls were clear and loud, rising upward like a song.

A few moments later, both men stopped in unison and the last ring of the howls faded away.

Isadora’s voice carried out for all to hear.

By the blood of the people and the strength of the old bonds

By the shifters and the Mist-Torn

By the love of the world and the sound of rolling wheels

By the songs and the stories and the fires in the night

By the ancestors among us, inside us

And the ancestors yet to be born

Let our strength flow through the dust and decay

Rekindling lost life

Let our anchor be the guide

For life and health and harvest once more

Raising her own face to the sky, she cried, “Now!”

In unison, the voices of all the Móndyalítko in both lines rang out, repeating Isadora’s chant. Céline found herself chanting in perfect rhythm . . . and then she felt a tingling in her palms and feet.

Warmth passed through her from Marcus’s side to Helga’s. Within moments, it increased from warmth to heat.

The chant began again, louder this time, and her voice called out of its own accord.

Then she heard a gasping over the top voices, and she looked to the point of the V.

Anna’s white-blond held streaks of gray, and lines appeared in her face. She was in pain.

Céline instinctively moved toward her, but Helga gripped down tightly in warning and, somehow, Céline held her place, not breaking the chant.

The earth began turning a rich dark brown, and the
strawberry plants turned green. Blossoms grew and changed to red berries before her eyes. The green began to spread.

Anna dropped to her knees.

“Enough!” Isadora called.

The people fell silent.

Helga let go, and Céline ran to Anna, dropping down beside her. “My lady!”

Anna’s eyes were looking ahead, though, as the green continued to spread at a faster pace, moving through the raspberry fields, the blueberry fields, and to the orchards. White blossoms burst from among green leaves as the trees returned to health.

The land was restoring itself as if the curse had never been.

Anna’s face and hair and hands were altered. She appeared to have aged twenty years in a matter of moments.

But when she turned to look to Isadora, her eyes were filled with peace. “Thank you.”