The Ozark trilogy Page 20

  She only blubbered harder. And I was sick of watching her

  “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do,” I said, “and I suggest you listen to me more carefully than you’ve been listening to your Reverend these last few years. For I’m not playing with you, and I warn you—I’m no Granny, to just put toads in your bed and rashes under your armpits and keep your cakes from rising. You do understand that?”

  “What are you, really?” she hissed at me. “What are you?”

  “Nor am I a witch,” I went right on, ignoring that, “for if I were, you would have been at the bottom of that ocean long before this, and you know it very well. If I were a witch, Una of Clark, I’d set a Substitution Transformation. And another woman that looked just like you and talked just like you and walked just like you and moaned in the loving arms of Gabriel Laddereane Traveller just like you would go home from here—but she would not be you. You would be feeding the fishes and she would be only a Substitute, and nobody would ever know.”

  “Go ahead, then—you can do it, why don’t you, and leave off torturing me?”

  “Because I’m not a witch, I’m a law-abiding well-brought up woman, that you’ve caused a lot more trouble than there’s any excusing you for, that’s why!”

  “Then what are you going to do?” she whispered. “Make me ugly? Make me crippled? Oh dear saints, Responsible of Brightwater, what is it going to be?”

  “Your mind is a cesspool,” I said, staring at her “A cesspool. Make you ugly and cripple you indeed!”

  “Tell me!”

  “What I am going to do is set a Binding Spell on you,” I said. “That and nothing more. Seven years, Una of Clark, you’ll say no word about this night or about what you know of me, or about what you’ve done. And seven years, you’ll do no magic you haven’t earned the rank for. You not even a Granny or any chance of ever being one ... I’ll bind you seven years; and then you’re free to do your worst.”

  She went limp against the rock; I was glad mere wasn’t any place for her to fall to.

  “The reason I’m stopping there,” I went on as I made my preparations, “is because I am not a witch! And because I have no desire to go beyond what’s decent. You’re a woman—and you’re a Clark by birth. I am willing to wager that in seven years you’ll achieve enough wisdom, that when the Spell is at its end you’ll guard your own mouth out of shame and simple decency. I’m willing to take a chance on that.”

  And if I was wrong, I could bind her then again, of course;

  I’d be on the watch.

  She just huddled there and bawled, every other word some stuff about what she was going to tell Gabriel Laddercane, more shame to her, and I got on with my work.

  It took me only a little while, and then I Moved her carefully back to Castle Clark, to the bed where—might could be—her husband had not yet even missed her. If he had, that was her problem, and it was up to her to figure out some way to get out of it. I’d done all I was willing to do, and more than she deserved, out of regard for her Family, and pity for her folly, and out of the kind of distaste that comes from dealing with an enemy that’s really no match for your skills. There’s a game called shooting ducks in a barrel—I don’t play it. Never have.

  And before the servingmaid tapped on my door with my pot of morning tea, everything was put away. Every sign of the wards and the pentacles swept deal; not a speck of sand from my shammybags on the Airy floor. And I lay there in my plain nightgown with the covers tucked up around my chin, and a smile on my face that suited my pose, like I’d not lifted a finger all that weary night.

  Now I could go home.

  CHAPTER 13

  I DON’T MIND saying that it went well, though it’s bragging, for it’s no more than the plain truth. My leavetaking may have had an unseemly abruptness due to my hightailing out of there before my common sense (or somebody else’s) could stop me, but my homecoming went off as slick as I could possibly have desired it. And the rough edges I well knew were there didn’t so much as show their shadows on the surface that was available for examination to others.

  I timed it so as to fly in to Castle Brightwater right at the end of breakfast on a sunny April morning. And the last ten miles I rode Sterling along the winding roads of the Kingdom, between the hedges of butter-yellow forsythia newly in bloom, and the fields of fruit trees covered with blossoms thick as snowflakes. Every blade of grass and every new leaf and bud was that perfect green that comes only in April, and that was what the Brightwater green was meant to stand for (and never quite matched). And although the people didn’t cheer me—we didn’t hold with such display on Marktwain, and hadn’t for hundreds of years—I knew they were glad to see me coming back. I knew by the smiles on their faces and the fact that they were out in the fields working in their Sundy best, and this not Sundy. I kept my own face straight and pretended not to notice ... in fact, I worked at really not noticing, seeing as how if I arrived at Castle Brightwater puffed up with anything that a sharp eye could spot as pride the family would be on me like carrion birds on a new-dead squawker; and I’d come out of it blistered.

  Nobody came out to meet me, which was reasonable enough. I wasn’t company here, I lived here, and I had to whistle for a stablemaid to come take Sterling off my hands. Then I stopped and indulged myself, just for a minute, since nobody seemed to be looking. I never would of imagined I could be so glad just to be home.

  Ours was the first Castle built, and the Castle proper is not one of the shelters the Twelve Families set up when The Ship landed and they were new to this planet. The one the Brightwaters built was made of logs that can’t match Tinaseeh iroowood even halfway for durability, but have kept well enough under cover, and it sits within the front courtyard of the Castle as a constant reminder—lest we should ever forget—of our humble beginnings here. It had seven bedrooms round a common room; and forty-four Brightwaters—men, women, and children, and one fine hound that had quickly died—slept and ate and passed their very limited leisure time under that wooden roof.

  When I was at home I hardly saw the loghouse, I was so accustomed to it, but it was new to my eyes this morning, and I let them linger on it, glad it was still there for the children of all the Twelve Families to visit and play at living in.

  And then I turned my eyes to the Castle itself, and it pleasured me, too. It was perfectly square, and a modest but satisfactory two stories high. It had twelve towers; one at each corner, one at the center of each wall, one on either side of the front doors, and two extra in the front wall for fancy. The Brightwater flag flew from every one of the tower roofs, and I noticed that someone had polished the brass weathervane (an Old Earth rooster that was one of the few material things granted space in The Ship that could only be called a luxury), and that it turned briskly in the wind at the top of the tower spire where it had been fastened more than nine hundred years ago. I smiled; they’d claim that was done for spring cleaning, but I knew better—we were a good week away from spring cleaning time. It was done to welcome me home.

  I knocked at the Castle doors, and they slid apart without a sound to let me in; someone had oiled them, too, for there’d been a grating scrape to them when I rode out in February. The Castle Housekeeper stood there casually watching three servingmaids polish the same banister over and over again, and she looked up as I stepped under the doorbeam and pretended to be surprised.

  “Well, if it’s not Miss Responsible,” she said. “Good morning to you, miss.”

  “Good morning to you. Sally of Lewis,” I said, and I greeted each of the servingmaids by name as well, including the one whose apron had a grease spot, for which there was no excuse in my front Hall. “I’m home,” I said.

  “We see you are,” said Sally of Lewis. “And we’re glad— it’s been a long time.”

  It had been that; nearly eight weeks, and at that I’d made a bit better time than I’d deserved.

  “The Family’s still having breakfast, miss,” said Sally of Lewis. “They’
re just finishing the coffee and there’s still hot cornbread on me table. The cooks happened to make extra this morning.”

  It was amazing. I found that not only was I anxious for some Brightwater cornbread and butter, I was even anxious to see my mother. I believed I was even anxious to see Emmalyn of Clark, and I couldn’t remember that idea ever passing through my mind before. I had clearly been away too long and was going weak in the head.

  I went down the corridors to the room at the back of the Castle where we liked to have breakfast and supper both. It looked out on a wide field mat was a riot of wildflowers in the spring and a riot of scarlet and golden leaves in the fall, and through which there flowed a quite respectable creek that you could catch glimpses of from the windows. That creek had been First Granny’s only condition for choice of the Brightwater land. “I don’t care what else it has or hasn’t,” she’d declared. “Volcanoes, canyons, banana trees, swamps, anything you fancy—but it has got to have a creek or I won’t build even an outbuilding on it. Keep that in mind!”

  “Well, Responsible,” they all said as I went in the door. And various other equally original greetings. Gnumy Hazelbide settled for “Decided to come back, did you?” and a full-scale Granny glare.

  “Sit down. Responsible,” said Patience of Clark, “and help yourself to the cornbread. Unless you want to change first, of course,”

  I looked down at myself, at the black velvet corselet and the silver-and-gold embroidery and the scariet leather gloves, and all the rest of it. “No,” I said, “I’ll have my breakfast first. And then I plan to take all this off, and burn it.”

  “You’ll do no such thing!” said Granny Hazelbide, dropping her silverware with a clatter onto her plate. “Waste not, want not, young woman—you think money grows on trees? You’ll take that truck off and give it in to the staff for cleaning and storing away proper; and then next time you take a notion to play the fool you’ll already have your fool outfit to hand. But spare us your spurs, please—they clank, and furthermore, they’ll scratch the floorboards. And take off your gloves; they’ll be all over Mule.”

  Emmalyn of Clark told me what a pretty outfit it was, and how much she admired it, and how she had thought of that as I left but hadn’t had a chance to express her admiration, and I thanked her politely.

  “I think, personally,” said Thom of Guthrie, “that it is a tad Too Much.”

  “A tad!” exclaimed Granny Hazelbide. “Why, she looks like a circus, or a—”

  I interrupted with considerable haste, remembering how I’d reacted the last time I’d heard the word I was reasonably sure she was just about to use.

  “Dear Granny Hazelbide,” I said, sitting down and reaching for the hot cornbread and the butter; “you weren’t here to advise me when I left, you see, you were ailing. I left in something of a hurry, and I did the best I could.”

  “Hmmmph,” said Granny, “your ‘best’ is pretty puny, Responsible. And I am scandalized that either your mother or your grandmother let you leave this Castle looking like a—” Well, there was clearly no hope for it.

  “Granny Leeward of Castle Traveller said I looked like a whore,” I said blandly. If the word had to be used I might as well do it myself and spare my sensibilities as best I could.

  “Shows what she knows,” muttered Granny Hazelbide instantly, just as if she hadn’t had the exact same word on the tip of her fibbing tongue. “Had her way, you’d have gone on Quest in a black nightgown and a bonnet, I reckon.”

  “I expect I would,” I said. “I expect.”

  The same crew was there that had been at the meeting in February; except that Jonathan Cardwell Brightwater the llth sat beside Ruth of Motley, and the Granny was present. My mother looked a vision, as always, in a gown the exact color of the forsythia bushes; and she brought up the subject at hand without preliminary, as always.

  “Well,” she said, “did you find out who we owe for our sour milk? And all the rest of it? And did you find out who put that baby up in the cedar tree? I am of the opinion, myself, that the McDaniels are growing somewhat more than just tired of camping under that tree and watching their baby through a life- support bubble, and I rather imagine that if you could see your way clear to do something about that they’d be properly grateful. Not that I’d want to hurry your breakfast, of course.”

  Prick, prick, prick ... that was Thom of Guthrie. Prick you here and when you jumped, stick you somewhere else. ‘ “Mother,” I said, “I learned everything I went to find out, and a good deal more I never suspected, and we can take care of the baby matter in just a minute. I do intend to finish my breakfast.”

  “Well?” she demanded. “Who was it?”

  “Can’t tell,” I said, shaking my head with what was intended to look like sincere regret. “I am sorry about that.”

  “You can’t tell?” Jubal Brooks and Donald Patrick did that in chorus, both outraged, and my grandparents looked at each other significantly and said nothing.

  “Told you she wouldn’t,” said Granny Hazelbide smugly. ‘“She’s ornery; always was, always will be. You’ll get nothing out of her.”

  “Not true, Granny,” I answered, “you’ll get a good deal out of me. I will be calling Full Council later ... after supper, Mother, you needn’t think about it now … to tell you about a lot of things that need discussing badly.”

  “Your ‘adventures,’ I suppose,” said my grandmother Ruth.

  “They were not of my choosing, Grandmother,” I reminded her; “they went with the choice of measure to be taken, all duly voted on by you and everybody there at the time. I’ll take my fair share of blame, but I warn you I’ll not take what’s not coming to me ... and I learned a lot that will need tending to before the Jubilee.”

  Patience of Clark looked at me like I’d said a broad word. “Responsible,” she said. “do not say that to me. Do not even suggest that. We’re going under for the third time already in ‘what has to be done before the Jubilee’ ... don’t you make it worse.” And I knew then whose shoulders had taken on the load for me in that part of the field while I’d been gone.

  However, Patience meant food to prepare and rooms to clean and suchlike, and training new staff. I was thinking of a promise made to a Gentle in a Purdy guestchamber; and settling the question of whether we should—or could—try for a delayed celebration of the claimed appearance of a Skerry, just in case. And there was the matter of the feuding on Arkansaw to be laid out for them, and just how the rest of the Families might fit in to that, and how that would tend to complicate both the security arrangements and the seating ones.

  I would not be taking up with them the matter of what I’d done at Castle Traveller, nor what might be done in advance of the Jubilee to forestall their putting my blunder to use; that I’d have to deal with myself, in private, and I had a feeling in my heart that I knew the answer already. Nothing to be done but wait, and deal with it when it came, I’d wager, though I’d search the timelines as far as my wit and skill would take me, on the off chance. But that would not be on the Council agenda.

  Nor would the name of Una of dark. Much good seven years of silence was going to do us if I didn’t observe it myself.

  “I found out who was back of all the mischief,” I said calmly, “and that we had the thing hindside to, and I put a stop to it. There’ll be no more wobbly Mules, I promise you. But for the sake of the Families involved, there’ll be no passing on of names, either, from my lips or any others.”

  “Families involved ... “ That was Jubal Brooks. “Then there were more than one.”

  “In a manner of speaking, Jubal Brooks,” I said. In a manner of speaking. The Travellers for sure—I’d not been wrong in thinking them guilty; without the strokings and whisperings of Gabriel Laddercane Traveller the 34th there’d of been no shenanigans from Una of Clark. She’d of bounced her babies on her knee, and doted on her husband, and died a good woman. And no way of knowing who’d put Gabriel up to that, nor how many long years it mig
ht well have been planned. And the Clarks for sure, by reason of Una’s direct hand. But only those two, I thought, only those two. I’d not repeated the Insertion Transformation that night at Castle Airy, to see if any other faces would turn up in my bowl of springwater. I’d been rushed, and I’d been disgusted, and there’d not been either the time or the proper mood. And to make certain sure, I’d be doing that now I was home. I didn’t expect, however, to trap anyone else. If there’d been any other name to babble, Una of Clark would of let it fall, in sheer tenor

  “You’re mean not to tell, Responsible,” said Thorn of Guthrie. “But then you were always mean.”

  I smiled at my plate, and listened to Granny Hazelbide put her in her place, which she did more than adequately. My mother could not abide being left out of anything, even when it was for her own good and clearly for the general welfare. Granny dressed her both up and down, and she subsided. And when that was over; we all walked down to the churchyard.

  Vine of Motley and Halliday Joseph McDaniels the 14th did cheer as they saw us coming, and I could see their point. Eight weeks camped under that tree must have been wearisome, even in the sort of luxury accommodations they’d provided for themselves. And I could well believe that Vine of Motley’s arms itched to hold her own baby, instead of the servingmaid’s she’d nursed these past two months. In her place I’d of been impatient, too, and I was glad I hadn’t waited to change my clothes after all.

  “Hurry up,” I told the Magician of Rank that had joined us in some haste at the Castle back doors. He was called Veritas Truebreed Motley the 4th, a name some found overly fancy— which accounted for its only coming round four times in all these years—but there was no quarrel with his skill. Once I’d assured him that whatever held that baby couldn’t be anything much more complicated or dangerous than Granny Magic, and clumsily done at that, he didn’t waste either time or energy. At fifty-three going on fifty-four he was a sure and experienced man with his Formalisms & Transformations, and he made no fuss whatever over bringing Terrence Merryweather McDaniels the 6th down to his parents. He didn’t even bother with herbs; he just scuffed a few cedar needles into suitable patterns, flicked his fingers with the supple ease of long practice, and the baby floated right down to his daddy, gurgling and cooing and obviously without so much as a heat rash to mar his perfection.