Hero Page 9

  Saturday hailed from a family of storytellers, but this tale bordered on preposterous. “Where am I?”

  “The Top of the World.”

  “And you are . . . ?”

  The boy curtseyed again, and then bowed. “Peregrine of Starburn. Cursed on the way to fetch his betrothed.”

  Saturday couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to marry this fop. “But the witch thinks that you are her daughter.”

  “Leila. Yes.”

  “And she thinks that I am my brother?”

  “I saw the family resemblance right away. So which day of the week does that make you?”

  Oh, how she wanted to punch the self-serving grin right off his face. “Saturday.”

  “Splendid!”

  Saturday’s clenched fists itched. She was trapped on top of the highest mountain in the world, without her sword. The situation had all the earmarks of a Jack-worthy adventure, but she didn’t see anything particularly splendid about any of it. “Where is she taking my sword?”

  “To her bedchambers, most likely.”

  “I’ll just go and find it, then,” said Saturday.

  “It won’t be that easy,” said the boy. “She stays there most of the time. When she’s not sleeping she’s casting spells. Or preparing for spells. Or generally making a mess of everything.”

  Saturday harrumphed. Next to swinging a sharp weapon and scowling, it was one of the things she did best.

  “Did Jack tell you about this place?” the boy—Peregrine—asked.

  Saturday wavered between anger and jealousy. “You’ve seen my brother more recently than I have.” She chose not to be more specific.

  When she was but a toddler, Jack Junior had been cursed by an evil fairy and turned into a dog at the palace in Arilland, then subsequently presumed dead. Earlier in the year, when Sunday had rescued Prince Rumbold from his own curse, it was revealed to the family that Jack had not died, but in fact had gone off to live a full and adventurous life until he’d been eaten by a wolf. Or not. Sunday believed Jack was still alive. Saturday didn’t know what was true anymore. As a result, she abhorred secrets about as much as this conversation.

  “I should go. The witch will be back soon to assign your impossible tasks. There might be as many as three. You will have to complete them unless you can tell her where you’ve hidden her eyes.”

  “But I don’t know, because I’m not Jack.”

  Peregrine snapped his fingers. “Got it in one. And if you know what’s good for you, you won’t tell her you’re not who she thinks you are.” He shook out his skirt, picked up a lantern, and began walking away. “Up here, no one can hear you scream.”

  “Wait . . . so what am I supposed to call you? Leila, right?”

  “If you have to, refer to me as ‘the maid,’ but it’s really best if you don’t say anything at all.” He turned back to add, “I’ll try to help you when I can. Just ask.” The bugaboo followed him out through the archway.

  He’d left before telling her anything else, like where to find a drink of water, or breakfast, or where to relieve and wash herself. It would have been nice to have her messenger bag with everything she’d prepared for a journey like this. If she ever got it back it would never leave her side, even on a place as theoretically secure as her sister’s ship.

  Well, she’d just have to go exploring in the caves before the witch found her. She would find a way out of this place or die trying—if Jack had found a way out, she could too. Gods knew what sort of trouble Trix would be in by now. If he were still alive. She had to believe he was. But the sheer size of that ocean . . .

  Saturday’s heart ached in her chest. Perhaps this prison was the gods’ way of punishing her for breaking the world.

  She stepped off the pallet where she’d been standing onto the uneven stone floor and a chill raced up through her bones. She hadn’t remembered removing her boots . . . or her swordbelt . . . or changing her clothes. The shirt and trousers she wore now were old, but not ill-fitting. She found her boots resting beside the stone pit. There did not seem to be another lantern handy, so she removed one of the small torches from the wall and used the fire to light it.

  Saturday had a measure of experience with dark mazes. She’d been lost in the Wood many times—more frequently as a little girl than now. It happened to every woodcutter from time to time, even Papa. No one but the piskies knew their way around the Wood.

  This cavern was nothing like the Wood at all.

  Within minutes, Saturday’s head ached from her eyes’ constant refocusing. The icerock walls with their odd patterns confused her, robbing her of her depth perception. The shadows played tricks on her, sometimes revealing a dead end, other times leading Saturday to chasms down which she might fall forever.

  Every time the light moved, the cave changed. Around one corner was a forest of trees, hundreds of them, completely encased in snow and dripping with icicles, frozen into a timeless winter. They even smelled of damp cold. Stone faces stared at her from the shadows. Stone icicles rimmed the caverns like bared teeth protecting unknown treasures.

  Making rock piles to mark her path in this space would have been futile; there were so many pillared protrusions, tall and knobby and many looking like broken rock piles themselves, that she didn’t bother. She took out her dagger and scratched the walls in a few places, two straight cuts, angled inward to look like her mother’s discerning brow, but from even a few paces away they disappeared into the sheets of white and ice and crystal.

  Saturday banged her head for the umpteenth time. No matter what the stories said, caves were meant for dwarves, not giants. Having her sword would have at least helped with the massive headache she’d developed—foul witch. She rested beside a steep drop-off and something dripped onto her. Water cascaded down from the ceiling; she turned her head up to catch the water in her parched mouth. The air had gotten warmer, but rain? Inside? What a curious thing!

  She stretched out her arm over the chasm in an effort to keep her balance and was surprised to see two torches casting shadows.

  “Why, you’re not a chasm at all, are you?” Her voice did not echo like she thought it might in a maze this size.

  Saturday dipped a boot in the mirage and discovered that naught but a shallow pool of water had cast the massive reflection. Laughing, she leaned over the rock on which she sat and prepared to drink.

  A stranger’s face looked back at her.

  All her life, it had never occurred to Saturday to cut her hair. Girls had long hair and boys had short hair, and that was just the way of the world. She tied it up when she was in the Wood or tucked it under a cap before sword practice and never thought twice about it. Her golden locks were gone now, close cropped at the nape of her neck, while the longer tendrils by her face dipped their ends in the pool. She couldn’t be sure exactly how much she looked like Jack, but it wasn’t the first time she’d been mistaken for a boy.

  Saturday stuck her face in the pool and drank deeply. The water tasted of grit and soot. When she’d had her fill, she raised the torch again and moved on through the stone forest.

  Oh, what stories Sunday would have told about these decorated monoliths, sparkling in the lantern light, frowning down upon her with their protruding, frostbitten brows. Friday would have imagined the icicles as rows of needles standing at attention among yards and yards of lace. Thursday would have seen the history of these caves through her spyglass, back to when this mountain was nothing but a rolling hill in the landscape. Wednesday most likely would have recited poetry to the dancing shadows, stumbling across a spell or two by design or by accident before growing thick wings and flying herself to safety. Saturday wished she had such wings. The lantern showed them everywhere now, twin peaks of shadow feathers mocking her with their insubstantiality.

  One of the shadows flew straight up and slapped her in the face with warm feathers. Saturday recognized that smell. The witch’s familiar had found her.

  “Silly troublemaker. Were you try
ing to escape again? I’ve blocked this way, as you can see.”

  Saturday saw no such thing, nor could she see the witch. She held the torch back, squinting into the darkness until she made out the soft light of a stone bracelet infused with magic. In the hand of the skinny arm that wore the circle of light was a long-handled rake with rusted tines.

  Saturday subtly pushed the blue-green fabric of her own humble bracelet under her sleeve. Out of raven-sight, out of mind. The witch had taken her sword; she wouldn’t part with this last memento so easily.

  “I have your first task.” The witch giggled and cackled with pride.

  “I’m ready,” said Saturday.

  “Ha!” shrieked the witch. “You think you’re going to sweep the stones or empty the water pots or tame the basilisk? The tasks I set were all too easy the first time.”

  “You have new pets?” Saturday guessed.

  “No more pets. Tired of them. Killed them and ate them. Slow-roasted them over the fire while they died screaming. They were best that way.” The witch licked her lips, and the raven fluttered restlessly.

  “You’re worrying the bird,” said Saturday.

  “Cwyn is not my pet. She is my familiar. She serves as my eyes, until you find them. And now you will clean her nest.”

  Saturday took the rake the witch thrust at her. Clean the nest of a single bird? How was that harder than taming a basilisk? But Saturday remembered the strange boy Peregrine’s advice and kept her mouth shut lest the witch come up with something more difficult. “Lead on,” she said. “It seems I don’t know my way around these caves as well as I once did.”

  “That’s because the ways of these caves are not your ways. They are my ways, and I change them as I will.” The witch threw her arms open toward the false lake and the wall of rocks beyond it. “Here we are!”

  The witch ducked through an archway into a small alcove filled with stone pillars and outcroppings. Beneath them, on the patch of somewhat-level floor, was a small amount of dried moss. Saturday wrinkled her nose at the smell, reminiscent of the chickens at home. Why did birds stink worse than horses and cows?

  “So, if I clean this up, you’ll give me my sword back?” asked Saturday.

  “If you clean this up, you get to keep your life,” answered the witch. “Think, while you work, about where you put my eyes. You will find them, and find them soon, or I will take yours instead. Snip-snap-snurre-basselure!”

  8

  Epiphany

  “BETWIXT! PRAISE the gods. I had quite despaired.”

  Peregrine halted his as-yet-infernal lute playing to greet the chimera slinking into the cave with quiet grace. It had been a good long while since Peregrine had last laid eyes on his friend. The chicken-footed scorpion body had morphed into a sleek black gryphon of the smallish variety, much like a young panther with charcoal-gray wings.

  “If you despaired, it’s only because you tired of your own one-sided prattle.” The chimera’s head was thankfully more leonine than bird, leaving his mostly mammalian mouth free to converse, though the words that came out were a bit high- pitched and nasal.

  “You know me so well. Shall I play you a tune to celebrate your triumphant return?”

  “Have you learned to play anything even closely resembling a song on that?”

  Peregrine gave his companion a wide and silly grin and curled his toes against the pillar on which he perched. “Not at all. But I could get the flute . . .”

  “Don’t trouble yourself.” Betwixt wandered around the room a bit before circling and settling himself in a cold spot away from the lantern. The chimera craved warmth when he was in a solid state. Right before a change, or right after, he craved the cold. His wings folded neatly over his haunches and his tail waved back and forth lazily. “So, how goes it with our young prodigy?”

  Peregrine resisted snapping a lute string, as he wasn’t likely to find a ready replacement. One learned to take good care of one’s belongings when there was a limited supply. “She’s still digging herself deeper into that bird’s nest. I don’t think she’s ever going to ask me for help. Jack Woodcutter neglected to mention that his sisters were stubborn brats.”

  Betwixt scratched his jaw with a hind leg. “There are six other days of the Woodcutter week. They can’t all be so badly- tempered.”

  “I pray not, for Jack’s sake.” Peregrine’s hopes for conversation and companionship had so far been dashed by this girl. She worked harder than her brother ever had, and tirelessly. Peregrine had woken and slept three times since the witch had set her to her task. He’d checked in on her, but she hadn’t spotted him, so he didn’t interrupt. Deeper and deeper she buried herself in the filth of the witch’s familiar. She had yet to figure out the trick to the enchanted rake, and Peregrine refused to involve himself where he was not wanted. He had eventually tired of waiting for her to ask for help and had gone about his daily business as usual.

  Only, there was nothing usual about his daily business anymore. He’d been lonely as a child with an ill father, but that loneliness had been eclipsed by his years of solitude at the Top of the World. And yet, having someone else close at hand who pointedly ignored him made him feel worse than he ever had before.

  This hadn’t been the case when Jack had scaled the mountain. There had been the swapping of laughter and stories. When Jack had asked Peregrine to escape with him, Peregrine felt comfortable enough beneath Leila’s disguise—especially now that the witch had been blinded—to be secure in his decision to stay and sabotage the witch’s experiments. The world would go on as it should, none the wiser, for as long as he could manage it. “When Jack was here, he spoke of his family as if he’d only just left them.”

  “Did he? It was so long ago, I barely remember.”

  “It wasn’t that long ago.” Betwixt did tend toward hyperbole. “But the day Saturday arrived—”

  “That day I remember.”

  “Saturday mentioned not having seen Jack since his voyage to the White Mountains. Do you think something’s happened to him?”

  “Oh dear. I hope not.”

  “As do I,” said Peregrine. “The Goddess of Luck seemed to be ever at his side; I only pray she still is.”

  “Luck can be bad as well as good,” Betwixt pointed out.

  “I wish I had better luck with Saturday,” said Peregrine. “I want to help her. What’s so terrible about that?”

  “You’re just bothered that she doesn’t give two figs for you,” said Betwixt.

  “Of course I am. Do you think the skirt is putting her off? I fear it makes her see me as weak.”

  “I think the witch has put her off more than you or me,” Betwixt suggested. “To be honest, I don’t believe she’s seen you at all, weak or not, since she’s been here.”

  The idea took away some of Peregrine’s bluster. He didn’t want to think of what would happen when “Jack Woodcutter” finished all the witch’s tasks and still couldn’t find the eyes. “She’s obsessed with that room. She’ll work herself into the arms of Lord Death at this rate. What kind of person burdens herself so much when help would be given freely and willingly?”

  “A very strong person. And a very stupid one.”

  Peregrine laughed. “Spoken like a true cat.”

  “Why don’t you just ask Saturday herself about her intentions?”

  “She’d have to stop burying herself in bird dung long enough to talk,” he said.

  “Then the Goddess of Luck is with you this day.” Betwixt tilted his head to the sloping archway through which Saturday was determinedly making her way to them. There was a rake in her hands and fire in her eyes.

  Everything about her was so familiar to him, as if he’d known her for a lifetime. Pity she didn’t feel the same. They could have been such good friends.

  “Hmm.” Peregrine leaned back and casually picked up the lute again. He wanted his image of lassitude to irk her. He should have been ashamed at this pointless goading. He wasn’t.

&nbs
p; “Jack Woodcutter! As I live and breathe.” He yawned, and then instantly regretted it: Saturday reeked like a sewer. “Just between us girls,” Peregrine whispered, “that cologne doesn’t suit you.”

  “Good morning, Lie-la.” Saturday purposefully mispronounced the name. Oh, he did like her gumption. Shame about the brattitude. “Or day, or afternoon, or evening, not that anyone can tell.”

  “Every greeting is welcome in a land beyond time,” Peregrine said poetically, plucking idly on the lute as if he might compose a song with the words.

  “Then I should have hugged you and mugged you with slime,” Saturday rhymed glibly.

  Peregrine was surprised at her show of cleverness and continued the verse. “Look at Woodcutter! Not bad with a rhyme.”

  Instead of answering in kind Saturday turned her face to the floor, as if someone had just scolded her for having fun. “It was a game I played with my brother. Peter, not the one you know.”

  Not the one he knew, and not the one she sought. So many siblings! Peregrine could hardly imagine a family so large. “My compliment still stands. If I had your gift, I would write a hundred songs to your malodorous beauty.”

  “First, you’d have to learn how to play,” she said. At the snuffled sound of cat laughter, Saturday raised her lantern and spotted the gryphon. “Hello there.”

  “Well met, Miss Woodcutter.”

  While she had her lantern held high, Saturday turned slowly and examined the sparkling pillars in this cave, like castle turrets made of fairydust. The fingerstones here looked like tall, dripping candles waiting to be lit. It was one of Peregrine’s favorite spots.