Page 7

CHAPTER SIX

The porcupine resided in a domed hut of interlocking sticks, much like a dead hedge or a beaver dam, on the far side of the estate in the woods beyond the red cedar colonnade. Not too far a walk from the hydrangea garden and its dormant water fountain, if you were exiting the castle over the wall of the rambler rose courtyard, but a bit of a hike if you were leaving by the front door. Especially if you didn’t want to be discovered.

And since I was all out of masking sand, I had to tread very carefully.

I had no idea where Ossian was, but the buzz in the castle said the Brotherhood was spread across the whole town, including the hamlets in the farm country. “Investigating disturbances” was what I’d heard. That could be code for “kidnapping more magical folk for Ossian to drain” or it could be the populace waking up. If Mrs. Bilberry was remembering what a dishwasher was, I had hope for the latter.

Keeping to the bushy boughs and shadows of the cedars, I crept down the colonnade. I kept the castle on my left, always in view between the trees. I wasn’t near the raven/crow sentries posted on the brick wall that encircled this part of the estate, so I feared no alarm raised by them. But you never knew who could be watching in the Court of Beasts. If there were mice in my walls, there were spies in these woods.

A clearing separated the younger trees from an old-growth forest of moss, rotting logs covered in mushrooms, and towering trees. And, of course, Shari’s solitary abode.

“Shari,” I whispered as loudly as I dared when I reached the hut.

From the surprised squeak inside, I didn’t need to follow up with an, Are you there?

Without waiting to be invited in, I swept aside the red crochet flap that served as a door and ducked inside. The low ceiling forced me to hunch, and the hut was so packed with crafting supplies I had to shuffle to get away from the door lest I break something.

Skeins of yarn in every color, thickness, and texture were stacked like scrolls against nearly half the rounded wall, followed by bolts of fabric, spools of thread and other crafty bits and bobs, and finally, upon the sliver of shelving that remained, snacks.

Fire burned within a small, brick-lined pit dug into the packed-earth floor; smoke wafted up through a small hole in the ceiling. With wide eyes and her fingers frozen mid-stitch, the porcupine sat on the only piece of furniture in the hut—a little bed. It was covered by a white drop cloth (the better to spy dropped needles or misplaced thread), and beneath its hem peeked a patchwork quilt. There was a stack of firewood by the snack shelf, a kettle on a little grate by the cooler end of the firepit, and a mug of something steamed on the floor by the cot.

Little did she know, the wooden holder that kept the ball of yellow yarn from wandering all over the cot as she crocheted was the exact one Charlie had given to her for her birthday .

“Um, hi,” Shari said, blinking rapidly.

I forwent the greeting and checked the little windows and peeked through the door curtain one last time. Then: “You were right, Shari. About having two memories, about everything.”

Her paws clamped down on her crochet and her quills shot straight out from her body. “I knew it,” she hissed triumphantly. “But how do you?”

Crouching down, I unzipped the foraging bag and extracted Sawyer—who was still ripping apart pieces of that game hen. Now at eye level with the porcupine crafter, I revealed quietly, “I was literally blasted back to reality after trying to go through the portal last night.”

“You were rejected,” the quiet crafter said shrewdly. “Why?”

“I want to explain, Shari, but let me get this out first.” Out of habit, I cast another look towards the curtain door, specifically towards the little gap between its hem and the ground. No shadows flickered across the dirt. We were still alone, for now. “In case anyone asks, we’re designing my wedding dress. He wants to marry before we go to Elfame.”

Shari’s eyes popped wide before she gagged.

“Yeah, I do that a lot now too.” I inched closer until my knees pressed against the edge of her cot. We were almost nose to nose. “But the real reason I’m here is to make sure that never happens.”

“You’re going to go through the portal without him.” Her crochet hook dropped from her fingers as she covered her mouth. “But, Meadow, you can’t. He’ll release his rage on us!”

“I know, and I’m trying to figure out a way where that doesn’t happen. Maybe a trap, a prison. But in the meantime: Plan B. I—we—need to be prepared to fight back. We’re going to start a revolution, Shari, with you as my first renegade.”

The porcupine retrieved her hook and twisted and twirled it through the yarn at a dizzying pace. “I’m not as helpful as you think,” she mumbled down at her paws. “I might remember some events two ways, but only some.”

“It’s a start.” I laid my hand over her crafting project, forcing her to stop and look up at me. “Do you trust me?”

She searched my face, and I witnessed the maelstrom of her mind behind her eyes—her desperate attempt to reconcile two fragmented realities and not lose her sanity in the process.

“What do you need me to do?” was her answer.

I squeezed her paws before straightening. “First—”

Sawyer hissed, back arched and amber eyes riveted on the curtain door.

Shadows flickered across the dirt. Another shadow flashed across the nearest window.

Someone was coming.

Magic erupted from my body. In the seconds it took for the scuff of a foot and a hand to sweep back the curtain, green vines had snatched Sawyer, shoved him and his game hen into the foraging bag, and had it all stuffed out of sight behind the stack of firewood. A second set of vines had yanked a bolt of white cloth out from the shelves, along with a sample patch of lace, and deposited them into my hands.

“Blight me,” a familiar voice complained. “I thought we were sneaking out here to do something fun , not pick out Meadow’s wedding dress.”

“F-Flora?” I sputtered as the honey badger waddled inside. Her ever-twitching nose had her making a beeline for where Sawyer was hidden behind the firewood.

She was not so obsessed with sniffing him out to miss the opportunity to throw a condescending look at the fabric I held in my hands. “Ugh. And that lace would look terrible on you. Put it down.”

Another rustle at the curtain had me exclaiming, “Daphne! ”

“Hello, dear,” the Arabian mare said, following the honey badger inside. “Gerty saw you and thought it best to alert us. She said you were, and I quote, ‘skulking like a fox on egg-laying day.’ She’s going to stay outside and keep watch, wondrous little robin that she is. And a good thing too. This place is almost as dreadful as Dunstan Forest. I still don’t understand why you don’t bunk with me in the barn, Shari.”

“And suffer all those mice nibbling away at my projects? I already have enough difficulty with the spiders.” She stabbed her crochet hook towards the apex of her hut where cobwebs clung. “No thank you.”

“ There you are.” The honey badger pounced, dislodging a log or two from the stack. They rolled across the floor, knocking into the grate that balanced the kettle.

Shari whimpered as the kettle teetered, sloshing water into the flames and threatening to douse the small amount of heat and light it provided. Frankly, I think she was more concerned about the light going out rather than the heat, for then how would she craft?

Grunting, Flora hauled the foraging bag out by its strap. A quick flick of her nail had the zipper open, and a swat against the bag had the tabby cat tumbling out. The honey badger ignored the cat and extracted the game hen. “Come to Momma.”

“Hey, that’s mine ,” Sawyer whined.

“You need to learn to eat faster, Stripes.” But she threw him a large strip of meat before crunching down on the carcass, bones and all. “This winter is going to be hard on us all. Whatever your witch did last night with that portal has got all the food running off. Blame her for your empty belly.”

Daphne gave the honey badger a forceful knock with her muzzle and snatched half the carcass away. As she pivoted to swing her long neck around to deposit it in front the cat, her haunches bumped into the shelves behind her. Spools of thread jumped like frightened frogs and crochet hooks rattled in their jars.

“Oops,” the mare said, embarrassed. “Sorry.”

The porcupine sucked in deep breath, mastering herself . . . only to lose it completely when Sawyer snatched up the carcass, darted between the mare’s legs, and disappeared under the cot.

“Don’t you dare leave a crumb under there!” Shari shrilled. “I’ll not have mice in here chewing away at my art when they’re done with the scraps! And the rest of you, stop moving! What are you all doing in here?”

Flora had the answer to that. “It’s this exact tight-squeeziness that makes this the last place Cern—”

“Don’t say his name!”

My three friends regarded me in surprise.

“Don’t say his name,” I said quietly. There was a reason why I’d referred to demons as Big Nasties while I’d been hiding in Redbud, why my family refused to call Arcadis by name unless they were speaking directly to him. Saying a powerful creature’s name drew their attention, and I didn’t want to draw Ossian here.

“No one would think to look for all four of us here,” Daphne finished. “And it seems sneakiness is the order of the day with Meadow ‘skulking about,’ as Gerty put it. You’re not trying to go to the farmhouse again, are you? And why aren’t you in Elfame?”

The porcupine jumped up, quills flaring. “No more questions until my crafts are safe!”

There was a lot of jostling, but with the mare lying down with her legs tucked under her and her back in the shape of a C to follow the contour of the hut, Flora enthroning herself upon the stack of firewood, me sitting cross-legged on the cot squashed against Shari, and Sawyer wedged under the cot, we all fit inside the hut. Barely .

Trembling, Shari glanced from one friend to the next, tried to loop another stitch, then wailed, “I can’t craft if I can’t move my elbows! Everybody get out!”

“Shari, dear, please take a breath,” Daphne encouraged.

The porcupine started hyperventilating.

Ignoring her, Flora sat back on her haunches and drilled me with her beady black eyes. “So, what are you doing here, cider witch?”

“Staging a coup,” I answered nonchalantly.

Shari heaved a nervous sigh, Daphne snorted in surprise, and Flora whooped. She threw her fist into the air, nearly losing her footing on her perch. A log rolled loose and tumbled towards the firepit, snagging a stray string of a nearby skein of yarn on its way. Daphne lunged forward and snatched the skein with her large square teeth before it could be pulled into the flames after the log, and Shari nearly fainted in relief.

The honey badger’s eyes sparkled. “That’s—”

“You shush up,” Daphne said. “No one says another word until Meadow explains herself.”

So I did. I told them everything from summoning the portal, its backlash, the filigree key, my new identity as a primal witch, the Stag Man’s illusions, my memories returning, the updated wedding timetable, everything. And to their immense credit, they believed me. As much as they could.

With a groan, the honey badger started rooting around in the stack of firewood again. “I think I need a drink. Shari, you still keep that bottle of cider the woodchucks gave you around here?”

“I moved it. From the last time you tried to mooch.”

“Now’s not the time to be stingy! My world is being turned inside out, upside down, and then wrung out like one of Mrs. Bilberry’s dishrags. And you know that badger’s grip strength.”

Grumbling, Shari leaned down, shooed Sawyer to a different side under the cot, and produced the bottle in question. She yanked the cork out with her teeth and took a big swig first before handing it off to the honey badger.

“I want to believe this,” Daphne began slowly as the bottle was passed around, “because I trust you as my friend, but you must admit, Meadow, some of this sounds very far-fetched. You’re talking about an entire town being held hostage under one illusion. The magic required is, is—”

“Extensive.” I nodded.

It was my turn with the cider, and I paused to have my sip so I could pour some into Daphne’s mouth, considering she didn’t have hands. When the cool liquid slid down my own throat, a memory of easier days came with the familiar sweet taste. The hobs hadn’t lost their touch, even if they were woodchucks now.

“Which is why Wystan and the Brotherhood have been rounding up all the supes, Fair Folk, and the oldest of the forest creatures to sustain it,” I elaborated. “I’ve seen them in the dungeon. He drains them so he doesn’t have to use his own magic. Or at least, less of it.”

“I’ll kill him,” Flora seethed. If it was one thing she hated, whether she was garden gnome or honey badger, it was the abuse of Fair Folk, especially if they were targeted solely for their magic. “I’ll—”

“You can’t,” I said. “You’re a beast, Flora, and ultimately under his control.”

Yet something Ossian had said when I’d been complaining about the vermin in my walls had me suspecting there was a loophole to exploit. Wasn’t that the fae way? And how poetic it would be to use his own methods against him.

“Mice have pitiful memories and I’m not around to constantly remind them.” Perhaps it was the beast’s mind he was influencing and not the beast itself .

“But I think I know how to solve that problem.” I smiled, my heart lightening with optimism. “It’s time for you all to wake up.”