Page 19 of The Moorwitch
I pull the needle from my bonnet and begin to sew lightening spells into his coat and trousers. In the mud and damp and dim light, this is no easy task. His dog hovers at my shoulder, as if suspicious I might be up to no good.
“You’re lucky it wasn’t my old classmate Margaret Appleby who found you,” I mutter to the man. “She was a dreadful sewer. You’d be full of holes by now.”
I blush when I begin working on the fabric against his thigh, careful to slide the needle so it doesn’t stab his leg. Thank the Fates he’s unconscious. I’ve never put a hand on a man’s thigh before, much less had to be so keenly aware of his skin and my fingers. By the time the embroidery is complete, my face is as hot as a London street in summer. I am much relieved when I can move on to his sleeves and lapels. When I am done, he looks rather like a spider has been spinning over his clothes.
My heart aches from the effort of channeling into all the little Weaves. Twice the magic fails, and I have to sit and breathe for several long minutes before I am ready to try again. But when I do reach for it, it comes whispering out of the trees and moss and the dormant ferns nestled under the loam, waiting for spring. Fates, the magic is strong here.
When I finally attempt to lift the man, he is easy enough to carry, no heavier than my valises. Those I tie with hovering charms, then I loop their handles on a string tethered around my wrist, so that they float along behind me.
“I don’t suppose you’ll be any help?” I say to the horse.
No, the creature has fallen asleep; my calming charm workedtoowell. And frankly, I’m a bit terrified of it. I’ve seen more than one poor waif trampled beneath the carriage horses before. I eye the sideways saddle, then decide to let the horse find its own way home.
How far am I from Blackswire? I should be able to carry the stranger there myself. But I’d better hurry; the lightening spells will burn through soon.
I hoist the man over my left shoulder like a sack of onions and set off, my valises floating behind me, my threadkit thumping against my hip. The dog trots at my side, tongue lolling.
The wood is getting darker by the minute, and colder too. Mud turns to ice, and my panting breaths coil away in pale wisps. At least the effort of carrying the man is keeping most of me warm, but I’m starting to lose the feeling in my toes.
When the woods break twenty minutes later, I find not Blackswire waiting, but a manor house on a hill. My knees are beginning to shake, and the first of the lightening spells is turning to ash. I pause to hoist the man higher on my shoulder, breathing hard.
Heathered hills undulate beneath the mist, broken by the occasional jut of rock, like the bones of long-fallen giants, drenched in pale moss and snow. A few pools, silver-skinned with ice, twinkle in low pockets of land. The sky here is a vast granite expanse, heavy with dark clouds. I inhale deeply; the air tastes of water and moss and crisp northern wind.
The manor atop the hill cuts a severe silhouette against the pale sky, not quite a house, not quite a castle, but something in between. Peaked roofs are lifted by wrought iron corbels, and snarling gargoyles stand watch at every corner, stone claws curled over the eaves.
The entire structure seems to scowl at me. It looks as if it were abandoned years ago, but then I spy smoke wafting from one chimney. There is no other structure in sight, nor any sign of the village.
“Right,” I murmur. “Ominous manor it is, then.”
A splash of water lands on my cheek, and I glance up just as the clouds release a steady rain. That decides it, and I start forward. The dog bounds ahead, stopping every now and again to give me a goading bark.
The young man is getting heavier as more of the lightening spells disintegrate. I press on, trying to keep a grip on him, back and shoulders aching.
“This is really,” I pant, pausing yet again to adjust for his increasing weight, “notwhere I imagined I would find myself a week ago. Hold on, sir, nearly there.”
When I finally reach the main doors, my legs buckle, and I land hard on my knees. The man goes sprawling, so covered with mud nowI doubt his own mother would know him. The dog whines and noses his hand, then gives me a reproachful look.
“What?” I growl. “It’s not as thoughyouwere any help.”
I check the back of the stranger’s head—not bleeding, thank the Fates. But he is dangerously pale.
Breathing hard, I glance at the relief carved into the doors’ wooden faces: a great raven, wings spread, feathers remarkably detailed. I don’t have the strength to stand, so I reach out and knock at the mud-splattered lower corner.
At once, as if someone was waiting there all along, one of the doors opens.
Behind it stands a girl of ten or eleven, with large green eyes and a shocking amount of black curls, springing every which way. A black cape billows behind her, knitting needles hang from a string around her neck, and an eye has been drawn with what looks like soot in the center of her forehead. There is a healthy flush in her cheeks and an intelligent spark to her eye that tells of mischief. The dog leaps up, plants his paws on her shoulders, and gives her cheek a great, sloppy lick. The girl laughs, shoving him off, then blinks at me.
“Hello there,” I say, feeling lightheaded from the ache of carrying an unconscious Scot for miles through a cold woodland. “Might you have any idea who this fellow is?”
The girl squints at the young man slumped in a mud puddle, the last of my Weaves flaking to ash on his clothes, blood still wet in his hair. He groans, his lashes fluttering slightly as rain runs over his face.
“Oh, aye,” the girl says. “That’s my brother, Connie. He’s the laird of Ravensgate. I’m Sylvie. Would you like a cup of tea?”
Chapter Seven
I am installed in the kitchen by the housekeeper of the manor, an apple-cheeked and pepper-haired Scotswoman named Mrs. MacDougal. Seated on a hard chair by a roaring fireplace, with a cup of tea and a tartan wool blanket, this is as warm as I’ve been in months. Even here, in the lowest floor of the house, I can hear the rain and wind battering the walls.
Sylvie and I had managed to drag Conrad North, laird of Ravensgate, through the front door before the housekeeper had found us and let out a shriek. Then an old man with a crinkled face and a beard to rival a goat’s—Mr.MacDougal, I’d assumed—had come stomping in to scoop the laird up and haul him upstairs. I have not seen him since.