Page 38 of The Moorwitch

“Ah!” Sylvie hauls a large leather-bound tome from a bottom shelf. “Maps of the Known World. Is that what you want?”

“Good find.” I hide my disappointment. I had been hoping for something closer to home. A map of Scottish faerie gateways, perhaps? The estate map I stole from this room two nights ago proved little use, and it seems today will turn up naught else of value to my search.

I take the atlas from Sylvie, and we open it. But inside, rather than neat pages of maps, I find a jumble of torn paper. Pieces flutter down and pile on the carpet, torn, their ragged edges pale as scars.

Every map within has been shredded to bits.

“Tch!” Mrs. MacDougal swoops in, her goose-feather duster all aflutter. “Such a mess!”

“No, wait.” I raise a hand to forestall her. “It’s like a puzzle, Sylvie. An excellent way to test your geography.” Picking up a sliver of west Africa, I extend it to her. “Let’s see how far you can get.”

While Sylvie works at piecing together the maps, I notice Mrs. MacDougal watching her with a sorrowful expression. At my inquisitive look, the housekeeper clears her throat.

“It was one of Mr. North’s favorite books, when he was a wain,” she says. “Oh, he’d spend hours over those maps.”

“Was he the one who tore them up?” I ask indignantly.

A sad smile tugs at her lips, but then she gives herself a small shake and turns back to her dusting. “Just you mind your student, Miss Pryor, and let the past be.”

I realize then that Sylvie has stopped piecing together maps and is instead folding the torn papers into tiny swords. Finding she’s been caught, she gives me a sheepish grin and smooths them out again.

By noon, with a bit of help, Sylvie’s managed to assemble most of the maps. We discuss them for a while over lunch in the kitchen, and I find her more knowledgeable than I’d feared, but still a year or so behind where she should be for her age. After writing up a plan to help her catch up in her geography studies, I declare the subject done for the day. The rain has stopped, and though the world is wet and gray, we will take what escape we can get.

“You mean I can finally go outside?” She gives a relieved whoop and rushes for her boots.

“Outside to practice multiplication,” I clarify. “We don’t have apples this time of year, but I think we could scrounge up some rocks.”

“Oh.” Her exuberance diminished, she nevertheless puts on her boots and heads gamely out the door.

I follow, pausing to look back at Mrs. MacDougal. “Will you be joining us, then?”

The housekeeper, installed in her chair by the stove, groans. “Ach, get on with you. I am an old woman. I cannae be expected to traipse about the countryside all the livelong day! If Mr. North wants you watched, he can bloody well watch you himself!”

Smiling, I pull the door shut and catch up with Sylvie, who is pouncing on every puddle in sight. She grins when she realizes Mrs. MacDougal won’t be shadowing us.

“Now you can show me some magic!” she cries.

“Sylvie.” I glance at the house. “You know I can’t do that.”

She sighs and kicks a stone across the drive. “I know.”

Taking her hand, I give it a squeeze. “Come. Why don’t you show me which burn around here has the best rocks for counting?”

Her smile flashes back onto her face, and she drags me away over the heather. A small creek winds through the moors behind the house, feeding a series of small ponds where a few soggy sheep gather. While Sylvie collects stones, her skirts tied above her knees, I furtively Weave a subtle drying spell over a boulder, my back turned so she can’t see. Once the water’s evaporated from its surface, I sit and quietly let the ashes of the consumed thread trickle from my fingers into the scrubby brush.

“There,” Sylvie says breathlessly, dumping an armload of stones at my feet. “I bet that would have been easier with magic.”

“It would have been,” I admit. “Now, multiplication is based on—”

“How old were you when you learned you could do magic?” Sylvie tosses a small rock from hand to hand, watching me.

“Sylvie . . .”

“You don’t have to show me magic. Just tell me about yourself.”

“I cannot.”

“Please.”