Page 13

Chapter Thirteen

A fter the exertion, even Val’s legs ached as she and Harm hiked across the endless fields of the Harvest Court. By the time the sun eased low in the sky, Val was more than ready to find a safe place to camp for the night.

“Keep your eyes peeled for a cave, a tall tree, or an abandoned house.” Val scanned the rolling hills around them. She and Harm needed a safe place before nightfall when the nuckelavee came out to patrol the fields.

Yet all she could see were more fields. This was why she hated traveling through the Harvest Court.

“We can’t just pitch the tent?” Harm rested a hand on his sword’s hilt.

“The tent wouldn’t be enough. Not in the Harvest Court.” Val squinted at a splotch of color in the distance. Was that a stand of trees? Would it be safe or infested with something dangerous? “I was hoping to find a nice cave to hole up in for the night. Or a tree tall enough to string hammocks out of the nuckelavee’s reach. Their one weakness—if the nuckelavee have such a thing—is that they can’t climb.”

“I see.” Harm’s posture grew more tense as he strode at her side.

Val changed their direction slightly to head toward the distant copse of trees. It was the only shelter to be found, and daylight was fading fast into long shadows and an orange cast on the rustling cornstalks of the nearby field.

She and Harm skirted the cornfield, then crossed a small squash patch—after checking for any more scarecrows.

A gravel road lay on the other side of the pumpkin patch, each side lined with soggy ditches filled with tall weeds. Daisy dove into the weeds, disappearing except for the waving grasses and the occasional flick of her tail.

“Jump the ditch.” Val backed up a step to get a running start. “There’s no telling what’s lurking in those weeds.”

“Should we be worried about Daisy?” Harm leaned forward to peer into the ditch.

Something squealed, hitch-pitched and terrified.

“Nope. Daisy will be fine.” Val shot a glance along the road. Nothing and no one in sight.

Harm nodded, shrugged, and tensed next to her. Together, the two of them ran forward and jumped. With his long legs, Harm landed on the road, easily clearing the ditch. Val landed next to him, her boots crunching on the gravel.

Across the road, the slim gray trees with yellow leaves clustered around a small, tranquil pond. The trees were far smaller than she’d been hoping, but she might be able to shimmy up them high enough to string the hammocks. Getting Daisy into one would be a feat.

Not to mention, the scene was almost too perfectly peaceful. Val found herself reaching for her knife.

“You have good instincts, dearie. I wouldn’t step into that glade if I were you.” A creaky voice spoke from beside Val.

She whirled, placing Harm behind her, as she drew her knife.

An old woman with straggling gray hair and a face full of wrinkles peered up at Val. She wore a shapeless gray dress with a knitted shawl wrapped around her shoulders.

Val brandished her knife, gritting her teeth. How had this old woman sneaked up on her and Harm like this? Sure, Daisy was still distracted with decimating whatever was in the ditch, but that was no excuse. “Where did you come from?”

“My house.” The woman gestured over her shoulder.

Val blinked as she focused on the small house no longer hidden by the rise of the road. The cottage sported a small front porch, two gables, white siding, and red gingham curtains. Red flowers grew in the window boxes. The cottage would have been picturesque…except for the fact that it stood on two yellow chicken legs.

How had Val missed seeing that? She’d been positive the road had been empty a moment ago.

“Now why don’t you and your young man come in for a spot of tea.” The old woman patted Val’s arm as if oblivious to the knife pointed at her.

“He isn’t my young man.” The words popped out before Val thought them through. Harm made a noise in the back of his throat.

“You have him on a short leash. Of course he’s your young man.” The old woman gestured at the cord running from Val’s wrist to Harm’s.

“No, that’s not…” Val huffed a breath between her teeth. This wasn’t the point she should be arguing at the moment.

Nor should the old woman’s words make her as uncomfortable as they did. Apart from a tether for a small child to keep them safe, keeping a person on a leash wasn’t exactly a good thing to do. Thus her crisis of conscience.

Val tightened the grip on her knife. “Neither of us is setting foot in your house. You’ll drug us or glamour us or trick us somehow.”

“It’s good to be wary, dearie, when you have a man like that.” The old woman nodded, then waved toward the trees again. “A nixie lives in that pond. She’ll kill you and steal your man.”

Val dared to take her eyes off the old woman long enough to glance at the pond. Was the woman telling the truth? Or was it a trick to get Val and Harm into her house?

Yet Val had gotten a bad feeling when she looked at the glade.

“Do you need a place to stay for the night, dearies? The monsters will be coming out to play soon.” The old woman gave them a crooked- and yellow-toothed smile. “You’re welcome to stay at my place.”

Val opened her mouth to refuse, but Harm spoke first. “Can you give us a moment to discuss it?”

“Of course, dearies.” The old woman remained smiling almost too benignly.

Harm draped an arm around Val’s shoulders and steered her a few feet away from the old woman, his head leaning close to hers. “You said we need a safe place to stay tonight, right?”

“Yes, but don’t be fooled. She definitely isn’t safe.” Val would have shrugged Harm’s arm off, but the ruse of being a couple was probably just as well.

And the feel of his arm around her shoulders wasn’t as odious as she would have expected. He was warm, and so tall that she could actually stand tucked against his side like this. Even better, he’d placed himself on her left side, leaving her right arm still free to wield her knife if needed.

“I’m not fooled. She’s fae. Of course she isn’t safe.” Harm leaned even closer, his breath warm again the side of her face. “But I think she can be bargained with. Look at her house.”

Val shot a glance at the neat little cottage perched on chicken legs. Right. This old woman was exactly the kind of fae who would bargain for one of Harm’s fancy blue-and-white pottery pieces.

“But do you think it would be worth it? Or should we risk the glade?” Harm eyed the copse of trees, as if he got a bad feeling from it too .

That settled it. If both of them didn’t like the look of the glade, then something was off.

The chicken cottage it was.

Harm shouldn’t relish the feel of having his arm around Val’s shoulders as much as he did. It was simply the old woman putting thoughts into his head. That was all.

“All right. Go ahead and bargain with her.” Val pulled away from Harm, turned back to the old woman, and sheathed her knife.

Harm let his arm drop. Right. Back to the business of survival.

He put on a smile and strolled toward the old woman. “We’d like to stay the night, but we want an official bargain. You understand, I’m sure.”

“Of course, dearie. Never can be too careful.” Something sharper glinted in the old woman’s eyes. “What would you bargain?”

Harm gave himself a moment to think. If he said a word wrong, he would get himself and Val into all kinds of trouble.

With a deep breath, he held the old woman’s gaze. “You will provide me and my companions with safe shelter for the duration of our stay. We will be allowed to sleep in peace and to go on our way unharmed, unchanged, and unhindered in the morning at a time of our choosing. In exchange, you will be given a wedge of the finest cheese of my homeland and…this. ”

Harm reached into his pocket and pulled out a pottery teacup. It showed a Tulpenlander woman with her cap and wooden shoes next to a windmill, all done in blue against the white background.

The woman’s eyes focused on the teacup with the same greed the mouse woman had shown for the cheese. As Harm had guessed, given her prim cottage and invitation to tea.

“You will be given the cheese now and this teacup in the morning. Is it a bargain according to the terms I’ve laid out?” Harm could only hope he’d bargained well. Val hadn’t interrupted, so hopefully that indicated he hadn’t stepped too wrong.

“Yes!” The woman swayed forward, as if she wanted to snatch the teacup out of his hands.

Harm returned the teacup to his pocket and withdrew one of his wedges of cheese instead, holding it out to her.

She snatched it from him, closing her eyes as she smelled it. When she opened her eyes, she grinned, showing off her yellow teeth again. “You bargain well, dearie. I had thought to lure you inside to bake into a pie—young men are so tasty—but for this, I’ll happily let you go your way unharmed.” She tilted her head toward Val. “You do, indeed, have quite the young man. Thanks to him, you’ll both survive the night. Come, come.”

The old woman turned and minced toward where her chicken-legged cottage crouched on the road.

Harm swallowed, not sure if he should follow. He was more reluctant to enter that house, now that the woman had admitted to wanting to eat him.

Val leaned closer. “It should be safe enough. Just…don’t eat any of the food.”

“Yes, I gathered as much.” Harm shuddered. “I don’t want to accidentally eat some previous unlucky man.”

Val grinned, as if she found that funny. “Well, there’s that. And, while you bargained for a safe place to sleep, you didn’t bargain for safe food. So don’t eat or drink anything.”

Right. He had forgotten something. But as long as they didn’t eat or drink, they’d be fine.

The old woman finally reached her cottage and stepped onto the porch. She opened the door and beckoned for them.

Two black cats oozed from inside and wound around her ankles, meowing.

Val ground to a halt. “There’s something we didn’t—”

Daisy burst from the ditch, barking uproariously, as she lunged for the two cats.

The cats hissed and dashed back inside. Daisy just about knocked the old woman over as she pursued the cats.

The old woman’s face mottled. “What’s that ? Get it out!”

Val smiled in a manner that was somewhere between sharp and sweet. “That is Daisy. My dog.”

“And one of my companions.” Harm grinned as well. He had, at least, taken Daisy into account when he’d been making his bargain, even if he hadn’t realized the crone had cats.

The old woman grimaced, smelled the cheese again, and turned for the door. “Very well, dearies. But the dog must stay in your room away from the cats.”

Something crashed inside the house, followed by more hissing and barking.

The crone muttered under her breath as she picked up her pace and hurried inside as quickly as she could.

Val sighed, shook her head, and followed. She didn’t draw her knife so she must believe it was safe enough. As she reached the porch, her eyes widened, and she lunged inside. “No, Daisy! Down!”

Harm took the stairs to the porch two at a time and stepped inside the house as Val all but tackled a barking, leaping Daisy, dragging her away from a curio cabinet. Two black cats perched on top, puffed up and hissing.

A small wooden-topped table with white legs dominated the center of the room while a fireplace sat on one end and the curio cabinet on the other. The back wall featured two doors with framed paintings of flowers hanging between them. Doilies decorated the curio cabinet’s shelves beneath all the teacups while more doilies hung over the backs of the chairs.

It would have been a quaint sight, if one of the chairs hadn’t been toppled, Val wasn’t rolling about on the floor as she restrained her currently-three-headed dog, and too many black cats to count weren’t dashing all over the place, knocking around teacups and scattering doilies. One cat tried to claw its way up the curtains, nearly tearing it off the rod .

“Close the door behind you!” the crone shrieked as another cat made a beeline for the outdoors.

Harm grabbed the door and yanked it closed. The cat skidded and dug its claws into the wooden floor before it could smack into the door.

“Which room is ours?” Val wrestled with Daisy, the dog still squirming and barking hoarsely at the cats.

“That one!” The crone pointed at the door on the left before she lunged and snatched one of the teacups before it could fall to the floor.

Harm dashed across the room as quickly as he could, given that he had to step over the fallen chair, inch past the crone, try not to trip on the cats, and dodge Val and Daisy. He opened the door to the room the crone had indicated.

On her knees, Val shuffled across the floor, hauling Daisy with her, until she shoved the dog into the room. Harm jerked the door closed.

For a moment they all remained frozen where they were, Harm with his hand on the door, Val hunched on the floor, and the cats tucked into whatever hidey-holes they’d found.

Then the old woman held up the teacup she’d saved from shattering on the floor. “Would anyone like some tea?”

Harm released a breath, something almost like a laugh filling his chest. “I don’t need any tea, but I’ll sit at the table while you have tea.”

Val shot him a look, but he shrugged as he righted the chair and sat on it. Sure, they wouldn’t dare eat or drink anything but spending a few minutes in polite conversation with their hostess wouldn’t hurt now that the bargain was in place. They could afford to be gracious.

Her shoulders stiff, her eyes glaring daggers, Val dropped into one of the other chairs.

The whole house gave a lurch, and Harm gripped the table before he fell over backwards. Thankfully, the table must have been bolted to the floor because it didn’t budge, even as the cottage swayed the other direction.

“The house is moving.” An unnecessary statement, but Harm couldn’t help but blurt it anyway as he braced himself.

“Of course, dearies. What else would the legs be for?” The old woman bustled about her kitchen as she shooed cats out of her way and put a kettle on for tea. “Where are the two of you headed?”

Harm shared a look with Val. Perhaps this wasn’t such a good idea after all. Who knew where this old woman was taking them, and he didn’t need Val’s sharp look to know not to share their destination with her.

“Across the Harvest Court.” Val casually rested her hand on her knife, her posture almost too relaxed. “Where is your house taking us?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t know. It goes where it wants.” The old woman waved vaguely as she assembled her tea leaves for steeping.

That didn’t sound promising. What if the house took them back the way they’d come and they had to walk across the Harvest Court all over again?

Catching his eye, Val shrugged, then murmured under her breath for only him to hear, “At least this is a safe place to stay tonight.”

There was that. Harm hadn’t even seen a nuckelavee, but if the scarecrows were an example of the monsters that guarded the fields during the day, he didn’t want to run into the ones that patrolled at night.

The various black cats settled into places along the windowsills, on the curio cabinet between the teacups, and on the kitchen cupboards where the crone was working.

One of the black cats jumped onto Harm’s lap, and he ran his hand down the cat’s back. It purred, kneading its claws into his thighs.

The old woman poured hot water over her tea leaves, set her teacup on the table, and creakily sat in the chair across from Harm. She nattered between sipping her tea and taking bites of the cheese Harm had given to her, though she didn’t seem to need more of a response than the occasional nod or noise of agreement from Harm.

Once she finished her tea, Harm pushed away from the table. “This was pleasant, but we should retire for the night.”

Val hopped to her feet and headed to the door without another word to their hostess. At the door, she motioned for Harm to go first.

Right. They couldn’t let Daisy out.

Harm opened the door only a crack. Daisy’s nose immediately stuck into the space as she tried to shove her way through.

Harm squeezed through, only opening the door as wide as necessary, nudging her out of the way with his leg.

Val followed so closely that she pushed him the last few inches into the room before she yanked the door closed behind them.

Daisy pranced around the two of them, jumping with her front paws scratching at them as if trying to give them hugs, frantic after being locked in the room away from them.

Harm scratched Daisy’s heads until the dog flopped over with her heads to the floor and her butt in the air for scratching. “At least we don’t have to worry about our hostess trying to sneak into our room during the night. She’d never risk opening that door and letting Daisy get to her cats.”

“That’s one way to ensure a good night of rest.” Val tugged her bedroll from her pocket. “I’ll still sleep in front of the door regardless. You can have the bed.”

Harm took in the small, brass-framed bed beneath the window. It was barely big enough for a child. “I can’t sleep on the bed while you sleep on the floor. It wouldn’t be gentlemanly. Besides, that bed is too short for me. I wouldn’t fit.”

“I wouldn’t fit either.” Val huffed and spread her bedroll on the floor.

Satisfied with her scratches, Daisy hopped onto the bed, snuffling and pawing at the blankets as she arranged them to her satisfaction. Her spare heads disappeared as she flopped into a sprawl.

“Looks like Daisy claimed the bed.” Harm reached into the magical pocket, his fingers grazing the various items stuffed in there, before the bedroll Val had loaned him came to hand. He was getting better at retrieving things from the pocket. It wasn’t even feeling that strange anymore.

The room had slightly more space than the tent, but when Harm spread his bedroll on the floor next to the bed, his proximity to Val felt all too…intimate. There wasn’t even a handy curtain dividing the room to give them privacy. He could see the way the moonlight beaming through the window fell on her face as she unbelted her dagger and laid it next to her pillow. The silver light glinted in her black hair in a way that made him want to run his fingers through the strands.

Harm shook his head, shoving away those thoughts. What had he been thinking? Why had he been thinking it?

Val flopped onto her bedroll, squinted, and waved at the window. “Could you close the curtain?”

Harm leaned over the bed, running a hand over Daisy’s back, and gripped one of the curtains.

His fingers stilled on the fabric. Outside, a huge black silhouette moved in one of the fields, a shadow even with the light of the moon coating the fields in silver. The figure was somewhat horse-like, except far more spindly with red eyes and flecks of red foam around the mouth. The protrusion on its back was part skeleton, part blackened flesh trailing in rotting strips.

“Is that…” Harm swallowed as another of the shadowy forms joined the first.

Val didn’t even bother looking out the window. “A nuckelavee? Yes. That’s why staying here was worth the risk.”

Harm tugged the curtain closed, gave Daisy one last pat, then lay down on his own bedroll. As he closed his eyes, the lurching sway of the chicken cottage lulled him into sleep.