Grayling's Song (2 page)

“Fetch my grimoire from beneath the hearthstone,” Hannah Strong called. “Bring it to me. There may be answers within.”

Yes! The grimoire! Likely the book of chants and spells and rituals, passed from mother to daughter to daughter to daughter over generations—nay, over centuries—would reveal some way to undo the magic rooting her mother in the ground. Grayling could only hope it would. She had never seen inside the book. Her mother guarded it carefully.

Grayling picked her way through the debris to the fireplace. With some effort, she lifted the stone, then dropped it down again. There was no grimoire there, just a dank and dirty hole.

“Your
pharmika
is in shambles, lady,” Grayling said when she had stumbled back to her mother, “and the grimoire is gone.”

“Toads, rats, and dragons,” Grayling's mother muttered. “Belike that is what it came for, the demon or force or whatever it was.”

Grayling gestured to the ruins of their home. “Why would someone who could do
this
need your book of spells?”

“I do not know, but we must discover the
how
and the
how not
afore I leaf out to my fingertips. Since I am at the moment confined to this place, you must go. Find the others, if it is not too late. Tell them what has happened here, seek their counsel, discover some way to release me. And find my grimoire.”

Grayling's heart thumped. “I cannot. You know the world out there be strange and dangerous, and I have no magic and very little courage.” She pulled at her mother's sleeve. “Bethink you on it. There must be something you can do. Folk who come to you for remedies and spells always leave contented.”

The wise woman frowned at her daughter. “I can do nothing, go nowhere, rooted to the ground as I am. You will have my philters and potions, my charms and my songs, the wisdom of the others, and your own wits.”

Grayling shook her head
no
and
no
again. “Your philters and potions are burned and scrambled, the charms and songs are yours and not mine, I do not know of any
others,
and my wits? You have often called them weak and fragile things.”

“Although it appears your tongue works exceedingly well. Now hush and let us tackle the impediments one by one.” Grayling's mother sighed. “How I wish I could sit down. My knees pain me with the standing.” Her eyes filled with dark sadness, and Grayling's heart grew sore with sorrow and fear. “Bring me the witch hazel and comfrey ointment.”

Grayling gestured toward the ruins of the cottage. “Everything is tumbled and broken, spilled and charred and ruined. I don't know what is what or for which.”

“Go and fetch what jars survive. We can know the contents by their smell.”

Grayling went back into the remains of the cottage. With her hazel stick, she poked through the debris again and lifted the pots that were most whole. She wrapped them in her skirt, carried them back to her mother, and laid them at the woman's feet . . . roots . . . feet. One by one, the girl lifted the vessels and took a deep sniff of the contents. Some burned her nose, some comforted it, some made her belly turn over in distress, but they all smelled alike to Grayling—“Like smoke and loss,” she told her mother.

The comfrey ointment could not be found, but Hannah Strong could identify the rest. “The one with a faint scent of roses and lovage is the binding potion to compel faithfulness,” she said, and, “
Achoo!
That is sneezewort to repel insects.” She named them all. Grayling ripped pieces from her shift, covered each pot with a scrap, and tied it on with twine. Then, at her mother's instruction, she marked its name with a piece of charred wood, for Hannah Strong thought a wise woman's daughter should know the way of words. The pots went into Grayling's basket: potions and salves and oils for protection, for sleeping and healing, for binding, shape shifting, and truth telling.

“With these you will not be defenseless. Now go,” her mother said. “You needn't fight any demons or dragons. Just find the others, if others there still be.”

“Who or what are these
others?
”

Hannah Strong waved a hand about. “Hedge witches, hags, charmers and spellbinders, conjurers, wizards, and soothsayers. You do not think I am the only cunning woman in the world? We be solitary folk, but they will come when you call.”

Grayling backed away, shaking her head. “Such a task calls for a brave and skillful person, someone bold, with cunning and magic. Call on one like that.”

“Daughter, you say enough
no
for a town full of faint hearts,” said Hannah Strong. She would have stamped her foot in irritation if foot she'd had. “Would I had a spell to compel you, but I must rely on your care for me.” Hannah leaned over and rubbed her right knee. She was bark to her shins.

Grayling felt the rush of a familiar combination of overwhelming love for her mother, annoyance at her demands, and fear of her temper, her power, her determination. She paused to think. Belike she could find one of these
others,
one with magic and skill, who might know what to do and do it, and she could come home. It might be that simple.

“How would I find these others?”

“Go to the market square of a town, as many towns as there be, and sing.”

“Sing? Sing what?”

“There is a gathering song I will teach you. Sing this, and the others, if others there still be, will find you.” Hannah Strong, her knees brown and rough as bark, sang.

By wax and wick,

By seed and root,

Through storms of trouble,

We gather.

 

Strange matters appear:

Thunder and fog,

Dark and midnight hags,

Toads, beetles, bats

Surround us.

 

From town and country, hill and valley,

From mountain's snowy crest,

From cellar, attic, church, and alley,

I call to you. I call to you.

 

Afore danger find us, shackles bind us,

And dreams go up in smoke.

Come to me, come to me,

All wise and cunning folk.

 

Come—

By wax and wick,

By seed and root,

Through storms of trouble,

We gather,

We gather.

Grayling brightened. “Have you now called them with the song? Will they come here and tell us what to do to free you?”

Hannah Strong shook her head. “It will be many miles and many singings before they will hear and respond. But they will, if any there be—there is power in the song. Now
you
sing.”

All unwilling, Grayling sang, stumbling over the unfamiliar words, again and again until she knew the song. Then her mother taught her a song to sing to the grimoire and how to listen for the grimoire singing back, provided that no water stood between them.

There were three kinds of songs, Grayling knew—a song with words and music, a song with melody and no words, and a song with no words and no melody that was instead a thrumming in the head and a throbbing in the heart. This last was what her mother taught her now, and Grayling heard it not with her ears but with her mind and her spirit. And she repeated it the same way.

“But do not sing to the grimoire until you find the others,” Hannah Strong said. “You will need their assistance and support.”

The sun was setting behind the trees, shafts of golden light piercing through the greenery, before the teaching was finished. Grayling took the basket of herbs, bottles, and pots and added the hawthorn stick against evil, a wool winter cap with earflaps, and half a loaf of bread toasted but not consumed by the fire. She slipped a piece of angelica root into her pocket for protection. Her mother, not one for hugging, patted her on her back.

“Mayhap,” Grayling said in a small, thin voice, “I should wait until morning and start fresh on the road.”

Hannah Strong said, in a voice as soft but strong as silk thread, “You are the wise woman's daughter. 'Tis up to you to set this right. Go.”

Grayling pulled her cloak tight about her. She left her mother there in the valley and ventured forth on her own, reluctant and frightened, up the rise.

hen twilight turned
to dark and clouds scudded across the moon, Grayling fell asleep in the hollow of an old oak, cushioned by fallen leaves and moss. The songs of sparrows and thrushes and soft-voiced doves woke her shortly after dawn, and she shivered, both from the early morning chill and from the memory of what had happened. The smell of the fire was yet in her nose and her hair and her clothes, the terrible image of her mother rooted to the ground in her mind and her heart. How was she to go on? She didn't even know where she was.

Grayling sat up, rubbed dewdrops from her face with the hem of her skirt, and looked about for something familiar. She knew every inch of the valley, every path that twisted and turned through the forest, every tree, every clearing, every stream. But here, up the rise? Here she knew nothing.

She had sometimes been to a town but never by herself. She had merely followed her mother as she shopped, visited, and tended. Which was the road to the nearest town? Grayling wondered. What would she find there? And how did her mother fare? Mayhap she should go back and see . . .

A scritching in the grass startled her, but it was only a mouse, sitting near her basket, cleaning its paws with a tiny pink tongue. Her basket! Grayling let forth a squeal and held her hand over her heart. The basket had been overturned, and the pots were cracked and broken. And empty. The pots were empty. Her only defense against the evil that came as smoke and shadow was gone.

“Who has done this?” Grayling cried, her heart pounding as she looked wildly about her. She saw no one. “You, mouseling, are the only witness,” she told it. “How I wish you could talk and tell me how this happened.”

The mouse ceased its preening and twitched its bounteous whiskers. “This mouse must declare, girl with gray eyes . . .” It hiccoughed. “This mouse must declare, it spilled the jars and ate what they contained.”

Grayling squealed again. “You are talking? Or do I still sleep? I must still sleep and dream.”

“This mouse is most astonished, mistress, but it is talking indeed. It was an ordinary mouse one moment, and you wished it could talk, and now it can.”

Grayling understood. “The wishing potion!” she said. “You ate the wishing potion!”

“'Tis likely. This mouse ate a great many things.” The mouse burped a tiny burp and looked up at Grayling. “Ah, Gray Eyes, be kind. This mouse is yours and pledges to stay by you and serve you always.”

“And the binding potion also!”

The mouse clambered onto her lap. “Tell this mouse what you would have it do for you.”

Grayling stood. The mouse tumbled to the ground, where it shook and shivered and became a frog. “
And
the shape-shifting tonic! You foolish creature, you have left me defenseless.”

The mouse appeared again for a moment and then the frog was back. “Shape shifting? This mouse finds it strange and a little frightening but quite stirring,” it said. “Mistress Gray Eyes, this mouse loves you and will never leave you.” And the frog became a goat with two horns and a beard that waggled as he chewed.

Grayling's head swam in anger and confusion. Even so, she could not help but find it funny. A shape-shifting mouse. Whoever could have imagined such a thing? “You silly thief! The jar held enough shape-shifting potion for a giant of a man, and 'twas eaten by one small, ridiculous mouse. Or goat. Or whatever you be. Likely you can expect much adventure to come.”

She plopped herself back down on the ground, her legs curled beneath her. A girl and a shape-shifting mouse against the fury that could fire a cottage and curse Hannah Strong? Grayling was certain her efforts would come to nothing, but she could not go back to watch her mother become a tree. The other wise folk—the hedge witches and charmers and cunning women—certes they would know what to do. If she could find them.

Towns, Hannah Strong had said. Many towns. “Know you the way to a town?” Grayling asked the goat.

The goat shook its shaggy head. “This mouse may look like a goat, but within, it is still a mouse,” the goat said in a voice still distinctly mouselike. “This mouse knows only what mice know: eat, sleep, mate, and run away.”

It was up to her. “Well, then, I say we go this way,” she said, pointing. “This path leads down, which is easier than going up. My legs still pain me after yesterday's climb.” Grayling ate her bread, then considered her basket. But for her winter cap, it now held only wilting herbs and a few empty and broken pots and jars. Should she trouble herself to carry it with her? It spoke to her of home, so she grasped it tightly and got to her feet.