The Goblin Wood

This book is dedicated to my father,
who loved Makenna because he despised “wimpy” heroines.
Thanks, Dad, for everything.

M
akenna had to stretch onto her toes to reach the small stone lamp, for the shelf that held it was higher than a grown woman’s head, and she was only eleven. She’d drawn the fire rune in the sweet-smelling sawdust that littered the floor of Goodman Branno’s workshop. Now she set the lamp in its center and murmured the word, the essential name of fire.

Nothing. She clenched her hands to still their trembling and lifted the lamp. Carefully she smoothed the sawdust and drew the rune again. It was hard to get the lines right, in dark. Replacing the lamp, she repeated the word, a call this time, almost a prayer. A tiny orange spark glowed before her. She leaned forward and blew on the wick, and the flame flickered to life.

The light bloomed slowly, filling the tool-shed, spilling out the cracks in its walls and under the door. It was dangerous—if anyone saw it they might guess she was there, for Goodman Branno, the carpenter, was sound asleep at this hour. But Makenna’s hatred flared stronger than the light. Let them come. Likely she could kill a few before she was taken.

She stared around the shed at the tools that covered the walls—she wasn’t sure what she’d need. Finally she chose a saw, a hammer and chisel, and a hatchet. Surely one of them would be sufficient to cut through the thick screw.

The tools were awkward, too large for her hands as she packed them into the big grain sack that already held her mother’s spell books. She snuffed the light and hauled the heavy sack out of the shed; it clanked when she bumped against the door frame and Grulf, the carpenter’s dog, gave a tentative bark.

Her heart thumping, Makenna called to him softly—if he raised an alarm it would draw people more quickly than the light!

Grulf whined, and Makenna hurried over to reassure him that she was a known, good person. No spells of calming needed here; she knew every dog in this village, where she’d grown up.

Hate rolled and boiled in her stomach, making her feel sick and fearless and strong. There wasn’t a man or woman in that mob that her mother hadn’t healed or helped—either them, or someone in their families. Branno himself—she’d cured his infected thumb just last year, and she’d charmed the weevils out of the meal bin when his youngest daughter left the lid off. But that was before Mistress Manoc came.

Branno had started suckling up to the new priest immediately, but Makenna’s mother had seen through Mistress Manoc, right from the start.

“She speaks against the goblins,” Ardis said thoughtfully, the whisper of the spinning wheel making music under her words. “By St. Spiratu, they’re pesty enough! But if we stop putting out the goblin bowls, they’ll only get more pesty. Besides, goblinkind and ours have been living together since the beginning. It’s dangerous to meddle with things like that, Makennie love. Upsets balances you can’t even see, turns nature against you. And besides…”

Makenna blotted out the rest of the memory, angrily wiping away tears. She needed to be strong, not weak and weeping.

She gave Grulf a final pat and made her way to the back of the work yard. The light of the near-full moon sifted through the newly leafed branches, making it easy to avoid the stacks of cut timber. But hauling the big sack over the wall was awkward, and her skirt tore resoundingly. She froze, knowing her dark brown hair and faded clothes would blend with the shadows. No dogs barked. No neighbor stuck his head out the window to see what was going on.

She wasn’t dressed for this kind of scrambling thievery, but when she’d put on her clothes this morning she’d expected nothing more from the day than her ordinary chores and the fascinating struggle of a magic lesson.

Tears crept down her face again, and she wiped them away, sniffing. She’d have thought there’d be no tears left in her, but they kept coming. Well, let them come. They didn’t matter. Nothing mattered anymore except to lift the gate and cut the screw.

She couldn’t go back to her own home. They were watching it. But Krick’s house was only a few doors down. He was almost her size, and his mother was lazy about taking in the wash. Makenna’s mother had cured their baby’s croup a few months ago.

She stole a pair of Krick’s britches off the drying rack and put them on. A dark shirt that belonged to his brother was only a little too big. There was a heavy cape on the hook by the door—almost a cloak for her—and she took it, too.

She was almost out of the village when she realized that she ought to steal some food as well—once she had cut the screw, she would leave. And after that? Her mind boggled over the question—she was too tired to think. After she cut the screw, she would eat and rest and plan for the future.

She chose the house of Goodwife Marra, whose apple trees her mother had cured of a blight. The back door was latched, but the shutters on the kitchen window were open. She left her sack outside and wiggled through easily in her stolen britches.

Inside the kitchen she paused a moment to let her eyes adjust. After the bright moonlight outside, the small square of silver that came from the window and the glow of the banked fire seemed very dim.

Bread, hard yellow cheese, and the last of the dried apples went out the window to join the spell books and tools. She was fumbling at the back of a high shelf for the tight-sewn bags that held strips of dried meat when her elbow tapped a bowl. It fell to the floor and shattered.

Makenna froze, staring at the fragments of pottery. Her mother had dropped the scrying bowl that morning.

It had begun with the chiming of the tiny copper bell on the mantel, warning them someone was passing the ward stone her mother had placed on the path to their house. They lived almost a quarter mile from the village. Hedgewitches needed more privacy than most, because folk didn’t always want their neighbors—or the priest—to know they’d gone to a hedgewitch for aid. Ardis liked to have a bit of warning when someone was coming, but her lined face held only cheerful curiosity as she wiped the dough off her hands and poured water into the big clay bowl she used for scrying.

Makenna watched as her mother drew the runes and murmured the words that turned sight through water into Sight through water. Makenna couldn’t make runes in water, though she’d often tried.

Light flickered from the bowl, casting faint upward shadows on her mother’s face. Then her expression had changed, stiffened, and she leapt to her feet. The bowl fell and shattered, spilling the water in a widening pool on the floor.

The faint creak of a door hinge brought Makenna back to the present with a rush. She heard steps on the boards over her head. Someone had been wakened by the crash and was coming to investigate. Makenna spun toward the window, but the window could be seen from the stairs! No time.

She raced silently to hide in the dark corner by the hearth—not good enough, especially if someone lit a lamp.

With shaking hands she raked a handful of cold ashes from the corner of the hearth, flinching as a live ember singed her fingers. Plain dust was the best essential object for this spell, but any powdery substance would do.

The footsteps had almost reached the bottom of the stairs. She flung the ashes on the floor in front of her and blew to create an even layer—no time to do this spell over and over until she got it right.

She traced the rune, an eye outside a circle, and whispered the last of the words as Goodwife Marra stepped into the kitchen.

Several pieces of broken bowl lay in the square of moonlight, and the goodwife went to them, hopping and muttering a curse as she stepped on a piece in her bare feet.

Then she came over to the hearth. Makenna held her breath. The look-away spell worked better if you didn’t move or make any noise.

Goodwife Marra lit a candle and stood gazing around the kitchen. Aside from the broken bowl, Makenna saw nothing out of place—and evidently Marra didn’t, either. She muttered something about accursed cats and went to latch the shutters.

When she returned the candle to the hearth, her eyes passed right over Makenna, and she didn’t even blink.

Makenna listened to her footsteps going up the stairs and waited until Marra had had time to go back to sleep before unfolding her fear-stiffened legs. She took two bags of dried meat and let herself out the kitchen door, leaving it wide with a quiet wish that every cat in the village would invade the place.

On her way out the back gate she kicked over the goblin bowl. She flinched reflexively as it tipped, but of course there had been no milk or table scraps in the goblin bowls for months now—no bad luck, likely, from tipping over an empty bowl.

But the fragment of memory she had suppressed earlier swirled through her mind.
“It’s dangerous to meddle with things like that…upsets balances…turns nature against you. And besides…if she’s getting rid of the goblins, likely we hedgewitches will be next.”

Makenna clung to the side of the road where the scruffy bushes promised some cover. It was hard going, hauling the now-stuffed grain sack through the brush. The village was in the center of a vast area of reclaimed marshland. The soil was rich, the lake behind the dike provided sufficient water even in the driest years, and the land was almost completely flat. You could see several miles down the road from the village. Makenna was taking no chances, not now, with her goal so close.

She’d come almost far enough to walk on the road without being seen when a stick, concealed in last year’s dead grass, caught her foot and she fell. She lit soft, but she had fallen earlier and skinned her knees—it was the memory as much as the pain that made her breath catch on a sob.

Her arms overflowing with the large, untidy collection of her mother’s spell books, she hadn’t even seen the rock that turned under her foot. She was running, so she fell hard, the books exploding out of her arms, sending loose sheets of parchment flying among the willows that ringed the house.

“Hide the spell books,” her mother had whispered fiercely, piling them into her hands. “They’re my life’s work, love. Hide them and keep them safe. Use them.”

Scrambling on bleeding knees after the notes and fragments of spells, herbals, scraps of granny lore, and even ordinary recipes that her mother not only inherited from her mother, but had gathered from every passing tinker and vagabond hedgewitch, Makenna was still near enough to peer through the screen of branches when the mob reached the house.

They had milled uneasily outside the door, some looking down as if to conceal their faces, but she knew them all, oh, yes, she knew them. Including their most recent resident. Mistress Manoc looked sober, except when she forgot to control her expression. Then a smug look twitched over her face and lingered until she banished it.

Makenna heard Goodman Branno’s voice raised to shrillness. “Come out, Ardis. You’re accused of sorcery. Your power comes from demons, and you know their names.”

That had stunned Makenna, for her mother knew no more of demons’ names than anyone else in the village. In fact, she’d sometimes wondered if her mother believed in demons—or even the Dark One.

She could barely hear her mother’s quiet voice replying, soothing, delaying them while Makenna got the books away. She’d been told to save the books, so she’d gathered them and hidden them, wasting time she might have spent thinking ahead, finding tools to cut a chain, finding a weapon….

Makenna’s stomach was twisting again. Her eyes stung, but she refused to weep anymore. Weeping wouldn’t get it done.

She stood and hauled the sack onto the road. She hated these books now, but her mother had told her to save them and she would. They were her mother’s life’s work—the fragments of knowledge she had snatched up and preserved, despite the church’s decree that only priests could possess any knowledge of magic. It had not occurred to Makenna until much later that in sending her to save the books, her mother had been saving her as well.

It was easier walking on the road, and she made good time. Better time than she had made that morning, crawling through the bushes on the far side of the dike, striving desperately to get to the long dock that hung over the lake in time.

Now as she drew near the dike, she missed the rhythmic thudding of the pump that started every dawn when old Haren hitched the oxen to the wheel. The noise of the pump, pulling the night’s seepage back up to the lake, was as much a part of the dike as the scent of mud—its absence made her feel like a stranger in an unfamiliar place. She’d thought she and her mother had a place in the village. Friends. It was dangerous to disobey a priest, for the teachings of the Hierarch’s church were backed by the swords of the Hierarch’s guards. But the villagers could have warned them! Not one had. So much for friendship.

With the hatchet, it took only a few minutes to reduce the pump’s cog pins to splinters. They would never get it working in time.

She turned off the road before reaching the dock, for she knew she couldn’t face the sight of it, and cut across a field of new corn, carelessly trampling the tender shoots. It was a hard scramble up the dike, for the sluice gate was set where the land was lowest. At the top, the fresh wind that blew off the lake struck her like a slap. The sound of the waves lapping the shore brought everything hurtling back.

She had watched them from behind a screen of brush and grass as they dragged her mother, struggling now, over the dock’s rough boards. It took two men to carry the heavy chains and shackles. They always drowned a sorceress, so she couldn’t use the power of her dying breath to summon demons or to curse.

As soon as the last man had moved onto the dock, Makenna scrambled underneath it and ran forward. By now the men who held her mother had reached the end. She heard the thudding of their feet as her mother fought.