The Hawkweed Prophecy (4 page)

As they walked back to the caravan, Charlock stayed silent. Ember could tell she was too enraged to talk and knew her anger wasn't just directed at Sorrel and the others but at her also. She had let her mother down once again. Later, to try to make amends, Ember would cook the supper with the vegetables she'd dug from their patch and brew some tea with the mint she'd gathered, sweetening it with the last of the honeycomb just as she knew her mother liked it. It was far from magic and took no special skill or power, but it was the best that Ember could do.

C
HAPTER
F
OUR

T
here was a bee buzzing in her brain. At least that's what if felt like. It happened from time to time, unexpectedly and without warning, like Poppy's frequency to the world shifted and all she could hear was static. This time was worse than ever, though. Poppy tried lying down and shutting her eyes, but that just raised the volume. Her room, this house, this town—all of them felt stifling. Her father was out. Poppy didn't know where, only that it was the weekend and she was alone and that the empty house wasn't empty enough. She needed to move, to breathe.

She took the quickest route out of town. She walked so fast and with such focus that she didn't notice how the buildings were thinning out and how the pavement had become a verge, grassy and nettled. She climbed a gate into a field. Up the hillside she strode, toward the forest that rose like a giant fortress guarding whatever hid within. According to her father's map, the ocean lay beyond these trees that stretched high and wide for miles and miles, an uninhabitable and inhospitable expanse of land that people left well alone.

As she traveled, Poppy was tuning in and out of various sounds as if trying and failing to receive a message. All of a sudden the noise got so sharp—like nails on a blackboard—that Poppy put her hands to her ears, forgetting the sound was within not without. She crouched to the ground, making herself small as though that might minimize the pain. Rocking back and forth on her heels, Poppy made her ears search for other, better sounds. The call of the birds in the sky; the wind sweeping through the grasses, jangling the buckles on her boots; the distant lowing of the cows—as this medley came to the fore, the buzzing became a background track, and Poppy could once more raise her head and open her eyes.

Her vision was blurred at first, so she had to squint to see the animal as it approached her. Poppy rubbed her eyes in dizzy disbelief, but forward it came, and then Poppy realized it was real—a real hare: long legs, thin face, twitching nose and whiskers. The hare tipped its head to one side quizzically. Then it nodded in the direction of the forest. It took a few steps and looked back at Poppy, waiting. Poppy turned toward the town, as if to check it was still there, gray as ashes in the glossy green. The hare bounded forward in a sudden leap to recapture Poppy's attention. Again it stopped and seemed to beckon her. Poppy stumbled to her feet and felt her head spin. The hare twitched impatiently.

“Okay, okay,” Poppy grumbled. “I'm coming.”

She followed the hare all the way to a steep dip in the forest floor. It wasn't far into the woodland, but the dell appeared unexpectedly. Even more surprisingly, this tiny valley was not just full of trees but, in amongst them, old furniture and rusting household machinery lay cluttered and upended. Even if her head weren't so muddled, Poppy knew this image would still look surreal.

The hare scampered down the sheer slope, then looked up at her.

“Really?” questioned Poppy. “This is where you bring me?”

Gingerly she picked her way down the hill. Her head was still hurting from the noise and now her legs were aching too. When she reached the valley floor, Poppy slumped down and lay back weakly against an old, tatty sofa.

“Is this it?” she slurred, closing her eyes. “Is this all?”

Ember thought it was one of the others at first and felt a rare surge of outrage. The dell was her place. Her secret. Then she saw the girl's hair was dark but short, far too short for her to be one of the coven. There was a hare at her feet, watching her. Ember took a step, and the hare sped away in a flash. The girl turned and looked at her. Then her eyes searched for the hare but it had gone.

“Sorry. Were you trapping it?” Ember asked shyly.

The girl didn't say anything for a moment. “Trapping it for what?”

Ember was confused. “For your supper.”

The girl burst into laughter, then stopped. “You're serious,” she said in wonder.

Ember just stared at her. “You're a chaff,” she thought out loud.

“What?” the girl queried.

Ember knew she should turn and walk away. It was what she had been taught since infancy. The childhood rhyme sang in her head:

Heed the berries of the holly and yew,

The ivy and the nightshade too.

Beware the false widow spider's bite,

But most of all a chaff in sight.

Do not mingle, do not mix,

For trouble bring that none can fix.

Yet even as the words played out, Ember's curiosity grew stronger. The girl must come from where the river led, from where she herself had always yearned to go. So Ember didn't walk away, but stood there taking in every detail of the girl's appearance.

“Are you all right?” the girl asked, and Ember caught the concern in her voice and it made her more daring.

“Who took your hair?” she questioned. She had heard of spells that made the locks fall from your scalp and always feared them. As the girl's face scrunched in confusion, Ember felt a quiver of doubt. “You are a doe, aren't you? Not a stag?”

There was a long pause in which the girl rolled her head around her neck in a circle and then gave it a shake, as though rattling her brain. Her eyes widened and she blinked and smiled. “The noise,” she said. “It's gone.” Then her smile broadened further, using up her cheeks, taking over all of her acorn face. “It's gone!” she gasped with delight, though only a second later her lips fell into a frown. “I'm not asleep, am I? This isn't just some crazy dream I'm having?”

“Pinch yourself,” suggested Ember. “That's what my mother would say.”

The girl pulled back her sleeve and pinched her arm so hard
that it left a red mark on her skin. “Well, I think I'm awake,” she said dryly.

“What's that on your nails?” spotted Ember.

The girl put a finger to her lip. “Don't spoil it. Not yet,” she hushed.

“What?” Ember whispered.

“The silence. Can you hear it?”

They both sat there motionless for a few moments. The girl's thoughts flickered in her eyes until finally she opened her mouth to speak. “Is it this place? That made the noise stop?”

Ember wasn't sure of her meaning so she searched for a truth with which to answer. “I come here for the quiet too.”

The girl seemed satisfied with this as she began to study Ember closely, as if reappraising what she saw. Then she held out her hands, palms down, fingers stretched to show the chipped shock of blue on the tips. “The nail polish? Is that what you mean?” she said.

Ember nodded. “The color. How'd you conjure that?”

The girl rummaged in a big, leather bag and pulled out a little glass jar of the same liquid blue. She tossed it over to Ember. Ember reached for it in surprise but dropped it and had to stoop to pick it up. She felt the cool glass in her hand and stared at it before unscrewing the bottle and pulling out a little brush.

“You paint it on,” the girl explained.

Ember tried to figure this out and, becoming impatient, the girl gestured for her to come over. Tentatively Ember began to step across the pieces that filled the dell. She didn't know what half of this stuff was, but she loved it here among these treasures, all clues of another land.

The girl patted the ground next to her and Ember sat down. “Give me your hand.”

Ember held it out nervously and the girl took it and placed it on her knee. Then she took the little brush and did what she had said—she painted each nail until they shone with color. Ember stared down at her hand like it didn't belong to her, lying there so detached on a stranger's leg. She could feel the girl's arm touching hers and she could hear her soft, concentrated breathing. The girl was a chaff, but Ember didn't care. Sitting next to her like this seemed a consolation for all the hours she had spent sitting alone. Friendship felt even better than Ember had imagined. It was as many hued as a sunrise, turning black to brilliance, and full of promise of a warmth and light to come.

When the girl finished, Ember held her fingers up in wonder, moving them in a little dance.

“Careful. You don't want them to smudge.”

Ember froze, then lowered her hands to her lap. The girl positioned her hands to match. “See . . . twins.”

Ember felt a glow inside her and it spread to her cheeks and she blushed. The girl looked at her inquisitively. “Where are you from, anyway?”

Ember looked away, not knowing how to answer and feeling self-conscious about her long skirt and battered boots. She hoped she didn't smell.

“Yonder,” she replied. She had broken one rule by conversing with the girl, but the clan was sworn never to reveal anything of themselves or their camp. This was sacred.

The girl's eyes widened again. “Yonder? . . . What are you like?”

Ember wasn't sure how to respond to this, but then the girl asked a simpler question and she found herself answering even though she shouldn't.

“What's your name?”

“Ember.”

“I'm Poppy.”

Any guilt Ember felt at disclosing her name instantly evaporated. The chaff was called after a summer flower, bright and red and welcoming. And the witches used its extracts in their healing, sparingly but to great effect. Somehow this name felt like a sign that all was well. The girl, Poppy, placed the brush back into the pot and screwed the lid back on, then she handed it to Ember. Ember glanced at her, not daring to take it.

“Go on. I've got more at home.”

Ember grinned like her cheeks would split. “Really?!”

Poppy nodded. “So, Ember from yonder. What are you doing down here?”

“Escaping.”

Poppy looked up quickly, and in her eyes Ember saw something unusual, something like understanding.

“Well, Ember,” she said. “That's what I'd call a happy coincidence.”

It was dusk before the girls parted. They had spent all afternoon there in the dell among the homeless objects. Poppy had explained to Ember what each of them was. Some of them sounded more magical than anything that the coven created. A television
for watching stories brought to life; a sofa for sitting on when you watched television; a vacuum cleaner for sucking up the dust; a washing machine; a toasted sandwich maker; CDs—tons of them, holding music on their shiny dials; a microwave for cooking food in seconds.

Ember was amazed. These miracle inventions would hardly fit in her and Charlock's tiny caravan. The most their single room had space for was their two small beds, a chair, the chest with their clothes and bedding, and their kitchen shelves. The meals they ate were cooked in the wood-fired oven outside or on spits over fire pits dug into the earth. And the food was eaten fresh or pickled, boiled and jarred. As Ember traced her fingers over an old lawn-mower, she dreamed about a world of houses full of all these marvelous contraptions and gardens with neat, short grass called lawns.

Poppy had a question now. “Are you in some kind of religious cult?” Ember turned to look at Poppy. “I won't tell anyone.”

“I don't know what that is.”

“Are you being held against your will?”

Ember pondered this. “No. Are you?”

Poppy gave a harsh laugh. “No. Though it feels like that sometimes.” She looked down at the books poking out of her bag. “Do you go to school?” she asked Ember.

“Kind of. We're taught by our mothers and sisters.”

“Oh, I get it. You're homeschooled. No wonder you're weird.”

“Can I see?” Ember pointed at the books, and Poppy nodded.

Ember took one of the books and opened it up. In it were lots of numbers in rows and columns. She squinted at them but they made little sense. Like the symbols in her own books, they were a foreign language to her. She reached into Poppy's bag for another.
This one had writing. She scanned it at first, then started reading out loud.

Art thou pale for weariness