Stray Read online

  5.

  Lighten Up

  It wasn’t no Lorraine, but at least that meant there wasn’t stupid Earl there.

  “I wan’ go home,” Bustle told her in the dark. He kept saying that and Leila kept telling him they didn’t have a home back there anymore. The creepy cellar was their home now, at least till they could find a better one. They had to be real quiet so the crazy lady upstairs wouldn’t find them and hang them up with the other bodies in her trees, but at least nobody from the factry was gonna find them here. And there wasn’t any wind, that was good. There just wasn’t any food either. They’d had nothing in their bellies for at least two days.

  “Here. Come close, I’ll warm us up.” She pricked her finger with her long knife and closed her eyes. She felt it start real slow, so slow she was never quite sure it was coming till it came. But then there was the light glowing through her closed eyes and the warm. When she looked again there was this white ball of light the size of a big onion, spinning and shaking on her fingertip. “Here.”

  Bustle’s eyes got wide like always and he told her Mama said not to do that witchy stuff, but like always she told him they didn’t have Mama to rely on anymore, it was just him and her now. This time he only got tears in his eyes instead of bawling out loud, and after a minute he got more cold than scared and came close to warm up.

  “You think Mama’s lookin’ for us?” he asked as he got tireder.

  “I think there’s lotsa people lookin’ for us.” She didn’t tell him that was bad, not good. Her empty stomach got a bit sicker every time she thought about Missus Ebony’s wide white eyes going over the side of the bridge.

  When he was sleeping she crept off, hoping to find a squirrel or something to roast. There was a big round hole in the door of the cellar, which was how they got in in the first place, and she crawled out real careful so she didn’t cut herself on the rusty metal edge. This whole house looked built from parts of a bunch of the old houses around. She wondered how long it took the old lady to build it and if she used to have a husband or son or somebody to help.

  Just tying those bodies up in the trees musta been hard work by itself. There were three of them, two women and a man, all roped up with their arms in different directions. They didn’t look comfortable even for dead people, and when a wind kicked up they swung back and forth like old dry leaves.

  There were no squirrels out in the night time but after a few minutes shivering she saw a rabbit making tracks in the snow. It was too fast for her to run after it, of course. She crept real quiet till she was closer, which put her right under the swinging man but she tried not to think of that. Closing her eyes again, she shaped another ball of light on her finger, a small, tight one. She’d never caught something on fire on purpose before. The rabbit was long-eared and gray and he wriggled his little nose, which made Leila feel sorta sad but not as sad as she felt with an empty belly and a hungry little brother. She pointed her finger at it.

  “Hey!” the dead man said from up above her head.

  Her hand jerked as she shot the ball of light. It still did just what she was trying to do, except instead of hitting the rabbit it sorta blew a hole in the house. For a minute Leila wasn’t sure if she should be more scared of the crazy old woman in the house or the dead man who could talk, but then she remembered a lioness doesn’t get scared so she looked up and said, “What do you want?”

  The dead man did get scared, though. “I was going to ask ye’ to cut me loose, but now—”

  To answer his but-now, the door of the house swung open, and the crazy old lady came out. Leila couldn’t see her too good in the dark, but she must really not be all that old. At least, not too old to pull the string back on a bow and arrow. “One step and I’ll split ye’ ‘ead,” she said in an accent Leila couldn’t help but think sounded pretty dumb. It wouldn’t be a good time to tell her that, though.

  She let Leila go wake Bustle without shooting her with the bow, which was good. After that, she used short ropes to tie their legs together and then real long ones to tie their waists and arms. She threw the long ones up over a tree branch right next to where the man was tied, then she shimmied up into it and tied them to the branch herself. Leila wanted to know how she did that and how old she was, and she woulda asked if she wasn’t scared they were about to get killed. Maybe she was gonna hang them just like Missus Ebony woulda done if Leila hadn’t put her in the Vine.

  “Ye’ lucky my brother’s not here to hoist ye’,” she said when she got back down. So they stayed with their feet on the ground, but with the other ropes tied they couldn’t move or sit down. It was gonna be a long night. The crazy lady went back inside, probably to fix her window that Leila’d blown out. Bustle was crying now.

  “She says any mutt who comes on her home is hers to do with as she likes,” the man hanging right above them said.

  “Oh, you,” she called back up at him. “Thanks for ruinin’ everything, stupid.” To her brother she said, “I’m sorry.” Not just for this but for a lot of stuff.

  Leila had gone nights in stabbing cold and drowning heat, sick and tired and hungry, but this one was worse than any of them. She couldn’t sit, couldn’t even lower her arms, and the thick ropes cut into her skin. At the same time she was just as hungry as before almost catching the damn rabbit, and when it got windy out here, it cut right through their sweaters. And with the ropes it hurt to even shiver. She’d done messed it all up. Why didn’t she just tell Missus Ebony about what really happened with the forty? Maybe she woulda only lost a hand instead of getting hanged, and losing a hand was better than a lot of things the crazy lady could do now, with her all tied up like this. And Bustle too. Whatever got done to him was on her now.

  She never really fell all the way asleep, but for maybe an hour she kinda dozed off a little. When she came all the way back awake, her arms and shoulders and legs were all the sorest they’d ever been in her life. She shivered her way to sunrise, which came dark gray at first, and then orange and bright between the naked trees. She got to see everything for the first time in good light. It was dark when she’d been trying to get the rabbit and dark when she and Bustle first came here, so she didn’t really get to see the house well till now. It was only one floor, plus the cellar down below. It was made of a lot of different colors of old brick that looked like it was turning to sand, and in places it was patched with wood. Not much of a house, and now there was a wood board in the window too.

  The man hanging right over her was asleep. He’d been there for at least the two days she’d been in the cellar, and there was dry blood around some of the ropes. He was dressed in rags and his lips were blue. He was lighter than Leila and Bustle but not white-skinned like some people who lived over this way. He had some Yank blood if anything. The two women, who Leila was guessing weren’t dead either, were behind her so she couldn’t get a look at them. The ropes didn’t let her turn much.

  When the sun was all the way up, the crazy lady came outside and Leila got a first good look at her too. She wore a hood over her head with squirrel tail lining and Leila couldn’t see if she had any hair. There were wrinkles on her face, but she proved last night she was in better shape than Mama, anyhow. “Today,” she said, “ye’ll ‘elp me pay for the damage to my ‘ome.” Leila didn’t ask how she was supposed to do that.

  As the day went on, she found out it was a market.

  At first it was only a couple people, and they just looked around before leaving. Then this guy came asking about the two women tied up in the tree. He had a greasy black beard that looked like it’d been summer last time he washed it. It looked useful for keeping the cold off his face, though. Leila kept hoping she’d stop being able to feel hers, but it still stung. “Where’d you find them?” he asked.

  “My brother set one of ‘is traps,” the crazy lady said proudly.

  The man laughed. His teeth were gross. “If they don’t know better than to take a free meal in these parts, it’s a wonder they mad
e it this long.” He craned his fat hairy neck. “Pretty thing, the one on the left, but you’ve gotta start keeping your merchandise better. You sell me a half-frozen one, she’s likely to give out before I get her home.”

  “Ye’ know my sales are final. Don’t buy if ye’ don’t think she’ll last.”

  The man sighed. “How ‘bout I take the both, in exchange for enough firewood to last you the winter?”

  “What’s that for a price? I’ve trees all around, if ye’ couldn’t see. I’ve little need for more wood.”

  “Fine, fine. Twenty pounds salted venison for each of them, how about. I’ll see it delivered before nightfall, just don’t sell these two out from under me.”

  They argued over the price till they agreed on twenty-five pounds for the healthier woman, twenty for the one who looked about to freeze to death. The lady grunted. “And this one?” she asked, raising Leila’s chin with a gloved hand. Leila tried to bite her finger, but the hand pulled back and swung around to split her lip. “These are new, as ye’ can see.”

  “That one’s rather… stringy… for my tastes.” He made a face like he thought Leila was some kinda rodent, but that was good. “I’ll be back for the other two.”

  As the day went on more people came, but the lady couldn’t convince anyone to buy Leila or Bustle on account of they looked more like mouths to feed than anything. Leila kept talking and scaring people off till the crazy lady gagged her. Another guy looked at buying the man for labor, but he thought the man would lose at least one hand to frostbite and wouldn’t be much use. After that the lady took the bearded man’s advice and got some blankets from the house to throw over them all so they wouldn’t freeze, or at least would freeze a bit slower. It didn’t help with the ropes, but at least the cold was only bad now instead of horrible. Leila tried to remember what warm felt like.

  It was almost sunset when the strange lady came.

  She wasn’t much like anyone Leila had ever seen, probably ‘cause Leila could barely see her. It was like looking at somebody with your eyes crossed, the lady was right there but Leila couldn’t seem to focus on her. She had almost-white skin and long dark hair but Leila couldn’t say a thing about what her face looked like or what she was wearing. The crazy lady seemed to know the strange lady, though, because she got real scared when she saw her. “I, uh…”

  “Good afternoon, Sara. I see you’ve interpreted the king’s mandate against the sale of human property rather liberally.”

  “Oh, no, these are just, uh, rentals.”

  “I don’t doubt.” The strange lady sounded like she’d be crinkling her face up, if Leila could see her face. “Don’t worry, if his majesty had the resources to enforce it, he would have by now. We’re all wrapped up in larger affairs, which is what brings me here.” She used a lot of big words to say what Leila was pretty sure were just regular things.

  “Oh? And what’s that?”

  “Rumors, and the scent of magic.”

  “Jon’s always saying ye’ witches can sense another of ye’ ilk a mile off,” the crazy lady called Sara said. “Ye’ find one around ‘ere?”

  “Not yet.” The strange lady was looking around. “But magic was done here, and recently.”

  Leila looked over at Bustle. He was asleep, or so cold and tired that he might as well be asleep. With her gag she couldn’t tell him to wake up, and she couldn’t reach him.

  “Why do ye’ want to find this one?” Sara was touching her chin. She had a greedy look in her eye, which didn’t surprise Leila since Leila was tied up next to her house getting sold.

  “The orders of our king. There’s been word of two women, so-called prophetesses who were speaking first in Three Dogs’ district and more recently on our own protected land. They’re trying to gather magic users to them. Most of the time we let other magic users be, unless we find reason to think they’re causing harm. But with no idea what these women’s aim is, we want to reach the people they’re after before they do. The last thing we need is Three Dogs bolstered by a dozen magicians as well as his soldiers.”

  “And if I find ye’ this witch, what’ll ye’ give me?”

  “The thanks of the king, as well as our continued blind eye toward your… rental service.”

  Sara shot a glance at Leila and probably decided that wasn’t a very good deal. “I’ll let ye’ know if I find any witches, then,” she promised the strange lady.

  “I’m sure you will.” The strange lady was turning to go. Leila tried to make a noise but choked on her gag. Bustle wouldn’t wake his damn self up long enough to say something. Leila didn’t know what the strange lady would do with her, but she knew it was better than being left in these ropes in the cold. Even if the lady killed her, at least maybe it’d be faster. There was one thing to do.

  She couldn’t talk, but she could scrape her finger on the rough rope, tearing off her scab and rubbing till it bled more and more. The white ball of light grew bigger and hotter until it was starting to burn her skin. The crazy lady and the strange lady both turned, right at the same time, right as she let it fly.