Dread Delight
Juliann Whicker
Copyright 2018 by Juliann Whicker
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Chapter 1 Mage
Silicon fibers to maintain the light pulse would be better than Bentonite.
“What are you doing? You trying to blow up the lab?”
I turned my head and blinked at Lars, his soft blue eyes even larger than usual as he stared at the mess I was making on the white lab table. I blinked at him and then reached up to grab the nozzle to spray down the pulsing ooze. Before I could spray it, he yanked it out of my hand and pulled down the red one, spraying a powder that wasn’t the water nozzle I’d almost used on high quality Cesium powder.
I stared at the mess I’d made, the blue bleeding into black and yellow. I couldn’t remember doing that.
He put a hand on my shoulder. “Maybe you should take a break, go to Darkside or home for a few days.”
I looked down at that hand and felt a mild wave of annoyance, but not enough to shatter the bones. “Somehow, I doubt that would help.”
He removed his hand and smiled slightly. “You could beat the crap out of Zach again. We all enjoyed that.”
I sighed. “Definitely wouldn’t help.” I did not need another round of Zach barely defending himself while he apologized the whole time. I’d had no idea he had such a powerful guilt complex. I wasn’t even sure what he was apologizing about, taking Penny to the dance, smashing her room, not trusting her, or something else. I was betting on the something else.
Penny had been in her room for three days. Three days. She’d embedded her name in my chest and given me one question mark. One question mark wasn’t enough.
I probably should have thought it through, the whole letting a witch engrave in my skin, bind me to her like Wit had bound Ian, how Pitch bound Zach, but now I understood the compulsion, the craving to be owned and possessed. Not something I’d ever intended to understand. I’d made a big speech about it to my father and everything, all about how I would never marry and carry on the Huntsman name in spite of the family spell Great, great, great, great, great grandfather Harold Huntsman put on the family to make certain we increased the family magic. A spell, more like a curse. Powerful witches were diabolical, worse than a mage. Not all mages. I’d been arrogant enough to think that I was far worse than any witch I would ever meet, and then I met her, well, met if being plowed over by a female could be called such a thing. Penny Lane.
I winced instead of smiling. Three days. I’d passed through euphoria to denial then anger. That was the fighting with Zach stage. Now I was a mess, plain and simple. A mess over a female. I didn’t know anything about her. Not true. I knew a lot more than most mages ever knew about a witch, but who was her family? What were her assets? Who did I apply to for her hand in marriage? I had no idea. There were no Lanes in any witch lines I knew. I’d looked at all the easily available sources and now there was nothing besides the obvious and equally impossible.
I smiled at Lars. “Are you in the mood for some fun?”
He stared at me dully before he finally nodded, only a slight nod, but from Lars, that was all I needed. He had a lot of Darksider blood. Made him a little weird. Not as much Darksider as me. Who did? Penny, and that must be the root of my attraction, the family curse that brought my father down on his knees to a half-Darksider like my mother.
“What do you need me to do?” Lars spoke slowly, looking like a ponderous beast.
I patted his cheek. “I need you to seduce the Matron. Fun, right?”
He raised his eyebrows while he stared at me. “How long?”
It was really, really satisfying how quickly his mind worked beneath that puzzled façade. “As long as possible. Depends if Ian helps me.”
He nodded, still slow. “Three minutes, twenty-seven seconds. I’ve been meaning to bring up a complaint about the organizational system in the library.”
I nodded and slammed his shoulder with my fist. “Excellent, man!”
He hesitated. “Stoneburrow could give you more time.”
I stared at him. “Yes.”
“You don’t want him to know what you’re looking for? Is it Pitch?”
I hesitated before I slapped his shoulder again. “That’s right. Wouldn’t want to get his hopes up.”
He smiled slightly. “You’re lying. I hope the two of you aren’t going to war.”
I cocked my head. “Why? There are so many opportunities for profit during war.”
He showed his teeth in a smile before he turned away. “My father always told me: never fight over lollipops. Let me know when you want me.”
I nodded and waved my hand over the lab table. Green light suffused the mess and then it dissolved, eaten away by green fizzling sparks.
After that, I called Ian. He was game. Very game. His eagerness made me a little nervous, but nervous would make me careful, or reckless. Either way…
I waited until five fifteen when the Matron closed up her office and went down to the teacher’s lounge to bully the Chemistry professor into making Rosewood students finally ace the Chem exam. I walked down the hall, singing loudly. It was one of my favorite Scottish ballads about a girl who got eaten by a bear. The invisible sentry was invisible, so I actually bumped into him when he stepped into my path.
“This area is off limits to students.”
I narrowed my eyes like I was trying to see him, but I was actually looking through him, counting the footsteps to the doorway that led to the dungeon. All the records in Rosewood were in the dungeon.
“Interesting that you’d mention that. I suppose you ought to let the new teacher know all about the intricate rules of Rosewood. For some reason she didn’t want to listen to me explain all the reasons why I couldn’t run down to the dungeon and fetch…” I pulled a paper out of my inside jacket pocket and flourished it around like I didn’t know where his face was until I felt the invisible hand on the edge of the paper as he read through the list of objects Professor Vale had requested. “What is that, a thirteenth century mace? Those are some really fine pieces of armor.”
He took the paper while he glowered at me, an invisible glower that I tried to look cowed by. Honestly it was vaguely amusing. The door to the dungeon opened and I realized belatedly that there were two invisible guards.
Fun. I watched the slip of paper walk through the door and then a woman’s voice, “We’ll deliver the items to the professor along with a clear message about sending students into forbidden areas.”
I backed away with the smile I saved for particularly delightful witches. “I appreciate it. Have a lovely evening.” I bowed then turned on my heel. I walked down the hall until I saw a pimply guy around my height. I bumped into him and immediately he looked
dashing, debonair, handsome and I looked unkempt and awkward. It was an excellent glamour, if I did say so myself.
I walked down a hall that ran parallel to the hall where the guard was walking with that slip of paper. A vent was all I needed. I turned into vapor and drifted until I came up against the wards, the barriers that protected the contents of the dungeon from smoke. I waited in that pleasant floating moment until the ward dissolved and I snapped inside the dungeon beside Ian. He was smoothing out his jacket.
“I haven’t been transfigured into an inanimate object in far too long. I think I gave the guard a papercut.”
I smiled broadly at the room filled with piles and shelves of objects, a veritable cave of wonders, only not a cave with the stone walls and arched roof. I walked towards the far side of the room, illuminating a few feet in front of me. Ian examined objects as he followed, his golden eyes sparking as he saw a particularly pretty rock.
“If you get caught, you’ll be expelled,” Ian said, lazily, like it was only something to say.
I grinned at him over my shoulder as I paused outside a door, running my hands above the surface, not touching, but analyzing every piece of it. “My father was expelled in tenth grade. I’m definitely the unmotivated son he never wanted.”
He snorted. “You’re better at not getting caught.”
I curled my lips as I stared at the door. “Until recently.”
He nudged me. “The girl? I like her.”
“Yes, you like a lot of girls. It’s the Goldie in you. I personally feel more…”
“You don’t collect girls. What do you collect?”
“Curiosities.”
He leaned against the stone wall, seemingly relaxed, his golden skin reflecting in the light of the pretty he’d found. “She is a curious girl. What are your intentions? You have them, I assume.”
I inhaled deeply then blew on the door, lighting up layers and layers of runes in gold, purple and orange. I studied them for a moment then they blinked out. I pressed my palm on the door,
grabbed Ian’s neck and channeled his energy into the spell work, green stars that grew beneath my hand in a spiral until the door swung open. Three minutes.
“Don’t they dust in here?”
I glanced at Ian before I closed my eyes and did a very small working based on the words engraved in my chest. Penny Lane. A filing cabinet sparked green in the far corner. I wandered through the maze of filing cabinets to that small drawer, the small manila envelope, and a slip of paper.
PennyLane, SponsoredbyP.L.RoseforattendanceatRosewoodAcademy. Extremediligencerequested.
Other than that, there was a class schedule, room number, and letter of acceptance. Where Penny’s guardian was supposed to sign, the space was blank. I gritted my teeth before I hesitated, staring at the dorm list. That wasn’t the right number. That would put her in the wing two buildings over and one floor up from Lilac Stories. I tucked the file away and turned back to Ian. He was fingering through a stack of manila folders until he pulled out a hefty sheaf of papers. Witley Pennmore.
“Two minutes, thirteen seconds.”
“Mmm,” he murmured, leafing through. “Did you know that she’s had over two dozen complaints filed against her by other witches? If it wasn’t for Jackson’s intervention, she wouldn’t be allowed here at Rosewood.”
“Really? She’s the Matron’s favorite.”
Ian smirked and studied the file while I started pacing. So much risk for such little fruit. Not that it wasn’t a pleasure to break and enter into a vault, but I’d expected something, a home address, a name, some idea of who the creature was who I had all sorts of intentions towards.
I grabbed Ian’s shoulder. “Time.”
He shoved the folder back inside the drawer, slammed it closed, and we ran out of the room. I stopped to close the door, difficult with the way my mind was racing. P.L. Rose. It was something. It had to be enough.
We spent the next twelve hours as a mace and helmet, the real ones shrunk so when the guards put us down in Professor Vale’s office box, after her forcing them to return for the right artifacts which I’d somehow written wrong on the paper that was Ian, I could take them out of my pockets, expand them, and turn to Ian who was staring at me, his pocket bulging from the pretty stone he was taking with him.
“Thief.”
He grinned at me. “Burglar.”
I laughed and nodded at him before I stepped into Darkside, into a tavern at the foot of the Dark Hills where we’d gone often in our misspent youth.
I walked through the dark clothed men to a corner booth and slid in, resting my head against the hard oak. I’d really thought this was the authentic experience when I was younger. Magic, mayhem, cheap alcohol…
“Did you order?”
I shook my head as Ian sat down across from me. He drew circles on the table that flared gold and exploded in miniature golden suns.
“Very pretty. Have you thought about coming for the tourney?”
“Against Blackheart? Going to the same school with Wit would be interesting. Maybe I should try that. I haven’t seduced her in ages. Did you find what you were looking for?”
I scowled at the man who flung down large mugs of something sour smelling the color of green mop water. “She’s very mysterious.”
“That’s right. She’s your curiosity, so she has to continue surprising you. What about when her surprises are finished, when the truth is revealed and she’s left as nothing more or less than a slightly quirky witch the same as any other?”
I drank long then thumped the mug on the table while I stared at him. “It’s not my emotional attachment that concerns me. What I think of her, what I feel, what I don’t feel, none of that has any bearing on the matter at hand. What I want is for Penny Lane to fall desperately, madly, utterly in love with me.”
He raised an eyebrow. “And then…”
“Stay that way. Permanently.”
He wrinkled his forehead and leaned across the table to stare at me, his eyes flickering gold. “That sounds like a lot of effort, Drake. Witches require so much effort, even more than one’s scaly mount.”
I glanced around as though someone could hear through the fancy spark ward Ian had cloaked us in. I spread my hands on the table and scowled at him. “You know, I think you’re right. It’s time I put some effort into something. Hopefully she’ll prove a challenge.”
It was later, after I staggered to my bed, when I remembered a portrait hanging at the top of the stairs in the ballroom. A portrait of Penelope Rose, co-founder of Rosewood Academy.
Chapter 2 Witch
Work. Days and nights I worked, falling into my craft like I’d done when Poppy first left with her psychotic lover. I had ordinary lotions, potions and hurters to make for my regular online shop, but that wouldn’t be enough to keep me from going crazy, from feeling and thinking and wanting. I ached with so much wanting, I wanted to rip out my own heart to stop the pain.
Along with business as usual, I filled out orders for difficult hurters that would make some little sorcerer somewhere extremely happy.
I had stacks of boxes on the floor and shelves, carefully packaged and labeled. I stood in my room, Señor Mort draped around my neck. I turned to start a new batch when a wave of dizziness hit me. I crashed onto my bed, sending it swinging wildly while sleep pounced on me and dragged me down into the deep waters where nothing else could touch me.
I woke up some hours later in the dark and checked my phone for the date and time. Had I really locked myself in my room for five days? I felt numb which was better than in pain or wracked with humiliation when I thought about tying Drake up to a tree and confessing my deepest darkest desires for him, or the humiliation of
being helpless while Zach ripped through me searching for magic I’d never had after I’d incomprehensibly stupidly trusted him. Yep. Much better.
I sighed and sat up. What was I supposed to do now? The idea of facing Zach, Viney, Drake… I shuddered and climbed down to get my computer.
I went to the site that was secure and I could email my hacker friend. She responded quickly, agreeing to hack into Rosewood once more to change my rooms. When she asked which room I wanted I didn’t know what to say. I hadn’t done research. Who could I marry? Barry? Lars? My fingers trembled as I typed hastily, ‘somewhere far from Lilac Stories’ and slammed my computer lid closed.
I went to the site for deliveries and scheduled a pickup in Fairfield behind the dollar store that backed to the woods at the bottom of the hills. I wasn’t going to deal with him here where someone else might see him. Walking down to town would give me the chance to move, to work my thoughts through my body until I’d come to some conclusion about my next step. I couldn’t hide in my room forever. I mean, I could, but that would be stupid and much more awkward than going home and hiding in my attic, at least until the place was demolished. There wasn’t time for me to hide. I shouldn’t have wasted so much time on making hurters, but I had to. I had hurt that had to go somewhere. Couldn’t exactly channel it into prospective grooms. Or maybe I could.
I almost smiled before I shook my head and checked my phone. They gave me approximately six hours until pickup. How long would it take me to walk down to the town? I lay back down, setting my alarm for two hours so when I woke up, it was nine a.m. on a Thursday morning when everyone should be in class, in fact Drake would be in my ballet class without me.
I didn’t want to wear color, not yet. I wasn’t quite ready to become Penny Macaroon Lane, so I put on the black silk dress and cloak after I’d stitched my strap together and sewn black ribbons to the edges of the cloak because my cord was probably still in a tree somewhere.
I opened the door to the common room, and saw a stack of waffles on the table.
I stared at those waffles for a moment while my stomach tightened and my heart pounded. No. I wasn’t ready to feel anything, not yet. I grabbed a few of them before I headed out of the purple room, and then down the corridor, chewing on waffles too quickly before I headed across the green, feeling conspicuous in my black cloak and gown in broad daylight, heavy sack slung over my shoulders.
I climbed the fence and hiked briskly through the woods. It was cold enough that my nose got runny as I hiked. I kept the sun over my left shoulder as I traveled the ravines and rises, jumping over small streams, glad for the exercise after being holed up in my room for days. It took about four hours to make it to the base of the hills and come out behind Fairfield. My pace picked up on the straight ground while I shifted my large pack on my shoulders.
A brown truck pulled up behind the large brick box of a building. I broke into a jog, my body aching and straining, but I let it, pushing harder while my feet struck the ground, long legs eating across the distance until I hit the blacktop and slowed down, heart pounding while I approached Signore Ludi.
“Cara mia, did you run all that way?”
I shook my head while I held myself tall, refusing to bend over my knees and catch my breath. He was here for business, not because he cared. No one cared, not really. I shouldn’t ever forget that. “Not all the way. Were you waiting very long?”
He shook his head as he came over, studying me with a curious expression on his misshapen face. “I don’t think you should be running with all the ingredients you’re carrying. Are you trying to extinguish yourself before your time?”
“That’s an idea.” I cocked my head. “I’d rather just extinguish everyone else. Do I need to sign?”
He held out the clipboard and I took it, signing before I undid my pack and handed the packages carefully over.
He raised an eyebrow. “You’ve been upset.” He slid into our secret language easily.
I was still breathing hard but my body was cooling and the sweat under the silk made the breeze extra cold. “I seem to be much more than is practical. That’s all then.”
I turned around and started back with my much lighter pack, but he grabbed onto my bag, pulling me up short. I whirled around, knocked his hands off me then crouched, eying him warily.
He stared back, the expression in his eyes concerned. I looked away as I straightened. He wasn’t my enemy. I knew that, but at that moment trust seemed like a very stupid thing.
“Cara mia, what is it? Combustion, shrapnel, or impression?”
I shook my head and crossed my arms over my chest while I stared over the field toward the hills and the school hidden from sight between the mostly bare trees. “It’s not hurters, just everything else. I’m so stupid. It’s humiliating and frustrating and…” I whirled around to face him. “How am I supposed to go to a school with all of those monsters and marry one of them? How? I’m not… I mean, it comes down to not having the necessary equipment to get the job done. I can’t do it. Even if I wanted to, which I don’t, I can’t.”
He laughed, the sound rough and charming, warming me up in spite of the chalky sky and low scudding clouds. “Only a fool asks another fool for advice, and you’re far too smart to ask an old fool like me, but I have seen my share of complications. You might feel better if you talk about it.”
I swallowed. I didn’t want to talk about anything that had happened. I could barely think about what I’d done to Drake and what Zach had done to me. “Do you remember when I used to dress up in pink ruffles and have tea parties on the roof and in the trees with my pets?”
He nodded. “Before Poppy roasted all your charming animals alive.”
I winced. “Right. Thanks to her and my mother, I grew up and learned better than that, except I didn’t. I’ve been pretending to be all these things, but the longer I pretend, the more real it feels, the easier it is. This black seems like the costume, not the pink and lollipops. I’ve gotten lost in the woods, and there are so many
wolves. I don’t know what I’m going to do next. I mean I am going to do something and it’s going to be stupid and awful, and I won’t be able to stop myself.” I took a shuddering breath while I slid the black silk skirt through my fingers.
He put a hand on my shoulder. “It’s getting cold. There’s a storm blowing in. Let me take you back to your school. We’ll talk on the way.”
I shook my head and stepped away from him. “No. They’ll just use you against me, like last time. It’s better if I’m alone, then I don’t hurt anyone and no one hurts me.”
“Cara mia, I’m sorry to hear that.”
I bit my lip because his sympathy wasn’t what I needed. I didn’t need anything, certainly not gentleness, but I did. That was the terrible thing, how weak I was, needing a friend, someone who I could trust and rely on and love. Someone I could rip apart and devour and destroy.
I stared into his black eyes which were filled with an infinite amount of pain. I slumped slightly and put my hands on either side of his face. His skin was warm, hot almost. With my eyes closed I focused on his heat, the burning pain inside of him. Energy. I couldn’t do magic, but I could take the pain out of him. A low rumbling came from his chest while I siphoned out his pain, a knot that I could barely untangle before he took my hands in his, away from his face.
“Cara Mia, your hands are cold. When was the last you’ve eaten? How many days have you been locked away, making hurters?”
I pulled away from him, but his grip was intractable. I rolled my eyes. “I had waffles.”
“Before you walked down here, three, four hours through the woods, you must be starving, ready to eat my face off. Come in my truck. You eat then I’ll drive you back.”
I laughed, but it wasn’t a happy sound. “Signore Ludi, are you offering to take me away with you as I begged so many times before? You’ll let me turn your truck into a magical gypsy wagon and have adventures with me every day before tea?”
He frowned, his dark eyebrows drawing together over fierce black eyes. “Penny, there’s a storm coming. Is your spell intact?”
I gripped his hands tightly, digging my nails into his thick skin. I didn’t even draw blood, and he didn’t notice. I twisted, ripping my hands out of his. “What spell?”
His lips curled wickedly. “The spell your good step-father placed on you, naturally, the one that protected you from the magic users at the school. What happened to it? What happened to you? Who harmed you?”
I stared at him for a long time before I smiled brightly. “That’s so funny you should ask. I was going to ask the same question, except I didn’t know that the protection spell was broken, so I couldn’t. Good thing I didn’t try to ride in a car. That would be so gross when I threw up all over everyone. It must be my excellent instincts keeping me from such a nauseating fate. This chat has been so fun, but you’re right, there’s definitely going to be a storm, and I am starving. I’d better be on my way. Good thing I left breadcrumbs I can eat on my way back.”
Before I could take another step, He had my wrist in his hand, grip like iron, hands hot. “Your clothing while extremely delicious, is not nearly as impermeable as it should be for hiking.” He shrugged out of his black jacket, handing it to me with a crooked smile, switching hands so he didn’t release my wrist. “You will borrow my coat, or I will drive you back to school, vomit and all. No, I think I would take you back to your home so that Revere and your mother…”
“Fine. I’ll take the coat.”
His lips curved in a smile, his scowl long since vanished as he finally released my wrist and draped the jacket around my shoulders. “I’ll take my coat back the next time you require a delivery.”
I sniffed the fabric, the weave rough and loose, but it was still warm from his body, and had a lot of layers to it. It hung heavy on my shoulders. I buttoned up the front while he settled the silk cloak over the coat that was much warmer than it looked. It was like a hug from Signore Ludi. I grabbed his hand and squeezed the calloused fingers, unable to let go for a moment.
He squeezed back before he pressed his thumb to my forehead. “I give you strength. Run fast, Cara Mia, and stay safe. Get inside before dark.”
I smiled at him before I hitched my now light pack on my shoulders and started back the way I’d come at a slow jog.
Chapter 3 Witch
The wind picked up before I made it to the trees. Although it was nice to have the wind not cut me quite through to the bone, the trees slowed me down. I should have taken Signore up on his offer. It would be so much fun to have my mother and Revere question me about everything. They would blame me for what happened with Zach, which must be what messed up the spell. He’d wiped it out with his search spell, which meant that he was extremely powerful, and therefore diabolical, which I should have known instead of thinking he was a nice guy. It was my fault. I hadn’t questioned my first impression about Zachary Stoneburrow. I should have been more paranoid, should never have mindlessly trusted him. What was wrong with me? Maybe my instincts were all upside down. Maybe Jackson was really a nice guy since I felt so much revulsion for him. That was funny. No, there wasn’t anyone who I could trust, no one who was nice. I had to accept that I was here to marry a monster.
I stopped walking, staring at the slope of a ravine below me, tangled with matted underbrush, greenery studded with golden leaves. My breath curled in clouds which meant that the temperature had dropped and I was only about halfway back. My feet were cold bordering on numb in my pink flats. I should make my way to the road. It would be much faster than hiking through the tangled woods, but while I was fairly certain of my direction to the school, I couldn’t be sure of the road.
I would keep my course. Soon enough I’d be back in my room and I could make myself a nice pot of tea over my Bunsen burner. I hadn’t taken a dozen steps, sliding and stumbling down the ravine when it began to sleet. In ten minutes my cloak was stiff and heavy
with iced water, only Signore’s jacket protecting me from the icy rain while the ground became covered in sheets of ice. I shivered as I struggled up a slope then fell down, sliding into a pile of rocks and scraping my leg up to my knee.
I inhaled sharply while I stared through the falling sleet in the dim light. I shouldn’t have been able to tell which way was towards the school, couldn’t tell anything in the darkness, the cold, the loneliness, but I felt a tug towards warmth, comfort, home. That direction I would find a hand to hold that would push back my rising panic. Panic attacks. Could there be anything more idiotic? Drake didn’t seem to mind.
It was almost as if he cared, but that was impossible. He was setting me up for something horrible, like Zach only worse. It would hurt so much when he finally broke my heart, but he would wait until it was swollen and ripe with love before he smashed it. I still had his broken-heart handkerchief.
I shook my head and struggled to my feet. This wasn’t the time to sit and daydream about Drake Huntsman, however delicious he was. I was so hungry. I smiled widely as I ascended a particularly brambly slope. “Poison, lips are venomous, poison…” I sang loudly, really loudly through the woods, my harsh song the only noise besides the whistling wind and the crackling ice beneath my feet.
Over my song I thought I heard something, a shrill sound that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
I saw an overhang to my left and headed there, untying my ribbon with stiff fingers while I pressed against the rock face, out of the direct onslaught of the sleet, but still wet, and of course cold. Hopefully she was passing by overhead and wouldn’t notice me. I pulled my phone out of my bag and fiddled with the small black ball the size of my thumbnail hanging from the bottom. I should have kept more hurters with me for emergencies.
I held perfectly still, pressed against the rock, rain dripping down my nose while my hair slicked against my head. Maybe I hadn’t heard anything after all.
I took a breath and almost relaxed when I saw a blur in my left periphery. I didn’t move my head to follow that, and was able to see
the flicker of black on the right. More than one. I felt more than heard the presence above my head on the top of the rock, maybe twenty feet up. If there were three, then there were probably four, one for each direction. Unless there were eight. Even Pitch would break into a sweat with eight. I shook my head, blocking out thoughts of Pitch. I couldn’t let her get into my head. It was fine. I could take out four flying witches with one little hurter. Maybe if I could take two out with the hurter and fight the other two one-onone, it was possible.
A glowing light beamed through the woods in front of me, a flicker that glowed bright, warm and beautiful. It was an enchantment, a lure and I almost moved towards that warm beacon. The woman became visible, her black gown of rich velvet that rippled with every step. Her face was beautiful, perfect, without the slightest touch of makeup so it was probably a glamour.
“Hello, my pretty. Are you lost in the woods?” Her voice was as beautiful as her face, warm and rich like a crackling fire on a nasty day.
My feet felt extra cold compared to the warmth that her voice promised me. I pushed my hair out of my face while I unhooked the black ball from my phone. “Who wants to know?”
She smiled brilliantly, her black eyes gleaming in pleasure. Was I not supposed to talk back? I couldn’t remember proper etiquette for woods frolics. “My name is Freesia. I know these woods well. Are you one of the sweet children that lives in the school? Did someone hurt you?”
I cocked my head and smiled back at her. “Of course not. The darling children would never hurt me. They are so delicious and lovely. Do you wait for them here, to suck on their bones, to nibble on their flesh?”
She hesitated, her fingers flicking to summon the two on the sides. “To absorb their youth and prolong my own?” She laughed, throwing her head back to show her beautiful throat. I moved, slamming my fist into that throat then dodging around her falling body. I slipped through the hands that caught at me, Signore Ludi’s
coat slick to them. I dodged left, then right, before I spun around and threw the hurter at the three closely grouped witches.
I smiled while their eyes were horrified, shocked that their prey had tricked them. And then a flash of black fell between them and the hurter, the fourth witch. I turned and ran while waves of black and sparks of silver exploded around the group. For such a small thing it had a fabulous kick. Maybe it would take out one or two in spite of the witch blocking the explosion. Maybe so, but not likely. I really needed to pack more hurters. I could wear them in my hair, yes, and tied in my ribbon around my neck, and maybe in the laces on my shoes. Earrings. I’d never pierced my ears, but for a good cause…
A witch slammed me to the icy ground, my chin scraped raw on impact. I shifted and knocked her off me, rolling onto her while I grabbed her black hair. Another was on me, knocking me off the first, and then another, like that game, football, and I was on bottom with nothing besides a useless phone.
They pulled me apart, each witch grabbing one wrist or ankle until I was stretched out, kicking and waving my body while the sleet came down. I twisted and thrashed while cruel fingers dug into my skin.
Black eyes gazed at me unblinking until I stopped struggling. They could have ripped me into four pieces if they wanted. What did they want?
A witch twisted my phone out of my hand and glanced at it before tossing it away.
“You should get the number out of it,” the beautiful witch said. She still glowed golden, and her grip on my right ankle was actually warm, unlike the other three who sucked the heat out of me, proving that I still had some.
“It’s blocked by magespell,” the large witch said, number four, the one who had ruined my seriously great plan. Her eyebrows looked a little singed above my left wrist, the one that had held a phone a second before.
“All this for a number? You could have asked.”
Number four twisted my wrist. “Such a pretty girl. You were delivering packages to the Darksider. Those packages contained hurters, like the delicious little thing you threw back there. Those hurters are the hurters Pitch uses.”
I closed my eyes and held very still. They had to be messing with me. They were not here, four witches to try and find Pitch. It was just so stupid. She twisted my wrist until I heard the bone creak. I winced and stared up at her, her black eyes surrounded by creases that should give her a little more wisdom.
“Why are you looking for…her?” I’d almost said her name. I couldn’t say it, couldn’t think it. She would hear.
“We want to know what she is. Such a special girl, a little bit like you, such a talented hurt-maker. We will take you with us, and she will come to find you.”
I kept my eyes wide open. I couldn’t close my eyes, because the darkness was where it waited, where she waited. “You’re making a mistake. She doesn’t care what happens to me. You can’t steal a witch from Rosewood without consequences.”
Her lips curled in a grotesque smile, white face, blood red lips, yellowed teeth. Ew. “And who will know?” She nodded to her friends and they all rose into the air, me between them.
I kicked and thrashed while they squeezed my bones. They couldn’t do this. They couldn’t take me to Darkside. Death waited for me in Darkside, and worse. They laughed at me while I struggled, because I was so pathetic, unable to so much as curse them.
“Don’t worry,” the beautiful one crooned. “Pitch will come and save you.”
Number four cackled, her voice prickly. “Pitch will come and we will take her apart and put her back together again inside out.”
“Pitch,” I whispered.
The night became black. Pitch black. There was a rustle like wings and then number four fell, the sound of her hitting branches on her way to the ground while she screamed this horrible shriek, like half of her throat had been torn out. Don’t ask how I know what that sounds like.
Droplets of blood fell on my face, warm blood as my other hand became free and the other witch fell. I couldn’t see her, only hear her fall. Pitch had come with her pain and we would all suffer before she was finished.
Macaroons and petit-fours. I dangled by my ankles and then both dropped me. I hit branches and bodies as the other witches fell with me. I landed on the legs of a half-decapitated witch, the beautiful face still beautiful even in death, the other three piles of rags around me. If I could see, that meant she wanted me to see. Which meant I would have to see her. I looked up and she floated there, black eyes, white face, black hair long and glistening like oil, like Witley’s silk cloak.
“Go away.”
She smiled, white lips unamused, but at least when I saw her teeth they were nice and white. “Poor little Penny. Did someone hurt you?”
I flinched. “Not yet.”
She dropped down, silent, almost instantaneously, one moment ten feet above me, the next crouched over my body. I froze while she studied me. She reached out with one finger and poked it into the chest above my heart leaving a half moon from her nail when she pulled back. “Penny pretends but the heart whispers truth. Your love is black as the night, as rich as desire, as sweet as pain.”
Pain. She laughed as she spun away, darkness gathering around her as pain grew inside of me. Her laughter echoed in my head as I staggered to my feet with my arms wrapped around my waist. I had to go somewhere safe, somewhere secure. The pain would grow until it completely took me over, and then I’d be completely helpless, disgustingly weak. The world grew blurry and I stopped feeling cold. That was bad. I fell to my knees when my feet stopped working.
I blinked the woods into focus. Yes, that was my phone. Had witch number four broken it? I crawled to it while the pain whirled around me, threatening to drown me. I curled my trembling fingers around the black rectangle and turned it on. I had a message. I clicked on it and tried to read it, but my eyes couldn’t focus very well
on the small blue screen. I pushed reply and texted without seeing the words, then curled into a ball and drowned in Pitch’s pain.
Chapter 4 Mage
I was doing what any self-respecting mage did when they were battling inconsolable insanity, namely, researching P.L. Rose, cofounder of Rosewood Academy. Penelope. Penny was a nickname for Penelope, surely no coincidence, so she was a possible godmother, perhaps even the grandmother who liked tea parties and feather boas. Everything I researched about the woman was extremely, suspiciously upright, particularly for so very active a member in the witch community, both Dayside and Darkside.
There I was, in my third period class when someone whispered that Penny Lane had been seen walking into the woods in her fairytale dance outfit, looking like a crazy person, although what was new, and carrying a very big bag.
I did not leap to my feet and run to her room, I waited until the class let out before I languidly closed my computer and wandered towards Lilac Stories. Zach was there, in the hideously grotesque lavender hued common room staring at a stack of waffles on the table. He wasn’t staring at them, he was counting them.
“How many did she eat?”
He jumped, looking guilty. Ah, that mysterious guilt. “Four?”
I raised my eyebrows. “So few? After five days without any food, she ate four waffles? How odd.” I threw myself down on the floral lilac couch while I studied him.
He stared back.
It was incredibly boring. I broke first. “Well, let me know if something interesting happens.” I rolled to my feet and left, knowing perfectly well that he wouldn’t tell me any more than I’d tell him. She’d left with a pack. A large pack. Was she leaving Rosewood for good? I stepped outside of the building that housed Lilac Stories,
and stared at the bleak and incredibly depressing day. I usually liked that sort of weather, but not when she was walking away from me with a very large bag. Perhaps she was meeting her Darkside lover and he would take her far away. Why would he make her walk through the woods on a cold, dreary day like this? Penny didn’t own sensible shoes.
I paced around the school. It smelled like snow, ice, cold, and indeed, it started really falling in earnest only a half hour later. Was she still walking away from me? Had she found somewhere warm and dry, someone who could hold her and erase the fear? I ran my fingers over my chest and felt a horrible thing, something between pain and despair, something awful and dark that had me running for the stable.
I saddled Demon and cast a spell, drawing a series of green stars on his black side before I vaulted up and let him run towards the woods where I felt the pull through her binding. I belonged to her, and she needed me.
I couldn’t tell which one of the black piles of witch were her for a moment. Her hair was dark from the icy rain, body hunched inside a black coat that didn’t fit her. She groaned and threw a hand out, scraping her nails along the icy ground. She wasn’t dead then. No, dead would mean I wouldn’t feel the pain inside my chest. Not as much pain as she had, just enough to know what she felt and to know where she was.
Four dead witches. Who knew how many more outside of this clearing? I slid off Demon’s back to the ground and stepped towards her, but her body recoiled off my shield. I froze, for a moment disoriented. Her protection spell must have broken. I quickly disarmed my shield and gathered her up, ignoring her nails when they raked across my neck. Was she fighting off the witches or me?
“Penny, I’m going to drop you if you keep that up.”
Her response to my voice was so extreme that I almost did drop her. She wrapped her arms around me and burrowed her face into my chest. “Drake, it hurts.”
I pressed my hand against the back of her cold hair and glared at Demon where he was edging away from me. I was not in the mood
to play games. Penny was ice cold, half starved, and afflicted with who knew what curse. Demon exhaled clouds of steam and held still while I leapt off the ground, somehow managing not to fall off the other side of him, while holding Penny. She was a very tall girl to be leaping around with.
I should have checked the bodies, made sure none of them weren’t dead, seen how they were killed, that sort of thing, but none of that was as important as getting Penny to safety, to stop the pain.
“It’s all right, my little flamingo. I’m not going to let you go. Not ever.”
I pressed down over Demon’s neck, Penny crushed between us, her skin warming where it came in contact with me. The coat would absorb most curses along with danger from the elements. Her delivery man’s, no doubt. She’d gone to him, but she’d come back. Had she returned for me?
I rode Demon to the entrance nearest my room. There weren’t any curious eyes, not out in that nasty weather. I carried her down the hall to my room, leaving Demon to cause havoc in the storm. He’d probably head down to the stables in weather like this. Otherwise, I’d catch him later.
I lay her down on my bed, resting her head on my pillow. I unbuttoned the jacket and could feel the release of protection buried in the fibers of that coat. It had kept her alive probably. Was she so delicate? She shuddered, her face pale and clammy, or maybe that was just the water. I worked stars over her black dress, the feel of the silk beneath my fingers, her skin beneath that nearly distracting me. I needed to touch her. Since my fingers were trailing over the wet silk fabric over her stomach, her missing ribs, I was touching her. Maybe it was her touching me that I wanted so desperately.
When she’d clung to me, pressing against me I’d felt whole for the first time in five days. She’d touched me so much on that night, burying her name in my heart. Would she ever touch me like that again? I shook my head and focused on the pattern I was drawing. Water rose from the fabric, rolling across the surface, then across my blanket and over to the drain behind my bathtub. I liked having a bath and a drain in my bedroom for things like this.
I dried her quickly and then I wasn’t sure what to do. Her head was hot, her hands cold, her body trembling like she was caught in a fever. I couldn’t take her to a doctor, not if her illness were caused by the curse, the curse that was spreading from her back to poison the rest of her without the protection spell holding it in place.
I grabbed my phone and clicked it open. I froze when I saw the message.
DrtakkIm;lo9sttakkmeghome.
It took me a second, but I was fairly certain she’d meant, ‘Drake, I’m lost. Take me home.’ She’d asked for me. I’d already been on my way, but she’d asked for me. I inhaled deeply as I grabbed her hand, holding it tight while I called Jasper.
Jasper came quickly, five minutes through Darkside, and then he studied Penny, the curse, and turned to me, a serious frown on his handsome face.
“We need a witch.”
I scowled at him. “No.”
He raised an eyebrow, blue eyes concerned. No one looked concerned like Jasper when the occasion called for it. It was, no doubt, why my father had hired him so long ago. “You want me to recast a spell which requires a witch and a mage. Otherwise, it won’t be powerful enough to hold back that curse. I haven’t ever seen anything quite like that.”
I grunted, squeezing her fingers. I hadn’t let go of them for some reason. Maybe because sometimes she squeezed back. “What’s so special about it?”
He cleared his throat and got another look on his face, the one that was the precursor to a long lecture on a particular point of spell casting that wasn’t remotely relevant to me and my magic, but that I should understand simply because it was magic and I was a mage who should understand all magic. It wasn’t relevant until he got to the part where the basis of the protection spell was that it drew energy from the curse it was protecting the victim from. This modern invention was created by a mysterious genius mage who didn’t want the fame of recognition.
Ah. So the creator of this protection spell was possibly Penny’s step-father, or father, or grandfather, someone. Mixing mage and witch magic was always tricky. Her mother probably helped the mage. Apparently, Penny was something that four other witches wanted to kill. Something had killed them, maybe a delayed curse that their attack had triggered. With Jasper we probably wouldn’t trigger anything dreadful like that. Probably.
Jasper frowned as he stared hard at Penny. “She’s waking up.”
Penny gasped and arched her back, screaming this horrible agonizing sound that faded into a whimper as she curled onto her side, lips pale, forehead clammy, nails digging into my palm.
The scream wracked every nerve until I felt like I was being flayed. I would rather be flayed than hear Penny make that sound again.
Jasper’s face was tight as he pulled a scroll out of his voluminous dark blue jacket. “It’s a Darksider spell, curse, something along those lines. It’s complex. I don’t think the purpose is pain, but the pain is a result of the purpose being thwarted. Complex. You should know at least the basic forms of spells. Your ignorance is glaring.”
I glared at him then smirked. “This spell isn’t one of the basic spells, so how would knowing those be of any use whatsoever? I pay you so that I can enjoy my ignorance to its fullest.” I frowned at him. “What would be the best way to keep her unconscious?”
He raised an eyebrow, his dark brows marked above his brilliant blue eyes. “You can’t keep a witch unconscious against her will.”
I grinned at him. “I have her permission.”
“You don’t think that she would want you to cast this spell on her? What are you playing at? Drake, we need a witch to perform this spell.”
“Professor Vale is her room mother. Knock Penny unconscious before she gets here. You can perform this spell, can’t you?”
He frowned at her, tilted his head to the side, raised one hand, fingers in an L shape like he was framing her and then shrugged. “That curse is bound by layers upon layers of spells. They are extraordinarily strange. It’s as though a witch was casting mage spells. Not efficient, but still…”
“Interesting.”
Penny twisted, legs tangling in her long skirt as she opened her mouth and screamed soundlessly.
“Jasper, render her senseless for as long as it takes to cast the spell.”
He frowned at me, hand still outstretched over her. “No. You should contact the school and find the originator of this spell. I would be grateful to observe a master like him at work.”
Her eyes fluttered and there was nothing for it. I waved my hand over her, sending down a shower of green sparks while star shapes flashed over her skin. She gasped and then was still. She would sleep until I released her.
“You seem to have far too much experience in rendering a witch unconscious.”
I ignored him as I retrieved my phone, glancing at that ridiculously delicious text from Penny Lane before calling Pete. “I need Professor Vale’s personal number. Seduction of a professor? How did you know? You want to be invited next time? We’ll see.” I clicked off and then had to acknowledge Jasper’s disapproval. He didn’t really show anything on his face, but the fact that he was standing there with his arms crossed over his chest while he stared at me was as disapproving as he ever got.
I put a hand on his shoulder while I studied him, my own expression growing as serious as his. “Jasper, this girl is very important.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Someone clearly thinks so, or she wouldn’t have such a curse or smell like dead Creagh. You’re walking into an entanglement that you don’t begin to understand. You’ve always been extraordinarily confident, foolhardy even, but this situation is delicate and you are still entangled in a number of…”
“She’s three-quarters Darksider. I’ll marry her or no one.”
He froze, swallowed then turned to Penny. “She’s a lovely girl.”
I stared at Jasper then followed his gaze down to my fingers where they curled around her pale hand. “Not remotely. Complex, troublesome, curious and fascinating, but not lovely, except sometimes when she smiles wickedly and ties you to a tree.”
He cleared his throat. “This Professor Vale…”
I got my phone and texted single-handedly. “She’ll be here in a few minutes. Do we need anything?”
He raised an eyebrow. “This spell will displace a lot of energy. Are you certain you wish to perform such a spell? Two days you’ll be holding this spell until you can weave it in. We could simply let her family handle the matter. Future relations with her family might be strained, particularly if this spell misfires, and you kill the girl. Also, you’ll be liable for damages.”
I picked up my phone and showed him the text message.
“Ghome?”
“Home. It’s clearly a plea for help. It will hold up in any court.”
He smiled humorlessly. “Not if the court is run by whatever Creagh band gave her those bruises.”
He was talking about her wrists and ankles. You could see the fingerprints left in her fair skin. I smiled back. “Be sure to buy the judges for me, won’t you?”
He rolled his eyes. He thought this was a bad idea, also risky, but also interesting. “At least you’ll finally learn some spellcraft.”
A quick rap sounded on the door. Jasper went to answer it. He was the butler, after all. Sort of. He could tell that I wasn’t going to let go of her hand. Soon enough, Professor Vale entered, her short hair in wet spikes. She’d come the quick way from the lounge straight here through the sleet. She didn’t waste any time, but took off her jacket, sped across the room, leapt up the few steps to my sleeping area and was beside me.
She took Penny’s other hand, fingers holding her wrist, taking her pulse. “How long was she exposed to the elements?”
I shrugged. “Eight hours, maybe more."
She stared at me, her black eyes bright and suspicious. “Why is she in your bed?”
“She called me to rescue her.”
She tilted her head. “Really? Strange girl. Who are you?” she asked Jasper without taking her eyes or hands off Penny. She was checking her neck, running her hands over her shoulders, sliding fingers behind her back and over her spine.
“I work for Huntsman.”
She curled her lip and gave me a sharp look. “You trust him?”
I smiled back. “Much more than I trust you. We’re going to recast the protection spell.”
She scowled hard and I almost flinched. “What happened to it?”
I shrugged. “She didn’t say, only asked me to recast it before she lost consciousness.”
I could read Jasper’s disapproval in the stiffness of his body. Professor Vale studied me long and hard before she nodded. “Fine. I’ll need ingredients. I’ll return in half an hour. Have your employee prep her for a basic Craticulotomy.”
I heard Jasper’s intake of air, and then she was gone, a whirling force of witch nature.
Once she was finished, I held very still while Jasper did the necessary preparations, namely levitating Penny and drawing lines of energy through her body until a grid of golden strands streamed through her. The curse rested in the center, the crux of her life-force. I didn’t know what kind of curse it was. You could only tell a curse by its fruit. It was hard to know exactly what a curse did when it was bound so heavily. Even with the protection spell broken, other lighter spells were wrapped around it, layers and layers of years of spells to keep her safe from the curse. Jasper was right. Witch energy was woven through those lines, but the framework was mage made. What kind of witch was Penny’s mother, or whoever had cast that?
When Professor Vale returned, lines of golden light went through Penny, the purple-black curse a throbbing black hole inside of her that we were going to bind using this brilliant new technique that would work on the curse itself instead of on her. As in, once it was established, it would use the strength of the curse to sustain the spell. Usually, it was the person who fed the spell, but a curse like that would completely drain anyone over any period of time. Why cars would trigger the curse made no sense to me. Was she at school trying to discover a cure for the curse, or was she here to hide from whoever had cursed her until it could be reversed?
It was my business. She’d asked me to help her. I was smiling as Professor Vale and Jasper stood on either side of my black bed in my black room, black stars glowing dimly over the walls, floor, ceiling while they sucked the life out of me, using my immense resources to put together layers of spells that Jasper marked on her back with the tip of an old oak twig, explaining the process in meticulous detail. Professor Vale had powders, herbs, and nasty smelling incense that she dripped down from Penny onto my black bed. I learned every step of the complex and mind-numbingly detailed spell, feeling the effect through my bond with Penny, but it wasn’t the pain that eased, but something else. At any rate, by the time the basic pattern had been set on her skin and hours had passed with Jasper and Professor Vale, her pain had been replaced with an immense and horrible exhaustion that was echoed in my own bones.
By the time we were through with set-up, Jasper and Professor Vale looked as haggard as I felt, and I had two more days of this. For my first serious spell, it was quite a marathon. Ian would be so proud of me.
Professor Vale stared at me, at my hand where I held Penny’s. I hadn’t loosened my grip on her hand through the entire procedure until Jasper lowered her with effort back to the bed.
“She stays here.” I answered Vale’s unspoken question.
She scowled, but nodded and scribbled something on a piece of paper that she left on the table by the couch along with a few bottles from her large black bag. “She trusted Stoneburrow as well. Hopefully this goes a little better.”
Her tight smile showed who she suspected of breaking Penny’s protection spell. Yes, that would explain Zach’s guilt. Maybe Penny would ask me to break him. That would be my pleasure.
I spent the next two days weaving and reweaving the same spell, over and over again. Jasper came and checked on me, explaining the findings of his research on the inventor of that madly brilliant spell we’d used on Penny. There wasn’t much to find about the mysterious creature, but he had collaborated with a few mages that perhaps would prove less difficult to track.
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that she was unduly kind to one of his men, in an anger of jealousy he mutilated him. There was not sufficient testimony to convict him; “but,” he said, “everybody believes he was guilty, and ought to have been punished. Nobody thinks there was any good reason for his being jealous of the boy.”
I remarked that this story corroborated “Uncle Tom’s Cabin;” it showed that it was all possible.
“Ah!” he answered, “but then nobody would have any respect for a man that treated his niggers cruelly.”
I wondered, as I went into dinner, and glanced at the long rows of surly faces, how many men there were there whose passions would be much restrained by the fear of losing the respect of their neighbours.[39]
My original purpose had been to go high up Red River at this time, but the long delay in the boat’s leaving New Orleans, and her slow passage, obliged me to change my plans. The following year, I returned, in company with my brother, as narrated in “The Texas Journey.” Some portion of what follows is taken from that volume.
At a place called Alexandria, our progress was arrested by falls in the river which cannot be passed by boats at low stages of the water
The village is every bit a Southern one—all the houses being one story in height, and having an open verandah before them, like the English towns in the West Indies. It contains, usually, about 1,000 inhabitants, but this summer had been entirely depopulated by the yellow fever. Of 300 who remained, 120, we were told, died. Most of the runaway citizens had returned, when we passed, though the last case of fever was still in uncertain progress.
It has apparently not the least reputation for morality. At Nachitoches, the next village above on the river, a couple of men were waiting for their breakfast at the inn, when one, who looked and spoke more like
a New Englander than a Southerner, said to the other, whom I presumed to be an Alexandrian—possibly Elder Slocum himself:—
“I had a high old dream, last night.”
“What was it?”
“Dreamt I was in hell.”
“Rough country?”
“Boggy—sulphur bogs. By and by I cum to a great pair of doors. Something kinder drew me right to ’em, and I had to open ’em, and go in. As soon as I got in, the doors slammed to, behind me, and there I see old boss devil lying asleep, on a red-hot sofy. He woke up, and rubbed his eyes, and when he see me, he says, ‘Halloo! that you?’ ‘Yes, sir,’ says I. ‘Where’d you come from?’ says he. ‘From Alexandria, sir,’ says I. ‘Thought so,’ says he, and he took down a big book, and wrote something in to’t with a red-hot spike. ‘Well, sir, what’s going on now in Alexandria?’ says he. ‘Having a “protracted meeting” there, sir,’ says I. ‘Look here, my friend,’ says he, ‘you may stop lyin’, now you’ve got here.’ ‘I aint lyin’, sir,’ says I. ‘Oh!’ says he, ‘I beg your pardon; I thought it was Alexandria on Red River, you meant.’ ‘So it was,’ says I, ‘and they are having a protracted meeting there, sure as you’re alive.’ ‘Hell they are!’ says he, jumpin’ right up; ‘boy, bring my boots!’ A little black devil fetched him a pair of hot brass boots, and he began to draw ’em on. ‘Whose doin’ is that?’ says he. ‘Elder Slocum’s, sir,’ says I. ‘Elder Slocum’s! Why in hell couldn’t you have said so, before?’ says he. ‘Here, boy, take away these boots;’ and he kicked ’em off, and laid down again.”
French blood rather predominates in the population in the vicinity of Nachitoches, but there is also a considerable amount of the Spanish and Indian mongrel breed. These are often handsome people, but vagabonds, almost to a man. Scarcely any of them have any regular occupation, unless it be that of herding cattle; but they raise a little maize, and fish a little, and hunt a little, and smoke and lounge a great deal, and are very regular in their attendance on divine worship, at the cathedral.
In the public bar-room I heard a person, who I suppose would claim the appellation of a gentleman, narrating how he had overreached a political opponent, in securing the “Spanish vote” at an election, and it appeared from the conversation that it was considered entirely, and as a matter of course, purchasable by the highest bidder. A man who would purchase votes at the North, would, at least, be careful not to mention it so publicly.
We spent several days in Nachitoches, purchasing horses and completing the preparations for our vagrant life in Texas.
One mild day of our stay we made a trip of some ten or fifteen miles out and back, at the invitation of a planter, whose acquaintance we had made at the hotel. We started in good season, but were not long in losing our way and getting upon obscure roads through the woods. The planter’s residence we did not find, but one day’s experience is worth a note.
We rode on from ten o’clock till three, without seeing a house, except a deserted cabin, or meeting a human being. We then came upon a ferry across a small stream or “bayou,” near which was a collection of cabins. We asked the old negro who tended the ferry if we could get something to eat anywhere in the neighbourhood. He replied that his master sometimes took in travellers, and we had better call and try if the mistress wouldn’t let us have some dinner.
The house was a small square log cabin, with a broad open shed or piazza in front, and a chimney, made of sticks and mud, leaning against one end. A smaller detached cabin, twenty feet in the rear, was used for a kitchen. A cistern under a roof, and collecting water from three roofs, stood between. The water from the bayou was not fit to drink, nor is the water of the Red River, or of any springs in this region. The people depend entirely on cisterns for drinking water. It is very little white folks need, however—milk, whisky, and, with the better class, Bordeaux wine, being the more common beverages. About the house was a large yard, in which were two or three China trees, and two fine Cherokee roses; half a dozen hounds; several negro babies; turkeys and chickens, and a pet sow, teaching a fine litter of pigs how to root and wallow. Three hundred yards from the
house was a gin-house and stable, and in the interval between were two rows of comfortable negro cabins. Between the house and the cabins was a large post, on which was a bell to call the negroes. A rack for fastening horses stood near it. On the bell-post and on each of the rack-posts were nailed the antlers of a buck, as well as on a large oak-tree near by. On the logs of the kitchen a fresh deer-skin was drying. On the railing of the piazza lay a saddle. The house had but one door and no window, nor was there a pane of glass on the plantation.
Entering the house, we found it to contain but a single room, about twenty feet by sixteen. Of this space one quarter was occupied by a bed—a great four-poster, with the curtains open, made up in the French style, with a strong furniture-calico day-coverlid. A smaller camp bed stood beside it. These two articles of furniture nearly filled the house on one side the door. At the other end was a great log fireplace, with a fine fire. The outer door was left constantly open to admit the light. On one side the fire, next the door, was a table; a kind of dresser, with crockery, and a bureau stood on the other side, and there were two deer-skin seated chairs and one (Connecticut made) rocking chair.
A bold-faced, but otherwise good-enough-looking woman of a youngish middle age, was ironing a shirt on the table. We stated our circumstances, and asked if we could get some dinner from her. She reckoned we could, she said, if we’d wait till she was done ironing. So we waited, taking seats by the fire, and examining the literature and knick-knacks on the mantel-piece. These consisted of three Nachitoches Chronicles, a Patent Office Agricultural Report, “Christie’s Galvanic Almanac,” a Bible, “The Pirate of the Gulf,” a powder-horn, the sheath of a bowie-knife, a whip-lash, and a tobacco-pipe.
Three of the hounds, a negro child, and a white child, had followed us to the door of the cabin, three chickens had entered before us, a cat and kittens were asleep in the corner of the fire-place. By the time we had finished reading the queer advertisements in French of runaway negroes in the Chronicle two of the hounds and the black child had retired, and a tan-coloured hound, very lean, and badly
crippled in one leg, had entered and stood asking permission with his tail to come to the fire-place. The white child, a frowzy girl of ten, came toward us. I turned and asked her name. She knitted her brows, but made no verbal reply. I turned my chair towards her, and asked her to come to me. She hung her head for an instant, then turned, ran to the hound and struck him a hard blow in the chops. The hound quailed. She struck him again, and he turned half around; then she began with her feet, and kicked him out, taking herself after him.
At length the woman finished her ironing, and went to the kitchen, whence quickly returning, she placed upon the table a plate of cold, salt, fat pork; a cup of what to both eye and tongue seemed lard, but which she termed butter; a plate of very stale, dry, flaky, micaceous corn-bread; a jug of molasses, and a pitcher of milk.
“Well, now it’s ready, if you’ll eat it,” she said, turning to us. “Best we’ve got. Sit up. Take some pone;” and she sat down in the rocker at one end of the table. We took seats at the other end.
“Jupiter! what’s the matter with this child?” A little white child that had crawled up into the gallery, and now to my side—flushed face, and wheezing like a high-pressure steamboat.
“Got the croup, I reckon,” answered the woman. “Take some ’lasses.”
The child crawled into the room. With the aid of a hand it stood up and walked round to its mother.
“How long has it been going on that way?” asked we.
“Well, it’s been going on some days, now, and keeps getting worse. ’Twas right bad last night, in the night. Reckoned I should lose it, one spell. Take some butter.”
We were quite faint with hunger when we rode up, but didn’t eat much of the corn-cake and pork. The woman and the high-pressure child sat still and watched us, and we sat still and did our best, making much of the milk.
“Have you had a physician to see that child?” asked my brother, drawing back his chair. She had not.
“Will you come to me, my dear?”
The child came to him, he felt its pulse and patted its hot forehead, looked down its throat, and leaned his ear on its chest.
“Are you a doctor, sir?”
“Yes, madam.”
“Got some fever; hasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Not nigh so much as’t had last night.”
“Have you done anything for it?”
“Well, thar was a gentleman here; he told me sweet ile and sugar would be good for’t, and I gave it a good deal of that: made it sick, it did. I thought, perhaps, that would do it good.”
“Yes. You have had something like this in your family before, haven’t you? You don’t seem much alarmed.”
“Oh yes, sir; that ar one (pointing to the frowzy girl, whose name was Angelina) had it two or three times—onst most as bad as this. All my children have had it. Is she bad, doctor?”
“Yes. I should say this was a very serious thing.”
“Have you any medicine in the house?” he asked, after the woman had returned from a journey to the kitchen. She opened a drawer of the bureau, half full of patent medicines and some common drugs.
“There’s a whole heap o’ truck in thar. I don’t know what it all is. Whatever you want just help yourself. I can’t read writin’; you must pick it out.”
Such as were available were taken out and given to the mother, with directions about administering them, which she promised to obey.
“But the first and most important thing for you to do is to shut the
door, and make up the fire, and put the child to bed, and try to keep this wind off her.”
“Lord! sir, you can’t keep her in bed—she’s too wild.”
“Well, you must put some more clothes on her. Wrap her up, and try to keep her warm. The very best thing you can do for her is to give her a warm bath. Have you not got a washing tub?”
“Oh! yes, sir, I can do that. She’ll go to bed pretty early; she’s used to going ’tween sundown and dark.”
“Well, give her the warm bath, then, and if she gets worse send for a physician immediately. You must be very careful of her, madam.”
We walked to the stable, and as the horses had not finished eating their corn, I lounged about the quarters, and talked with the negro.
There was not a single soul in the quarters or in sight of the house except ourselves, the woman and her children, and the old negro. The negro women must have taken their sucklings with them, if they had any, to the field where they were at work.
The old man said they had “ten or eleven field-hands, such as they was,” and his master would sell sixty to seventy bags of cotton: besides which they made all the corn and pork they wanted, and something over, and raised some cattle.
We found our way back to the town only late in the evening. We had ridden most of the day over heavily-timbered, nearly flat, rich bottom land. It is of very great fertility; but, being subject to overflow, is not very attractive, in spite of its proximity to a market.
But it must be remembered that they were having the first use of a very fine alluvial soil, and were subject to floods and fevers. The yellow fever or cholera another year might kill half their negroes, or a flood of the Red River (such as occurred August, 1849, and October, 1851) destroy their whole crop, and so use up several years’ profits.
A slate hung in the piazza, with the names of all the cotton-pickers, and the quantity picked the last picking day by each, thus: Gorge, 152; David, 130; Polly, 98; Hanna, 96; Little Gorge, 52, etc. The
whole number of hands noted was fourteen. Probably there were over twenty slaves, big and little, on the plantation.
When our horses were ready, we paid the negro for taking care of them, and I went in and asked the woman what I might pay her.
“What!” she asked, looking in my face as if angry.
I feared she was offended by my offering money for her hospitality, and put the question again as delicately as I could. She continued her sullen gaze at me for a moment, and then answered as if the words had been bullied out of her by a Tombs lawyer—
“Dollar, I reckon.”
“What!” thought I, but handed her the silver.
Riding out at the bars let down for us by the old negro, we wondered if the child would be living twenty-four hours later, and if it survived, what its moral chances were. Poor, we thought. Five miles from a neighbour; ten, probably, from a Louisiana[40] school; hound-pups and negroes for playmates.
On the Emigrant Road into Texas.—Five minutes’ ride took us deep into the pines. Nachitoches, and with it all the tumult and bother of social civilization, had disappeared. Under the pines and beyond them was a new, calm, free life, upon which we entered with a glow of enthusiasm, which, however, hardly sufficed to light up a whole day of pine shadows, and many times afterwards glimmered very dull over days on days of cold corn-bread and cheerless winter prairies.
For two days, we rode through these pines over a sandy surface, having little rise and fall, watered here and there by small creeks and ponds, within reach of whose overflow, present or past, stand deciduous trees, such as, principally, oaks and cotton-woods, in a firmer and richer soil. Wherever the road crosses or approaches these spots, there is or has been usually a plantation.
The road could hardly be called a road. It was only a way where people had passed along before. Each man had taken such a path as suited him, turning aside to avoid, on high ground, the sand; on
low ground, the mud. We chose, generally, the untrodden elastic pavement of pine leaves, at a little distance from the main track. We overtook, several times in the course of each day, the slow emigrant trains, for which this road, though less frequented than years ago, is still a chief thoroughfare. Inexorable destiny it seems that drags or drives on, always Westward, these toilworn people. Several families were frequently moving together, coming from the same district, or chance met and joined, for company, on the long road from Alabama, Georgia, or the Carolinas. Before you come upon them you hear, ringing through the woods, the fierce cries and blows with which they urge on their jaded cattle. Then the stragglers appear, lean dogs or fainting negroes, ragged and spiritless. An old granny, hauling on, by the hand, a weak boy—too old to ride and too young to keep up. An old man, heavily loaded, with a rifle. Then the white covers of the waggons, jerking up and down as they mount over a root or plunge into a rut, disappearing, one after another, where the road descends. Then the active and cheery prime negroes, not yet exhausted, with a joke and a suggestion about tobacco. Then the black pickininnies, staring, in a confused heap, out at the back of the waggon, more and more of their eyes to be made out among the table legs and bedding, as you get near; behind them, further in, the old people and young mothers, whose turn it is to ride. As you get by, the white mother and babies, and the tall, frequently ill-humoured master, on horseback, or walking with his gun, urging up the black driver and his oxen. As a scout ahead, is a brother, or an intelligent slave, with the best gun, on the look-out for a deer or a turkey. We passed in the day perhaps one hundred persons attached to these trains, probably an unusual number; but the immigration this year had been retarded and condensed by the fear of yellow fever, the last case of which, at Nachitoches, had indeed begun only the night before our arrival. Our chances of danger were considered small, however, as the hard frosts had already come. One of these trains was made up of three large waggons, loaded with furniture, babies, and invalids, two or three light waggons, and a gang of twenty able field-hands. They travel ten or fifteen miles a day, stopping wherever night overtakes them. The masters are plainly dressed, often in home-spun, keeping their eyes
about them, noticing the soil, sometimes making a remark on the crops by the roadside; but generally dogged, surly, and silent. The women are silent too, frequently walking, to relieve the teams; and weary, haggard, mud be-draggled, forlorn, and disconsolate, yet hopeful and careful. The negroes, mud-incrusted, wrapped in old blankets or gummy-bags, suffering from cold, plod on, aimless, hopeless, thoughtless, more indifferent, apparently, than the oxen, to all about them.
We met, in course of the day, numerous cotton waggons, two or three sometimes together, drawn by three or four pairs of mules or oxen, going slowly on toward Nachitoches or Grand Ecore, each managed by its negro-driver. The load is commonly five bales (of 400 lbs. each), and the cotton comes in this tedious way, over execrable roads, distances of 100 and even 150 miles. It is usually hauled from the eastern tier of Texan counties to the Sabine; but this year there had been no rise of water in the rivers, and from all this region it must be carried to Red River. The distance from the Sabine is here about fifty miles, and the cost of this transportation about one cent a pound; the freight from Grand Ecore to New Orleans from one to one and a quarter cents. If hauled 150 miles in this way, as we were told, the profit remaining, after paying the charges of transportation and commission, all amounting to about five cents, must be exceedingly small in ordinary years.
At night we met three or four of these teams half-mired in a swamp, distant some quarter of a mile one from another, and cheering themselves in the dark with prolonged and musical “Yohoi’s,” sent ringing through the woods. We got through this with considerable perplexity ourselves, and were very glad to see the light of the cabin where we had been recommended to stop.
This was “Mrs. Stokers’,” about half way to the Sabine We were received cordially, every house here expecting to do inn-duty, but were allowed to strip and take care of our own horses, the people by no means expecting to do landlord’s duty, but taking guests on sufferance. The house was a double log cabin—two log erections, that is, joined by one long roof, leaving an open space between. A gallery, extending across the whole front, serves for a pleasant
sitting-room in summer, and for a toilet-room at all seasons. A bright fire was very welcome. Supper, consisting of pork, fresh and salt, cold corn-bread, and boiled sweet potatoes, was served in a little lean-to behind the house. After disposing of this we were shown to our room, the other cabin, where we whiled away our evening, studying, by the light of the great fire, a book of bear stories, and conversing with the young man of the family, and a third guest. The room was open to the rafters, and had been built up only as high as the top of the door upon the gallery side, leaving a huge open triangle to the roof, through which the wind rushed at us with a fierce swoop, both while we were sitting at the fire and after we retreated to bed. Owing to this we slept little, and having had a salt supper, lay very thirsty upon the deep feather bed. About four o’clock an old negro came in to light the fire. Asking him for water, we heard him breaking the ice for it outside. When we washed in the piazza the water was thick with frost, crusty, and half inclined not to be used as a fluid at all.
After a breakfast, similar in all respects to the supper, we saddled and rode on again. The horses had had a dozen ears of corn, night and morning, with an allowance of fodder (maize leaves). For this the charge was $1 25 each person. This is a fair sample of roadside stopping-places in Western Louisiana and Texas. The meals are absolutely invariable, save that fresh pork and sweet potatoes are frequently wanting. There is always, too, the black decoction of the South called coffee, than which it is often difficult to imagine any beverage more revolting. The bread is made of corn-meal, stirred with water and salt, and baked in a kettle covered with coals. The corn for breakfast is frequently unhusked at sunrise. A negro, whose business it is, shells and grinds it in a hand-mill for the cook. Should there be any of the loaf left after breakfast, it is given to the traveller, if he wish it, with a bit of pork, for a noon-“snack,” with no further charge. He is conscious, though, in that case, that he is robbing the hounds, always eagerly waiting, and should none remain, none can be had without a new resort to the crib. Wheat bread, if I am not mistaken, we met with but twice, out of Austin, in our whole journey across the State.
The country was very similar to that passed over the day before, with perhaps rather more of the cultivable loam. A good part of the land had, at some time, been cleared, but much was already turned over to the “old-field pines,” some of them even fifteen years or more. In fact, a larger area had been abandoned, we thought, than remained under cultivation. With the land, many cabins have, of course, also been deserted, giving the road a desolate air. If you ask, where are the people that once occupied these, the universal reply is, “Gone to Texas.”
The plantations occur, perhaps, at an average distance of three or four miles. Most of the remaining inhabitants live chiefly, to appearances, by fleecing emigrants. Every shanty sells spirits, and takes in travellers. We passed through but one village, which consisted of six dwellings. The families obtained their livelihood by the following occupations: one by shoeing the horses of emigrants; one by repairing the wheels of their waggons; one by selling them groceries. The smallest cabin contained a physician. It was not larger than a good-sized medicine chest, but had the biggest sign. The others advertised “corn and fodder.” The prices charged for any article sold, or service performed, were enormous; full one hundred per cent, over those of New Orleans.
We met Spaniards once or twice on the road, and the population of this district is thought to be one half of Spanish origin. They have no houses on the road, however, but live in little hamlets in the forest, or in cabins contiguous to each other, about a pond. They make no progress in acquiring capital of their own, but engage in hunting and fishing, or in herding cattle for larger proprietors of the land. For this business they seem to have an hereditary adaptation, far excelling negroes of equal experience.
The number of cattle raised here is now comparatively small, most of the old herd proprietors having moved on to pastures new in Western Texas. The cane, which is a natural growth of most good soils at the South, is killed if closely fed upon. The blue-joint grass (not the blue-grass of Kentucky) takes its place, and is also indigenous upon a poorer class of soils in this region. This is also good food for cattle, but is killed in turn if closely pastured. The
ground then becomes bare or covered with shrubs, and the “range” is destroyed. The better class of soils here bear tolerable crops of cotton, but are by no means of value equal to the Red River bottoms or the new soils of any part of Texas. The country is, therefore, here in similar condition to that of the Eastern Slave States. The improvements which the inhabitants have succeeded in making in the way of clearing the forest, fencing and tilling the land, building dwellings, barns, and machinery, making roads and bridges, and introducing the institutions of civilization, not compensating in value the deterioration in the productiveness of the soil. The exhausted land reverts to wilderness.
Eastern Texas.—Shortly after noon rain began to fall from the chilly clouds that had been threatening us, and sleet and snow were soon driving in our faces. Our animals were disposed to flinch, but we were disposed to sleep in Texas, and pushed on across the Sabine. We found use for all our wraps, and when we reached the ferryhouse our Mackintoshes were like a coat of mail with the stiff ice, and trees and fields were covered. In the broad river bottom we noticed many aquatic birds, and the browsing line under the dense mass of trees was almost as clean cut as that of Bushy Park. The river, at its low stage, was only three or four rods across. The old negro who ferried us over, told us he had taken many a man to the other side, before annexation, who had ridden his horse hard to get beyond the jurisdiction of the States.
If we were unfortunate in this stormy entrance into Texas, we were very fortunate in the good quarters we lighted upon. The ferry has long been known as Gaines’s Ferry, but is now the property of Mr. Strather, an adjacent planter, originally from Mississippi, but a settler of long standing. His log-house had two stories, and being the first we had met having glass windows, and the second, I think, with any windows at all, takes high rank for comfort on the road. At supper we had capital mallard-ducks from the river, as well as the usual Texan diet.
We were detained by the severity of the weather during the following day, and were well entertained with huntsman’s stories of snakes, game, and crack shots. Mr. S. himself is the best shot in the county. A rival, who had once a match against him for two thousand dollars, called the day before the trial, and paid five hundred dollars to withdraw. He brought out his rifle for us, and placed a bullet, at one hundred and twenty yards, plump in the spot agreed upon. His piece is an old Kentucky rifle, weighing fourteen pounds, barrel fourty-four inches in length, and throwing a ball weighing forty-four to the pound.
A guest, who came in, helped us to pass the day by exciting our anticipations of the West, and by his free and good advice. He confirmed stories we had heard of the danger to slavery in the West by the fraternizing of the blacks with the Mexicans. They helped them in all their bad habits, married them, stole a living from them, and ran them off every day to Mexico. This man had driven stages or herded cattle in every state of the Union, and had a notion that he liked the people and the state of Alabama better than any other. A man would get on faster, he thought, in Iowa, than anywhere else. He had been stage-driver in Illinois during the cold winter of 1851-2, and had driven a whole day when the mercury was at its furthest below zero, but had never suffered, so much from cold as on his present trip, during a norther on a Western prairie. He was now returning from Alexandria, where he had taken a small drove of horses. He cautioned us, in travelling, always to see our horses fed with our own eyes, and to “hang around” them till they had made sure of a tolerable allowance, and never to leave anything portable within sight of a negro. A stray blanket was a sure loss.
Mr S. has two plantations, both on upland, but one under the care of an overseer, some miles from the river. The soil he considers excellent. He averaged, last year, seven and a half bales to the hand; this year, four and a half bales. The usual crop of corn here is thirty bushels (shelled) to the acre.
Hearing him curse the neighbouring poor people for stealing hogs, we inquired if thieves were as troublesome here as in the older countries. “If there ever were any hog-thieves anywhere,” said he, “it’s here.” In fact, no slave country, new or old, is free from this
exasperating pest of poor whites. In his neighbourhood were several who ostensibly had a little patch of land to attend to, but who really, he said, derived their whole lazy subsistence from their richer neighbours’ hog droves.
The negro-quarters here, scattered irregularly about the house, were of the worst description, though as good as local custom requires. They are but a rough inclosure of logs, ten feet square, without windows, covered by slabs of hewn wood four feet long. The great chinks are stopped with whatever has come to hand—a wad of cotton here, and a corn-shuck there. The suffering from cold within them in such weather as we experienced, must be great. The day before, we had seen a young black girl, of twelve or fourteen years, sitting on a pile of logs before a house we passed, in a driving sleet, having for her only garment a short chemise. It is impossible to say whether such shiftlessness was the fault of the master or of the girl.
Probably of both, and a part of the peculiar Southern and Southwestern system of “get along,” till it comes better weather.
The storm continuing a third day, we rode through it twenty-five miles further to San Augustine. For some distance the country remains as in Louisiana. Then the pines gradually disappear, and a heavy clay soil, stained by an oxide of iron to a uniform brick red, begins. It makes most disagreeable roads, sticking close, and giving an indelible stain to every article that touches it. This tract is known as the Red Lands of Eastern Texas.
On a plantation not far from the river, we learned they had made eight bales to the hand. Mentioning it, afterwards, to a man who knew the place, he said they had planted earlier than their neighbours, and worked night and day, and, he believed, had lied, besides. They had sent cotton both by Galveston and by Grand Ecore, and had found the cost the same, about $8 per bale of 500 lbs.
We called at a plantation offered for sale. It was described in the hand-bills as having a fine house. We found it a cabin without windows. The proprietor said he had made ten bales to the hand,
and would sell with all the improvements, a new gin-house, press, etc., for $6 per acre.
The roadside, though free from the gloom of pines, did not cheer up, the number of deserted wrecks of plantations not at all diminishing. The occupied cabins were no better than before. We had entered our promised land; but the oil and honey of gladness and peace were nowhere visible. The people we met were the most sturdily inquisitive I ever saw. Nothing staggered them, and we found our account in making a clean breast of it as soon as they approached.
We rode through the shire-town, Milam, without noticing it. Its buildings, all told, are six in number.
We passed several immigrant trains in motion, in spite of the weather. Their aspect was truly pitiful. Splashed with a new coating of red mud, dripping, and staggering, beating still the bones of their long worn-out cattle, they floundered helplessly on.
San Augustine made no very charming impression as we entered, nor did we find any striking improvement on longer acquaintance. It is a town of perhaps fifty or sixty houses, and half a dozen shops. Most of the last front upon a central square acre of neglected mud. The dwellings are clap-boarded, and of a much higher class than the plantation dwellings. As to the people, a resident told us there was but one man in the town that was not in the constant habit of getting drunk, and that this gentleman relaxed his Puritanic severity during our stay in view of the fact that Christmas came but once that year.
Late on Christmas eve, we were invited to the window by our landlady, to see the pleasant local custom of The Christmas Serenade. A band of pleasant spirits started from the square, blowing tin horns, and beating tin pans, and visited in succession every house in the village, kicking in doors, and pulling down fences, until every male member of the family had appeared, with appropriate instruments, and joined the merry party. They then marched to the square, and ended the ceremony with a centupled tin row. In this touching commemoration, as strangers, we were not urged to participate.
A gentleman of the neighbourhood, addicted, as we knew, to a partiality towards a Rip Van Winkle, tavern-lounging style of living, told us he was himself regarded by many of his neighbours with an evil eye, on account of his “stuck-up” deportment, and his habit of minding too strictly his own business. He had been candidate for representative, and had, he thought, probably been defeated on this ground, as he was sure his politics were right.
Not far from the village stands an edifice, which, having three stories and sashed windows, at once attracted our attention. On inquiry, we learned a story, curiously illustrative of Texan and human life. It appeared that two universities were chartered for San Augustine, the one under the protection of the Methodists, the other of the Presbyterians. The country being feebly settled, the supply of students was short, and great was the consequent rivalry between the institutions. The neighbouring people took sides upon the subject so earnestly, that, one fine day, the president of the Presbyterian University was shot down in the street. After this, both dwindled, and seeing death by starvation staring them in the face, they made an arrangement by which both were taken under charge of the fraternity of Masons. The buildings are now used under the style of “The Masonic Institute,” the one for boys, the other for girls. The boys occupy only the third story, and the two lower stories are falling to ludicrous decay—the boarding dropping off, and the windows on all sides dashed in.
The Mexican habitations of which San Augustine was once composed, have all disappeared. We could not find even a trace of them.
END OF VOL. I.
