The Third Witch

  T H E T H I R D W I T C H

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  A WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESSOriginalPublication

  A Washington Square Press Publication of POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

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  Copyright © 2001 by Rebecca Reisert

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  For information address Washington Square Press,

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  ISBN-10: 0-7434-2305-4

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7434-2305-2

  WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster Inc.

  For my parents, John and Carolyn,

  who gave me a love of reading, story, and theatre;

  for Courtney, Ian, and Glenn,

  who filled my life with joy;

  and for my fellow ovarian cancer survivors,

  whose stories of courage and grace inspired me

  to follow my own childhood dream.

  T H E T H I R D W I T C H

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Forty-Four

  Forty-Five

  Forty-Six

  Forty-Seven

  Author's Note

  Acknowledgments

  O N E

  ’TIS TIME to rob the dead.”

  Nettle kicks me again. I pull my tattered wolfskin closer about my shoulders and curl into a tighter ball, scooting across the packed dirt of the floor to move as near as I dare to the embers in the fire pit.

  “Rise up, lass. Stir your lazy bones, or else half the gleanings will be gone before we get there. Do not think to sleep the day away like a princess in a castle.”

  She kicks me yet again and I open my eyes. Although she is a small woman, she towers above my pallet, her face and shoulders tense as always. If a sorcerer were to bewitch a needle into life, that creature would be Nettle.

  Nettle grabs my wolfskin and yanks it from my shoulders. The air is cold and sharp. “Boil a mug of tansy broth for Mad Helga, child, and then we must be off.”

  “I’m going to the brook first,” I announce. “I’ll boil the broth when I return.” I yank my wolfskin back from her bony fingers.

  “There’s no time for your foolishness, Gilly. ’Tis already late, and—”

  “I’ll not take long, Nettle.”

  “Gilly, there is no time—”

  Before she can finish speaking, I’m already out the door of our tumbledown hut, dodging the trees and sucking in the cold, sweetsmelling air.

  The brook and woods are still black in the mist of the early dawn. At the edge of the brook, just below the small waterfall, I fling off my wolfskin and shift and plunge into the water. I gasp at its icy touch but duck my head under its surface. As my head emerges, I shake back my heavy shock of wet hair and breathe so deeply that it hurts. After the rank and smoky stench of our hut, the forest air is unbelievably sweet. A doe, drinking a few feet downstream, freezes for a moment. I stare back at her until she recognizes me and resumes drinking.

  Since there is no one else around, I kneel so the water comes to my shoulders. Under the water and out of sight, I press my palms together. “Make me a tree,” I pray. “Let me spend my life pure and clean in the forest. Let me feel a lifetime of wind and rain against my skin. I swear to cast this whole evil business aside if I can be turned into a tree.”

  I wait. The woods are silent. Even the doe is still. The only sound is the gurgling of the water.

  I jump up, waist-deep in the brook, and fling my arms out like branches. “Change me!” I scream as I close my eyes. Make me a tree. Make me a tree. I will ask nothing else if only you will make me a tree.

  I hear the doe give a small leap, then run away, brushing through the bushes as softly as a kiss. There is no other answer. I am still a girl standing like a lackwit in the icy water. I begin to laugh and then shiver. For a while I stand there, shivering and laughing like the greatest fool on earth.

  I give a quick bow to the sky that is so dark it looks empty. “You are right, old man. I should not be happy as a tree. I would miss running.” I add, “But I gave you your chance. You could have stopped all this. Should I take it as your sign of approval, then, that you are willing to have me kill Him?”

  I wait for the length of ten heartbeats, but there is still no answer. “Your stars are comely,” I call to the sky, “but I do not care for your silence.”

  Then I step quickly from the water, shaking my body like a wet wolf pup. I pull my shift over my head as I walk back to the hut. As I push the trestle door open, I call, “I’m back, Nettle. I’ll brew the tansy broth, and—”

  “Do not bother. I did it myself.”

  “Nettle, I told you that I would just be a moment—”

  “I do not approve of this folly, wetting yourself down twice a day. ’Tis madness, it is, Gillyflower, and more than one king has died of it.”

  I squat by the hearth and scoop up a handful of ashes. I begin to rub them across my cheeks and forehead. “ ’Tis madness indeed, and folly beyond all imagining, but have you not said time and again that I’m the mad daughter of a mad, mad mother and will come to no good?” I rub the ashes down both arms. “My bathing costs us naught and provides me with much joy.” Nettle glowers at me. I soften my voice. “You have your herbs and such, Nettle. Leave me the pleasure of my water.”

  Nettle turns away. “Mad Helga, if you have finished your broth, ’tis past time we should be gone.”

  From the shadows of the rear of the hut, Mad Helga totters forth, her long ashwood stick stabbing the ground in angry taps. I am amazed that someone can be as gnarled as she and still be able to move. Mad Helga is nearly bald, yet she scorns the wool cap Nettle knitted for her. A thick scabrous growth covers her right eye, and a scar runs from her left temple to the top of her jaw. Several long hairs grow from her chin. Nettle tries to take her arm to help her walk, but Mad Helga shakes her away. Without looking at either Nettle or me, Mad Helga stumps out of our hut. Nettle shrugs and then picks up two baskets, tossing one to me as she hurries after Mad Helga. I snatch my woven girdle from its peg on the wall, twist it around my waist, and run after the women.

  We look the way the wood should look were it to come alive and walking. We move quickly and silently through the trees we know so well. All of us draped in eart
h-colored tatters, caked with dirt. My hair and Nettle’s as jumbled as bird’s nests, Mad Helga’s pate as bald as a new-laid egg. We look like the wild heart of the wood, but walking. No wonder the villagers fear us. If I didn’t study my face in the brook from time to time, I could come to believe that I am not a girl, but simply a wild and untamable bit of the wood.

  The battlefield is a good walk away, and dawn is fully risen by the time we reach it. There are already a few other scavengers at work, all looking as shapeless and sexless as we.

  “See,” hisses Nettle. “I said we should be late.”

  “Hsst!” I can hiss almost as well as she does. “There’s plenty for all.”

  Under the body of a yellow-haired man in front of me, I spot a glint of gold. I kneel to wrestle his arm from under him. It is heavy and stiff, like a tree limb turned to stone. Nettle crows with delight at the sight of the large gold ring that I tug from his finger.

  When I first came to live with Nettle and Mad Helga, it bothered me to glean the battlefields. In truth, during my first gleaning, I cried the entire time and suffered screaming nightmares for weeks afterward. Before the second visit, I fell to my knees, tearfully begging Nettle to excuse me.

  Then after the first year, the dead men on the battlefield no longer seemed real. They are like trees, I told myself. When I step over a fallen tree in the wood, I do not cry or dream about it. In a way, these dead men are less important than trees. Trees that fall did not die trying to end the lives of others. Trees that fall do not carry instruments of murder in their hands.

  This day’s field is much like the earlier ones. Perhaps a hundred men lie about, like so many hillocks. In fact, that’s how I now choose to think of the dead soldiers. It is more satisfying to think of them as hillocks rather than trees because trees once lived, but hillocks are rock and soil without even the faintest spark of life. These things onthe battlefield, therefore, are hillocks, just hillocks, and I am the princess, as in the old tales, exploring the hillock to find the dragon’s treasure and take it back to the kingdom. In the old tales, princesses never worried whether it was right or wrong to rob the dragon. So why should I worry about robbing hillocks?

  Still, it is a blessing that the victorious army always prowls the field immediately after the battle, killing all their wounded enemies and even killing their own companions who are too badly wounded to make it home. In my seven years of gleaning, only twice have I found a soldier who wasn’t yet dead. Both times I quickly backed away, fleeing to the opposite side of the field, but sometimes in my dreams I still hear the moans of those dying soldiers.

  Oddly enough, it is the smell that still surprises me each time. The smell is always worse than I remember, that stew of drying blood, loosened bowels, and, occasionally—if we arrive late and the sun is high—the stench of rotting meat. Luckily, as this morning goes on, my nose grows more accustomed to the smell, and while it never fades completely, after an hour or so I don’t notice it any more.

  I tug another pin out of a hillock’s draped shoulder cloth. I carefully work it into the weave of my waist girdle, next to the other pins I’ve plucked from the garments of other hillocks. The baker in the village has six daughters and will always take a few pins in exchange for a loaf of wheaten bread. Wheaten bread makes a nice change from our usual fare, and my mouth waters at the thought of it.

  I push another hillock so that it tumbles over. Good fortune is with me this day since clasped in its fingers is the hilt of a dagger. I work it free. I have to hit the fingers over and over with a stone to make them let loose of the prize. The blade of the dagger is chipped. To test if it can still cut, I saw it back and forth across the hillock’s tunic. To my delight, the cloth splits in two.

  Although it has been a good morning—a ring, a handful of pins, this dagger—it is back-numbing work. I stand and stretch. There are hillocks as far as I can see. How did they tell each other apart in battle? They all look much the same to me. A few have more outlandishheaddresses than the others, decorated with horns and skulls, but I don’t know whether that is the insignia of one side or simply a common soldier fashion. What did they fight about? Which side won? A thought hits me, and I shiver.

  Is He among them?

  I dimly hear Nettle call out, “Child, stay to the edges. You go too close to the heart of the field.”

  I know it is safer to stay to the edges, but I must find out whether He is there. Every time we glean a field, I’m terrified I might come upon His body among the hillocks.

  He doesn’t deserve to die in battle! Let Him wait for me. I must be the one to kill Him. He is mine, mine to kill, not the prize of some lucky soldier. Let Him wait for me. I have marked Him, and He is mine.

  “Gilly, stay to the edges!”

  Then I spot the most marvelous treasure I’ve ever seen on a battlefield.

  T W O

  I FALL TO MY KNEES with a little cry, my hands scrabbling through the blood-crusted folds of a plaid cloak till they close on a little book. A book! I hold it up. A book of my own! Riches beyond belief! No matter what, I will not let Nettle trade it. I wipe my hands on the skirt of my shift and carefully press the gilt-patterned leather cover open. It is in Latin, of course. I know some Latin. I studied it in the time before. I scan the lines, looking for familiar words. Yes, there is Deus and regnat, stabat and mater. I hug the book to my heart. Something deep within me shines. I will learn more Latin words until I can read the entire book. Mad Helga knows Latin. Somehow I will persuade her to teach me the words.

  Suddenly from behind, two large rough hands seize me. I cry out and my book tumbles to the ground. I smell the odor of peasants— sweat, onions, turnips, wet wool, and rancid grease. I struggle hard, but the man holding me is as strong as a boulder. Two other men approach, laughing. They wear faded greens and browns and are none too clean and look none too clever. One of them steps on the hand of a dead soldier, and I feel a lightning thrust of pity for all the hillocks. It is a pity that so many brave lads die, while these great mindless lumps paw over their bodies. Then I cry out again in alarm as one of them steps on my book, not even noticing it beneath the sole of his heavy wooden shoe.

  “We’ve caught us a little battlefield pigeon,” says the man holdingme. His voice is as thick as pig grease.

  “ ’Tis a scrawny’un,” says the shorter of the two lumps in front of me. He spits. “Hardly more’n a mouthful.”

  The third lump gives a laugh that sounds more like a bleat.

  “ ’Tis a birdie full of spit and fire,” says my captor in his thick voice. “It can give us much sport afore we wear it out.”

  The three lumps laugh and slap their thighs with thick, calloused hands.

  I should have listened to Nettle. I knew that it was dangerous to leave the edges of the field. As the sun rises, bands of outlaws arrive. These greedy bands are more dangerous than the soldiers. They find it easier to relieve unprotected women of their store than to do the scavenging themselves.

  I squirm to get free. I twist to the side, trying to duck under my captor’s arms, but this lump holding me has arms like cudgels and fists like hams. I kick against his knees. He gives a grunt of pain, but the other two lumps just laugh and move closer. I scream, a harsh, bald sound like the shriek of a wounded raven. I thrash and buck like a spooked horse, kicking and trying to bite, twisting, and the whole earth seems to be pounding . . .

  And then the head of the shorter lump is gone! Sliced clean from his shoulders, tumbling like a bloody cabbage and bouncing along the ground. There is a horse, a huge black charger, thudding about me, and I am free, and the two other lumps are running, not fast because of their lumpy bodies and lumpy shoes, and the horse is after them. One screams and falls . . . but I see no more because I fall to my knees, grabbing for my book. As I brush the dirt sideways off its cover, I see the short peasant’s head in front of me, and I feel sick again.

  I raise my head to look at my rescuer.

  Then I feel sickest of all. />
  It is Him.

  I haven’t seen Him in years, not since I was hardly more than a babe, but I would know Him anywhere. Even in the thickest smoke of hell, I would know Him.

  He does not bother to look back at me. I know Him, but He no longer knows me. He has reined his horse to a stop and is surveying the battlefield. He gives us scavengers a look of disgust and then tugs quickly on his horse’s reins, and He is gone.

  I don’t see either of my other attackers. He must have killed them both. That doesn’t make me sick. I don’t feel anything, except panic.

  Was that my chance? Was that my only chance? Did I miss it because I was worried about some book that I can’t even read?

  I feel the broken-edged dagger in my hand. I will not be a girl, I will not be a woman, I will be a thing, a sexless thing, a thing with short hair, as short as leaves. I will be more tree or rock than woman.

  I begin to hack at my hair.

  T H R E E

  SOwhen shall we kill Him?”

  Nettle ignores me. It is three days since we were at the battlefield. Now we are harvesting Birnam Wood, looking for nuts and roots and such to sustain us through the fast-approaching winter.

  I raise my voice. “Nettle, I asked when shall we kill Him?”