Page 8 of The Queen’s Witch

“I could tell nothing!”

“The Dark One did not have to name a living person, or perhaps could not. Names be powerful; ye know that. That was . . . was . . .”

“When you threw the toad onto the fire.” The smell of burnt animal lingered, nearly making me gag.

“Ye get nothing from the Dark One without a price. He was going to take ye. At that moment ye were vulnerable. I could not let the Dark One take ye, Frances’s granddaughter, and like to my own child. I could not.”

“But my ceremony—”

“Be incomplete. Ye still be a cunning woman, but not a thrice-braided witch capable of the great magicks.”

I tried to take it in. My ceremony was ruined. I was not thrice braided, could not be thrice braided unless my Third, a living person, agreed to be part of my threefold cord. I did not know who or where that person was.

I demanded, “Why would the Dark One not name my Third?”

“I do not know. But He was going to take you if He could, Alysoun. Listen, child, ye will do best to remain a cunning woman. There be forces here too powerful to meddle with.”

“I cannot stay a cunning woman!”

Mother Redcap closed her eyes. All at once she looked exhausted and ill, and I recalled what she had just done. I knelt on the stone floor at her feet.

“Do you ail? What may I do for you? Your magick—”

“I have no magick at all left to me. None at all.”

I stared at this woman who had just sacrificed her Third and with it her power, to keep me safe. She had given up everything. I said, knowing how inadequate the words were, “Let me help you into bed.”

She sagged in my arms, but I got her to the bed, made sure she was warm. She lay with eyes closed, but even denuded of her powers, she thought first of me.

“I know ye have more questions. Ask them now, Alysoun.”

Slowly I said, “Grandmother told me that an animal familiar or Third cannot die unless the Sister does, or if she burns it. What if my Third dies before I have my thrice-braided ceremony? Will the Goddess give me another Third?”

“I do not know. This all be very rare.”

Never before had I come to the end of Mother Redcap’s knowledge. There was so much I still needed to know. “What happens if my Third dies after I am thrice braided? Will all my power cease?”

“No, not as long as yer Third lies sleeping in the Otherworld. A thrice-braided cord holds strong, and ye could still do magicks great and small, wherever ye be, and as long as ye live. But remember this, Alysoun: A mortal must never try to wake the dead, if that is even possible. I do not know if it is or not, or what might happen if ye tried, but it would be horrific. And it is not needed. If ye tie the thrice-braided cord, ye will be a true witch for life.”

“But—”

“Alysoun, give up this quest. Stay a cunning woman in Tydd Saint Stephen.”

“Mother Redcap . . . I cannot.”

I do not know if she heard me or if her exhausted body had already passed into sleep. She began to snore.

The fire crackled on the hearth.

Pipkin, also exhausted, slept on my foot.

I had more questions, but they must wait until Mother Redcap had slept her fill. She had sacrificed everything for me.

I lay on the floor beside her bed, and to my surprise, I, too, slept. There came then the first terrible dream of Grandmother.

She floated in a dark place filled with evil laughter and flickering flames. The fires licked at her body, causing the agony that only burns can give, searing the flesh as Grandmother howled with pain. Her flesh then renewed itself so that it could be burned again. And again and again.

I woke and bolted upright, gasping. Grandmother . . . no. A moment later sanity returned and I recognized the dream. It came from the Christian Church’s depiction of Hell, eternal burning for the wicked. But Grandmother was not a Christian, not wicked, and in the Otherworld she had no corporeal body, so how could she be burned? She could not. It was only a dream. But . . . was it? Was there something akin to Hell in the Dark One’s realm, something akin to burning? Had this vision of horror been sent to me by the Dark One? Could He do that? If so, was He suggesting a sort of representation of Grandmother’s torment in images I could understand?