Chapters (45)
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- 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
Humming, Batch pushed open the door and tramped down the weeds that choked and hid it. Then he climbed into the surrey and pedaled out. Once he’d gathered speed, a strange thing happened. Remnants of a floating glyph the biddy had long ago touched to her surrey awakened, and it began to rise gently into the sky.
Jaded or not, Batch’s eyes gleamed with a wild joy as he threw back his head and said, “Wheeeeee!!!”
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SIX
“Dead?” repeated Snoshti with a snort. “Ach! As if I’d stand for that! Neh, pet, ye’re not dead. Just visiting.”
“B-but . . . ,” stammered Magpie. “It’s a one-way journey. Everyone knows that!”
“Do they, then? Do they know I come and go as I please? And so do all my kind, and so shall you.”
“But how?”
“ ’Twas my gift to ye at yer blessing ceremony.”
“I never knew I had a blessing ceremony.”
“Neh, for we didn’t tell yer parents. We’d been looking for ye a long time, pet, since before my time, even, waiting for ye to be born. Claws crossed, hoping! We didn’t know if it would work! It’s a lot to trust to stories and dreams, but then along ye came. Even before ye spoke your first word I was fair sure who ye were.”
Magpie stared at her. The imp’s words were like nonsense tumbling around in her tired mind.
“Ye know what yer first word was?”
“My parents said it was mama.”
“Nor was it! There was another earlier only I heard, and I never told. It was devil. ”
“Devil?”
“Aye, just as it was foretold. Then we were sure. We held the blessing after that. Floated ye down Misky Creek on a linden leaf to where the creatures waited. All the gifts we gave, yer animal senses and languages, and more ye’re like to be discovering all yer life, they’re just tokens and tools to help ye bear yer real gift, ye ken, that which was given even before ye were born.”
Magpie shivered. Foreboding and wonder twined together and she wanted to know, and was afraid to know, what that gift might be. Before she had decided whether to ask, though, Snoshti said, “But that’s not for me to tell. Come along now. This way.”
She took her hand and guided her gently along the riverbank. Magpie saw a bridge ahead made all of round river rocks, and on the far bank, arrayed like picnickers on blankets, were faeries. “Are they all . . . ?”
“Aye.”
They stepped onto the bridge and all eyes on the riverbank turned to them. Magpie hesitated. “What are they all waiting for?” she whispered, suddenly shy.