An Embittered Witch, page 18
Thirty
‘Win! Wait.’
She paused, already over the fence. I didn’t know how she was managing these acrobatics while still wearing those Jimmy Choos or whatever her footwear was. ‘What?’
‘The hill, look at it. Does it remind you of something?’
She drew her head back and looked up at the surface of the wall. The rocks of which it were made were white marble, but had been weathered through the century, picking up smut from the city’s pollution, and with lichen growing in the shadows. Time and weather had also played their part in wearing down the details so that the carvings were barely noticeable.
‘The walls of Li Minh’s cave!’ I couldn’t wait for her to figure it out for herself.
She stepped back from the low concrete wall in order to take in the larger picture. ‘Perhaps there’s a resemblance, but –‘
‘’Look.’ I jumped over the barrier myself to point out the carvings. My fingers traced the wide mouth and the sharp teeth of the nearest animal. ‘The Chinese lion, right? And over here, this is definitely a dragon. Don’t tell me you can’t see that.’
‘Oh. Now I do.’ Her brow creased. ‘But it can’t be. This is a mere coincidence. Do you know how common these motifs are in this land?’
‘They’re made the same way,’ I insisted. ‘Marble rocks with carvings on them, all piled together to form walls.’
She shook her head. ‘No. Li Minh is in Tibet, or Tajikistan, or somewhere isolated like that. She removed herself from society. This, this must be the Hill of Accumulated Elegance. In the Forbidden City. Dara, we’re smack in the middle of Beijing here. Li Minh could not possibly be inside this hill. She would have been discovered long ago.’
I thought of the eighty thousand daily visitors to the Palace complex. A large proportion of them would pass by this hill, each and every day. I looked again at the sturdy iron lock on the shadowed door, then up, up to the gazebo perched on the hill high above. We had walked all around this unnatural structure and hadn’t discovered a route to the top. The inside of the Hill of Accumulated Elegance was inaccessible.
‘Where is the best place to hide a book?’
‘What book?’
‘In a library,’ I said, not bothering to explain the reference to her. ‘Think about it. It makes sense, in a way. Nobody can get in here, right?’
We both looked back up to roof of the pagoda. She nodded in agreement.
‘And although the magic has been pushed into cells around the nunneries, that was definitely a cell of magic we walked into just then, right?
She nodded her head again, much more slowly this time.
‘So, it’s entirely possible that Li Minh has been hiding out here for years, don’t you think?’
Win sighed. ‘Well, even if she is, what good does that do us? Should we knock on the door, and shout her name? Do you really think she’d answer?’
‘We have to warn her somehow.’ Warn her about Margaret Forsythe. My heart still ached when I thought about it, but I pushed that out of my mind in favor of action. ‘Help me with this, Win.’
The two of us approached the narrow entrance set deep into the artificial hill. The door was blackened with time, and had no handle to pull. No hinges were visible either, only that solid iron lock with a keyhole. We pushed, but it was a half-hearted attempt for we both knew it wouldn’t budge.
‘Li Minh?’ I whispered into the planks, and lifted my hand up to knock.
‘Don’t bother.’ Win scuffed with the toe of her delicate sandal at the accumulated dirt against the wood. ‘This door hasn’t been opened in eons. Look at how the leaves have rotted and piled up against it.’
I stared at the door a moment. ‘How else would anyone get in? There’s no path up the hill – it would even be hard to climb it.’
‘Only the birds have access to the pagoda on top,’ Win agreed.
‘Birds who can fly.’
‘Well, that’s not us.’ Win turned away from the door. ‘It’s no good, we can’t get in there. Even if Li Minh is here, we have no way to reach her.’
I could fly up to the top. Win had no idea of that power of mine. Margaret had taught me that trick in the desperation of the moment on Tomnahurich in Scotland. But this was not the time to admit it. Not even for the possible chance of saving Li Minh from a curse. No.
But. I looked more closely at the keyhole set deep within the door, and I saw that I’d been mistaken. Instead of a regular slot, it was circular in shape. A round indent, with four spokes like a wheel. The thought struck me like a brick wall. ‘Jesus, Win,’ I said. ‘The key.’
‘Yeah, we need a key. We’ll never get in. Come on, it’s time we went back. I’m feeling the magic rise again. I don’t want to be stuck in this garden anymore.’
She was right. Like a barometer rising, I could feel the surge of magic building even in the short time we’d been busy trying the door. ‘But, the object, that jade thing the Empress gave me for you.’
‘That’s a circle, a disk, not a key!’ But she stopped and slowly turned around again. ‘Do you think?’
‘Look at it – it’s exactly the same shape! It’s worth a try. Why else would we have been given it? In all the stories, the heroes are given a magical object for a purpose, it’s not just a whim of fate.’
She was so slow to act, I felt I might have to do it for her. ‘Do you have it on you?’ I urged her.
Win nodded, then withdrew a little silk purse from inside the bodice of her dress. Even in the dusky light I could see the fabric glowing bright red. She undid the flap and lay the small jade circle in the palm of her hand.
‘Come on, what are you waiting for?’ The wind had been slowly but steadily rising, bringing with it that overpowering scent of blooms which had first heralded the magic storm earlier in this garden. I heard a flap of wings again from a distance.
She took a deep breath, then strode back to the door. I stepped out of her way.
‘I still don’t think this is a good idea,’ she muttered. Her hand hesitated as she reached out with the jade, then she turned to me. ‘You do it.’
‘Fine.’ I snatched it from her. The jade was cool in my hand, and fit perfectly in my palm. I fitted it into the circle, where it rested for a moment, but then a mechanical sound of locks unlocking and gears whirring.
We both stared in awed fascination until the door was quiet again. Then, with the slightest push of my fingers, the portal opened slowly to reveal a pitch black space within.
‘Do you think…?’
I nodded. ‘It has to be Li Minh’s cave,’ I said. But I didn’t add what was on both of our minds. If the great witch was in here, why was it so dark inside?
Win’s gown rustled as she reached into the bodice again. That dress must have an amazing construction, for there were no hints from the outside that anything lay between the silk and her skin.
She blew on whatever it was she’d removed and immediately a light glowed from her hand. It was her own slim piece of jadestone, her ‘familiar’. The other young witches on Scarp had used wands for this purpose, but Win’s was a piece of jade. These tools were used to store the magic in like a battery, so that when called upon, the witch could set it and forget it.
The light was faintly greenish in tone, like her jade, but it shone bright enough to show us the narrow corridor ahead. As with the outside of the hill, the interior walls were created from carved bits of white marble, but with the difference that these had never been exposed to the weathering elements. Each carving gleamed brightly, the faces of the animals jumping out at us in sharp relief through the shadows as Win passed with the light in her hand.
I knew without a doubt what lay ahead of us. The cavern was too quiet, too dark, and the vision Win had conjured in the temple had been too specific.
Neither of us made a sound as we crept through the short corridor. We were both holding our breaths.
And then, there she was, exactly as we’d seen in Win’s vision. Her conjuring had been true, with only one exception. Margaret Forsythe was nowhere to be seen. She must have come and gone already, I thought bitterly, not wanting to linger at the scene of her destruction.
I was seized with a sense of déjà vu. This venerable and ancient witch was lying in exactly the same pose as Nachtan had been, flat on her back with her hands folded on her chest as arranged by a mortician in her coffin.
‘Is she dead?’ Win breathed. She moved closer to the sleeping witch, laying her hand on the soft cheek, the skin so thin we could see the veins through it, even from my distance. Then a sigh of relief. ‘No, she’s sleeping.’
She turned to me. ‘How do we wake her up?’
I shook my head. I’d already tried that route with the Venerable Nachtan, and hadn’t been able to get a gig out of him.
‘It won’t work,’ I told her, and could hear the sadness in my own voice. I walked over to her, to offer comfort to those slumped shoulders. An object caught my eye and I stifled a gasp. There in the farthest corner of the floor lay a replica of the globe I’d picked up at Nachtan’s. This couldn’t be coincidence. I took the three steps to reach it and bent to pick it up.
It lay in my hand, giving off no sensation, no fingerprint of magic, just like the other one. As I studied it, rolling it back and forth in my palm, I thought hard.
This object had something to do with the curse, but what? How? With not a whiff of magic on it, how could this simple glass globe be linked to a spell so powerful it caused the strongest witches in the world to sleep?
I held it up to the light from Win’s lamp, in order to study it closer. Like the other glass orb, it was dark, yet reflected light. As I stared into its depths, willing the object to tell its story. I saw a movement in the reflection, a movement that hadn’t been there a moment before, creeping silently down the spiral stone staircase which must lead up to the pagoda above.
Our eyes in the tiny reflection with a flash of recognition.
‘Margaret!’ This burst out of me as I whirled around, as if by saying her name, I could pin her down.
Thirty-One
‘What have you done, Margaret?’ It was only after the words came out that I realized they were a mere whisper of horror, not the shout of anger I’d intended.
We stared at each other through the dimly lit room, the single flame of Win’s light dancing as she leaped back in fright, away from the staircase and the powerful witch. The shadows jumped, lending animation to the carved animal faces in the walls.
Now the scene was just like in Win’s vision, just like that afternoon in the temple off Lijiang Alley. Margaret stood tensely on the stairs, her eyes glittering like broken glass, unable to contain her rage. She lifted a finger to me, I automatically threw up a shield to deflect any shrapnel she might throw my way.
On seeing this action, Margaret gave a disbelieving laugh, but her digit remained pointed directly at me as if in accusation.
‘Look at you,’ she said. The disgust in her voice made me shiver. ‘What have you become?’
I pulled myself up straight. I refused to be cowed by her. ‘Look at this,’ I tersely threw back at her, moving my arm around the room.
‘Sorry to interrupt your good works,’ she spit. ‘You’ve really gone and drunk the Kin koolaid, haven’t you?’
‘What are you talking about?’ We had caught her red-handed in the act of laying the curse on Li Minh, and she was trying to make me look bad? Talk about gaslighting at its finest. ‘I’ve been trying to defend you all this time. And why haven’t you answered my calls? Yesterday, you were there on the mountain. Why didn’t you speak to me?’
‘Trying to trap me, more like,’ she muttered. ‘I’ve had my eye on you, and believe me, I’d not fall for your tricks. Why do you think Cate wants you to reach me?’
‘It wasn’t Cate that wants you,’ I said. ‘Well, it was, but I wanted to warn you, apart from that, because they were trying to blame you for all this - the Great Zande, Nachtan, and now Li Minh.’
We both looked toward the slumbering witch.
‘But my eyes are open now.’ The bitterness dripped from every word. ‘They were right. I guess Cate knew better than me.’
Margaret narrowed her eyes, shook her head and opened her mouth, probably to spew more of her vicious lies.
‘And,’ I said, not bearing to hear another word from her. ‘This is what you came back for. Not like you to leave something behind.’
I thrust the glass sphere in her direction like a sword. She slowly walked down the remaining steps and looked at it, but I held it firmly in my grasp.
‘No, you don’t.’
She paused.
‘You’re very careless, Margaret. It’s rather disappointing, I expected better from you.’
Her eyes flashed up at me, but her face was a blank.
‘You left the last one too, at Nachtan’s cottage.’
‘Did I? Hadn’t noticed. And where might that one be now?’
‘Safe with Cate, where this one is going also.’
She sniffed. I thought at first a putdown was coming my way, but no, she really was trying to grasp the scent of the ball. ‘There’s nothing on that to tie it to me. Or any witch.’
‘Except for the fact of your presence here, which Win and I can both attest to.’
‘I came because…’ She cut herself off abruptly.
‘Yes? What excuse do you have for being here in the Imperial Garden?’
‘I came because you were calling me,’ she said softly.
My hand squeezed the glass orb so hard I thought it might break. But no, it was made of far sterner stuff than that. ‘That’s bull, and you know it! I’ve been calling you for ages, and you never showed up. I certainly didn’t request your presence this evening!’
‘Those other times, you called for me with deceit on your mind, trying to trap me for the Kin,’ she said, her voice level. ‘Do you think I’m stupid, that you could fool me in that way?’
I had no answer for this. None at all. ‘But I didn’t call you this evening,’ I protested again, much weaker now.
‘No, but I could tell you were in danger.’ She smiled. A genuine smile, it looked like. ‘You still haven’t learned to reign things in, have you?’
Her truth hurt, it cut so cleanly through my self-illusions. ‘Were we really in that much danger?’
She laughed. ‘You summoned a Wind Dragon and got yourselves wrapped up in a negative vortex! How the hell you made it out of there alive, I have no idea.’
I heard Win gasp behind us. We’d both forgotten she was there.
‘Jesus, Dara, how did that happen?’ Win asked. Her eyes were unnaturally huge in her pale face, and she had squished herself against the wall, to the point in the room farthest from Margaret.
‘I didn’t…’
‘Yes, you did,’ Margaret said, very patiently.
I swallowed. I had? ‘I didn’t mean it…’
‘And that’s the worst of it! You chose not to come with me to learn all I could teach you, instead, you’ve thrown in your lot with the Kin, who want nothing more than to stifle any creativity you have.’
‘How… ‘ Win stuttered. She looked so young and vulnerable and afraid, and it was costing her a lot to speak out. ‘How do you know about the Wind Dragon?’ This was almost a whisper. She’d aimed the question at me, but it was Margaret who answered.
‘She doesn’t, it’s quite obvious,’ she told Win. ‘If she did, she would have stayed well clear of it.’
‘The Wind Dragon is Chinese,’ Win persisted., her voice gaining strength. ‘How do you know about it? I’ve studied extensively, and am only now unlocking the secrets.’
Margaret smiled at her, almost kindly. ‘I only know of it because while my body was locked in the underground Vaults in Edinburgh for a century, my mind was free to travel and learn. I spent many years in China and Tibet, watched the history and battles between Kin and Mundane unfold.
‘Unlike you,’ she continued as she turned toward me, her voice as soft as it was dangerous. ‘Whose body is free to go where you wish, to travel where you want, to chase any dream you have, yet you insist on locking your mind away in a box and being prisoner to the ideologies fed to you.’
While my attention was on Win and her reaction to Margaret’s words, the older witch walked lightly over to me and plucked the glass orb from my hand. I snatched back at it, but she’d just as quickly stepped out of my reach.
Margaret held it so that it was between her and Win’s light, as if trying to peer inside it.
‘I didn’t do anything to it,’ I told her. ‘I just picked it up.’
‘Do you even know what this is?’ She asked me, then sniffed it. Then strangely, she held it to her ear, listening, like one would hold a conch shell at the beach, to hear the ocean.
‘Somehow, you’ve been using these for your spells, your curses,’ I said. ‘But you’re safe. You managed to keep the taint of your magic off it, however you did it.’ I turned away from her. I couldn’t bear it. I’d worked to clear her name within the Kin. Sought her out and been ignored. After all that, here I had the proof that she was responsible, as Cate had declared.
‘But why, Margaret? What’s the point?’
‘You,’ she said slowly. Her tone was flat. ‘You have no idea, do you?’
I glanced up at her, trying to catch the meaning of her words from her expression, but her face was a mask. Her wide generous mouth was a grim line and her eyes were duller than I’d ever seen them be.
‘What have you done, Margaret?’ My question was a whisper again.
‘Are you purposefully blind?’ Her voice was a rasp.
I was almost happy to see her return to her normal acerbic state, no matter that it hurt.
She shook her head decisively. ‘When you’re ready to return to the fold, call me,’ she said. ‘But not until then.’
Margaret passed up the steps again, her dark garments mere shadows in the light. I didn’t see her again that night.
