Spring, page 3
“The no-more-than-ten-questions thing? Why?”
“We might change the number—maybe fifteen per day, or something like that, since we’ll be working closely together. But the reason we’ll be working together is so you can learn. To do that, you have to be focused. Asking a million questions about any trivial matter that pops into your head is a scattershot way of learning, and it’s not that effective. If you have to think your questions through, really narrow down what you need to know and sift out those things you can figure out on your own, then you’ll learn much more quickly, and you’ll retain more.”
“I guess that makes sense,” Kerry admitted. She felt a little thwarted by the idea, although Season’s reasoning seemed sound. “But you said that starts when we get settled?”
“Right.”
“Which means I can ask questions now, right?”
“Uh-huh,” Season answered. Most of her attention was still on the road, keeping the vehicle in contact with the wet pavement and trying to follow the directions they’d been given.
“So why are you doing this? Why take me under your wing like this? What’s in it for you?”
Season hazarded another, longer glance at Kerry before facing front again. “I thought it was obvious,” she said. “Like I told you, you are a gifted witch. A kind of diamond in the rough, I suppose. But anyone who learned as much as you in those few weeks with Mother Blessing is a person to be reckoned with.”
Kerry thought her heart would burst with pride at that description. She wasn’t sure she could live up to it, but she would definitely try.
“Part of being a witch is giving back to the community of witches,” Season went on. “One way to do that is to help teach and develop young witches, so that the traditions are carried on. In this case, of course, there’s also a much more practical consideration.”
“What’s that?”
“Mother Blessing and I have been at each other’s throats for centuries,” Season explained. “We’ve each won some battles, but the overall war goes on. One of these days, one of us is going to have to prevail. I would much rather have you on my side in the conflict than hers, because frankly, I could use some allies here.”
Kerry started to say that she was honored that Season would consider her aid anything to be desired, but as she was composing her thoughts, Season interrupted. “And that storm in the Great Dismal, by the way, was mine. Mother Blessing knew I was coming, but I was hoping to mask my exact progress to some extent, so she wouldn’t know precisely where I was or when I’d reach her home.”
“It worked,” Kerry said. “She was trying to prepare, but you caught her before she was completely ready.”
“And still, I couldn’t beat her,” Season recalled. “Partly because she is most powerful on her home ground, where she has lived for so long. And partly because she had your help.”
“Did I really make that big a difference?” Kerry asked, surprised.
“Do you really have to ask?”
Before Kerry could answer the question, Season pulled off the little country lane onto a rutted dirt track, just the width of two sets of wheels. “Here we are,” she said, ticking her head toward a mailbox with a street number painted on it.
The track wound between spreading oaks, down into a little incline where a wood-sided house stood. It was a single story, with a porch across the front. Its blue paint, faded, blistered, and peeling from the sun and weather, was rain-darkened, and water dripped from its eaves. The roof had seen better days, but Kerry figured if it was dry inside, after the storm that had blown through today, then it would hold up fine.
Season parked at the end of the drive, in a little dirt circle right before the front door. “Home again, home again,” she said.
They had left New Hampshire with very little. Kerry brought her usual duffel containing a few changes of clothes, some of Daniel’s journals, and her laptop computer. Season had a leather backpack that seemed to contain anything she would ever need. Kerry was convinced that if she ever looked inside, it would be empty, and that Season just conjured what she wanted from it. They hauled the groceries inside and dumped the bags on a table made from raw oak planks, sanded but not sealed or painted. The kitchen was small, but clean water ran from the tap, the refrigerator was cold, and the gas oven and stove seemed to work. The owners had an interesting sense of color—the kitchen’s walls were fire-engine red and bright blue, while the floor was yellow and the appliances white and gold.
The rest of the house echoed the general color chaos. Wooden walls were painted in seemingly whatever color had struck someone’s fancy at a given moment, or maybe just in whatever was on sale at the hardware store. Most of the floors were unpainted, but there were exceptions, including a forest green one with red polka dots.
There seemed to be a great deal of wildlife—spiders, ants, flies, and other less immediately identifiable creepy-crawlies—inside the house that Kerry would just as soon have had living outside instead. She figured that it was a function of the house having been unoccupied for a stretch, and that once she and Season had made the place their own, the bugs would move out. Living in the swamp had given her a greater tolerance for insect life than she’d ever had before, and learning witchcraft had impressed on her the role that all living things played in the world. Mother Blessing had told her it was scientific fact that if all the insects in the world were to suddenly vanish, all other life on the planet would end within two weeks. Mother Blessing had made a lot of outrageous claims, but Kerry couldn’t help suspecting there was some truth to that one.
In spite of the colors and the creatures, the house was cozy and plenty comfortable enough for Kerry’s liking. The furniture was old, mismatched, and lived in, as if it had grown up organically within the house. A door led from the kitchen into a small grassy backyard with a few rows of herbs and vegetables, overgrown now but offering the promise of fresh food with only a little work and attention. Beyond that were woods that seemed to go on forever. The room Kerry chose as her bedroom was next to the only bathroom, and though it was a little smaller than the other bedroom, it had a built-in window seat where she could already imagine herself reading and writing at night.
In the middle of the afternoon, after Kerry had hung up her clothes in the room’s tiny closet and shoved some furniture around so she’d be able to see trees out the window from her bed, Season called her into the kitchen. Two cups of hot tea and a plate of cookies were set out on the table. Season sat in one of the four random chairs that surrounded it, looking expectantly at Kerry. It was clear that she’d been summoned for a particular reason, so Kerry took a chair and drew one of the cups to her. She wasn’t going to waste one of her questions by asking what was up.
“I wanted to tell you what is really going on here,” Season said after a moment. “Why Mother Blessing has stepped up the pace of attacks against me, and why staying with me puts you in considerable danger.”
“Okay.” Outside, the rain continued to beat down on the roof, creating a kind of staccato background music for their conversation.
“You know about the Witches’ Convocation,” Season declared plainly. “It starts on the first day of spring. One of the important functions of the Convocation is to rule on disputes between witches, as well as on crimes against witchcraft and crimes by witches against humanity. We firmly believe in policing ourselves, so that the outside world never decides it has to take action against us.”
“Which means that the Convocation will finally address what happened in Slocumb,” Kerry said, careful in her phrasing. She was determined to save her questions.
“That’s right,” Season agreed. “We have a very rigid and highly developed system of justice, which is prepared to deal with all of those issues I just described. The Slocumb incident will definitely have a hearing in Witches’ Tribunal. Mother Blessing has been spreading her version of things ever since it happened, and even though her version is a lie, there’s a little bit of that ‘common knowledge’ thing operating in her favor.”
“People tend to believe something they’ve heard over and over, even if there’s no truth to it,” Kerry stated.
“Exactly. I’ve tried to get my story out there too, but it’s been harder for me. For one thing, I didn’t know she was spreading her tales for a long time, until they started filtering back to me. And then, she had me on the run for so long that it was hard to get a fair hearing—I looked guilty simply because I wasn’t sitting still and waiting for her to finish me off.”
“That’s not fair.”
“That’s true. But then, fairness is what the Convocation is for. I’ll be at a disadvantage because so many will have heard Mother Blessing’s side of it, but the hearing will be as impartial as possible. Which is why Mother Blessing would love to get rid of me before it happens. She could use the Slocumb incident as a defense when the hearing about my death came up, as it certainly would. But that would be an easier sell for her, since she wouldn’t have to worry about my testimony contradicting hers.”
“So she’d like to kill you before it starts, but even if she doesn’t, she stands a good chance of beating you in court?”
“That about sums it up,” Season admitted sadly. “She isn’t guaranteed to win. I happen to believe that the truth will sway the Tribunal to my side. And I think there’s a way to prove that truth. But I’m going to need your help.”
“My help?”
“That’s right. I need someone I can trust completely, someone familiar with the facts, and someone who is very powerful and skilled.”
“But I have a long way to go before I’m those things.”
“And it’s not quite January,” Season replied. “Which is why we need to train so hard between now and the Convocation. I’m going to want you by my side, Kerry. More than that. I’m going to need you. Will you be there for me?”
Stunned that she was being asked, being trusted with so much, at first it was all Kerry could do to nod her head. “Of course,” she said finally. “I’ll do whatever I can.”
“That’s good,” Season said, a warm smile spreading over her face. “That’s the best I can ask for.”
4
Mother Blessing wheeled angrily around her home in the Great Dismal Swamp, her motorized scooter’s rubber tires squeaking on the hardwood floors. Somehow Season Howe had survived her onslaught. It had taken every ounce of strength Mother Blessing could bring to bear to create nearly a hundred simulacra, and still the witch had defeated them. If only she had been able to manifest them all at once instead of one at a time, however quickly. That might have proven too much even for someone of Season’s abilities.
But that great an effort, over such a distance, was beyond her. She had lain for days in her bed after the post-Christmas assault, exhausted by her efforts. It was only now, a couple of days after the passing of the year, that she was able to get around again. The immediate aftereffects of her spell had passed, but the fury hadn’t.
Allowing Kerry Profitt to receive communications while she was here in this house had been a stroke of genius. Doing so had enabled Mother Blessing to learn who was close to Kerry, who might be keeping tabs on her whereabouts. So when the urgent call had passed from one to the next—We’ve found Season!—Mother Blessing had known approximately where to begin looking. By watching through the eyes of her simulacrum scouts, she had spotted the young interlopers, and they had led her right to Kerry and Season.
It only added to her rage that Kerry and Season seemed to have teamed up. She had groomed Kerry to be an arrow that she could let fly at Season at any time. For that weapon to be turned so quickly against her was nothing short of infuriating.
But there was no one in the house to shout at, no one to complain to or abuse. So she slammed doors and made sharp turns with her scooter, envisioning the faces of her enemies on the floor and wishing she could roll over them as easily.
A new year had begun. The Convocation would be upon her in a matter of weeks. There was a chance that she would prevail in the Witches’ Tribunal, but there was also always a chance that she would not. Far better to finally get Season out of the way before then.
And she could do it, she was convinced. Her mistake had always been in sending others to do the job. Her sons had turned out to be weak—not ruthless enough, or possibly not determined enough. She didn’t know what the problem was, but they obviously had some failing that she had not recognized before. Kerry Profitt might have been forged into a useful weapon, given time, but she had been young, inexperienced, and Season had come before Mother Blessing had had a chance to finish with her.
So the task fell to her. Had she recognized this fact years ago, perhaps this war would have been long since over. She had always thought there was time, plenty of time. But suddenly the Convocation loomed. If it had been an annual event, or even a centennial one, perhaps she’d have been better prepared for it. Over the course of five hundred years, though—and this being the first and possibly the only one of her lifetime—it had kind of crept up on her.
It would take her awhile to be ready for another battle. Weeks, maybe. Months would be better, but she didn’t have months. Any moves against Season this close to the Convocation would automatically be suspect.
On the other hand, Season’s presence at the Witches’ Tribunal would be more perilous still.
She would just have to make sure that Season didn’t show up for the Witches’ Convocation. No matter what it took.
Dawn hadn’t even cracked, if that’s what dawn really did, when Kerry rolled out of bed at Season’s summons. For the last several weeks, Season had been running her ragged. Up at first light, warming up, performing calisthenics in the cold morning air. Then a long run, at least five miles, before breakfast. Kerry kept thinking she’d get used to it, but so far she hadn’t. Every night she went to bed with muscles sore from the day’s workout, and every morning she woke up with aches worse than she’d had the night before.
After the run and a big breakfast, she and Season went out into the fields, forests, and beaches of the area for nature lessons. This area wasn’t as rich in biological diversity as the Great Dismal Swamp had been, but it was still abundant in its plant species, and only slightly less so in animal life. And as Season explained, variety wasn’t an absolute necessity—more important was the practitioner’s connection with the natural forces that flowed through those plants and animals. Kerry, Season noted, had an almost innate ability to make that connection.
She could sit in the middle of a meadow with the wind pushing the tall grasses toward her, and the susurrus of the grass seemed to be a private conversation that only Kerry could understand. She could wait patiently with her arms extended in a forest glade, and birds would drop down to her hands. She had to overcome her distaste for insects, but once she had, they would crawl up her arms and legs without stinging, biting, or otherwise molesting her. Even the enormous elephant seals on the beach at Point Reyes responded to her. She made eye contact with one, which then rolled over onto its back, flippers extended out toward her, and uttered three long, deep-throated squeals in her direction.
After time spent communing with nature, the daily schedule called for a reading period. Kerry knew that Season had not brought an entire library’s worth of magical texts with her to the Bolinas house, but the books were there, and Season assigned a heavy study regimen. These books reinforced what Mother Blessing and Season had taught her, but went into considerably greater detail about the origins of witchcraft, the theory behind individual spells, and even some of the great witches of the past.
The reading period was followed by lunch, and then by one-on-one instruction from Season, putting some of the things she had read into practical use. This usually took most of the afternoon, but if there was time, Season put her through more physical training.
“Stamina is just as important as knowing the ancient words of power backward and forward,” Season explained on one of the many occasions when Kerry complained about the hard workouts. After dinner they sat around together, making small talk or discussing the events of the day. “It does you absolutely no good to know the words you say if you don’t have the strength to put behind the spells. And if the first couple of spells knock you on your tail, you won’t be around long enough to become an experienced witch.”
“Yeah, but if the workout kills me, what good does all the knowledge do?”
“People almost always survive exercise,” Season answered with a smile.
“And if I’d wanted to join the Marines, I would have.”
“Are you calling me a drill sergeant, Private Profitt?”
“Hey, if the combat boot fits …”
The thing was, Kerry believed it was working. She had been in the best shape of her life when she’d been in the Swamp with Mother Blessing, but now, after just a few weeks with Season, she was even stronger. Her stomach was flat, her thighs and calves hard and sinewy, her arms and shoulders rippling with muscle. The old “no pain, no gain” saying seemed to have a lot of truth to it. Kerry definitely had the pain, but the gain was also unmistakable.
And the changes weren’t confined to the physical. Kerry realized that she was sleeping more soundly—and falling asleep earlier, thanks to the way too early wake-up call—and her mood was generally positive and upbeat.
In this way the days sped by quickly—days of wind and weather, of frantic activity, of cramming her head so full of information that she was sure it would explode.
One night in late January, Season sat across from Kerry in the house’s living room, crowded with a sofa, several chairs, and an assortment of tables that looked like they’d been purchased at flea markets over the years. Outside, yet another winter storm battered the roof. Season looked cozy in a red polar fleece top and black corduroy jeans. Kerry had layered a couple of T-shirts together, and sitting near the fire she was perfectly comfortable in those and blue jeans.
