Foxheart Page 4

  “And you are very unpleasant,” said the stranger, in a voice warm and smooth as sleep. The stranger peeked out from her hood. Her strong, steady voice did not match her lined face, nor the chalky white skin flaking at the corners of her mouth.

  “What of it?” demanded the boy.

  The stranger shrugged. “Just an observation. Perhaps you’d be happier if you had something . . . pretty in your life?”

  And with that, the stranger bent to scrape her knobby fingers across the ground. From the cracked cobblestones, she pulled a bouquet of purple and yellow flowers and presented it to the boy with a flourish.

  The boy gasped, a grin spreading across his face. He ran across the square, calling excitedly for his mother.

  With a tired whuff, the old dog pulled a lumpy hat from beneath the stranger’s cloak and laid it on the ground.

  “Did you see that, Fox?” whispered Quicksilver. “She’s good. She slipped those flowers out from her sleeve, I know she did. I’ve done something like that before myself. Remember when I dragged that garden snake out of my prayer robe and Sister Marketta fainted?”

  Fox backed away from the stranger, whining uncertainly. He nudged Quicksilver’s arm, but she did not budge.

  Soon a crowd gathered around the stranger to watch her draw coins out of ears and frightened-looking rabbits out of coat pockets. She juggled ten apples at once, and threw her voice to make it sound as though she was speaking to the crowd from inside the church, and she turned water into milk using a special cup she withdrew from her cloak.

  The villagers indulged her, tossing coins into her hat and exchanging smiles over the heads of their children. It was benevolent, innocent “magic,” these tricks—sleight of hand, misdirection. Nothing to be concerned about. And did you see? She has perfectly respectable red hair, and it’s graying with age, like a normal person’s would. It’s a wonder she’s even still alive, by the looks of her face.

  No, no witches here.

  Quicksilver watched the stranger all morning, crouched in the shadows around the church. Sometime after the lunch hour, Sly Boots found her, his scarf half torn and his face dotted with scrapes.

  “I got myself down, thank you very much.” He slumped against the church wall, flinging an arm over his eyes. “I thought I was going to die. Perhaps I have died. Are we up in the stars now? Did you die too?”

  “Sly Boots,” whispered Quicksilver, “watch her dog for a while and tell me what you see. Not the stranger, don’t watch her, or her tricks. Just watch the dog.”

  Sly Boots groaned and pulled himself upright. Then he sat up straighter.

  “That dog,” Sly Boots breathed. “It’s stealing things. It’s . . . it’s moving so quickly . . . like—”

  “Like the lit-up animals you saw with the witches in the woods?” Quicksilver interrupted. “Like the wolves at my convent.”

  As they watched, the old dog vanished in a soft flash of light. It then reappeared behind a man wearing a red cotton vest. The dog pulled a purse heavy with coins from his pocket and then disappeared again, with that same soft flash that could easily have been mistaken for a shift in the clouds, had you not been paying close enough attention.

  The man in the red vest absently brushed his coat, as if scratching an itch, and applauded along with everyone else.

  The old dog reappeared at the stranger’s side, nudging the stolen purse beneath the ragged hem of her cloak.

  Sly Boots grabbed Quicksilver’s arm. “Do you think—?”

  Quicksilver shook him off. “I can’t be sure. But we’ve got to talk to her. Maybe she knows about the wolves, and your parents too.”

  “I’ll kill her,” said Sly Boots, in a voice so deadly it stole Quicksilver’s attention. She placed a hand on each of his shoulders.

  “You will do nothing of the sort,” she said. “Are you stupid? If you kill her, we won’t be able to ask her any questions. Plus, if she is a . . . well, you know. If she is, you probably wouldn’t be able to kill her, and then you’d end up just like your parents, wouldn’t you?”

  The hard light faded from Sly Boots’s eyes. His shoulders slumped, and he was the same mopey, clumsy boy she had met the day before. “I suppose you’re right.”

  “Of course I am. Now—”

  Anastazia.

  Quicksilver spun around, searching for the voice on the wind and finding instead that the village square was empty, the market closed, and the world cold and dark with night.

  “Wh-what?” Sly Boots threw himself back against the wall of the church, his eyes round as two moons. “What happened? What . . . where . . . ?”

  “I believe the word you’re searching for is when,” said a low, even voice. The stranger appeared before Quicksilver in a swirl of light. The light became dog-shaped, and then the old dog materialized beside her. When Fox, disoriented, swayed on his feet, the old dog appeared to smile at him.

  It was not a particularly nice smile.

  Quicksilver glared up at the stranger’s shadowed face. “Who are you?”

  “An interesting question, Anastazia—”

  “My name’s Quicksilver,” said Quicksilver sharply. “I answer to no other name.”

  The stranger knelt and lowered her hood. Quicksilver could not help but flinch at her grotesquely marred face—her bulbous, scarred nose, her mottled skin. “An interesting question,” she said again, ignoring Quicksilver. “But I don’t think it’s really the question you want to ask, is it?” Her eyes twinkled. “Odd and wonderful, how we land on the same name every time. Some things, I suppose, never change.”

  Sly Boots tugged on Quicksilver’s coat. “Let’s run. She’s worked some kind of magic on us. Where are we? Have we gone mad? Oh, stars help us. . . .”

  The stranger quirked an eyebrow. “The boy’s not wrong. Who is he, by the way? I’ve never met him before. He’s new.”

  “How do you know . . .” Quicksilver’s voice shook and then gave out. She reached for Fox, and he bumped his cold nose against her palm.

  “Yes, little thief? How do I know what?”

  Quicksilver looked into the stranger’s eyes and saw that they were violet as the near moon. Bright and sharp, they did not look as old as the rest of her, and there was something about those eyes—the shape of them, their mischievous light—that struck Quicksilver as familiar.

  Something uneasy fluttered in her stomach. “How did you do this? How did you make it—”

  “How did I make it night?” The stranger waved her hand carelessly at the stars. “Even I can’t do that much. It was a simple spell that kept you and your breathless little friend immobile and hidden for a time, until I was ready to meet you.” The stranger’s eyes cut to Fox; the corner of her mouth twitched into something like a frown. “And your dog, of course.”

  “Teach me,” Quicksilver blurted, though it was not what she had meant to ask: Who are you? Why do you care about me and Sly Boots?

  How do you know my real name?

  “Quicksilver,” Sly Boots hissed, “what are you doing?”

  The stranger smiled. “Why should I teach you anything at all?”

  Quicksilver’s words spilled out before she could stop them. “I’m the best thief in all the Star Lands.”

  “Then why should you need me?”

  Quicksilver wished Sly Boots were not hovering quite so close, and that he would stop whispering, “What’ll we do, what’ll we do?” over and over.

  “Because I want to really be the best thief,” said Quicksilver, flushing, “and not just say I am. Because I want to find out what happened with those wolves.”

  Because, whispered her deepest heart, I want to find my parents, and maybe magic will help me do it.

  She squared her jaw and tried to imitate the haughtiest of Adele’s expressions. “Because I’m not afraid of witches.”

  The stranger’s smile was slow and horrid, revealing crooked black-and-yellow teeth. “Not yet, you aren’t.”

  Sly Boots squeaked somet
hing unintelligible.

  “Well?” Quicksilver insisted, though her throat was dry and Fox would not stop whimpering. “Will you do it?”

  “I will, and this very night too,” said the stranger, “if you can tell me this one thing.” The stranger leaned close, and her breath smelled not of rot, but of snow—crisp and clean. “How do I know your real name, little thief? Tell me, in three guesses’ time, and I’ll teach you everything you want to know, and more.”

  Then she stood, returned to her stool, arranged her cloak about her in voluminous folds of night, and waited.

  .7.

  THREE GUESSES

  For what seemed to Quicksilver like the longest stretch of time she had ever endured, she stood watching the stranger, and the stranger sat staring back at her.

  Sly Boots nudged her foot. “I don’t understand what’s happening.”

  “What a surprise,” Quicksilver muttered.

  “Well, pardon me for being more than a little confused when first, oh, there’s a you-know-what and a dog performing tricks in the square, and then—oh! Suddenly it’s hours later and it’s night, and we’re still here, but it doesn’t feel like hours later to us, and then—oh! Some old ugly woman says she’ll teach you magic. Right. I see. Because these are things that happen any old day!”

  “Just let me think for a moment, will you? I don’t understand it. No one knows my name. No one but me.”

  “And your parents,” Sly Boots pointed out. “Right?”

  Quicksilver crouched in front of Fox. “Fox, what do I do? What does it mean?”

  Fox wagged his tail, his eyebrows bunching in an expression that seemed to say, “I’m not sure, but we’ll figure it out together, and I love you.”

  Quicksilver smiled. Sometimes it seemed that, just by looking at his familiar face, she could determine exactly what he was thinking.

  Exactly what he was thinking . . .

  “I’ve got my first guess,” Quicksilver announced.

  The stranger crossed her arms. “That didn’t take long. Are you sure you’re ready to use one of your guesses?”

  In fact, Quicksilver was not at all sure, but it seemed unwise to show a witch she was afraid.

  “As long as you’re ready to teach me magic,” she shot back.

  The stranger chuckled. “You always are an arrogant young thing.”

  What a strange thing to say, Quicksilver thought. If the stranger’s laugh had been an animal, it would have been a snake, old and sly. Quicksilver’s pounding heart seemed to fill every inch of her body.

  “Let’s just go home,” urged Sly Boots. “Something isn’t right here.”

  “My first guess,” Quicksilver said, “is that you read my thoughts using magic, and that’s how you found out my real name.”

  “Mind magic!” The stranger let out a sharp, rasping laugh that dissolved into a cough. “That’s rich. And are you the kind of person to go around using mind magic without a care in the world? I hardly think so.”

  “But I’ve never used any magic at all!” said Quicksilver.

  “Mind magic,” the stranger muttered. “Mind magic indeed. I don’t much feel like scrambling my skull like an egg on a skillet, do I? I don’t much feel like losing my sense of up and down, and how to put one foot in front of the other, do I? No, indeed I do not. Mind magic.”

  “All right. Fine.” Quicksilver crossed her arms and began to pace. “So I got that one wrong.”

  “Ha! Mind magic!”

  Sly Boots and Fox followed Quicksilver as she paced.

  “Quicksilver, listen to me,” said Sly Boots. “Let’s get home, and we’ll start again with our lessons tomorrow. Aha! We’ll climb up onto the magistrate’s house in the morning, how about that? Or the roof of the inn? Not quite so high as the church but much less steep, which I think you’ll agree can only be an advantage—”

  “Just let me think, won’t you?”

  “Two guesses left,” the stranger called blithely from her stool, and Quicksilver’s stomach clenched, for there it was again—that feeling of familiarity in the tone of the stranger’s voice. That voice sounded like . . . someone. Someone at the convent, perhaps? But that couldn’t be right. This stranger was obviously no one Quicksilver had met before—

  “If she doesn’t stop shouting, someone will hear!” Sly Boots whispered. He tugged on the ends of his scarf and groaned. “Oh, can’t we just go home? My parents need to eat! What if they’re in pain? What if their fever’s returned?”

  Parents.

  Quicksilver stopped pacing, seized by sudden inspiration.

  Come back, whispered the treacherous thought from earlier that day. A northern wind snaked through Willow-on-the-River, ruffling Quicksilver’s hair. She drew her patchwork cloak tight around her body and felt, in that moment, that the world had never seemed larger.

  “I have my second guess,” she said.

  “This is happening more quickly than usual,” remarked the stranger, leaning forward to prop her chin on her hands. “You’re a curious one, you are.”

  “Oh, and do you collect many little girls on your travels?” Sly Boots marched over to her with clenched fists. “What do you do with them? Do you eat them? Do you throw them into the sea?”

  The stranger lifted an eyebrow; at her feet, her dog lifted his head and growled. “No, I only do that to boys who don’t know when to shut their mouths.”

  Sly Boots shrank back behind Quicksilver. “She’ll cut my throat, she will.”

  “You’re my mother,” Quicksilver tried to say, but fear clung to her voice, choking it, and though she tried not to hope—for what did hope ever do but leave you open to hurt?—she could not help it. A light, fluttery feeling bloomed inside her, and she could hardly look up at the stranger’s eyes, uncertain of what she might find there—and what she might not.

  “You’re my mother,” she said again, forcing her voice steady, “and that’s how you know my name. Because you were the one who gave it to me.”

  The square fell silent, save for Fox’s whimpers and the hiss of the wind. Even Sly Boots stopped wringing his hands. The stranger’s face seemed caught between too many painful things, and in that moment, she looked not old, but young—a girl trapped in a crone’s body.

  Then the church bells rang midnight—twelve low, mournful strikes. The stranger rose to take Quicksilver’s chin in her hand. Now Fox was the one to growl.

  “You should forget about your parents,” said the stranger. “They abandoned you. They’re not worth thinking about. Don’t waste one more moment on them. Doing so will only ever bring you pain.”

  Quicksilver’s eyes filled with tears, but she refused to let them fall. “Oh? And how do you know that?”

  “I know. Accept it, and let it be.”

  The stranger returned to her stool. The old dog leaned his head against her leg.

  “One more guess, little thief,” she said, her voice tired and thin. “Consider carefully.”

  Quicksilver glared at the stranger for a long moment, then turned on her heel, marched over to the church, and climbed back up to the roof. Her clammy hands shook as they gripped the wall’s intricate wood carvings.

  “Quicksilver?” Sly Boots called. “Where are you going?”

  But Quicksilver did not answer him. She settled herself atop one of the church’s wolf gargoyles and stared out into the night, thinking.

  She thought all night, neither tired nor afraid. Chilled wind blew softly past her, ruffling her hair. Sly Boots and Fox curled up near the church in the dirt, Sly Boots sleeping fretfully, Fox quiet and alert.

  The stranger and her old dog sat alone in the square. Quicksilver watched them by the light of the moons. She hardly blinked. She moved not an inch. The stars slowly turned above her, a carpet of shining silver dust. The stranger’s old dog belched and turned over, showing his belly. Below Quicksilver, Fox did the same a moment later.

  And, at last, her body heavy but her mind afire, she knew. She knew.
<
br />   As the first reaches of dawn crept into the sky, Quicksilver climbed down from her perch. The noise of the clock striking five roused Sly Boots. Fox whuffed a question.

  “What happened?” Sly Boots mumbled, yawning. “I dreamed there was a witch—”

  “I’m ready with my third guess,” proclaimed Quicksilver, standing before the stranger. She felt warm and calm, and a little dizzy, as if the cold night had worn away her useless bits, and left only her truest self behind.

  The stranger watched her keenly. “Well then?”

  “You are me,” said Quicksilver, “and that’s how you know my name, for it is also yours.”

  .8.

  WHITE, GRAY, BLACK, BROWN, GOLD, BLUE, RED

  The stranger’s mouth curled into a smile. “Very good. Very good. We don’t always get it right. Sometimes we need hints. But not you, eh, little thief?”

  Sly Boots’s mouth fell open. “But that’s impossible!”

  “She wasn’t using mind magic,” said Quicksilver, not taking her eyes off her older self, “and she’s not one of my parents. It’s the only answer that makes sense.”

  “But it makes absolutely no sense!”

  “Which is why you had to arrive at that solution on your own,” the stranger—Anastazia—explained. “Otherwise your mind would not have accepted the impossible truth.”

  Quicksilver could believe that. Even now, though she had found her answer hours before and had spent the night coming to terms with it, her mind still felt unbalanced, as though the world had shifted beneath her feet, and she could not yet walk steadily upon it.

  Fox crept closer to the old dog, touched noses with it, went very still, yelped, ran away, froze, crept close again.

  Quicksilver would have bet her entire stash of coins that the old dog rolled his eyes.

  “And that’s . . . Fox?” she asked.

  “Yes,” said Anastazia. “Much older, of course.”

  “Of course!” Sly Boots laughed and dragged his fingers through his hair. “Why not? An older Fox. Naturally.”

  “Sly Boots, either accept what’s happening or go home,” Quicksilver snapped. Then, to Anastazia: “So now what? What does this mean? Why are you here?”