The Hawkweed Prophecy Read online

  The hare scampered down the sheer slope, then looked up at her.

  “Really?” questioned Poppy. “This is where you bring me?”

  Gingerly she picked her way down the hill. Her head was still hurting from the noise and now her legs were aching too. When she reached the valley floor, Poppy slumped down and lay back weakly against an old, tatty sofa.

  “Is this it?” she slurred, closing her eyes. “Is this all?”

  Ember thought it was one of the others at first and felt a rare surge of outrage. The dell was her place. Her secret. Then she saw the girl’s hair was dark but short, far too short for her to be one of the coven. There was a hare at her feet, watching her. Ember took a step, and the hare sped away in a flash. The girl turned and looked at her. Then her eyes searched for the hare but it had gone.

  “Sorry. Were you trapping it?” Ember asked shyly.

  The girl didn’t say anything for a moment. “Trapping it for what?”

  Ember was confused. “For your supper.”

  The girl burst into laughter, then stopped. “You’re serious,” she said in wonder.

  Ember just stared at her. “You’re a chaff,” she thought out loud.

  “What?” the girl queried.

  Ember knew she should turn and walk away. It was what she had been taught since infancy. The childhood rhyme sang in her head:

  Heed the berries of the holly and yew,

  The ivy and the nightshade too.

  Beware the false widow spider’s bite,

  But most of all a chaff in sight.

  Do not mingle, do not mix,

  For trouble bring that none can fix.

  Yet even as the words played out, Ember’s curiosity grew stronger. The girl must come from where the river led, from where she herself had always yearned to go. So Ember didn’t walk away, but stood there taking in every detail of the girl’s appearance.

  “Are you all right?” the girl asked, and Ember caught the concern in her voice and it made her more daring.

  “Who took your hair?” she questioned. She had heard of spells that made the locks fall from your scalp and always feared them. As the girl’s face scrunched in confusion, Ember felt a quiver of doubt. “You are a doe, aren’t you? Not a stag?”

  There was a long pause in which the girl rolled her head around her neck in a circle and then gave it a shake, as though rattling her brain. Her eyes widened and she blinked and smiled. “The noise,” she said. “It’s gone.” Then her smile broadened further, using up her cheeks, taking over all of her acorn face. “It’s gone!” she gasped with delight, though only a second later her lips fell into a frown. “I’m not asleep, am I? This isn’t just some crazy dream I’m having?”

  “Pinch yourself,” suggested Ember. “That’s what my mother would say.”

  The girl pulled back her sleeve and pinched her arm so hard that it left a red mark on her skin. “Well, I think I’m awake,” she said dryly.

  “What’s that on your nails?” spotted Ember.

  The girl put a finger to her lip. “Don’t spoil it. Not yet,” she hushed.

  “What?” Ember whispered.

  “The silence. Can you hear it?”

  They both sat there motionless for a few moments. The girl’s thoughts flickered in her eyes until finally she opened her mouth to speak. “Is it this place? That made the noise stop?”

  Ember wasn’t sure of her meaning so she searched for a truth with which to answer. “I come here for the quiet too.”

  The girl seemed satisfied with this as she began to study Ember closely, as if reappraising what she saw. Then she held out her hands, palms down, fingers stretched to show the chipped shock of blue on the tips. “The nail polish? Is that what you mean?” she said.

  Ember nodded. “The color. How’d you conjure that?”

  The girl rummaged in a big, leather bag and pulled out a little glass jar of the same liquid blue. She tossed it over to Ember. Ember reached for it in surprise but dropped it and had to stoop to pick it up. She felt the cool glass in her hand and stared at it before unscrewing the bottle and pulling out a little brush.

  “You paint it on,” the girl explained.

  Ember tried to figure this out and, becoming impatient, the girl gestured for her to come over. Tentatively Ember began to step across the pieces that filled the dell. She didn’t know what half of this stuff was, but she loved it here among these treasures, all clues of another land.

  The girl patted the ground next to her and Ember sat down. “Give me your hand.”

  Ember held it out nervously and the girl took it and placed it on her knee. Then she took the little brush and did what she had said—she painted each nail until they shone with color. Ember stared down at her hand like it didn’t belong to her, lying there so detached on a stranger’s leg. She could feel the girl’s arm touching hers and she could hear her soft, concentrated breathing. The girl was a chaff, but Ember didn’t care. Sitting next to her like this seemed a consolation for all the hours she had spent sitting alone. Friendship felt even better than Ember had imagined. It was as many hued as a sunrise, turning black to brilliance, and full of promise of a warmth and light to come.

  When the girl finished, Ember held her fingers up in wonder, moving them in a little dance.

  “Careful. You don’t want them to smudge.”

  Ember froze, then lowered her hands to her lap. The girl positioned her hands to match. “See . . . twins.”

  Ember felt a glow inside her and it spread to her cheeks and she blushed. The girl looked at her inquisitively. “Where are you from, anyway?”

  Ember looked away, not knowing how to answer and feeling self-conscious about her long skirt and battered boots. She hoped she didn’t smell.

  “Yonder,” she replied. She had broken one rule by conversing with the girl, but the clan was sworn never to reveal anything of themselves or their camp. This was sacred.

  The girl’s eyes widened again. “Yonder? . . . What are you like?”

  Ember wasn’t sure how to respond to this, but then the girl asked a simpler question and she found herself answering even though she shouldn’t.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Ember.”

  “I’m Poppy.”

  Any guilt Ember felt at disclosing her name instantly evaporated. The chaff was called after a summer flower, bright and red and welcoming. And the witches used its extracts in their healing, sparingly but to great effect. Somehow this name felt like a sign that all was well. The girl, Poppy, placed the brush back into the pot and screwed the lid back on, then she handed it to Ember. Ember glanced at her, not daring to take it.

  “Go on. I’ve got more at home.”

  Ember grinned like her cheeks would split. “Really?!”

  Poppy nodded. “So, Ember from yonder. What are you doing down here?”

  “Escaping.”

  Poppy looked up quickly, and in her eyes Ember saw something unusual, something like understanding.

  “Well, Ember,” she said. “That’s what I’d call a happy coincidence.”

  It was dusk before the girls parted. They had spent all afternoon there in the dell among the homeless objects. Poppy had explained to Ember what each of them was. Some of them sounded more magical than anything that the coven created. A television for watching stories brought to life; a sofa for sitting on when you watched television; a vacuum cleaner for sucking up the dust; a washing machine; a toasted sandwich maker; CDs—tons of them, holding music on their shiny dials; a microwave for cooking food in seconds.

  Ember was amazed. These miracle inventions would hardly fit in her and Charlock’s tiny caravan. The most their single room had space for was their two small beds, a chair, the chest with their clothes and bedding, and their kitchen shelves. The meals they ate were cooked in the wood-fired oven outside or on spits over fire pits dug into the earth. And the food was eaten fresh or pickled, boiled and jarred. As Ember traced her fingers over an old lawn-mower, sh
e dreamed about a world of houses full of all these marvelous contraptions and gardens with neat, short grass called lawns.

  Poppy had a question now. “Are you in some kind of religious cult?” Ember turned to look at Poppy. “I won’t tell anyone.”

  “I don’t know what that is.”

  “Are you being held against your will?”

  Ember pondered this. “No. Are you?”

  Poppy gave a harsh laugh. “No. Though it feels like that sometimes.” She looked down at the books poking out of her bag. “Do you go to school?” she asked Ember.

  “Kind of. We’re taught by our mothers and sisters.”

  “Oh, I get it. You’re homeschooled. No wonder you’re weird.”

  “Can I see?” Ember pointed at the books, and Poppy nodded.

  Ember took one of the books and opened it up. In it were lots of numbers in rows and columns. She squinted at them but they made little sense. Like the symbols in her own books, they were a foreign language to her. She reached into Poppy’s bag for another. This one had writing. She scanned it at first, then started reading out loud.

  Art thou pale for weariness

  Of climbing heaven, and gazing on the earth,

  Wandering companionless

  Among the stars that have a different birth,

  And ever-changing, like a joyless eye . . .

  Poppy finished the rest for her, knowing the words by heart. “That finds no object worth its constancy?”

  “Is it a spell?” asked Ember.

  Poppy looked at her. “You’re even stranger than me, you know that?”

  And Ember smiled.

  Later Poppy gave her some chocolate. It was so sweet that it clogged in Ember’s throat and she had to gulp down water to flush it away. In return she shared the dried fruit and seeds she always kept in her pockets. As Poppy nibbled on the seeds, Ember looked around the dell and wondered why anyone would want to escape a home that was filled with all these incredible, life-enhancing things. Then it occurred to her that she could ask, and she said, “What is it you’re trying to escape?”

  Poppy looked surprised but answered with a shrug, “Just my life. My family. I don’t know. Myself!” Ember leaned her shoulder against Poppy’s in recognition. Poppy didn’t shift but let her rest there. “What about you?”

  “It’s hard feeling like a failure all the time. So I come here. Just to have some respite for a while.”

  “And then you go back?”

  “Where else would I go?”

  “I’m glad I met you, Ember from yonder.”

  “Me too.”

  Before she reached the camp, Ember stopped to remove the blue from her nails. It was stuck there. She scratched and gnawed but it wouldn’t come off. So she kept her fingers tucked into her palms, or behind her back, or deep in her pockets so no one would see. But Raven had eyes in the back of her head.

  “Ember Hawkweed!” Her aunt’s voice was low but had a force to it that made Ember stop in her tracks. She looked around and saw no one. Then, suddenly, her aunt was there before her. “What are you carrying, niece?”

  Ember gulped. “Nothing,” she replied, praying that the truth of this might spare her any further investigation.

  Ember wasn’t sure whether it was in disappointment or irritation, but Raven slowly shook her head. “Come hither.”

  Ember took two steps forward so that their feet almost met. Then Raven took Ember’s clenched fist and uncurled it, holding the fingernails right up to her face as she peered at them.

  “It’s paint,” explained Ember in a small voice.

  “I know what it is, kitten.”

  Ember felt a chill down her back. “I found it . . . in the forest,” she said hurriedly. Under Raven’s scrutiny, she felt her cheeks blush at the fib she had told.

  “An interesting shade,” Raven added. She never smiled, but Ember could tell from her eyes she was joking. Ember felt a rush of relief. Her aunt wasn’t angry after all. As if to confirm this, Raven asked, “Do you want to leave it on or shall I vanish it for you?”

  Ember shifted from one foot to the other in indecision.

  “One more night?” Raven conspired.

  “Oh, thank you, Aunt,” Ember gasped.

  “It’ll be our little secret,” Raven whispered, and Ember nodded gladly.

  When she woke the next morning, Ember’s nails were clean. The paint had gone, and even the bottle was nowhere to be found.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  That evening Poppy and her father sat eating Vietnamese food out of cartons. They ordered takeout a lot. Whenever they moved, Poppy would collect the flyers that came in the mail, and her father would order from each one until they narrowed them down to their favorite few. Poppy had eaten a lot of dodgy curries, stodgy pizzas, and gloopy stir-fries in her time. Tonight was a soupy noodle dish that slipped down your throat before you had a chance to bite at it. Sauce trickled down her father’s chin as he slurped the noodles into his mouth. Poppy giggled. The sound surprised her as much as it did her father. He instantly glanced up at her.

  “What?” Poppy challenged.

  Her dad shrugged and, as he did so, a noodle that had been resting on his shirt fell into his lap.

  Poppy giggled again.

  Her father tried to wipe it off but it clung to his trousers. “God!”

  Poppy laughed, actually laughed out loud. She laughed so hard that her mouthful of noodles came tumbling from her lips.

  Her father looked up at her in astonishment. “Poppy! That’s revolting!” But that just made Poppy laugh some more. He shook his head and smiled. “Haven’t I taught you any manners?”

  “No!” Tears were falling from her eyes, she was laughing so hard.

  Poppy went into the kitchen and got her father a dish towel. He watched her warily but took it from her with a thank you and started wiping gingerly at the stubborn noodle.

  “I can wash them if you want.”

  Her father looked surprised. “I’ll have to order from”—he picked up the menu and read—“Little Saigon again.”

  Poppy wrinkled her nose.

  “No, not a keeper?”

  “Throw it away.”

  Her dad crumpled the paper into a ball and tossed it toward the wastepaper basket. It landed right inside. “Yes!” Her dad pumped his arm in victory, then looked at Poppy with a grin. “How’s the new school?”

  “Okay, I guess.”

  “Okay?! Really?!” he said, raising an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you made a friend?”

  “I did, actually,” she replied. “Don’t look so surprised. I am capable of it.”

  “I’m not surprised, just impressed. I know you didn’t want to move all this way.”

  Poppy felt herself blush and she looked away. Sensing her discomfort, her dad moved the conversation on.

  “What’s this school like?”

  He hadn’t asked her that in years.

  “Oh, you know. It’s school.” Her dad seemed disappointed, and Poppy sensed their chat would be over pretty quickly unless she said something. “How’s the new job?”

  “Fine.”

  “You don’t sound too sure.”

  Her dad half-smiled. “It’s a job.”

  And there it was. A moment of connection that came and went but, for Poppy, that made two in one day. Later, as she lay curled up in her bed with Minx, she realized she had walked out into the hills alone but had returned having made a friend. Her first. Maybe it was the headache or the hare that made her act so out of character, but she had achieved a proper conversation with another girl. It had been so easy with Ember, as though she were not human but, like the hare, another wild creature from the woods. There had been no glint of criticism in Ember’s eyes, no hint of artifice or hostility in her voice, and now Poppy found herself wondering, if she went back to the dell tomorrow, whether Ember might appear again. Then immediately she felt silly for thinking such a thing and determined not to go.

  Sorrel tripped
up the steps and banged her ankle on the door-frame as her mother pulled her inside. She knew well not to complain. Raven’s eyes were burning, fire within the black. Her lips were twitching, chanting soundless words. She started pacing back and forth, lost in frantic thought. Only Sorrel got to see such scenes of her mother’s private self. In front of the coven Raven maintained constant calm and control.

  “The real magic is to make it look effortless,” she always told Sorrel when it was just the two of them, after lessons and away from the other girls.

  “Mother?” Sorrel prompted, and Raven snapped her neck around so she faced her. “You wanted to talk with me?”

  Raven’s eyes focused and the fire dimmed. “Follow your cousin.”

  Sorrel groaned inwardly but her mother heard it—nothing escaped Raven.

  “I mean it. I want your eyes on her. Something doesn’t bode well.”

  “It’s Ember. Nothing ever bodes well,” replied Sorrel.

  “She’s happy. Listen to her step—it’s lighter. Look at her eyes—they’re brighter. Her heart is beating faster. She’s straighter, taller. Use your senses, Sorrel. All of them.”

  Sorrel nodded. Her mother was always right. “Why is she so happy?”

  “That’s what you must find out. See if she ventures into the town. Check she isn’t talking to any chaffs. Who knows what the simpleton might say.”

  Sorrel nodded, though she could scarcely believe her timid cousin capable of such rebellion. Every decade or so there was a witch who would be seduced by the outside world. They would disappear into the dead of night, covering their tracks to avoid all detection. Then the inevitable betrayal would begin. They’d confess their past and admit to witchcraft, telling of the coven out in the forest, forsaking all they had once sworn to protect. Usually they’d leave for love . . . or so they said. But then they’d come back weeping and begging to come home.

  It never worked—a witch and a chaff. However learned or open-minded, the people of the outside world lived smaller lives. They saw only what was visible and believed only what could be proven or what was preached. They were missing a sense and were so handicapped without it that the witches almost pitied them. For a witch would rather lose their sight or hearing than the sixth and most precious of senses.