“All those tales have to begin someplace.”
“What stories are those?”
“That’s just it. All Elan knows the name, but no one knows what it means. I think you do.”
She nodded. “Yes…I do.”
This admission surprised him. For all his bluster and certainty, he had still been guessing. He’d even been glad Brin was gone. He had wanted to speak to Padera alone. If he’d really believed his own suspicions, he wouldn’t have walked into that witch’s den by himself. In retrospect, that might not have been the best idea. No one knew he was there.
“So, was Ivy poisoned?” he asked.
“Yes.” Padera picked up her knife. “Iver was a bad, bad man. No one knew that. No one except me…well, and Roan of course. He hurt her, but you already know that.”
“All of Dahl Wen knows that.”
“No. People suspect, but no one knows. Even I don’t know all of it.” She leaned back and fixed him with a one-eyed glare. “Did you know he killed Roan’s mother?”
“Woan told me she died like mine, in childbiff.”
“Assuming you mean childbirth, she tells everyone that; I think she’s getting to the point where she can almost believe it.”
In the past, the look Padera fixed on him had been an eccentricity, but standing before that mushroom-strewn table, Gifford now found it frightening. Can she cast a hex with a look like that?
“He had both of them to himself,” the old woman went on. “Roan and her mother Reanna—both slaves with no recourse. Everyone saw Iver as a great man, a pillar of the community because he was also careful and kept his depravity confined to the inside of his home. I lived the closest. I heard the screams, and I didn’t buy his explanations. I knew better. I’d seen his like before. Reanna tried to run. Roan was about nine, and Reanna was pregnant again. I think maybe she refused to give him another child, or perhaps Roan was starting to grow up, starting to look more like a woman, and Reanna knew what that meant. She wrapped Roan up and plotted to leave Rhen. Had no idea where to go, or how she’d live. Reanna was a slave, the only one in Rhen at the time. Iver had bought her while at an auction in Dureya. Once she had been a Gula—a war trophy.”
Padera sucked on her lips a moment. “She was his property, and Iver could do what he wanted. Never crossed Reanna’s mind that anyone might help. If she had come to me, things would have turned out different, but she was scared, and I was the last person she would trust. Like I said, I lived the closest, and Iver was a clever man. He told Reanna I was a witch, and that I would just as likely eat her as help her.”
She gave Gifford a long accusing stare. “Iver caught up to them, and he beat Reanna to death while Roan watched. He took Roan on a trip and disposed of the body. When they got back, Iver told everyone Reanna had died in childbirth. They offered condolences, but he acted like he didn’t care because she had been just a slave. Folks thought he was in denial, that it was his way of dealing with grief. It wasn’t.”
Gifford leaned on the table trying to remain calm. She’s just trying to get into my head. “So you weally the witch?”
“The witch?”
“You know what I mean.” Gifford couldn’t bring himself to say the name—even though there were no R sounds in it—he couldn’t say it, not standing so close.
“You’re asking if I’m the Tetlin Witch?”
He nodded.
“What if I were? What would you do?”
He didn’t say anything. He honestly didn’t know.
“Would you call me out? Get the neighbors to tie me to some pile of last year’s firewood and burn me to death?”
He still didn’t say anything. He’d never liked Padera. She’d always been cruel to him while being kind to everyone else, which was worse than if she’d been mean to everyone. She once tried to explain it as some sort of twisted tough love that filled him with guilt over his mother’s death. He’d believed her, but now he didn’t know what to think. If she really was the witch, who knew what she was up to. Still, he didn’t want to kill her. He didn’t even want to hurt her. If he were honest with himself, which for Gifford was usually a very painful experience, he’d have to admit he respected the old woman. He couldn’t even find fault in her killing Iver. Had he known what was happening, Gifford would have tried to kill the woodcarver himself.
“That’s what they do to witches, you know.” Padera went back to cutting mushrooms.