chapter FIVE
ALMA
Schwanstein’s gaslit streets had not seen a practising Witch for years. Witches were part of the past, and the people of Schwanstein believed in the future. Instead of relying on magic and bitter herbs, they preferred the doctors who had moved there from Vena. It was only when modern medicine failed them that they found their way to the village on the eastern side of the castle hill.
Alma Spitzweg’s house stood right next to the cemetery, even though her craft usually kept her patients out of it before it was their time. Officially, she ran a normal medical practice. Alma could splint a broken limb like any doctor from the big city. At times she even prescribed the same pills, but Alma also tended to cows and Heinzel with the same diligence she applied to her human patients; her clothes changed colour with the weather; and her pupils were as slender as the pupils in her cat’s eyes.
Alma’s practice was still closed when Jacob knocked on the back door. It was a while before she opened it. She’d obviously had an exhausting night, yet her face brightened immediately at the sight of him. On that early morning, she looked exactly as Jacob would have imagined a Witch would look like when he was a child, but he’d seen Alma with many different faces and in many different bodies.
‘I could have done with your help last night,’ she said. Her cat was purring a welcome at Jacob’s feet. ‘The Stilt from up by the ruins tried to steal a child. Can’t you get rid of him?’
The Stilt. The first creature he’d encountered behind the mirror. Jacob hands still bore the scars from its yellow teeth. He’d tried to catch it more than a dozen times, but Stilts were cunning, and masters at playing hide-and-seek.
‘I’ll try again. I promise.’ Jacob picked up the purring cat and followed Alma into the plain room where she practised both the old and the new kinds of medicine. As he took off his coat, she noticed the black blood on his shirt and shook her head wearily.
‘And what is this now?’ she asked. ‘Couldn’t you just once come here with a cold or an upset stomach? Will I regret to my dying day that I didn’t stop you from apprenticing with that Albert Chanute?’
Alma had never liked the old treasure hunter. Too many times had she given shelter to Jacob after Chanute had beaten him. And like all Witches, she didn’t like treasure hunting. Jacob had first met her by the ruins. Alma swore by the herbs that grew there. ‘Cursed? Half the world is cursed,’ she had said when asked about the stories that surrounded the ruins. ‘And curses wear off faster than a bad smell. All that’s up there are burnt stones.’
She’d never asked what a twelve-year-old boy was doing all alone among the walls of a burnt-down castle. Alma never asked such questions, maybe, because she already knew the answers. She had taken Jacob home with her, given him clothes that wouldn’t attract curious stares, and warned him about Thumblings and Gold-Ravens. During his first years behind the mirror, he could always count on her for a warm meal or a place to sleep. Alma had patched him up after he’d first been bitten by a wolf; she’d put a splint on his arm after he’d tried to ride a hexed horse. And she’d instructed him on which of her world’s creatures were best given a wide berth.
She dabbed some of the black blood off his skin and sniffed it. ‘Northern Djinn blood.’ She looked at him, worried. ‘What do you need that for?’
She put her hand on his chest. Then she opened his shirt and ran her fingers over the imprint of the moth.
‘Fool!’ She punched her bony fist into his chest. ‘You went back to the Fairy. Didn’t I tell you to stay away from her?’
‘I needed her help.’
‘And? Why didn’t you come to me?’ She opened the cupboard where she kept the instruments for the less modern part of her practice.
‘It was a Fairy’s curse! You couldn’t have done anything.’ Fairy magic was beyond the power of any Witch. ‘It was for my brother,’ he added.
‘And your brother’s worth sacrificing your own life for?’
‘Yes.’
Alma looked at him silently. Then she took a knife from the cupboard and cut a strand of Jacob’s hair. The hair caught fire as soon as she rubbed it between her fingers. Witches could set fire to almost anything with their touch.
Alma looked at the ash on her fingertips – then she looked at Jacob. Her fingers were white as snow. She didn’t have to explain what that meant. He’d cleansed himself of a curse before. Back then, the ash on Alma’s fingers had been black.
The Djinn’s blood had done nothing.
He buttoned up his shirt again. You’re a dead man, Jacob.
Had the Red Fairy been watching him all these months, as he’d found hope after hope dashed? Was she watching him right now? The Fairies had many ways to see what they wanted to see. She’d probably been waiting for his death ever since she whispered her sister’s name to him. No, Jacob. Ever since you left her.
‘How much longer?’ he asked.
The pity in Alma’s eyes was worse than her anger. ‘Two, three months, maybe less. How did she curse you?’
‘She got me to say her dark sister’s name.’
Alma’s cat was brushing against his legs as though she were trying to console him. One never would have guessed that she could become quite vicious to visitors she didn’t like.
‘I thought you knew more about Fairies than I. Did you forget how big a secret they make of their names?’ Alma went to her apothecary cabinet. Its drawers were filled with every remedy the Mirrorworld had to offer.
‘I said the Red One’s name countless times.’
‘And? Many things are different with the Dark One.’ Alma picked a root from one of the drawers. It looked like a pale spider with its legs drawn under its body. ‘She’s more powerful than the others, but, unlike them, she doesn’t live under the protective spell of their island. That makes her vulnerable. She cannot allow anyone to know her name. She probably hasn’t even told it to her lover.’ She ground up the root in a pestle and poured the powder into a pouch. ‘How long have you been carrying that moth on your chest?’
Jacob pushed his hand under his shirt. He could barely feel the imprint. ‘The Red first saved my life with it.’
Alma’s smile was full of bitterness. ‘She saved you only so she could give you the death she had planned for you. Fairies love playing with life and death . . . and I’m sure her revenge will be all the sweeter for having made her mighty sister her unwitting accomplice.’ Alma offered Jacob the pouch with the powder. ‘Here. This is all I can do. Take a pinch of this whenever the pain comes. And it will come.’
She filled a bowl with the cold water from the well behind her house so Jacob could wash off the Djinn’s blood before it burnt into his skin. The water soon turned as grey as the spirit.
On Jacob’s last birthday, he’d filled a sheet of paper with a list of the treasures he still wanted to find. He’d turned Twenty-five. You’ll never get any older, Jacob.
Twenty-five.
The towel Alma handed him smelled of mint. He didn’t want to die. He loved his life. He didn’t want a different one, just more of this.
‘Can you tell me how it will happen?’
Alma pushed open the window to pour out the water. It was getting light. ‘The Dark One will use her sister’s seal to reclaim her name. The moth on your heart will come alive. It won’t be pleasant. Once it tears free from your skin and flies off, you will be dead. You may have a few more minutes, maybe an hour . . . but there can be no salvation.’ She quickly turned away. Alma hated for others to see her cry. ‘Jacob, I wish there was something I could do,’ she added quietly, ‘but the Fairies are more powerful than I. It comes with their immortality.’
The cat looked at him. Jacob stroked her black fur. Nine lives. He always believed he’d have at least that many.