For a moment Noon looked confused by the question. ‘I eat when I remember.’
‘Good. Well, I foraged. You don’t grow up with the vine forest as your backyard and not learn something about what you can and can’t eat.’ Vintage pursed her lips. ‘Although it may be a while before I eat mushrooms again. Where is Esiah? He’s not here?’
‘We saw him as he came in the gate. He was worried, because there was a fire. He mentioned his son.’ Noon grimaced. ‘I don’t think he was in his right mind.’
Vintage sighed. ‘Poor man. He’s not been in his right mind for some time. You don’t need to know the endless details of my survival, Noon, my dear, save to say that it was unpleasant. I am more interested in what happened just before the Behemoth was blown into tiny bits. It was you, wasn’t it? The green that I saw – it was winnowfire?’
The girl looked stricken, then angry, then lost. She pushed her hair back from her forehead – the bat tattoo there looked dark against her ashen skin. ‘It was me. Again. I nearly killed you both. I –’ she gasped, visibly keeping her distress under control – ‘I took life energy from a parasite spirit.’
Vintage sat back, genuinely astonished. She put down her fork, and the clink of silver against the plate was very loud in the eerily quiet house. ‘Well. Goodness me.’
‘It was too much,’ said Noon. ‘It overwhelmed me. It was like filling a bucket from a river, but the river is running faster than you realise. Not only does it fill your bucket, but it also pulls it away from your hands, and it’s lost. I couldn’t control it.’ Noon looked up, and now her eyes were dry and her voice was flat. ‘It was too much for me, Vintage.’
And then, curiously, she gasped again, closing her eyes tight and bending over the table. Vintage stood up, ignoring the various aches and pains that clamoured for attention.
‘My dear! What is it?’
Noon shook her head, half laughing. ‘I don’t know, I don’t know what it is. Ever since the parasite spirit, everything has been slightly wrong. It doesn’t follow me to my dreams, I know that much, but it’s with me the rest of the time. The energy too – it’s still there, it just . . . waits.’ She looked down at her hands for a moment, and when she looked back up, her eyes were filled with a naked desperation. ‘Why am I like this? Why am I this cursed thing? With all your reading, Vintage, you must know why fell-witches exist!’
‘Oh my dear, I don’t know. No one does.’ Vintage sat back down, chasing a potato across the plate with her knife. She had washed and bound her wound as soon as she’d got back to the house, but it was still awkward to eat with one of her hands injured. ‘It’s not passed down from mother to daughter, we do know that much. The children with this ability appear to be randomly chosen. There is no aptitude, no pattern across families that can be traced. It is an unknowable magic. It shows itself in all peoples, all across Sarn. Save for Ebora.’ She paused. ‘I did read something once. Did you have your own gods, amongst your people?’
‘Yes. Gods of storms, the seasons. They were distant. They were just stories, really.’
‘I read of a people once who believed that the winnowfire was a blessing rather than a curse. That it was a gift from a goddess.’
‘A goddess?’ Noon had picked up her fork, but now she put it back down again. ‘Who were these people? What goddess?’
‘I don’t know, darling. All trace of that people are gone – hardly any writings about them exist. I suspect the Winnowry has rooted it all out and destroyed it. The idea of the winnowfire as a gift hardly fits with what they’re selling, does it? But I remember they called the goddess “She Who Laughs”.’
Noon shook her head. ‘That means nothing to me.’
‘No reason it should, my dear.’
For a time they were both quiet. Vintage concentrated on eating what was set in front of her, knowing that it was essential that she get her energy back. The girl was visibly struggling, her hands trembling, and not for the first time Vintage wondered about the terrible event in her past she was trying so hard to hide.
‘I am sorry,’ Noon said eventually. ‘For what I have done to you, and to Tormalin. I can’t control this, I’ve never been able to. I should never have left the Winnowry. It’s true, what they say we are.’
‘It is not true, and do not let me hear you say that ever again.’ Noon’s head snapped up, clearly startled by the venom in Vintage’s voice. ‘The Winnowry is a poison, a poison that has tainted all of Sarn, letting us think that certain women are inherently evil, through something that, as far as we know, is as natural as having freckles, or being left handed. It’s easier to put these women out of our sight, of course, than to force ourselves to think of ways that we can help. All of that potential, all of those lives, curtailed because of the ravings of a sea-addled man –’ Vintage took a sharp breath. ‘Noon, my dear, we would have all died in that wreckage if you hadn’t summoned your handy explosion, and that would have been my fault. I am always too willing to drag others into danger because of my own curiosity.’ She thought of Nanthema then, her quick grin and her laughter, before firmly pushing the memories aside; there would be time to examine her own guilt later. The girl was looking at her uncertainly, her eyes too bright. Vintage took another sip of apple juice.
‘Listen. There was an interesting case a while back. A boy was born in Finneral, who grew up to realise that, actually, he was not a boy, but a girl. This girl grew up wise, clever, able to see patterns in the movements of animals, warnings in the calls of birds, and the Finneral people venerated her. She became a “Stone Talker”, which is their term for a wise person, or a spiritual leader. And then, one day, her winnowfire manifested.’
Noon blinked. ‘She was a fell-witch?’
Vintage nodded. ‘The Winnowry came for her, but the Finneral would not give her up. Stone talkers are rare, and she was beloved of them. The dispute became violent, and the fell-witch was killed in the conflict. The Winnowry and the Finneral have had a very icy relationship since.’
‘That’s terrible!’
‘It is. But, you know, I have spoken to Finneral who insist that she is still alive. She was too wise, too canny, and she made them think she was dead so she could escape. They insist she still lives now, somewhere in Finneral, a secret advisor to their leaders.’ Vintage smiled. ‘I hope that’s true. But my point is, as you can see, that winnowfire isn’t something we’re even close to understanding. And there is so much potential, in all of you. Don’t be afraid of who you are.’