“Willie Brady was like a father to us. A kinder man you’ll never meet,” Auntie adds.
“Come spring, we rolled into Pennsylvania. Or, rather, we bumped and bounced. The roads were terrible then, and only got worse with the thaw. The mud would swallow your shoes whole and never give them back. One day, that evil mud took hold of Brady’s favorite horse’s leg and snapped it like kindling. How he wept over that horse! The loss of her broke his heart, and he dwindled down to a bone and a hank of hair after that. On Midsummer’s Eve, he breathed his last. We buried him at twilight, at the edge of a field flashing with fireflies.”
Maren sighs and slips a bit further into the water, taking O’Neill’s hand with her. His sleeve wicks water up to his elbow, but he does not complain.
Scarff coughs into his handkerchief. “Yes, I miss the old fellow to this day. Lucky, he was. I am certain of that, for after he died, bad luck took hold of us without delay. Less than twenty miles from here it happened. And Verity has never been able to set foot off this mountain since.” He is overcome by a fit of coughing.
Auntie passes him a green bottle. “Time for your medicine, dear,” she says. “I will finish this story, if you please.”
Scarff nods in assent and gulps down the dark liquid.
“We came into Yardley Corner, a tiny town at the base of Llanfair Mountain. Not a trace of it remains today. The forest has reclaimed every inch of soil and stone. Well, in this town there lived a half-faerie woman, two hundred years old or more. She recognized me on sight as one of her kind, and she hated me for it. No matter that we were only passing through, only selling cough elixir and sewing needles and such. I discerned, by the atmosphere about her, that she possessed proficiency in the Dark Arts—potent black magic that Albruna had forbidden me to learn. This witch woman took it into her mind that I was her greatest enemy, trespassing on her territory. She was the healer on this mountain, she said, but if I wanted her place, I could have it. I wanted to settle there as much as I wanted to grow a third arm, and I told her so. She called me a liar and before I knew what was happening, she threw a powerful hex powder over me and Scarff, saying, ‘To this mountain you are bound, Verity Half-Fey, never to leave it till Death claims you. And from this mountain you are banned, Ezra Scarff, but for thirteen days a year, until the dark horse and raven return, and the three rubies of the gypsy king fall into your wife’s hand, and your last golden hair turns as silver as the moon.’ She thought she was being quite generous giving us thirteen days a year together, the hag.”
“Zedekiah and Pilsner,” I say. “The dark horse and raven. And you have the rubies, Auntie?”
She reaches into her pocket and brings forth a velvet box. “They’re here. The gypsy king himself gave them to Scarff. Said he’d been told to do so in a dream.”
“And Scarff’s winter fever turned his last golden hair silver,” O’Neill says. “How many years has it been since the hex bound you?”
Auntie caresses Scarff’s bearded cheek. “We lost count long ago. What does it matter? We are together now.”
“And I may come and go as I please,” Scarff says. “Not that I plan to leave my bride anytime soon. Indeed, I do believe I will choose to go only as far as bed.” He coughs again.
“Indeed,” Auntie says. “Come along now. You’ll find my bed a hundred times more comfortable than that lumpy old mattress you keep in the caravan.”
“Nonsense, woman,” Scarff grumbles. “That mattress was good enough for Willie Brady, and it’s good enough for me.” He laughs and coughs at the same time as Auntie wraps an arm about his shoulders and steers him toward her bedroom.
“Don’t stay up too late, dears,” Auntie calls back to us.
Of course, Maren is already asleep. Lately, she sleeps most of the day away, and all of the night. I miss her.
Quietly, with practiced ease, O’Neill and I refresh the tub’s water. And as I put another log on the fire, he unrolls his blankets along the far wall of the kitchen, as far away from Maren as he could get without going outdoors. Osbert scampers to his side and turns about three times before settling down with his barbed tail over O’Neill’s legs and his snout upon O’Neill’s chest.
“Good night,” O’Neill and I whisper.
I crawl into the bed Maren and I used to share. The chilly sheets make me shiver. It occurs to me that I am the only one sleeping alone, for Pilsner perches beside Maren, Auntie and Scarff are snuggled up in the next room, and O’Neill and Osbert are cuddling in the kitchen.
I wonder if I should ask Zedekiah to keep me company, but remember that O’Neill called the horse a blanket hog. And on such a frigid night, I’d rather keep my blankets.
CHAPTER TWELVE
It is two days after Easter. O’Neill grips the reins as the colorful caravan jostles down the hole-pocked road toward Llanfair Village. Every bump knocks my shoulder against his and causes my pencil to jump. “This list will be completely unreadable,” I say.
“Did you put down salt? We will need a lot of it to keep our mermaid happy on our travels.” O’Neill grips the reins more tightly as the caravan rolls over a series of potholes. “Easy, Job! Easy, January!” He shouts to be heard above the din of wind chimes and pots and pans colliding as they swing from their hooks beneath the eaves.
“Salt, yes. Do you think ten pounds is enough? Perhaps I should buy twenty. Or thirty.”
“And I promised Osbert a sack of licorice lozenges,” O’Neill says guiltily.
“Good heavens, O’Neill! That wyvern needs licorice like he needs another tail! It makes him giddy, you know. You’ll be forced to play fetch-the-stick with him for a full day and night after he gulps it down.”
“Spoken like a true wyvern’s mother.” His lopsided smile appears. I must remind myself that he is nothing more than my almost-brother, no matter how handsome he might be.
“This from the young man who snuggles up with the wyvern each night. Will you two be getting married this June, by any chance?”
He jabs his elbow into my arm. “If you were a boy, I’d fight you for such an insult.”
“To defend your beloved wyvern’s honor?”
“You have wounded me!” He clutches his chest. The horses mistake his tugging of the reins for a command, and they slow down. “Trot, my beauties,” he calls to them. “Now back to the list. It’s a long journey we’re in for—we must not forget anything. Let’s think on it.”
After a few minutes, I lose focus on the list and begin to worry. When I can contain my anxieties no longer, I ask, “How long will it take to reach the ocean?”
“Two or three weeks, depending on the roads and the weather.”