Filiz didn’t make it to the door. She heard the telltale buzzing, then Solon’s curse. The gossipwitches had let themselves in.
There were three of them today: one looked sixty, the next a hundred, the third no more than seventeen. They wore floor-length caftans of amethyst-colored orchid petals that rustled as they filed down Solon’s spiral staircase. Their lips and eyelids had been painted to match their gowns. Their ears were pierced from lobe to tip with stacks of the thinnest silver hoops. They went barefoot and had long, beautiful toes. Their tongues were subtly forked. A cloud of bees swarmed above each witch’s shoulders, continuously encircling their heads—the backs of which no one ever saw.
Two dozen gossipwitches lived in the mountains around Solon’s cave. They traveled in multiples of three. They always entered a room walking forward in single file, but for some reason, they left by flying backward. Each one possessed spellbinding beauty, but the youngest was exceptional. Her name was Esme, though only another gossipwitch was allowed to call a gossipwitch by name. She wore a gleaming crystal teardrop on a chain around her neck.
Esme smiled seductively. “I hope we haven’t interrupted anything important.”
Solon watched the candlelight playing off the young witch’s necklace. He was taller than most of the gossipwitches, but Esme had several inches on him. “I gave you three damselflies yesterday. That buys me at least a day without your persecution.”
The witches glanced at one another, sculpted eyebrows raised. Their bees swarmed in busy circles.
“We are not here presently to collect,” the oldest of them said. The lines on her face were mesmerizing, pretty, like a sand dune shaped by a strong wind.
“We bring news,” Esme said. “The girl will arrive shortly.”
“But it isn’t even raining—”
“How would a hermetic fart-hammer like you know?” the middle witch spat.
A spray of seawater shot out of the waterfall’s pool, drenching the Poet but glancing off of Solon’s Seedbearer skin.
“How long will it take you to prepare her?” Esme asked.
“I’ve never met the girl.” Solon shrugged. “Even if she’s not as stupid as I suspect, these things take time.”
“Solon.” Esme fingered the charm on her necklace. “We want to go home.”
“That’s crystal clear,” Solon said. “But the journey to the Sleeping World is not possible at this juncture.” He paused. “Do you know how many tears were shed?”
“We know that Atlas and the Filling are near.” Esme’s forked tongue hissed.
What was the Filling? Filiz saw Solon shudder.
“When we glazed your home, you promised to make it worth our while,” the oldest witch reminded Solon. “All these years we have kept you out of view from your family.…”
“And I pay you for that protection! Three damselflies only yesterday.”
Filiz had heard Solon grumble about being indebted to these beasts. He hated obliging their incessant requests for winged creatures from his butterfly hall. But he didn’t have a choice. The witches’ glaze rendered the air around Solon’s cave imperceptible to the senses. Without it, the other Seedbearers would detect his location on the wind. They would hunt down the brother who betrayed them by falling in love with a Tearline girl.
What did the witches do with the fluttering dragonflies and damselflies, the regal monarchs and occasional blue morpho butterflies that Solon bestowed on them in small glass jars? Judging from the gossipwitches’ hungry eyes when they snatched the jars and slipped them in the long pockets of their caftans, Filiz imagined it was something terrible.
“Solon.” Esme had a way of speaking that made it sound like she was both a galaxy away and inside Filiz’s brain. “We won’t wait forever.”
“Do you think these visits speed the process? Leave me to my work.”