“Pansy, child,” Auld Nancy asked, “what have you been playing at?”
Pansy backed away. Her face was ashen, but her cheeks flamed. “I am not a child, and I am not playing!” she shouted. “I have more power than you thought I did. I played the fool and you laughed at me, but I have surprised you, have I not? You did not know I had such skills. My mother did not know. But harken to me: I took your grimoires and rooted your cunning folk. I placed a glamour spell on this boy to guard the grimoires. You never suspected me, but I did it. Me!” She put her hands on her hips and smirked in triumph.
There was such silence that Grayling could hear her heart beating and the anxious twitching of Desdemona Cork’s skirts. Her belly grew hot with anger.
Finally Auld Nancy darted forward and grabbed Pansy’s arm. “Why, Pansy? Why have you done this?”
“I wanted to know what you others know, so I took the grimoires to learn. And I planted the cunning folk.” She shrugged. “I did not want to kill them, but prevent them following me.”
Auld Nancy scowled and said, “Spiteful, careless girl. You do not deserve the power you have.”
“My power, I found, has limits.” Pansy shook her head. “I conjured the force that comes as smoke and shadow, but it has grown ever more powerful, larger and fiercer and harder to control. I did not know what it would do next, or to whom, and feared I might be in danger. You seemed to have a plan, so I struggled to keep the force away, although it wearied and sickened me. I wanted you to succeed so I would be safe.”
“Why was I spared? And Sylvanus and Desdemona Cork?” Auld Nancy asked.
“You? All of you with no grimoires, no real magic, and little power? I did not bother with you, thinking you no threat.”
Sylvanus spluttered again, but Auld Nancy waved him silent. “Where did you learn such spells? Your mother never taught you to be so selfish and careless,” she said.
“How soon,” asked Grayling, her voice tight with fury, “can you undo the damage you have caused?”
“And,” added Phinaeus, “retrieve my horse and wagon?”
They all looked at Pansy, who shook her head. “I can do nothing. ’Tis grown too strong, overwhelming my spells, taking the grimoires and guarding them fiercely. ’Tis a mighty force now, and I am empty and drained and so tired.” She took a long, shuddering breath, and her lips trembled. “We may all be planted ere long.”
Sylvanus scowled at her. “You forgot the third rule of magic: Do no magic you cannot undo.”
Auld Nancy grabbed Pansy by an ear. “Stupid, greedy, malicious girl! I will shake you until your bones turn to butter!” She shook the girl roughly. “Then I shall send you back to your mother and tell her what you have done.” Another shake. “That you are thoughtless and dangerous and a disgrace to your family.” And another. “That you should be sent to be dung heap tender or assistant pig keeper.”
“Huzzah!” Sylvanus broke in with a shout. “Huzzah! I have but now realized—the cheese was not useless. The lump of cheese pointed to this lump of a girl. I just did not understand. Yes, yes, I knew it! ’Tis a true soothsaying cheese!” His face fell into disappointed folds. “But now we have eaten it, and it is gone! Alas, alas. True soothsaying cheese, and we have eaten it!”
As Grayling watched and listened, the heat of anger rose from her belly to her face. Her hands itched to thump Pansy until she bellowed. Certain that thumping Pansy would not help, for they might yet need her goodwill, Grayling closed her eyes and breathed deeply, soothing herself with thoughts of moonlight, lavender wands, and sorrel soup with dumplings.
From somewhere behind them came an unearthly sound, a sound between a bellow and a bawl, a sound of menace and pain and despair. Grayling held her breath, prepared to face another snake.
Sylvanus shouted, “Nostradamus!” and ran toward the sound. What was that magic word he shouted? she wondered. And why hadn’t he tried it on the serpent?
A rustling in the trees startled her, and she turned to see. The branches parted, and there was Sylvanus and . . . his mule!
“Nostradamus did not run far,” said Sylvanus, beaming at the mule, “and now he is with us again.”
Only his mule! Grayling shook her head to clear it. The snake, the smoke and shadow, Pansy’s confession—they had left her most jittery.
Now that the clearing was serpent free, Grayling gathered wood, and Sylvanus built a fire; Desdemona Cork sat beside Auld Nancy and gently rubbed the old woman’s aching knees; Phinaeus Moon studied them all in bemusement. Pansy came to sit among them, but the others turned their backs, and she slunk off to sulk alone.