Grayling watched him go, her heart suddenly sore. Soon the others would be leaving her also. She was at last free to see about her mother, but she could not imagine her days without them.
Stumbling and limping, the remaining travelers pushed through the woods, up hills and down, over ditches and fallen logs, until they came to a road. The walking was easier then, and the company had gone some ways when a small open carriage with a noble crest on the door came up behind them on the road. Desdemona Cork tossed her hair and twitched her shawls, and the carriage stopped.
“What about your cottage by the sea?” Grayling asked, grabbing Desdemona Cork’s arm. “Goat cheese and apples? Remember? You can stop enchanting and bake bread.” She untangled a leaf of wild celery that was stuck in the enchantress’s cloud of hair.
“I am what I am,” said Desdemona Cork. She flashed Grayling a smile of rare loveliness, and Grayling felt again the pull of the woman’s power.
Grayling unwrapped the gold and blue shawl from around her shoulders and handed it to Desdemona Cork.
“Nay, keep it,” said Desdemona Cork. “Think on me from time to time, wind in my hair, spinning by the sea. No matter that I will not be there.” She climbed into the carriage, which continued on its way, blowing a great dust storm up in its wake.
Those left behind coughed and rubbed their eyes. Auld Nancy, angry, lifted her broom. “We shall see how enchanting she be with rain in her face!”
Grayling took her hand. “Your rain, like your anger, Auld Nancy, will fall on all of us.”
Auld Nancy grumbled but put her broom down.
Two were gone now. Grayling would never smell sweet blossoms or feel soft sun on her face without thinking of Desdemona Cork.
They began again to walk, away from the sea, away from their adventures, toward home.
Pansy dawdled behind the rest and whined. “Sylvanus, I want to ride the mule. My feet are blistered and sore tired, and my head hurts.”
“If you hadn’t wearied yourself with devilment, you would not be tired out now,” Sylvanus called to her. Pansy opened her mouth to speak, but Sylvanus silenced her with a wave of his hand. “I will not burden him. Nostradamus has a far way to go to Nether Finchbeck.”
Pansy dragged and shuffled her feet but finally caught up with the others. “Tell me more of this place,” she said to Sylvanus.
“Nether Finchbeck?” His eyes unfocused, as if he were looking far into the distance and back into the past at the same. “Nether Finchbeck. A glorious institution of learning and spelling and necromancing, where mystery and manifestations of brilliance share the day with sheer befuddlement.”
“I long to be a powerful magician,” said Pansy. “Take me with you.”
“Nay, never,” said Sylvanus, shaking his head. “Or leastwise, not now. You have much to learn before you can be considered for Nether Finchbeck. You will go with Auld Nancy for the learning of it.”
“Nay,” said Pansy.
Sylvanus frowned at her. “’Twill be worth the effort, girl, to achieve mastery, and power, and a thoughtful nature. After all, ‘an empty head makes noise but no sense.’”
Pansy was silent, though her face was stormy.
The day was cold but sunny. Thin clouds made pictures in the sky and then passed on. Grayling and Auld Nancy now lagged behind the other two, for Auld Nancy’s weary bones slowed her down and Grayling was loath to leave the old woman’s side. Folks passed to and fro on the road, often gawking at the four bedraggled strangers with the mule, but none stopped to engage them. Had any of them been rooted to the ground and then set free? Grayling wondered. Or were the trees at the roadside more than they seemed?
Long past noon, they reached a crossroads. “We part ways here,” Sylvanus said. “I must make certain the evil has passed and all is as it was before.”
Pansy grabbed Sylvanus’s sleeve. “Take me with you! I have skills. You have seen them. Teach me to do great magic.”
Sylvanus pulled his arm away. “Nay, I said. I have seen your skills overcome by emotions you could not control. Your envy, greed, and anger burst forth in the power of the smoke and shadow, and you endangered us all. Auld Nancy has much to teach you.”
“I do not want to learn. I want to do!”
“And that is the primary reason you go with Auld Nancy.” Pansy’s face crumpled. “And, you,” Sylvanus said to Grayling, “you have proved yourself clever and brave.”
“Nay, I was most fearful, for I knew I had no magic to help me.”
Sylvanus whistled to his mule. “Only the very stupid do not fear danger,” he said. “And as for magic, the great wizard Gastronomus Bing of happy memory said true magic is like a sausage.”