Wicker Chronicles - 2

Chapter 2:

            “Nothing like this ever happens here,” I murmured to Wicker as I ran a wet rag over the countertop in the left corner of the shop, where a brew of his had suffered a minor explosion. He took his scalded hand out of the sink and dried it off. “It’s a small college town. I can’t imagine who did it.”

            “In light of the occasion, you shall take my list of groceries and retrieve what I need this morning,” he declared, glaring passively at me over his shoulder. “Perhaps you will be next, if I am lucky.”

            He shoved a small sheet of paper into my hands and ran his fingers through his dark brown hair as he wandered up the few steps onto the raised foundation, where the hearth was.

            “You didn’t put burn remedy on here,” I said, examining the list. He shot me a scalding look from the hearth and stormed upstairs. I shrugged and figured I would drop by Witch Melanie’s anyway.

            I pulled my coat on and waited by the door for him to return with a pouch of cupres. When he did, he dropped it into my hand with a scowl and hurried away to the lower foundation to my right to start the brew again. I stuffed the pouch in my pocket.

            Before I left, I dared to ask, “Will we close early today? I have a few things I need to do.”

            “Since you asked,” he grumbled, “no.”

            I rolled my eyes, grabbed the basket by the door, and let myself out. All in all, it wasn’t a huge loss. I had all week to find some time to drop by the University and dare to ask for Mr. Oxford. I headed toward Witch Melanie’s first, to talk to her about the news. I wasn’t surprised to find that the streets outside were fairly empty, and, considering the time of day, dead markets were an oddity. The few folks who did wander by me walked swiftly and kept a hawk’s eye on me until they passed. Unnerved, I hurried along toward the familiar, crooked shop windows of Witch Melanie’s.

            That was where I found everyone. Standing outside the windows, I could see hoards of people storming the counter, and I could just barely glimpse Witch Melanie behind them, her face red as she screamed in retaliation. Eager to see what the problem was, I threw open the door and pushed myself inside among the mass of bodies and the blaring noise of furious voices. Their shoulders were locked together like a jigsaw puzzle and I couldn’t seem to shove through them while standing. I dropped my basket by the door and got down on all-fours to crawl through them. Though I tried to avoid being stepped on, a few boots inevitably landed on my hands and recoiled. Before I reached the counter, most were aware of my presence and had started to move out of my way.

            I scrambled to my feet and pushed myself the rest of the way through with the tiny allowances of space. But the front line, the most irate line, seemed impassable. I stretched my hand out over them and jumped, catching a hint of Melanie’s voice over the rest, but I couldn’t make out what she was screaming about. I jumped again, reaching both of my hands toward the ceiling.

            “Mel!” I hollered, trying to reach a pitch that stood out over the booming voices of the entire room. “Melanie!”

            My voice was too low, I thought. I couldn’t seem to stand out over the rest. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to try crawling under again and risk being crushed by stamping work treads. I tried jumping again, and a hand caught mine mid-leap. The guys in front of me jerked aside and Melanie’s face came through. She dragged me over the counter and dropped me on the floor behind it. As I peeled myself off of the hardwood flooring, she reached underneath the desk for a red jar, grabbed it…but quickly put it back again. She straightened then, rubbed her hands together, and clamped her fingers down over the edge of the counter.

            “My answer is NO!” she screamed, and her voice resonated like the command of a God. Suddenly, the room seemed to be pulling against me. The walls shuddered and rippled visibly, and I found myself being dragged toward the counter. My head came under dizzying pressure, as though my brain had been splattered onto the front half of my skull. To my mind I supposed it lasted longer than it actually did. In a mere few seconds, the invisible arms yanking me forward released and I jerked backward. Though I should have gotten up—and though I wanted to—I sat baffled while my equilibrium tried to reorient itself. I wanted to put my head in ice water to solidify my brain…because it still felt as though it had been liquefied. My ears rang and my eyes tended to want to cross.

            Then, a snap next to my head righted everything. The pressure released and it was as though it hadn’t happened. Melanie grabbed my arm and helped to pull me to my feet. I brushed her off once I was up and took notice of the room, which was now remarkably empty…and blissfully quiet.

            “What did you do?” I murmured, baffled. Even the street outside of the shop windows was empty. I wondered where she'd put everyone. I even, for a split second of stupidity, considered searching for them under the rug by the door.

            She heaved a sigh and brushed off her teal dress. “I sent them home.”

            “Not violently, I hope,” I grumbled.

            “No, no,” she said. “It was strong magic, but there aren’t any side-effects. It was the shockwave that tweaked your head a bit, hun.”

            “What were they so mad about?” I asked harmlessly, watching as she disappeared into the back room.

            “They asked me to bring the girl back from the dead and I said no,” she answered. Her voice became more distant with every word. I leaned back against the counter and waited for her. Once she returned with three bottles in-hand, I bothered to express my shock.

            “You can do that?” I gawked. She wrinkled her nose.

            “Of course I can. I’m no half-assed witch,” she snorted, uncorking one bottle. She took a deep swig out of it, forced it down, and re-corked the bottle. “Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. You of all people know that.”

            “I suppose,” I murmured. “But she was my age. She was a kid.”

            She took a swig out of the green bottle of the three and wheezed out purple exhaust when it was down. She jammed the cork back in and glared at me. “Do you know what happens when you bring someone back?”

            “I’m not a witch,” I scoffed defensively.

            “They’re empty,” she answered for me. “When people die, they become blank slates. If you bring them back, their slate’s not re-written. They don’t know anybody, they don’t know themselves, they can’t speak…it’s like they’re infants, but they’re suspended that way.”

            “Suspended?” I asked.

            “Infants learn and become people with written histories. If you’re brought back you’ve already had that chance, and you only ever get one chance. They have short-term memories and short-term knowledge. Families think they can reeducate them and reintegrate them, but almost the very second the dead one learns a name or a face they forget it. They can’t retain anything, and it tears the family apart. Usually they wind up putting the dead one out of their misery themselves.” She uncorked the third bottle and inhaled something from it. As she re-corked it she shook her head quickly and pinched her nose. “That’s what I was trying to tell them. They wouldn’t listen.”

            I drew back and made a face. “Half the town was in here, it seemed like. That’s terrible for business.”

            She shrugged. “I can always move elsewhere. But I’m hoping it’ll blow over when they come to their senses.”

            “Why don’t you just do it and let them learn their lesson?” I said reasonably. It was really the only way that they would see how right Melanie was. “Donate the magic and stay out of it.”

            “Wicker’s rubbing off on you,” she sighed pitifully, passing her fingers through my hair. Her nails were painted green today, as I noticed when she patted the side of my face and planted a kiss on my cheek. I’d grown accustomed to letting her do that.

            “He’s not affecting my judgment,” I dismissed. “I’m just saying.”

            She leaned forward on the counter. “Isn’t that what he does, though? Issues magic and stays out of the repercussions?” I tossed my head from side to side and decided she was right. “I’m not like that. I care too much, I think. That and I’m afraid, because I know they’ll blame the outcome on me even though I told them how it would pan out.”

            “They blame Wicker all the time, but they never act on it,” I reminded her. “They’re afraid he’ll curse them himself.”

            She laugh-snorted. “Well, that’s true. But I fear that people are less afraid of me because I haven’t put up a front until now.”

            “Aren’t you afraid of what they’ll do now that you’ve refused?”

            “I’m hoping that my burst of magic will make them wary, at least. Ward them away. Anyway, what did you come in for?”

            As she asked, Milo drifted down from the ceiling to join us. I held back on a reply to greet him.

            “Milo,” Melanie whined, sinking down to the floor as she prolonged the last letter of his name. “They were bullying me, Milo. You didn’t come down.”

            “You told me to stay upstairs,” he whimpered, fading halfway into the floor to come to her level. “I didn’t want to risk a large crowd.”

            “Oh, but I didn’t mean it,” she sniffled. Every syllable got longer and longer. “They were bullying me so badly, I could hardly stand it. What brutes live in this town. What brutes. I ought to move. I ought to move and never come back.”

            “Drama,” I grumbled as Milo fumbled over his mistress, who was slowly melting into the floor. “I came by for burn remedy.”

            Melanie straightened up. “How bad?”

            “He just burned a few fingers,” I replied. “The cash counter suffered worse damage.”

            He pushed herself up. “I keep waiting for the day when he burns his face, so I can make him get down on his knees and beg me to save his sorry, beautiful ass.”

            She made for the back room but doubled back and threw her hands over my face. “Don’t listen to my horrible language! Don’t filthy your mouth like I have! Oh!”

            I batted her away. “I’m thirteen. I’ve heard worse. But I believe in the theory that intelligence is a more powerful tool than the common curse.”

            She pointed at me and squinted. “Good, good. I’m holding you to that.” When she disappeared into the back room, I dared to ask Milo what was in the three bottles she brought out.

            He shrugged and ascended from the floor to his average height. “For migraines, maybe.”

            “She’s drunk,” I concluded.

            “Probably,” he agreed.

            After a few tries, Melanie came back with a jar labeled for burn remedy. I paid her and bid them both goodbye so I could breeze through the rest of my shopping and get back before Wicker became suspicious. Before I left, as I grabbed my basket and put the jar in it, she warned me of the murderer in town as though she knew who it was, but I shrugged it off because she was more or less incoherent anyway.

            I wasn’t afraid of Chesterspring. Anyone could have killed the girl, true, but no one had any idea of the murder weapon or the cause of death. A hasty kill would have employed a hasty weapon, I thought.

            I finished as much of my shopping as possible—due to some of the markets being closed—and hurried back to avoid having Wicker on my case. When I pushed my way through the front door and meandered up the steps, he didn’t call after me. I placed the basket on the safe side of the hearth and he wandered up to it as I lit the powder and put the kettle over it. The burn remedy was his first choice, and after he put a cigarette in between his teeth and lit it.

            “They swarmed Melanie’s,” I informed him. “About the dead girl.”

            “Did they, now?” he laughed, blowing smoke from his nose. “It was only a matter of time.”

            He coughed the tail end of his exhale out. I leaned forward on the hearth’s edge. “She was talking about leaving, but she was drunk.”

            He made a noise of approval. “So she has brought out the witch’s spirits, then. I ought to visit tonight and join the celebration.”

            “She’s not drinking to celebrate.”

            “Ah, but I will be.”

            I swung my head to the side and glowered at him. “Wouldn’t you care at all if she were to leave?”

            He shrugged. “I would have to purchase my supplies from Goldbay, that is all. No incredible loss. By the way, since you were not killed, you have accounts to tally.”

            Begrudgingly, I sat behind the cash counter on the lower foundation and ran through his sales records column by column, transferring totals into his archive profit book. I counted the money in the lockbox beneath the counter and added that to last week’s totals. And, when the few random people in town who were unaffected by the recent news dropped by and explained their devious desires to Wicker, I kept an eye on them while he was upstairs searching through his library for the right curse.

            The first to pass through was the woman who ran the fishery—for some reason I couldn’t think of her name. When she nervously greeted me, I reciprocated vaguely and we both tapped our feet in awkward silence. Wicker had to assure her that I was under a code of honor—which I was, as ironic as it sounded—not to tell anyone about who visited the shop and bought curses. Two hours or so after she left, as I was frying ham and potato chunks for late lunch, an unfamiliar customer stumbled in as if he’d happened upon us by mistake. I hardly listened while he talked to Wicker, but when Wicker departed to his upstairs library the stranger took up less of an awkward conversation with me.

            “So…I did not know the famed curse-maker had any help,” he half-laughed, his voice rather high and mildly charismatic. I smiled briefly over my shoulder and pulled the pan off of the fire so I could extinguish the flames. He watched in fascination for a minute and added, “Smells great. No wonder he hired you.”

            “I’m just an apprentice,” I told him flatly, turning to face him for the first time. He was young—only eighteen, perhaps—and considering the fact that I wasn’t familiar with his face, I assumed he must have been attending the college. He dressed like a gentleman of high class. I was surprised to find him here.

            “Ah! Apprenticing curse-making,” he pondered aloud. “An interesting craft indeed.”

            “Are you at the college?” I asked outright.

            “Is it so obvious?” he laughed sheepishly.

            I shrugged. “You forget that this is a small town. You’re not from Chesterspring, I assume.”

            “You’re so well spoken for one so young,” he said. “So intuitive. No, I’m from Mirelore, just beyond Goldbay. But I received word that the programs here were exceptional, and I wasn’t led astray.”

             “I know of Mirelore,” I snorted jovially.

            “Do you? Have you been?” he chirped.

            “No. I know of Mirelore from maps,” I laughed.

            He laughed with me, but we both quieted as Wicker returned. He handed a thick, red bottle to the collegian and explained how to use it.

            “Use it any other way and it will not work,” Wicker finished. He nodded toward me. “My apprentice will handle your payment at the desk behind you.”

            Wicker abandoned responsibility, so I waved the collegian on. He descended the few steps down with me and handed me the 290 cupers owed for the curse without hesitation. Once I put the money away in the lockbox, I placed a signature parchment on the desk before him and loaned him my feather pen.

            My programmed explanation came like clockwork. “By signing here and here, you accept all possible outcomes and consequences of using curses. We take no responsibility and will not answer to the victims if you are discovered as the curse master. Understood?”

            He nodded eagerly and scribbled on the paper. I retracted it as soon as he’d finished and placed it on the desk to be filed later. I bowed, and he reciprocated.

            “It’s actually not for me,” he whispered. Wicker had wandered out to fetch materials, so I wasn’t sure why he was keeping his voice low. “I bought it on a dare. Couldn’t duck out, you know.”

            “Not to worry, sir, I am under oath not to reveal any names of those who have passed by here,” I told him formally. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

            “Ah, yes,” he said, clearing his throat. “Very good. Well…”

            “Good day,” I finished for him, prompting him to leave. He bowed again and departed almost hesitantly. I sat down for a minute to heave the files of agreements up onto the desk. I half-glanced at the paper just to see what the last name started with, and promptly flipped to the “O” file. I then micromanaged a bit and glanced at the letter of the first name in order to alphabetize it doubly. It belonged under “P”.

            And I put the file back and finished putting lunch out on plates. As soon as I did, Wicker ran down the stairs and joined me in a chair in front of the hearth instead of indulging at the table which was so elegantly placed and polished down at the left-side lower foundation. As I watched Wicker stab his egg yolk so it would bleed, the initials P.O. circled into my consciousness and slammed into me like a brick.

            “Peter Oxford!” I wailed, throwing my plate down on the hearth so hard that it nearly chipped. I tripped over myself as I made a beeline for the door and exploded out of it. For some reason, I almost expected him to still be here somewhere, or I expected to see him walking up the hill in the distance. But the streets were clear, and I wandered back in kicking myself for not coming to the conclusion sooner.

            Wicker stared at me irritably as I returned to the hearth to retrieve my dishes and take them to the sink by the table. “You stupid, hopeless lot,” he sighed to himself, placing his plate on the hearth. “Whatever will become of you?”

            For a moment it bothered me, and I griped, “Maybe I wouldn’t be so useless to you if you actually taught me how to craft curses.”

            “What a splendid idea that would be,” he laughed, “if only you had a spine thick enough to do it.”

            I clenched my jaw, but just as easily I let it go. It was a slip of the tongue. I didn’t really want to learn curses. According to Melanie, I was already thinking too much like Wicker. I was glad he dismissed the thought.

            The next morning, he roused me earlier than I needed to be awake, still clad in robes and slippers, and threw a tome-like book down on my feet. I curled up immediately and jolted into a sit, glaring down at the dusty, worn offender of my sound sleep.

            “You must read this before you try anything,” he grumbled groggily. “Elsewise you may kill yourself.”

            “Try…?” I garbled, still recovering from sleep. “Try what?”

            “Do not give me more reservations than I have,” he murmured before he left the attic. I leaned forward and discovered that a text of curse basics lay on my bed, growling at me like a devilish beast with horrible expectations.

            “Oh…what have I done?” I moaned, and flopped back into bed.