Page 85 of A Sorceress Comes to Call
It took all their strength, and Cordelia darting in to pull a rope taut, but the familiar was well and truly bound. A rope ran from his hind leg to his neck. “Aye, that’s right,” rasped Old Bernard, slumped against the wall, while Hester pressed a cloth to his head. “Kick too hard and you’ll break your neck, you bastard.” He rolled his head slightly to look at Evermore. “Shouldn’t have doubted you, lad. Whatever that thing is, it’s only pretending to be a horse.”
“And we aim to stop it,” said Evermore. He straightened. Sweat dripped off his face despite the cool night air. “Bernard, I want the doctor to be sent for and you in a bed at once. Ladies… Tom… shall we?”
Falada’s lips writhed as Cordelia stepped up to face him. The old man’s blood had stained his pale lips. She wound her hands into his mane and leaned in close to him, just as she had a thousand times, ready to whisper her secrets and her frustrations into his ear.
“This is for telling my mother everything, you bastard,” she whispered.
It seemed to take an hour for Willard to draw the circle, and then to draw the triangles to hold each of the participants. Falada’s lip curled in clear contempt as he watched. Even in the terrible solemnity of the moment, she felt a flash of amusement as Lord Evermore took the wine bottle and then patted helplessly at his pockets.
“Allow me,” said Willard, ever proper, taking out a corkscrew. “And would my lord care to sniff the cork?”
Imogene and Hester barked with laughter. Cordelia recognized the slightly hysterical note and didn’t dare start laughing herself.
When Willard finally closed the last triangle, he stepped back. “It is done,” he said solemnly.
A goose made a very unmagical honking sound and pale shapes waddled out of the gloom. Cordelia laughed then, a hard, hacking sound, and bent her head.
“Will they break the circle?” asked Imogene warily.
“No,” said Hester. “Look. They know what they’re doing.”
And indeed, the geese had stopped a few yards away, their necks tall, watching. “They’re guarding us,” said Hester. “That’s what the sentinels do when the rest of the flock is feeding.”
“I’m glad they’re on our side, then,” said Evermore. “What now?”
“Now each of us must focus on our reagents,” said Imogene. It was too dark to read now, but she clutched the book anyway. The chalk was bright against the darkness of the stableyard, but not so bright as Falada. “And Cordelia recites the words.”
“For how long?” asked Hester.
“For as long as it takes.”
The words were easy. There were not many, and she had read them so many times that they were practically engraved on the backs of her eyelids. She took a deep breath and recited:
By my knowledge and my will
By water, wine, and salt
In the name of Hermes Trismegistus
Let gold return to base metal
Let all that glitters fade away.
Her voice sounded thin and feeble against the darkness, and against the terrible light in Falada’s eyes. Surely it was the depth of foolishness to think that mere words and the contents of a pantry could affect something like Falada. Surely this was merely playacting and the chalk outlines were the scribblings of some failed alchemist reduced to writing books instead of turning lead into gold.
Then Hester took a sip of water and the world changed.
Cordelia understood immediately what Penelope had meant. It did not ring, but there was no other word for what happened, for the way the air suddenly pulsed like a plucked string, for something that wasn’t exactly a sound or a glow or a wash of heat to flow outward, one note that rang on and on, growing louder instead of softer. It rang over her, ignoring the chalk outlines as if they were nothing, pouring out of Hester like a waterfall.
Falada shrieked as the water-note struck him, throwing his head back until it lashed his flanks, no longer even pretending to be a horse. Cordelia realized that she had stopped breathing, which meant she had stopped chanting, and she started again immediately, “By my knowledge and my will…”
Imogene was next. The salt-note washed out from her and joined the water-note, the two forming a harmony that was stronger than either. Cordelia could feel Imogene and Hester in the harmony, as if she was inside the older women’s hearts. She saw Hester’s terrible fear of losing herself, whether to love or dependence, and it flowed like water. She tasted Imogene’s darkness, the absolute ruthlessness that she kept under lock and key and only allowed to emerge when playing cards, and it tasted like salt on Cordelia’s tongue.
If Falada had been a real horse, his anguish would have cut her to the core. The wooden post creaked as he flung his weight against it, twisting violently. It felt like mercy that his movements were so unnatural. She did not need to pity this pale, lashing thing that seemed to have no bones.
“By water, wine, and salt,” she gasped, and waited for the wine-note to join the song.
Lord Evermore lowered the bottle, lips stained red… and nothing happened.
