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CHAPTER FOUR
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NOTHING COMPARED TO A FLIGHT UP THE CLOUD TOWERS. Keziah thought to herself.
It had turned into a perfect Mendac day as she joined the flock about two-thousand brooms above the forest. The four witches drifted in a two-line formation, bouncing on the warm air drafts as they gained speed. The forest was a shrinking speck of springtime green trees with heads like broccoli and sectioned off like puzzle pieces with hundreds of small streams cutting through the growth. She whipped her sight away from the ground, gripping the cloudslicer’s roughened handle and bending down. Keziah’s dark brown hat reared back, the leathery end flapping like a flag during a storm of cyclones. A set of goggles made of tiny twisting vines and hardening amber crawled around her head, pushing through the back brim. She crammed the thoughts of the grisly afternoon behind her and embraced the greatest freedom a grunt could ever hope for.
The sky was populated by dozens of hill-sized sheep-shaped clouds against a light blue sky, perfect for spotting the twinkling seed trail that bobbed on the currents of air in bright reds and indigo. Right above the flock hung a layer of dense fog, the seed trail going through like a chain being pulled by some giant on the other side. That was where they were headed as well. This was where the world felt right, Keziah thought. The perfect meshing of all the wonder of magic slipping through the clouds, the wind, tiny bits of soil or pollen, all in harmony. It was quiet the higher you went. The wind got thinner and settled. She didn’t have to yell to the flock or hold onto her broom. Brooms had a knack for being almost unnerving, never making a sound no matter how fast you went. Zipping about and following most of your commands like a silent dog shaped like a stick. Like the middle layer between average clouds and the upper layers she and the other were breezing through, brooms radiated that wonderful false sense of calm. That was nature. But that didn’t mean nature wasn’t terrifying.
The flock approached the seed trail’s newly formed cloud tunnel, drifting inside as the trail dissipated. If one watched close, the quick speck of a red and yellow vine of fungal muscle could be seen writhing from within the chunky ceiling of mist. Somewhere deep inside was a massive agent of the Root, swirling around the layers that began to billow upwards, forming a column. The inner creature was first heard through its breathing out hot vapors that kept the other clouds high in the sky to mask the tower’s purpose. Beyond the chiming seed trails and the flapping of her hat, Keziah could hear the distinct rips and tears of a cloud tower accepting entry—just beyond a wispy white valley that opened up from the mist layer, the flock soaring so close to the vaporous outlines they could drink them, the cloud tower revealed itself.
The bulbous tan yellow column, big as a mountain in the Valley and shaped like a grotesque deer horn, welcomed the flying brood with a trumpetous bellow only for witch ears. It tickled the skull in that dangerous kind of way—itching a scratch in your head that made you feel like your eyeballs are going to pop out. The flock’s middle members, two dark-haired drones of Daire who never left her side like two festering blisters, let out howls of celebration followed by woodpecker-like clicks of the tongue. Keziah didn’t bat an eye. They weren’t doing it for their own amusement—the creature inside the cloud tower demanded a greeting in its native tongue.
This was Keziah’s seventh or eighth cloud tower and she could never get a good look at the creature itself. In all her years, these orange, and sometimes bright red, animals had never been properly named. They were around the size of the watchtowers in the Hollow, hundreds of brooms long with dozens of thick tendrils that looked like rotten seaweed wrapped inside some kind of avian animal, beak and all. She hated to say it, but gigantic wingless bird with tentacles was the best she could come up with.
The dark blue-streaked flock soared well over four-thousand brooms high, the broom began to shudder and Keziah lurched down further, nearly vertical as the back of the cloudslicer began spitting out purple and red flashes of liquid fire. The circular vines that formed the goggles strapped to her head sprouted two bright green strings that snuck their way into her nostrils. She gave a firm cough and the vines were sucked down into her throat. She took a big gasp of air through her nose, breathing in fresh air scented like the Hollow. The hat’s intense broomflight process was uncomfortable as all hell, but she would never take it for granted…
Witches had to ride fast in order to enter a cloud tower safely. Much faster than the handsome man or his troop of adventurers could survive. Keziah had once asked the naïve question of what would happen to humans at broomflight speeds during her initial lesson after acquiring her broom. Whisker Emic, one of the many broom managers at the training grounds had laughed off her question, simply saying: “Lungs… ripped out through the throat. And they would be rendered scalp-less.”
That was why all Mendacs were required to have a hat on hand, otherwise known as the ceres spell. Soon after she undertook the first ritual, known as the First Retinion, eleven-year old Keziah was escorted through moonlight to a healer’s quarters where a kind Mothrunner offered her a comfy bed nestled in a corner of the woman’s study. Right after, she was strapped down to the bed with smelly linen while the Mothrunner casted a command spell that left her silent. The room lights went down with an eerie wind slipping out the rickety windowsill above the bed. Before she ask a frightful question, a painful wooden syringe was dug deep into her forearm. Blood spurted and Keziah briefly saw a pearl-white creature the size of a dress belt emerge from the open wound. It squealed and wrapped around her upper arm in a ribbon fashion, rising to eye level before licking or sniffing her forehead. Her vision went dark and a painful red fog took over. When she woke, she had a tall steepled hat made of auburn leathery fabric clasped tightly to her head.
She could remember reaching up to touch it, feeling her own heartbeat thumping along the fleshy seams, her fingers gliding over the edges before reaching the pointed end. It twitched like a cat’s tail and Keziah felt a tingle in the back of her head. The hat gripped tighter above her ears, resting above her eyes before the hat returning to its normal position.
That same red fog was spilling into her eyes right now. What was the Mothrunner doing to her? Did she try to fight back? Why did her stomach feel uneasy at recalling the memory, a strain worse than witnessing several humans dying in the woods?
And, like it was as light and fragile as the passing cloud wisps, the awful thoughts left her mind and she was flying again.
The cloud tower was now many miles across, spreading out like a melted pat of butter in a hot pan. The flock dove through transparent tuffs of cloud that looked like popped corn kernels on that sizzling hot pan. But the swirling butter slowly lurching toward them was not greasy and slippery to get away from, it was the most tenacious shade of yellow with the evening sun gleaming behind it—a sticky, screaming monster that was their only way back home. Another roar and the brooms picked up speed, water vapor and syrupy remnants of the tower splashing Keziah’s amber lenses as the flock headed for the fog wall.
Keziah watched Daire closely—after all, she was the elite runner in the Hollow. From her introduction into the Forager gardens at age six, Daire showed a much greater aptitude for completing tasks and receiving rewards rather than the patient art of tending to crops without magic. When both girls turned eleven, sharing the same birthday month, Daire was moved to the Runner’s Stronghold, under the advisement of the most-often seen Mothrunner, a kind elder named Yoni. Under the close watch, Keziah watched as Yoni trained Daire to one day become an elder herself.
Runners’ tasks involved lots of chores that bored Keziah to death—sweeping, sewing, basic cooking, and an idea of how to run a house full of witches. But the runners also got the most exciting missions, save for the Wormhill scholars. Most days Keziah was fine with her lifepath bestowed to her by the Root after the ritual—there was nothing wrong with digging her hands deep into the dirt, feeling the warmth of the sun or unfeeling cold in the soil, and preparing new of forms of life. But sometimes after picking the latest collection of mushy, rotten-smelling mud claws or tizberries from the fiftieth bush, the dirt-stained lifepath swirling across her palms seemed destined for staying planted amongst the sediment. Gardening was solitary, often heartbreaking and did not make you the talk of the Hollow.
Daire, on the other hand, killed a rogue splinterbeast on her very first outing with Yoni, barely fourteen and without a broom. Keziah had been part of the grunt waiting party, floating at the rim of deep forest at the base of Wigg’s Peake, the highest and most treacherous mountain area in Mendac territory. And from the fog of night and before curfew, a dead floating splinterbeast came through—followed by a wild-eyed wet Daire walking calmly and armed with a thick bloodied tree branch, with stringy eye bits of the monster wrapped around the end. She brought the hair bear-like creature to the party’s feet and didn’t say a word, only bowing in a dramatic fashion and allowing Yoni to take the makeshift weapon crusted with gore. Daire walked past the floating grunts, her red hair a different shade of crimson in the moonlight as Yoni followed her into the home forest trails.
Through the gooey fog wall of the cloud tower, Keziah’s ears popped several times, the fluid crackling to the back of her head as the hat gripped down tighter. The peaceful air had been replaced by a thin, howling blur. Everything went fuzzy, glazed over with streaks of dark color and screeching winds. Crazed humanlike whistles and cackles zoomed past, mostly the wind blowing through her coat, dark brown hair, and flapping hat. Keziah lost sight of the flock ahead and to her left, covered in the lather of dark color fluids and biting cold air.
To the Center, tried and true… those were the oft-repeated words of broom Whisker that buzzed around Keziah’s head when she braced the cloud tower and its guard. In broom training, the masters of the broom—known known as the Whiskers—would conduct mock cloud tower tests via minor spellcaps for the grunts past their second Retinion Trial. A handful of the helpful chalky pucks of impacted magic ingredients could be ignited in mid-air and if there were enough, the spellcaps would generate a controlled whirlwind above the training fields with harmless turmeric yellow powder to substitute as cloud tower seeding dust. Those piffy little swirls would be snuffed out in this very real storm.
The flock was gone. The only dark blurs in the distance were the tower guard itself, stretched-out limbs curving around the vortex, writhing and snapping near her. Which way was up? Was the tower guard after her?
The guard is not your friend… Of all her teachers, she tried to listen to the whiskers hardest. She loved the broom and respected it. Although she had never talked to her broom like some witches, she had a deep connection to the cloudslicer. The broom could speak with the tower guard, conducting some silent offering in exchange for the flock’s travel. What did her broom and the other trade? No one knew. But the ritual was important nonetheless. All the witches could do was thrive in the chaos, head toward the center, and wait. But one sharp turn or a smack from the guard’s tendrils could send her into a final plummet. She would hate to die in a tower. How long would her body fall? Would somebody catch her in the middle of the reality-tearing magic occurring around them? What else was there to do? To the Center, tried and true…
She began to hug her broom, shrouded in near darkness. Their escape had not yet been heralded. What was the problem? Just when she had lost her balance and direction all at once, a bright green light broke through the chaos, soaring past Keziah’s head and into the opposite end of the cloud wall —Daire’s seeker thread. Keziah didn’t waste the moment, snatching the thread in her hand as it circled back around. She held on tight and wrapped her arm around it several times, feeling the prickle of Daire’s essence find her own as the thread’s end darted through the air like a sea snake and latched onto the nape of her neck. With a playful tug of the thread and wrapping it around herself like a safety belt, she felt Daire summon her forward with a powerful thrust.
Like blood rushing from an open jugular, she shot upwards into the column’s funneled center, breaking the mucus membrane outer layer she had been trapped in, soaring past Daire and her followers while hiding the smirk on her slime-covered face. But the cloudslicer sent a tingle to her spine and she slowed the broom, the blood rushing back to the front part of her body as she steadied herself and spun around, nearly upside-down.
Her stomach flipped as a rolling tendril unfurled from within the pale yellow interior, right in her future flightpath. Thicker than a gargantu tree but certainly more agile, the tendril then snatched itself out of view like a mosquito buzzing near before finding a mission elsewhere. The tower guard’s swift movement through the air was followed by the sound of a whistling boom. The vacant empty space in the middle of the tower became flat, a dark black iridescent plate amid the harsh cloud wisps and the travel of the tower guard. No more effort was needed and Keziah relented, the flock moving inward toward the black plate like bits of leftover food swirling down the drain in a fancy human kitchen.
Ripples of cold and hot air blasted across the tower, simultaneously coating the witches in frost and sweat. The doorway had been opened. Her teeth chattered. Her eyelid felt heavy. But she pressed on, further up the swirling column and into the hole in space, now shedding sparks with every smack of the tower’s guard passing tendrils. Keziah turned to Daire, watching the runner’s own ceres spell take over, covering her former bully’s face in a wicker basket formation of fungal material, known as arcelium to the Mendacs. The arcelium spread across Daire’s body and broom within a single blink of the eye, right before Keziah was blinded by her own protection spell.
She held her breath. She missed the Hollow dearly. It was quiet there. Almost warm like a shallow pool. It was hard to push away the memories of the bleeding, screaming men once darkness was around you. Once the hat took hold, it was all up to blind faith. The broom might rattle and your organs might feel like dough mashed in a mixing bowl but she supposed faith was meant to feel like that. She was quickly learning that these leaps of logic in the face of obvious danger seemed to be the best course of action when her gut turned sour. That truth made her even queasier.
The cloud tower crackled with electricity and thunder and the tower guard laughed, squawking and giggling with a booming voice that echoed off as the flock retreated to the Hollow on a boiling vapor of goldmist sea.
Keziah never liked the laughing part.
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CHAPTER FIVE
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IN THE QUIET BUT DREARY SKY OF LATE AFTERNOON IN THE HOLLOW, a shower of goldmist flakes began to spew from nowhere. The West-Mid watchtower guard on duty, Allus, heard the plume’s breakthrough and knew exactly what that meant. The last of the witches had returned. It was all the sooner this paranoia and terror would be over with and she could rest her feet in a nice salt slug bath. She summoned her well-known broom—a pale-red Seep known for being a rare gift from the Switcher Tree and being very, very fast—blasting away from her flat-top station at the tower to encircle the tower tunnel.
“There’d better be four of you.” Allus muttered to herself, hovering to the jet of sparks as the goldmist doubled in volume.
With a FLOOM! through the magma-hot slice in the fabric of reality, Keziah and the three others spun out of the tunnel some two hundred brooms high. Keziah’s hat receded from her lower body feet first, ending with the chin and nose, allowing her to breathe once again—smelling of sour ash. The other witches were smoking as their hats retreated, resembling wicker dolls of barkish colors until their long hair plopped from under the weaving and retreated inside the hats.
Keziah’s goggles fluttered away in a gold flurry with a few blinks, the seldom-seen gray fog now blanketing the Hollow. Her smile vanished like the goggles, her eyes darting across the damp evergreen trees in shock. Something smelled off. Something felt off. The unknown panic started a cold sweat along the back of her neck. She turned to the floating figures of Daire’s followers, Ren and Bree, hoping for an answer to the dreadful fog only seen once in her lifetime, during the Black Wretch that killed four runners-in-training a year after Keziah’s ritual. But the girls were solemn, settling their satchels and heading down to treeline level with Daire, who remained stoic as ever.
Death was in the air—it was close as a rotting corpse at your bedside. Keziah shivered. Ten witches dead.
Allus met the flock at the canopy’s top. Daire slowly flew over to the hooded girl, her blushed face wrinkling at the sides as Daire whispered in her ear. Allus glanced at Keziah with golden Root-blessed eyes as her and the other runners came close. The two ended their brief conversation of stone-faced lip movements as Daire circled around the guard before facing Keziah.
“You need to drop your supplies off at your quarters and then report to the Root Mother’s Stronghold. There’s a tent waiting for you. I doubt there’s still a line since you’re so late.”
Keziah rolled her eyes. “What is this all about? A sickness? Just talk to me like a normal person. Please?”
In an instant, Bree’s bright brown hair whipped across Keziah’s eyes like blades of grass, huddled on her bobbing broom like a bloodthirsty goblin eager to please its dark master. Keziah turned and faced her, Bree’s satchel sagging and bouncing on the leaves of the gargantu trees just beneath them. “She is a Mothrunner-to-be. You will speak to her as such!”
Keziah rose on her cloudslicer, the pointed end resting just in front of Bree’s forehead. Keziah hunched down, the loyal runner remaining unphased. A twinge of hatred clung to her heart, the edge of the broom tracing along the edge of Bree’s nose, coming close to the start of her neck. Blind worship made Keziah sick. Sicker than any other experience today. She wanted to do something bad. Right here in the Hollow, where everything had seemed to have gone terribly bad and no one would give her a simple answer.
Maybe a scare will do, just a small nick across the throat…
The cloudslicer leaned closer and Bree’s hands shimmied back.
“Hey!” a voice broke out, shattering the tension and hot air from Keziah’s throat.
Noa, her best friend in the Hollow waved to her after shooting up through the leafy green canopy, calling out Keziah’s nickname. “Kizzy!”
The cloudslicer backed up, twisting around with Keziah holding on as the broom settled and made its way to Noa. Keziah then realized she hadn’t taken a breath in nearly a minute. Thank the Root for her greatest friend in the world besides Mismra. She zoomed over to Noa, looking beautiful as always, in a gown of light green and colorful tiger-lilium willow web, the dress glowing like an orange tree.
“Kizzy…” Noa said quietly, hugging her friend as their brooms joined in a small fungal growth, hardened into a bridge.
. . .. . .
THE NAME HAD BEEN BESTOWED ON KEZIAH during their first meeting by the pond near Birch Lake where giant lilypads and tall crabgrass always reigned. Keziah was six at the time, feeling lonely on her afternoon break with all the other girls playing in the field just over the lake hill. She could remember plopping her little butt on the crunchy-mud shore and picking up pieces of rectangular dirt shards—attempting to skip them across the pond. After several throws left the mud shards swallowed by the dark emerald water, she gave up, feeling a dark cloud hanging over her.
Perhaps that dark cloud had been cast by the looming sharp-towered cathedral of secrets overlooking the lake, Wormhill Hall. She tried her best not to look at it, especially at night, but sometimes, a shower of blue or yellow light would cover the building and the woods surrounding it. It never made any sound by itself, but lit up every twisted tree in the Hollow, sending a crackle of old twigs and branches into her ears. Keziah would force herself to look away because it felt like a frog from the pond had leapt into her throat.
While the other girls had no trouble making up games (okay, I’ll be the baker and you’ll be the evil tax collector) or making friends (why are your front teeth so big, Keziah?), there was something wrong with her. That year she had lived in the forager camp, mostly learning how to spot good dirt from sick dirt and successfully nurture a bed of flowers during a bloom moon session. Her flowers, birthed by a seed bundle of red-violent peonies, petal-a-plenties and a sprinkle of hollyhocks, had never quite reached their potential. In her mind’s eye, she had seen a massive miniforest within her garden bed, a nature shop of giant petals and yummy fruits for ants to huddle away with. Instead, a batch of chestnut spider blight had stolen the garden’s life and her pride.
She didn’t mind being alone, but she already knew the value of a friend. Friends stood up for you when bullies tried to strike. They could help you solve tough problems, like what to wear at ceremonies or how to But someone was watching her. A piece of barely moving golden blonde hair was sticking out of the bright green berry tree.
“Oh.” a voice said from the tree.
Keziah jumped, the skipping rock leaving her open hand.
The piece of hair formed into a whole little girl about Keziah’s age, pushing her way through the leaves in a berry-stained tunic and knee high socks. Her socks were filthy and several toes poked through. But she didn’t seem to care. She hugged the trunk and slid down to the branch below, bark chipping off and pelting Keziah. For a moment, she wondered if the girl was some kind of fae as it was hard to tell where the dirt and grime parted into skin, her forearms lathered in the ogre-green juice of the nidgut berries.
“Hi.” the blonde fairy said plainly, hopping from the branch and slowly landing on the pond’s surface right at the shore.
“Whoa. How do you do that?” Keziah asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t think anyone ever taught me. But one day I was trying to climb the bookshelf at my cabin to grab the guide on jungle plants and I fell. But guess what? I was flying!” the girl explained, opening her arms as she reenacted the fall.
“I think you are magnificent! I can’t fly.” little Keziah began, looking at the ground. “I can’t be a baker or a tax collector or throw rocks. I don’t think I’m good at anything.”
“You think I’m magnificent? Thanks. I’m Noa.”
“That’s a nice name. What kind of witch are you? And why were you spying on me?” Keziah asked, standing up and dusting off the dried mud.
Little Noa pondered a moment. “I wasn’t spying! My mentor says I have a good eye. She didn’t say anything about the other one. But she says that means I’ll be a good watchtower guard. I was found in the woods past the mountains where the sun rises. I grew up living in trees. What about you?”
Keziah shrugged. “I’m living in the forage camp with mentor Aileen. She says I talk to the plants more than the others. So I guess that makes me a forager.”
“Hm. What’s your name, anyway?” Noa asked, tapping her feet on the water, gentle ripples cascading out.
“Keziah.” she said simply.
“Hm.” Noa responded, poking her head in and out like a bird before smiling. “I don’t know about that. What do you think about Kizzy?”
“Kizzy? What does that mean?” Keziah asked.
“I don’t know. What does Keziah mean?”
“How should I know? I didn’t name myself!”
“Well, how about it? Kizzy for short.”
Over the following weeks, Keziah quickly realized that it wasn’t so hard to make friends. She might not be a baker or a tax collector like the other girls fantasized about, but she was going to try and be a good friend to the amazing tree-nesting witch named Noa. Most young Mendacs didn’t have a hint of magical ability besides the average fortune coming true before the first ritual. That made Noa special. To the Hollow as a whole, but more importantly to Keziah.
. . .. . .
“COME ON.” NOA SAID WITH A NERVOUS SMILE, dissipating the fungal bridge and not paying attention to Daire or the others. “You do need to report at the Stronghold. Scholars’ orders.”
Keziah raised an eyebrow. “The scholars are really in charge now?”
“I’ll explain the best I can… on the way. It’s twisty.” Noa told Keziah as they left the flock and flew to the Hollow’s main entrance—a bright display of arched trees and glowing pink lilies.
Getting tired of the persistent mystery, Keziah pried as soon as they were clear of any curious ears. “I know that people are dead. Is it a disease?”
“I…” Noa stuttered. “I’m not sure. But I think I’m the one who found it. Aside from the girls.”
“What girls?”
“At one of the houses on the outskirts. I was terrified. Whatever the thing is… it’s alive. Luckily, I found help. But I knocked it up good with Mother Cindra.”
“Really? You got to meet her?” Keziah said, almost blushing. She had only interacted with the Root Mother indirectly, both at her own failed ceremonies.
“She’s a tough lady. But fair, I guess. She let me off the hook for not having my broom on hand.”
“I see…” Keziah laughed.
“I left it at the River House! Don’t blame me! But I was able to convince her I didn’t need a scratch on my record.”
“Now I know you’re lying.” Keziah smarted.
The ‘scratch system’ was a rumor that Mother Cindra communed with the Root directly via a large board inside one of her private rooms. The board was supposedly an enchanted hide taken off a shell of the Great Beasts that roamed deep beneath the planet, burrowing tunnels and channels that could be used for future magic source wells. The scratch board was, according to her cooler-headed mentors, just an exquisite art piece from the time of the Archs that the Root Mother admired and nothing more. And Noa happened to be a horrible liar. It was one of her best skills. But she was hiding something.
Aftereffects of some of the more grueling trials that involved Rootbase sedation had witches returned from enlightened slumber lacking a valuable spell set—Keziah had mostly lost the ability to peer into others’ thoughts, reduced to flashes or humming melodies. Since they had been friends, she had to grow a thick hide of her own, putting trust in her words without knowing their true intention. The risk had mostly paid off in Noa and Daire. Before her training as a runner began, Daire had been in Keziah’s forager quarters, hating every minute of it. But she had a certain wit about her that the other kids couldn’t understand yet, a self-deprecating kind of sarcasm for those wishing to shed a bit of ego. She still saw the shade of Daire glimmer every now and again, even with that elven-eared runner cap. But that was why she stilled loved her as a close friend.
Perhaps Noa had been reading her thoughts in that moment—“So, what did Daire tell you?” she asked, her voice suddenly full of gravel.
“Not enough to stop me from being scared.” Keziah drifted closer to Noa’s broom as they approached the Hollow’s roundabout walkway, where it was considered rude to fly through. She could already heard the hubbub of witches gathered at the ceremonial Root Mother Stronghold down the elm path.
“Well, I can’t do that either. As much as I despise that redhead sometimes… she’s right. We both have higher duties now and we can’t just—“
“You can’t bother to inform a forager grunt of a serious matter in the Hollow, I get it.” Keziah said quickly, dropping to the ground and preparing to dissummon her broom.
Noa didn’t answer. It was mostly in jest but Noa knew her better than most. So she decided to change the mood as they landed. “You didn’t even look at Daire when we got back. I’m surprised you haven’t given up yet.”
“She doesn’t deserve anything from me right now. Not a glance. Not a ‘hello’. I want a plain and simple apology.”
“Daire has never been that kind of person. She’s hard to love.”
“Look at it from my eyes, Kizzy. She finally said ‘I love you’ followed by the sweetest kiss and then immediately begins to sulk about her duties to the Hollow. As if no one knows she’s the most important runner we’ve ever had. I’ve known her as long as I’ve known you—she doesn’t need to explain importance to me! Before she darted out of my room, I told her ‘Just because I’m your lover, that doesn’t mean my life hinges on your role.”
A month before Keziah left for the foraging trip, Daire and Noa had been in a steady relationship for two years, broken up by periods of mixed emotions and the mothrunner-to-be’s tendency to vanish for days without notice, committed to the call of her elder. Many dates and romantic excursions had been indefinitely postponed, leaving Noa to take additional shifts on tower duty, sitting in silence and longing for Daire. She’s always just out of reach… Noa often said.
Before landing, Noa interrogated Keziah. “You have your wand on you, right?”
“Moonscar? No. I keep my girl in the case.” Keziah returned.
Noa stopped her broom and buzzed around at eye level like a nervous gnat before staring at her friend’s big green eyes. “You do realize this is not just a general health inspection? Serious rituals will begin taking place. You need to be ready.”
Keziah kept her discomfort to herself. Besides the occasional flick in the ear when she needed attention, Noa had never stared her down with such seriousness before. And then she remembered. People were dead. Her friends. Why was she feeling so forgetful? So… floaty? A knot began twisting from deep within.
The forgotten netchifer for Mismra.
When she tried to picture her friend, it was too distant and fuzzy to recall. It was hard to swallow, like she hadn’t taken a sip of water in years. She missed the talented little one. She was a sister more than a friend like Noa. The nesting witch was far too… different for Keziah to entirely connect with. She loved her with all her heart but Mismra filled a void she didn’t know she had. She landed the broom, hopping off and holding out her hands. The broom dematerialized in a thick strand of goldmist, pulled into the pores at the nape of her neck for safe keeping.
“You’re impossible to tolerate sometimes, you know that?” Noa said deflated.
“Of course…” Keziah mused as her friend landed on her non-natural broom. “When do you drop that thing off at the lease shop?”
“On eve of next moon. Why? Is it that painful to look at? I like the burnt look to it.” Noa held out the rented twig broom and falsely inspected it.
Keziah never openly complained about her own loss during the Switcher Tree ritual as Noa had been trained in broom riding for five good years before undertaking the trial. When she dove into the luminous chasm of boiling-hot goldmuck leaking out the side of the Switcher Tree, hopeful for a fantastic broom to train and call her own, Noa returned with a horrible affliction. Her spine had become filleted while inside the tree’s inner chambers, forced to undergo a broom graft to save her life. Six breathless days and nights Keziah waited at the healing springs cave entrance, camping out and eating her first wild game as she processed her friend’s likely death. Noa emerged healed, but now without the ability to call a broom her own. Until magic willed it, she was stuck with basic knob brooms.
“Ughh…” Noa groaned with a curled lip. “Dumb all-mighty Switcher Tree. It made a mistake… I’ll prove it one day.”
“I know, olu.” Keziah murmured. It was a sweet word that meant a variety of caring things—my love, my flower, my sweet one. All of those fit Noa.
She placed her hand in Noa’s wandering one and the two solemnly walked down the elm path, lined with various elm trees and cousins of the sort, some of them twisted together into wooden vine statues of brooms, beasts, and heroes throughout Mendac time. This was a special area to wander into. The young witches steadily passed through the Stronghold’s front gate, lined by a dug-out salt mixture line across the expanse of the entrance, generating an invisible membrane that would only permit accepted peoples through. Going through a membrane always took your breath away for a moment, it was best to hold it in before the final step. Her ears popped and she felt a tear form at the corners of her eyes. She blinked them away and the light from the Stronghold torches revealed the small line of anxious witches from across the arts still waiting their turn.
The Root Mother’s Stronghold was made up of four buildings and the giant ecagargantu tree planted by the first witches of the Hollow, long before the Root Mother herself or the Mothrunners. The four buildings surrounded the tree in a diamond shape, cornered by secretive windowless cabins that stood silent no matter the time of day. Against the enormous cypress-oak infused trunk was the entrance, a shimmering blue-green membrane rattling around the opening. The entrance was always humming with the Root’s essence, those who entered completely at the whim of the Root Mother.
Off to the side of the entrance was a large canvas tent and a group of orphans, girls aged between three and seven without a set area or lifepath. They were often passed about between witch houses in groups of five, expected to learn from their elders and acquire skills pertinent to becoming a full-blooded witch. This particular group had no such elder watching them, perhaps one of the witches in line. They had made a playground of the downed trees next to the tent—casting small vortexes around each other and spinning around make-pretend high winds.
Just wait til the cloud towers come calling for you, little squirrels… Keziah smiled to herself.
“I’ve had it. I’m gonna get out of this prison!” squealed the tiny voice of one of the orphans, emerging from the bushes behind the line with a scowl that could kill.
Keziah knew the voice before she saw the face. Misty Haybee. A seven-year old grunt stuck at the Northridge Foraging House for bad behavior. Where Keziah tried to sleep at night while Misty plotted revenge against her current friend-turned-enemy. Her spider-webbed black and white trenchcoat was a size too big and her hat constantly fought for your eyes’ attention, slipping off her ears and blinding her. She had a lot of spirit and nowhere to put it, just like Mismra. Keziah suspected she would be a good guard witch or runner down the road. If only she could muster up some self-assurance.
“How ya’ doing, Misty?” Noa called out, waving the girl to join them at the line.
“Mary-Beth put me through a tree again!” Misty yelled, stomping her feet so hard that her hat fell to the end of her nose. She pushed it up, her eyes welling up with tears. Noa reached down and hugged the girl, taking her hat off and tossing it to Keziah with a sarcastic eye roll. The sweet moment continued until Keziah was unable to fight it.
“You should moot her ass through the tree too! Just make sure you take her out against the grain!” Keziah said in a loud whisper, leaning over Noa as she gave Misty a pat-filled hug.
Noa turned around, still hugging Misty, slowly shaking her head while the young girl giggled. Noa let go, holding Misty’s hands and swinging them around. “I would advise you not listen to her. But if Mary-Beth gets stuck doing the spell by herself… maybe you should give her a lesson on compassion first. But then help her out.”
“What’s compasshin?” Misty asked, exposing her missing front teeth and deep dimples. Keziah and Noa turned around after bowing before the orphan.
“This.” Keziah said, playfully tossing the hat onto Misty’s head like a ring toss before resuming the walk to the line.
“Good. We won’t have many onlookers wanting to get you in trouble.” Noa said quietly, taking the lead in their gentle pace.
Noa stopped in front of her, grabbing Keziah’s shoulders and spinning her around. “You have some time. Go get your wand, hollowhead.”
Keziah nodded in agreement and swiftly left the line, shimmying past the playing orphans and running to her two-story forager house, just two rushes (or a mile) away. She had never been present for such an inspection. Every witch in the Hollow has to see the Root Mother? It seemed to be based around some kind of sickness. If that was so, why were they all allowed to mingle with one another, across the different houses and specialties? Nothing was making sense. The Hollow and its sudden problem kept growing bigger in her mind.
She broke into a small sprint as the witches standing around in the dirt or hanging out by the pathway trees thinned out, their murmurs muffled by the growing hum of crickets and chirping birds. The forager quarters were just ahead, the crumpled hay roof was poking through the trees just ahead. Keziah looked behind, sure that eyes were still on her. The forest was devoid. She smiled and turned back around, slamming into a cold, sturdy body.
“Mmm! Based on the way you smell… you haven’t gone through inspection yet. And your wand is not on your person as well?! Why is that, forager?” the voice of the tall cold woman shouted into Keziah’s head.
Keziah looked up from the arcelium armored-chestplate of the Wormhill Scholar before her and gave a guilty smile. The smile was immediately held up by survival instinct alone as she realized who she had collided with. The dreaded personal commander of the Root Mother herself, Levidia the Ruthless…
I’m in deep shit…
____________________________________________________________________________
CHAPTER SIX
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WHAT AN UNSTEADY LITTLE GRUNT… Levidia thought to herself, half-expecting the bumbling witch to retort back. But the brown-haired witch stood still, the smile plastered on her tan face projecting confidence. But her hat gave it away, the top flopped down and sinking lower… and lower like a nervous dog’s tail.
Ah, yes… she continued to herself, a part of her presence bulging past the witch’s wispy outline of pheromones, magnetic fields and Root-blessed magical defense systems. She sniffed the air in a slow draw, speeding through her mental collection of scents and finding the forager stronghold of Echni. She’s older. But very undisciplined. Keziah… Adams. Resident of Echni since an infant. Recently displaced to the Northridge House for behavioral correction. Hmm… she’s one of Cindra’s less popular endeavors. Underwent the Rootbase ritual at age eleven. Acquired broom at sixteen, must be a cloudslicer by the traditional three-tone pulse it gives off. Her doama is strong but she can’t read minds. And yet, not exactly useless…
“I asked you a question, Adams.” she waited, leaning down. “Why are you here and not with the rest of the stragglers?”
The witch blipped to life at the sound of her last name. “I’m sorry, scholar. I was returning from an expedition just out of the Hollow and I left my wand in its case. It’s a terrible habit. I don’t like to get her dirty.”
“Her?” Levidia pursued.
Adams chuckled while looking away from ruthless golden eyes. “I call my wand Moonscar. She’s bone-white with a wittled underside-.” Levidia silenced her with a sharp breath.
“I see. Who permitted you to leave on an expedition? The Echni’s last venture occurred two moons ago and they have been hard at work seeding. As you should have been.” Levidia stated, continuing to analyze the witch’s various passengers of particles and identifying markers floating about her or hooked in between the fabrics.
Adams… the unruly forager witch had been beyond the reaches of the Hollow’s influence. Her cloak and hat were peppered with different species of plants and animals—including the blood of humans, she observed a male Rootbase ingestion from the shadows like she was hungry for death. Young Mendacs are not allowed to interact with humans. Strictly forbidden. The small nigh-undetectable markers of the girl’s adventurous day began to sting Levidia’s higher levels of comprehension. Not only was the witch awash with foreign life in the middle of a ravenous growing infection, but she didn’t even bring her wand on a multi-day expedition. So many broken rules. Such little regard for the witch way of life… But all of that would have to be addressed later.
As she stood in the dim crop of forest near the Echni Stronghold, gripping the young witch in a vice through domineering posture and making sure every word held with biting disappointment, Levidia inhaled a flicker that flashed her mental library of remembered scents into a screaming inferno. But she kept her sudden heart rate down and closed her eyes to hide the uncontrollable twitch in the right lid. Somewhere on her person, Adams’ clothing stored particles from the first victim of the New Spell. Not absent-minded wind drifts of skin cells or droplets from the lungs. Fibers of the victim’s cloak. Her bedsheet. Hair strands. What was her name? The young girl in the bed at the River House…
“What do you know of Mismra from the River House?” Levidia finally asked.
Even the crickets knew to be silent.
Adams’ eyes widened. “Mismra?” She pushed another nervous smile below the surface before the hat relented completely, losing the steepled tip and flattening out.
Pieces of memory clicked into place by themselves. Levidia lifted her head, removing herself from Adams’ mind. She had observed enough. Mismra had arrived in the Hollow at age twelve, unusually late for Mendacs, and proceeded to the Niad River House after showing a high degree of innate understanding in the water arts. Naturally, foragers and niads worked in tandem and close bonds often formed between the waterer and the planter. Mismra had been assigned to help Adams on her failed canopy garden of hanging fruits blooming with decorative blue and yellow star-shaped flowers, preciously known as forget-me-nots. Adams took the water witch under her wing akin to an older sister, teaching her how to bend the rules—such as bypassing boundary membranes at the outer edges of the Hollow for a peek over the mountains via cloudslicer on star-filled nights. The watchtower guard from last night was also a constant companion. The three of them had been enjoying a wonderful year.
Adams’ face softened and she looked up at the scholar in sudden childlike temperament. “So, what killed her?”
“An aggressive illness. It took her first, along with the rest of the witches in the River House—all within seconds. Soon after, the witches that first investigated the mess also fell to its grip but we haven’t told the Hollow yet. Everyone who set foot there is dead except for your friend, the watchtower grunt. She was smart…” Levidia responded breathlessly. “Three more have fallen sick. All from separate strongholds. This is the most serious of matters.”
Adams seemed to breathe for the first time in minutes. “I- I’m sorry. I need my wand and then I’ll be on my way. I am truly sorry, scholar.”
The girl was about to break into tears. Levidia resisted that awful human desire to reach out when sincere sadness threatened to shatter someone’s spirit—she instead turned away to allow Adams a moment of dignity, shuffling about with her gauntlets before nodding. It was time to speed along the process.
“Actually, my dear…” she began, manifesting her best Cindra impression. “You’ve earned the next spot in line. Follow me.”
. . .. . .
KEZIAH WAS A STIRRING CLOUD TOWER. Brewing with hatred and frustration. Fogged by glossy memories of Mismra’s laugh or the way she could conduct flowing water into a bed of dry soil with a melodic siren song. Now being led to some obscure punishment by one of Wormhill’s best known scholars without her wand or a good excuse. Mismra was dead. She was a gorgeous siren, destined to be one of the most gifted waterbearers. She was only a few years younger but Keziah endlessly felt as though she was watching the works of a great teacher develop, holding grand plans for plant hybrids that would take years to properly cultivate. She had been a witch for only a year, but she made Miss Hollow Homebody Keziah feel like an outsider. An outsider that wanted to learn more.
She realized in that moment she might be the most traitorous Mendac of them all. She had spent the last several months avoiding yard duties around the Echni House, helping Noa or Mismra with their own personal projects. Like the netchifer’s pollen she had forgotten to grab while in the open Valley. And she had failed her friend even that.
“We’re going to the top.” Levidia said simply as they walked into a thick darkened grove. She reached inside her cloak, pinching a small pile of goldmist.
“But… my wand-.” Keziah began, stopped by the scholar shaking her head.
“No bother. It isn’t worth reprimanding you for being so daft. I don’t even think it’s your fault.”
Keziah flashed a look that emoted how so?
“There’s a… mental fog roaming about. Many witches are getting forgetful all of a sudden. Like fresh ducklings waddling around and searching for their mother. No doubt because of the spell that took the River House’s residents.”
“The spell?”
The head scholar glared down and Keziah recoiled, her hat betraying her once again, almost bowing like some dog desperate for a treat. She cursed to herself and Levidia must have heard it as she chuckled darkly before tossing the goldmist flakes above them.
Keziah held her breath and closed her eyes. The world and her stomach flipped for an instant, her feet dangling before her tiptoes touched hardwood floor. She opened her eyes to the soft light of a quaint office on a high level of the Stronghold, a perfectly square room with a fungal lantern bouncing near the ceiling. The room had no furniture and certainly didn’t hold the warmth of a place where eight hundred witches had been passing through. Everything in the room was stagnant, restrained breezes creaked through the trunk walls, failing to give the sanctum fresh air. A small window in the shape of a teardrop was carved into the far end, casting no light from the outside. Like a stream after rainfall, trickles of goldmist spilled out from the void in the center, trailing down the wall and seeping inside its ridges. Keziah began to think the sorrowful-looking symbol wasn’t a window.
“Who taught you how to bypass boundary membranes?” Levidia asked, breaking the silence.
The scholar’s sharp voice jolted her. “I helped with reorganizing the Selective Archives temple a few summers ago. There’s so much in there that I never knew about. I… I’m sorry to say that I may have learned how to read some of the old sigils. Against the wishes of the Root Mother.”
Levidia gave a deep sigh and did not respond further. She reached into her inner shirt and pulled up a chain-link necklace with a small silver whistle attached. The scholar gave the whistle two hard breaths, but Keziah heard nothing. Levidia slipped the necklace back into her shirt and summoned her broom, prompting Keziah to turn around with a head nod.
She faced the teary window and watched the stream of goldmist glisten in the dim light. With every blink, her own eyes became watery. The bland interior began to move from side to side, the floors heaving like the belly of a sleeping giant. Her eardrums fluttered. The world went wrong. The fungal lantern slashed about, flicking the room into various shades of red and yellow.
“You can read the Sherando handstitch…” echoed a voice from beyond Keziah’s field of view. She twisted her body toward the unfurling red and yellow fungal lantern, now strobing like a heartbeat. It was her heartbeat—it was thumping far too fast. “A forager with the weave of a scholar. And quite proficient on your broom as well.”
Keziah’s eyes bounced across the warping sanctum, large columns rising from the floor as if the hardwood was water all around her and Levidia, who of course, stood unmoved. The room expanded to five times its original size, the columns spacing out and splitting apart to reveal a mirrored copy. The teardrop window melted into itself, a whirlpool sucking the walls into its open mouth. The walls bended from the ceiling inward, the fungal lantern splitting into dozens of strands, each spitting out of a ball of light. Was this a hall of mirrors trick? A doama invasion?
“Neither, my dear.” the dark but soothing voice called again from nowhere, reading her mind from someplace on high. “This is your inspection. PRE-SENT!”
The booming finish of the guttural final word brought Keziah’s arms high above her head, her head and back jutting forward in a straight line. She couldn’t squeal. She couldn’t spot whatever Levidia was doing behind her. But at the base of her neck, she felt her broom’s goldmist form trickle out of the skin and reform into the scholar’s firm hand, landing with a cold slap.
“RE-LEASE!” the voice commanded to something writhing inside Keziah aching muscles. Her body released a gasp and she stumbled upright. She tried to shake off the lingering itches and quelled the growing fear.
“Solid cloudslicer design. Lots of undesirable tension in between the bonds. And this sliver set?” Levidia questioned, flipping the broom to the end and plucking a long mercury-colored needle from the besom. “But it doesn’t smell like it came from your thistle bunch. Looks like a hair from a splinterbeast. An unruly farmer who likes to taste the upper atmosphere and gather splinterbeast quills…”
“Never mind that…” the voice fronted. “She has an important question.”
Keziah frowned. Her mind had been a pin cushion for eager elders and friends since her return to the Hollow. Come to the Stronghold and see the wonderful mishmashed scrambled eggs brain of Keziah Adams! But the voice was correct.
“I was very close to Mismra. She was the closest person I had to a sister and I would have given my life for her if I could have. If there is a sickness spell running about, am I infected? What about my friends? Are they going to-?”
“No.” Levidia stated. “You might have been dead had you not gone on your excursion. Every witch within the walls of the house was attacked moments after the initial infection. The Grand Watchtower guard on duty was your friend Noa of the Stanna Arts. I’ll be honest with you, she doesn’t seem like much of a leader. But for what she lacks in the art, she makes up with common sense. She never set foot inside the River House. She heard the death cries of the final witches along with the call of surely evil whispers and invitations to the young girl’s room but… she resisted.”
The fog began to run over Keziah’s eyes again. Maybe it was grief, brimming to a softened surface. But she continued. “What caused it?” Her mind began reeling. Some ruinous netchifier nightmare found in some cave? What was Mismra thinking? She was so young, no chance at conversing with water spirits or acquiring a broom. Instead, she died in her bed alone.
“Before we tell you more, you must understand that there is no going back. You will no longer be a forager. You will act under the direct assignment of the Root Mother.” Levidia said.
Keziah took a deep breath. “All my life… I’ve felt like a greedy witch. I’ve always wanted more. More people to talk to, more things to discover. But lately, I don’t have the spirit anymore. Maybe I’ve grown up. Or maybe I was never destined for better things. Regardless… I just want to know more.”
The sanctum’s hanging lantern rolled into itself, splitting into several twins, now dancing about the ceiling in flashes of orange and blue. The known-to-be ruthless but oddly passive Levidia almost held a smile, disguised in the shifting lights that made Keziah wink from intensity.
“Levidia, remove the Fog of Worrel.” the Root Mother said. Keziah searched for the highest elder, hidden within a strong echo.
The scholar nodded and gripped Keziah’s broom tightly, casting a jittering light spell through all of the slivers and cracks within the wood-arcelium mold. The beams were rich yellow in color, sparking the broom to life as it lifted from Levidia’s hand and circled around Keziah before dissipating into her nape.
Her vision fell and the lanterns’ light faded in streaks of ugly gray. She fell to her knees, the broom’s goldmist form tightening itself onto her spinal cord. A short burst of relief and phlegm shot out from her mouth and the world became vibrant once again. She stared at the sanctum floor, the streaks of gray reforming into the fine swirled patterns of arcelium marble—sunset pink in color and polished. Keziah looked at her expulsion and retreated to her feet where a fist-sized glob of thorned golden jelly writhed about, drying to its odd death on the floor. Dozens of tiny bulging insectoid eyes blinked to life before sinking back into the pure translucent mush. Demise was hastened by Levidia’s bootheel, smashing the creature into a feathery paste with a single stomp.
“Hmm… nasty worrel.” Levidia mused, observing some of the bits of shriveling jelly as Keziah stared at the remnants. “That creature grips the base of your spine after the first Retinion. The Root performs better on younger Mendacs with less mental intrusions. After effects include memory loss and the inability to be anywhere on time.”
Good… Keziah said to herself, thinking of a joke to balance out the terror enveloping her. My awful time management skills aren’t my fault!
“The worrel can’t be blamed in your case.” the scholar corrected. “As it takes on your essence, the creature becomes an internal suggestion engine. Amplified by your own inhibitions and neuroses.”
“She may read handstitch but she is not educated in that writform. This is a room of three. You need not impress us.” the Root Mother’s voice debased, inviting Levidia to normalize her choice of words.
Levidia choked down a quick rattle in her throat and rephrased. “The worrel, as everything else, is devoted to the Root, and acts as a guide for your designated lifepath. You never noticed since it speaks in tones too slight for a grunt to hear. But as it sits with you, your lifepath becomes the worrel’s most favored goal and the creature will shed a fog on the bulk of your memories. A distract-less witch is a productive witch.”
“Every Mendac has a… worrel inside them?” Keziah asked, wiping her mouth.
“Oh, yes. But now, you’ve been taken off the Root’s watchful list. For events such as widescale infection, a witch can find it difficult to work within the master’s limits.”
Keziah was taken aback. So, even the Root has limits?
Levidia stiffened and quickly looked off to a corner of the room before resuming her speech. “The Worrel is one of many protection fauna. It has no natural defenses so the Root gave it power over the mind of its host. Besides the fog, the worrel cannot harm you. But you need to have a clear head for our operations.”
“What happens after we find the source of the sickness? Are you… going to-?” Keziah began before being cut off.
Levidia shook her head. “That’s why this is a serious matter, Adams. A witch cannot return to a pre-worrel state. Its bond has been snatched away and from now until your death, the Root has released you from its closest embrace.”
That thing had been wrapped around the inside of her head for the last six years, just poking and prodding about. But if the Root had willed it… was it really so terrible? Her heart felt out of beat. Until the Root Mother spoke.
“A clear head does not always mean a quiet mind.” the Root Mother said, her thunderous voice shrinking and sharpening. “The worrel’s grip will lessen by tomorrow’s eve. For now… the New Spell only strikes at night. That allows us some time. Bless the Root.”
“Time for what?” Keziah asked.
Past two of the massive pillars in the sanctum, the Root Mother walked out into the lantern light, her wide-brimmed hat shielding her face from view. Her footsteps followed Keziah’s heartbeat, bringing the pulsing lights to a crawl as the Root Mother faced the witches. The sandy tones of her skin radiated with gold, a dash of yellowhall gloss on her lips. She left no footsteps. Her raven hair was tightly braided in the old Mothrunner fashion, not a strand loose. The long ceremonial cloak of deepwater blue draped about her billowed from the heat of the lantern, sending off bits of goldmist crumbling off into the dark. The flakes seemed to whisper comments of gratitude and pleasantness.
Keziah was breathless. She had only seen the Root Mother in shadow. A grunt did not deserve her presence. And yet, she felt drawn to her, her throat and body warming like she had a nightcap of absinthe.
The Root Mother curled a smile as the lantern light glimmered in her amber eyes. “Grunt Adams. You steal, you connive, you scheme your way through life because you feel like a boat sent out to sea without a rudder. Am I close?”
Blood rushed to Keziah’s cheeks at the Root Mother’s cutting wit. “Yes, mother.”
“Well, that’s exactly the witch we need for the job.”
Keziah was taken aback. “What? Am I… am I in trouble?” She pointed to herself but the elder took her hand and placed it by her side before vanishing.
She turned to the scholar, still standing guard like a statue. Levidia snapped her fingers and a large stone altar rose from the floor, sitting on a small hillmound of steaming soil. The slabs of stone were broken into three pieces, one off-centered slab was stuck halfway in the dirt while the others formed a flat uncomfy seat. The seat slabs were covered in hundreds if not thousands of harsh scratches and stabs into the rock, teeming with the past screams of whoever was invited last.
“The Hollow is in trouble, my dear.” the Root Mother stated, suddenly appearing in front of the slabs, armed with a ventglass dagger. “I wish to grant you power to stop it.”
She gestured for Keziah to lay on the slabs with a floaty arm wave and that charming smile. She wanted to resist. Even without the Worrel wracking about her brain and filling her with forgetful spurts of stupidity, she took a step forward.
TO BE CONTINUED . . .