The widow was waiting for us at the bottom of the stairs. A silver tray sat on a table beside her. The room smelled of too-strong coffee.
“Good afternoon, goodman,” she said to me. “Will you have coffee with us?”
“I will, thank you,” I said. A pair of envelopes was also on the tray, behind the trio of white china cups. One envelope had been opened. One had not.
“Jefrey told you we have letters from Mrs. Hog.”
I nodded. Jefrey poured. The widow picked up my envelope and handed it to me.
“Here is yours. Shall we retire to the front room?”
I shrugged, took the letter and the cup Jefrey stuck in my hand. The widow’s coffee was too hot and too strong, and she was saving money by eschewing cream or sugar, but I drank it anyway as we walked.
We wound up in the Gold Room again. Rain washed down over the windows, and a rising wind whipped occasional gusts of spray against them. The Lady lit a tall, skinny oil-lamp and bade us to sit.
I plopped down in the same chair I’d passed the night upon, put down my coffee, and ripped open Mama’s letter.
“Boy,” it read. I doubted the widow’s had been so informal. Mama’s spidery hand went on. “He’s coming. Coming back tonight. This won’t be like the other times. He was more shadow than substance, before. But not tonight. Tonight he’ll be as solid as a rock.”
I lifted an eyebrow, felt the widow’s gaze upon me and made my face relax. Jefrey guzzled coffee, his eyes closed, his thin frame spread limp over his chair.
I turned back to Mama’s letter. “This storm is his doing. Look outside at it, and you’ll know something of his rage. Take a good look, boy. If you’ve got any fool notions about running outside and grabbing him, you look at that sky and you think again.”
“I was hoping you’d have time to find the truth and bring it to light,” Mama wrote. “I was hoping you could lay Ebed Merlat to rest before he came like this. But there ain’t time. Not anymore. He’s coming, and you can’t stop it. So you stay with the widow. Stay and do what needs doing. Stay and do what she can’t, or won’t, do. You’ll know when the time comes.”
I turned the page. I was expecting more words, all done up in Mama’s best Wise Old Crone style. Instead, there was nothing on the paper but an intricate doodle, crooked and wandering in the middle of the page.
My eyes blurred, and a sudden sharp ache pounded in my temple, and I felt an instant of dizziness, as if the widow’s overstuffed sitting chair suddenly rose up and spun me twice about.
The doodle on the page writhed and blurred.
I tore my eyes away, covered the second page with the first and bit back a curse word, but it was too late. I felt cat-paws down my spine and knew the feeling, from my days in the Army. I’d been hexed, only this time it wasn’t for night-sight or bug-away, cast by a grumpy field sorcerer on our wide and shuffling ranks.
No, this time it was by Mama and her third-rate hex sign. I blinked and lowered the letter, felt the widow’s piercing gaze upon me and tried to soften my scowl but had no luck.
Mama, I thought, this time you’ve stepped over the line.
“What is it?” asked the widow. “Bad news?”
I shook my head. My vision was clearing, and the pounding in my head subsided, but I could still feel Mama’s hex tip-toeing across the skin on my neck.
“Mrs. Hog has her usual advice to me,” I said. I folded the letter. “And, as usual, I find that our opinions differ.”
The widow smiled, as though I’d just said something funny, or something Mama predicted I’d say in her letter to the widow.
Thunder rolled and I jumped, because in the blast I thought I heard a voice, almost heard a word.
Mama’s hex tweaked my nose, made it itch. I frowned and shoved the letter back in its envelope. Jefrey opened his eyes and turned them toward me.
“Bad storm a comin’,” he said idly. “Dead man’s rain.”
I glared at him, realized he hadn’t spoken a second time. Mama’s hex whirled and preened.
I thanked the widow for the coffee, claimed a need for a wash and made for the stairs, resisting the urge to stomp and mutter.
Thunder rolled, each peal more like a shout than the one before it. Shadows flew, scampering beside me down the dark halls, beckoning and inviting at each turn, crooking their fingers at each closed and quiet door. As I walked, I passed through places both warm and cold, heard snatches of music, jumped at a loud and broken sob.
“Thank you Mama,” I said aloud, upon entering the empty ballroom. “Just what I needed. A headful of things that aren’t there.”
I blinked, and the floor was full of dancers, all twirling and dipping in time to music drowned out by the thunder.
I charged up the stairs to splash water in my eyes and think of ways to repay Mama her thoughtful generosity.
I bathed in a cast-iron bathtub, changed clothes and paced around my room, hoping Mama’s hex would wear off before I had to go back downstairs, or that I could at least figure out what she’d done to me. Had no luck on either front. I could still see shadows leap at the edge of my vision after bathing, but I couldn’t see any obvious structure in the nature of the hex. Pinching the bridge of my nose didn’t help, either, which gave rise to the disturbing notion that Mama knew something about hex-signs that the Army sorcery corps didn’t.
I plopped down on my bed and opened my duffel. Thunder grumbled and coughed. I frowned, wondering if Mama’s hex was extending to my hearing as well, because I could almost make out voices in the thunder and the smash of rain.
I found my bag within the bag, opened it, pulled out the things I’d hoped I wouldn’t need. I had a lead-weighted knocking stick-easy to conceal under a jacket, yet quietly effective on hostile noggins; just the thing for strolls through my neighborhood just before Curfew. That, my Army knife, a pair of brass knuckles and a single unused Army-issue flash-spell wafer that might or might not light up when I broke it in half.
I sighed and shoved things in pockets. Mama’s hex showed me a glimpse of flames when I touched the flash-spell, and when I put my knife in its ankle-sheath I smelled the warm wet stench of a Troll tunnel again.
I jerked my hand away, rose, straightened my shirt. The rain smashed against my window, driven by a burst of wind that howled and blew and beat like a coastal gale. Lightning sent skeletal shadows snaking across the floor, and the hex made them linger.
I made for the door. I passed a window, and thought about what Mama had said-that this storm was Ebed Merlat’s, that to see his rage and fury, one need only look to the sky.
Mama’s hex showed me anguished faces in the windswept clouds. I walked away and shut the door fast behind me.
The storm grew worse. The daylight all but failed. Jefrey, the Widow Merlat, and I gathered in the Gold Room and watched the rain and the lightning and listened to a loud, old, silver goblin-clock tick off the moments.
There wasn’t much talk. Each of us seemed content to stare out at the storm, which had become as mesmerizing as any blazing campfire. I tried a few early prods and digs about the will and the children, but got nothing but glares and nods from the widow and grunts and sighs from Jefrey, so I let it drop.
The kids remained in their rooms, aside from Elizabet’s single foray downstairs for coffee and cold cuts from the kitchen. She even dressed for the occasion-high-slit skirt and cross-tied peasant blouse she hadn’t had time to finish lacing all the way-and hinted that she might need help with the tray. Jefrey ignored her, and Mama’s hex showed me skull and hollow eyes through the too-white skin of her face, so I affected a sudden interest in the window and she stalked off, glaring at my back.
The dogs raised doggy Hell once, just before dark. Jefrey groaned, rose and bade me sit.