“Good evening, ladies and gents.”
“Darling.” Darla grabbed me and pointed me toward Buttercup. “Look. Isn’t that amazing?”
I nodded. I smelled supper.
“Oh you poor man. You need your coffee. But she’s dancing, Markhat. Perfectly.”
And she was. The tiny banshee was spinning, stepping, swapping off partners and letting herself be picked up and set down and moved about the impromptu dance floor like a courtesan.
“She knows how to dance, hon. Think about it. She didn’t learn that in the woods.”
It finally dawned on me. Darla was right.
Buttercup had once lived with people.
The banshee whirled past me, grinned and waved. Her tiny skirt flew up as the spun, revealing legs that were quite shapely, if half-sized, now that they weren’t covered with a century or two of grime.
Mama Hog sidled up beside me.
“’Twere bad enough making a pet of that critter. Making it a plaything for this lot is gonna wind up bein’ a mite worse, Finder. You mark my words.”
I groaned, remembering the banshee’s determined little hands out in the forest.
“Gertriss. You’re the banshee-minder for tonight. She doesn’t get out of your sight, understand?”
“Boss, what about-?”
“Apprentice Hog. Do you enjoy having a job?”
She bit her lip. “Yes, boss.”
“Good answer.” Darla let a sly grin slip. “And you, oh blossom of my heart. You need not plan any picnics out in the yard either, because you’re staying put too.”
She stuck out her tongue.
“You can’t fire me. I quit. When do we leave?”
Mama cackled. Marlo, who had just stomped his way down the stairs, heard enough to chuckle and smirk.
I turned and headed for the kitchen. I always think better on a full stomach.
Darla had the grace not to follow.
Mama lacked that grace, though, falling into step beside me after grumbling something to Darla and Marlo. Her boots fell heavy on the tiles, and she put a lot of wheezing and whistling into her breathing until we passed through the kitchen door and were alone.
“Better make it quick, Mama. This is a popular room.”
Mama frowned and knotted her brow. Whatever words she’d chosen in the hall weren’t coming out easily.
I rolled my eyes. “You know damned well Gertriss wasn’t cavorting up there. Certainly not with me.”
“Oh, I knows it.” She flung up her hands and muttered a cuss word. “It ain’t that. But boy, she’s actin’ all strange. Takin’ on bold ways.”
I pulled out a chair and sat. “Bold ways? Gertriss? She’s still afraid to call me by name. She’s behaved herself perfectly, Mama. Despite plenty of temptation.”
“Them clothes. And that talk.”
“Mama. She was wearing a burlap sack and talking like a pig farmer. Like it or not, she’s come to Rannit, and not to farm pigs.”
Mama huffed and sat down herself, deflated.
“Your job and mine have a few things in common, you know. One of them being that we both see how blind people are when it comes to family. Am I right, Mama? You know exactly what I mean. We’ve both seen it a thousand times.”
Mama made a huffing noise that might have been assent or the early death of a sneeze.
“She’s a good kid, Mama. She’s smart. She’s brave. She’s loyal. And she’s hurt because she thinks you think less of her, when all she’s trying to do is what you told her to do in the first place. Don’t make a mess out of people doing what they were told. We’ve both seen too much of that to let it happen to us.”
Mama wouldn’t meet my eyes. “I’m thinkin’ she ought to quit her job with you when we gets home. Might have been a bad idea, her learnin’ finding.”
“Then you’re in for a shock, Mama. Because she’s actually pretty good at it. If she wants to stay on, I might just let her. You don’t get to decide that. It’s up to Gertriss. Which is the way it ought to be, and you know it.”
“I don’t know nothin’ of the sort. She’s my kin, and I’m her elder.”
“That might mean something, back in Pot Lockney. But, Mama, we’re a long way from there. And like it or not, that’s not how things are done in Rannit.”
Mama snuffed. “I know. But, boy, there’s things you don’t know.”
“That’s the damned truth, Mama. There are lots of things I don’t know. And most of them don’t matter. What I do know is that you’ll either start treating Gertriss like the smart young lady she is, or you’ll lose her for good. You don’t want that.”
“I reckon not.” Mama sighed. “She tell you why she left Pot Lockney?”
“She started to. We were interrupted. I’m sure she will, when the time is right.”
“Had to do with a man.”
I made sure my voice was gentle. “It’s not for me to know, Mama, unless she tells me. So stop right there.”
“I gets word from Pot Lockney, now and then. Just got some after you left. This man. She might have kilt him, boy.”
“If she did, I’m sure she had her reasons. Not my problem. Not my business.”
Silence. I let it linger, and then got up and started rummaging around for food. I heard the door open behind me, and got a glimpse of Mama walking through it.
“You’re welcome,” I said. And then I ate.
In the end, I wound up sneaking outside via the tunnels.
Lady Werewilk’s homebrew charm might have gotten me a step or two beyond the door before some sharp-eyed lad at the edge of the yard ruined another of my hand-stitched shirts with his rude crossbow. The lady of the house seemed, for the first time since I’d met her, a bit crestfallen by the admission.
I’d had coffee and a roast beef sandwich, though, and I assured her I’d put her hard work to good use.
I had a plan. Lady Werewilk would loose a purposely-clumsy charm at the clump of singed chokeweeds just beyond the door. The weeds would quickly begin to shake and toss about, and they’d light up like a beacon to any wand-wavers nearby. Meanwhile, I’d rise out of the ground in the distant cornfield, while Darla stayed behind to lower the works and let me in only after I issued the secret password. Marlo would be handy to keep her company. Evis would be at my side. Victor and Sara would be somewhere nearby, ready to engage in halfdead mayhem at any threat to Evis and, coincidentally, me.
I felt as safe as I could possibly feel, going outside to meet the likes of Encorla Hisvin.
Darla, Marlo and I waited until what Marlo called hard dark before we moved the oven aside and descended into the dark. That’s when the only variation to my clever planned emerged, in the form of Mama and her infamous oversized meat-cleaver.
“Boy! You down there?”
I cringed. We’d not even reached the bottom of the stairs, and there was Mama’s shaggy head blocking out the light up above.
Darla clutched at my arm. “I swear I didn’t arrange this.”
Mama came stomp-stomping down the stairs. The freshly honed edge of her cleaver gleamed in Marlo’s torchlight.
“Don’t you even think on sending me off to baby-sit no banshees,” she gruffed.
“Wouldn’t dream of it. I don’t suppose I could impose on you to keep your voice down to a mere shout?”
“I’m as quiet as a mouse, and you knows it. You better wipe that fool grin off your ugly mug or I’ll wipe off for ye, Farmer Brown. I ain’t to be trifled with.”
The last was delivered to Marlo, who wisely turned away so that the torch no longer lit his face.
“Hush,” I said. “Voices carry, Mama. I know better than to argue with you, and you know better than to get in my way. You speak when you’re spoken to, and you follow my lead, whatever that is. Got it?”
She just nodded. It was the best I could hope for. Whether she’d actually do anything I asked was anybody’s guess.
Evis came ghosting back out of the shadows ahead.
“All clear,” he whispered.