“Press on duty, Jim?” I asked teasingly. “Shouldn’t you be wearing a town crier’s outfit?”
He nodded toward the archer and returned my banter. “Nay, mistress—merely making the rounds of the crime scene with yon constable.”
In the context of what I had seen and heard about our neighbor, the reporter’s joke did not seem amusing. I certainly hoped that the already much-put-upon security man would not be forced to perform actual police duties.
“ ‘Manda . . .” Deb beckoned me inside to where she stood, well away from the shop door and the waiting men. When she spoke, her voice was hardly above a whisper. “Be careful, please. I don’t like you being alone.”
Such a warning was very unlike my friend, and I found it unsettling; I waited for her to tell me the reason for her concern, but she said no more. In fact, she seemed so eager to be gone that, as she stepped out and greeted her escort, I had only a moment to wish them an enjoyable evening before all three left.
After fixing the shop bell so that it would announce any visitors, I brought my supper out into the front portion of the booth. I ate slowly, watching the street.
Winterhue’s hut was totally dark now; and indeed, all the world had grown gray, since the light of the period lanterns did not carry far beyond the fronts of the shops.
However, though the faire was shadowed, it was by no means silent. From the direction of the castle came a cry of trumpets, probably to announce the seating of the Court; then, more faintly, a burst of music followed, of the kind I had heard being rehearsed for several months. Light (albeit dim), and sound, and scent, too, had messages for the senses in the evening air. I was aware of incense burning, though not near; the night breeze brought no more than a hint. The unreal world that was the faire seemed to be waiting for something.
Having finished my supper—most of which, due to my nervousness, had ended up in the trash—I returned to the inner room and took a paperback from my tote. Almost immediately I put it back again. Perhaps if I rested . . .
After a moment’s struggle, I freed myself from the heavy skirt and the laced bodice that held me in the grip of an Iron Maiden and put on my Chinese cotton robe. On impulse, I pulled out several boxes and pushed aside a limp curtain to look out of one of our two windows at Winterhue’s shop. Nothing moved there.
In the suspense stories I read for relaxation, a cold wind, or some equally disquieting phenomenon, always announces the arrival of danger. I, however, was simply unable to settle down. This was a strange feeling and one I had never had before; time might have ceased to exist.
The moon was favoring the faire tonight, and a bright beam carved a path between our booth and that of our neighbor. Without warning, something dropped from the air into that ray-path. Leaves and bushes rustled.
“Darn you, cat!”
The intruder from the woods could now be clearly seen: it was Mike Quick from the merchant family. The boy dropped to his knees to grab at a small black blot, but with a bound, the blot eluded him. Overbalancing, he fell forward, and his prey vanished into the dark.
“Sneaking around, eh?” A second, much larger shadow moved into the moonlight and pulled Mike halfway off the path in the direction of the artist’s hut. “Well, I have a cure for that—”
By this time I was up, thrusting my feet into my shoes, sure I was hearing choking sounds from the merchant youth. When I looked out again, his captor was dragging the wildly-kicking boy toward the Winterhue booth, but the man halted abruptly when he sighted more movement at the trees’ edge.
“Mike!” cried a second young voice. “You got that kitten yet?”
“You, is it?” the man roared. “You miserable little vandal, I’ll have you now!”
His captor gave a forceful shove, and the Quick boy fell back again into the moonlit path. He did not get to his feet but scuttled for the safety of the wood on hands and knees.
Quietly as I could, I left my vantage point and moved to the front of the shop. Unlatching the outer door and loosening the alarm cord, I took up the flashlight we had set on one of the shelves. As I stepped outside, I almost echoed the leap of Mike’s prey as a small furred body fastened onto the hem of my robe.
A rise and fall of words began, none of which I could understand. Tugging my robe free from the kitten’s grip, I ran toward the speaker, who I did not think was addressing anyone in this world.
The chant cut off abruptly, and Winterhue (I could not see his face, but I knew it was he) spoke the merchant boy’s name, making of its single syllable a drawn-out siren call: “M–i–i–i–ke . . .”
Hardly had he completed the word when the youth cried out. The artist moved onto the path to meet Mike, who was returning as summoned. The boy crawled back into the moonlight, body close to the ground, fingers crooked like the claws of an animal. Roddy simply stood to one side of the way, his mouth open as though he were screaming but making no sound at all.
I stepped up behind Winterhue, so that I, too, stood facing the boys. As I moved, the sculptor was lifting one arm; then he leaped toward them, and the moon caught the glitter of a knife blade as he raised the weapon. His other hand closed on a loose dark curl that lay over Roddy’s forehead. Still the boy remained silent, his face a mask of mindless fear.
“No!” I cried. Snapping on the flashlight, I caught the three figures full in its powerful beam.
Startled, the sculptor loosed the lock of hair, twisting round so he faced partly into that light, and I clung to the hope that he could not see me behind it. Even his goblin figures had not worn such terrifying expressions as his own features now formed.
Stepping back from Roddy, Winterhue wheeled in a crouch, a soldier facing a charging enemy. The Magin boy made no attempt to rim as Mike Quick wormed his way up beside him; the older youth’s mouth was working as though he were shouting, but he, too, was held by the spell of silence that gripped his friend.
“Drop that light, bitch!” the artist spat in my direction.
To my horror, my grip on the barrel of the flash was loosening. At the same instant, I felt a renewed pull at the hem of my robe: the kitten was climbing, but I dared not try to remove it, lest I lose control of the light, which I was now holding in both hands. I fully expected Winterhue to attack me and tried to edge backward, only to discover I was rooted there. I had no more power over my own body than the sculptor’s small dolls—or the two large, living manikins who stood before me—had over theirs.
“I said, drop it—!”
A force that might have been an extension of the artist’s will seized me, shaking me painfully, and only with great effort did I manage to keep hold of the light. The small cat had reached my shoulder in its ascent. Against the arm up which it was now making its way, its frail body weighed very little; however, it could interfere with any defensive move I might have to make.
Vicious laughter burst from the sculptor as he saw my predicament. I was sure he would reach out and take the flashlight easily from my helpless hands to complete his triumph; but he did not. What he did do was far more frightening.
For the second time he raised the hand holding the knife, but he did not strike at me; instead, he placed the blade between his teeth in the manner of a storybook pirate. From the breast of his jerkin, he brought out a poppet on which the moonlight seemed to center with added intensity. It was smaller than those he had shown to Deb and me, but it was unmistakably another portrait-figure. The head was still bald, but the features were those of Roddy Magin.
Returning the knife to his hand, Winterhue turned and twisted the weapon over the doll, as though seeking the most vulnerable spot to stab. Again he laughed.
“Needs a little trimming up—I was going to give him some hair, until you showed up, damn you! You’ve done enough already to spoil my plans with your bleeding-heart blabber in that letter to the paper about Jessie’s animal sacrifice. Now, Miss Lady-in-Shining-Armor, you just watch old Winterhue, because he’s going to show you a real artist’s secret.”
I could do nothing but obey in a body that had become an imprisoning shell. The kitten had settled on my shoulder, and its soft fur brushed my cheek as it shifted position. It was purring with surprising volume for its size, yet the vibration told not of contentment but of mingled fear and anger. And from that so-small source, power was expanding. Downward into my body it flowed, warming my arms until I once more felt the prickling return of life to my hands.
The sculptor moved the knife point closer to the head of the doll, aiming at one of the unblinking eyes.
“Easy—so very easy—to handle folk who come a-spying . . .”
That threat I head, but it was the last understandable thing the artist said. Yet again he spewed forth a series of meaningless sounds which, though discordant, had a rhythm to their flow. Winterhue took a quick stride to the edge of the light, revealing Roddy to my view. The boy was on his knees, swaying back and forth, his hands pressed over his eyes.
I tried to scream, but nothing came from my mouth. Then the rough tip of a tiny tongue flicked across my lips, and suddenly sound broke forth—no words I knew, but strange noises I had made no effort to form. The artist answered with cries that were loud enough to muffle my own, but still I continued. His fingers clenched as he tried to keep hold of the knife; even as I had fought to keep the flashlight steady earlier, so now he was struggling to retain his weapon.
It was the doll that fell though, thankfully, the knife did also a moment later. At the same time, the flow of Jabberwocky from my lips ended and I was free to move. Winterhue had gone to hands and knees to retrieve the blade, but only inches before his fingers, the thing was sliding itself away over the ground like a stray moonbeam.
“ ‘Manda!” a familiar voice cried.
“What’s going on?” someone else called, followed by a chorus of other shouts to which I paid no attention; I had just achieved my goal of recovering the doll. Now, with Roddy’s image in my hands, I started toward the boy himself. In that instant, the youth charged the still-kneeling sculptor—an attack I could see by the light that blazed from the poppet in my trembling hands.
Mark and two other members of faire security separated the youth from the object of his wrath, while Deb pulled the flashlight gently from my hands and held it steady. I became aware that the small weight on my shoulder was gone.
I felt completely bewildered by the events of the night—to such a degree that I could actually sympathize (a little) with Roddy Magin, who was crying with the force of a two year old and still struggling, in Mark’s grip, to reengage his enemy. Winterhue, however, was no longer a threat.
That being so, there was something I had to do. I edged away from the light, though my friend tried to hold me, repeating my name in alarm. A few moments later, hardly knowing how I had come there, I found myself kneeling at the edge of the woods. With one hand, I felt the ground until my fingers sank into a soft patch, then set about digging as a squirrel might open an earth pocket to hide a nut. Tearing off one of the ruffles of my chemise, I wound it about the doll, fitted the manikin into the hole, scooped back the soil, and flattened it.
Deb knelt down beside me. My friend no longer held the flashlight, so only the moon witnessed the “burial service” we gave the poppet, she pronouncing more of that unintelligible language over its “grave.” I, meanwhile, sat rubbing my eyes, behind which had erupted a headache of migraine proportions.
Questions . . . so many questions. Who—or what—was Sterling Winterhue? The dolls he shaped—were they dangerously bound in some manner to the persons they represented, or was this fear only a dark fancy born of the torture in my skull?
I do not remember the ride to the hospital; once there, however, I know I was visited by dreams that left me weak and sick. When I finally began to rise from the utter debility and the pain that—I discovered later—had actually lasted for days, I made a decision about my experience. I had been drawn into the uncharted territory of the psychic realm, and I would not, in future, knowingly venture so, away from my earthly home. Never again—not I.
Before I was discharged from the hospital, my friend left town, having taken a position as a lecturer with a traveling exhibit of Renaissance needlework. She had visited me daily, but neither of us was comfortable with the other any longer. In the encounter with the sculptor, I had learned that the Deb Wilson I thought I knew was but a costume, like one of her period dresses, for the woman of power who had come forth that night. I found I did not even want to ask questions, though I had a daunting number of them to answer myself when the sheriff and a state trooper visited me. The most crucial query had yet to be posed, and not to me but to the organizers of the festival: Would there be another Ridgewood Renaissance Faire?
On the day I came home to a safe and sane life again, someone was waiting at the door. This was one friendship I would not avoid, and my new acquaintance would ask no questions. Moonshadow, the kitten, was the only piece of miniature magic I cared to own—or be owned by.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 Andre Norton Estate
978-1-4976-6037-3
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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Andre Norton, Tales From High Hallack, Volume 3
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