Robin Hobb: Words Like Coins

Jami took up her spoon and stirred the boiled grain thoughtfully. When I was little, there were lots of pecksies near our house. My father’s land was between a spur of the forest and a sunny little stream, so they had to cross our field to get to water. My mother knew how to use them, so we had them in the house, too. She never realized the danger.

Mirrifen poured water from the kettle over the tea herbs in the pot. How do you ‘use' a pecksie?

Oh, it’s easy enough. She had to be tricky to snare them, because they know how it works. If a pecksie accepts a favor from you, the pecksie has to do what you ask it. They’re bound. Once you have one pecksie, the rest of its clan come around. And a clever woman can trick them into bondage as well.

I see, Mirrifen said softly. The pecksie’s rueful words carried a deeper meaning now.

Jami was caught up in her telling. There’s a lot they can’t do, because they’re small. They can’t sweep, and one almost drowned in our washing tub. But they can fetch eggs and dust, tend the fire, do the sewing, bring vegetables from the garden, weed, and keep rats away. And if you treat them well, they’re good natured about it—or so we thought. Jami scowled, remembering. Perhaps all that time they were hiding their resentment. Is there tea yet?

Mirrifen poured for both of them. What happened?

They killed my little brothers. Jami’s calm voice thickened.

How? Mirrifen asked in horror when her silence stretched.

Jami took a breath. Oh, smothered them, I suppose. Tears clouded her voice. They were only babies. My mother told the pecksies to watch the baby at night, not to rouse him and to rock him if he woke. So my mother could get some sleep.

Mirrifen nodded.

Well, one morning, Grag was dead in his cradle. Just dead. Well, everyone knows such things do happen. We mourned him and buried him. Two years later, Mother had another boy. Dwin. He was a fine fat boy. One night she told the pecksies to watch him sleep and call her if he woke. Before dawn, she woke up to all the pecksies standing in a ring around his cradle, squeaking and crying in that horrid way they have. My mother snatched Dwin up, but it was too late. He was dead.

Mirrifen felt cold. She dared not let Jami know that she’d brought an injured pecksie into the house. She had to get rid of it fast. What did your mother do?

She didn’t hesitate. All those pecksies had eaten our food and taken favors, so she could command them all. ‘Go away!' she shouted at them. ‘All of you! Go away forever!' And they went. I watched them stream out of the house, wailing and squeaking as they walked down the road and off into the distance.

That’s all she did? Mirrifen held her teacup firmly in her trembling hands.

That’s all she needed do, Jami said vindictively. It meant death for all of them. She knew that. Words bind pecksies. I once heard an old pecksie say that you should spend words like coins. You can’t just say, ‘wash the dishes' or they’ll wash the dishes all day long. You have to say, ‘wash the dirty dishes until they’re clean, wipe the dishes until they’re dry, and then put them in the cupboard.' They do exactly what you say. So when my mother told them ‘Go away!' they had to go and keep going. Forever. Because no one ever gets to ‘away', do they? They had to keep walking until they dropped dead in their tracks. My mother knew that. She had learned it from her mother.

A chill squeezed Mirrifen’s heart. And after that?

After that, my parents never let a pecksie into the house again. We got cats to keep the rats down. And my parents had three more children, all girls, to my father’s sorrow, but they survived because there were no pecksies near their beds. Nasty, vindictive wretches. Jami took a long drink from her cooling tea. When she set her cup down, she looked directly at Mirrifen. My father always blamed the pecksies for my mother’s death.

What?

He found her in the barn, at the bottom of the hay loft ladder. Her neck was broken. She was covered all over in pecksie dust. Jami’s voice deepened. They probably swarmed her and knocked her off the ladder.

I see, Mirrifen said faintly.

After breakfast, she set a chair outside in the shade, brought Jami her yarn and needles and slipped quickly away to her own room. The pecksie was gone. She’d taken the little charm against infection. Well. Perhaps it was all solved and for the best. She wondered if pecksies were as treacherous as Jami believed, and hoped she would never find out.

The day passed slowly, as every day had since the men had left. Time was measured in what she could not do; no weeds to pull, no vegetables to harvest, no fruit to thin on the parched trees. Idleness today in exchange for want later; a bad bargain all around. She couldn’t find any hole in the chicken coop, but when she cleaned it out, three rats boiled up from under the soiled straw. She swept them out with her broom and shut the door tight.

Twice she thought she’d glimpsed the pecksie, but each time, when she turned, nothing was there. She blamed it on Jami’s horrid tale and her own imagination and tried to stay busy.

After the evening meal, she washed the dishes and watered the withered kitchen garden with the used wash water. She drew one bucket of water and gave the poor cows their second drink of the day before shutting them in their stall. She shooed the chickens into the cleaned coop and shut their door tightly. Finally, she broke her news to Jami.

I have to sit up tonight by the well and keep the rats away.

Jami argued, she wept, and then she argued again. I can’t sleep alone in that empty house, with rats rustling in the corners. And pecksies. You saw the pecksie dust on the bucket.

Well, you can’t stay awake outside with me, either. Jami, be sensible. Neither of us have any choice in this.

Jami surrendered, but not with grace. Mirrifen ascribed her sulk to her pregnancy and tried not to mind it. It was hard. After all, she was the one who had to spend the night outside with a club and a lantern. She took a blanket against the night chill and went to take up her vigil.

The moon had grown one slice closer to full. Its thin light was watery, and the lantern’s shifting glow denied it existed at all. Jamie sat down on the lid of the well and waited. Night cooled and thickened around her. She pulled the blanket around her shoulders. The night song of insects in the dry fields rose into a chorus. Her eyes grew heavy. Jami blew out her candle in the bedroom, completing the darkness. Outside the circle of her lamplight, creatures moved or perhaps her eyes played tricks on her. Her club rested across her lap. She tapped it with her fingernails, playing a rhythm. She knuckled her eyes and then vigorously scratched her head, trying to stay awake. She sang softly to herself, old songs. Wasn’t there a third verse to that song? How had it begun?

She jolted awake.

She didn’t remember reclining. The club that had been under her hand had been moved. Crouched at the edge of the well lid, staring at her with lambent green eyes, was the pecksie. One of her long-fingered hands rested on the club. Her silvery gray skin gleamed in the moonlight. What do you do now? the creature asked her.

Mirrifen sat up cautiously. She gathered her feet under her, ready to flee. I’m guarding the well. The rats have been trying to gnaw through the cover. But if they do and fall in the well, they’ll drown and foul the water.

Not that! the pecksie exclaimed with disdain. You not guard. You sleep! But what you do now? You say, Go away! to pecksie? You send me to death?