Joanne Harris: Runemarks

And if she protested, folk would say that she’d always had a troublesome nature, that their ill luck had begun the day she was born, and that no good would ever come of a child with a ruinmark-that rusty sign on the Smith girl’s hand-

– which some oldsters called the Witch’s Ruin and which no amount of scrubbing would remove.

It was either that or blame the goblins-otherwise known as Good Folk or Faërie-who this summer had upped their antics from raiding cellars and stealing sheep (or occasionally painting them blue) to playing the dirtiest kind of practical jokes, like leaving horse dung on the church steps, or putting soda in the communion wine to make it fizz, or turning the vinegar to piss in all the jars of pickled onions in Joe Grocer’s store.

And since hardly anyone dared to mention them, or even acknowledge that they existed at all, Maddy was left to deal with the vermin from under the Hill alone and in her own way.

No one asked her how she did it. No one watched the Smith girl at work. And no one ever called her witch -except for Adam Scattergood, her employer’s son, a fine boy in some ways but prone to foul language when the mood took him.

Besides, they said, why speak the word? That ruinmark surely spoke for itself.

Now Maddy considered the rust-colored mark. It looked like a letter or sigil of some kind, and sometimes it shone faintly in the dark or burned as if something hot had pressed there. It was burning now, she saw. It often did when the Good Folk were near, as if something inside her were restless and itched to be set free.

That summer, it had itched more often than ever, as the goblins swarmed in unheard-of numbers, and banishing them was one way of putting that itch to rest. Her other skills remained unused and, for the most part, untried, and though sometimes that was hard to bear-like having to pretend you’re not hungry when your favorite meal is on the table-Maddy understood why it had to be so.

Cantrips and runecharms were bad enough. But glamours, true glamours, were perilous business, and if rumor of these were to reach World’s End, where the servants of the Order worked day and night in study of the Word…

For Maddy’s deepest secret-known only to her closest friend, the man folk knew as One-Eye-was that she enjoyed working magic, however shameful that might be. More than that, she thought she might be good at it too and, like anyone with a talent, longed to make use of it and to show it off to other people.

But that was impossible. At best it counted as giving herself airs.

And at worst? Folk had been Cleansed for less.

Maddy turned her attention to the cellar floor and the wide-mouthed burrow that disfigured it. It was a goblin burrow, all right, bigger and rather messier than a foxhole and still bearing the marks of clawed, thick-soled feet where the spilled earth had been kicked over. Rubble and bricks had been piled in a corner, roughly concealed beneath a stack of empty kegs. Maddy thought, with some amusement, that it must have been a lively-and somewhat drunken-party.

Filling in the burrow would be easy, she thought. The tricky thing, as always, was to ensure it stayed that way. ýr , the Protector, had been enough to secure the church doors, but goblins had been known to be very persistent where ale was concerned, and she knew that in this case, a single charm would not keep them out for long.

All right, then. Something more.

With a sharp-ended stick she drew two runes on the hardpack floor.

Naudr, the Binder, might do it, she thought-

– and with it Úr, the Mighty Ox, set at an angle to the mouth of the burrow.

Now all it needed was a spark.

That spark. That was the only true magic involved. Anyone familiar with the runes-which were only letters, after all, taken from an ancient language-could learn to write them. The trick, Maddy knew, was to set them to work.

It had been difficult at first. Now working the runes was easy as striking a match. She spoke a little cantrip-

Cuth on fyre…

The letters flared for a few seconds and then dwindled to a warning gleam. The goblins could see them-and so could Maddy-but to Mrs. Scattergood, who despised reading (because she could not do it) and who thought magic was the devil’s work, the runes would only ever look like scratches in the dirt, and they could all continue to pretend that the goblins were only rats.

Suddenly there came a scrabbling sound from the far, dark corner of the cellar. Maddy turned and saw a movement in the shadows and a shape, rather larger than a common rat, bob away between two of the barrels.

Quickly she stood up, lifting her candle so that its flame lit up the whitewashed wall. No sound could be heard; nothing moved but the shadows, which jerked and juddered.

Maddy stepped forward and shone the candle right into the corner. Still nothing moved. But every creature leaves a trail that only a few know how to see. There was something there; Maddy could feel it. She could even smell it now: a sour-sweet, wintry scent like roots and spices kept long underground.

A drunken party, she thought again. So drunken, perhaps, that one of the revelers, stupefied beyond all thought of caution by Mrs. Scattergood’s excellent ale, had curled up in some dark corner to sleep off the after-effects of a bellyful. And now it was trapped, whatever it was. Trapped behind a drift of stacked ale kegs, its burrow sealed, the cellar shut.

Maddy’s heart began to beat a little faster. In all these years she had never had such a chance: to see one of the Faërie at such close quarters; to speak to it and have it answer.

She tried to recall what little she knew of the Good Folk from under Red Horse Hill. They were curious creatures, more playful than bad, fond of strong drink and well-dressed meats. And wasn’t there something else as well, something that lingered tantalizingly on the edges of memory? A tale of One-Eye’s, perhaps? Or maybe some more practical trick, some cantrip to help her deal with the thing?

She left the candle on top of a barrel and came to peer into the corner. “I know you’re there,” she whispered softly.

The goblin-if it was a goblin and not just a rat-said nothing.

“Come out,” said Maddy. “I won’t hurt you.”

Nothing moved; just layers of shadow disturbed by the candle flame. She gave a sigh, as if of disappointment, and turned to face the other way.

In the shadows, something lurked; she could see it from the corner of her eye.

She did not move, but stood, apparently lost in thought. In the shadows, something began to crawl, very quietly, between the barrels.

Still Maddy did not stir. Only her left hand moved, fingers curling into the familiar shape that was Bjarkán, the rune of revelation.

If it was a rat, Bjarkán would show it.

It was not a rat. A wisp-just a wisp-of Faërie gold gleamed in the circle of her finger and thumb.

Maddy pounced. Her strike was well timed. At once the creature began to struggle, and although Maddy couldn’t see it, she could certainly feel it between her hands, kicking and twisting and trying to bite her. Then, as she continued to hold it fast, the creature finally went limp; the shadow dropped away from it, and she saw it clearly.

It-he-was not much bigger than a dog fox, with small, clever hands and wicked little teeth. Most of his body was covered in armor-pieces of plate, leather straps, half a mail shirt cut clumsily down to fit-and out of his brown, long-whiskered face, his eyes shone a bright, inhuman gold.