Erin Bow - Plain Kate

“…be afraid,” Drina was saying, when Kate heard again. “It’s only a few drops.”

Plain Kate took a deep breath. “What do we do first?”

“Cut the braids off,” said Drina. “Can I use your knife?”

Kate handed her knife over and undid the scarf with the blue stars. She could not help stiffening as Drina came toward her with the knife raised, drawing back as Drina’s shadow fell across her face. The braids smarted and tugged at her temples as Drina sawed at them with the knife. Finally they came free: The two cut braids were coiled up in Drina’s palm like a pair of young snakes.

“Just let me—” said Drina, leaning toward her again, knife trembling in her hand. Plain Kate winced, but before she even understood what was happening, Drina had cut her on the top of her ear.

Plain Kate gasped and clamped her hand over the little wound. “Sorry, sorry!” Drina tugged Kate’s hand away and put her own hand in its place. “But it’s one of the best places to get blood—lots from a little wound, and you can cover the scars.”

Warm blood trickled behind Kate’s ear and down her neck. “It’s all right,” she said. She could feel the silky ropes of her own cut hair against her skin. When Drina pulled them away, the braids glistened here and there where the blood had wetted them.

Kate fingered the wound. Truly it was only a nick; she could hardly feel it. “Now what?”

Drina was shaking, but she flashed a grin. “Now this.” She threw the ropes of hair into the fire.

The stink of burnt hair instantly filled the tent. The silence got tight, like the top of a drum. Taggle’s fur rose into a thick ridge down his spine. And then Drina started to sing.

It was a low, mumbling, murmuring song, a song a river might sing. Plain Kate couldn’t tell if it didn’t have words or if she didn’t know the language. It was mournful as an old memory, and it made Kate remember—suddenly and so clearly she could smell it—the moment her father had died. He had called her name, but his eyes were already seeing the shadowless country, and she didn’t know—she would never know—if he was calling for her, or her mother.

Drina, singing, leaned across the fire. “Shadow, shadow, shadow…” went the song.

The air was thick with smoke. The tears on Plain Kate’s cheeks were cold, the rest of her face was scorching. Against the tent wall, shadows whirled—Drina’s thin, Taggle’s dancing, and a third—

An ugly noise came from deep in Taggle’s throat.

Plain Kate watched the third shadow; it pinned her eyes. It was supposed to be her shadow, but it wasn’t. It was sinuous and moved like a water snake. She knew in her stomach that this was not a simple shadow, but some cold thing, some damp dead thing that should be resting. And, though their fire was the only light, she thought this shadow was not cast backward from the flame, but was drawing near to it, from outside the tent.

“Thing!” The cat yowled and spat. “Thing!”

“Drina,” choked Kate. “Stop.”

Drina turned and looked over her shoulder at the thing that had captured Kate’s eyes. She froze. The song stopped. The shadow reached.

Then Kate dumped the kettle over the fire.

Steam and smoke flated. Both girls started coughing. And the shadow was gone.

¶

The air in the bender tent still smelled of burnt hair.

Plain Kate was trying to coax the fire up from its pool of ash-mud, and not having much luck. Even twigs would only smolder. She picked up a branch and started carving curled wood shavings, dropping them into the chittering embers, one by one.

Taggle was pacing around the edge of the tent like a lion around the rim of its cage. “A thing,” the cat hissed. “It makes me feel hungry and wet. I hate it! Thing!”

“It was not my shadow,” said Kate. “It was something else.”

“You don’t know that,” said Drina. Her voice fluttered with fear.

“But I do,” said Kate. She could still feel the prickle of the thing’s presence in her hair.

Rain fell through the smoke hole and hissed in the embers. The struggling fire went out again. The tent sank back into darkness.

“I—” said Drina. “I didn’t think. I’m sorry.”

“What didn’t you think?”

“That blood—” Drina swallowed. “That blood can call more than one thing. We—called into the darkness. We don’t know what answered.”

“Oh,” said Kate.

They drew closer together in the dark.

“In Toila,” said Drina, after a long time. “In the great market of Toila, there are charm sellers. My mother knew some of them. Some of them are really—some of them have true power. We’ll—we can ask one of them, how to call and be sure it’s your shadow that answers.”

“No,” said Kate.

“Plain Kate. We have to try.”

“No.”

There was a scuffling in the darkness, and after a moment, a buttery glow. Drina had found the tallow lamp in their goods box, and lit it. The little flame danced on its clay spout. Kate watched it a while. Taggle climbed into her lap and smoothed his fur—though she could still feel tiny muscles twitching down his spine.

In the safe, domestic light, the two girls sat together until their breathing evened. It seemed like hours.

“Drina,” said Kate. “Drina, it’s too dangerous. Even if—I don’t want you to be hurt. For me.”

Drina sat quietly for a moment, feeding wood curls into the lamp flame and dropping them, burning, into the damp kindling. “Do you remember,” she said, “I told you my mother was a healer. And that to work a great magic, you have to give something away? That’s why your magician had to give you a wish when he took your shadow.”

“Drina,” said Plain Kate. “What are you telling me?”

“My mother—” she said. “Don’t you see? A healer must give a gift in kind to make a healing. A healer gives away her own life, piece by piece. That’s what my mother did. And I want, I want to be like her. I want to help you. No matter what.”

Kate watched the wood curls burn and send up their ribbons of smoke, trying to understand. “Tomorrow,” said Kate at last. “Tomorrow I will ask to show my objarka to Rye Baro. In Toila we can sell them, and—find someone to ask.”

Drina closed her eyes and nodded, little hummingbird-quick twitches of her head.

“But, Drina—I can’t keep this secret. Someone will see. Soon, someone will see. It’s better to tell before someone sees.”

“Just a little longer,” Drina pleaded. “After Toila.”

Plain Kate nodded. “It will be better to have the silver from Toila. When we have to tell. Silver will—they might keep me anyway, if we have silver.”

“Also, I can bring in very large rabbits,” said Taggle. “Possibly a small deer.”

“That will help,” said Kate, and bundled him close, her eyes smarting with what she told herself was the smoke.

¶

Plain Kate had meant to go to the clan the next day, but as it happened she could not. Her monthly woman’s blood had come, for the first time. Face burning, she went to Daj to find out what to do.

“Oh ho!” Daj crowed like a rooster, when she understood what had happened. “We Roamers have fattened you up!”

Plain Kate had only ever heard of pigs being fattened up, for slaughter. Some of her confusion must have shown, because Daj added, “Well, you had been hungry, mira , when you came to us. Any fool could see it. Hunger brings the blood late. It’s hard to come into your power when you’re hungry. If you’d had a mother you would know that. And if you were mine, what a cake I’d make you. With berries and honey, and I might, anyway.”

Kate’s blush was turning from shame to pleasure, but Daj wasn’t done talking. “You cannot tell the men, of course. And you must sit apart.”