Freeing the Witch Read online

  EVERNIGHT PUBLISHING ®

  www.evernightpublishing.com

  Copyright© 2019 L.J. Longo

  ISBN: 978-0-3695-0056-4

  Cover Artist: Jay Aheer

  Editor: Karyn White

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  DEDICATION

  To my sister whose outlook on love and life has always inspired me.

  FREEING THE WITCH

  Heart of the Mountain, 2

  L.J. Longo

  Copyright © 2019

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Freedom was a gamble.

  If Emaula failed, Mother would be unhappy. Unhappiness could manifest itself as a mildly unpleasant lecture on ingratitude. Or as three weeks locked in the room with no food. Or Mother could have done with this lifelong war of attrition and just finish eating Emaula’s soul.

  And if by some miracle she succeeded?

  She was alone. Alone in the wilderness of the world. Not even alone in the barely-glimpsed city, but the wild world. Because freedom meant flight, running as far as she could.

  Success depended on Lady Jasprite Doughton. Jasprite, a veritable stranger who wrote letters once every few months to keep a professional correspondence with a witch. Jasprite, a swaggering merchant’s daughter who had bullied a shy and fragile witchling into being her friend. Jasprite, a powerful, wealthy woman who had gone far enough south to tame a man whose natural form was a tiger and make him her lover.

  Most likely, Jasprite didn’t even remember Emaula.

  However … Lady Doughton came to her mother’s courtyard to sell precious magic herbs, so Jasprite was her best chance. Her only chance. And now, while other vendors distracted Mother, was the time.

  “As I speak, so I create.” Emaula whispered her recalcitrant magic into her desperate appeal. The paper trembled with her breath, fluttered with life, and waited for her bidding. “Go to my friend.”

  Most likely, it wouldn’t work. The paper had nowhere to fly because Emaula had no friends. Most likely, it would stay in her hand. Or, Goddess help her, fly to Mother.

  Instead, the paper folded itself in a flash, into the shape of a bird. The note craned its neck, flapped its wings, and dove out of her hand and into the courtyard.

  “Oh!” Emaula covered her mouth to stifle her immediate and sickening regret. Mother would find out. Mother would be angry. Mother would starve her, or send her into darkness, or devour her soul. Mother would—

  The enchanted paper landed in Jasprite’s hand.

  The merchant—this woman who’d conquered the world from east to west—glanced at the bird with indignant surprise. With hardly a flutter of her almond eyes, Jasprite opened the paper and read the note. When the dragon coiled like a long snake upon Jasprite’s wagon craned its head, the merchant lifted her free hand to stroke its snout and whiskers. But kept reading.

  Emaula watched, stone-still.

  Most likely, Jasprite would refuse. She’d crumple the paper. She’d present it to Mother to win a real witch’s favor. She’d laugh at the impudence of a foolish and helpless child. Why would the great Lady Doughton endanger herself for a creature like Emaula?

  “Navarro!” Jasprite’s voice carried all the way to the tower. Rumor claimed she’d married the man in some wild jungle ritual, but Emaula knew Jasprite would live in shame before she married by his tradition.

  The tallest man Emaula had ever seen peeled from the dragon-pulled wagon, reluctantly answering her call. He dressed in strange, loose-fitting clothes as if ready to shed them at any moment so he could transform. Just the kind of exotic, dangerous partner Jasprite needed to keep up with her wanton ways.

  The tiger bowed his head when Jasprite whispered to him. Emaula thought his gaze flitted up the tower when he stood straight and answered. The conversation was short and forceful. An argument? In the end, the tiger shrugged and nodded.

  Most likely, it meant nothing. Lovers fought over anything. Her letter may have convinced Jasprite this courtyard was too dangerous to do business and she may have argued with her lover about raising prices. Either way, no reason to hope. No reason to fear.

  The tiger ducked back into the wagon.

  Jasprite greeted Emaula’s mother. They exchanged smiles, bows, magical herbs, precious metals, potion bottles, and charms. Everything proceeded professionally and pleasantly.

  Until Mother stepped back with surprise. Her eyes lifted to the tower.

  A bone-deep fear fragmented Emaula’s thoughts. If she’d been faster, she might have dived out of the way. It could not be good for Mother to be surprised.

  Of course, she was allowed to be seen in the window. Maybe even encouraged, since she was always prettily dressed and studiously reading.

  Mother summoned her.

  Emaula resisted her mother’s magic—a minor thought experiment that ended instantly with Emaula standing in the courtyard, dressed in the white frock Mother liked her to wear for company. It made her feel childish and innocent, but Mother insisted it highlighted her waist and breasts nicely.

  “Lady Doughton brought you a gift, sweetness.” Mother did not sound happy. But she didn’t sound dangerous either. She put her hand on Emaula’s neck with a loving possession. “You remember Lady Jasprite Doughton, don’t you, Emaula?”

  Emaula made her mind as blank as possible, except for the memory of a ten-year-old Jasprite pulling her around by her hair and pushing her into a fountain while laughing. Her first impression of Jasprite had been that she was a fat, spoiled little girl who Emaula could set on fire if she so chose; she’d learned otherwise quickly. She thought, loudly in case Mother was listening, that Jasprite had not quite grown tall enough for her weight, but carried it elegantly.

  Emaula practiced her smile. “Of course! Lady Jasprite, I’m so grateful you recall me.”

  Jasprite smiled at her with a warm distance. “Ms. Emaula, how could I not? It’s not every day one gets to play hide and seek with a girl who can literally disappear into thin air.”

  “You overestimated my talents.” Emaula modestly tilted her head. “How has the trade served you?”

  Jasprite responded with equal blandness. “Oh, very well. Well enough that I have found a cloth worthy only for a witchling, such as yourself.”

  With that peculiar prescience of a good merchant, Jasprite produced a bolt of luxuriant red silk with elegant black markings woven in. The black strands were a rather weak illusion magic, but one suited to make a more vibrant dye.

  “I wish to gift it to you, Ms. Emaula.” Jasprite extended the cloth. “It’s no owner except myself and the witch who created it.”

  Generous. Such formal politeness. So different than the impassioned letters where Jasprite told her of far off places and people and of the wonders of the wandering life.

  Emaula smiled and bowed politely, but her heart squeezed with helpless despair. Jasprite was not her friend. There would be no salvation.

  “Take the gift and give your friend a pretty little blessing, Emaula.” Mother instructed in the tone of voice one might use on a toddler. “See if there are any herbs or potions you like. Mother will buy them for you.”

  Emaula obediently reached for the silk. “You will provide all I need, Mother. Thank you, Lady Doughton. May you have all the protection and luck my little magic can provide for you
r journeys.”

  Certainly, a more powerful blessing than even Jasprite’s generous gift warranted. Unless Jasprite would find a way to help her. Then it was far too weak to protect even someone as powerful as Jasprite from her mother’s wrath.

  “Thank you for the silk.”

  “It’s the least you deserve,” Jasprite answered, and with those pleasantries finished, the merchant turned her full attention to the real witch. “Now, Madame Whispel, what can I tempt you with today?”

  The merchant directed her mother inside of the enormous wagon, and they both turned their backs on Emaula without concern. It crushed her hope. Jasprite’s friendship was a matter of politeness, of convenience. Her affection was merely a stepping stone to Madame Whispel’s favor.

  Emaula stroked the silk. It would make a lovely robe. She’d treasure—

  Something was wrapped in the bolt. Emaula reached into the silk and groped carefully. Something … something more precious to her than gold.

  String.

  Emaula noticed the thin thread leaving the bolt of silk only because her fingers were on the strand. The spider-web twine tucked against the wall, stretched outside the gate, and led out of her mother’s yard.

  A link to the outside. A path to follow. Her heart hammered. Blessed Jasprite.

  The merchant sounded impossibly professional as she ran through her wares, extolling their virtues and glazing over their prices.

  Emaula waited until her mother startled haggling to interrupt. “Mother, may I return to my tower?”

  Mother glared at her. Emaula cradled the silk to block the thread but remained terrified Mother would somehow sense her intention.

  She explained bashfully. “I want to make my new dress.”

  Mother smiled warmly, softened by Emaula’s uncertainty and her shyness. “Go on, darling. Say goodbye to your friend.”

  “Goodbye, Lady Doughton.” Emaula gripped the loose end of the thread. Don’t drop it. Keep it tight when the magic happens. “I hope to see you again soon. And I eagerly await your next letter.”

  “It is my pleasure and joy,” Jasprite answered with the same rehearsed politeness as before. “to have someone to write to.”

  Mother sent her back to the tower. As the thread unraveled, a hot dread overwhelmed her. What if she dropped it? What if it broke? What if her room was too far?

  Then Emaula sat as before in her window seat.

  The notebook where she had scrawled her hasty plea for salvation still rested against her thigh. As if she had never moved.

  Only now, Emaula held a bolt of red silk and hidden inside the enchanted string. It dangled slack because half the ball remained wound inside her hand. Emaula tugged the strand ever so gently and saw it jump where it disappeared into the tower wall.

  She had a path to freedom.

  Emaula took nothing her mother had given her, which meant she carried only the loose-leaf pages of spells she’d painstakingly copied over the years and wrapped herself in Jasprite’s red silk. She followed the thread to the stone.

  The string lay on the ground; the entire wall was an illusion. Emaula braced herself to walk face first into stone, as she wound the thread into the ball. Instead, she slipped past cold granite, through the grainy hardness, and into the open air.

  Instinctively, Emaula drew away, afraid of falling to her death.

  But the thread stretched out on the ground, so Emaula placed her foot beside it. Solid ground amid the hazy sky.

  Emaula walked on, trusting the thread.

  Once she encountered a door and fumbled for a knob invisible to her. Even that was locked, though only Emaula’s mother could tell there was a door there.

  Did Mother think she’d be deterred by a locked door?

  Emaula stood back and raised her hand. “As I will, so mote it be.”

  Her voice sounded strange to her. Was it the echo? Or was it anger?

  The door became visible as the lock buckled. The knob singed and twisted, and the door cracked open. The air smelled unpleasantly of burned anise.

  The door creaked wide when Emaula touched it. She recognized this walkway … or at least part of it. The red and brown carpet, the two mirrors. This hall belonged in her tower. Only in the tower, there were dozens of mirrors, and the hallways stretched to the library and the kitchen.

  In reality, the thread brought her to a small staircase. Down the stairs, a nice even thirteen, there was a parlor and a big ornate door.

  The front door.

  Emaula had studied that door many times while she was summoned to the parlor with her mother sitting beside her. She knew every curve of the handle, the particular shape of the lock, the worn bits at the bottom. If she walked through that door, would she see Mother’s courtyard? The street? Or some place Emaula could only dream of from her illustrated atlases?

  The thread wound away from the door, through an archway that looked like … yes, that was the kitchen. But how did it get down a flight of stairs? When every day she walked through the mirrored hall in the tower into the kitchen to cook for Mother?

  The magic could lie, but the thread did not. Emaula wandered into the kitchen. Her mother’s cakes and bread loaves decorated every surface. Perhaps she could take one for the journey.

  No. Nothing Mother owned. Nothing except herself.

  She tightened the silk cloth around her and re-clutched at the loose-leaf papers. Then followed the thread.

  Her slender path brought her to a cabinet of fine china. Mother used those when other coven witches visited, very rarely. Emaula never touched it for fear of breaking the fragile plates. But the thread went through a crack in the lower cabinet. When Emaula opened the little door, it did not open to shelves, but to shadowy darkness.

  Outside.

  Emaula chilled with terror. She was going outside, without her mother, without her mother’s permission. She crouched and crawled through the cabinet, clutching the loose-leaf spells and the hanging silk closer to her breast.

  The stone under her bare feet was cracked and uneven, cold. It hurt her knees and her hand, but she pressed on. The stench of the world revolted Emaula; she’d never breathed such foul air. It was nearly enough to drive Emaula back through the foggy darkness.

  Then the final fog of Mother’s illusion passed. A rubbish heap of rotten leaves, coffee grounds, and bones. The shadow of a tall brick building and beyond the hazy twilight. She couldn’t see the peak of her tower, only this squat building and her mother’s courtyard beyond. Where there was a public fair. Hundreds of people. That fountain was in her mother’s yard. Jasprite’s dragon-pulled wagon was on an open road. She’d spent her life looking down at a proper market, never knowing there were people just beyond the veil of her mother’s illusions.

  Emaula’s head swam between the awful odor and this strange, terrible realization. Mother was right. She wasn’t ready to exist in the world if she couldn’t see through a simple spell on her own. Most likely it was kinder for Mother to eat her soul…

  “Oi, witch.” The man’s voice was deep and strangely accented. Emaula’s magic rippled in terror. The tiger at the end of the alley held the other end of the thread. “What are you doing crawling out the door? Hurry up.”

  Emaula looked up at the doorway she had crawled through, then stood and shut the perfectly normal back door. The china sat on a shelf above the doorway.

  “Sir, I’m sorry.” Emaula had never spoken to a man before. “You’ll have to forgive—”

  “We need to get in the air and out of here.” The tiger yanked the precious thread from her hand and caught the ball in his hand before it unraveled. “Before your mother notices you’re gone.”

  “I … yes, of course.” They were in so much danger on her account. She couldn’t dawdle. Against every instinct in her body, she hurried toward the man. “May the moon protect you for your kindness, sir.”

  “Fuck the moon.” The tiger growled. “I want your oath that you mean us no harm.”

  “Me?�
�� She looked up at the man. He had to be over six feet tall and could have murdered her in an instant. “How could I possibly hurt you?”

  “You’re a witch, aren’t you?” The man pulled a scroll out of his bag and shoved it at her. “I have a pack of wolves that aren’t going to be happy when we bring a witch home. But Jasprite told me your situation, and we gotta help you.”

  Wolves … unhappy ones… Emaula took the scroll. “Oh, an oath of protection.”

  “Sign it.” The tiger demanded. “Give your word not to hurt anyone in my pack.”

  She’d die if she broke this contract. She’d die if her mother found her outside the tower. She manifested a pin and stabbed her index finger with it.

  “Not a problem, sir. I’ll die before I harm anyone dear to you or Jasprite, by conscious choice.” The text of her vow wrote itself on the contract in her blood. The power of the oath traveled through her and made her lightheaded. “It’s binding.”

  “Good enough for me.” The tiger reached out to grab her arm.

  “No!” Emaula jolted. Not fast enough. Her magic crackled out to attack him.

  The man seized her arm. Her magic spiraled out and struck him. He fell back, slammed into the opposite wall of the alley. Bits of brick flaked away from the impact, and he gnashed his teeth to stop himself from roaring.

  “I’m so sorry!” Emaula raised her hands placating, reaching to help him to his feet, then because the silk slipped, holding her arms across her chest. Her hands were useless to him.

  “The fuck was that?” The tiger growled. “Didn’t you just—”

  “In my oath, I said by conscious choice. That was not conscious, and sir, I apologize. I’m very cursed. You and your pack must not touch me.”

  He staggered to his feet. “I’ll be sure to tell them. Follow me.”

  Emaula wrapped the loose silk tighter around her naked body and followed him away from the park. She crossed her first street. She glanced back at her mother’s house, taking in the outside for the first time in her life. Just drab red brick. Nothing spectacular at all. She could see the library on the second story, the edge of her window seat just around the corner. It was colder, and the ground hurt her bare feet more than she expected. She wasn’t sure she ought to leave.