Jolene Page 22

  Anna watched her aunt repeat the action three more times before Jinny turned the task over to her. Jinny used the juice initially drained from the tomatoes as the base for their soup, then, when there was more than she needed, directed Anna to pour it into the slop bucket for the pigs.

  “C’n we do this with ever’thang?” she asked.

  Jinny nodded, her back to Anna while she cut up more vegetables for the soup. “Some thangs it don’t pay t’ waste th’ time an’ Glory, though,” she pointed out. “Most stuff might’s well let the sun do th’ work. Peas ’n beans. Corn. I like t’ sun-dry apples. Mostly, y’all wanter do this with anythang what’s real juicy an’ cain’t hold in a barrel or bag an’ cain’t be pickled—which ain’t much. Mushrooms, iffen y’all got ’nuff, though mushrooms mostly don’ last long ’nuff ’round me t’git dried.”

  “Strawbs?” Anna asked hopefully.

  To her regret, her aunt shook her head. “Naw, strawbs don’ hold up well t’dryin’. Most berries don’t, jest deerberry an’ blueberry. Some thangs we jest gotter enjoy in jam an’ in season.”

  Mastering this drove most of that uncomfortable conversation out of Anna’s head, and the novelty of having wheat bread instead of corn bread for supper further distracted her. Her aunt had made up the dough into four little round loaves rather than one big one; when time came for supper, she sawed the bottom off two of the loaves, dug out the soft insides, set the pieces aside, and filled the bread “bowls” with soup, with the soft bits on the side to sop up the broth. The bottoms got spread with strawberry jam for dessert.

  “Go sit on th’ stove an’ read yore book,” her aunt directed, when the little that needed to be cleaned was done. “I gotter go talk to some’un.” And she took down that piece of black glass Anna had seen her staring into once before.

  “W-w-wait,” Anna stuttered. “What?”

  “This,” her aunt told her, “was my Granpappy’s. ’Tis called a scryin’ plate. Thet means I c’n use it ter talk ter other people what gots th’ Glory, an’ iffen I had the power ter look inter th’ future—which I don’t—I could see what was a-comin’. Or iffen I had the power t’ see what’s a-goin’ on fur away, I c’d do thet. My Granny showed me how t’talk to ’bout a dozen folks up Nawth a-ways, ’cause them’s who she knowed. An’ they innerduced me t’their kin, which’s who I talk to now. An’ iffen y’all wanter know more ’bout thet—read yer book.”

  With that she took the black plate and went out onto the porch, where the westering sun was turning everything a deep gold.

  So Anna got a candle and her book, and climbed up on the stove, where she shortly had company. But the three little leaf-and-stick critters didn’t seem inclined to do anything other than share the warmth and twitter at each other, so she settled into the book again.

  Pavel was passed from Master to Master, right across Germany and France and all the way to England. Most of the time he left with more money in his pocket than when he’d arrived, because the Earth Masters he was sponsored by all seemed to be prosperous, some extremely so. And England was where he settled for the winter months with a “squire,” which seemed to be a sort of rich man whose money came from his land, rather than a mine or a factory. Not as important as a “lord,” but more important than a farmer.

  It was this “squire,” living in a place called “Devon” (which she gathered was something like a state even though it was called a “shire”), who also advised him to go to America, reinforcing what the Hungarian Master had said. Or as Pavel put it, “The New Territory of the United States.” It hadn’t been a country for more than thirty years at that point, maybe less, which was something of a shock to Pavel, whose home country had been a nation “forever” as far as he knew.

  And it was there, at the home of Squire Thomson, that he met Sally Lacey, who was both the daughter of the fellow in charge of all of Squire Thomson’s cows, and a very skilled magician who was well known for her healing ways.

  Now, Sally had got her powers from her Ma. And things were changing in England. People weren’t going to “herb-wifes” anymore; they were going to doctors. Only the poorest were resorting to Sally’s Ma for help. And Squire Thomson was a bit concerned that at some point in the near future, it might actually be illegal for people like Sally to help others with their ailments. Certainly all the newly minted doctors were complaining to people like Squire Thomson and other “members of Parliament” that “medicine should be taken out of the hands of the unwashed and ignorant peasant midwives” and entrusted solely to them.

  So Squire Thomson had a notion that Sally ought to go to America, where she’d be more than welcome. Sally had been pretty dubious about this notion. Until Pavel arrived.

  Pavel was educated, her equal in magic, and also an Earth Magician. Pavel was blond and handsome and—thanks to his difficult life in his homeland—modest about his abilities and his looks. Pavel for his part fell head over heels for pretty, brown-eyed, brown-haired Sally the moment he saw her. And Pavel was going to America in the spring, his pockets full of gifts from other Earth Masters who were eager to see an Elemental Master well established in the New World, where he could relay reports about how Elemental Magic was practiced there and help find and educate new Masters.

  Sally’s Ma and Pa were very much inclined to like Pavel from the beginning, as he put on no “airs” with them. They liked him even more for his deference and gentleness with Sally.

  And as for Sally—well, if Pavel was to be believed, and Anna saw no reason why he shouldn’t be—it was love at first sight for both of them.

  It was during that winter that the squire taught Pavel how to “scry,” and gave him that black glass plate, which was not glass at all, but a stone called “obsidian,” which was something Anna had only heard of, never seen. Pavel gave a long and detailed description about how to use this plate, but made it clear that it didn’t have to be an obsidian plate, it could be any shiny, black surface. A black bowl full of water, for instance—though that would be better suited to a Water Magician. Or a ball of black or clear glass. Or a ball or plate of some other black stone. Why, it could even be polished coal! First, you filled the plate with the Glory. The first time you used it you had to “seal” it to you with a couple of signs. After that, all you had to do was fill it with Glory and think of the person you wanted to talk to. The critters on the other person’s end would let him know he was wanted, and he’d get his plate or bowl or whatever, and talk to you through it.

  It was more complicated than that, but that was the short tale. And the thing was, since Pavel had the power, and so did Sally, it wasn’t like it was with most folks, which meant that her parents were fine with her going off across an entire ocean away from them. For most people, if a child went off to America, they’d be lucky to get a letter or two a year, if that. Sally’s Ma could talk to her every night if they wanted.

  So as soon as shipping began after the end of the winter storms in the Atlantic, Pavel and Sally were on a stout sailing vessel, a trading ship full of household goods on the way to make profit from the former colonies, Pavel traveling only with his precious set of carving tools and clothing, and Sally with an equally precious stock of herb seeds, her healing powers, and enough herbs to be useful on the voyage.

  And that was when Aunt Jinny touched Anna’s foot and jerked her out of the book.

  “Larn anythin’?” she asked. “Y’all was so deep in thet book I called y’all three times an’ y’all didn’ stir.”

  “Great-Granpappy wrote ’bout that there scryin’ plate,” she said, then unexpectedly yawned.

  “Good. Then I c’n start larnin’ y’all how t’use it. Termorrer. Y’all jest ’bout split yore head with that yawn,” Aunt Jinny chuckled. “I’s been a long day. Git t’bed.”

  13

  “SO now you can scry?” asked Jolene, when Anna finished telling her what she had been learning from her aunt.


  This morning her aunt had expended quite a bit of Glory bolstering the shield around the farm, and Anna hadn’t had to ask to know she’d been specifically doing it to protect against Billie McDaran. Anna had watched closely, and helped where she could, but it was clear when Jinny was done that the task had taken a lot out of her physically, as well as the expenditure of Glory. After dinner, Jinny had admitted to being “a mite tuckered” and that she needed “a bit of a lay-down.” Armed with a list of the wild plants Aunt Jinny wanted and strictures not to wander so far from the lane that she couldn’t see it through the trees, Anna had gone off in search of more ingredients for potions.

  And as she had half expected, Jolene met her on the lane. They settled in, at Jolene’s insistence, beside a little thread of a stream where Anna could cool her feet. Jolene didn’t seem to need or want any such thing, but Anna was glad of it. Her basket was more than half full and it was a warm day. Her hair was coming down from its neat bun, making little draggles around her face, and she was pleased to have the chance to put it back up again.

  “Yes’m,” she replied. “I ain’t too good at it.”

  Jolene laughed softly. “Perhaps that is because you are trying the wrong people. You have no real connection with these acquaintances of Jinny’s. Try someone you know, first. Like Younger Raven.”

  Anna furrowed her brow. “But Younger Raven ain’t got th’ Earth—”

  “Master can speak to Master regardless of the Element,” Jolene told her. “It’s only the ordinary magicians like your aunt who are restricted to speaking to those of their own kind.”

  Anna blinked at that.

  “But this is boring,” Jolene continued, her eyes alight. “There is nothing exciting about staring into a bowl or an obsidian plate. Would you like to learn something exciting instead?”

  “What d’y’all mean?” she asked, looking into those eyes and remembering that Aunt Jinny had warned her over and over that Jolene was dangerous.

  “Like summoning creatures!” Jolene laughed. “Wouldn’t you like to know how to summon creatures?”

  Well . . . she would, actually. That was certainly more exciting than Aunt Jinny’s scrying. But . . . but . . . but. “What kinda creatures? An’ fer what? An’—” She paused to put some of her whirling thoughts into a more concrete form. “An’ what d’y’all mean when y’all say summoning? Is it like arskin’ ’em t’come? Or is it like makin’ ’em come?” Because if it was the latter . . . well, even though the Joneses were poor and Anna didn’t have much real time or more than casual friends, that didn’t mean Anna had been left out of invitations to parties. Especially when she had been younger. There wasn’t only Christmas, which was a traditional time for ghost stories, there was also Halloween. Pastor might’ve frowned on it, but girls would get together and tell fortunes and try to scare each other. And there were lots of stories about people who summoned things and couldn’t control what came to their summons.

  “Either. Both,” Jolene said, with the carelessness of someone who knows she is powerful enough to control anything she cared to call. “Does it matter?”

  Anna didn’t answer immediately. And when she did, she picked her words slowly and with great care. “Arskin’ is one thing. But it ain’t perlite t’ jest drag somethin’ in without a ‘please will y’all.’ My Ma allus says y’all ketch more flies with molasses than vinegar.”

  Jolene looked at her oddly, as if her words made no sense, then shrugged. “If you insist,” she said, with impatience. “So, do you want to learn how to summon?”

  “Yes’m, please,” she replied, ducking her head. Jolene chuckled.

  “It’s simple. Just draw up the power as I showed you, then cup your hands together, like so.” She held her hands a little apart, as if she was holding a large ball between them. “Then fill the space between them with the power. Go ahead, do it—” she urged, and Anna carefully did as she had been told.

  Between her hands, a sort of ball of that lovely golden glow formed.

  “Now put your intention on it. Tell it the kind of creature you want to summon,” Jolene continued.

  “Kin it be anythin’?” she asked.

  “Anything you have seen. Earth Elemental, or actual animal, that is. You cannot summon any Elementals but your own. I can, of course, summon anything I care to,” Jolene replied with unconscious arrogance. “What would you like to see?”

  “Liddle People,” she said, without a second thought, and turned her attention to the glowing ball in her hands. I’d take it right kindly, she thought, as hard as she could, if any of y’all Liddle People’d come an’ palaver a bit with me. And she pictured the tiny Cherokee in her mind as vividly as she could.

  She was conscious of Jolene’s intent gaze on her the entire time, but she didn’t allow it to distract her. “Now squeeze the power between your hands, as tight as you ever can,” Jolene instructed her, after what seemed like forever. “Because when you release it, you want it to explode, like dynamite, and scatter itself and your intention far and wide.”

  Well, that, at least, was something she could easily picture. Except she wasn’t going to think of it like dynamite. She was going to think of it like a beautiful firework, the kind of thing the mine owners would send up into the early evening sky at their Fourth of July parties. Not that miners or miners’ children were invited to such things—but if you went out on your porch, you could see the rockets and roman candles exploding over the houses at the rich end of Soddy.

  So she squeezed ever so hard, with her hands and her mind, feeling the power building in strength the more she compressed it, until the moment when Jolene said “Now!” and she cast her hands wide and tossed it up and it did explode just like a Fourth of July rocket up above her head.

  “Now we wait, and while we wait, I show you what I can summon,” said Jolene. And she made a little swirl of her right hand in the air, and something infinitely more powerful than anything that Anna could conjure spun up and then exploded like another rocket.

  She heard it before she saw it: great, slow thuds that shook the earth she sat on, and made the leaves tremble. At first she heard and felt the thuds with puzzlement; it sounded a little like distant thunder, but it wasn’t overcast, and anyway, the sound was too abrupt to be thunder. Was it explosions? Had Matt decided to use dynamite to blow up some stumps on his land? But that didn’t make sense, the sounds were too close together. What could it possibly be?

  The trees across the lane shook, and birds flew up from them, as the thuds grew closer. Her heart beat faster, and she glanced over at Jolene, who looked as calm as a statue. What was going on?

  And between one breath and the next, a thing came lumbering out of the forest across from them.

  Anna felt the paralysis of sheer terror strike her as the thing pushed its way through the trees. It was taller than the cabin, a man-like shape covered in long, shaggy green hair, long enough to completely cover a body that was otherwise unclothed. And it carried a club that looked to have been made out of an entire tree trunk over one shoulder.

  The creature lumbered up to the crick, and stood above her. It gazed down at her, and she trembled all over, expecting it to strike her with that massive club at any moment.

  But what struck her was Jolene—Jolene smacked her lightly on the shoulder, with impatience. “Didn’t I say I was going to show you the sort of thing I could summon? Don’t be afraid, you little fool! This is a Borovoi. He won’t hurt you.”

  She managed, somehow, to turn her head to look at Jolene, who seemed to be torn between amusement and exasperation.

  I cain’t let her think I’m lily-livered . . .

  Somehow, she managed to muster the courage to stand. Somehow, she got one foot in front of the other and took a step. Then another. Then another. Until finally she was standing at the monster’s feet, looking up at it.

  It looked down a
t her, face unreadable under all that hair. All she could see were a pair of eyes like distant stars, glowing with a dim, white light. She reached up her hand, somehow, and managed to choke out words.

  “Pleased t’meetcher, Mistuh Borovoi,” she said, even though her voice quavered with fear.

  The Borovoi reached down with its free hand and delicately took her hand between its finger and thumb, with no more pressure than if it was trying to hold a delicate feather. It shook her hand politely. “Privyet, sestra,” it rumbled, and looked up at Jolene. “Ya tebe nuzhen seychas?”

  “Nyet, spi dal’she,” she said dismissively.

  The creature looked down at her again. “Do svendanya, sestra,” it rumbled. Then it let go of her hand and thudded ponderously back into the forest again.

  Her legs felt as if she had no bones in them at all, and threatened to collapse under her. Somehow she managed to walk back to Jolene, who looked more approving now. She sat back down in the grass of the crick bank, then scooped up a handful of water and dashed it against her face. Distantly, a part of her wondered what on earth that language that Jolene had spouted was. It didn’t sound like anything she’d ever heard before. But—

  Hadn’t Jolene said the thing was a “Borovoi”? That sounded like “Domovoy.” Was this creature from Roosha too? Had it come with her Great-Granpappy like the Domovoy had?

  He was s’pposed to be real powerful. If Jolene c’n control thet thang, reckon he could.

  But did that mean Jolene was Rooshan? Or did it just mean she knew some Rooshan palaver?

  If she was Rooshan, that might have accounted for the outlandish— but beautiful!—dress that Anna had seen her in, that first day. Foreigners—well, you never knew what they’d wear, or not wear. Like that little bit of a petticoat that Pharoah’s daughter wore in that picture in her Bible, or the robes other people in her Bible wore.

  She was so caught up in her thoughts that it wasn’t until she felt a tug on her sleeve that she realized there were three of the Little People—all male—standing next to her, waiting patiently for her to notice them. Unlike Elder and Younger Raven, these doll-sized men had heads shaved except for a single strip down the middle, and wore only leather breechcloths and leggings.