Plain Kate

“It’s the gadje burn their witches,” said Rye Baro. “That’s nothing to do with us.”

“But it’s us they burn!” Stivo exploded.

“I’m not a witch! Stivo, please.” Plain Kate reached through the bars and touched his boot. “Ask Drina. Ask Drina, she knows—”

“Drina!” Stivo jumped back from her hand as if she were a snake striking, scrabbling the key up from the mud as he staggered away. “Drina! I told you not to bring your trouble on my Drina. My God, what she has already seen, without falling in with—” he sputtered. “With demons!”

Horror closed Kate’s throat. She could only whisper, “I’m not.”

“We are taught,” said Rye Baro, his voice still thoughtful, kind, “that only the dead have no shadows. But Stivo has told us of his wife’s brother, who gave up pieces of his shadow to give power to the dead. We do not know which is the case here.” He cut off the rumble of voices with one raised hand.“Plain Kate Carver. What can you say about this?”

She swallowed, and sat up as straight as she could. “A witch.” Her voice cracked. The crowd held its breath like one great creature. “A witch took my shadow.”

“And what can you say about Wen?”

She tossed her head like a nervous horse. “I—It’s not me. I don’t know what’s happening.”

“And Drina?”

Kate’s throat tightened. “She…” It came out as a whisper, and even in her own ears, she could hear the guilt in it. A mutter rose from the gathered Roamers. “She was only trying to help me. I—I’m sorry.” Stivo crowed with bitter triumph, and the crowd was suddenly loud. Kate wanted to say more, but was afraid to.

Again, Rye Baro lifted a hand for silence. “We do not know enough, here.” He pulled at the tip of his long nose. “We must have talk about this. We will take counsel. We will see if Wen dies.”

Plain Kate heard Daj breathe in hard at that. “Daj, I didn’t,” she pleaded. “Wen—I didn’t. Ask Drina. Daj! Mira! Mother Daj! Ask—”

“That’s enough, child,” said Daj, and she turned away.

¶

Sun. Sun after endless weeks of drizzle and mist. It felt unreal, and it made Kate feel unreal, numbed, and queasy. The bear cage grew hot. It smelled high and sour of the chicken baskets, but beneath that it still smelled like the bear: rank; and it still had some of the bear’s fleas. Plain Kate scratched and pushed the stale straw to the cage edge.

Then through the straw heap came Taggle, ambling, slipping through the bars, a half-dead muskrat in his teeth. “Wrph,” said Taggle, around his catch. He spat the creature out and put a paw down on its back like a young prince putting one boot on a footstool. “Did you find the sausages?”

Plain Kate snatched the cat up and whipped her head around, panicked that someone might have heard him. The muskrat tried to stagger away. “It’s escaping!” the cat shouted.

“Taggle!” Kate shouted back. Then she made herself whisper, though it came out as a hiss. “Taggle, they’re going to kill me.”

“What? Who? And would you please stop that muskrat!”

Kate released him, and he bounded once and killed the creature with a single strike to the back of the neck. Then he turned back to her and tried to recover his nonchalance. “You were saying?”

“The Roamers. They found out about my shadow. They think I’m a witch. They—we can’t let them find you here.”

“Oh, nonsense. They adore me. Everyone does.”

“We’ve both got to get away from here, Taggle.”

Taggle stuck his head through the bars. The tight squeeze slicked his whiskers back. “You won’t fit,” he said, popping his head back in.

“I know that. We need the key.”

“Well,” he said. “That’s simple enough. I will go and steal it.”

Kate’s heart dropped at the thought. “If they catch you—”

“Bah.” Taggle flicked his ears. “They won’t even glimpse me. I am the king of catspaws, the lord of lurking. If the key is what you need, then I will obtain it for you. Where is it?”

“Stivo,” she stuttered. “Stivo hung it from his belt. Taggle, if they catch you, they’ll kill you.”

“They shan’t catch me,” he said lightly, and slipped out into the grasses.

He’d left her the muskrat, like a lover’s token, like a promise of return.

¶

Plain Kate dropped her head back against the bars. They were hard against her hair, and comfortless. The barred roof broke the sun into stripes of shade, but no shade touched her. It was like not being able to blink, like not being able to scream in a dream. She pushed up the sleeves of her smock to scratch at her flea bites and watch the long scab seep blood.

The ground beneath her seeped water, and her leggings were wet, the wool sticking to her and smelling. In the front of the cage, where the frightened Roamers had milled, the sun drew curls of steam from the churned mud. She watched it, looking at the scuffed footprints, the. twin pits of Rye Baro’s twin canes, which were like eyes, and the big marks of Stivo’s boots. Just in front of the door she could see where he’d stepped on the key.

The shape of the key was pressed into the mud.

Plain Kate stared at it. A shape of hope.