Plain Kate

The next day, Plain Kate looked for it and saw it: the hole in Linay’s shadow.

He was poling the punt. The light threw his long shadow across the deck. In the center of that shadow, over his heart, was a patch that fluttered like a hurt bird. The sun broke through it, once in a while, in coins of light.

Kate watched that roiling patch. Under her, the boat surged, coasted, and slowed; surged, coasted, and slowed. The fog bank was still behind them, the watery sunrise turning the top of it pink and yellow. She was remembering the story of how he had used blood and hair to pull apart his shadow. To give a voice to the ghost of his sister.

“What was her name?” Kate asked. “Your sister. The rusalka. What was her name?”

The boat rocked a little when Linay fumbled the pole, but his eerie-pale face stayed smooth. “She’s dead,” he answered at length. “We do not say the names of the dead.”

“I know. Drina told me.”

That drew a sudden, startled look. “Drina.” He stilled himself again. “Well, well. How a life comes round. I knew as I followed you that you were with the Roamers, but I—”

“You followed me?” It was Kate’s turn for shock.

“To draw your shadow. Did you think its remnants were to be sent to me by the royal messenger? The loss of a shadow, as I told you, is a slow thing. I had to be close, to catch yours as it pulled away.” He shrugged. “There is only one road; there is only one river. It was not hard to follow you.”

Why should she feel betrayed? But she did. His words stirred up the sticky panic of her long loss, her heavy secret, her shadow twisting away from her. She turned from him. His shadow fell past her, and hers was nowhere, gone.

“Why?” she said. “Why did you do this to me?”

She saw his shadow shrug. “I needed a shadow. Yours was the easiest to get.”

Plain Kate looked down at her burnt hands, the light going right through them. She said nothing. Time passed. Then Linay was suddenly, silently, at her shoulder. She shuddered away from him, but he reached out and took her wrists. He lifted them, oblivious to her cold resistance. “These are healing well.”

“Let me go.” She jerked her hands fruitlessly.

“Some salve, first.” He released her and produced, from the billows of his zupan, a stoppered jar. He rubbed some of the chilling, oily stuff into her scars. The mint-sharp smell washed over her. Linay’s head was bent over her hands. “Lenore,” he said softly. “My sister’s name was Lenore. She was a healer. She taught me this. I will see you carve again.”

She could think of nothing to say. Linay stayed bent over her hands, singing softly. Kate remembered what Drina had said: that all magic depended on a gift, freely given, and that healers gave some of their own life for the health of those they healed. Linay rocked as he sang, as if he were praying or exhausted. He sang himself slowly into silence. He let go of her hands but did not lift his head. His voice was low. “What does your cat call you?”

“Katerina.”

“Katerina. I am sorry.” Even if he had not been a witch, bound to the truth by his own power, she would have been sure that he meant it.

But that night as the fog rolled around the punt, he again summoned the rusalka. He again sat and watched as Kate filled her hand—her hand that he had just worked to heal—with her own blood. And he let the rusalka nurse on her blood until Kate found herself sliding into grayness, trying to hold on to the memory that Linay was dangerous, that he did not love her, and that she must not forgive him.

¶

Plain Kate slept deep into the next day. When she woke, the first things she saw were cat eyes. Taggle was sitting on her chest glaring as only cats can. “You let the thing come for you again,” he said. “If you die I am going to be furious with you.”

Her head felt muzzy. “Where were you?”

The cat abruptly decided to groom his shoulder. “He gave me fish,” came the fur-muffled voice. “I went to sleep.”

“He poisoned you?”

“I will not take food from him again,” Taggle intoned. “Please know that this is a great sacrifice. But clearly I must guard you, Katerina.” He looked at her sidelong. “You are thinking of giving it more blood.”

“I think…” she said, and stopped to think. The little cabin was stuffy and rocking; it made her drowsy. She lay watching the herbs and bundles above her slowly sway. “I think I have to,” she said. “He will give me my shadow back at Lov. I can’t live without my shadow.”

“I do not trust him.”

“He can’t lie.”

“So he says.” Taggle’s tail lashed. “Katerina, your shadow will do you no good if the thing kills you.”

“It won’t,” said Linay, and Kate jumped. He had slipped down the ladder without them noticing.

Taggle did not deign to flinch, but his ears flicked back. “It will. I have made many things bleed; I know blood. Katerina, you cannot feed the thing again. It will kill you.”

“Well,” said Linay. “There is a trick to it.”

“Faf!” Taggle spat. “You are full of tricks! It is late for tricks! You weaken her; you muddle her!”

Linay ignored this. “Come ashore. I’ll show you.”