This choice: You think you know the problem--Gamble! • Go Back...Chapter #48The Witch-Queen of Cuthbert by: Seuzz   "I don't understand, ma'am," you squeak. Grandmother frowns fiercely. "I want to help, but you have to tell me exactly what you mean."
She grasps the mask tightly. "I put it on myself," she rasps. "To see for myself. My Will, he lies, as yew lie!" You shrink back. "I would see the truth for myself. And these are mine, yea, as the Libra is mine, and I will parcel out my gifts to those that deserve them!" Her eyes glitter madly. "But it burned on my brow. I saw nothing, and Will had to wrench it from my face!" She leans in on you. "What curse did you place on it, boy?"
"None, ma'am," you squawk. "Anyone should be able to--!"
You stop cold. An idea has come to you.
Her hand darts out, grasping your wrist. Her grip is like iron. "What do yew know, boy?"
"The only ones that can't use them-- Ma'am." You swallow. "You can do magic, can't you?"
"I kin do worse than that!"
"The mask on your grandson. Can you take it off him?"
"Aye." Her lips slaver. "Once he taught me the words. I practiced on him, but let him keep it afterward, as a favor."
So she's not a golem. "Then I don't know what the problem is. Unless it has something to do with--"
"With what?" Her grip tightens around your wrist.
You squirm. "Let me put that mask on, Grandmother. I'm trying to help you, I don't want to go back in the box! But I don't know-- There's a face in that mask, he knows the theory a lot better than me. If I could get into his face, use his brain to think about it--!"
Her eyes are rheumy, and feverish with suspicion. Her breath slithers in and out of her mouth raggedly. She stares at you, through you. Probably it's only because you are genuinely uncertain that she relents.
Slowly she pushes the mask toward you. "Have a care, boy," she says. "There's worse places than the box. And after them-- Yewr skin!"
You shudder and gulp and nod. Your hands tremble as you put the mask to your face. The world goes in and out of focus. You're still in your own face, and raise your hand to switch to Joe's.
But then you pause. She can't wear one of the masks. But she's not a golem. There's another out there who is not a golem: Monique Travers. What would happen if you put a mask on her? For she is already wearing a mask.
You brush your face, and feel yourself change. Joe Durras. Another gesture. Frank Durras. Melody Weiss. Aubrey Blackwell. Will Shabbleman. And then yourself again. You're sitting in the layer where you copied the mysterious control sigil.
It's the sigil you found in an old mask recovered by Frank and Joe. A mask crafted by you know not who, very long ago. A mask that was in the possession of a very old woman, now dead, in upstate New York. An old woman who was a Shabbleman.
Your heart beats hard. Where would you find yourself if you plunged into it? Could you recover yourself?
You look at Grandmother, and realize you'd be perfectly safe. Even if you landed someplace bad, she would rip the mask from your face once she saw you settle into a trance. And if the remote sigil is where you now suspect it is--
You close your eyes, and plunge into the mystery sigil.
* * * * *
Will Prescott slides off the stool, onto the floor. You stare down at him. Liar! Fool! a voice screams in your head.
Clever son of a bitch, you correct yourself. You grip the cane in your crooked hand and bend forward, as far as you can over your bloated belly, and peer at him. He is pale, green, even. He hasn't eaten in nearly twenty-four hours.
You can correct that.
You grasp the other cane and force yourself to your feet. Bones scream. But you've got Florence Shabbleman's will to help, and her old body knows better than to fail you.
You lurch to the door and open it. "Will!" you screech. "Boy! Shew yerself!" Footsteps, and Will Shabbleman--still in Frank's face--appears. "Yer cousin's fainted. Fetch him up to my bedroom."
Shabbleman nods, and squeezes past as you continue down the hallway.
"Rosalie!" you call. "Rosalie!" The slim girl who'd revived you earlier appears, her head ducked deferentially. "Yer lowlander cousin's in a poor way. Your Will is taking him to my bedroom. Look after him. He is sickly, and apt not to recover without nourishment. Make him a good broth and feed it to him. See that he don't choke on it. His skin's worth a hundred of yewrs."
"Yes, Grandmother," she says, and hurries past to help her intended.
Her intended. Will and Rosalie are to be married. Will and Rosalie are the best of the Shabbleman clan, bred as free of deformity as possible, and with an eye toward--
Essence. The blood is the life, Florence Shabbleman's own grandmother had taught her. Blood is essentia. The new Will has it, with a purity and power like none that the Shabblemans could ever suspect.
That's why he was able to hijack the old witch's body, you grin to yourself as you hobble into the parlor. That, and an ability to gamble right when all the chips were against him.
And they were all against you. Nate Shabbleman, the town constable, is waiting just inside the front door. "Yew bring it?" you ask him.
"Yes, Grandmother."
"Shew it to me." You settle heavily onto the couch and grip your canes hard, steeling yourself for the sight of--
From a dirty bag at his shoulder Nate pulls out a skin. "It's a handsome one," he says. "Many'd be in your debt to wear it for the week it lasts."
He holds up the limp, shapeless remains of Joe Durras by his mop of hair.
"A week?" you cackle. "I've lately learned ways of making these things last much longer than that."
"Really?" His eyebrows go up.
"Yew've done well for me these last two days, Nathaniel," you say softly. "Yew know I keep accounts."
"Yes, Grandmother."
"But leave it for now. I must think a spell."
You close your eyes, and hear Nate trudge out. And then you hear Will and Rosalie dragging your comatose body upstairs. That last will be the most important thing. You've got to keep your real body alive, until you figure out a way of safely relinquishing this temporary abode.
But until then you are perfectly safe. For now you are in possession of Florence Shabbleman, the witch-ruler of Cuthbert.
* * * * *
"Young Will'll be driving up in a few hours," she had told Nate yesterday morning. "Meet him at Jasper's, take 'im to Hank's for a belt. Tell Hank you want his best. I'm pleased with my grandson." A few hours later Hank--to whom she'd given separate, careful orders--called to say that Will and Nate had both collapsed in their booth. Naturally, since she'd had Hank give them tainted hooch. She'd seen enough through the Watcher in Saratoga Falls to give no quarter to the imposter who'd returned under her grandson's face.
She'd not even given him a chance to recover before having him hauled to the church and drained by The Still, leaving only his skin and three other items that had fallen from him. Not fifteen minutes later, she'd gotten a frantic phone call from someone professing to be her grandson, telling her that he'd been trapped by--
"I know well what befell ye," she'd told him. "Yew're now in the mind and body of one who called himself 'Frank'?"
"Yes'm."
"There'll be another in the house--"
"Joe."
"Fetch him up here, if'n yew can, and mark well that you bring anything that mind of yours says is important."
Thirty minutes later he'd called to say he'd caught Joe in the bedroom and bound him up. "He's in some kind of trance." And in that state he'd brought him, along with many other prizes.
But there remained one more to catch. After some accidents with masks, she'd ordered young Will to use his "Frank" guise to lure the third to Cuthbert. He, too, had fallen into the trap, and while Will Prescott was screaming in the box she'd had Joe drained in The Still.
* * * * *
"Help me to my bed, girl," you tell Rosalie, and put out a hand. You've barely the strength to rise, and lean on her as well as your canes as you slowly shuffle down the hallway to the master bedroom on the ground floor. "What thought yew of your new cousin?"
"I don't know, Grandmother."
"Yew will like him. He is a lowlander. He is not like us. He will be kinder to yew."
"Yes, Grandmother."
You sink onto your bed. "Undress me." Off come the shawls and the blouses and the undergarments, revealing your walrus-like body in all its hideousness before a sleeping gown goes on. "Yes, yew and yer new cousin must become better acquainted. He is a fitter one for yew than your intended."
"Yes, Grandmother."
"So look after him. He is likely to die without you. Keep him well fed, though he seems to sleep. Yew would prefer him to yewr Will, would you not?"
"I prefer the one you tell me to prefer, Grandmother."
"I will be kind to yew, Rosalie, and end yewr engagement to Will, so long as the other one lives."
"Yes, Grandmother." She swallows. "Thank you, Grandmother."
"Do not tell yewr Will. Leave that to me. We must make him more ... pliant." Your voice fades, and you close your eyes even before Rosalie puts out the lights.
But you are wide awake, and lay watchfully in the dark.
Despite its advantages, this is a horrible body. But craftiness is one of Grandmother's best traits, and you think you see a way of escaping it while still keeping the secret control you have won.
But it would involve sacrificing Rosalie.  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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