Black Spring

Black Spring by Alison Croggon Read Free Book Online

Book: Black Spring by Alison Croggon Read Free Book Online
Authors: Alison Croggon
Tags: Juvenile Fiction, Fantasy & Magic, Love & Romance
poor little corpse left to feed the crows, like every other baby girl born a witch in these parts. But by then, Lord Kadar had driven south with his household, and he said that he would be damned if he would kill his only daughter out of some black upland superstition. As some said later, recalling those words, if the Lord Kadar wasn’t damned, his daughter was.
    The southern estate is a small property by the sea which is famous in a minor way for making wine, and there the household repaired until Lina and I were ten years old. We had some of our happiest hours playing in that low, wide house, with its vine-twisted verandas and red terra-cotta roofs, tumbling among the chickens and peahens scratching in the yard, or swimming in the tiny half-moon bay that lay beyond the garden. My mother cared for Lina as if she were her own daughter, treating her no differently from myself, and the master was kind, although he inspired me with the awe due to his authority. If he brought treats home from his travels, he never forgot me. I recall that as a blessed time, drenched with sunshine and laughter, although no doubt my memory tricks me: certainly, I was a contented child, and I think for Lina it was the only untroubled period of her life.
    Lina’s character was evident from early on. We all knew she was a witch — which was not such a bad thing down south, where they do not kill their witches — but she showed no early sign of magic. There was, however, no disguising her eyes, which were the vivid violet of the witchborn and were large and luminous, surrounded by thick, long lashes. She was a startlingly lovely child, but oh! so willful; she would lose her temper in a trice over anything that crossed her. Sometimes she would scream with rage until she vomited, setting the entire household in a fright, but then without warning the storm would pass, leaving her sunny and biddable, as if nothing had happened.
    She could be cruel, but somehow it was never personal. She once sat on me to hold me down and broke my little finger by bending it back over my hand. I still remember the expression on her face as she did it: it was curious and intent, as if she simply wanted to see what would happen. Her dismay at the dramatic result was comical, as if my screams and the subsequent row — I didn’t tell my mother how it happened, although she had her suspicions — were the last thing she expected.
    The following day Lina told me that I should break her little finger, to make up for what she had done. She looked at me with unusual seriousness and laid her hand down flat on the floor. “It’s easy — you just pull it back like this. I won’t stop you, I promise.” To her surprise, I recoiled at her offer, and she pressed me until both of us began to get angry. When she realized that I really wouldn’t do it, she looked hurt, but then she shrugged and laughed. “You are strange, Anna,” she said. “It’s only fair. But if you won’t, I can’t make you.”
    I suppose it’s unsurprising that Lina’s childish notions of justice should be shaped by vendetta: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a finger for a finger. However, when she believed something was unfair, she could react in unexpected ways that had nothing to do with what she was taught. I remember vividly the day some of her friends, who were mostly children from land-owning families nearby, began to tease me. They said I was only a servant and should not be allowed to play with them, and they mocked my clothes and held their noses to demonstrate how I stank. I was a shy child, and wholly unable to defend myself against their abuse.
    As I stood in tears, Lina bristled with fury. “That’s nice coming from you, Kinrek Tomas,” she said, pointing scornfully at my chief persecutor. “Last week we had to take you home because you wet your pants! And Maya, I’ve never seen Anna with snot all down her front, like when you sneezed that time. Anna’s cleaner than any of

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