Mistle Child (Undertaken Trilogy) by Ari Berk Read Free Book Online Page B

Mrs. Bowe. I may not be Lichport-y enough for you, and I may have left this town once—and gladly, too, I might add—but I ask you to remember that mine is an ancient family. I know all the witch-runes and curse-signs like any daughter of Lichport. Just because I’ve turned away from such relics, such distractions, doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten the sewers of lore that flow under these streets. I know how to get what I want, same as any woman. I know the routine, I promise you. You will speak some hoary, primitive poetry. We will bend our collective wills toward the place of binding. Mother Peale will make some knots in a piece of filthy rope or some such bit of arts and crafts, and I will set my ungloved hand to the ice to trace some peasant’s sigil and ruin my manicure. I assure you I have not forgotten the particulars.”
    The millpond was still frozen. At the edges, tall weeds, brown now, stood cold and unbending in the light breeze, their stalks sunk down into the ice.
    As Dolores approached the pond behind Mrs. Bowe and Mother Peale, she said in an annoyed voice, “I’ll catch my death out here!”
    “Don’t say such things when the veil has grown so thin!” snapped Mother Peale.
    Then with no more than a nod, the three women stood abreast at the edge of the millpond.
    Mrs. Bowe closed her eyes and inclined her head.
    “She’s still down there.”
    “Good,” said Mother Peale. “Let’s begin.”
    The three women joined hands. The words were simple and quickly became a chant. “She shall not rise. She is bound to this place. She shall not rise. . . .”
    Then Mrs. Bowe added other words. The boundaries of the spell closed in and the power of the binding grew tight and firm, like the twisting of a rope.
    “She shall not rise. There shall be no dreams. He shall not dream. He shall forget her name. He shall not dream of the waters. No dreams . . . ,” Mrs. Bowe intoned as Mother Peale let go of Dolores’s hand and drew out a length of cord into which she began tying knot after knot to hold the spell. “There shall be no dreams. He shall not dream. . . .”
    But the words died on Dolores’s lips. Those words would bind her son as well. No dreams. He would not dream, that’s what they were saying.
    “Stop,” said Dolores.
    “Do not interrupt!” barked Mother Peale.
    Mrs. Bowe raised her voice and kept right on intoning those words. “She shall not rise. He shall not dream. She shall not rise. He shall not dream.” And Dolores knew it was wrong. They couldn’t take her son’s dreams from him. Life could deal you a miserable hand, but you could dream of something more, something better. Sometimes dreams were all a person had. She knew that better than anyone. So she waited until the two women looked at her and nodded that it was almost over. Dolores removed her glove. The freezing air stung her skin. She kneeled in the hard, icy mud, and drew a glyph with her fingertip, splintering, as she had predicted, the end of her painted nail. As she had traced the sigil, she said out loud, “You shall not rise to harm my son! You shall not rise—” And then, deep below her breath, she whispered, “But he shall dream whatever he wishes to dream. In his dreams he shall be free.”
    Mrs. Bowe and Mother Peale did not hear Dolores’s final words, but instantly, the ice cracked with a sound like thunder, and water oozed up, flooding out onto the frozen surfaces. Dolores fell back from the edge of the pond as Mrs. Bowe and Mother Peale stepped forward and pulled her up, the three joining hands once more. In one voice, they called out, “Child of the waters, we bind you to your bones. Do not rise! Do not stir! Drink lonesome water and remain below. Sink down! Sink down! We bind you to your bones. We three bind you. By ice, we bind you. By cold, we bind you. By the wills of the Wailing Woman and the Mother of the Narrows and the blood-kin of your paramour, we bind you! By the will of Three, you are