The Wrong Grave by Kelly Link Read Free Book Online Page A

and water. A bright-eyed fox was curled up on the bed, sleeping. A white bird flew through the unshuttered window, and then another and another. They circled around and around the room and then they began to mass on the table. One flung itself at the door where Halsa stood, peering in. She recoiled. The door vibrated with peck and blows.
    She turned and ran down the stairs, leaving the bucket, leaving Onion behind her. There were even more steps on the way down. And there was no porridge left in the pot beside the fire.
    Someone tapped her on the shoulder and she jumped. “Here,” Essa said, handing her a piece of bread.
    â€œThanks,” Halsa said. The bread was stale and hard. It was the most delicious thing she’d ever eaten.
    â€œSo your mother sold you,” Essa said.
    Halsa swallowed hard. It was strange, not being able to see inside Essa’s head, but it was also restful. As if Essa might be anyone at all. As if Halsa herself might become anyone she wished to be. “I didn’t care,” she said. “Who sold you?”
    â€œNo one,” Essa said. “I ran away from home. I didn’t want to be a soldier’s whore like my sisters.”
    â€œAre the wizards better than soldiers?” Halsa said.
    Essa gave her a strange look. “What do you think? Did you meet your wizard?”
    â€œHe was old and ugly, of course,” Halsa said. “I didn’t like the way he looked at me.”
    Essa put her hand over her mouth as if she were trying not to laugh. “Oh dear,” she said.
    â€œWhat must I do?” Halsa said. “I’ve never been a wizard’s servant before.”
    â€œDidn’t your wizard tell you?” Essa said. “What did he tell you to do?”
    Halsa blew out an irritated breath. “I asked what he needed, but he said nothing. I think he was hard of hearing.”
    Essa laughed long and hard, exactly like a horse, Halsa thought. There were three or four other children, now, watching them. They were all laughing at Halsa. “Admit it,” Essa said. “You didn’t talk to the wizard.”
    â€œSo?” Halsa said. “I knocked, but no one answered. So obviously he’s hard of hearing.”
    â€œOf course,” a boy said.
    â€œOr maybe the wizard is shy,” said another boy. He had green eyes like Bonti and Mik. “Or asleep. Wizards like to take naps.”
    Everyone was laughing again.
    â€œStop making fun of me,” Halsa said. She tried to look fierce and dangerous. Onion and her brothers would have quailed. “Tell me what my duties are. What does a wizard’s servant do?”
    Someone said, “You carry things up the stairs. Food. Firewood. Kaffa, when Tolcet brings it back from the market. Wizards like unusual things. Old things. So you go out in the marsh and look for things.”
    â€œThings?” Halsa said.
    â€œGlass bottles,” Essa said. “Petrified imps. Strange things, things out of the ordinary. Or ordinary things like plants or stones or animals or anything that feels right. Do you know what I mean?”
    â€œNo,” Halsa said, but she did know. Some things felt more magic-soaked than other things. Her father had found an arrowhead in his field. He’d put it aside to take to the schoolmaster, but that night while everyone was sleeping, Halsa had wrapped it in a rag and taken it back to the field and buried it. Bonti got the blame. Sometimes Halsa wondered if that was what had brought the soldiers to kill her father, the malicious, evil luck of that arrowhead. But you couldn’t blame a whole war on one arrowhead.
    â€œHere,” a boy said. “Go and catch fish if you’re too stupid to know magic when you see it. Have you ever caught fish?”
    Halsa took the fishing pole. “Take that path,” Essa said. “The muddiest one. And stay on it. There’s a pier out that way where the fishing is good.”
    When