Night Gate (7 page)

“So can you. What of it?” the setter said, then it sniffed and tilted its head. “You look human but you smell like dog.”

“I am—” Billy began, but Rage elbowed him in the stomach to remind him that they had agreed not to tell anyone else that they were strangers. “I mean, I—I have a dog as a friend,” he stammered at last. “That’s probably what you can smell.”

The dog tilted its head at Rage.

“We’re travelers,” Rage said quickly. “We came to see the wizard who lived in Deepwood, but we have learned that he has moved away.”

“I wouldn’t know anything about wizards,” the dog said.

“We heard that he used to visit the keepers in Fork,” Billy said.

“I wouldn’t know about that,” the setter repeated. It studied Rage for a time. “You smell like a human she-pup.”

Rage gave up trying to get information about the wizard. “We were hoping we might be able to work for some food here.” The dog flapped its long ear to dislodge a fly. “Do you…I mean, whom should we speak to about getting work?”

“I play with the baker when he smells in need of a bit of frisking,” the setter said easily. “He feeds me for that. Maybe you could play with him and he’ll feed you as well.”

Rage blinked at the thought of getting fed for romping with a grown man. “Maybe he’ll have something else for us to do. Where is he?”

“I’ll show you.” The dog rose and stretched enormously, then clawed violently at a spot behind an ear. Billy scratched the spot obligingly, whispering to Rage that he knew just how that felt. The dog gave Billy a lick on the feet, and Rage noticed that there were toffee-colored tufts of hair on Billy’s bare toes. These seemed to be the only reminder that he really was a dog.

The setter led them down one of the streets to a small round dumpling of a cottage on the bank of a stream. A wooden waterwheel was turning slowly beside it. The dog bid them farewell and trotted lazily away.

“He had a nice smell,” Billy said, looking after him wistfully. Rage couldn’t help but smile. Sometimes Billy was so doggish.

They found the baker inside the round building. He turned out to be a thin man wrapped in a huge white apron, kneading bread on a marble counter.

“Excuse me, sir,” Rage said hesitantly. “We are in need of food, and a dog told us you might have some work for us.”

The baker stopped his kneading and stared at her. “Well, well. I suppose you have come a long way.”

It sounded more like a statement than a question, and though it didn’t seem to make much sense, Rage nodded politely. Then she said, “The dog…”

“Ah, that dog is a fine, playful beast,” the baker said, returning to his kneading. He shot her a speculative look. “I’ve heard them as lives in the outer villages hold loose to keeper ways.”

Rage smiled and shrugged, sensing danger. Given the centaur’s question about her being without a keeper, she wondered if there was a rule in Valley about children traveling alone. It struck her that she had not seen a single child or young person in the village.

“You say you’re prepared to work for food?” the baker asked, and Rage nodded. “Happen I do have something needing doing, but it’s hard, dirty work.” He gave her and Billy a searching look. “I need someone to clean out my ovens. It’ll take a bit of muscle.”

“I can work hard,” Billy said eagerly.

The baker beamed. “I like to see a lad prepared to put his back into a job. Just let me finish this and I’ll show you where the ovens are. They’re all cool now because I don’t bake until night. Too hot in this weather.”

They watched him shape the dough into loaf tins. “They’ll need a good few hours of rising now.” He laid a damp cloth over them, then wiped his hands on his apron and looked at Rage. “You’re too small to do this work, but you can pick your pay while the lad labors. There are berries all along the back of the hedgerow, and I’ve also got tomatoes and potatoes growing out back. And there are pots of jam and relish and some cheese and butter in the cellar store. And some bread, of course. As much food as the two of you can carry for the job.”

Soon Billy was up to his waist in the enormous ovens, and black with soot from head to furry toes.

Rage went to a hedge on the pretext of picking berries and let Mr. Walker out so that he could tell the others what was happening. She began collecting berries, pleased to find they were firm as plums. It would have been impossible to carry real berries without squashing them. The berries tasted rather like vanilla custard, and Rage ate as many as she picked for her bucket. She had just finished digging up a small pile of potatoes and was wondering how they would manage to cook them when the baker called her to the porch. He had assembled several jars of jams and relish, a stone dish of butter, some small crusty loaves of bread, and two fat wheels of cheese wrapped in cloth. Beside them were two cloth bags to pack everything in.

Rage thanked him profusely for his generosity.

“You’re a pair of workers, I’ll say that,” he said, showing Rage a pump where she could wash her hands. “My sister will bring a bite of supper before I start the evening’s baking. You’re welcome to share that if you like, and stay the night in our barn. It’s nice to see a couple of young faces around the village.”

Rage thanked him, but hearing him refer to the lack of children made her nervous. “We ought to get on,” she said, trying to sound diffident.

The baker nodded. “I suppose it’s best not to dawdle on the road. It’s not often you see girls traveling without keeper guardians these days.” He grinned. “To tell you the truth, I thought you were wild things when I first set eyes on you. Sprites do wander over the road from time to time, poor things. I’d feed them if I could, but as you know, they can’t eat ordinary food.”

Rage was thrilled at the idea of sprites. She would have liked to ask what they ate, but feared this might be something that was commonly known. “We saw a centaur,” she said, thinking it safe to contribute.

The baker sighed. “Used to be a great herd of them hereabouts, but not anymore. What I say is, it’s a shame.”

“You’d best hold your tongue, brother,” a sharp voice said.

Rage turned to see a thin, dark-eyed woman carrying a basket over one arm. Her clothing was gray and plain, her hair pulled into an enormous severe bun. She wore a pair of heavy silver bracelets, one on each wrist. They looked very strange with her workaday attire.

“It’s not treason to have an opinion, Rue,” the baker said mildly, rising to take the basket from her.

Rage felt the woman’s eyes bore into her. She resisted the urge to fidget, since that always made adults think you were guilty of something.

“How do you know this girl will not report to the keepers on which villagers secretly support the witch women and their activities?” Rue asked.

“Activities? It’s not like there can be more than a skerrick of magic left for them to work with. I daresay they think more of their dying pets than of intrigue.”

Rage was startled. What did the baker mean by saying there was little magic left? Surely magic was not something that could be used up, but was a force to be summoned by spells and incantations.

The baker’s sister spoke again. “The witch women would do anything to feed those unnatural creatures they created.”

The baker laughed at his sister. “Ah, Rue, the city has made you cold and hard. Have some compassion for the poor wild things. Is it their fault the witch women created them?”

“You are a fool,” the woman said to her brother. “Your careless talk will see us both dragged up before the High Keeper and cast into the River of No Return when this girl tells what she has heard.”

“The girl is not banded yet, so how could she be a keeper spy?”

Rage wished Billy would hurry up. She didn’t like the talk of spies and being thrown into rivers. And what was banding?

“Who said anything of spies? She’s bound for Fork, isn’t she?” the woman snapped. “The keepers will question her. They always interrogate new girls to find out if the witch women have tried to recruit them.”

There was a charged silence.

“Have you been to the city?” Rage asked the baker lamely, trying to change the subject.

“Never been, never wanted to.” He gave his sister a pointed look. “I was born right here in this village, back when it was still common for children to be raised this side of the river. If you want to know about Fork, it’s Rue you should ask.”

“I do not take kindly to being discussed as if I were not here,” the thin woman said. She turned one of the metal bracelets on her wrist and rubbed at the delicate patterning with her thumb. “Where do you come from?” she demanded of Rage.

The baker laughed and flapped a floury hand in his sister’s face. “Now, Rue. You’re starting to sound like the keepers, worrying about everything being in its place.”

“There is much to worry about,” his sister said icily. “As you would see if you ever looked past the dust on the end of your nose, you bumpkin!” She flounced back into the cottage and slammed the door behind her.

The baker sighed. “Don’t mind her,” he advised. “’Tis her time in the city made her all sharp and nervy-like. She fought being taken to Fork, but she was a girl who might become a witch, so she had no choice. Rue talks proud of the city now, but all that stone and cold water in Fork left its mark on her.”

Rage pretended to rearrange the food in the bags, but her mind churned with the knowledge that girls were forced to live in the city of Fork by the keepers, to stop them becoming witches. That must mean the witch women were humans who had learned to work magic. Rage willed Billy to hurry, and this time, to her relief, he appeared. When the baker went to check his ovens, she whispered that they must leave as soon as ever they could. The baker came back beaming and renewed his offer of supper and a bed. But they thanked him and took their leave. Only when they were out of earshot of the village did Rage tell Billy what the baker and his sister had said.

“So there are hardly any children this side of the river because keepers take all girls to Fork,” Billy mused. “But I wonder how being in the city stops a girl becoming a witch. It must be because there are no witches there to teach them how.” Seeing Rage’s look of admiration, he flushed. “It’s easier to think in this shape.”

“You don’t mind being turned into a human?”

“Sometimes it feels very strange,” he admitted. “I can’t do some of the things I used to do as a dog. I can’t run as fast, and my nose seems to be almost useless. That’s the worst thing. But I can remember things better now. There is more space for keeping things inside my head. I’m not completely human, though. Humans can do more things with their minds than I can. But the longer I am this shape, the more my mind grows.”

Rage tried to imagine what it would be like if she were transformed into a dog. She realized with shame that much as she loved the dogs, she wouldn’t want to be one. Mostly because it meant she would belong to a human, who might be like Grandfather Adam or Mr. Johnson. And because dogs weren’t allowed to decide things.

“I don’t think I’d like to be completely human,” Billy went on apologetically. “I thought I would, but now I can see that human minds are growing all the time, until they are like enormous houses with thousands of rooms and twisty passages and dark hallways all full of cobwebs and shadows and forgotten things. No wonder there is so much confusion in humans. Dog minds are like standing outside. There are no walls, the wind blows freshly, and light falls everywhere. The best thing about being human is that I can talk with you.”

Rage wondered if her mind was full of twisty passages and dark shadows. She didn’t feel like it was true, but maybe that was only because she was not grown up. Certainly she could imagine Grandfather Adam being full of dank, secret niches, and even Mam’s mind must be full of hidden corners.

“How do the others feel about being changed?” she asked curiously.

“They don’t talk about it much. Mama doesn’t know how to be happy, so being changed doesn’t seem to have made much difference to her. Mr. Walker complains, but he likes complaining, and Goaty is just as scared as he was before. Elle likes being human-shaped because it’s something new.”

They lapsed into silence. It was hard work carrying the heavy bags. When they arrived, the others greeted them with hungry delight. Soon they were enjoying a hearty sunset picnic on the bank of the river. Rage told them what had happened, then she took out the hourglass and they all studied it.

“It’s strange that the wizard would want such an old-fashioned way of telling time,” Rage said, noting that the grains continued to float from one side of the hourglass to the other. But most of the grains had yet to fall.

“I suppose he needs it because it’s magic, rather than because it tells the time,” Billy mused.

“I wonder why the firecat wants to help the wizard, anyway,” Rage murmured.

“Why
us,
is what I’d like to know,” Goaty muttered.

“Maybe it wanted strangers,” Billy said. “If it had tried to get someone from Valley to look for the wizard, they would just refuse or give up when it became too difficult, but we can’t.”

Rage couldn’t help but be impressed by Billy’s perception. He must be right, too. No one in Valley could possibly want to find the wizard as much as she did.

“Maybe the hourglass measures something other than time,” Mr. Walker suggested.

“Whatever it measures is running out,” Goaty murmured.

That made Rage think of Mam in her dangerous sleep, which might last forever. Whatever the risk, she must decipher the wizard’s riddle and find him. She put the hourglass back in her pocket and looked around at the others.

“I think we must still go to Fork,” she said. “One of the keepers must know where the wizard is. We should be safe enough as long as we obey the rules.” She was confident she could do this. She was good at being obedient.

“But we don’t know what those rules are. And they won’t let you leave again, because you’re a girl,” Billy objected.

“I don’t see how anyone can guard a whole city properly,” Elle said. “I’m sure we could escape if we had to.”

“Cities are no place for animals or even for half-animals,” Bear pronounced grimly.