The Twisting (20 page)

Annmar swallowed and blinked as she looked up at him. Her hands were pressed to his chest. She snatched them back, stumbling. He caught her elbow, but quickly dropped it.

“Much better,” she whispered. “Bye.” She turned and walked into the lantern light.

* * *

Walking away from
Daeryn was hard, but Annmar had to. Otherwise, she’d question him all night. Bits of his story rolled through her mind: the blood binding, fighting to become a pack alpha, Daeryn feeling so grief-stricken over Sylvan’s death that he wanted to die. Annmar knew more about him…and less. His world was not her world, but somehow it seemed less strange than a week ago. What Mrs. Betsy had said when she’d first arrived—
It’s in your blood to know and do these things
—was true. Annmar wanted to know all about Blighted Basin’s oddities, about
her
own
oddities. She had chosen to stay and would learn all she could before she had to make the difficult decisions about where to live and work.

Around the back of the wagon, Rivley and two helpers had some of the Harvester dismantled and the engine drained of oil. They stopped flushing it when she arrived.

“We heard about Henry from Jac,” Rivley said. “Terrible news. Is there anything more you can tell us?”

Annmar could only shake her head. If more details were spread, it’d be from a friend of Henry’s, not her.

Giving a nod, Rivley directed the others to continue running Basin oil through the engine, and gestured Annmar to where he had tools and metal trays spread across the end of the wagon. “I owe you an apology,” he said, his voice gravelly with emotion. “I didn’t give your story about the Harvester missing blue light enough credit.”

“It is rather hard to believe,” she said.

“Your Knack sight might help figure out what went wrong. Tell me again.”

She did, but nothing in what she’d seen predicted the machine’s malfunction—the controls had just stopped responding.

“No clue if it’s safe to restart it, then.” Using a screwdriver, he jabbed at a metal canister half-submerged in the nasty-looking black oil. “Look at this. New oil this afternoon, totally blackened, and disappearing to boot. I can’t waste time searching the ground tonight, but I bet it didn’t leak. I think it burned up. The machine has that smell.”

“I can’t tell the difference,” Annmar murmured. “Do you think it’s important I also saw blue light on that doodem from…” She couldn’t continue for a moment. “In Henry’s spider applicator?”

His mouth fell open, and his gaze darted to the oil tray. Rivley grabbed a rag and lifted the canister. Oil streamed from the perforated metal housing, black as the pool it splattered into. When enough had drained, he yanked over another tray, unscrewed the cap and poured the contents into a fresh pan. The oblong doodem clunked onto the bottom. He grabbed the nearest lantern. They both leaned over, watching the oil slide off what appeared to be a fat piece of white chalk.

He swore quietly. “This machine’s doodem represented an ear of ripe corn. It’s worn so smooth you’d never recognize it.”

It was
white
. Just like—Annmar bit her lip. “That’s because it’s dead.”

Chapter TWENTY-TWO

Annmar watched Rivley’s
face fall. “Dead?” he whispered in a disbelieving voice. “Like it’s been alive?”

In her heart, she’d known the doodems were, but seeing the lights leave Henry’s dying figure had confirmed it. It sounded crazy. She shrugged and turned away. Rivley grabbed her arm, but just as quickly let go.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. I don’t dare not believe you after what the machine did to…” Rivley balled his fists and clenched his jaw.

Henry
. Rivley must have seen the boy’s battered body in the fields before he’d been carried to the sickroom. Annmar’s eyes filled with tears again. “I saw Henry…die. When he did, he dropped his doodem. It was lit blue, not just the mulberry color of the spider engine doodem, but luminated blue. And…then it wasn’t.” She fluttered her fingers downward. “The threads returned to the ground, and the doodem turned white.”

Rivley swallowed. “Stranger stories have passed through Blighted Basin. Clearly, something is wrong. The rest of us may not see this lumination, but we know what doodems are like. They don’t just wear away. Once blessed, the figures become stone hard. I’ve seen them dropped. They don’t break. I’ve seen them after they’ve been rubbed by their owners for years, and they don’t erode or discolor or show any wear at all.” He glanced to the Harvester. “These blue thread lights travel over every machine of ours?”

“All of them,” she said firmly. “From the tea warmers, to the spiders and tractors. Master Brightwell has done something with Mrs. Betsy’s gas oven, too, hasn’t he?”

After a moment, Rivley nodded, his gaze on the whitened lump from the Harvester.

“The Harvester won’t work without a doodem.” Annmar dropped her voice and whispered, “It’s connected to the blue threads—holds them, or moves them, or just attracts them—I’m not sure what, just that without a doodem, it won’t work. Like missing a heart.”

He stared for a moment, working his fingers through his hair until it stood up in tufts. “There’s nothing amiss in the engine I dismantled. Seems the controls forgot how to operate like Master Brightwell designed them to.” Rivley drew a breath. “This is my only clue to the Harvester’s problem. If I can’t confirm it’s safe to use, we’ll abandon it and get more Eradicators.”

“No!” The word burst from her like a shot. “Anything but that. You must try to fix it.”

Rivley stared for a second, then dropped his arms and sighed. “Very well. Along with replacing the snapped valve rod, I’ll do a complete cleaning and refill it with proper oil. Before we restart it and risk more lives, we have to know if these doodems really are the problem, if indeed the city oil poisoned them.”

“We’ll have to get another and test it.”

“With safety precautions.”

“In the daylight.” She shivered. “We have to try. For Henry.”

“We do.” He wiped a hand down his face. “But I have no idea how to select another doodem. Master Brightwell does that when he goes to his birthplace in the lowlands. Claims his mudcrafter knows real science and is the only trustworthy one in the Basin. I’m not about to go to him and say this one died and isn’t glowing blue. Aside from sounding as absurdly opposite of mechanical as I could, what if he insists on waiting until he goes home again?”

They couldn’t let that happen. Annmar held her fingertips to her eyes for a moment. “The lady we met can help us. Old Terry.”

Rivley groaned, and his scalp feathers rose. “That sneaky magpie from Market Day?”

What was wrong with Old Terry? Annmar remembered the lovely sparkling tunnel, with its crickets and the old woman’s echoing questions. But when Annmar had started to answer them, an upset Rivley had pulled her out of the booth and never explained why. She crossed her arms to settle her own nerves. “Can you just tell me what happened when she touched me? No mincing words.”

He pressed a hand to his head. “Great Creator, I’d rather not think of that dreadful closed-in passage, let alone talk about it”—he shuddered, and feathers went up over his scalp again—“but it didn’t seem to bother you when she bespelled you underground.”

“Well, I would have
preferred
she ask, but the tunnel was beautiful. Perhaps instead of bespelling me next time, she will—”

Rivley snorted. “Can’t trust a hedge-rider. They spend so much time in the wild, few have respect for modern rules and boundaries, even the Creator’s Path. Or at least the ways we were brought up on. It wasn’t until I was close enough to pull you from her grasp that you woke from her trance. And then that woman appeared.”

“But she was always there.”

Rivley waved a finger. “Hedge-rider. They keep a foot in this world and the other in one of their making. If I hadn’t been there, she might have trapped you somewhere.”

A shiver coursed Annmar’s spine.

“And that’s just one of their wild bewitchments. Hedge-riders are the most eccentric sort of Knack-bearer. Still, people support them, especially the mudcrafters keeping the old tradition of working argilla—the clay used for doodems—alive. Nearly every Basin dweller, follower of the Creator ways or not, blesses a doodem at least once in his or her life. How Master Brightwell took it into his head to use them in his engines, I can’t figure.” Rivley rubbed his forehead. “I suppose he regards his machines as living.”

“Perhaps they are, in a sense,” Annmar mused. “If we want a shot at making the Harvester safe, we’ll have to see Old Terry. I had already planned to ask her about the doodem she gave me, and that tunnel. Daeryn said he’d accompany me. We could all go together.”

Rivley’s lips pursed a moment before he nodded. “It ought to be safe enough to approach her together, and in Chapel Hollow. And she likes you.”

Was that good, or another thing to be wary of? “Oh?”

“She gave you a doodem, without payment. Did you bless it?”

Annmar bit her lip. She hadn’t wanted to when it looked like she’d leave the Basin and its traditions. But now… “I suppose I should.”

“Crafters are touchy about what happens to their goods, and that woman seems more crazed than most.”

She frowned. “I don’t think she’s crazed. That underground place was most interesting.”

“Of all the—really?” Rivley crossed his arms. “Look, just bless it to show your appreciation. We’ll go early to Market Day and get the old lady’s advice on a doodem for the Harvester, and you can ask her your questions. If she tries a trance, or anything again, she’ll have both Daeryn and me to answer to.”

Annmar snapped her fingers. “In this trance, my eyes turned blue. When Daeryn told me, I was so surprised I didn’t ask why. Do you know?”

Rivley kneaded his fingertips into his upper arms. “Part of her working her Knack to bespell you. They pick something you can’t resist. Can you think of anything blue that you...” He stilled, his gaze falling to the dead doodem.

Her hand flew to her mouth. Lord forbid, it couldn’t be. “The…fungus threads?”

* * *

When Daeryn returned
to fetch Annmar, he didn’t have a lot of time. Gaze darting side-to-side, he trotted her to the edge of the fields, then slowed to a walk across the farmyard.

“Daeryn? Rivley believes me now about the blue lights on the machines.” She told him what they’d discovered about the Harvester’s doodem. “Rivley’s going to Market Day with us to select a new one.”

With
us
. They were an us—no, he couldn’t count on that meaning anything. He had work. He said some nicety in response, all he had time for before they reached the back door. He opened it for her, but Annmar turned to him.

“I learned something tonight that makes it even more important I talk to Old Terry. Master Brightwell’s fungus brew swarms with my blue threads.”

“But that fungus knocks people out. Freezes machines.”

“Strange, I know. Master Brightwell must have done something to it, or the fermentation, Rivley thought. But I’m sure it’s the same.”

She seemed about to say more, but instead she slipped her arms around his naked middle.

“Thanks for everything tonight,” she whispered. “I-I needed that talk.”

Before he could process what had happened, Annmar turned and went inside.

He started walking across the yard. That was…splendid. That made four hugs from her. Five, if he counted the kiss. He shook himself all over and changed at the same time, falling to four paws in a leap that carried him ten feet. Things were good. Next time, he would hug her first. Ah, no, the possessive feeling that went with that idea would get him in trouble. But he’d hug her back, though from the way she moved, he’d have to be quick.

Racing south to make a rotation into the as yet untouched corners of Wellspring gave him plenty of exercise to get his head—and body—back to his duties. Returning to the middle fields, he angled alongside a run of fencing. Inside its wide U, James had set up the Eradicator and left a pair of growers on watch atop a wagon with a supply of coal and a water tank.

Daeryn lifted his nose to the scents circling the enclosure: the engine and the special bait that had come with the machine. Another stung at his nostrils, a…burning that grew stronger and filled his throat the closer he leaped.

Then a change in the engine sounded—a whirring of a second mechanical device, followed by the scraping of metal on metal…and a crunching?
Whoosh
! Smoke rose from one end of the machine, and the growers backed to the far end of the wagon and pulled bandannas over their mouths and noses.

Damn
. No need for coal to fuel the machine—that dammed thing had just combusted the gobblers’ bodies.

Daeryn turned tail and threw himself forward, bounding off as fast as possible. Not even humans had a lame enough sense of smell to tolerate this. He found James, and they arranged relief for those fellows. Before leaving, the two confirmed the Eradicator was working exactly as promised—James looked as annoyed by the report as Daeryn felt.

Another hour passed before Daeryn returned north. He changed to human, slipped into the fenced area and approached the Harvester. Earlier, Rivley had gestured to him with their old pack signal that they needed to talk. Rivley threw him a glance and jumped from the platform around the engine. The jointed metal leg Daeryn had frozen with fungus now rested on the ground, and metal parts lay strewn across the wagon.

“Have you restored the leg from its shot of fungus?” Daeryn asked.

“In part. That brew had dissolved off by the time I got back out here. Too bad the solidified brew snapped the rod, but we have a replacement.” He gestured to the wagon and grabbed up a greasy rag to wipe his fingers. “Might have been the best way to do it. Your first shots with a stunner?” Daeryn nodded, and Riv gave a wry smile. “I’m lucky you didn’t hit me.”

“Not too much different than anticipating a leap. You have to aim true.”

“Suppose so. Annmar tell you she plans to go see that doodem woman at Market Day tomorr—today?”

“The hedge-rider, you mean.”

Rivley lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “You saw her, eh? But probably not everything she did.” He told Daeryn what he’d seen. “Right after I escorted Annmar safely back to her stairs in the workshop, I went to Mistress Gere. The lady said she’d look into it, but I doubt she’s had the time. Plus, there was no need with Annmar recovering in her room.”

Something more had happened with Old Terry than Riv had told him? And he’d told Miz Gere because he feared for Annmar’s safety? Daeryn’s muscles twitched and tightened. “Da—” He clamped down on the curse and ground out, “Why haven’t we talked about this?”

Rivley averted his gaze, and for a moment, he didn’t move. Then he wadded the rag in his hand, marched to the wagon and slammed it into a refuse bucket. He stood staring down for a moment, the cords in his neck tensing. “Because I feel like a fool, all right?” he muttered. “Mary Clare—and just shut up—was being her usual bossy self. How you’d never bend to her talk kept running through my head. MC listed the same precautions Mistress Gere did. I could tell that Annmar didn’t know our Market goers and didn’t have much control over her Knack.

“Yet by the time we left, MC had overworked me, and I told myself Annmar didn’t deserve to be treated like a child. She’s on her own, been earning a living in the city, then moved and secured a job in a completely different place—which none of the rest of us is attempting to do. So I hung back. In a minute she disappeared.” Riv gave him a sidelong glance. “I felt so stupid.”

“You’re not daft,” Daeryn said. “You gave her a chance to run.”

“Right into trouble.” Rivley snorted. “Then MC railed into me, and Annmar railed into her. She had the backbone to stand up to us, and now she’s willing to go back and face that…bespelling sneak.” Rivley turned and fixed Daeryn with a hard look.

That
witch
. Neither of them spoke the word. If they did, if either of them publicly accused a Knack-bearer of working a Knack on another, and were wrong…their word would be questioned for a good long time to come. When proving such a thing was near to impossible, you just didn’t say it.

Plus, some people might point out that what Annmar did with her healing landed awfully close to working a Knack on another, though she asked for permission to help if it wasn’t requested first.