Plain Kate

NINE THE BEAR CAGE

Rye Baro’s words produced first a stun of silence, and then a chorus of shouting. Stivo wrenched Plain Kate around. She could see how his shadow spun like a cape around him, how everyone’s shadow stretched in the early slant of light. “No shadow!” Stivo cried, and someone screamed.

On top of one of thevardo was the iron cage that had once held a dancing bear. They hauled it down and shoved Kate into it. She lurched up, banged her head on the bars, and fell sprawling.“I didn’t!” she was shouting. “I didn’t do anything.”

Stivo was locking the cage door. He was in such a rush to back away from her that he dropped the key. Kate reached for it. Stivo put his boot over it and kicked at her hand.

Plain Kate rolled over and looked up at the gathered Roamers. The cage bars cast shadow bars all around her. She crouched up and heard the gasp: Behind her the lines of shadow stretched straight, uninterrupted by the shadow she should have had, across the dirty straw and the white droppings of the chickens. She could almost feel them, going right through her like cold spears. The faces that looked down on her were marked with awe and fear.

“No shadow,” whispered Daj. Even she looked afraid. Plain Kate crouched there, breathing hard.

“They were right.” Stivo’s voice was flat with wonder. “In Samilae, where they wanted to burn you. They were right. You are a witch.”

“I’m not,” she sobbed. “I’m not.”

“It’s thegadje burn their witches,” said Rye Baro. “That’s nothing to do with us.”

“But it’s us they burn!” Stivo exploded.

“I’m not a witch! Stivo, please.” Plain Kate reached through the bars and touched his boot. “Ask Drina. Ask Drina, she knows—”

“Drina!” Stivo jumped back from her hand as if she were a snake striking, scrabbling the key up from the mud as he staggered away. “Drina! I told you not to bring your trouble on my Drina. My God, what she has already seen, without falling in with—” he sputtered. “With demons!”

Horror closed Kate’s throat. She could only whisper, “I’m not.”

“We are taught,” said Rye Baro, his voice still thoughtful, kind, “that only the dead have no shadows. But Stivo has told us of his wife’s brother, who gave up pieces of his shadow to give power to the dead. We do not know which is the case here.” He cut off the rumble of voices with one raised hand.“Plain Kate Carver. What can you say about this?”

She swallowed, and sat up as straight as she could.“A witch.” Her voice cracked. The crowd held its breath like one great creature. “A witch took my shadow.”

“And what can you say about Wen?”

She tossed her head like a nervous horse.“I—It’s not me. I don’t know what’s happening.”

“And Drina?”

Kate’s throat tightened. “She…” It came out as a whisper, and even in her own ears, she could hear the guilt in it. A mutter rose from the gathered Roamers. “She was only trying to help me. I—I’m sorry.” Stivo crowed with bitter triumph, and the crowd was suddenly loud. Kate wanted to say more, but was afraid to.

Again, Rye Baro lifted a hand for silence.“We do not know enough, here.” He pulled at the tip of his long nose. “We must have talk about this. We will take counsel. We will see if Wen dies.”

Plain Kate heard Daj breathe in hard at that.“Daj, I didn’t,” she pleaded. “Wen—I didn’t. Ask Drina. Daj!Mira! Mother Daj! Ask—”

“That’s enough, child,” said Daj, and she turned away.

Sun. Sun after endless weeks of drizzle and mist. It felt unreal, and it made Kate feel unreal, numbed, and queasy. The bear cage grew hot. It smelled high and sour of the chicken baskets, but beneath that it still smelled like the bear: rank; and it still had some of the bear’s fleas. Plain Kate scratched and pushed the stale straw to the cage edge.

Then through the straw heap came Taggle, ambling, slipping through the bars, a half-dead muskrat in his teeth.“Wrph,” said Taggle, around his catch. He spat the creature out and put a paw down on its back like a young prince putting one boot on a footstool. “Did you find the sausages?”

Plain Kate snatched the cat up and whipped her head around, panicked that someone might have heard him. The muskrat tried to stagger away.“It’s escaping!” the cat shouted.

“Taggle!” Kate shouted back. Then she made herself whisper, though it came out as a hiss. “Taggle, they’re going to kill me.”

“What? Who? And would you please stop that muskrat!”

Kate released him, and he bounded once and killed the creature with a single strike to the back of the neck. Then he turned back to her and tried to recover his nonchalance.“You were saying?”

“The Roamers. They found out about my shadow. They think I’m a witch. They—we can’t let them find you here.”

“Oh, nonsense. They adore me. Everyone does.”

“We’ve both got to get away from here, Taggle.”

Taggle stuck his head through the bars. The tight squeeze slicked his whiskers back.“You won’t fit,” he said, popping his head back in.

“I know that. We need the key.”

“Well,” he said. “That’s simple enough. I will go and steal it.”

Kate’s heart dropped at the thought. “If they catch you—”

“Bah.” Taggle flicked his ears. “They won’t even glimpse me. I am the king of catspaws, the lord of lurking. If the key is what you need, then I will obtain it for you. Where is it?”

“Stivo,” she stuttered. “Stivo hung it from his belt. Taggle, if they catch you, they’ll kill you.”

“They shan’t catch me,” he said lightly, and slipped out into the grasses.

He’d left her the muskrat, like a lover’s token, like a promise of return.

Plain Kate dropped her head back against the bars. They were hard against her hair, and comfortless. The barred roof broke the sun into stripes of shade, but no shade touched her. It was like not being able to blink, like not being able to scream in a dream. She pushed up the sleeves of her smock to scratch at her flea bites and watch the long scab seep blood.

The ground beneath her seeped water, and her leggings were wet, the wool sticking to her and smelling. In the front of the cage, where the frightened Roamers had milled, the sun drew curls of steam from the churned mud. She watched it, looking at the scuffed footprints, the. twin pits of Rye Baro’s twin canes, which were like eyes, and the big marks of Stivo’s boots. Just in front of the door she could see where he’d stepped on the key.

The shape of the key was pressed into the mud.

Plain Kate stared at it. A shape of hope.

She had, as she always did, the whittling knife her father had given her when she was three. It was tucked into a sheath stitched into her boot. If she had wood—and her mind was already choosing, something hard, ash, oak, for hard edges, strength in the lock—if she had wood, she might carve a key.

Plain Kate fingered the objarka cat on its thong around her neck—but it was too small. She started to rummage through the straw and mud, keeping her head up, watching the council tent. Voices came hard and soft, rising and falling. Outside the tent, Wen lay ashy and still on his mat, and Daj hunched beside him, her hands on her face, singing something. No onewas watching the cage.

But there was no wood. Kate searched through every bit of straw. She dug her fingers into the mud in hope of roots but the only ones she found were fine as tangled hair.

Suddenly from the tent came a burst of shouting. Taggle streaked out of the front flap, running low and fast as a fox, the cage key in his mouth. Some of the Roamer men came crashing out after him. She saw Stivo with an axe in his hand.

Taggle was fast, faster than the men. He was bolting straight for her. He would make it, but then what—

Stivo threw an axe.

The flat butt of the axe head hit Taggle behind the ears. The cat tumbled tail over head and lay limp as a pelt. The axe head flew free of its handle. Stivo lifted Taggle by the back legs like a dead rabbit. He picked up the axe handle in the other hand. He strode over toward her with Taggle’s head swinging.

Plain Kate was sobbing. She didn’t want to cry in front of Stivo, but she couldn’t stop. He dropped Taggle’s body in the churned mud before the cage. “Is this your creature, witch-child?”

Taggle cracked open a yellow eye.“Her name,” he drawled, thickly, “is Katerina, Star of My Heart.”

Stivo leapt backward, dropping the axe handle and warding his face with crooked fingers.

“Taggle!” sobbed Kate. She reached through the bars for him. Stivo was still backing away. “Taggle!”

She fumbled and turned the cat’s warm body. He was squirming a little. “Hold still,” she whispered, and took him under the arms and cradled his head and eased him through the bars. She kept one hand on his heaving ribs as she pulled down the driest straw and built a bed for him. Stivo was gone. “Oh, Taggle,” she said.“Taggle, I’m sorry.”

He tried to look at her. His eyes crossed and he didn’t move his head. “I dropped the key.”

“Don’t worry. Little catspaw, little lord of lurking…” She stroked his side and watched him get limper and longer as he drifted off to sleep.

Suddenly he opened his eyes again.“Did you save any muskrat?”

“All of it.” She set it beside him.

“Mmmmm.” He blinked slowly and softened again. “When I rise from my nap…” And then he was really asleep. She watched him breathe. She watched the council tent, where voices were louder now and she heard Stivo sounding shrill with anger or fear. No one was coming—not yet.

Plain Kate looked at Taggle sprawled out hurt and limp. Then she leaned her shoulder and arms between the bars and reached for the axe handle. Her fingers brushed it and she inched it across the mud until she could pick it up.

The axe handle was split, it turned out, and the split was tied closed with a scrap of fraying gingham. It was sloppy work and it made her angry. She could easily have fixed it for Stivo, if only he had asked. Then he might not have hated her. She wedged the handle under her foot and pulled up the split wood until it snapped. She closed her fist around the scrap of wood and took her knife from her boot.

Plain Kate carved and no one came to kill her. The men stayed in the tent. The women stayed away. Swallows swooped through the afternoon sky. Daj sang her drone over Wen, who did not even twitch. Taggle slept on, cuddling his muskrat like a child with a doll. All the while the hard wood curled away from her small blade, and no one saw.

She was so hot and flea-bitten that she was almost glad when evening came, though she could feel her time running out, the way the bread had in theskara rok. The key was now almost the same shape as the impression in the mud, but it would not go into the lock. She made it thinner, sliver by sliver.

With the day went the heat. Mist rose from the stream, from the river, from the wet ground itself. Kate huddled in the damp, dank straw. A fire was lit in the council tent, and the canvas glowed. Marsh light bobbed near the river, like a boat lantern. Another light came up to her through the fog and the shape of a man came behind it. It was Behjet with a tallow lamp. He was holding a blanket. He passed it through the bars. It reeked of horse. She wrapped it around herself.

“Is your cat all right?”

Kate tucked a corner of the blanket over Taggle, covering him from sight.

“He’s a fine little beast,” said Behjet. “But it is strange thing, don’t you see, a cat who steals keys. It makes a man think.”

Kate said nothing.

“My brother says he spoke.”

Still Kate said nothing.

“Stivo—” Behjet pulled at his chin. “Understand, Plain Kate. He lost his wife because she was a witch. He has nearly lost his daughter. His love has turned to anger. And his suspicion—just see. The stories from your city. The sleeping death that follows you. Your shadow. And now your cat,stealing a—”

Just then Taggle’s head slid out from under the blanket. “There’s bats out,” he slurred, stumbling up. “Listen, they sing to me!” He fell over.

“So it’s true,” said Behjet.

Plain Kate looked up at him, squinting through the fog. It was almost full dark, and she could not read his face, except that the moon was round in his eyes.“Behjet, I am not a witch. And I didn’t hurt Wen.”

And now Behjet said nothing.

“Behjet, what will they do with me?”

He looked over his shoulder at the ghostly light of the tent.“I must return to the council.”

“Please tell me,” she said, but he turned and walked away.

The key was nearly done. It went into the lock and Kate could feel it catch and turn, almost turn. She had to widen her eyes to owl eyes to compare the pale wood key and the black ghost of the key in the mud.

The moon was bright but the mist blurred it. Daj chanted over her husband. The drone of it went on and on. It had become something unstoppable, like the noise of a river. Kate carved on and on and wished for something to stop her ears.

Finally she put the key next to the key hollow and could see no differences. She set the key in the key hollow and it went in like hand to glove. Maybe this time. She lifted the key. She crouched up on her toes and looked around. She would only get one dash.

Plain Kate fingered her key.

There was someone moving in the fog.

Kate froze.

She could not see who it was, or even what. It came up from the river, and at first Kate thought it was a woman dressed in twists of hair and cloud. But as she moved one limb grew long and another short; when she turned, her torso twisted like linen being wrung out. Sometimes Kate could see through her, and sometimes she couldn’t. Music came with her. She was beautiful and Kate wanted to—

Taggle staggered up and gave a horrible hissing howl.“Thing!’ he spat. “Thing!” And then Kate wanted to scream.

We called into the darkness, Drina had said.We don’t know what answered. This is what had answered. The sick shadow on the wall of the bender tent, the approaching horror. The woman-thing was drifting toward thevardo and the council tent. Plain Kate tried to shout for help, but couldn’t. The foggy music wrapped her up like a spiderweb and she couldn’t even move. She watched the creature slide closer.

Then she saw Stivo, lamp in hand, going out to tend to the stamping, crying horses.

The white woman came to Stivo past the edge of the camp, where the fog swirled. He dropped the lamp and oil splashed into the grass, flaring bright. He said something, one word that Kate didn’t catch, a raw shout of—fear? joy?—and threw his arms open for the creature. When he touched her his whole body twisted like a reed in water. Kate, watching, felt the impossible, horrible twist as if it was happening to her, but still she was frozen, hardly even—

Taggle yowled and bit Kate’s hand.

Kate yelped, and found she could move again.“Stivo! Stivo!” she screamed.

The woman turned toward her voice. She retracted her hand, and Stivo crumpled at her feet. Eyes like pits locked on to Plain Kate.

In naked fear, Kate shouted. She banged at the bars, still caught eye to eye with the thing: skin pale and thin as an onion’s, her hair white and wavering like seaweed, face knife-sharp and starving. “Help me!” Kate screamed. “Help! Let me out!”

Out of the tent and down from thevardo, the Roamers were coming toward her, cautious, looking around. All at once Kate found her eyes released; the white creature was fading back toward the river. Kate gasped and leaned forward against the bars, breathing hard.“Katerina…” warned Taggle. She looked up just in time to see Behjet, running up from the horse meadow, fall full length over Stivo’s sprawled body.

Behjet pushed up to his knees, his hands on his brother, his sweet, sad face twisting in fear and grief.“Stivo!” he cried. “God! By the Black Lady, come and help us!” He lifted Stivo, pale and still in his arms.Just like Wen, Kate thought.Just like Wen.

Daj ran up to them, heavy and rolling like a bear running. She fell to her knees, and her low chant became a keening wail.“Oh, no!” she cried. “No, no!”

“Daj!” said Behjet. “What has happened?”

“God save us!” she answered. “This sleep is killing a thing. Wen is dead. My husband! My son!”

Stillness came into Behjet. He picked up Stivo’s sputtering lamp. He stood slow as the tide rising. He walked over to Plain Kate.

She scooted away from the look on his face, until the bars stopped her. Taggle stood up, crooked and dazed.“No closer,” he said. “I bite.” Kate barely heard the gathering crowd gasp. Behjet’s grief-blasted eyes caught like the white creature’s had.

“Witch-child,” said Behjet calmly. “This is too much.” And he threw the lamp at her.

The clay lamp cracked and the tallow splashed. The cage flashed hot. The straw and the horse blanket started smoking. Plain Kate cried out and threw herself at the door, fumbling with the wooden key.

“Katerina!” yowled Taggle. His fur was already frizzled. He backed out between the bars, stumbling. “Katerina!”

“Go, Taggle, go!” But he pressed so close to the hot bars she could smell his smoking fur. Her soaked wool leggings smoldered, her light smock crawled with fire and she slapped at it. She reached through the bars, twisting her wrist backward. Her hair was full of flames. The key went into the lock. Behjet was staring but he didn’t stop her. The key almost turned, then turned. She fell against the door and it swung open. She scooped up Taggle and staggered for the river. She heard Behjet start to cry, and Daj sobbing: “Enough, enough, let her go.” The crowd parted around her. The water was cold, and it took her in.