A Malediction on the Village ^{By Garth Nix}

It was the end of winter and a witch on her broom flew with one of the south-bound scattered skeins of pink-footed geese, enjoying their sidelong glances and high-pitched honking, before she sheared off to her destination.

Mari Garridge had carefully studied her course in Flight Directions for the Sunken Eastern Lands of Anglia, but it was still quite difficult to fix her location and thus, her destination. The ground spread out flat beneath her in all directions, and was crisscrossed with a mystifying number of cuts, canalized rivers, dykes, and flood-mitigation workings leading up to and surrounding the many, muddy branches of a big estuary with several smaller inlets. Beyond the estuary lay the vast swathe of the sea.

Every small patch of relatively high ground held a church, and a village around the church, often sprawling into areas that surely must flood with great regularity. They all looked much the same from the air.

But only one village in roughly the right place had a large and shining, official-looking car parked by the green, and what might be described as a small throng milling about: clearly the welcoming party Mari had been told to expect. She angled her broomstick down towards them, once again thanking the unknown genius who had worked out how to affix a padded bicycle seat to the ancient stick of yew. The witches of yore had ridden sidesaddle on the barest padding of sackcloth and leather, a position Mari thought must have led to many falls on long air journeys.

As always, even with the bicycle seat, she dreamed of having a flying chair or chaise longue of her own. The broom, a borrowed mount which had served the fellows of Ermine College far longer than Mari had been alive, bucked, possibly in response to this thought. She hastily stopped thinking about comfortable cushions and actually sleeping while in flight, and patted the broomstick.

“Thank you, good broom,” she said, “for all your service.”

The people below were waving now, so it had to be the right place. Mari came in for a perfect landing on the road by the green, only having to run on three or four yards before she could stop. She stepped off, unstrapped her valise and set it and the broom down before turning to face the welcoming committee who had gathered in front of the war memorial, a plinth of three steps surmounted by the usual figure. This had supposedly been designed so that from different directions, it could be seen as either man, woman or child, and uniformed as being a civilian or a member of any of the four services; but in practice it mostly didn’t look like anything in particular.

It was easy enough for Mari to identify the chief constable, a hawk-nosed lady of least sixty, because she wore full dress blues, her epaulettes sporting shiny, silver crossed batons. Dame Keble was accompanied by a short male sergeant and a tall woman constable, both in far less well-cut and resplendent uniforms.

Behind the police presence stood the vicar, also distinctive in a typical green skirt and blouse with the tawny shawl of the Goddess over her shoulders. The man in the bespoke, but now rather faded, gray suit at her side was probably her husband, particularly as he was holding up a plate of raisin-studded rock cakes. Behind him, the woman in overalls holding the Gladstone bag was probably the local doctor but might be the vet.

The final two members of this ad hoc welcoming party were less immediately identifiable: a man and woman of similar middle age, both countrified professionals of some sort, or so their well-cut, subdued tweeds declared.

Behind them all, lounging on the upper step of the war memorial, a russet Labrador with intelligent brown eyes and muddy paws watched the new arrival with interest. Or perhaps she was looking at the rock cakes.

“Who are you?” bellowed Dame Keble, as if Mari was a county over, and not standing in front of her.

“I’m the district witch,” replied Mari. She undid her chin strap, took off her pointy hat, and flying goggles. Her hair was short, but not cut in a fashionable bob. She ran her fingers through it in a vain effort to make it sit down on top. “Aren’t you expecting me?”

“You are not the district witch,” declared Keble. “Mother Hartpool is, and she’s due any moment, so you’d better shove off. We don’t need any unlicensed witches here today.”

“I really am the district witch,” replied Mari, with a sigh. Mother Hartpool had warned her that Dame Keble was rather stupid, the beneficiary of tradition rather than any policing expertise. She caught the vicar’s eye behind the chief constable, noted her apologetic expression, and continued. “That is, I am a locum, standing in for Mother Hartpool. Didn’t you hear she’s been called away to her daughter’s? A new grandchild, I believe.”

“You’re too young,” said Keble, her eyebrows gathering together above her nose in what was either disbelief or anger. “We need someone qualified!”

Mari sighed, collapsed her hat and tucked it into her shoulder bag before rummaging around to retrieve her card case. Flicking it open, she took out one of her still new visiting cards and offered it to the chief constable. The worthy received the rectangular pasteboard gingerly, as if it might be cursed, and held it up so she could peer down at it through the lower part of her gold-rimmed spectacles. The sergeant stretched up to read it as well. He was very short, though broad across the shoulders.

“Hmmm,” muttered Dame Keble. She still sounded suspicious. “Ermine College. Why would a Hallowsbridge scholar take on a locum here? And you’re still too young.”

“I have only recently taken my doctorate,” replied Mari diplomatically. “I’ve been in Morcoln for several weeks, doing some research into… well… naturally I had called upon Mother Hartpool when I first arrived, so when she got your telegram, she came around to ask if I might stand in, given her imminent departure to her daughter in Stondbury. I agreed, so here I am.”

“You can’t just become a district witch,” complained Keble. “Ermine College or not. There are necessary procedures, forms to be completed—”

“I hold a warrant as a provost of the university,” interrupted Mari. “So, ipso facto, I may be commissioned as a district witch at any time or in any county by the Board of Black Velvet. This was in fact done by telephone earlier today, and I have a letter from Mother Hartpool confirming I act in her place. Do you want to read it?”

“Oh, that’s not necessary,” said Dame Keble, suddenly hearty. Mention of the far-off but potent bureaucratic power of the Board of Black Velvet in Londinium had her backpedaling as fast as she could. “Please pardon my initial… er… remarks, Dr. Garridge. My natural concern over the situation here has made me… worried. Very worried indeed.”

“Exactly what is the situation?” asked Mari. “Your telegram didn’t say. Other than it was urgent business for the district witch or wizard. Sir Henry sends his regrets by the way. The press of other duties, or he would have come too.”

Or, to be more accurate, Mari thought, but did not say, Sir Henry Brodlington had snaffled the more interesting problem of an ancient oak that had inexplicably relocated itself to a point three miles from where it had stood for a thousand years, its new rooting place unfortunately being in the middle of a significant crossroads.

“No one else is coming?” asked Keble. She looked up and down the road, as if some sort of convoy should be approaching. “I mean, you’re not expecting anyone?”

“No,” replied Mari. “I’m sure I can assist you with whatever the problem is. What is the problem?”

“Well, now you’re here, perhaps I should leave it to Sergeant Breckon to explain,” said Keble. “It is a local matter and he has all the details. Good luck. Come, Entwhistle.”

Mari was unable to hide her surprise as Dame Keble hurried over to her car, dove into the back and slammed the door behind her. The tall constable took a deep breath, strode stolidly to the front of the car to turn the crank several times before assuming the driver’s seat and pressing the ignition. The car started with a series of loud bangs. The constable engaged first gear and exchanged an indecipherable look with the sergeant, before the car departed in a cloud of blue smoke.

“Mother Hartpool is often followed about by the Morcoln Messenger and sometimes even reporters and photographers from the metropolitan newspapers,” said the vicar, stepping forward to join Mari, who was staring incredulously after the departing vehicle. “I am sure that’s the only reason Dame Keble came today. Since you have arrived without the folk of the Third Estate, we have become surplus to her diary. I do apologize for the poor welcome to Nether Warnstow, Dr. Garridge. I am Kathleen Evenholme, the vicar here, as no doubt you have deduced. My husband, Lawrence; the good Sergeant Breckon who represents the law in both Upper and Nether Warnstow and two other villages besides; Dr. Ware, who has the local general practice; Lady Lovatt’s steward, Arthur Robe, and her ladyship’s solicitor, Jane Rawson. Ah, I should say Lady Lovatt is our squire, but she is well past ninety now, and does not leave the manor.”

“Would you like a rock cake?” asked Lawrence Evenholme, proffering the plate.

“Not right now, thank you,” replied Mari. “But what exactly is happening here? Why do you need my help?”

Everyone suddenly spoke at once, a cacophony which Mari could not follow, though she was disturbed by the use of one word they all employed.

Malediction.

Mari held up her hand. “Quiet please! I cannot listen to you all at once.”

They stopped talking. The police sergeant and the vicar both tried to start again, but the vicar’s glare and sniff put paid to the sergeant’s effort and he closed his mouth with a thwarted huff.

“As I was saying,” said Kathleen Evenholme. “There appears to be a curse on the village. Some malediction has been laid, and we need it found and lifted.”

“I see,” replied Mari, though she didn’t. There was no evidence of a curse or malediction. Usually it would be all too apparent. Dying trees, browned grass, sickened livestock, dead birds, streams and ponds turned to blood, bloated toads burst upon the road… there was none of that, or any of the other portents. The people of Nether Warnstow also looked perfectly healthy. “How has this curse manifested?”

The vicar held out her thumb, followed a moment later by the others all doing likewise, save the solicitor, Rawson. Mari obligingly stepped forward to peer at the vicar’s offered digit. It was rather red, more so than Evenholme’s other fingers. But only as if she had been washing dishes and her thumb had somehow soaked in the suds longer than the rest of her hand. The others all had similar, somewhat reddish, perhaps slightly chafed, left thumbs.

“The curse has made your thumbs a little red?” Mari asked. She knew a faint smile was spreading on her face and tried to pull her mouth back into a stern, professional line.

“Rather more than that!” protested the vicar. “Something tried to pull it off!”

“Something?” asked Mari.

“An unseen presence,” said the vicar, pulling her priestly shawl more tightly around her shoulders. “I was working on a sermon last night in my study when it came in. I heard the door slam open, the lamp at my desk suddenly blew out, and the next thing I knew a creature of darkness had my thumb in an icy grip and was pulling me across the room! If I hadn’t struck at it with my pen who knows what might have happened.”

Mari blinked. A creature of darkness that could be sent off by stabbing it with a fountain pen did not sound very likely. Anything summoned or released by a real malediction would have had the vicar’s thumb entirely off in a second, and her head a moment later.

“A creature of darkness? Did you feel the Goddess react to this, or sense Her presence?”

“No…” replied the vicar. “One doesn’t, most of the time.”

The central tenet of the Church was that the Goddess was asleep, and Her few interactions with the living world came about from the deity’s occasional dreams. As this also applied to Her Antagonist, it was considered in the world’s best interests if the sleeping continued and the dreams were sparse. This could be assured, the First and Second Testament said, by doing good works, which kept the Goddess happily slumbering, and refraining from doing bad things, which might wake the Antagonist.

Despite her somnolent state, the Goddess was known to make Her presence felt if real evil intruded upon her consecrated servants, even though She rarely did anything useful about it. Her lack of interest tended to suggest that whatever had gripped the vicar’s thumb was not a truly malignant creature of darkness.

“You did not see anything, or perhaps feel the shape of the intruder?”

“No. Only it was cold. Like ice water.”

“Did it feel like a hand gripping your thumb? Could you feel individual fingers?”

The vicar shook her head slowly. “It was so cold…”

Mari looked at the others. “You all had a similar experience?”

Everyone started to talk at once. Mari quietened them again, and listened carefully to their stories. They were much the same as the vicar’s. Each had been ‘attacked’ in the night, their left thumbs gripped and held up, but it was clear to Mari that the otherworldly assailant had not actually tried to pull the thumbs off. Nor had it been driven away by poking with a fountain pen, an uppercut from the sergeant—like punching a snow drift, he said—or any of the other defensive reactions. The reason that Rawson’s thumb had not been pulled was also clear: she lived in another village, several miles away.

“I do not think this has been caused by a malediction,” said Mari. “It has the classic signs of a shade of some sort seeking a part of its body that has been removed, in this case the thumb bone. Have you had any recent burials? No? Your graveyard is by the church? Perhaps I might have a look?”

“Certainly,” replied the vicar. “But there has been no disturbance. The most recent burial was old Jaggers, and that’s six months—”

“Eight months ago,” interrupted her husband. He was still carrying the plate, but the pile of rock cakes had diminished and every shirt but Mari’s and the vicar’s was adorned with crumbs. The russet Labrador had left the war memorial steps and was following along to collect the fallen remnants and the odd sultana with judicious licks of her tongue.

“Eight months ago,” continued the vicar smoothly. She pointed to the lych-gate in the low wall on the far side of the green, next to the church.

“I think we can let these good folk go about their business,” said Mari, as it seemed clear the full entourage hoped to dog her steps. “Perhaps we can meet later to discuss whatever I have found. Oh, could someone put my broom and valise somewhere safe?”

“I’ll take it to my police house, Dr. Garridge,” said Sergeant Breckon quickly, for once, getting in before the vicar. “Sixth house down the street. The blue lamp is outside, but hard to see; it’s a little overgrown with the passionfruit.”

“You can grow passionfruit here?” asked Mari with interest. “Through the winter and all?”

“Year-round. It’s the only passionfruit for two hundred miles,” replied the sergeant proudly. “It is said a Roman wizard planted it, in ancient times, when they first drained the fens. That’s why we never cut it back.”

“I must take a look at it,” said Mari.

“You don’t think it has something to—” the sergeant began, a look of absolute horror forming on his face.

“No! No,” Mari hastily reassured him. “I am sure it doesn’t. I’m curious, that’s all. And I like passionfruit.”

“Oh, good,” said the sergeant. “I’ll take your broom and bag, Miss. I mean, Doctor.”

He did a smart about-face, almost ruined by the others not getting out of his way, and marched off. After a few moments of hesitation, Dr. Ware, the steward Robe, and the solicitor Rawson muttered largely inaudible pleasantries and followed him.

Only the dog remained, eyeing the single remaining rock cake.

“Go home, Bella,” said Lawrence, pointing to the imposing vicarage that could be glimpsed behind the church. The dog looked at him and set off across the green in the opposite direction. Lawrence sighed and shook his head.

“Oh, do come on, Lawrence,” urged the vicar, though her husband was already moving towards her. “I have a great deal to get through today, after all this disturbance.”

The graveyard did not provide Mari with any clues. It was undisturbed, and there was no sign any of the inhabitants had been roaming. In fact, it was quite peaceful, and when Mari leaned her hand against one of the hawthorns that lined the southern side of the cemetery, the tree confirmed that nothing untoward had occurred in all its long life, extending back a century or more.

“Have any of the other villages nearby reported any… er… thumb attacks or anything similar?” asked Mari.

“No,” replied the vicar. “Not even Upper Warnstow. Are you sure it’s not a curse, centered in the village?”

“I am confident it is not,” said Mari. She thought for a moment. “It must be a shade seeking a missing bone. But that means a recently disturbed grave, or a death, somewhere close to the village.”

“I don’t think there’s been anything like that,” said the vicar, her husband nodding confirmation.

“I should have asked Sergeant Breckon if there are any current missing persons,” said Mari. “Or a tramp perhaps, dying somewhere nearby.”

“Neither one,” said the vicar firmly. “It would have come up in the meeting of the parish council this morning, when we decided we needed your assistance.”

Mari thought for a moment. A thumb bone separated from a skeleton had to come from somewhere…

“Do you have a local museum?”

The vicar and Lawrence shook their heads.

“What about archaeological excavations? Are there any taking place nearby?”

“No,” replied the vicar, but as she spoke, her husband cleared his throat. She looked at him crossly, as if he had interrupted her.

“Not nearby, as such,” said Lawrence, with an apologetic glance at his wife. “But I believe there is a dig going on at the upper end of the northernmost arm of Castwell Creek.”

“Is there really?” asked the vicar, as Mari said, “How far away is that?”

“A good seven miles as the crow—you might fly,” replied Lawrence. “But at least nine miles by road, because you have to go along the New Cut for such a way before the crossing at Bridge. Would you like a rock cake? There is only one left.”

Mari took the cake and ate it slowly. It lived up to its name, being very hard indeed. Seven miles was a long way for a shade to go, but it was not impossible. So far, the spirit was not malevolent. But it might become more urgent in its searching, and serious thumb injuries could result. Or become annoyed and take even more drastic action.

One puzzling aspect was that the shade should already have found the thumb bone and taken it back. It ought to be able to sense where it was, unless there was interference of some kind, or it was being moved about. The testing of people’s thumbs was also curious, as if the shade hoped to find its own member attached to a living person.

She wondered if she should try to find the thumb bone herself, by divination or augury. But the fact the shade itself was having difficulty suggested this would not be easy. Locating the skeleton the thumb came from should be more straightforward.

“I had better go and have a look at this archaeological dig,” she said when the last crumbs of rock cake had cleared her throat. “Though I’d rather not fly. My broom is rather old and needs a rest. Does Sergeant Breckon have a car?”

“He does not,” replied the vicar. “But I do. Lawrence shall drive you over immediately.”

“Oh yes,” said Lawrence mechanically. “Delighted.”

The vicar’s car turned out to be a well-used but apparently entirely unsprung two-seat roadster of considerable vintage. It was even more uncomfortable than Mari’s broom. The rock cake also sat uncomfortably in her stomach, and several times threatened to rise as they hit a pothole or bounced over a flurry of flood-scoured ridges in the road.

It seemed considerably further than nine miles, much of it beetling along the raised road alongside the New Cut before crossing the iron bridge at Bridge, only to go back up the Cut on the other side. From there they took a road between two long, thin arms of the estuary, the narrow strip of bitumen often lower than the water on either side, protected from inundation only by turfed-over banks that did not seem sufficiently high or thick.

The dig itself turned out to be in a creek that joined the left-hand arm of the estuary. Several cars, a motorcycle and a lorry were drawn up on a hummock of raised ground at this conjunction of the waters.

When Lawrence parked the two-seater, Mari stood up on her seat and saw that the tidal creek was dry, the sea kept back by a coffer dam made of sandbags and heavy beams of timber. Behind the dam, silt and mud had been carefully dug away down at least a dozen feet to reveal a buried longboat, its timbers still solid but dark as pitch from their long submergence.

Several people were digging in various corners of the boat, all of them quite young. Undergraduate archaeologists. Mari was familiar with the breed.

More importantly, from Mari’s point of view, were the tall, rune-carved willow wands topped with silver lamps that surrounded the lip of the excavation, one every seven paces, in the orthodox pattern. These were ghost-wards, deployed to prevent any shade or revenant from rising from the burial ship—as this had to be—to terrorize the surrounding countryside.

The willow wands were twinned with shorter rods of spell-engraved iron, thief-wards designed to keep people out, save for those mentioned by name in the warding spells.

Mari nodded to herself and climbed out of the car, pausing to push out and don her pointy hat. Lawrence followed, falling a few steps behind, his accustomed spot behind his wife, the vicar.

They had just reached the creek-side when one of the archaeologists in the boat saw them and called out.

“Hello! Stop there, please! The wards won’t let you past. I’ll come up.”

He was older than the others. Although he wore the same colorful cravat, untidy shirt, loose bags and tennis shoes as the students, male and female, he also wore an iron necklace tucked under the cravat, plus a tweed coat with heavily overloaded pockets, a symbol of authority and absentmindedness. Mari knew he would be roughly her equivalent, a junior fellow or something similar, recently awarded his doctorate, and here in charge for the first time on his own dig.

“Hello, hello,” he called again as he nimbly made his way up a ladder to the creek bed and then scrambled up the bank. “What brings a witch and… er… here?”

“I’m temporarily the district witch,” replied Mari. She liked this man for his cheerful countenance and greeting. “Dr. Mari Garridge, usually a junior fellow of Ermine College, Hallowsbridge. This is Mr. Lawrence Evenholme, the husband of the vicar at Nether Warnstow, who kindly drove me here.”

“Oh yes,” replied the man. He offered his hand, apologized for its filthy state, and quickly withdrew it. “I’m Dr. Robert Jacoby. Bob. Or Jac to some folks, take your pick. I’m a treasure-vigile from the museum. Friend’s College, originally, though I expect I was up at Hallowsbridge somewhat before your time, Dr. Garridge… Garridge… um, are you here on official business?”

“I’m afraid so,” replied Mari. She paused and tried to frame what she had to say as kindly as possible. A treasure-vigile was a kind of archaeologist who was also something of a wizard, which might mean not much of one at all or the full magic, so this cheerful chap had probably placed the ghost-wards himself. And there was a problem with them.

“Last night a shade haunted Nether Warnstow, I think trying to find its missing thumb bone. I suspect the shade’s skeleton is here.”

“But… but that’s not possible!” exclaimed Jac. He turned and gestured to the willow wands. “I placed the wards before we even started the dig.”

“Yes, I see,” said Mari. “But I’m afraid you haven’t taken something into account.”

Jac stared at her, an expression of intense puzzlement screwing up his plain but quite appealing face.

Mari pointed at the coffer dam. The tide was on the ebb, but the muddy, roiling water still came more than halfway up the dam. At the flood tide, it would be only a few feet from the crest—putting the water well above the height of the wands.

It took Jac a long, epiphany-dawning moment to work out what she meant.

“Oh Goddess,” he groaned. “Proximity of salt and the action of the sea! How high should I have made the wands?”

“At six-yards distance, one and three quarter times the height of highest water,” recited Mari from memory.

“Garridge,” said Jac and he groaned again. “You’re the sizar who saved Ermine and re-established the bounds… I feel so stupid.”

“Wards and binding are my specific area of research,” said Mari. “I am sure wizardry is only an adjunct to your archaeological expertise. Can you let us in to take a look at your skeleton?”

“If I’ve stuffed up the wards, you don’t need—”

“Only the ghost-wards are ineffective, the thief-wards are active. Iron-based wards are more resistant to the action of the sea,” said Mari. “And… I hate to rub salt in the wound, but you’ve erred in the opposite direction there, they’re almost double the size required, particularly since you’ve used wrought iron when most people these days use cast, which lessens the efficacy of the spell.”

Jac nodded ruefully and ran down the bank to the closest iron thief-ward. Bending over the iron rod he whispered the spell and the visitors’ names, and beckoned them to follow him.

The skeleton, when it was finally revealed from under several layers of tarpaulin, was a surprise to Mari, and not a welcome one. The presence of Jac as a treasure-vigile was immediately explained by the great weight of gold and silver and amber and ivory that adorned the skeleton. There was even a jeweled crown upon the skull. The only item that wasn’t loaded with gemstones was the axe by the skeleton’s side. It looked completely utilitarian.

The quantity of treasure was surprising, but not as much as the fact that the skeleton possessed all its appendages.

“It’s got both thumbs,” said Lawrence, unnecessarily.

“She,” said Jac quickly. “She’s a Norse warrior princess. Possibly Inga the Head-Gatherer.”

Mari stared down at the skeleton, thinking hard. Her working hypothesis that the thumb bone had to come from this site was shaken, particularly since she also had a strong suspicion of how it had got to Nether Warnstow.

Could there be some other explanation? If the shade wasn’t looking for its finger bone, could it be searching for something else?

She knelt down, drew her athame and held it horizontally over the skeleton’s hands, concentrating her witchy senses. Some of the skeleton’s treasures had once contained mighty magics, but there were only echoes and whispers now. Yet there had been something else present, something stronger, she could feel its absence.

“Jac,” she said, standing up and sheathing her knife. “May I call you Jac? Princess Inga has rings on each finger, except her left thumb. Was there something there when you first dug her… when you first excavated the skeleton?”

“Gosh,” said Jac. “Yes.”

He stared at the princess. His four students crept closer and gazed down. One muffled a worried cough, her neighbor looked like he was about to cry, and the other two simultaneously took out their notebooks. Jac produced his notebook as well and frantically searched through it.

“I’ll be defrocked,” he moaned as he turned the pages. “Losing a relic is practically a capital crime for a treasure-vigile.”

“Defrocked?” asked Mari.

“We have a ceremonial uniform,” replied Jac despairingly. “They cut your buttons off and break your trowel in a defrocking.” He jabbed a finger at his notebook, leaving a dirt smudge on the paper. “Here it is. Left thumb. A relic ring of red dragon bone, one-quarter-inch width, three-quarter-inch diameter, one sixteenth thick, carved with a depiction of serpents entwined… er… possibly mating. Here’s a drawing.”

He held up his notebook to Mari.

“I suppose one of my team must have taken it,” he said gloomily, turning so his back was to his young students. “Or you think I stole it?”

“No, I don’t think so,” replied Mari encouragingly.

There was a general lessening of anxiety and a couple of sighs of relief, but also general signs of bafflement, particularly from Jac.

“But you said yourself the thief-wards are working,” he said. “Loathe as I am to say it, it has to be one of us.”

“Then why would the shade be looking for it in Nether Warnstow?” asked Mari. “It is certainly searching for the ring. I think I know where it might be, and how it got there, despite the thief-wards. We’ll have to work fast to get it back to the princess before nightfall though. Can you take me back to the village, Lawrence?”

“Certainly,” replied the vicar’s husband. “This is all terribly interesting.”

“Can I come too?” asked Jac. “It is my responsibility.”

“You’ll have to sit behind on the dicky seat,” warned Lawrence. “It won’t be comfortable.”

“I could follow in my car… no, I suppose not,” said Jac. “Even if I promise I won’t hare off to catch the Druppe ferry?”

“I really don’t think you’ve stolen the ring,” said Mari. “But it probably is better if you come with us.”

Mari did not mention the dicky seat would be no more uncomfortable than anywhere else in Lawrence’s car. There was also a chance she was wrong and the ring had been stolen by Jac or one of his students. To guard against that possibility, she delivered a witch’s glare from under the brim of her hat, encompassing all the students. If she needed to find any of them in the next few days, they would not be able to hide. A few of them winced as her eyes briefly flashed with green fire, but they did not protest.

The drive back passed largely in silence. Jac did not complain about the discomfort of the dicky seat, but he did keep moving, as if there was some chance of achieving a better position.

“Where to, exactly?” asked Lawrence, as they neared the village.

“Do you have a butcher’s? Or a general store?”

“Neither one,” replied Lawrence proudly. “But Mrs. Hobspawn at The Lamprey can usually spare a few chops or some sausages if anyone’s missed a delivery from Hawsey’s Meat or the Everything Stores.”

“The Lamprey to begin with, then to the village green,” said Mari.

“Do you really know where the relic ring’s got to?” asked Jac plaintively, as Mari emerged from the tempting interior of The Lamprey, bearing a brown-paper-wrapped parcel that was already stained with leaking blood.

She had taken longer than she’d hoped, having to several times decline Mrs. Hobspawn’s offer of “one for the road, witches drink on the house.” It had been much harder to decline a cup of tea and a massive ham sandwich. She hadn’t had lunch and her stomach hadn’t recognized the rock cake as food, but as an imposition.

“You’ll see,” replied Mari. She hoped she sounded more confident than she felt. Her certainty had diminished a little now it was to be put to the test.

Her return to the village had been marked, and the stop at The Lamprey had allowed time for her original welcoming party to gather back at the green, with reinforcement by various other inhabitants of Nether Warnstow. Sergeant Breckon was making himself useful by ushering people back from the road, allowing Lawrence plenty of room to pull up. But they all rushed over again as soon as he turned the engine off.

“Now, now, make way, make way for the district witch!” roared the sergeant.

The crowd parted as Mari walked over to the war memorial, unwrapped her parcel and laid a nice chop on the bottom step. Turning around, she asked Lawrence, “Is your dog’s name just Bella?”

“In full it’s Isabella Bird, because she’s always off exploring the world,” said Lawrence, rather surprised. “Oh, her full pedigree name is Isabella Bird Dawn Fire Russet-Russet. Why?”

“You’ll see in a minute or two, I hope,” replied Mari. “And she’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”

“What—”

Mari drew a slim ivory and silver wand from her sleeve.

Lawrence swallowed his question and there was a general shuffling backward, away from the wand.

She tapped the chop with it, speaking a spell that fell from her lips with a noise like branches scraping across a window, a sound that was either comforting or unsettling depending on what you were expecting. At the end of this strange vocalization, the name “Isabella Bird Dawn Fire Russet-Russet” rang out.

A hushed silence fell. Mari took off her hat, wiped her brow, and put the hat firmly back on again.

There was an “ooh” from the crowd as Bella the russet Labrador ambled across the green, as muddy pawed as ever. Catching sight or scent of the chop, she accelerated, rushed to the step and ate the meat down in several gulps before anyone could think to stop her. Finished, Bella lay down on the step and pretended it hadn’t happened.

Mari tapped her on the head with the wand. Surprised, but not upset, Bella sat up on her haunches. A moment later, a slightly rueful expression came over the dog. Her big brown eyes widened, her jaw reluctantly opened and some nasty gagging sounds emanated.

Mari stepped back. Bella lowered her head and vomited profusely on the grass below the step. Chunks of barely chewed chop came out first, followed by more indistinguishable and longer digested mush, and then with another but much louder “ooh” from the crowd, out came a bright red ring of dragon bone, big enough to fit a thumb.

“Thief-wards don’t stop dogs,” explained Mari.

Bella lunged forward to swallow the ring again, but Mari grabbed the dog’s collar and hauled her back.

“I’ll give that a wash in the pond, shall I?” asked Lawrence. Clearly, as Bella’s owner, he felt he was expected to retrieve the ring from the vomit.

“No!” shouted Mari and Jac, but Lawrence had already picked out the ring from the noisome pool. He gripped it gingerly with the tips of his thumb and forefinger, but somehow the ring slid fully on to his thumb.

He gasped, made a choking sound and fell to his knees. Scales began to form on his throat. Shining thumbnail-sized scales of gold-edged scarlet. His back rippled alarmingly with the hint of wings beginning to form. His eyes turned entirely red. The awful dark red that was almost black, like the crusted blood of an old wound.

Mari pointed her wand and began to speak Brythonic words of power. A brute-force attempt to stop the draconic identity subverting any more of poor Lawrence’s body before she compelled it to return to the ring.

If she could.

Even after so long immured under the earth, the dragon contained within the ring was powerful. Princess Inga would have known its name and the words to compel its service, but Mari did not. She could only set her strength against the worm.

Power against power, with no finesse.

Even if she won, it would be fatal for Lawrence. His body would be destroyed, either by the dragon’s emergence or by the magic Mari must employ to prevent it.

But it had to be done, or the dragon would fully manifest and all the villagers present would die, and many more soon after. Nether Warnstow and all the villages from the sea to Morcoln would burn, before Sir Henry or some other powerful wizard or witch could intervene.

Mari reached deep inside herself for a word of power that she had learned but never used. But before she could bring it, sharp and terrible, into the world, Jac pushed in front of her. He raised a small, heavily engraved bronze box, with the lid open. It was impossible to see what was inside. Indeed, it didn’t seem to have an inside, only an absence of one.

He spoke a simple spell; one Mari did not know and afterwards could not recall.

Next came a painful, metallic ringing, like a cymbal crash-struck too close to Mari’s ear. She flinched. Lawrence screamed and roared at the sky, flames bursting from his mouth. A moment later the ring flew from his thumb to the box. Jac slammed the lid shut and locked it with a golden key he wore on the chain of black iron around his neck.

Lawrence fell to the ground. The scales faded from his neck, his clawing hands relaxed, no fire came with his panting breath, his eyes became human once again. Dr. Ware rushed to his side and felt the pulse at his neck.

Mari looked at the box Jac was tucking away inside his coat pocket.

“I might not be good with wards, but I do know a thing or two about powerful ancient relics,” he said. “We always have to be ready for little antics like that.”

“I’m glad you were,” said Mari sincerely. “I think I might have mastered the dragon, but poor Mr. Evenholme would not have survived. As it is, he seems to have escaped the worst. It wasn’t in him for long.”

Lawrence had managed to sit up. Dr. Ware checked his throat, but not in an urgent, worried way. Most of the other villagers crowded around, asking questions that presaged the likely transformation of this event into years or even decades worth of anecdotes to come.

Mari let Bella go. The dog rushed to her master and began to lick his face. Her vomit-laden breath prompted Lawrence to leap to his feet without assistance, indicating he was recovering very well indeed.

“Lawrence! What are you doing? Why is everyone fussing over you, and what has that dog of yours done now?” The vicar’s shrill cries grew louder as she hurried over from the church.

“I think a speedy exit is called for,” said Mari.

“Yes,” replied Jac, but he made no motion to leave.

“Would you like to have lunch, Dr. Jacoby?” asked Mari. “The food looked rather good at The Lamprey and…” she glanced at the pool of dog vomit nearby and wrinkled her nose “…despite the circumstances, I am absolutely starving.”

“I would be delighted, Dr. Garridge,” said Jac.

Of course, by the time they’d idled their way to The Lamprey, talking six to the dozen about Norse princesses, capture boxes, the differences in wards of wood and bone and metal, and much else, the lunch hour service was finished, and Bella had somehow got ahead of them and vomited again on the pub’s doorstep.

But that is another story.