The Iron Bells by Jeanette Battista

Author:Jeanette Battista
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: adventure, fantasy, magic, demons, teen

Chapter Fifteen

I start the smudge stick in my room, the sage-scented smoke dancing on the light breeze from my open window. I've been smudging like a mad thing since the Sniffer's appearance on the street. I don't want to risk the Inquisition coming back, so every other day I take out another bundle of string-wrapped herbs and use the smoke to cleanse the boarding house. I'm not sure what the Sniffer might have caught scent of--me, the book, the messenger's scent from his bag--but I'm not going to risk being unprepared.

I wave the smoke at each of my windows, at my door, and then move to the outside of the building. Out in the open I have to be more careful, so I put the stick in a votive holder and carry that around to the front of the building. I smudge the front steps and door before going through the house and into the back garden.

I'm almost finished when I hear Cat's voice behind me. "What are you doing with that?"

I complete my circuit of the top of the back wall before I answer. "It's a smudge stick."

She walks over to inspect it as I hop off the wall. I hand it to her and she turns it in her hands, watching the smoke drift lazily away. "What's it do?"

"You don't use them in your village?"

She takes tentative sniff of smoke up close. "Gah," she says, rubbing her nose. "Never smelled that before." She hands it back.

"It's sage and other herbs. It's used to cleanse an area. Great stuff against Sniffers." I lay the smudge stick in a bowl under the tree to burn out.

"We don't have Sniffers where I'm from. Guess we're too small to warrant it." She shrugs. "Until the night shamblers came, we didn't really have much cause for any of this." She walks over to the bench and sits.

I follow her. "Do you miss home?"

She looks out at the garden, suddenly looking very small and alone. I think about how hard it must be for her to come to somewhere so completely unknown to do such a dangerous job. Again, I'm grudgingly impressed by her courage.

"Sometimes," she admits, tucking her legs underneath her. "I wonder how they're all doing."

I don't have an answer for her and I don't think she wants one. I'm not sure what to say next. I've never been good with people or conversations. Probably why I have so few friends. Still, Cat is talking to me. I should at least try to come up with something. "What's it like--your home?"

Cat glances at me, as if trying to figure out if I'm serious or not. I sit, waiting, until she finally says, "Small. A quiet little place. Not much to recommend it, but I love it there." Her mouth quirks up in a private smile. "My friend, Margaret, was so jealous that I was getting out. She didn't speak to me for a whole week. She so wanted to come along to London.

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