Mortal Fire by Elizabeth Knox

Author:Elizabeth Knox
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)

12

THE CORN FLOUR PASTE that Canny had mixed up in Cyrus Zarene’s kitchen was still good and tacky when she produced the paper on which it was smeared from her pocket, unfolded it, and slapped it onto her forehead. Invisibility spell in place, she set off at a run for the river path and, eventually, the forested hill.

Forty minutes later she arrived on the immaculate lawn, sweating and out of breath. She paused, lifted the hem of her shirt to mop her face. The strip of paper rustled. She peeled it off.

The doors of one room were open onto the veranda. There was a contraption just outside the room, a series of wooden trays not unlike the frames from one of the beehives. One tray was propped up on its side. It was filled with a grid of metal squares.

Drawn by this curious contraption, Canny set off across the lawn. When she got closer she saw that the grid in the frame was made of inch-wide slices through average-size tin cans—rounds that had been hammered into squares and then slotted together into the frame. Behind the frame was an upended apple box with a lump of clay on it, sticky potter’s clay with fingerprints all over it.

Canny didn’t see Ghislain Zarene till he moved. He was indoors, at a table, with his back to her. When she stepped onto the veranda, he leaped to his feet and quickly pulled a sheet across the work surface before him, hiding what was there. Only then did he turn—then froze, and remained very still.

Canny scrubbed off the dried corn flour paste on her forehead, then took the paper from her pocket and showed it to him. “I passed right by the wild pigs this time. They sure do look dangerous close up.”

Ghislain pointed at the floor by the open door. Her sandals were sitting there, toes pointing indoors as if they too were coming rather than going.

“I went past where I’d left them and forgot to look,” she said. She went in and picked up the sandals by their straps. She fastened the buckle of one to the strap of the other and hung them around her neck.

Ghislain said, “Why are you back here? What purpose does it serve?”

“At least you’re not saying whose purpose.” She smiled at him.

“No,” Ghislain said. “These visits are your own idea. I know that now.”

The sheet Ghislain had thrown over the table began to convulse, as if it covered a whole litter of kittens who had just woken up and were looking for a way out. Ghislain jumped back as the sheet flung up into the air and tore itself into perfectly even strips. The strips of cloth then formed speedy granny knots and dropped down, inert again.

Canny stood with her mouth open long enough for spit to pool behind her lower lip and spill over. She clapped her mouth closed and wiped her chin. Ghislain watched this, then burst out laughing. She laughed too. Then she asked him whether he’d known that was going to happen.

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