Dill slapped Grey’s hand away.
‘Stop calling me that!’
Dill stepped back, the stone raised, black in the light.
‘Come, we will be sisters all!’ said Mabel.
‘No, we won’t!’
And now she struck away Mabel’s hand.
‘Dilly.’ I moved to her. She was panicked I could see.
‘Ah!’ cried Mabel. ‘How she bites!’
And the coven laughed and Dill glared.
‘Dilly, calm down.’
‘She won’t bite old Tally!’
Darting in, the old witch hooked her bony fingers under Dill’s arms.
‘Dill, please…’
‘Not if she’s tickled!’
‘Leave! Me! Be!’
Dill swung her fist wild, and the stone struck Tally, blood gushing from her cheek.
The old witch cried and fell to her knees. The coven gasped as one.
‘Dill!’
‘I did not mean to do it!’
‘Look what you did!’
Mabel pressed her shawl to Tally’s wound.
‘I forgot the stone was in my hand. I’m sorry, old lady, you surprised—’
‘Give me that!’
I wrenched it from Dill’s grasp.
‘Shame that you bring me and Mother!’
‘Evey, no! Please! You mustn’t!’
‘No, Dill!’ I held the stone from her reach. ‘You are not to have it, you hear?’
‘But, Evey! Mother said it should be only given or found, never taken… Never taken.’ She sobbed to breathe. ‘You don’t… don’t know.’
She jumped to claw my hand, Spring barking over.
‘Oh, I don’t know?’ I pushed her away. ‘I don’t have your gift. Is that it?’
I held the stone high from Dill and her damn dog.
‘No, Evey! No!’
I wanted to laugh as she jumped to reach my hand.
‘You swore to be good!’
And then I saw Mabel and another young witch creep slow behind Dill.
‘The stone is not yours! It was Mother’s and I am the eldest, so…’
‘No, Evey, please, it’s not like that.’
‘Always you have played with it and whispered to it. You think I do not see?’
‘Evey, listen—’
‘You listen for once!’ I grabbed her. ‘You think you’re better than me?’
‘No! No! You’re hurting me!’
Dill shook her head, trembling as the coven watched.
‘Well, I’ve had enough, Dill.’ I pushed her thin shoulder, made her stumble. I had never done that. But she made me so cross. ‘Mother’s gifted favourite can stay here and learn from the witches!’
‘I do not want to, Evey! I want to be—’
‘I don’t care!’ Spit on my lip. ‘You will do as you are told! You swore!’
Dill fell to her knees, begging through her tears. And I swallowed hard. For my spite grew bitter as I watched her.
‘She will soften, Evey.’ Grey was there, pressing a bag to me. ‘For the road.’
‘Hush, little one, we will not hurt you,’ said Mabel, and circled her arms to Dill.
‘No!’ Dill turned about.
‘Calm now, calm…’ said that other witch, her voice and black hair flowing, as an otter slipping through water. ‘What a fuss for one so little.’
‘Go away! Get off me!’
I swallowed harder, to watch Dill struggle against Mabel’s arms and this otter girl, all sharp smile. It felt like I was in another’s body as I weighed the stone in my hand, swung the bag on my shoulder. Like my arms and legs moved without me knowing.
‘Come, Eveline, I will show you the way.’
And Grey led me past Dill, writhing and pushing to get free of those girls.
‘I will give it to you! Don’t leave me here! Please, I will give the stone to you!’
And though the hairs on my neck rose at her cry, a laugh grew inside me, and I waved my hand to tease her.
‘But, sister, I have it already.’
I winked to her white face gaping.
‘And you will be safe here. I told you that.’
‘Evey, why are you doing this? I don’t like them! I don’t like her! She stinks… like dead flowers! I don’t like—’
‘Enough, child!’ Grey’s voice cracked across the fireside. ‘You will stay, and you will learn respect, daughter of my sister.’
She towered sudden across the fire, her hair twining with the dancing flames.
‘Evey! Evey!’
‘I will come back, Dill. I will.’
But even as I said those words, did I know if I would?
Grey pulled me on. We passed heads nodding, hands reaching.
‘Mother!’
I swallowed hardest then.
And though I knew I shouldn’t, I felt glad as Dill’s voice grew further away, for it pained me to hear her.
‘Mother!’
Grey’s long fingers were upon my back. And the witches began to sing again, so that Dill’s cries joined their voices.
‘…other!’
She would calm. She would understand in time. I looked to the stone, turning it in the glow from the fire behind us and the shadows of the trees.
‘You were right to take it, Eveline.’
Grey moved to stroke my hand. I felt her breathing next to me. That sweet smell. Like dead flowers, Dill called it.
‘Was I? I do not know. I never listened to Mother. Dill… Dill did.’
‘This stone is not for little girls. It can be a powerful weapon, Evey. Blood magick.’
I looked up to her. Black eyes blacker in the moving dark.
‘A weapon? Mother never said.’
Grey nodded, her shape shifting. ‘When Dill struck Tally, it woke at the taste of her.’
The stone sudden seemed alive in my hand.
‘And now it is hungry, Evey. Give the stone all your anger, and it will make you strong. Feed it the blood of your enemies. Our enemies.’
And her fingers closed mine about the stone as the witches’ song filled the air.
‘Seek your revenge. Hunt them all. For your mother. For me.’
She kissed my cheek.
‘Follow the river west. The road to town lies through the woods. There, you will find your balance, Eveline of the Birds.’
‘I will find them.’
I placed the stone into the bag. Again came that feeling, that I placed a creature to my side. I looked back to the fire where Dill would be crying and struggling to follow.
‘My sister doesn’t understand… but I must do this alone.’
Grey smiled, became like one of those silver birch again.
‘She is only little. Go now.’
And she watched me step through the branches, cold earth beneath my toes. I moved from the last of light into the darkness, the witches’ words growing fainter and fainter.
‘She walked the valley,
that witching valley,
that woman of our way.’
Till I could hear them no more. And Dill’s cries no more.
And I was alone at last.
And free.
It was dawn light when I stopped.
My body ached so. I had not wanted sleep.