Words Like Coins Read online

  Mirrifen felt cold. She dared not let Jami know that she’d brought an injured pecksie into the house. She had to get rid of it fast. “What did your mother do?”

  “She didn’t hesitate. All those pecksies had eaten our food and taken favors, so she could command them all. ‘Go away!’ she shouted at them. ‘All of you! Go away forever!’ And they went. I watched them stream out of the house, wailing and squeaking as they walked down the road and off into the distance.”

  “That’s all she did?” Mirrifen held her teacup firmly in her trembling hands.

  “That’s all she needed do,” Jami said vindictively. “It meant death for all of them. She knew that. Words bind pecksies. I once heard an old pecksie say that you should spend words like coins. You can’t just say, ‘wash the dishes’ or they’ll wash the dishes all day long. You have to say, ‘wash the dirty dishes until they’re clean, wipe the dishes until they’re dry, and then put them in the cupboard.’ They do exactly what you say. So when my mother told them ‘Go away!’ they had to go and keep going. Forever. Because no one ever gets to ‘away’, do they? They had to keep walking until they dropped dead in their tracks. My mother knew that. She had learned it from her mother.”

  A chill squeezed Mirrifen’s heart. “And after that?”

  “After that, my parents never let a pecksie into the house again. We got cats to keep the rats down. And my parents had three more children, all girls, to my father’s sorrow, but they survived because there were no pecksies near their beds. Nasty, vindictive wretches.” Jami took a long drink from her cooling tea. When she set her cup down, she looked directly at Mirrifen. “My father always blamed the pecksies for my mother’s death.”

  “What?”

  “He found her in the barn, at the bottom of the hay loft ladder. Her neck was broken. She was covered all over in pecksie dust.” Jami’s voice deepened. “They probably swarmed her and knocked her off the ladder.”

  “I see,” Mirrifen said faintly.

  After breakfast, she set a chair outside in the shade, brought Jami her yarn and needles and slipped quickly away to her own room. The pecksie was gone. She’d taken the little charm against infection. Well. Perhaps it was all solved and for the best. She wondered if pecksies were as treacherous as Jami believed, and hoped she would never find out.

  The day passed slowly, as every day had since the men had left. Time was measured in what she could not do; no weeds to pull, no vegetables to harvest, no fruit to thin on the parched trees. Idleness today in exchange for want later; a bad bargain all around. She couldn’t find any hole in the chicken coop, but when she cleaned it out, three rats boiled up from under the soiled straw. She swept them out with her broom and shut the door tight.

  Twice she thought she’d glimpsed the pecksie, but each time, when she turned, nothing was there. She blamed it on Jami’s horrid tale and her own imagination and tried to stay busy.

  After the evening meal, she washed the dishes and watered the withered kitchen garden with the used wash water. She drew one bucket of water and gave the poor cows their second drink of the day before shutting them in their stall. She shooed the chickens into the cleaned coop and shut their door tightly. Finally, she broke her news to Jami.

  “I have to sit up tonight by the well and keep the rats away.”

  Jami argued, she wept, and then she argued again. “I can’t sleep alone in that empty house, with rats rustling in the corners. And pecksies. You saw the pecksie dust on the bucket.”

  “Well, you can’t stay awake outside with me, either. Jami, be sensible. Neither of us have any choice in this.”

  Jami surrendered, but not with grace. Mirrifen ascribed her sulk to her pregnancy and tried not to mind it. It was hard. After all, she was the one who had to spend the night outside with a club and a lantern. She took a blanket against the night chill and went to take up her vigil.

  The moon had grown one slice closer to full. Its thin light was watery, and the lantern’s shifting glow denied it existed at all. Jamie sat down on the lid of the well and waited. Night cooled and thickened around her. She pulled the blanket around her shoulders. The night song of insects in the dry fields rose into a chorus. Her eyes grew heavy. Jami blew out her candle in the bedroom, completing the darkness. Outside the circle of her lamplight, creatures moved or perhaps her eyes played tricks on her. Her club rested across her lap. She tapped it with her fingernails, playing a rhythm. She knuckled her eyes and then vigorously scratched her head, trying to stay awake. She sang softly to herself, old songs. Wasn’t there a third verse to that song? How had it begun?

  She jolted awake.

  She didn’t remember reclining. The club that had been under her hand had been moved. Crouched at the edge of the well lid, staring at her with lambent green eyes, was the pecksie. One of her long-fingered hands rested on the club. Her silvery gray skin gleamed in the moonlight. “What do you do now?” the creature asked her.

  Mirrifen sat up cautiously. She gathered her feet under her, ready to flee. “I’m guarding the well. The rats have been trying to gnaw through the cover. But if they do and fall in the well, they’ll drown and foul the water.”

  “Not that!” the pecksie exclaimed with disdain. “You not guard. You sleep! But what you do now? You say, “Go away!” to pecksie? You send me to death?”

  “No!” Mirrifen exclaimed in dismay. That part of Jami’s story had horrified her. She shifted her weight and the pecksie backed to the edge of the lamplight, dragging the club with her. It was too big for her to wield; she was obviously taking it out of Mirrifen’s reach. “I would never do that. Well, not unless you did something evil to me first.”

  “Pecksies don’t kill babies.”

  “But they do eavesdrop.”

  The pecksie tilted her head at Mirrifen, frowning.

  “Pecksies listen in when others are talking,” Mirrifen clarified.

  She shrugged one shoulder. “People talk and if pecksie is near, then a pecksie hears. And knows to be afraid.”

  “Well, you don’t need to fear me. Not unless you do me an injury.”

  The pecksie frowned at her. “You gave me milk. I know I am bound.”

  “You said that. Not me. I didn’t know that you would be bound by a simple favor. I didn’t intend to do that.”

  “And this?” The pecksie held up her hand. Mirrifen’s fever charm dangled from it. “Why you do this?”

  It was Mirrifen’s turn to shrug. “I saw you were hurt. Once I wanted to be a hedge-witch, to make charms like that. So I made one for you.”

  “Dangerous. It was wrong. I had to fix the beads. See. Yellow, then green.” The pecksie tossed the little charm at her. By reflex, Mirrifen caught it. She studied it by lantern light and saw the change the pecksie had made.

  “It was working when I left you.”

  “Worked. Just not as good as it could. Lucky for me, it not do harm. Hedge-witch has to be careful. Precise. Still. It worked. Worked better after I fix it.”

  Mirrifen examined the revised charm. “How did you know how to fix it?”

  The pecksie folded her lips, then said briefly, “I know things. And again, I am bound.”

  “How do I unbind you?” Mirrifen asked.

  The pecksie stared. When she decided she had understood Mirrifen’s words, she spoke. “You can’t. I took favor. I am bound.”

  “I didn’t mean to bind you.”

  “I bound self when I took milk. Didn’t have to. Could have died.” Thoughtfully she rested a hand on her belly. Perhaps she thought of her unborn child.

  “May I have my club back? In case rats come?”

  “Rats already came.”

  “What?”

  The pecksie gestured around at the darkness. Mirrifen lifted the lamp to expand the circle of light. She gasped.

  Over a dozen dead rats littered the dusty ground around the well. Small arrows, no thicker than twigs, stood up from them. Pecksie hunters moved silently among them. Small black knives w
inked in the lantern’s light as they skinned and butchered. “Good hunting here,” the pecksie observed. “Last night, I scout. Tonight, we hunt. Better.”

  “Better for me, also.” Mirrifen’s eyes roamed the peculiar scene. She had not heard even a squeak during the slaughter. Even now, they butchered in silence. “They are so quiet.”

  “We are pecksies,” the pecksie said with pride. “We hunt in dark, in silence. No words needed. Words are like coins. To spend carefully, as they are needed only. Not to scatter like humans do.” She looked aside and said carefully. “The rat blood is not enough. My folk need water.”

  “I will give you some. To thank you for guarding the well against the rats.”

  “We did not guard well. We hunted. I alone ask for water.”

  Mirrifen was unlatching the well hatch. “What about the others?”

  “If you give water to me, I give to them,” the pecksie admitted reluctantly.

  Mirrifen had begun to lower the bucket into the well. When she heard the splash, she speculated aloud, “If I give water only to you, only you are bound. The others receive the water from you, not me.”

  “As you say,” the pecksie grudgingly replied.

  “So shall it be. I have no desire to bind pecksies.” But even as she spoke, she wondered if she were foolish. If she withheld the water and forced them to beg for it, could she not bind all of them? And command all of them? They could do more than kill rats.

  Or would they swarm her and take the water she taunted them with? Jami said they were vicious. She believed that pecksies had killed her mother.

  She set the dripping bucket down before the pecksie. “I give this to you, pecksie.”

  “Thank you. I am bound,” she replied formally. Then she turned to the rat butchers and twittered like a bat squeaking. They left off their butchering to mob the water. Some steadied the bucket while others hung head-down, drinking. And drinking. They emerged panting as if sating their thirsts had almost exhausted them. Mirrifen knew better than to offer to help. Instead she studied them. She imagined the long-fingered hands clutching at her, the sharp little teeth biting, dozens of them dragging her down. Yes. They could do that. Would they have? The pregnant pecksie presiding over the water didn’t seem spiteful and vicious. But then, she was bound, and at Mirrifen’s mercy. Perhaps she chose to present a fair face.

  When the bucket was empty, it was smeared all over with silvery pecksie dust. The pecksie bowed and gravely asked, “May I have another bucket of water, mistress?”

  “You may.”

  Mirrifen was still lowering the bucket when the pecksie spoke. “You thought about saying ‘no’ to me. To make all beg water and bind all to you. But you didn’t. Why?”

  Mirrifen presented the dripping bucket to the pecksie. She decided not to share all her thoughts. Counting her words like coins, she replied, “I’ve been bound that way. I promised to serve a hedge-witch in exchange for being taught the trade. I kept her house and tended her garden and even rubbed her smelly old feet. I kept my word but she didn’t keep hers. I ended up half-taught, my years wasted. Such a binding breeds hate.”

  The pecksie nodded slowly. “A good answer.” She cocked her head. “Then, you never command me?”

  “I might,” Mirrifen said slowly.

  The pecksie narrowed her green eyes. “To what? To kill rats? To guard well?”

  “You already kill rats. You will guard the well, because you want clean water. I don’t need to command you to do that.”

  The pecksie nodded approvingly. “That is well said. No need to spend words to bind pecksie. So. You not bind pecksie?”

  Mirrifen cleared her throat. Time to make Jami safe. “You must never harm Jami’s baby.” She recalled Jami’s words, that pecksies counted words as precisely as a miser counted coins. This pecksie could still command other pecksies to do what she could not. She revised her dictum. “You must never allow harm to come to her baby.”

  The pecksie stared up at her. In the lamplight, her silvery face turned stony. “So. You bind me.” She turned away from Mirrifen. She spoke to the night. “Almost I like you. Almost I think you are careful, deserve to be taught. But you believe stupid, cruel story. You throw words like stones. You insult pecksie. But I am bound. I obey. Not to harm the child, nor allow harm to come to it.” The pecksie shook her head. “Careless words are dangerous. To all.” She walked off. Mirrifen held up her lantern and watched her go. The hunters had all vanished, carrying their prey with them. Night was fading. The edge of an early summer dawn touched the horizon. Mirrifen went back to the farmhouse.

  A few hours later, Mirrifen rose to do the morning chores. Jami slept on. There were fewer signs of rats in the house. Outside by the well, smudges of pecksie dust and smears of rat blood on the dry ground were the only signs of last night’s visits.

  She began to see signs of pecksies. The tracks of small bare feet on the dusty path. A smudge of silver near the cow’s water bucket. A fall of dust made her glance up. A pecksie slept, careless as a cat, on the rafter of the cow’s stall. Inside the chicken coop, she found all the hens alive and gathered half a dozen eggs. A silvery smear on one nesting box made her wonder if there had been seven eggs. When she spotted another pecksie sleeping soundly under the front steps, she hurried up them without stopping. The rats were gone, but now they were infested with pecksies. It unnerved her but it would do worse to Jami if she saw one.

  Mirrifen scrambled eggs with milk and cut up the last of the week’s bread. She had a steaming breakfast on the table when Jami emerged rubbing her eyes. She looked awful. Before Mirrifen could speak, she said, “I had nightmares all night. I dreamed pecksies stole my baby. I dreamed they’d attacked you by the well and killed you. I awoke near dawn, but I was too great a coward to get out of bed and see if you were all right. I just lay there, trembling and wondering if the pecksies would kill me next.”

  “I’m sorry you had such bad dreams. But as you see, I’m fine. Sit down and eat.”

  “I wish the men would come back. Drake would drive the pecksies away. I wish you’d had more hedge-witch training. Then you could make a charm to keep rats from the well and pecksies from the house.”

  Mirrifen bowed her head to that comment, trying not to feel rebuked. “I wish I knew how to make such charms. We’ll just have to think of another way to deal with rats and pecksies.”

  Jami suggested fearfully, “Perhaps we could try my mother’s trick. Leave food and water out for them, then bind them and send them away. They’d probably come for water.”

  “I don’t think we need to do that, dear. I’ll sleep beside you tonight, not out by the well.”

  “Why?”

  Mirrifen gathered her courage. Yesterday, it had been hard to tell Jami that she must guard the well at night. It was even harder to tell her why she didn’t need to do it anymore. She divulged the whole truth, of the injured pecksie and the binding with milk and finally of her command to the pecksie. Jamie flushed and then grew pale with fury.

  “How could you?” she demanded when Mirrifen paused. “How could you bring a pecksie into this house after what I told you?”

  “It was before you told me. I’ve made things right. I bound her not to do your baby any harm.”

  “You should send her away!” Jami’s voice shook. “Withhold the water until they beg, then give it, bind them, and send them away! It’s the only safe thing to do.”

  “I don’t think that’s right.” Mirrifen tried to speak calmly. She and Jami seldom quarreled. “The pecksie doesn’t seem dangerous to me. She seems, well, not that different from you and me, Jami. She’s pregnant. I think she may be a pecksie hedge-witch. She said—“

  “You promised Drake you’d take care of me. You promised! And now you’re letting pecksies into the house. How could you be so false?” She leaped to her feet and rushed from the room, leaving her food half-eaten on the table. The bedroom door slammed. As she sighed in resignation, she heard a piercing shriek. The do
or was flung open so hard it bounded off the wall. Jami burst into the kitchen. “Pecksies! Pecksies were in my room last night! I didn’t dream it, I didn’t! Look, go and look!”

  Mirrifen hurried to the bedroom and peered in. The room was empty. But on the floor in the corner, there was a bloody smudge by the silvery outlines of small feet. “It just killed a rat there,” she said.

  “And that? There?” Jami pointed accusingly at a smear of silvery tracks that ascended and crossed the bedclothes. Her finger swung again. “And there?” Silver smeared the windowsill. “What was it doing here? What did it want?” Jami’s voice rose to the edge of hysteria. Mirrifen suspected that a pecksie had pursued a rat across the bed. She tried to sound comforting.

  “I don’t know. But I’ll find out how they got in and block it off. And I won’t sleep tonight. I’ll keep watch over you.”

  The younger woman was torn between accepting her protection and displaying her anger at Mirrifen for bringing a pecksie into the house. Jami spent the rest of the day penduluming between the two reactions. Mirrifen devoted her hours to tightening the room against rats. In a corner, behind Jami’s hope chest, the floor had sagged away from the wall, leaving a gap wide enough for a rat to slither through. The pecksie had obviously come through the open window. She found an old plank in the barn to mend the gap. As she came back to the house, she saw a pecksie clinging to the windowsill, peering into the bedroom. When she walked toward it, the pecksie sidled away quickly into the tall dry grass. The grasses didn’t even sway after it.

  That night, Mirrifen shut the door and the window tightly, and sat by the bed on a straight-backed chair. Long before midnight, her back and her head ached. She yawned and promised herself that tomorrow, after her chores, she’d take a long nap. A long nap, all by herself, stretched out in her own bed.