Words Like Coins Read online

  A tap on her knee woke her. She looked around at the darkness, momentarily bewildered. Pale moonlight cut between the thin curtains to slice the bed. Jami breathed evenly and deeply. Another tap on her knee brought her gaze down. The pecksie stood at her feet, looking up at her. Two more pecksies sat on the window sill. Three perched like birds on the footboard of the bed. All the pecksies stared at Jami intently. Mirrifen’s pecksie spoke. “Mistress, may I have a bucket of water?”

  The door to the room was still shut. “How did you get in here?” Mirrifen’s voice shook slightly.

  “By a way no rat could come. You bound me. ‘Let no harm come to her child.’ I must keep watch, to be sure it is so. These others serve me in that geas. Yours was the binding. How I fulfill it cannot concern you.

  “Mistress, may I have a bucket of water?”

  “I can keep watch over her myself,” Mirrifen asserted shakily.

  The pecksie shook her head sadly. “You spend your words in lies. You didn’t guard. You slept. I am bound. Guard her I must.”

  Mirrifen rose stiffly from the chair. She crept from the room, the pecksie following. She motioned frantically for the others to follow but they did not take their gazes from Jami. She glanced at her pecksie beseechingly. The little woman shook her head stubbornly. “You spent the words, and this is what they bought you.” Mirrifen felt like a traitor as she left Jami sleeping under the pecksies’ watchful eyes. Her pecksie waited impatiently while she lit a lantern to give her courage.

  Around the well, the silent slaughter of the night before had been repeated. The archers on the well cap were unstringing their bows as the butchers moved out to the skewered rats. It seemed to her that there were far more pecksies tonight. “Don’t you fear that you’ll run out of rats?” she asked.

  “Drought will bring rats here. The well and your stored grain draw them.” The pecksie gave her a sideways look. “But for us, rats would have eaten all grain. You should not be stingy if we take an egg sometimes.”

  Mirrifen bit back a retort and lifted the well hatch. The bucket’s rope played out longer than it ever had. She said quietly, “If the drought lasts much longer, the well will go dry.”

  The pecksie didn’t look at her. “You waste words on what you can’t change.”

  Mirrifen drew the bucket up slowly. Every bucket of water she gave to the pecksie was one less bucket for Jamie and her. Mirrifen braced her courage and asked the question. “If I told you to leave our farm and take the other pecksies with you, you would have to do it.”

  The pecksie didn’t answer the question. Instead she said, “You bound me to see that no harm comes to the child. To fulfill that, I must be where the child is.” She stared off into the darkness. “Or the child must be where I am.”

  A chill went up Mirrifen’s back. As she brought the brimming bucket to the surface, the pecksie said in a flat voice, “Thank you for the water, mistress. I am bound.”

  In less than a heartbeat, pecksies surrounded the bucket. The pecksie’s fluting voice was stern, and they formed an orderly line. The water was rationed, each creature drinking for only a few seconds before another took his place. Nonetheless, Mirrifen drew four buckets of water before the horde was satisfied. The hatch thudded shut. The pecksie hunters dispersed. Her pecksie was the last to leave, walking not into the fields, but toward the house.

  Slowly Mirrifen followed her. The house was silent. Inside the darkened bedroom, she sat down on the hard chair. She saw no pecksies, but knew they were there. The pecksie had said rats couldn’t get into the room but there seemed no way to keep pecksies out.

  She awakened late the next morning to Jami shaking her shoulder. “You slept! You promised to guard me, and then you slept!”

  Sunlight flooded the room. The morning chores awaited and her head pounded from weariness. “I did my best. Please, Jami. Don’t be angry. Nothing bad happened.”

  “Is this ‘nothing bad’? What is this thing?”

  Jami’s thrust a hedge-witch charm at her. The amulet was smeared with silver but with a lurch of her heart, Mirrifen recognized beads and spindles from her own supplies. “I found it on top of me, right on my belly. The baby woke me, squirming inside me. He’s never moved like that before!” She stared at Mirrifen and demanded, “Did you make this? What is it?”

  Mirrifen shook her head as she reluctantly struggled to interpret the beads and knots. “It might be about something turning…”

  “Oh, you don’t know! It could mean anything! Anything!” Jami was trembling, her eyes welling tears. “Look around this room! Pecksie dust everywhere! They could have slit our throats as we slept.”

  “But they didn’t. I bound her not to let harm come to your child. She can’t hurt you without doing the child an injury. We’ve nothing to fear from them. Let me fetch some eggs for your breakfast. You’ll feel better when you’ve eaten.”

  “I’ll ‘feel better’ when you get rid of those pecksies. You know what you have to do, Mirrifen! Just do it! Why are you choosing them over me?”

  If I sent her away, she’d have to take your baby with her. Mirrifen held the words back, unspent. She dared not reveal the double-edged geas she had put on the pecksie.

  “I have to go let the chickens out.”

  As Mirrifen hurried from the room, Jami flung the charm after her. “You can’t even say what kind of magic she did to me!” she shrieked.

  As she fled to her chores, she saw signs of pecksies everywhere. Footprints in the dust. Silver smears at the bottoms of the doors. Two thin pecksies were grubbing in the old kitchen garden. Her planted rows, shriveled as they were, remained intact. What were they finding in the untended part of the plot? Would they steal the little that remained of her garden?

  One of the cows had gone dry and the other gave only a little milk. She gave each of the bony creatures a drink of water and turned them loose in the pasture. Two pecksies slept in the cows, empty manger. Two wakeful ones regarded her with fearless agate eyes from the shade of the chicken house. The chicken house yielded four eggs, and two empty silvery shells, sucked dry. She crushed them and scattered it for the chickens to peck. She couldn’t bear to tell Jami that the pecksies had taken the eggs, too. Why on earth had she helped the little creature?

  The kitchen was mercifully free of rat droppings. At least the pecksies were doing some good. She heated water and wiped pecksie dust from the table and chairs. She thinned the milk with water and boiled oats in it and cooked the eggs in their shells. She set the meal out on the table and called Jami.

  She didn’t come.

  She was sitting on the edge of the bed. Her hands were on her belly and her eyes were very big. “I think the baby wants to be born today,” she said breathlessly. She bent over suddenly, gasping.

  “I’ll go for the midwife right away!”

  “And leave me alone, at the mercy of your pecksies? No! No, you can’t go! Mirrifen, you brought them here. If you won’t send them away, at least stay and protect me.”

  There followed the longest day that Mirrifen had ever known. All morning, Jami labored unevenly. At noon, her pains eased, and she drowsed off. But the moment that Mirrifen rose, Jami roused. “Don’t go! You can’t leave me helpless here!”

  “But, Jami, the midwife is—”

  “Look! Look at them! They’re just waiting for you to leave!” Jami’s shaking hand pointed toward the window. As Mirrifen turned, the clustered pecksies on the outside sill leaped and fled. Silvery imprints where their faces had pressed the glass remained. Cold rose in Mirrifen’s heart.

  “I won’t leave the house. I promise. I need some water from the kitchen.”

  The soft patter of fleeing feet preceded her down the hallway. Silvery handprints marred the walls. As she entered the kitchen, pecksies scattered into an open cupboard, behind the propped broom, and out the open door. Mirrifen snatched up the bucket and the dipper, slammed the door shut, seized the broom for a weapon, and then gasped to find no pecksie crouched be
hind it. She darted briefly into her own room. Her charm building supplies were scattered across her bed. She bundled them into her apron. Teeth gritted and arms laden, she hurried to Jami’s bedroom and shut the door behind her. Jami had drowsed off again.

  The pecksies had returned to their perch outside the window. Mirrifen shook her fist, and they fled like scalded cats. One remained, staring with jade eyes. “What you do?” the pecksie hedge-witch demanded as Mirrifen spilled her apron’s contents the foot of Jami’s bed. Mirrifen swished the thin curtains closed.

  “I’ll protect you,” she promised the sleeping woman. With trembling hands, she sorted beads and spindles, rods for framework, various yarns and threads, and bits of feather and tufts of hair. She stole a glance at the pecksie crouched on the window sill, estimating her size and weight, memorizing the color of her eyes and hair. She didn’t know the charm symbol for ‘pecksie.’ No matter. She knew ‘person’ and ‘small’ and the warding words that prevented creatures from passing through. Those would work well enough. She worked quickly but carefully, surprised at how her fingers remembered the correct knots and how to bind a feather in place. The finished charm was the size of a dinner plate. A final time she checked every knot, the placement of every bead. Yes. It would serve. She lifted it aloft as she spun to face the window, and was delighted to see dismay contort the pecksie’s face. She squalled like a trodden-upon cat as she tumbled to the ground. Mirrifen grinned, triumphant. She fastened the charm to the headboard of the Jami’s bed.

  Jami gave a sharp cry as a contraction jolted her from sleep. Mirrifen hastened to take her hands and gripped them firmly until the pain passed. “You’ll be all right now,” she assured Jami. “Look up. I’ve made a charm to keep pecksies from entering the room. You’re safe now, dear.”

  “Oh, thank you,” Jami whispered. Then she curled forward as her muscles tensed again. For two hours, her pains continued, growing in intensity and occurring closer together. “Soon now,” Mirrifen kept telling her. “Soon your baby will be here.” But contraction after contraction passed, and no child entered the world. Jami began to wail wordlessly with each pain; the sound set Mirrifen’s teeth on edge.

  As Jami panted between her pains, Mirrifen heard the scuff of small feet and a squeaking like bats outside the window. She kept the broom close to hand, in case the charm failed, but it held strong. No pecksie entered, though she heard their squeaking conversation outside. Slow hours passed, and Mirrifen held Jami’s hands and told her that everything was fine.

  Slowly she grew to know that she lied.

  The long summer evening passed and the full moon that should have brought the baby shone through the curtain crack. Its light silhouetted crouched pecksies on the sill. Mirrifen ignored them. She gave Jami sips of water and wiped her sweating face. Jami’s wails began to weaken with each succeeding pain.

  Then, between Jami’s moans, Mirrifen heard a scratching, as if a cat sought to enter. The pecksie spoke through the glass. “You must let us through,” she said. There was an odd note to her words, beyond desperation. “You bind me two ways. Let us through. The child is in danger. Your charm is wrong! Open the way. Let us pass.”

  “No.” Mirrifen spoke the word in a harsh whisper. Go away. Almost she spoke the words; she bit them back. She did not need to send the pecksie to her death. Her charm was keeping her at bay. Mirrifen fixed her eyes on Jami. The laboring woman was beyond caring for anything outside the limits of her own flesh. Mirrifen damped a corner of the bed sheet and wiped sweat from Jami’s face. Her eyes were closed. She moaned softly, exhausted. Her belly rippled and then stilled. Jami drew a hoarse breath.

  “Let me in.” The pecksie’s voice was louder. “You bound me. I must see that no harm comes to the child, but you will not let us through! She will die with the child inside her, and the child will die, too, if you do not let us through. You bound me. I cannot let him come to harm. Let us through.”

  “No!” And then, as the possible meaning of the words sank into Mirrifen’s mind “NO!” she shouted. In a lower voice she added, “I will never let you in.”

  Jami stirred. She opened her eyes. “Water?” she begged.

  “Not too much,” Mirrifen cautioned, and held the dipper to her bitten lips.

  She took a sip, and then gave a long caw of pain. When it passed, she whispered, “Oh, this can’t be right. I’ve no strength left. The baby should be here by now.”

  “First babies always take a long time,” she said, hating the lie. Jamie would die, painfully, the child dying within her.

  “Help me,” Jami said piteously.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Mirrifen replied helplessly.

  “Drake. Oh, Drake, I’m so sorry,” Jami said. Her voice brimmed with sorrow, and resignation. “I’m so sorry, dear.”

  “You can’t give up. You have to keep pushing, Jami. You have to.”

  “I can’t,” the young woman said quietly. “I can’t.” Her head lolled to one side and her eyes closed.

  With a crash, glass shards scattered across the floor. The missile that had broken the window skidded to a stop by her foot. Mirrifen looked down. A charm. Familiar beads glittered alluringly on the framework. The web of threads drew her eyes into its wandering spiral that ended in a lock of dark hair. Her own, she knew. A sleep charm keyed to her. She could not look away. She fell to her knees beside Jami’s bed, overcome by drowsiness. She pushed at the charm with a lax hand, trying to put it out of sight. Her fingers would not close to grip it. She managed to pull the edge of the blanket partially over it. It took all her will to look away from it.

  On the window sill, pecksies crowded, poised to enter the room as soon as she slept. But her charm held them back, beyond the broken glass. Mirrifen’s eyes sagged shut and her heavy head wobbled on her neck. She bit her lip hard and forced her eyes open. In that blink of darkness, a pecksie archer had appeared on the window sill. Slowly and steadily, he drew back his arrow and took careful aim at Jami.

  “No!” she begged. “No! Please.”

  The arrow flew. Mirrifen heard the solid thud of its impact. A tiny rattling, of unstrung beads falling from a broken string, followed it. He’d shot, not Jami, but her warding charm. As its power failed, an avalanche of pecksies cascaded into the room, squeaking to one another. Mirrifen clutched at the blankets to stay upright. She had to protect Jami. She tried to grasp the sleep charm and throw it out the window. Her fingers wouldn’t grip.

  Then, hand over hand, the pecksie hedge-witch came up over the edge of Jami’s bed. She carried a glittering black knife. In her other hand, she clutched the small charm that Jami had earlier discarded. She knelt between Jami’s sprawled legs. She did not stir. Despite her terror, Mirrifen’s eyes were closing. The pecksie met her gaze. There was no compassion there, no mercy at all. Only determination. “You bound me, and so I must do this. You charged me. ‘Let no harm come to the child.’ You chose this. ” She set the charm on Jami’s belly.

  Then her long-fingered hand seized the fold of blanket and turned it back to bare the sleep charm. As Mirrifen sank to the floor, the pecksie said, “You should have spent your words more carefully.”

  Daylight washed through the shattered window and glittered on the broken glass on the silvery floor. Mirrifen blinked. She must have overslept. It was time to get up. Time to water the cows, time to feed the chickens. Time to make breakfast for Jami…

  “Jami!” Mirrifen sat bolt upright.

  The pecksie sitting on Jami’s bed opened her small hand. A cascade of charm beads fell from it, to rattle and roll on the floor. She flicked away the lock of Mirrifen’s hair.

  “What did you do? Oh, what did I do?” Even with the charm destroyed, she felt she was surfacing from deep black water. Everything seemed too bright.

  A very pale Jami lay still on the bed. A baby, firmly swaddled, rested against her side. The baby’s eyes were closed, but as Mirrifen watched, his lips puckered, pursed for a moment and then relaxed. “Oh, Jami,�
�� Mirrifen sighed in sorrow. Then her heart leapt as Jami’s lids fluttered and opened. She smiled weakly at Mirrifen.

  “He’s just like his father. All he wants to do is eat.”

  “That’s good. That’s so good,” Mirrifen managed to say. Jami’s eyes were already sagging shut. Even her lips were pale.

  “She will live.”

  Mirrifen startled at the pecksie’s voice. “Thank you,” she said faintly. Groggily she got to her feet. She looked questioningly at the pecksie.

  “You believe stupid stories. ‘Pecksies kill babies.’ Ha! This pecksie save her baby. Save her, too.” The little woman gave Mirrifen a dark look. “And not just because you say, ‘no harm to child,’ and dead mother is harm to child. I save because pecksies not filthy, wicked things. Now you go milk cow, get eggs, cook. She needs food, rich food. So does pecksie.”

  As Mirrifen walked toward the kitchen, the pecksie waddled along at her side. “What did you do?” Mirrifen asked.

  “Broke your stupid ‘no pass’ charm that kept baby inside her. Turned baby. Cut mother, just a little. Helped baby out.”

  “Cut her.” Mirrifen shivered. “Will she be all right?”

  “Sore. Weak. Better than dead. Feed her, rest her. She be better. She already less stupid.”

  “Less stupid?”

  “Knows pecksies saved her. Saved baby.” The little woman shrugged. “Less stupid about pecksies.”

  “Thank you.” Mirrifen met the pecksie’s eyes. “I’m sorry I bound you. I’d undo it if I could.”

  “I took milk.” The pecksie shrugged. “Bound myself.” She sat down on the kitchen floor with a sigh. “And you?” the pecksie asked her. “Are you less stupid?”

  “It was my fault, wasn’t it? When I made a charm that said small people could not pass, I kept the baby from being born. I should have been more careful.”

  The pecksie nodded grimly. “You less stupid now.” She cocked her head at Mirrifen. “Do chores. I stay here.”