The Petrified Flesh Read online

  Clara rode better than he’d expected. Jacob had bought her a dress at a market they had passed along the way, but she made him swap it for men’s clothes after trying vainly in the long skirt to mount the packhorse. A girl in men’s clothes, and the jade in Will’s skin—Jacob was glad when they could finally ride under the trees, even though he knew what would be awaiting them there.

  Barkbiters, Mushroom-Wights, Trappers, Crow-Men. The Hungry Forest had many unpleasant inhabitants, though the Empress had been trying for years to clear it of its terrors. Despite the dangers, there was a lively trade in horns, teeth, skins, and other body parts of the forest’s creatures. Jacob had never earned his money that way, but there were many who made quite a decent living of it: fifteen silver dollars for a Mushroom-Wight (a two-dollar bonus if it spat real fly-agaric poison), thirty for a Barkbiter (not a lot, considering the hunt could easily leave the hunter dead), and forty for a Crow-Man (who at least only went for the eyes).

  Many trees were already shedding their leaves, but the canopy above them was still so dense that the day beneath it dissolved into a checkered autumnal twilight. They soon had to lead the horses on foot for they kept getting caught in the thorny undergrowth. Jacob had instructed Will and Clara not to touch the trees. However, the shimmering pearls that a Barkbiter had left sprouting as bait on an oak limb made Clara forget his warnings. Jacob barely managed to pluck the foul creature from her wrist before it could crawl up her sleeve.

  “Look at him,” he said, holding the Barkbiter close enough to show Clara the sharp teeth above the scabbed lips. “His first bite will make you drowsy. A second and you’ll be paralyzed, but you’ll still be fully conscious while its entire clan will feast on your blood. Trust me, it’s not a pleasant way to die.”

  From then on she was careful. It was she who noticed the glistening net of a Trapper stretched across their path and pulled Will back in time. She even shooed away the Gold-Ravens trying to squawk dark curses into their ears.

  The forest tried hard to make them lose their way. Fox wouldn’t play that game. The will-o’-the-wisps, drifting in thick iridescent swarms among the trees, had often led even Jacob astray with their alluring hum, but the vixen just shook them from her fur like troublesome flies and led them on unwaveringly.

  After three hours, the first Witch tree appeared between the oak and ash trees, and Jacob was just about to warn Will and Clara about their branches and how they loved to poke out human eyes, when Fox suddenly stopped.

  The faint sound was nearly drowned out by the hum of the will-o’-the-wisps. It sounded like the snip-snap of a pair of scissors. Not a terribly threatening sound. Will and Clara hadn’t even noticed it. But the vixen’s fur bristled, and Jacob put his hand on his saber. Only one creature in the Hungry Forest made such a sound, and it was the only one whose path he definitely didn’t want to cross.

  “How much farther is it to the house?” he whispered to Fox.

  Snip-snap. It was coming closer.

  “We have to move faster,” Fox whispered back.

  The snipping stopped, but the sudden silence was equally ominous. No bird sang. Even the will-o’-the-wisps had vanished. Fox cast a worried glance at the trees before she scampered ahead again so briskly that the horses barely managed to keep up with her through the dense undergrowth.

  The forest was growing darker, and Jacob pulled a flashlight from his saddlebag, although he mostly tried to avoid using objects from the other world. More and more often they now had to skirt around Witch trees, hawthorn took the place of ash and oak, pines sucked up the scant light with their black-green needles. And then they saw the house behind the trees.

  The horses shied at the sight. They could hardly make them move on. When Jacob had come here with Chanute, the red roof tiles had shone through the undergrowth as brightly as if the Witch had painted them with cherry juice. Now they were covered in moss, and the paint was peeling off the window frames. But there were still a few pieces of gingerbread stuck to the walls and the steep roof. Sugary icicles hung from the gutters and the windowsills, and the whole house smelled of honey and cinnamon—as befitted a trap for children. The Witches had tried many times to banish the child-eaters from their clans, and two years ago they had finally declared war on them. The Witch who had plagued the Hungry Forest had been sentenced by her sisters to spend the rest of her long life as a warty toad in a silty pond. Jacob considered that a very modest punishment. He still felt her hot fingers around his neck sometimes, but the comb, stolen from her at Chanute’s request, had paid for his first decent horse.

  There were still a few colorful remains of candy on the wrought-iron fence that surrounded the house. Jacob’s mare trembled as he led her through the gate. The fence of a gingerbread house would admit anyone but it was not that easy to get out again. During their visit, Chanute had taken care to leave the gate wide open. Now, Jacob was more worried about what was following them than about the deserted house. As he closed the gate behind Clara, the snipping could again be heard clearly, and this time it sounded almost angry. But at least it didn’t come any closer. Fox shot Jacob a relieved glance. It was just as they had hoped: their pursuer had been no friend of the Witch.

  “What if he waits for us?” As so often Fox put Jacob’s thoughts into words.

  Yes, what then, Jacob? He did not care, as long as they would find the bush Chanute had described in the Witch’s overgrown garden—and a few berries on its branches.

  Will had led the horses to the well. They had grown accustomed to the Goyl scent. Maybe they still sensed Will’s gentleness underneath. Or the threat of the gingerbread house made them forget the jade. Will eyed the house as if it were a poisonous plant. Clara, however, touched the icing as if she could not believe that what she saw was real.

  Nibble, nibble, little mouse, who’s been nibbling at my house?

  Which version of the story had Clara heard?

  Then she took hold of Hansel with her bony hand, carried him away to a little hutch with a barred door, and shut him up there. He could shout all he liked, but it did him no good.

  “Take care she doesn’t eat any of the cakes,” Jacob said to Fox. Then he set off in search of the berries.

  Behind the house the nettles were growing so high, it looked as if they were standing guard over the Witch’s garden. They burned Jacob’s skin when he beat a path through their poisonous leaves, but the reward was growing right behind them, between hemlock and deadly nightshade: a nondescript bush with feathered leaves. Jacob was filling his hand with its black berries when he heard footsteps.

  Clara was standing between the overgrown plots.

  “Monkshood, May lilies, hemlock… so the Witches do indeed use all the plants associated with them.”

  Jacob wondered whether she had learned about Witch plants as a student of medicine or from her childhood’s fairy-tale books. Will had told him the story how they had met at the hospital, where their mother had been being treated. When you were not there, Jacob. He was not sure what he was searching for when she first fell sick. A Princess’s golden ball, as far as he recalled.

  He got to his feet. “These are mostly plants you’ll find in the child-eaters’ gardens. The Healing Witches grow many others, and if they use these, they know ways to make them heal.”

  Out in the forest, the sound of snipping could be heard again.

  Jacob filled Clara’s hands with the shiny black fruit they had come for. “I doubt you’ve ever learned about these berries. Will must eat at least a dozen of them. They should have done their work by the time the sun rises. Persuade him to lie down in the house—he hasn’t slept in days.”

  Goyl didn’t need much sleep. One of the many advantages they had over humans.

  Clara looked at the berries in her hand. She had a thousand questions on her tongue, but she didn’t ask them. The stories Will had told her about Jacob were mostly the memories of a boy who adored his older brother without really knowing much about him. They were so
different that it was hard to believe they had the same mother. And father. Maybe she had dreamed them both. Maybe she had fallen asleep over one of her old fairy-tale books. As a child she had despised and loved them, they were so strange and so different from her other books. Clara, wake up! she told herself, for the hand that used to wake her from bad dreams was long gone. But the gingerbread house was still there, right in front of her, surrounded by hemlock and monkshood, and so was Will’s brother, so much darker, as wild as the Fox who followed him…

  Clara turned around and listened.

  This time she had heard the snipping as well.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “They call him the Tailor. He doesn’t dare to cross the Witch’s fence, but we cannot leave as long as he’s there. I’ll try to drive him off.” Jacob pulled the key from his pocket that he had taken from the Troll’s chest. “The fence won’t let you leave. But this key opens every door. I’ll throw it over the gate once I’m out, just in case I don’t come back. Fox will lead you back to the ruin. But don’t unlock the gate before dawn.”

  Clara had a thousand questions. But she knew Jacob still wouldn’t answer any of them.

  “Don’t let Will sleep in the room with the oven,” he told her. “The air there gives bleak dreams. And make sure he doesn’t try to follow me.”

  “I promise,” she said. If you promise to come back, she added in her mind.

  Brothers. She didn’t have any siblings. But she remembered all the stories Will had told her about how Jacob had protected him as a child and that his brother wasn’t afraid of anything. Or anyone. But Jacob was afraid of the creature hiding between the trees. Clara saw it in his face, although he was very good at hiding what went on inside.

  Will was still standing by the well. He stumbled with fatigue as he walked toward her. And he ate the berries without hesitation. The magic that would heal everything. Even as a child he had believed in such things much more readily than Jacob. It was obvious how tired he was, and he didn’t protest when Clara led him toward the gingerbread house.

  Jacob waited until they had both disappeared behind the sugar-coated door. The sun was setting behind the trees, and the red moon hung above the Witch’s roof like a bloody fingerprint. When the sun returned, the jade in his brother’s skin would be nothing but a bad dream. If the berries worked.

  If.

  Jacob went to the fence and stared out into the forest.

  Snip-snap.

  Their pursuer was still there. Of course. He had a reputation for being a tireless hunter.

  Fox’s eyes followed Jacob as he walked toward the mare and pulled Chanute’s knife from the saddlebag. Bullets were useless against the enemy waiting for him. Rumors said they even made the Tailor stronger.

  The gathering night filled the forest with a thousand shadows, and Jacob believed he could see a dark figure standing among the trees. He didn’t look as tall as the stories about him claimed. At least he’ll help pass the time until sunrise, Jacob. He pushed the knife into his belt and once again took the flashlight from his knapsack. Fox followed him as he walked toward the fence.

  “You can’t go out there. It’s getting dark. Wait at least until morning.”

  “And then?”

  “Maybe he’ll be gone by then!”

  “Why should he?”

  The gate sprung open as soon as Jacob pushed the key into the rusty lock. It was certain that many desperate children had rattled that gate in vain.

  “You stay here,” he said to Fox. “The vixen can’t fight the Tailor and if he is as good as they say, you will be Will’s only chance to get out of this forest.”

  “So? He is your brother, not mine,” Fox replied and slipped out of the gate.

  Jacob knew her too well to fight her. He closed the Witch’s gate behind him and cast one more glance at the house where his brother slept. Then he followed Fox into the forest.

  8

  UNDER THE WITCH’S ROOF

  The first room was the one with the oven. It smelled of cake and roasted almonds. Clara pulled Will along when he looked through the door. In the next room, a shawl was draped over the back of a tattered armchair, its red silk embroidered with a pattern of ravens. The bed was in the last room. It was barely big enough for both of them, and the blankets were moth-eaten, but Will was already fast asleep by the time Jacob pulled the gate shut outside.

  The jade traced patterns on Will’s neck, resembling the shadows in the forest. Clara gently touched the pale green stone. So cool and smooth. So terrible and yet so beautiful.

  What would happen if the berries didn’t work? Surely Jacob knew the answer, and it frightened him even more than the creature he had left to fight.

  The bedroom of a Witch. Clara looked at the dust-covered lamp above her. The white porcelain looked so normal. Its ordinariness made the terror of the house even more palpable for Clara. She could barely breathe, though Will was sleeping so peacefully. He didn’t wake up when she freed herself from his embrace. A moth had landed on his shoulder, black-winged, like an imprint of the night. Clara chased it away. She couldn’t say why. It frightened her as much as the house. Everything in this world frightened her. How could Jacob prefer it to the one they came from? So much danger, so much darkness. All the magic, she didn’t want it. She preferred clarity, order, safety…

  Even the night seemed to smell of cinnamon and clover, when she came out of the house. The vixen was nowhere to be seen. Of course. She had gone with Jacob. The house covered in cakes, the red moon above the trees—everything seemed so unreal that Clara felt like a sleepwalker. Will was the only familiar thing, but the strangeness was already growing in his skin.

  The key was lying right in front of the gate, as Jacob had promised. Clara picked it up and ran her fingers over the engraved metal. The voices of the will-o’-the-wisps filled the air. A raven cawed somewhere in the trees. But Clara was listening for another sound: the sharp snipping that had darkened Jacob’s face with worry. What creature could be so terrible, that it turned even the house of a child-eater into a safe haven? Clara was not sure she wanted to learn the answer.

  Snip-snap. There it was again. Like the snapping of metallic teeth. Clara backed away from the fence. Long shadows were growing toward the house, and she felt the same fear she had as a child when she was alone and heard steps in the hallway.

  She should have told Will what his brother was planning. He would never forgive her if Jacob didn’t come back.

  He would come back.

  He had to come back.

  They would never find their way home without him.

  9

  THE TAILOR

  Was he coming after them? Jacob walked slowly so the hunter he was trying to lure could follow. But all he heard were his own steps, rotting twigs snapping under his boots, leaves rustling as he pushed through the undergrowth. Where was he? Jacob was beginning to fear that their pursuer had forgotten his wariness of the Witch and was sneaking through the gate behind his back when suddenly he heard the snipping again, coming through the forest to his left. It was just as everybody said: the Tailor loved to play a little cat-and-mouse with his victims before commencing his bloody work.

  Nobody could say who or what exactly the Tailor was. The stories about him were almost as old as the Hungry Forest itself. There was only one thing everybody knew for certain: that the Tailor had earned his name by tailoring his clothes from human skin.

  Snip-snap, clip-clip. The trees opened into a clearing. Fox gave Jacob a warning look as a murder of crows fluttered up from the branches of an oak. The snip-snap grew so loud that it drowned out their squawks, and the beam of Jacob’s flashlight found the outline of a man under an oak.

  The Tailor did not like the probing finger of light. He uttered an angry grunt and swatted at it as if it were an annoying bug. But Jacob let the light explore farther, over the bearded, dirt-caked face, the gruesome clothes, which at first sight simply looked like poorly tanned leather,
and onto the gross hands with which the Tailor plied his bloody trade. The fingers on his left hand ended in broad blades, each as long as a dagger. The blades on the right were just as long and lethal, though these were slender and pointed, like giant sewing needles. Both hands were missing a finger—obviously other victims had tried to defend their skins—though the Tailor did not seem to miss them much. He let his murderous fingernails slice through the air as if he were cutting a pattern from the shadows of the trees, taking measurements for the clothes he would soon fashion from Jacob’s skin.

  Fox bared her teeth and retreated with a bark to his side. He drew his saber with his left hand and Chanute’s knife with his right. “There is nothing this blade won’t cut.” Jacob could only hope that wasn’t one of Chanute’s boastful lies, which for himself he turned so easily into undoubted truth.

  Their opponent moved clumsily, like a bear, while his hands cut him a path through bramble and thistles with terrifying zeal. His eyes were as blank as a dead man’s, but the bearded face was contorted into a mask of blood lust, and he bared his yellow teeth as if he wanted to use them to peel off Jacob’s skin.

  Don’t run, Jacob.

  The Tailor raised his terrible hands. One more step. The stench rising from his foul clothes made Jacob choke. At first the Tailor hacked at him with the broad blades. Jacob blocked them with his saber while he slashed at the needle-hand with his knife. He’d fought a half dozen drunk soldiers, the guards of enchanted castles, highwaymen, and even a pack of trained wolves, but this was far worse. The Tailor’s hacking and stabbing were so relentless that Jacob felt as if he were caught in a threshing machine.