Chapter 117

The Liching of Jenkins Greenleaf

As always, it is a relief to be back home. My forest, my soul is happy, and we are content to soak in the calming mists of the spring morning. The sun has not quite risen as I haul my shopping through the door in the old oak, and heave the dandelion corpse through. The glade outside smells wonderful—damp and fresh and just this side of chilly. Downing Forest is delightfully peaceful after the riot of sensations that was the fairy realm. Less vivid, less noisy… just better in every conceivable way.

Humming softly, I carry home my spoils through gentle mists of lavender and grey. I arrive at my cottage with the dawn, the sun washing everything in palest gold.

Inside I greet my mother on her shelf, and lie the dandelion out on one side of the kitchen floor.

“You look like you’ve been dragged through a bush backwards,” she says. “What is that fright are you wearing?”

“I’ve been on adventures,” I say brightly, twirling for her, so she can see the remains of my once glorious cobweb gown.

“The hair suits you.”

“Thank you, mother.”

Dumping my bag on a spare kitchen chair, I start to unpack. Jenkins pads over to have a sniff at the dandelion. He sneezes disapprovingly, swishing his tail from side to side, and emitting a low rumbling growl. The lion’s body is imposing. It looks even bigger up here, filling the room from end to end.

“Don’t worry, Jenkins,” I murmur. “He’s dead.”

I realise a moment later what a ridiculous thing this is to say and laugh my way down to the cellar to look for a more suitable container for the ten hearts. The roses I put in water. They look even larger and more luridly coloured up here.

Back in the kitchen I open up my purse, expecting to find it half full of the leaves and the other random rubbish the fairies gave me in exchange for my woollen goods. Instead of leaves I find a handful of gold coins, a bright silver ring, and a sapphire the size of a wren’s egg. Interesting. It looks like I was not cheated after all! In fact I might have got the better end of the deal.

There is also a carrot. I do not remember putting a large orange carrot in my purse, but there it is, lying comfortably amongst the balled up embroidery thread and velvet wrapped soul crystals. This is peculiar for a number of reasons. I poke the carrot with one suspicious finger. It feels like a carrot.

“Hmm,” I say.

I pull the orange vegetable out of my purse with forefinger and thumb.

The carrot bites me. It manifests tiny orange jaws and bites me so hard it removes a small chunk of flesh from my thumb.

I drop it, more out of surprise than pain. The carrot lands on the table with a dull thonk, grows spindly legs and scuttles off at speed. It looks ridiculous. It is also wearing a tiny red hat, perched at the top, where the green sprout of the carrot should be. It appears I have accidentally brought home a baby mimic.

I raise my finger to call home its soul, and then lower it again.

It is rather cute. The carrot-mimic disappears behind a jar of woad.

There is a small grunt from behind the jar, and a tiny flash of light. I peer around it. Resting snuggly beside the jar, minding its own business, the mimic is now a teeny tiny treasure chest, about three inches wide, still with its little red hat. It looks like an ornate snuff box, or perhaps a souvenir replica of one of Janvier’s strong boxes. The tiny mimic has apparently decided no one can see it, and seems to be taking a nap.

I will have to watch where I put my fingers. Of course Jenkins might eat it first, but that is the natural life cycle. But nevermind my new houseguest, it is time to be getting on.

“Jenkins!” I call, and pat the chair next to me. “Come and help me choose your phylactery!”

To my surprise he arrives immediately, springing onto the seat and folding the remains of his tail neatly around his body. He waits expectantly.

“Good,” I say, somewhat taken aback.

I am not used to instant obedience from Jenkins, in fact most of the time we simply co-exist in cost harmony, but perhaps he realises this is important. I explain the purpose of a phylactery to him as if he is perfectly capable of understanding. Perhaps he is?

Then I lay out the objects I have gathered on the table.

“I wasn’t sure,” I say, “but I did my best. I figured it shouldn’t be anything too large.”

Jenkins watches with rapt attention, beady green eyes lingering first the old king’s finger bone, stolen from the royal tombs of Fairhaven, then on the beautiful star crystal mined from the caves of Dunbarra Keep, on the emerald the size of a duck’s egg from Janvier’s palace, and then on the wren’s egg sapphire from the goblin market.

He regards them all, sniffing each thoroughly, then looks up at me.

“Choose,” I say. “Which one would you like to keep your soul in?”

Jenkins jumps off the chair, with a jaunty flip of his tail and disappears into the loft.

For a moment I think he has lost interest, gone to do cat things, but then he pads back, with a messy ball of yarn in his mouth. He spits it out on the table, and stares up at me meaningfully. Then, as if to make sure I understand his preference, he kneads the wool enthusiastically, his low purr rumbling around the room.

“That’s really nice,” I say, “but I think it would be better if it was something harder to destroy? If your phylactery is destroyed then when you die, you die. No coming back. It needs to be something hard wearing. Something less… flammable.”

Jenkins regards me with an unwavering gaze for a long minute.

Then he jumps off the table once more, taking the ball of yarn with him. He is gone for a while, but I can hear him in the back of the cupboard where he keeps his trophies. When he emerges once more he is carrying a small skull between his teeth. At first I think it is a bird’s skull, or a rat’s, but as he lays it down gently I catch a glint of metal, and a flash of something catching the light.

It is not an animal’s skull.

“Where did you get this, Jenkins?” I ask him.

Jenkins watches me anxiously, as I pick it up. I can see it is precious to him, so I handle it with great care. It seems my cat has been having adventures of his own.

Curiously shaped, it is almost like a tiny human skull, but with an elongated nose. Or perhaps it is a snout? Around the ivory of its head is a little golden crown, and firmly wedged in its eye sockets are two tiny diamonds. I have never seen anything like it?

“Some kind of sprite?” I ask.

Jenkins nudges at it with his nose, expectedly.

“This will do fine. A fitting phylactery, very beautiful. Good job, my darling.”

Carefully, I put down the little bejewelled skull.

“I guess that’s everything,” I say to Jenkins. It is a bit of a shock to realise. “We are ready.”

***

Four days later, Jenkins and I summon the Whisperer.

Jenkins is looking as smart as a draugr cat with a rather worn old body can look. He has groomed himself thoroughly, and I brushed what little fur he has remaining into place, and tied a black velvet ribbon tied fetchingly around his neck.

Myself, I am dressed in deepest mourning black, with a widow's veil and a flower crown of ghost lilies. It is only fitting, for I will mourn the loss of this nice body, and this luscious length of hair. In the last four days I have braided and brushed, and coiled, and admired, and plaited. But now I must say goodbye. It is worth it of course.

The Whisperer means to humble me, by demanding my death. But if I understand things correctly, all the power that now courses through my veins will then belong to Jenkins. It will be added to that of the dandelion’s, the roses, and the ten handsome men’s. I am happy to gift my life to Jenkins. I would do it even if I wasn’t able to be instantly reborn, not only out of love, but because I am sure Jenkins holds the key to the Whisperer’s demise.

My lip twitches, and I hastily squash down the smirk.

It is ironic really, that the Whisperer will unwittingly be a party to his own demise. How will Jenkins help me? I have no idea but I am eager to find out.

“Ready?” I ask Jenkins. He sits stiffly, his tail wrapped tight over his paws. “Ready,” I murmur. “Vox susurra in tenebris.”

The universe is torn asunder.

A squeak of fear escapes Jenkins, as sand starts to trickle with insidious slowness through the abyssal crack, but he does not run.

“I’m proud of you, Jenkins,” I shout over the building pressure. “You can do this!”

The glade darkens. The clouds quicken to a maelstrom of spiralling shadows, the whispers spinning around us in a vortex of sound.

The Whisper arrives.

I stand before him, glad that the sweep of my gown covers my quaking knees. Jenkins stares up at the dark god, his eyes as wide as saucers, but his head unbowed.

The Whisperer’s lip curls beneath his hood.

“The conditions are met?”

“They are.”

“Place the soul container on the stone.”

I do so.

“Let the subject drink of my water.”

Jenkins approaches the stone altar, stepping delicately between the sacrifices.

He waits like a king as I pour the Whisperer’s holy water into a saucer. He laps it up with quiet dignity, although I can see his whiskers crinkling at the taste.

The air pulses, in a steady rhythm.

Vibrations shake the glade. I wonder if they can feel them in the village, and wonder what dark magic is afoot?

Souls rise from the sacrifices, hovering in the air, around the bejewelled sprite skull, which has begun to glow.

“Your head,” says the Whisperer. He hefts the rusted axe at his side.

With one last glance at Jenkins, I approach the altar, and the porcelain platter I have prepared. The roses are tastefully arrayed along the sides.

“I am ready,” I say, and kneel, my head down, the smooth skin of my neck exposed to the night air.

I stare down at the summer queen’s roses, so very close to my beautiful, shapely nose. My hair shields my vision from the outside world like a shimmering curtain of starlight.

THUD.

The impact rippled on the ground. The Whisperer, stepping closer.

THUD.

I do not look.

I will not look. I clench my fists into the satin of my skirts, my knees buckling. My legs urge me to run, to flee, not to place myself voluntarily in such a vulnerable position but I force myself to stay. For Jenkins. For myself.

It is fine.

Jenkins and I will live together forever-

SWISH

The hammer falls.

***

I wake in my garden, surrounded by my flowers.

Is it the same night? No. It is at least twenty-four hours later, as is our usual pact.

It is the middle of the night and the ghost blossoms bob gently in a slightly chilly wind. It is raining, slow, fat drops of rain which cling to the luminous petals, refracting the light like dozens of tiny stars. I lie on my back, watching them, grounding myself against the earth, feeling my forest around me, letting my spirit return to this fresh, weak body. Raindrops are falling through the cavity in my chest.

The bare bones are stark. I am, once again, a skeleton.

No stitches on this body, the slate has been wiped clean. I no longer bear the marks of any past injuries, but I am once again almost fleshless, and the dark hollow at the centre of my being groans with hunger. Farewell rounded cheeks, farewell shapely bosom. Farewell moonlight locks of hair.

My melancholy lasts but a moment.

I leap up. Where is Jenkins?