Rosemary Thorne's Arc

Chapter 7 of 24

Rosemary set the green book aside. The reversal needed the witch's blood, and the witch would arrive at first light with hands that had already broken stronger doors than hers. Rosemary had no weapon. She had a kitchen, a garden, and a man on her floor who could not touch her. "I need something sharp," she said. "Sharp and hidden. She won't stand still while I cut her." Damien sat up. The scar on his hand flexed as he thought. "She'll expect a knife. She won't expect the ground." "Meaning what." "A trap. Iron, under the salt line. Something she steps on before she sees it." Rosemary went to the garden shed and came back with a fistful of long iron nails and a garden claw with three curved tines. She wrapped the tines in wire until they stood up like teeth. Damien watched from the doorway, careful of the threshold. "Bury it," he said. "Points up. Cover it with the salt. She'll cross where she crossed before. They always do." Rosemary knelt on the stone path and dug a shallow pit. Her hands shook. She set the claw in the dirt and packed soil around the base. She sprinkled salt over the top until the metal disappeared. Something moved in the bean rows. The purple alligator crawled out, blinking, and settled beside her knee. It sniffed the salt and sneezed. "Not now," Rosemary whispered. She nudged the animal aside. A small cough came from the fence post. The gnome sat there in his purple hat, holding one of her cats under his arm. The cat did not seem to mind. "What walks on iron and bleeds on salt," he said, "and buys a morning with a morning's price?" "Get off my fence," Rosemary said. He tilted his head. "The old woman pays in what she spills. The young woman pays in what she keeps. Mind which purse you open, cottage-girl." He set the cat down and vanished behind the post. Rosemary went cold. She looked at the buried claw. She looked at her own hands. She finished the salt line and went back inside. She washed the dirt from her fingers. She took a clean glass jar from the shelf and set it on the table where the light would catch it. "When she bleeds," Rosemary said, "I catch it in this. Not a drop wasted." Damien nodded once. He did not thank her. He had rules about that. Outside, the sky above the garden began to gray. The cats came down from the table and lined up at the door. The alligator crawled under the bench and closed both eyes. Rosemary stood at the window with the jar in her hand. The trap was set. The blood, if it came, would come from the ground up.