The Wrong Grave by Kelly Link

I’d rather be a scullery maid than a servant of the invisible, doddering, nearly blind, flea-bitten, mildewy, clammy-fingered, conceited marsh-wizards of Perfil.
    Halsa checked Onion, to make sure that he was still asleep. Then she went and found Essa. “Will you pierce my ears for me?” she said.
    Essa shrugged. “It will hurt,” she said.
    â€œGood,” said Halsa. So Essa boiled water and put her needle in it. Then she pierced Halsa’s ears. It did hurt, and Halsa was glad. She put on Onion’s mother’s earrings, and then she helped Essa and the others dig latrines for the townspeople of Perfil.
    Tolcet came back before sunset. There were half a dozen women and their children with him.
    â€œWhere are the others?” Essa said.
    Tolcet said, “Some don’t believe me. They don’t trust wizardly folk. There are some that want to stay and defend the town. Others are striking out on foot for Qual, along the tracks.”
    â€œWhere is the army now?” Burd said.
    â€œClose,” Halsa said. Tolcet nodded.
    The women from the town had brought food and bedding. They seemed subdued and anxious, and it was hard to tell whether it was the approaching army or the wizards of Perfil that scared them most. The women stared at the ground. They didn’t look up at the towers. If they caught their children looking up, they scolded them in low voices.
    â€œDon’t be silly,” Halsa said crossly to a woman whose child had been digging a hole near a tumbled tower. The woman shook him until he cried and cried and wouldn’t stop. What was she thinking? That wizards liked to eat mucky children who dug holes? “The wizards are lazy and unsociable and harmless. They keep to themselves and don’t bother anyone.”
    The woman only stared at Halsa, and Halsa realized that she was as afraid of Halsa as she was of the wizards of Perfil. Halsa was amazed. Was she that terrible? Mik and Bonti and Onion had always been afraid of her, but they’d had good reason to be. And she’d changed. She was as mild and meek as butter now.
    Tolcet, who was helping with dinner, snorted as if he’d caught her thought. The woman grabbed up her child and rushed away, as if Halsa might open her mouth again and eat them both.
    â€œHalsa, look.” It was Onion, awake and so filthy that you could smell him from two yards away. They would need to burn his clothes. Joy poured through Halsa, because Onion had come to find her and because he was here and because he was alive. He’d come out of Halsa’s tower, where he’d gotten her cubby bed grimy and smelly, how wonderful to think of it, and he was pointing east, toward the town of Perfil. There was a red glow hanging over the marsh, as if the sun were rising instead of setting. Everyone was silent, looking east as if they might be able to see what was happening in Perfil. Presently the wind carried an ashy, desolate smoke over the marsh. “The war has come to Perfil,” a woman said.
    â€œWhich army is it?” another woman said, as if the first woman might know.
    â€œDoes it matter?” said the first woman. “They’re all the same. My eldest went off to join the king’s army and my youngest joined General Balder’s men. They’ve set fire to plenty of towns, and killed other mothers’ sons and maybe one day they’ll kill each other, and never think of me. What difference does it make to the town that’s being attacked, to know what army is attacking them? Does it matter to a cow who kills her?”
    â€œThey’ll follow us,” someone else said in a resigned voice. “They’ll find us here and they’ll kill us all!”
    â€œThey won’t,” Tolcet said. He spoke loudly. His voice was calm and reassuring. “They won’t follow you and they won’t find you here. Be brave for your children. All will be well.”
    â€œOh,