The Wrong Grave by Kelly Link Page B

laughed.
    â€œI’m fine,” she said. “Just wizards playing tricks.” She hammered on the door, then kicked it for good measure. “Open up!”
    â€œWhat are you doing?” Onion said.
    â€œIt never does any good,” Halsa said. “I should have brought an ax.”
    â€œLet me try,” Onion said.
    Halsa shrugged. Stupid boy , she thought, and Onion could hear her perfectly. “Go ahead,” she said.
    Onion put his hand on the door and pushed. It swung open.
    He looked up at Halsa and flinched. “Sorry,” he said.
    Halsa went in.
    There was a desk in the room, and a single candle, which was burning. There was a bed, neatly made, and a mirror on the wall over the desk. There was no wizard of Perfil, not even hiding under the bed. Halsa checked, just in case.
    She went to the empty window and looked out. There was the meadow and the makeshift camp, below them, and the marsh. The canals, shining like silver. There was the sun, coming up, the way it always did. It was strange to see all the windows of the other towers from up here, so far above, all empty. White birds were floating over the marsh. She wondered if they were wizards; she wished she had a bow and arrows.
    â€œWhere is the wizard?” Onion said. He poked the bed. Maybe the wizard had turned himself into a bed. Or the desk. Maybe the wizard was a desk.
    â€œThere are no wizards,” Halsa said.
    â€œBut I can feel them!” Onion sniffed, then sniffed harder. He could practically smell the wizard, as if the wizard of Perfil had turned himself into a mist or a vapor that Onion was inhaling. He sneezed violently.
    Someone was coming up the stairs. He and Halsa waited to see if it was a wizard of Perfil. But it was only Tolcet. He looked tired and cross, as if he’d had to climb many, many stairs.
    â€œWhere are the wizards of Perfil?” Halsa said.
    Tolcet held up a finger. “A minute to catch my breath,” he said.
    Halsa stamped her foot. Onion sat down on the bed. He apologized to it silently, just in case it was the wizard. Or maybe the candle was the wizard. He wondered what happened if you tried to blow a wizard out. Halsa was so angry he thought she might explode.
    Tolcet sat down on the bed beside Onion. “A long time ago,” he said, “the father of the present king visited the wizards of Perfil. He’d had certain dreams about his son, who was only a baby. He was afraid of these dreams. The wizards told him that he was right to be afraid. His son would go mad. There would be war and famine and more war and his son would be to blame. The old king went into a rage. He sent his men to throw the wizards of Perfil down from their towers. They did.”
    â€œWait,” Onion said. “Wait. What happened to the wizards? Did they turn into white birds and fly away?”
    â€œNo,” Tolcet said. “The king’s men slit their throats and threw them out of the towers. I was away. When I came back, the towers had been ransacked. The wizards were dead.”
    â€œNo!” Halsa said. “Why are you lying? I know the wizards are here. They’re hiding somehow. They’re cowards.”
    â€œI can feel them too,” Onion said.
    â€œCome and see,” Tolcet said. He went to the window. When they looked down, they saw Essa and the other servants of the wizards of Perfil moving among the refugees. The two old women who never spoke were sorting through bundles of clothes and blankets. The thin man was staking down someone’s cow. Children were chasing chickens as Burd held open the gate of a makeshift pen. One of the younger girls, Perla, was singing a lullaby to some mother’s baby. Her voice, rough and sweet at the same time, rose straight up to the window of the tower, where Halsa and Onion and Tolcet stood looking down. It was a song they all knew. It was a song that said all would be well.
    â€œDon’t you understand?”