The Bell at Sealey Head by Patricia McKillip

consigned there for lack of interest.” He paused, meditatively scratching an eyebrow now. “Except,” he pronounced finally, “for Hesper Wood.”

    “Hesper,” Ridley repeated blankly, but with enthusiasm.

    “Known locally as a wood witch. She’s an herbalist; people come to her with random problems. Even Dr. Grantham consults her sometimes. She lives in a sort of tree house near Aislinn House. For some reason, she collects any kind of family history, memoir, journal, even old letters that have to do with Sealey Head. She takes them in trade, or buys them outright, if she has to. I’ve been putting such works aside for her for years.”

    “Interesting,” Ridley murmured. His eyes had grown very dark behind his lenses. “Does she say why?”

    “Why such an obsession with a rather commonplace coastal town?”

    “Yes.”

    “No. I pressed her about it once; she only looked vague and talked about ancient herbal remedies passed down through generations.” Mr. Trent shrugged. “Maybe that’s her interest. But I think there’s something else . . .” He gestured toward the window, where a line of wooded hills rose above warehouses, shops, dwellings, and the back lanes of Sealey Head. “She lives up there. She might talk to you about Sealey Head. If you can’t find the tree house, ask the young maid at Aislinn House; that’s her daughter, Emma.”

    “Do you know this wood witch?” Ridley asked Judd, after he had paid for the books and they had returned again to the street.

    “Of course,” Judd said, amused. “I know everyone.”

    “What’s she like? Would she talk to me?”

    “She’s very kind . . . I went to her about my father’s failing eyes. She tried everything she knew and wouldn’t take any form of payment when nothing worked.”

    “Why did she take to living in a tree?”

    “No one knows. She was the stillroom maid at Aislinn House for many years.”

    “Was she,” Ridley breathed. “Was she now.”

    Judd looked at him, hearing mysteries in his voice, secrets. He knew something about that sad, ancient house that Judd didn’t. Something about the bell?

    “It was on a ship,” he heard himself protest incoherently, he thought, but somehow Ridley knew exactly what he meant.

    “Was it?” he only said, and the town that Judd had known all his life changed in his head, transformed by the words of a stranger. Who had also, in that moment, transformed himself under Judd’s nose.

    A word sprang alive in his head; recognizing it, he began to understand what it meant.

    Magic.

Five

    Ysabo was on top of the tower, feeding crows again. It was only bread from last night’s supper, and a few scraps of meat; the knights had eaten everything else. As always, gulls circled and wove among the crows, crying in their piercing, tormented voices as though they had eaten every fish in the sea, every plump morsel in its shell on the shore, and were on their last breaths with hunger. But they were wary of the crows and rarely snatched a mouthful. Ysabo had seen why the first time she had fed them, when she was a little girl. The gull that had caught a crust out of her bowl had been transformed instantly into a raging tumble of black feathers and beaks. The midair brawl had quickly flown itself over the sea, where, as the black knot had untangled itself into birds again, something ragged, limp, and bloody had dropped into the waves. The crows flew back to the tower, landed peacefully at Ysabo’s small, slippered feet. She had stared at them; they had looked back at her, beaks clacking, something knowing, mocking, in their black eyes. She had dumped the rest of the scraps over their heads and fled.

    But Maeve had made her go back. “It’s your duty,” her grandmother said, “from this day. We all have our duties. They must never, ever, ever be neglected. Not one. Don’t be afraid of the crows. They are wise and powerful, like the knights. Like the knights, they kill their enemies. But