The Near Witch by Victoria Schwab

distant and sad, this thin boy, his hollow eyes and his singed travel cloak. I cannot stand to blink while looking at him, in case he is not there when I open my eyes. He lifts his chin, as if trying to hear a far-off voice. For a moment he looks unbearably lost, and then he turns and walks away, out into the hills, seeming to put as many weeds and wildflowers between us as possible.
    I trudge back toward the sisters’ house, checking the angle of the sun in the sky. I’m losing time. How long do I have until Otto returns home? I should have just followed the search party. But I can’t fault myself for wanting to talk to the stranger. I needed to see him for myself, to know if he did this, if he’s involved.
    I kick a stone. Now I have only more questions.
    I pass the sisters’ house, heading for the path home.
    “Lexi,” says Magda, calling me back. I spot her kneeling in the plot of dirt just beside the cottage. The patch that Magda calls her garden.
    “You lied to me,” I say, when I’m close enough, “about the stranger. He’s here.”
    Magda cocks her head at me. “We told you we knew nothing about him. And we don’t.” She looks past me and out onto the moors. I follow her gaze. Far beyond the house, a thin shape wanders over the hills that dip away from the sisters’ house in slow waves. On one of these rises, the boy in gray pauses, looking north, away from Near.
    I frown and turn back to Magda, who is hunched over in the small patch of dirt again.
    “Why did you call me back?” I ask, scuffing my boot along the patch of barren earth.
    Magda doesn’t answer, just goes on whispering something to no one at all, and brushing her gnarled fingers back and forth over the empty plot. I squat beside her.
    “What are you doing, Magda?”
    “Growing flowers, of course.” She gestures to the dirt, where not so much as a weedy stem is poking through the soil. “Little rusty, is all.”
    Normally I’d be intrigued and would want to linger, on the off chance that I could catch a glimpse of Magda’s craft. Hoping that she’d forget I was there beside her, and show it. But I don’t have time today.
    “Did you plant seeds?” I ask.
    At this, she gives a dry laugh and whispers a few more things in the direction of the soil.
    “No, dearie. I don’t need any seeds. And besides, I’m growing moor flowers. Wildflowers.”
    “I didn’t know you could, in this soil.”
    “You can’t, of course. That’s the point. Flowers are freethinking things. They grow where they please. I’d like to see you try and tell a moor flower where to grow.” Magda sits back and rubs her hands together.
    I look down at the empty plot. I’m more than an hour behind Otto’s men, with nothing to show for it. And for all I know, my uncle could be making his way home this minute. Maybe Magda knows something. Anything. Whether she’ll tell me is another story.
    “Magda, there’s a boy missing. Edgar. He’s five—”
    “Little blond thing, yes? What happened?” she asks, turning her good eye up at me.
    “No one knows. He vanished from his bed last night. They haven’t found any trace yet.”
    Magda’s face changes a fraction, the lines deepening, her bad eye growing darker and her good eye focused on nothing. She looks about to say something, but she changes her mind.
    “Do you think someone took him?” I ask. Magda frowns and nods.
    “The ground’s like skin, it grows in layers,” she says, pinching some soil in her crooked fingers. “What’s on top peels back. What’s underneath can work its way up, eventually.”
    I sigh, frustrated. Every now and then Magda does this, talking nonsense. In her mind it might very well be a logical train of thought, but pity the rest of the world can’t follow. I should have known she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, help me.
    “The wind is lonely…” Magda adds in a voice so soft I almost miss it. The words snag on something, a memory.
    “What did you—” I begin.
    “Lexi