The Near Witch Read Online Free PDF

a drizzle.
    “You have not offered him shelter?” I ask.
    The sisters stand there, stiff and mute.
    “I don’t mean any harm,” I say quickly. “I just want to see him, to speak to him. I’ve never met a stranger. I just want to see that he’s real and ask him…” How can I explain? “Just tell me if you have him, please.”
    Nothing.
    I force myself straighter in my chair, keeping my head up.
    “I saw him last night. Outside my window. Bo Pike claims to have spotted him first, on the western edge, and we’re due north. The stranger seemed to know the line that marks the edge of the village. He would have rounded it, to the east.” I tap the table with my index finger. “Here.”
    The sisters would have given him shelter. It had to have been them. But still they say nothing. Their eyes say nothing. Their faces say nothing. It’s as if I’m speaking to statues.
    “You were the only ones absent this morning,” I say.
    Magda blinks. “We keep to ourselves.”
    “But you’re the only ones who could have hidden—”
    Dreska sparks to life.
    “You best be getting home, Lexi,” she snaps, “while there’s a break in the weather.”
    I look to the window. The storm has stopped, leaving the sky gray and drained. The air in the room feels heavy, as if the space is shrinking. The sisters’ looks are guarded, harder than before. Even Magda’s lips are drawn into a narrow line. I push myself to my feet. I haven’t touched my cup.
    “Thank you for the tea, Magda,” I say, heading for the door. “Sorry to bother you both.”
    The door closes firmly behind me.
    Outside, the world is mud and puddles, and I wish I’d been able to trade these silly slippers for my leather boots. I make it two steps before my feet are soaked. Overhead the sky is already beginning to break apart, the clouds retreating.
    I look to the west, to the village.
    When I was Wren’s age, I asked my father why the sisters lived all the way out here. He said that, for the people in Near, something was either all good or all bad. He told me witches were like people, that they came in all shapes and sizes, and they could be good or bad or foolish or clever. But after the Near Witch, the people in the village got it into their heads that all witches were bad.
    The sisters stay out here because the villagers are afraid. But the important part is that they stay . When I asked my father why, he smiled, one of those soft, private smiles, and said, “This is their home, Lexi. They won’t turn their backs on it, even though it turned its back on them.”
    I cast a last glance back at the sisters’ hill, and leave. They’re protecting the stranger. I know it.
    I head back for the worn path, passing the shed that sits just to the north of the cottage.
    If the sisters are hiding him, there must be a reason—
    I catch my breath.
    There is a dark gray cloak hanging from a nail on the shed, its hems darker than the rest, as if the fabric has been singed. The moor is unnaturally quiet in the post-rain afternoon, and I am suddenly very aware of my steps, of the sound they make on the wet earth as I approach the shed. The structure seems to be losing a very slow war with gravity. It is a cluster of wooden beams stuck into the soil, supporting a messy roof. Between the slats, the moor grows up, weeds taking hold, doing as much to keep the shed up as to tear it down. There is a door beside the cloak, but no handle. The strips of warping wood have gaps between them, and I lean in and press my eye to one of the narrow openings. The dim interior is empty.
    I step back, sigh, and bite my lip. And then, from the other side of the shed, I hear it—a soft exhale. I smile and slide silently toward the sound, bending my knees and begging the earth to absorb my steps without giving me away. I round the corner. And there is no one. Not even footprints in the grass.
    Letting out an exasperated breath, I stomp back around the shed. I know the sounds that people make