Page 22 of The Knucker King

It had been so long since Avice had seen her Grim move that way. She had nearly forgotten that he was a hound of shadows. That Bramble could travel along the dark lines that cast over the earth.

Avice leaned over to Trewoofe’s ear, it flicked as she spoke into it. “Can you keep up with him, Lord?”

Trewoofe huffed. His misty breath temporarily covered her face before it wafted up to sky above. “Of course,” he grumbled.

Avice braced herself as he dashed forward, barrelling out of his garden and down his hill in a blink. The buffeting of the wind stung her eyes, making tears run down her cheeks before they blew away in the gale. As she turned her face from the onslaught, all she could see was the brown blur of tree trunks. The midwife chanced a glance over her shoulder, past her billowing mantle, to see a river of stars chasing them.

Not stars, it’s him.

His lustrous, iridescent scales coiled in the last snatches of light. Glittering in colours that she had barely caught whispers of, despite her ability to see what others could not. Those shades that she had only seen in the corner of her eye, in the retracting of a sunlit wave, in the bud of a new flower, in the last fragments of a rainbow, and the melting of a snowflake on skin.

“Beautiful,” she murmured.

“What was that?”

Avice turned her face forward again. She chewed her lip, butterflies in her belly. She did not realise the Knucker could hear her over the buffet of wind at his relentless pace.

She swallowed, mouth suddenly dry. “I said, your scales, they look beautiful. Under this light, for a moment, I thought the stars were chasing us.”

Trewoofe said nothing, but continued his sprint across the landscape, right on Bramble’s tail. Worry gnawed at Avice as he did not respond, concerned she had slighted the Knucker.

“King Trewoofe, I am sorry if that offended you.”

“There is none taken.”

To Avice, his voice sounded raw, cracked, like she had struck at something that wounded it. “Lord, what is the matter?” she pressed.

Trewoofe kept his gaze straight ahead but spoke. “It has been many, many turns of seasons since anyone has remarked on my appearance. It reminded me of the last who did.”

Avice knew that curiosity could be dangerous, but it had peaked. “Who?”

“My… soul-bound. I suppose the human equivalent of what you would call a wife.”

The midwife jerked in surprise. “You have a wife?”

“Had. She died long, long ago.”

Guilt twisted in her, and she immediately regretted her probing. “I am sorry, Lord. I should not have pried.”

“It is alright. I see your cottage ahead. Let us attend to the work ahead of us.”

Avice was silent as Trewoofe came to sudden stop; a mighty paw stepped within the circle of stones that surrounded her garden. Bramble trotted ahead down the garden path. The midwife sighed as she saw the Pillywiggins had begun to till a patch of soil that she had planned to let lie fallow in Spring, whenever she arrived.

“So, this is where you do your witching?” the Knucker asked.

“Yes, this is where it all happens.”

Trewoofe lowered his head to the frosted ground. The surrounding air had rapidly chilled at their race through the woods. Avice shivered beneath her cloak and layers of wool and linens. She slipped easily down his smooth scales, breasts and belly sensitive to the friction with his glittering hide.

“Thank you.” She lowered her head to him in gratitude.

“Leave the water bags here,” Trewoofe instructed. “I will refill them while you attend to your patient. I will take you there first.”

“Yes, yes, thank you again!” Avice exclaimed before darting up the rammed earth path.

She burst inside the cottage. The midwife briefly greeted Ashling while she dumped her basket by the hearth.

She grabbed her satchel, confirming the contents, checking them off in her mind. Linens, knives, sheep gut, cross, needle, honey, willow-bark, essence of lavender, motherwort, hemlock… She swallowed nervously at the small bottles of healing water in there, grateful that she still had some. I got distracted today. He is too easy to idle away day light with. Good at conversation, kind, safe.