Free The Wrong Grave by Kelly Link Page B

“You’ll get the sheets dirty.”
    â€œI’m sorry,” Onion said.
    â€œIt’s fine,” Halsa said. “We can wash them later. There’s plenty of water here. Are you still hungry? Do you need anything?”
    â€œI brought something for you,” Onion said. He held out his hand and there were the earrings that had belonged to his mother.
    â€œNo,” Halsa said.
    Halsa hated herself. She was scratching at her own arm, ferociously, not as if she had an insect bite, but as if she wanted to dig beneath the skin. Onion saw something that he hadn’t known before, something astonishing and terrible, that Halsa was no kinder to herself than to anyone else. No wonder Halsa had wanted the earrings—just like the snakes, Halsa would gnaw on herself if there was nothing else to gnaw on. How Halsa wished that she’d been kind to her mother.
    Onion said, “Take them. Your mother was kind to me, Halsa. So I want to give them to you. My mother would have wanted you to have them, too.”
    â€œAll right,” Halsa said. She wanted to weep, but she scratched and scratched instead. Her arm was white and red from scratching. She took the earrings and put them in her pocket. “Go to sleep now.”
    â€œI came here because you were here,” Onion said. “I wanted to tell you what had happened. What should I do now?”
    â€œSleep,” Halsa said.
    â€œWill you tell the wizards that I’m here? How we saved the train?” Onion said. He yawned so wide that Halsa thought his head would split in two. “Can I be a servant of the wizards of Perfil?”
    â€œWe’ll see,” Halsa said. “You go to sleep. I’ll go climb the stairs and tell them that you’ve come.”
    â€œIt’s funny,” Onion said. “I can feel them all around us. I’m glad you’re here. I feel safe.”
    Halsa sat on the bed. She didn’t know what to do. Onion was quiet for a while and then he said, “Halsa?”
    â€œWhat?” Halsa said.
    â€œI can’t sleep,” he said, apologetically.
    â€œShhh,” Halsa said. She stroked his filthy hair. She sang a song her father had liked to sing. She held Onion’s hand until his breathing became slower and she was sure that he was sleeping. Then she went up the stairs to tell the wizard about Onion. “I don’t understand you,” she said to the door. “Why do you hide away from the world? Don’t you get tired of hiding?”
    The wizard didn’t say anything.
    â€œOnion is braver than you are,” Halsa told the door. “Essa is braver. My mother was—”
    She swallowed and said, “She was braver than you. Stop ignoring me. What good are you, up here? You won’t talk to me, and you won’t help the town of Perfil, and Onion’s going to be very disappointed when he realizes that all you do is skulk around in your room, waiting for someone to bring you breakfast. If you like waiting so much, then you can wait as long as you like. I’m not going to bring you any food or any water or anything that I find in the swamp. If you want anything, you can magic it. Or you can come get it yourself. Or you can turn me into a toad.”
    She waited to see if the wizard would turn her into a toad. “All right,” she said at last. “Well, good-bye then.” She went back down the stairs.
    The wizards of Perfil are lazy and useless. They hate to climb stairs and they never listen when you talk. They don’t answer questions because their ears are full of beetles and wax and their faces are wrinkled and hideous. Marsh fairies live deep in the wrinkles of the faces of the wizards of Perfil and the marsh fairies ride around in the bottomless canyons of the wrinkles on saddle-broken fleas who grow fat grazing on magical, wizardly blood. The wizards of Perfil spend all night scratching their fleabites and sleep all day.