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  The atmosphere had begun to affect the adults as well, which only added to the misery of the children.

  Sable paced once more and, for something to do, made herself a moth-spell and chased it up the drapes. She was midway to the ceiling before she realized she had miscalculated the weight the drapes would hold. The drapes gave a lurch.

  So disgusted was she—with the way the world smelled and with herself—that she made no magic to counter the impending disaster. Wood splintered above her, and down she and the drapes went, a tangle of black cat and blue linen.

  Still too irritable to extricate herself with the ease of a spell, she clawed her way out. Ripping brought her a certain sense of satisfaction… until she emerged and looked up.

  Glory loomed over her, hands on hips. “Well?” There was an edge to Glory’s voice.

  “Don’t help,” Sable said. “You wouldn’t want me to get fat and lazy like some familiars I could name.” She twitched her tail free and sniffed dramatically. There was an edge to Glory’s scent as well. “The weather’s not doing your personality any good either, I see. I try to get a little exercise and a little entertainment and what do I get?” Sable yawned, flashing sharp white teeth. “I get, ‘Well?’ “ she mimicked. “Well, what good is having a wizard around the house if she won’t provide a little sunshine, 0 great and awesome Glory Two-Eyes?”

  Glory had not changed her stance. If anything, she loomed more ominously. “Meddling in the weather—”

  The looming didn’t impress Sable; she knew how the trick was done. “Requires enormous energy and results in terrible backlash if you’re not careful,” she finished for Glory. “Think of something else, then. The whole village reeks of depression and impatience and only World Entire knows what else. A few more days of this and there’ll be murder done.”

  Glory jerked back her head, dark hair flying. “You think so?”

  Irritation ran the length of Sable’s spine and set her tail twitching again. “You curl up with your books and scrolls and your toms and you don’t pay attention. Yes, I think so—if something or somebody doesn’t crack the pattern.”

  “All right,” said Glory. “Let’s see what we can do.”

  “It’s about time.”

  Stepping over the shredded draperies, Glory threw open the window and crooked an arm in Sable’s direction. Sable preened her shoulder and said, “If you need my help to read that pattern, you’re of no use to any of us.” Glory sighed and set to work.

  Sable knew just what she would see. The shifting currents that flowed to and from the village today eddied dark and muddy. That would have been bad enough, but there was worse. Over the village itself, the thick, dark currents slowed, then halted altogether. It was as if the village drowned in stagnant water.

  Glory turned back. “You’re right, Sable,” she said.

  Of course she was right. Offended by the implication that she might possibly have been wrong, Sable glared.

  “I’d risk interfering in that to prevent a famine,” Glory said, misreading Sable’s glare, “but not to lift a depression.” Forestalling any comment on Sable’s part, Glory raised her hands and added, “I’ll think of something.”

  “You’d better. Let something like that go on and you don’t know what the populace will nightmare up. Next month they may decide that black cats are bad luck.”

  “What?” Glory’s dark brows knitted. Sable thrust her hind leg forward and licked her heel in contempt. “You were the one who told me this business about children catching colds from playing in the rain was pure superstition.”

  Glory’s scent changed abruptly. Sable put her heel down and looked up in time to see a smile spread slowly across Glory’s face. That was what Sable had been waiting for: Glory had thought of a counterspell for the rain-soaked village.

  Sable stretched her pleasure. “What would we do without magic?” she said.

  The smile turned to a grin. “Come with me and I’ll show you.”

  “You can’t shift those patterns without sorcery.” Sable eyed her scornfully—then thought better of it and amended the statement: “Even you can’t.”

  Glory took no offense. “What a wizard does is magic,” she said. “I mean to use a little neverburn, unless you have some objection.” The grin was, if anything, broader.

  Neverbum scarcely counted as sorcery. It was as rudimentary a spell as the up Sable had neglected to use when she climbed the drapes. Sable waited for a further explanation.

  She received none. So Glory had taken offense after all. Glory had as fine a sense of retribution as any cat. Well, if Glory was not about to tell Sable what she had planned, Sable was not about to give her the satisfaction of asking. There was nothing for it but to follow along and see what Glory had in mind.

  “Use all the neverburn you want,” Sable said. “You’d overrule my objections if I had them, so I seldom do.”

  Glory chuckled. Sparkles of neverburn appeared between her fingertips and she set them in her hair like tiny stars. Then she stripped out of her clothes, heaping them up on the table. From the hook near the door, she took up her hooded drycloak and threw it around her.

  “Are you ready?” Glory crooked an elbow.

  By this time, Sable was sure her eyes were enormous, but she feigned nonchalance. She was cursed if she’d ask. “Of course,” she said.

  With an up, she sprang for Glory’s elbow, then for her shoulder, and on into the voluminous hood. She upped a second time—the fabric of the drycloak was thin and Glory had no protection beneath it. Irritable she might be, but she had no desire to sink her claws into Glory’s shoulder for purchase—that would have been admitting that Glory was getting to her.

  Glory padded softly down the path that led through Silverfir Forest and into the village. The shoes she’d left behind looked so forlorn that Sable considered conjuring a family of field mice to keep them company. And fleas for Glory’s abandoned gown. Cursed if she’d ask!

  At each house along the way, Glory paused to knock. When they had been welcomed and Glory had declined offers of food and tea, Glory told each householder, “I need the children.”

  When asked for what purpose, she said only, “Can’t you feel the oppressiveness?” The villagers could, of course, and they agreed to send the children to Glory at council hall.

  Glory stopped at the post as well. Jennet Fast-Foot went for the children at the other end of town and Tomas and Cecilany rode to fetch those from the outlying farms. Glory was determined not to miss a one.

  Then there was nothing to do but make for the shelter of the council hall and wait. Glory was still being stubborn, so they waited in silence. Doing her best to ignore both the stench and Glory’s stubbornness, Sable dozed.

  Clatter and chatter woke her. The children had begun to arrive, bringing with them a brightening of the atmosphere that Sable had not expected. Glory hadn’t, after all, done anything yet.

  Glory only nodded solemnly at each arrival. Awed by her manner, they tried to match her solemnity. In the end, of course, they couldn’t. Little Bit and Wozzle hushed their younger sisters—toddlers both—and got giggles. Tall Rob joked, his bravado silenced by a dark frown from the much smaller Ray Golden—who then dissolved into giggles herself.

  A heady scent of anticipation cleared much of the smell of misery from the council hall. Maybe Glory has done something already, Sable thought, surprised that she could have slept through any of Glory’s magic.

  Sable made a quick check of her own. No, Glory’d done no magic. Yet the atmosphere had changed. She turned her attention to the children.

  They were, as Sable had expected, bundled in drycloaks (or cloaks of a simpler sort); their heads were covered with scarves and hats. They should have smelled stifled but didn’t.

  Their necks were festooned with talismans—Sable couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen so many in one place—and their pockets filled with charms and cookies. If they were to be involved in magic, their parents reasoned, th
ey would need all the help they could get—and all the energy the cookies would provide.

  Glory still said nothing. She sat on the council table, clasping her drawn-up knees in her bare arms, her mud-spattered toes peeking from beneath her drycloak. Sable remained hidden in the depths of the cowl, seeing but not seen.

  The mayor and her council made a sudden appearance in full regalia. They bowed as one. “Glory Two-Eyes,” said the mayor, “we are honored by your presence.”

  “Thank you, Helen of Wye, but I must ask you to leave us now. We have a great deal of work to do.”

  Helen of Wye glanced at the children. Annie-Tiptoe, who was the youngest, waved. Helen of Wye, somewhat embarrassed, waved back. “I must ask if what you intend bodes any danger to the children.”

  “There is greater danger to them if I fail to accomplish my ends.”

  Sable stirred within the hood and said, “Now you’ve worried them.”

  Glory answered silently, Only the adults. The children are more excited. A sniff of the air told Sable this was true.

  “If you wish, you may send Granny Sassy, Eloise-ThatLiar, and Ringgold to assist us,” Glory said aloud. ”In fact, I would prefer it.”

  Skinny Lem, at a look from Helen, dashed off into the rain to round up the three she had named. “Granny Sassy should be enough chaperone for anybody,” Sable said. “Why go to the trouble to add Eloise-That-Liar and Ringgold?”

  “Because what I plan will give Eloise-That-Liar a week’s worth of new tales to tell,” Glory said.

  That made sense, until Sable realized that Glory meant to leave Ringgold unexplained. Well, Sable didn’t mind Glory’s quirk. Ringgold was the town’s herbalist, and Sable enjoyed smelling him.

  Helen of Wye did not move until the three adults named had arrived; then, with a last embarrassed wave at Annie-Tiptoe, she hurried her council away.

  Granny Sassy pushed the door shut, slamming it for attention, and said, “I hope you’re not messing with the weather, child. I won’t have it, you know.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” Glory said with a smile. Then, more solemnly, she added, “But this gloom isn’t natural and must be lifted.”

  Granny Sassy snorted. “I’d have called it perfectly natural after a week of rain. Still… if you’re proposing to do something about it, let’s get on with it.”

  Glory nodded and stood. She threw back the hood of her drycloak, revealing Sable and the neverbum sparkles in her hair. There was a murmur of delight from the children. More neverburn sparkles began to appear between her fingers.

  “My friends,” Glory said, “you have all felt the terrible gloom in this village. With Sable’s help, I’ve learned the cause of it.”

  “Oh!” said Little Bit. Her eyes were wide but Sable couldn’t tell if that was in reaction to what she’d heard or what she saw. “Who’s doing it to us?”

  “Not who,” said Glory. “What. Sniggets—an invasion of sniggets.”

  “Sniggets!” said a surprised voice from the crowd.

  Little Bit turned. “Sniggets are those pesty things that cats pounce on all the time, only we can’t see them,” she said helpfully.

  “I know what sniggets are,” said the same voice, scornfully this time. “They don’t bother people.”

  “This many sniggets can and do bother people,” Glory said. “I admit it doesn’t happen often, but it has happened and you can feel the result.”

  Sable said privately, “You’re almost as good as Eloise-That-Liar. Sniggets, indeed.”

  Glory ignored her, finishing aloud, “To put an end to this problem, I’ll need your help. Will you give it?”

  “Oh, yes!” said Little Bit, glancing at Wozzle, her best friend. Wozzle nodded enthusiastically, first at Little Bit, then at Glory. A chorus of assent followed.

  “You must do exactly as I say,” Glory cautioned them, but again she received their consent.

  “Good,” she said. “Then let’s get to it.”

  She moved around the room and fixed a handful of neverbum sparkles in the hair of each, kneeling to reach the little ones, standing on tiptoe to adorn Ringgold. Sable caught a distinct whiff of attraction between the two and commented, “Ah, so that’s why you included Ringgold. You and your damn toms.” But she breathed in the herbs and their mutual attraction with content.

  “Oh, Little Bit, you look so pretty!” Wozzle said, clasping her hands together in imitation of her mother’s manner.

  “You look so pretty, too!” Little Bit told her, loyally. The two were constant companions and not to be outdone in their admiration for one another.

  Eloise-That-Liar produced her pocket mirror. By far the prettiest young woman in the village, Eloise-That-Liar used it only to practice comic faces for her tales. Today it was passed from hand to hand, so each child could see her own spangles. Sable followed the mirror’s progress through the crowd by ear, listening for the oooohs and aaaaahs.

  It was Granny Sassy that Glory adorned last, and even she could not resist a peek in Eloise-That-Liar’s mirror. “A good start,” she told Glory in a somewhat grudging tone. “Let’s see what comes next.”

  Glory strode to the council table. Off, Sable, she said voicelessly, and Sable walked down her arm to pose where she could see and be seen best.

  Glory raised her arms, and there was, after some minor shushing, a silence. “Next,” she said, “take off your boots and stockings.”

  This took a considerable length of time, with the older ones helping the younger ones—many of whom would have done much better without the help.

  When they had finished the task, Glory raised her hands again. “And now, take off all the clothes that remain. You may wear your talismans and carry your charms but—this is the important part—all of your skin must be exposed to the rain.”

  There was a squeak of protest from one of the adolescents. Glory fixed him with a stare. “Do you wish to help the village?”

  Tall Rob nodded reluctantly. His face was scarlet.

  “Tall Rob,” she added gently, “I would not ask anything of you I would not do myself.” Without fanfare, she unbound her drycloak and doffed it, laying it beside Sable on the council table. Sable could smell Tall Rob’s relief—and Ringgold’s desire.

  There was another scent as well, sharp and strong and as pleasing as any Sable had smelled. She could not locate the source—until Granny Sassy did an unheard-of thing: she laughed aloud.

  Granny Sassy began to take off her clothes, and Sable knew the scent was her pure delight.

  With much giggling and laughter, all the children peeled off their heavy, bundled clothing—cloaks, blouses, linens, trousers—everything went jumbling to the floor. The talismans went back around their necks, though several of the smallest children squealed at the coldness of some of those spells. Glory made a circuit of the room to bind charms to bare chests so they need not be carried.

  Granny Sassy said, “You’re a wicked wizard, Glory.”

  “And you’re a naughty old lady, Granny—everybody knows it.”

  Granny Sassy laughed again. “If they didn’t this morning, they will this afternoon, child.”

  Glory clapped her hands above her head. A shower of neverburn fountained between them, curved and cascaded to the floor around her, like the Queen’s Own Fireworks.

  She had the attention of all. “Our work begins,” she said. “The sniggets lurk in puddles on every street corner on every street in town. We are going to drive them out!”

  Eloise-That-Liar cheered and was promptly joined by a dozen or more voices and a chorus of giggles.

  “Here’s how we do it,” Glory went on. “We make loud joyful noises—sing, shout, laugh!—and jump into their puddles. It doesn’t matter if five of us jump into the same one, as long as we don’t miss a single puddle within the circuit of the city. Splash the sniggets out!”

  She took Little Bit’s hand and Little Bit took Wozzle’s and Wozzle reached to her young sister’s. As they all linked hands,
Glory opened the door into the rain. “Sing, Ringgold!” she shouted. Ringgold started the children’s chant that called the stars back from the rain, and it was immediately taken up by the children.

  Over the din, Glory shouted again, “We dance to the square and part from there!”

  She led them dancing, singing, shouting, and giggling into the warm summer rain.

  As Granny Sassy took up the rear of the line, Sable trotted to the door to watch. Through the shielding rain, she could just barely see that the head of the line had reached the square. Glory jumped into the largest puddle with a shout of laughter and an “Out, sniggets, out!” and stood to point the children in various directions.

  Two adults in cloaks froze to watch, then abruptly ran for cover. Little Bit and Wozzle were showing their younger sisters the right way to jump into puddles, while EloiseThat-Liar turned a cartwheel in the rain.

  “You’re a snob, Sable.”

  Sable looked up just in time to see Granny Sassy dance through the door with the end of the line.

  “You can’t give me fleas,” Granny Sassy called, breathless but taunting. “I’d just brush ’em off. They only work on people in clothes! Snob!” she called again.

  It was too much for Sable—and it was apparent that they were all going to have a great deal of fun. She darted out into the rain after them.

  * * *

  The next few hours were the liveliest she had ever spent, and she recalled only confused images of them. Shocked and delighted expressions on the faces of the adult villagers (sometimes both at once!), the yelps and squeals of children as they splatted into puddles over and over again, splashing each other with warm, muddy water. Eloise-That-Liar, who stood on her hands and pitched full-length and spread-eagled into the largest standing pool she could find… Glory dancing a circle dance with a dozen youngsters as they kicked through puddled water, neverburn still sparkling through the muddy water that dripped from her long locks of hair…

  And above it all, the scent of joy and the bright rupture of the lines of disturbance that had entwined the village.