The Stolen One (3 page)

I
once asked Grace if I was comely. “Alluring, you are,” she had answered. “But you might as well be ugly for the good it will do you.” We were at the river during the summer I turned thirteen.
Alluring
. I had tried to glimpse my reflection, barely perceiving a flash of my wild red hair before Grace had thrashed the water with her hand. “Your father was vain,” she’d said, shaking the water off as though she’d dipped her hand in a manure pile. “And look where it got him. Dangerous is the man with the devil spark in his eye.”

As I walked past the Pea & Cock, the minstrels were outside lounging, drinking ale. One of them had his arm around the town slut, Maud Davey. Poor thing. It didn’t
take much to get the reputation, just being seen doing some kissey-kissey on a moonlit night. And I guess she felt she had to live up to her name, and the only thing worse than having a bad man, Grace said, is having them all. I glanced about for the handsome Spaniard. Aye, he was there. He caught my eye and winked, and I suddenly knew what Grace spoke of. I blushed down to my toes and walked on. I needed to find Anna and see if she was all right.

“Do you have news for me, Kat?” Grace said to me quietly when I found her with the old women, the “old creatures” she called them, by the table laden with food. They were all sitting in a row, like sharp-eyed ravens, with a wide view of the town green. Anna sat off to the side, quietly eating, her eyes purposely not meeting mine. I wanted to go and talk to her, but I knew Anna well. She’d push me away and everyone would see. There was no sign of Uncle Godfrey. I wondered if he had gone home like Christian.

I suddenly realized how hungry I was. There were dumplings with wild plums called heg-pegs, hot mutton pies, shortcakes, and elderberry pies. Grace glanced toward Jane Alden, the maker of the elderberry pies, before pushing them aside and pulling forward her pear
tartlets. She then handed me a cup of dandelion ale, women’s drink.

I took a small sip. I glanced over at Anna. Behind her on the green was the pack of gangly boys, who were now playing cross and cricket. “Perhaps we should go home,” I said to Grace. Piper walked by, and one of the boys grabbed her arm and whispered something in her ear. It wouldn’t be long before word of the fight reached the row of ravens. And then Grace.

And sure enough, Piper, head held high, walked over to the table and told Alice Ogilvey, who had to wake the crone next to her, Old Hookey (an unfortunate nose, you see; no one remembers her real name, she’s so ancient), and on down the line it went until the last one said straight to Grace, “Your nephew’s been brawlin’ about your lasses.” All eyes were upon us. “Seems Jossey Boots ’as almost lost an eye.”

I looked away. I noticed that someone was passed out on the green, feet splayed and shoeless. Father Bigg. He had the biggest feet in the village and, no doubt, next Sunday he’d be preaching about everyone’s sinful drunkenness and evil-making.

“Why, of course he did. Sensitive boy, he is. Indeed. And a good son. Agnes would be very proud. He was only
defending his intended, my Katherine here.” I gaped at her.

The ravens’ mouths all dropped open as though they were chicklets ready to be fed a hot hearty meal. And Old Hookey even stood up, dropping her tartlet.

My head spun around to Anna to see if she’d read Grace’s lips. Yes. Her face was stricken. And I knew then what my heart had been denying all day. Anna loved Christian.

We walked home in the thickening fog. Grace seemed to be in her own silent world of triumphant dignity. Her face, softly lit by a small candle she held, had the countenance of a corpse who’s died a peaceful death. She didn’t seem to notice the forlorn figure of Anna, who walked along the other side of me and inched closer and closer till our arms brushed together every other step or so, chafing me with tender regret. Finally I hooked my arm in hers, pulling her tightly toward me. I heard a stifled sob escape her.

Grace jested, “I think Kat would swallow you whole like Jonah’s whale if that would make you any closer.”

Then she hooked her arm in mine, and the three of us, linked together like Puckleworth sausages, rounded the last hill toward Blackchurch Cottage.

It was the sound of sparrows, clamoring in the birch trees like the bells of Winchcombe Abbey, that told us something was amiss. We slowed our pace and, as we did so, the birds’ call dissipated as though someone had said, “There now, you’ve done your duty, hush and let them see.”

A faint light emanated in the fog. Fire? I thought to myself, my stomach dropping. Anna’s eyes grew large.

“Pray, God’s death, what is this?” Grace murmured. The three of us began to run, Grace’s candle fluttering out.

When we reached the cottage, to our relief we saw that it was not a fire, but several of our precious candles, flickering low in the windows, melted wax cascading like icicles. Grace never lets us burn our candles down. We live by the hearth fire at night.

As we walked closer, we saw there were hawk moths buzzing at the window, desperate to get in. And our yew cross, the one the monk had placed on our door over a century ago, representing good luck and a long life, had been pulled from its hook. When I tripped over it, Anna crossed herself. But Grace, with the look of a challenged warrior, walked straight in the door.

Our tidy cottage looked like it had been picked up and turned upside down by a giant. Our cooking
utensils were strewn about, our chairs toppled over, yarn untwined and strung across the floor like an enormous colorful spiderweb. And everywhere a thin layer, like fairy dust, of Anna’s transferring powder. And God’s me, a terrible, sickly sweet odor—the odor of death. I held my breath as my eyes continued around the room. Thieves? Cutthroats, perhaps? A few years ago a thief had traveled unseen through several villages in our area on revel night, making off with a bounty of goods, for although the poor are always crying poor, everyone seems to have some bit of coin or jewel hidden.

I immediately thought of running to Nutmeg Farm for Uncle Godfrey and Christian, but Grace stepped forward to the doorway of our sleeping room like a snake who has spotted its prey. I followed. Anna stood stock-still, frozen in the front doorway. I motioned for her to come.

The first thing I noticed, beyond the odor which was even stronger in here, thick as the butcher’s shop on slaughter day (all three of us immediately held our aprons up to our mouths), was that our chest was open and our precious clothes were carefully draped over the sides. It was as though a gentle thief had been sorting through them one by one.

Anna stiffened. She put one hand on my shoulder and pointed to our bed. Someone, or something, was lying in it. And it moaned. Grace walked right over to our bed and pulled the sheets back.

Anna and I stepped forward on our tippy toes, peering the best we could around Grace. Lying in the bed, dressed in a little girl’s gown of gold silk edged in pearled lace, one I had but finished last week, was a child-woman sleeping fitfully.

Grace stared at the creature with a strange melding of half puzzlement and half recognition on her face. “Jane,” she murmured. “Jane the fool.”

And then, almost as if in response, the thing coughed violently, twitching as though invisible hands shook her back and forth. A thin line of vermillion blood ran down her chin and down into the gold of the dress, meandering like the trail of the bloody nose beetle Christian and I used to tease to see it spit its red poison. The creature opened her eyes.

“Why, Grace,” she said in a strangely lilted accent, “are you not glad to see me? You owe me the pendant. We made a bargain, aye, that we did. And I’ve come for it.” Her eyes danced.

“Mad,” Grace said through clenched teeth. “You are
raving sick mad!” Grace turned to me. “Boil some water!”

I stood stock-still, my eyes on the red
S
that continued to snake down my beautiful creation. The gown was fit for a little princess, and we were hoping to fetch enough for it to last through the winter.

“Go, now!” Grace yelled when I didn’t move. “And Anna, you gather the digweed from the weed basket. And linen. We need linen. Leave it all on the threshold. Do not come back in here, the both of you!”

“Shall I go to Nutmeg Farm for Uncle Godfrey?” I asked, still rooted to my spot.

“No, absolutely not.” Grace turned to me, her eyes afire. “She’s got the plague. If they were to get it, they’d not likely be spared a second time. Go, now!” she screamed.

And as I left, I heard the creature say as sure as daylight, “And that be her? The little babe? Perhaps I’ll take her; she’d be worth a queen’s fortune now, wouldn’t she?”

I lingered, my back to them, my ears prickling. I’d waited my whole life for this. Dreamed of it. Aye, I had.

“Go, Kat; she’s senseless. Go. If we are to save her, go, I beg you,” Grace said behind me. I turned just my head to see if Grace would meet my eyes. She would not.

Anna busied herself collecting Grace’s herbs as I
brought a pot of water to the stone hearth. I hooked it on the cooking rod and pushed it over the fire. My hands were shaking.

Anna looked at me with questioning eyes, frantic eyes. “A fairy demon?” she croaked.

I shook my head no. “A dwarf,” I mouthed to her as I hid my hands in my skirt. That’s what the creature in our bed was—a dwarf. One had come through many years back with a group of traveling troubadours—a jolly man with bells on his cap who danced a limber jig for coins. And Frances Pea, so enthralled with the little man and his friends, let them drink for free, since everyone had quickly come to town to get a gander at the little fellow. Grace, curiously, was not so enchanted. When she’d found me in town gawking with everyone else, I’d received a swift swat. “Cunning,” she repeated under her breath as she hurried me home. “Cunning. Cunning. Cunning.” I still don’t know if she was talking of me for giving her the slip, or the little man.

Anna brought the herbs and linen and laid them in the doorway. I pulled the pot holder back and, very gently with the warmers, carried the water to the doorway. But Grace sat on the bed in such a way, like an animal shielding its young, that I could not see beyond her.

She motioned for me to lay the water down where I was without turning her head. I did as directed and then turned to leave.

“I want you and Anna to sleep in the larder tonight. Gather the blankets from the cupboards. You’ll be warm enough,” she murmured.

“But the wolves,” I protested.

“We have more than the wolves to worry about tonight.”

W
hen Anna and I were little girls, Grace would never let us bathe together. I was plopped down in the sow’s trough, scrubbed with rosemary soap, and then my wild hair washed with elderberries. And then Anna had to bathe in my dirty water. One time Aunt Agnes walked in with news that Christian needed a salve for a badger bite. “If you treat her such, how can she ever be one of us?” And from then on Anna went first. But we both knew that nothing had really changed. What would possess a mother to love a daughter who was not her own above the one who was? Yes, she loved Anna. But I was set apart. I received all the slaps, the reproval, the hugs and kisses. And Anna was never touched for good nor bad.

“You’ll never leave me, will you?” Anna asked. We leaned together for comfort, shivering under the blankets in the darkness of the larder. A willow warbler cried out. And then a wolf howled, as if answering its call.

I squeezed Anna’s hand. I knew she would not be able to read my lips in the dark.

“Someone will die tonight, Kat,” she said, her voice suddenly sounding clear, beautiful, haunting. “I hear hymns being sung. Burial hymns.”

I turned to her and shook my head. The fog must have lifted, for the moon shone on us through the cracks, setting Anna’s face aglow like a snow-white fairy princess. “No, no one will die,” I said.

“I will never marry, will I?” she asked. “No one will have me.” I squeezed her hand tighter.

Anna smiled weakly and laid her head down on my shoulder. “I hear them. They’re calling me.”

“Sleep, Wren, sleep.” She was soon asleep. Not long after, I slept too.

I awoke with a start, and it took a moment to realize where I was. Anna had turned away and slept peacefully in the straw, one hand tenderly cupping her ear. I stroked her cheek and then crept away as quietly as I
could and crawled out of the larder. It was the middle of the night, the time when God’s eyes are closed and anything can happen.

I stood up and immediately felt a presence. Something was watching me. I whipped my head around. It was the wolf. He was sitting under our chestnut tree again, calmly staring at me. I reached up and felt my hair, my wolf’s-bait hair, and tried to tuck it into the back of my dress.

He had come for me—I knew it. I closed the larder door and slowly turned to the cottage, looking back several times over my shoulder. He never moved, but his eyes gleamed in the night like dancing stars.

The cottage was completely dark. The candles had been snuffed, except one lone one in the bedroom. I crept to the doorway but stood slightly back in the shadows. Grace sat in a chair by the bed, holding Jane’s hand.

“I looked for you all these years,” I heard Jane murmur. “I never thought you’d come here where it began, like a fox back in its hole.”

“Where else was I to go?” Grace answered as she ran a cloth over Jane’s forehead. “And Agnes?”

“Over in the churchyard,” Grace murmured. “Died a year ago now. The sweating sickness.”

“And you didn’t save her, the sister of your heart?”

“I saved my brother and her son,” Grace answered, throwing her head back defiantly. “Sometimes we can’t ask too much of God.”

Jane laughed. “I think if you could, you would have let that brother of yours die. Just your luck to have it the other way around now, isn’t it?”

“You know nothing,” Grace said.

“I know enough. I saw you two that time. I saw how you looked at him. You hated him.” Jane laughed.

“I have forgiven him,” Grace said as she continued to cool Jane’s forehead. “It was all many years ago.”

“Forgiveness,” Jane said sarcastically. “And have you forgiven
him
, for what he did to you?” Then she coughed fitfully, and a horrible rattle reverberated through the hollows of her chest. The death rattle. Grace had described it to me before. Once it sets in, there is no turning death back. “It was our lady who shouldn’t have died,” Jane continued. “Dirty hands. Dirty hands. Someone should have looked.”

I inched forward and bumped something at my feet. The basket of healing herbs untouched.

“You know I did everything I could for her,” Grace answered. “I had my own cross to bear that night.”

“Aye, you did, didn’t you?” She coughed again, and this time she couldn’t stop. I turned my eyes away as Grace lifted her head.

“Drink,” Grace told her. “It will ease your suffering.”

“Will I die tonight?” Jane asked.

“Yes. I’m sorry. It’s too late for you.”

Jane took a long, languid breath. “What did you give me? I see my mama standing in the doorway.”

I stepped back as quiet as a field mouse.

“It’s to make you sleep,” Grace said to her.

“The girl, she favors her father,” Jane murmured, her eyes closing, fluttering.

“Let’s not speak of him,” Grace said.

“Aye, he was a naughty rogue, wasn’t he?”

“Shush. Shush,” Grace whispered.

“You can’t hide it forever, Grace,” Jane said. “They both have it, don’t they now? I saw with my own eyes. Aye, I did. Others will see it too, and know the truth.”

Grace ignored her. It was silent except for the wheezing of Jane’s chest.

“Where is the pendant, Grace Bab?” Jane murmured. “I was a fool to believe you. Aye, a fool indeed. I was, a queen’s fool. But you were a whore. And I’d rather die a fool than a whore.”

I leaned forward again. Grace calmly stroked Jane’s hand as though she tended a child who’d woken from a nightmare.

“You’ll never get it, Jane. I’m sorry. No one shall. It’s buried forever.”

“My mama’s waiting for me,” Jane murmured. “She’s calling me.”

“It’s time,” Grace said. “Go to her.”

Then it was quiet. I saw Grace shut Jane’s eyes.

I felt as though my heart would beat out of my chest. A full minute went by as I stood there and Grace sat, staring at what I knew not. Then she spoke. “Now you can go to Nutmeg Farm. Just Christian. Only bring him. We must bury her. Uncle Godfrey must not know. He won’t understand.”

Father Bigg used to say that murderers live eternally in agony, for they are the worst sinners of all. But after Emma Townsend’s husband had been killed and left on his doorstep, Father Bigg didn’t say a word about it at church the next Sunday, even though we all knew the murderer sat among us.

I wondered what Father Bigg would say if he’d seen what I’d seen and heard tonight. Is it right to
hasten a death when death is already waiting?

What did you do, Grace? I asked myself as I ran from our cottage. What did you do? Could you have saved her? I stopped when I saw the wolf under the tree. Behind him in the darkness, the landscape seemed to hold its breath. The wolf knew death had come to our cottage that night.

I ran through the dark night toward Christian. Christian. He would help us. I knew he would.

I ran across the downs, hilltops, and lanes till I reached Nutmeg Farm. Several times I looked over my shoulder, expecting to see glowing eyes in the night. But I saw nothing.

Cowslip Cottage was still asleep when I reached Nutmeg Farm, dawn just approaching. It’s said that a centurion dressed in full golden armor still sitting on top of his mount lies beneath Winn Hill. I used to beg Christian when we were children to dig the man up and we’d be able to live richly off our find. But Christian always said no good ever comes of digging up the dead, gold or no.

I found him in the orchard, sitting with his back against one of the pear trees. His lambs grazed nearby. I wasn’t sure if he was awake or not, so I crept up to him.
But his hand shot out and pulled me down.

He smelled of the night—of ale, and wool, and something else—something husky and raw. “Christian?” I started, but he pulled me close before I could say anything, and God’s me, I tell you, I couldn’t stop him. I wanted him to kiss me, even if a dead fool lay in our bed back at Blackchurch Cottage.

I melted into the kiss, reveling in his tender lips, kissing him back. It was Christian who pulled away first. Two of his sheep stood nearby watching, their collar bells gently tinkling, and behind them several of Agnes’s geese squawked. “Is that your answer, Kat?” he asked with a small smile.

“Christian,” I said, standing up and brushing my skirt off, embarrassed. Piper was right. Why, I was no better than Maud Davey, I was. “Something has happened tonight at the cottage. You must come now and bring a shovel.”

“What?” he said, rising. “What has happened?” I watched as he easily picked up one of his sheep as though it were a feather and put it in its enclosure. When had he become so strong?

“We came home from the revel and found a visitor at our cottage. A very sick visitor.” I heard a morning
sparrow chirping of the coming day. “Oh, hurry, Christian, we must return before the sun is up!”

Christian glanced back at his cottage, thinking of his father. “No,” I told him. “Don’t wake him. Grace said just you.”