The Sweetest Spell (17 page)

“Then let’s go,” I said, tossing the poster aside. “Take me to Wander’s tax-collector. I’m ready.”
Just get me off this chain.

“Wander’s tax-collector?” Peddler stopped dancing. “I’m not selling you to him. He was outbid the moment word spread beyond Wander. It’s the Baroness of Salt who wants you.”

“The Baroness of Salt? Who’s that?”

“Nobility.” He picked up the bag and looked down the beach. Lara appeared around the bluff, walking slowly toward us. “Looks like my daughter’s been taking good care of you.”

“Your
daughter
?”

I would never have guessed. He carried the bag down the beach and laid it a few feet away from Lara. He didn’t embrace her, didn’t touch her as they spoke, the gap between them wide enough to fit three men. She kept the scarf over her face. Why would she keep her face hidden from her father? Amid the hatred, a new emotion took hold—pity.

Lara wasn’t helping Peddler for coin. She was being a dutiful daughter.

Their conversation was short. He left the burlap bag with her. “Where are you going?” I demanded as he walked past. “Please,” I begged. “Take me away from this place. Sell me to the Baroness of Salt.”

“If the baroness is offering one thousand coin, then someone will offer two thousand. It’s just a matter of time.”

“But you can’t leave me here!” I cried. The rock still clutched in my hand, I threw it at him. He ducked as it whizzed past his head. “What if someone finds me? Then I’ll be rescued and you’ll never make any coin.”

He straightened and smoothed his green collar. “No one would dare come here,” he said, glancing down the beach. Lara and the bag were gone. “Remember, you must never go near her. And you must
never
touch her.” He started up the trail.

Was he afraid I’d hurt his daughter? “If you leave me I’ll go
near her,” I cried. “I swear I will!” He quickened his pace, my freedom disappearing with each jerky step.

A scream, from the depths of my gut, pierced the air. Not even the hearts of those buried nearby could be unmoved by such a sound. But Peddler didn’t miss a beat of his long-legged strides.

No one had seen her. She’d vanished like a dream.

I sat on a bench outside a butcher’s shop, gnawing on a roasted pheasant leg. The town was called Moonshire, a four-day ride from our dairy. I’d been there twice before. When rotting disease attacked our cows’ hooves, Father and I rode to Moonshire in search of a rumored cure, which we found at the herbalist’s shop. During another visit, we attended a secret meeting of dairymen to discuss the new milk taxes imposed by King Elmer. But this time I was on my own.

Because Peddler had taken Emmeline in the middle of the night, no one in Wander had witnessed his escape. So when I reached the fork in the road, just beyond the town, I had to guess his direction. He’d taken Emmeline for one reason—to sell her. Why else would he steal a girl who can make chocolate? The right fork led toward the coast. There was nothing in that direction but fishing villages. It made better sense that he’d take the left fork
and travel east to Londwin City, the largest and richest city in our kingdom. If only I had the nose of a bloodhound to follow Emmeline’s sweet scent. Or the eyes of a hawk to spot her from the treetops. In the end, I had to rely on instinct. Instinct led me east.

I dug my teeth into the pheasant leg. Fury rushed through me as I remembered how Peddler had dumped Emmeline into the wagon as if she were a piece of cargo. As if she were nothing more than a carcass to be sold at market. That morning at our kitchen table, he’d called dirt-scratchers stupid and filthy. This particular dirt-scratcher, however, could make him rich so he’d be a fool not to treat her right. But if he hurt her, I’d rip through him like a lightning bolt.

The stab wound no longer burned or itched, but it seemed to have a memory of its own, conjuring the sting of the blade over and over. I’d wake at night, sure that the knife was piercing my skin, reaching in the dark to find nothing. The stitches had held tight during the four-day ride. A blessing. Last thing I needed was for my guts to fall out so far from home. I would never forget that Peddler had tried to kill me. I would never forget that he’d spat upon my parents’ trust and hospitality. Revenge would go hand in hand with freeing Emmeline.

But no one in Moonshire had seen the wretch. They knew him, for he often came to sell his trinkets. “It’s been at least two moons since he was last here,” the tavernkeep told me.

“More than two moons,” the cobbler said.

I knew he hadn’t sold her yet because posters still hung everywhere. If the Milkmaid had been found, news would have spread
faster than butter in a hot frying pan. She was all anyone talked about. While some doubted and some believed, most everyone had ideas about how they’d spend the coin.

What I knew was this—Peddler was hiding in the shadows like a rat, drooling, flicking his greedy tail, waiting for the reward to increase.

A
WANTED
poster hung across the road outside the candlemaker’s shop. As I ate, I stared at Emmeline’s sketched face. The drawing was a good likeness but the bonnet hid her wild red hair. And the artist hadn’t captured the sparkle in her eyes. The pheasant suddenly tasted sour. I swallowed, my stomach knotting. She was just a girl. Just a girl who’d never been outside the Flatlands, who had no idea what the world was like. She couldn’t run fast, even if she had the chance to get away. I should have seen Peddler’s knife, should have blocked it with my left arm. I should have saved her.

She was probably scared out of her mind.

Emmeline, where are you
?

What more could I do but travel the roads, asking questions of everyone? Someone had to have seen them. They’d need food and water. Someone had to know something.

“Hey, you there,” a man shouted. I wiped grease from my mouth and looked down the street. The tavernkeep strode toward me, an ale-drenched rag hanging from his belt. “You the boy what was asking questions about Peddler?”

“That’s me,” I said, tossing the bone to a scraggly cat.

The tavernkeep stopped a few paces away. “I just remembered something. He’s got a daughter.”

“Really?” I scrambled to my feet, my heart kicking up its rhythm. Maybe he’d hidden Emmeline at his daughter’s house. If not, there was a good chance the daughter would know Peddler’s whereabouts. “Where does she live?”

The tavernkeep held out his hand, palm up. I fished in my pocket for a half-coin and tossed it. He caught it in midair, then tucked it away. “She used to live in Lime, but she don’t live there no more. Heard tell she got sick so he moved her to the leper colony out on the coast.”

“Leper colony?”

“No use going out there. You can catch leprosy just by looking at a leper.” Then, with a twirl of his rag, he moseyed back to the tavern, his thick thighs scraping together.

I sighed. What a waste of a half-coin. Peddler wouldn’t risk taking Emmeline to a leper colony. So I was back to knowing nothing. I balled up my fists. All I could do was keep looking and keep asking.

Spring was turning toward summer. The days were growing longer, and purple flowers had burst open along the trail. Swallows tended their nests in the cliff’s crevices. Even with the constant breeze from the sea, I could feel change in the air.

Something had changed in Lara, too. As I ate my breakfast of fish and sea-plant salad, she doubled over, a thick, wet cough rattling her lungs.

“You need a surgeon,” I said. She shook her head. The small patch of face that I’d grown used to, her eyes and the top of her cheeks, looked paler than usual. “How long have you been sick?”

“Many years.” Then she asked me a question, something she rarely did. “How long has your foot been curled?”

“I was born like this.”

“It could be worse. At least you have your magic.” She coughed again. I’d told her the truth about my life. “Your magic will give you great power. Usually a woman only has power if she has beauty
or if she has a keen sense of business. Father taught me about business. He trained me in the art of negotiation.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“It’s the art of getting what you want.” She wrapped her scarf tight around her shoulder. “You have something that is very valuable. No one else has what you have. So, if you are wise, you can get whatever you want.”

“I want my freedom.”

“You will get your freedom, one day.”

“I want my father’s freedom and my people’s freedom, too.”

“You can get that.”

“How?” I asked. It was unusual for Lara to speak this much. Would she keep talking?
Please keep talking
.

“There are two things to remember when you are about to negotiate. First, if you want something, you must ask for it. You rarely get what you don’t ask for. Second, you must always include something that you’re willing to give up. That makes the buyer feel like he’s won.”

A sudden gust of wind pushed across the beach. It caught an edge of Lara’s scarf and for a moment, she was revealed. I gasped. Some sort of creature had eaten her face. The tip of her nose was gone, as were chunks of her chin. Her lips were blackened and covered in sores.

Shame widened her eyes and she grabbed the scarf. I remembered the moment when I’d realized Owen had seen my foot. How I couldn’t bear his pity and disgust. But a disfigured face was a far worse plight for a woman than a disfigured foot. This was why she
lived in this lonely place where no one would stare or cry in horror. “Don’t go,” I called as she hurried away. “I don’t care about your face.”

Though she wore no chain around her waist, she was as much a prisoner on this beach as I.

“I’m sorry,” I said when Lara appeared the next day. “I’m sorry I looked at you. I know you didn’t want me to. Please forgive me.” Her walk was slower than normal and she stumbled a few times. The sea plants hadn’t been chopped and there was no fish. But the water jug was full. Leaning on the boulder, she coughed, gasping for breath. “I can help you,” I told her. It wasn’t a lie. “If you’ll unchain me, I’ll hurry to the nearest town and get a surgeon.”

She coughed again. “No surgeon will help a leper.”

Leper? My mind raced to the top of the cliff, to the skull that sat atop the little sign. The word painted on the sign must have been
Leper
.

It was a word that turned even the bravest man into a trembling coward. Lepers who wandered into villages were to be burned. That was the law. I’d never seen one but I’d heard stories.

“But you need medicine.”

“There is no medicine for me.” She stared at the stone graves. Then she stumbled away.

“Lara!”

Just as I feared, no food or water was delivered the next morning. Standing at the base of the cliff, I screamed for help. The sea wind caught my cries like a gull catching fish, carrying them far away. Something had happened to Lara. She was too sick to tend
to me. Or worse, she’d died. Without Lara’s food I’d die too, if Peddler didn’t return. I set clam shells around the hut. If rain came, it would collect in the hollow bowls.

A day passed. No rain fell.

My throat burning with thirst, I stumbled to the salty shallows. While days of hunger were well known in the Flatlands, never were we without water. In the hot summer months when the wells ran dry, we simply drank from the river. I knelt at the sea’s edge, waiting for the next wave to fill my cupped hands. Then I took a gulp.

The salt water raged down my throat like poison. I vomited.

When the sun trickled through the hut the next morning, I rushed outside, hoping to find Lara standing down the beach. Though she was nowhere to be seen, a new basket sat on the log. No food lay inside. But she’d delivered something better.

A key.

My hands trembling, I dropped the key a dozen times before it finally slipped into the lock, releasing its iron grip with a quiet click. The chain immediately loosened and fell to the sand. I felt so light I thought I might float away. I grabbed the padlock and threw it into the ocean.

There was no time to waste. Though freedom had been delivered, Peddler could appear at any moment. I grabbed my cloak and started up the trail. But halfway up, dizziness washed over me. My prison lay below. Escape had been what I most craved, but something tugged at me. There was only one reason why Lara would give me my freedom—only one reason why she’d betray her father.

She knew she was going to die.

The decision didn’t come easily. Freedom tasted sweeter than anything, even chocolate. But I imagined Lara, with no one to hear her last words. I’d feared I would die alone on that beach, and that thought had terrified me.

I’d long wondered where Lara lived. My question was answered as I rounded the bluff where a cave cut into the towering cliff. Lara’s fishing net hung from a tree that jutted from the embankment. Two jugs sat next to a steady trickle of fresh water that snaked down the cliff. I threw myself at the water, filling my cupped hands and drinking until I could drink no more.

“Lara,” I called. No reply came. Slowly, knowing what I’d find but hoping not, I entered the cave. Morning light flooded the interior.

Lara lay crumpled on the cave floor as if she’d been washed ashore. Her scarf lay at her side. Her mangled face was turned up. I knelt beside her. The blueness of her skin told me that she was long gone. Her last act had been to deliver me my freedom.

I wept for my captor. I wept for the woman who’d been ravaged by disease. Who’d died alone in the silence of that place. Who’d served her father as all daughters were taught to do. I think I was weeping for myself, as well. All that I’d lost came rushing back. My parents. My village. My love.

Something glittered in the corner of the cave. The burlap sack Peddler had brought on his last visit lay open. A necklace with bright blue beads peeked out. A white dress, a pair of dainty boots, handkerchiefs, undergarments, and a bonnet lay inside. More gifts lay in the corner of the cave—dresses, combs, ribbons,
hairpins. Beautiful things to help a girl feel beautiful. This is where Peddler had hidden his daughter to keep her safe. Was this why he wanted to be rich? So he could hide her in a better place?