Winterkill (22 page)

I'm in the grove, staring at the trail. My grandma'am's ring is hot now, burning bright on my finger. The sun sinks double-time and the black night rushes in around me. The sound of hoofbeats floods the woods. My eyes can't leave the trail, but I feel the beasts circling near, hoofed feet stamping, dusty fingers reaching for me—

Kane is standing over me, brow creased with worry. He's saying something about the woods, but it's like I'm listening
underwater. Then Kane becomes Tom, who becomes my pa with his hunched, sad shoulders. They shift and change into one another and shift again, looming at me in turn, speaking words I can't figure. And then they're gone and Brother Stockham stares down. He doesn't speak, just watches me with his gray hawk eyes. I can't feel the ring on my finger—did he take it from me?

I move to feel for it, to search my hand with my other, but I can't move. I'm pinned, my arms at my sides.

My eyes fly open.

I'm staring at a smoke-stained ceiling. A grass mattress is against my back, heavy blankets on top of me. The smell is familiar, strong and earthy. Sage smoke. I take a breath and cough.

Soeur Manon appears above me. She puts a thin hand to my forehead and looks close at my face. I cough again. She grunts and then straightens. “You eat.” She moves away to a pot over the hearth.

I push the blankets back and struggle up on the bed. The scratchy nightshirt I'm wearing isn't mine. I glance about her dingy one-room cottage and find my moccasins under a chair nearby. My stomach is more empty than it's felt in a long while.

“What—why . . .” My voice is a croak.

“Ce garçon—du sud,”
Soeur Manon says over her shoulder as she ladles something from the pot. “He find you by the river and bring you here.” She approaches with a small bowl and spoon. “
Tu etais trés malade,
Emmeline. God's will you are alive.”

My head feels wooly. “Sick with what?”

She forces the bowl into one of my hands, the spoon into the other.
“Le fievre.”
She steps back, her arms folded, and waits for me to start eating.

I take a mouthful of broth and think on her words. I had the fever. Kane brought me here. From the river? No, from the woods. From the—

Cabin.

Broth catches in my throat and sets me to coughing until tears spring to my eyes. I take a deep breath and wipe at them with the sleeve of the nightdress. Force myself to look at Soeur Manon.

“How many nights ago?”

Her eyes are grave.
“Deux.”

I've been here two days. My dreams—Brother Stockham, the grove, the faces staring down . . .

“Did—did anyone visit?”

She clucks her tongue. “Too many men here.”

“My pa?”

“Oui. Ton pere, Frère Stockham, Tom . . . mais”
—she raises an eyebrow—“you ask only for that one.”

“Which one?”

“The boy that bring you here.”

Oh, for the grace! “When? Was anyone else nearby when I was asking . . .” I can't finish.

Soeur Manon raises her eyebrows.
“Non.”

What else did I say in my fevered state? I switch to French, hoping Soeur Manon thinks my struggle to find words is because of the language.
“Et quand . . . quand je dormais, est que . . . j'ai parlé des . . . des autres choses?”

“Je pense que tu as rêvé de les fantomes.”

I was dreaming on ghosts? A prickle dances up my neck and into my hair. That cellar, those bones . . . “Why do you say that?”

“Because in your sleep you speak of”—she pauses—
“les personnes qui sont parties longtemps.”

I frown, trying to unravel her words. I was speaking on the people who left long ago. People she thinks are ghosts . . . the people who were taken by the
malmaci?

I was dreaming on the
malmaci,
that's certain, but I feel like something happened at the cabin that was important. Something I'm forgetting . . .

The book. I dropped it in the cellar. My heart sinks. I'll have to go back to get it, back to that pit of death. Who were those people that died there? Are they what my grandma'am found?

Joy sparks through my fear. My grandma'am wasn't Wayward—not like everyone thinks. And if I can get that book, I'll know why she was put to death and why it was a betrayal. I can wash my Stain clean
without
binding to—

My thoughts stop there. Brother Stockham's been in that cabin. Surely he's seen the journal, and surely he knows I'm not truly Stained.

He wants me for a life mate when Council disapproves. So why hide that? First he lies about being in the woods, now he hides this. An ice-cold feeling grabs hold of me.

Soeur Manon takes the bowl from me. “You must clean up. Go home.”

My blackened foot hurts something fierce. I can't help but limp as I walk to the washbowl near the hearth. I risk a glance at Soeur Manon, who shakes her head, looking grim.

“Le fievre n'etait pas bon pour ton pied.”

“Can't figure how I got sick,” I mutter.

“Work too hard,” Soeur Manon states.

I raise my eyebrows. Don't think anyone could accuse me of that.

“Think too hard,” she amends.

That might be closer to the truth.

“I think what trouble you here”—she touches her brow—“burn under your skin.” Her hand makes a tinkling motion over her arm.

I turn and wash quick near the fire, pulling on some clothes my pa brought over. I'm tying my
ceinture fléchée
when she puts a hand on my shoulder.

“Ta robe.”
She holds up my ma's dress. She mended it—you can't notice the tear unless you're looking hard for it. But . . . Kane brought me here from the riverbank, with my dress torn—what must she think we were doing out there?

I fight a blush and meet her eyes. If she thinks we were up to something Wayward, her face doesn't say it. I take the dress from her.
“Merci, Soeur Manon.”

She nods her snowy head and turns back to the hearth. Usual. Never says much. But as I watch her hobble away, it occurs to me she's also never asked accusing questions, never fussed when my gatherings were meager. She's never glanced at me wrong, even knowing what I do to myself on purpose, even knowing I'm Stained. She's only ever taken care of me. A small part of my secret heart swells, watching her small frame bend to gather something from the table.

I want to thank her somehow. Want to tell her I feel safe
in the Healing House. But she turns around and speaks again. “Also, I find this.”

I look at her outstretched hand. My grandma'am's ring is a bright circle on her creased palm.

My breath stops.

“I think the ghosts give you a gift.”

My pa's so relieved to see me well, he doesn't even ask what I was doing by the riverbank, where Kane supposedly found me.

“My girl,” he says. He looks older somehow—his brow more lined, his beard more gray. He clasps me in his thin arms. Hugging his frail chest, I feel a pang of remorse.

“You stay inside today. Soeur Manon said to rest another day.” He draws back, holding my arms in his bony hands. “I'll make tea before I go.”

All the secrets I'm keeping from him are suddenly heavy on my chest. I watch him bend to the stove to stoke it, get the water on. He nods at a chair and I sit, grateful.

I watch him fumble with the tea pouch, my thoughts chasing one another around. I know he wants a better life for me. Would he ever see that I'm after that too? If I tell him about what I've found now, without the book to prove it, will he believe me? Or would he forbid me to go back to that cabin? Would he tell Brother Stockham?

He sets a cup of hot bergamot tea before me, his hands trembling as always.

“You just rest up.”

I nod, bringing the cup to my lips.

“Affirmation's in three days,” he adds.

I stiffen, the bergamot smell filling my nostrils. I know why he's so concerned with me resting. He's worried about me being presentable when I accept Brother Stockham.

He'll never understand about me needing to get that journal. Won't believe there must be a reason Brother Stockham didn't tell me about his grandfather's confession. I push the thought of confiding in him into a tiny corner of my secret heart.

When he's gone, I stay in our quarters, mending winter wear and cleaning, my thoughts chasing one another around and around until I'm half addled. The cabin, the book, the trapdoor, the bones . . .
I must disclose the matter of Clara Smithson.

I pull the ring from my
ceinture
and study it in the firelight. Soeur Manon thinks it's an unearthly gift, and I'm not about to set her straight. But her words have skittered me. Nobody gave me this ring; I took it. Then I got the fever and dreamt of “the people who left long ago.” That rush of breath we heard outside the shack fills my ears.

I took my grandma'am's ring.

Mayhap she's coming to get it back.

THE NEXT DAY PA TELLS ME SOEUR MANON
doesn't need me. I go to Sister Ann for chores instead. Her face is pinched and thin.

“Stay close today, Emmeline,” she says, packing candles into a crate.

“Course, Sister Ann.”

“I mean it truly.” She frowns. “No one is permitted outside the fortification unless it's on Brother Stockham's say-so.”

My heart sinks. “Why?”

When she looks up, her eyes are scared. “There was a Taking last night.”

The words send a cold shock through me. I've never lived through a Taking. The last one happened before I was born.

The sounds from the cabin fill my ears. Enormous rush of poison breath. Soft creaking on the floor. “Who?”
Not Kane. Not Kane.
I send a silent prayer to the Almighty.

“One of the Watchers.”

“Frère Andre?” Did he go after his Elephant Man again?
Should I have told someone? I thought it better not to, thought it was safer for him.

“No. Pellier. I think his first name was Bertrand.” She shakes her head like we shouldn't speak on it further. “Just stay close. Tom's wintering up the wastewater ditch. The beams around the trench are rotted; help him replace the wood before securing the gate for
La Prise
. Tomorrow you'll need to help with preparations for Affirmation. Come to the hall when you're done at Soeur Manon's.”

I dress warm and head out, a sickness in my stomach. As I'm crossing the courtyard I see a group of five Councilmen, their cloaks sweeping the stairs of the Council building. And then my heart leaps: he's on the outskirts of the group, but his bare head gives him away.

I misstep—turn the ankle on my bad foot—and feel a burst of pain as I stumble. My eyes water, and I right myself, blinking back tears. The group's still there, but now Kane is gone.

They turn to watch me as I head for the south wall.

That's when I notice that they're everywhere: the other seven Councilmen are on the tops of the walls. And though it's day, the Watchers are out. All at once I feel a dozen pairs of eyes on me, sizing me up, watching as I take a deep breath. I limp for the south side of the courtyard as fast as I'm able.

“Emmeline!” Tom calls to me from the wastewater ditch. He's dressed in a winter cloak, holding a shovel.

I make my way to his side, foot aching.

“Foot bothering you?” He holds out a hand and helps me step across the trench.

“Just tired of pretending.” I don't tell him I couldn't push through the pain if I tried. Not anymore.

We look at one another, quiet.

“I'm so glad you're all right,” he says.

“Me too.”

“We visited—me and my ma—but you were asleep the whole time.”

“Soeur Manon told me. Appreciate that.”

He smiles. In this moment he's my Tom: easygoing, easyspeaking.

I jerk my head toward the expanse of the fortification behind us. “Everyone's skittered on account of the Taking.”

His face shifts to a worried frown. “I know.”

“You hear anything about it?” I ask.

“No. I'm just real grateful you weren't on Watch when it happened.”

There's a question in his eyes. He wants to know what I was doing when the fever struck me. I could tell him now. I want to tell him . . . but all I say is “Me too.”

He's trying not to look hurt, but I know him too well; he knows I'm keeping something from him. He clears his throat and gestures at the gate. The ditch is half a stride wide and passes under the fortification wall. The gate, held in place by the posts we're meant to replace, slides down into the trench, closing off a sodden space just big enough to crawl through on your belly. There's a hole dug for a new gatepost on the near side of the ditch. “Best to get on with it.”

He digs a second hole on the opposite side and I wait to help him hoist the new post in. We use his
ceinture
to haul the beam into place and pull it upright. The silence stretches
between us until it hangs in the air. I want him to say something easy-like. I want him to say something. Anything.