Winterkill (30 page)

“What are you speaking on?”

“Her Discovery, Emmeline. Her curiosity was her undoing.”

“My grandma'am was sent to death by your grandpa's hand.”

He nods. “Your grandmother chose the unknown over my grandfather. He chose his position as leader over her. But
we
will do things differently. When I wandered those woods and found his confession, I realized you and I are two halves of a whole; two people carrying the burdens of our ancestors.”

I try to take a breath in the icy wind, but I'm breathing so shallow it's like I'm gulping down water. I'm missing something; some piece of this puzzle.

Clara found something in these woods I had not the Honesty or Bravery to reconcile . . .

“I want no more secrets between us,” he says again.

I think again of the cabin, the candles.

“Do you control the
malmaci?
” I ask.

For a moment I think he's going to laugh, but then his eyes turn serious.

“I live with a family burden, like you.”

“You keep saying that. But I'm the only one here who's Stained.”

He sighs and gestures at the boulder gate. “The Cleansing Waters are for more than just disposing of our natural dead.”

Our natural dead.
I frown.

He watches the river careful. “My father started the Takings.”

The wind screams through the trees, clear through my head.

He continues, “I've often wondered if he believed in the
malmaci
at all. He never said. I know my grandfather didn't, he wrote as much in his journal. He guarded the borders against ordinary dangers: large predators, unwanted visitors. But the lore of the evil that was here when we arrived was strong in people's minds. For some, it has just grown stronger over the years.”

The wind blows fierce inside me, jumbling my thoughts. “You don't believe in the
malmaci?
”

“I know that I have never seen it.” He turns and looks at me keen. “Have you?”

I shake my head, mute.

“I cannot answer with certainty whether or not the
malmaci
exists. What is more important here, Emmeline, is that fearful people are easily led.”

My thoughts are all muddy. It can't be true. But the look on his face is so honest, so open . . .

“My father understood that well, and he found a way to keep the fear fresh.” Brother Stockham looks again at the water rushing through the boulder gate.

My heart is beating out of my chest. “He—he killed his own people?”

A flash of pain crosses Brother Stockham's face. He nods, his jaw tight.

“Why?”

“To lead.”

I stare at his tortured face.

“He was . . . an ambitious man. He believed the people needed a leader who wasn't afraid to sacrifice the occasional lamb for the good of the flock.”

“The good?”

“Order, Emmeline—something the people are desperate for. We need only look at Council to understand this community's willingness to be led. Our Councilmen don't even need weapons to enforce their control.”

The wind gusts around us. I think of the crowd watching Jacob struggle as Council strangled him. Some of them lauded it. Said it was the Almighty's will.

“My father brought the threat of the
malmaci
close to dissuade risk takers, people who would rather chance the unknown, the terror of the great beyond, than contribute to the settlement.” He looks at me, admiration replacing the pain in his eyes. “But not you.”

“But—but the Takings have been happening for years; ever since our people arrived.”

“Perhaps,” he says. “Or perhaps those Takings were simply accidents. People who wandered too far and were set upon by wild animals, people who froze on the prairies or fell to their deaths in the ravines. Regardless, people will believe what they will. And fear is powerful.”

Could it be true? Who would remember those Takings long ago? There are just a handful of people who lived through his father's rule. Soeur Manon and Frère Andre are two such. I think about Soeur Manon telling me to
ask the woods,
and Frère Andre forming a kinship with me over our wanderings. Was it because there was some truth they'd stored away in their hearts and forgotten?

Like they believed, somewhere deep down, the
malmaci
might not exist?

I breathe deep, trying to slow my racing heart. “The first settlers were near destroyed by the
malmaci,
years ago.”

“Certainly they were set upon by something. But was it a monster, or has that history taken on a life of its own in the people's imaginations?”

The river roars.

How did you survive out here?
I asked Matisa. Her frown, like she couldn't figure what I was thinking on, swims before my eyes.

A chunk of ice smashes on the boulder gate. I picture someone being thrown into that water, their body splintering into shards on the rock . . .

“That Pellier man . . . ” I say. He's my proof Brother Stockham is mistaken. But as I say his name, I realize it's no proof at all—and I don't want him to answer.

“I want no more secrets between us.” There's a right skittering sheen to his eyes.

I can't think what to do. I nod.

“My father insisted that love—that desire—was the path to ruin.”

My father taught me many lessons.

I think on those scars under his cloak, under his shirt. Sharp crystals of snow sting my bare cheeks.

“But everything has happened as it should to prove him wrong. We have replayed a history that was bound to recur.” He looks like he's weighing a thought. He scrubs a hand over his face. “Brother Bertrand was an unfortunate sacrifice. I needed to distract Council from watching you too close, needed to reignite their fear. They were starting to become suspicious of that Cariou boy's reliability.”

He notices my bewilderment and smiles. “An ordinary man would be quite jealous. The way he looks at you—like you're the summer rains after a drought. But his love for you is nothing compared to what you and I are fated for. When he went after you that night of Harvest, I knew I'd found an ally, whether he knew what he was doing or not.”

I take a painful breath. Kane
did
come after me during the attack. His scared eyes at the hall flash through my mind.
Meet me at my quarters.
He knew what Council had planned for me; he was trying to warn me.

“I know you have been out in the woods because I too have been out there. I have been reading, praying, trying to determine my path. It has been unbearable at times.” He touches the scar on his neck. “Pain can help remind us what is important. But I think you understand. I know how you punish yourself too when you are uncertain.” He looks to my foot.

His back. The crisscrossed flesh, branded by lashings. “But I thought your pa . . .”

“My father would've thrown me to the Cleansing Waters, if necessary. I never gave him reason.”

“But . . .”

But I should've known that. His welts were angry, red—like Tom's hands. Not scars that were old cuts, long healed. Blood rushes through my head. I thought our worries about our fathers somehow marked us the same—I thought that, though I knew my pa would never do what I thought his pa had done. Knowing what truly marks us the same . . .

I wipe clammy hands on my cloak and my grandma'am's ring catches the sun coming over the cliffs.

His eyes snap to it. “I understand your curiosity, your determination to prove yourself. I've been watching you to see if you could pursue the Discovery that lives in my heart.” His words aren't making any kind of sense. I focus on what I know to be true.

“You turned me over to Council,” I say. “
You
told them about my wanderings, pretended Kane reported me to you.” Relief sparks through my confusion and fear.

“I was playing the role they expected. Do you think my position is so secure? If I were to defy Jameson outright today, I would be hanging tomorrow. Jameson is a zealot and they are sheep. They are comfortable in their stunted idea of Discovery. As my father was.”

He's saying it like it's obvious, and I realize one thing is true: Fear can account for all kinds of horrors. All kinds of betrayals.

He steps close again, parts my cloak and takes both of my shoulders in his hands, pressing hard. “But our love will help me forge a new path.”

My throat's closing off.
Our love.

“Tell me our path,” he says.

You will know who to trust.

I don't want to guess wrong again.

Think.
He's waiting.

Our salvation lies in Discovery . . .

“We need to”—I fumble for the words—“prove Discovery. A new way.”

He closes his eyes a moment. Then drops my arms and steps back. When he looks at me again, he is relieved. “You're certain?”

“I've dreamt it.”

He tilts his head, tracing a thumb over his cheek to his chin. “I think you've
seen
it.”

A flush races up my chest and into my cheeks. He sees the truth on my face. I nod, my throat tight.

“Tell me,” he says.

I hesitate.

“Emmeline, this is important. I need to know what you've seen out there.”

“The Lost People. They're—they're here.”

AS SOON AS THE WORDS ARE OUT, I FEEL SICK.

But he smiles. “He said they ‘appeared like ghosts from the woods, strange tongue, stranger effects.' He said, ‘If they return, Clara's kind will find them.'”

Appeared like ghosts . . . If they return . . .
My grandma'am found people like Matisa?

“It's all in my grandfather's journal. The one you took from the cabin.”

“I—”

“I know you can't read.”

Her curiosity was her undoing.

Dread seeps into my chest. Was Tom right? Is Matisa here to harm us? No. It can't be true.

His eyes pierce mine. “Where are they now?”

“The cabin.” Brother Stockham looks off into the woods, to the west. “They're too scared to come to the settlement,” I add quick.

“They were seeking you.”

“Yes.”

My heart is thrumming something fierce, my stomach is knotted.

“You are so like your grandmother, Emmeline. It's why this has happened exactly as it did before.” He stares at the woods. “We have come full circle.”

Full circle.
The journal. My grandma'am.

Her death was a sin against the Almighty. The worst betrayal.

My voice is a whisper. “What happened back then?”

He turns to me. And now,
now
it's like he can see how confused and scared I am. His eyes soften. “All I truly know is what my grandfather confessed. I've spent many hours trying to imagine it: his conflict, his confusion.” He frowns. “He was afraid. The people your grandmother found were mysterious. Were they benevolent, or had he been wrong all along in his unwillingness to believe in the
malmaci?
Were they its agents? Or something equally dangerous? Your grandmother believed they were here to help them; she wanted him to tell the community about her Discovery.

“He asked for time to decide, but your grandmother's curiosity was too great, her desire to share her Discovery too strong. Desperate, he found a way to keep her quiet without dirtying his hands with her blood.”

And the picture comes clear. “He put lies in Council's ear, rumors about her adultery, her Waywardness,” I think aloud. “She was already feared and disliked for her forest wandering, her daydreamings.” I know this. I know it because I've lived it.

“Propositioning a married man—the leader, no less—was all Council needed to send her to the Crossroads.”

“But why didn't she speak?” I ask, my heart heavy. “Tell them what she'd found?”

He raises his eyebrows. “Perhaps for the same reason you didn't tell Council what you found? She was waiting for my grandfather to speak the truth, to choose her over his position.”

He thinks I
wanted
him to save me. I push the thought aside as something worse starts to sprout in my mind. “What happened to the people?”

“He acted impulsively; on the pretense of sharing food, he drugged them with bittersweet and imprisoned them. He was afraid to release them, and afraid to reveal their prison: how to explain the cabin? How to explain Clara? They died in their shackles.”

The sick feeling in my gut deepens.

Our scouts didn't return
.

The bones in the cellar of that cabin are the lost scouts. Brother Stockham knew it, and he waited for me to follow in my grandma'am's footsteps.

We have come full circle.

But why does that matter? A spike of fear pierces me.