Bell Weather (44 page)

Her toes were already aching through her stockings and her shoes. She had considered taking Bess’s boots—they had similar feet, similar everything, had worn each other’s clothes all summer long—but while the mare’s disappearance wouldn’t be marked until the morning, missing boots might be noticed when her friend went to bed. As it was, she had to hope that when her absence was discovered, Bess would simply assume she had gone to sleep with Tom.

She reached the forest’s mouth, where the road led to Grayport, a full day’s journey in the unforgiving cold. The mare was hesitant and stiff, possibly remembering the horrors she had seen. Molly trotted between a pair of close, brambly thickets with a feeling that the woods would interweave behind her. She took a final look back and glimpsed the windows of the Orange. Then the trees blocked the view, Root disappeared, and the fireside aroma of the town thinned away.

Nothing moved: not a leaf, not a creature, not a breeze. She had heard about hoarfur and hated its appearance, how it gathered on her cloak like a pale, killing mold. She felt that any moment an impediment would stop her—broken branches on the road, a rider at her back—but the way remained clear, she hadn’t been pursued, and the mare took heart and carried on with growing verve. She quickened to a canter and the cold became excruciating, rushing at her face like a nonstop slap. She was terribly awake, as if she’d slept for half a year. All ahead of her was dark, all behind her too distinct. She didn’t dare imagine what would become of her in Grayport, only what would certainly become of her in Root.

The writing had not been Abigail’s. She’d known the hand at once and she had lied, and wounded Bess, to face the shock of it alone. She had memorized it quickly:

Dear Molly,

Come to Liberty and meet me at the Black Fish Inn. Tell no one you are leaving. Ride without delay. Do not return to Grayport.

I never wished to hurt you.

With love,

N

She could still feel the jolt from the pistol she had fired. She could smell it; she could see his shirt billow from the impact. Any explanation strained believability. Nevertheless, she sensed her brother’s presence in the words, same as in the letter he had forged from John Summer. It was Nicholas. He’d found her and she had to get away.

The mare tried to slow but Molly rode faster, hard against the cold until the animal’s breath labored, mile after mile in the petrified woods. The trees’ barren sameness and the looping of her thoughts made her progress virtually impossible to gauge. She remembered Tom’s warmth when she had hugged him that morning, and the smoakwood fire, and the apple in her hand. She didn’t dwell upon them, or upon the growing threat of frostbite—her skin felt brittle, like a fine white shell—nor especially on the hollow in the middle of her body, one that she had struggled all summer to replenish.

She had lived without Frances, and her father, and her brother. She had lived without Cora. She would live without the rest. Tears dribbled from her eyes and streamed along her temples, summoned by the wind and freezing in her hair. Every limb and blur Molly passed was a danger. Every shadow was her brother.

Then she saw something real.

Molly stopped the horse but her heart leaped forward. It was a winterbear, straight ahead and massive in the road, familiar from a picture she had studied as a child. Terrible and strange—how the drawing used to thrill her! She remembered telling Frances that she wouldn’t be afraid.

Dark gray fur grew thickly on its shoulder hump. The rest of its coat was shaggy, like a mass of frayed rope, the color of snow and ash and dangling off its back. The bear was bulky and contracted down on all fours. It would tower if it stood. Molly hoped it wouldn’t. There was no discernible tail but the ears were tall and sharp, and the long, lupine muzzle tapered to a point. A wolf-bear, a creature both gargantuan and lean. Its hind legs were lanky but its paws were big as rakes, and the broad-splayed daggers of its claws scraped the ground.

The mare flicked her ears, raised her head, and quaked. The winterbear sniffed and cocked its head but didn’t charge. She thought it might be groggy after sleeping all summer. It would certainly be hungry. There was no way around it. She considered leaving the road, but the trees were tightly packed, a maze on either side, impossible to navigate. They stood a while, studying each other in the dark. The only sounds were Molly’s breath and the creaking of the saddle till the winterbear woofed, growled low, and stepped toward her.

When it pivoted, the roadway opened to the right. The space was slender but they might slip through if they were lucky—if the winterbear was sluggish and the mare didn’t falter. She would feint left and buy herself one or two seconds. She had ridden all her life and knew that she could do it, but the mare sensed her nervousness and started backing up. The bear stepped again, widening the gap.

Turn around,
Molly thought.
Gallop back to Root. Throw yourself on Abigail’s mercy. Go to Pitt.

Cross the river, ride to Nicholas in Liberty.

Submit.

Molly tugged the reins and made a motion to the left. The bear moved to meet her, rippling with a snarl. Molly turned right and spurred the mare forward. They were tight against the trees, racing hard toward the gap, when the winterbear straightened with a roar and swung its paw.

The mare reared in terror and the claws caught her neck, partly severing the horse’s head and knocking Molly off the saddle.

She landed on her side near the bear’s hind legs. Blood splashed hot, covering her cloak and slickening the leaves when the horse toppled over. Molly slipped and just avoided being crushed underneath. The horse’s eyes were open—how they glared at her and rolled! The winterbear fell upon the carcass with a grunt. It forgot that Molly was there, or simply didn’t care, and slashed the mare’s stomach so its entrails spilled.

Molly crawled, trying desperately to stand and get away, and then she stumbled into a run and didn’t stop, didn’t turn. She sprinted up the road until the bear, the horse, and any chance of fleeing home to Root were far behind her, out of sight, and even then she hurried on. Her lungs were so inflamed from gasping in the cold, she opened her cloak to see if she’d been clawed without feeling it. The mare’s heavy blood weighed her down. She could smell it. Soon the blood froze solid in the wrinkles of her gown. The odor sickened her, the sound of the intestines wouldn’t leave her, and she staggered on for miles, jogging when she could, haunted less by the bear than by the horse’s glaring eyes.

At great bitter length, with her joints beyond stiffness and her muscles turned to wood knots, she finally saw a window light glowing through the trees. The sight warmed her spirit as a fire would have thawed her, but the promise of relief exhausted her completely.

She came to the house and read the weathered sign above the door:

SHEPHERD’S INN

Travlers Welcom

The inn was two stories high but smaller than the Orange, standing in a half-acre clearing by a creek. Its walls were so dark and packed with ancient moss, it appeared to have grown with its own set of roots, like a house-shaped tree from a strange, magic fable. A barn stood behind it, and a miniature garden, and a sty packed with pigs that appeared to have horns. The lighted window she had seen was one of the upper rooms, and though the downstairs windows had been shuttered for the night, the house felt awake.

It was one or two o’clock. In a few more hours, Root would notice she was gone. She had to get away—there was no time to lose—but she couldn’t press on in such cold without a horse. She was just about to knock, wondering if anyone would answer so late, when the bolts unlocked and the door opened wide.

Heat rushed out, heavenly and soft. She was greeted by a musket leveled at her chest, wielded by a man who looked astonished to behold her. He was sixty and decrepit with a piebald beard and a long, blue nightcap trailed behind his back.

He gaped at her and said, “World’s evil, what has happened?”

Molly’s jaw was so tight, she almost couldn’t speak. “I need to warm myself.”

“Of course, of course. Come in!” he said and pulled her by the arm, checking the road a final time before he closed up behind them, dropped a crossbar, and guided her into a parlor.

Molly went to the hearth, disregarding her surroundings. She was much too cold to stand directly at the fire, which was painful to her cheeks from several steps away.

“You’re hurt,” he said.

“My horse was killed. A winterbear—”

“A winterbear! You’re lucky to have lived. Have you walked very far?”

“Miles,” Molly said.

He took her cloak off and hung it up to dry beside the fire.

“But you must have a drink. Forgive me, aye a drink. My name is William Shepherd,” he said, pouring her a cider in a tall pewter tankard. He mulled it at the hearth and placed it in her hands.

The first warm sip was medicine and magic, midsummer sweet and flowing softly to her stomach. Her toes didn’t thaw but her fingers started prickling, and she finally felt relaxed enough to look around the room. It was dank, as if the inn had not been aired in many weeks. The floor was swept but grimy and the walls were drably papered. There were chairs around a table, several of them crooked, and the touches of d
é
cor—minor antlers, wilted herbs—were so devoid of charm they left no impression.

“Come from Root?” Shepherd asked.

“Yes,” she said, regretting it at once. “I live in Grayport. My name is Mary Wright.”

“Wright, you say?” He looked at her with doubt, leaning forward at her side and craning his neck to see her, like a footman well trained to stay in place behind his master. “Mary. I had thought … But what am I saying? Never you mind. Here you are, safe and sound. Don’t you worry any longer.”

“Have you a horse that I can buy? I have money.”

“Not tonight! Such a ride and you alone. Mary, did you say? But you must stay the night. I cannot let you go, not in proper conscience. I will send you off warm and well fed, aye and horsed, but you must stay the night.”

He took her by the arm and Molly shook him off.

He cowered as if she’d hit him. She hadn’t meant to frighten him but liked that he was scared. She’d had enough of curiosity, enough of conversation. Still and all, he was right—she had to wait for morning. It was difficult to keep herself from crumpling to the floor.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “You’re only being kind. I’ll stay and buy a horse and leave at first light. May I please see the room?”

He nodded and led the way, still cringing in submissiveness. She wondered how the poor man survived here, defenseless, with the Maimers and the bears and the countless traveling strangers.

“Have you ever been robbed?” she asked him in the awkward, rickety staircase.

“What? Count my stars, never once,” Shepherd said. “I offer bed and board and folks appreciate that. I have little worth stealing.” This was proven when he took her through an upstairs door. “Here is my very best room. You may have it free of charge.”

The room contained a stool, a bed, and a tiny iron stove that was close enough to set the mattress on fire. A four-pane window overlooked the road. Molly almost had to duck so as not to bump the rafters.

“Is anyone else staying here tonight?” she asked.

“Not a soul,” Shepherd said, setting a candle on the stool. “Travel slows with deadfall.”

“Why is the stove lit?”

“The stove,” he said, pondering its flame, as if the thing had a tendency to light itself in secret. “My rooms are always warm and welcome when they’re needed.”

Any other night, she’d have questioned such an answer, but she didn’t have the will and felt grateful for the warmth. “Thank you,” she said.

“Would you like a bite to eat? Another drink to help you sleep?”

“No.”

Shepherd sighed, disappointed or relieved. His nightcap had slipped down sideways on his head and the candlelight shifting on his face made him older. Sad, Molly thought, with his poor scraggly beard. Lonely in the wilderness. A man without a family. Molly clasped his hand and felt him shiver at the touch. He patted her knuckles with his palm and then he left and closed her in.

She sat on the lumpy mattress, cozy with the stove, and fell asleep before she could fret, or cry, or wonder what would happen when she rode away tomorrow.

She woke before light. The room was still warm. She hadn’t slept deeply and her mind felt clear, but the angle of her shadow on the wall looked wrong, as if the candle had been lowered and was glowing from the floor. Her limbs lay heavy and her tear ducts leaked, but she felt the need to turn without knowing why.

She gasped and tried to stand, tipping sideways and reaching out to counteract the fall. Her palm touched the stove. She was almost too alarmed to recognize the burn, and made a fist and raised it up to hit the figure on the stool.

“Stop,” Nicholas said, “for the sake of Tom Orange.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Molly sat on the bed. The sinking mattress made her tilt and when she righted herself to face him, they were touching at the knees. His clothes were plain as ever—black coat and breeches, white shirt and stockings—and the lack of ornamentation made him fashionably grave. He was much as she remembered, though he did look older. Several years might have passed, to judge by the finely wrought lines around his eyes and the new kind of weight—a density or depth—that gave his wiry frame both elegance and strength. He was smoak instead of ordinary wood. He had hardened.

Molly leapt and hit him, covering his face and ears with hot, furious slaps. She kicked the candle out. He ducked but didn’t attempt to catch her hands; she pounded with her fists on his shoulders and his crown. His hair was smacked askew. She was hurting him, she knew it, and she would have kept going, maybe till he tumbled off the stool and she could kick him, but a quick sharp pain above her knee backed her up.

He had cut her with a knife. She landed on the bed again, huffing through the hair that had fallen around her mouth. She hiked her skirt, bared her knee, and touched the wound through her stocking. It was short and horizontal, just deep enough to bleed.