Four
When I’d been fed and washed clean of blood, I donned my red cloak while Gran packed a venison roast into my basket, next to the remains of my broken lantern. “Stay on the path,” she warned. “Go straight home.”
I had no plans to stray from either the path or her instructions, but . . . “I can see in the dark wood now. I can see the monsters. Right?”
“Yes. But the monsters can see you too, Adele. And one kill to your credit does not make you a threat to most of the things that go bump in the dark. You have a lot to learn before you’re ready to veer from the path on your own. Swear to me you will go straight home.”
“I swear,” I said as she slid the handle of my basket over my left arm.
“And that you will not listen to anything you hear from the forest on your way to the village.”
“I know about the mimics, Gran.” There were creatures out there that could sound like other things. That could pull voices from one’s memory and call out in the guise of a trusted loved one. “I often hear Papa’s voice.” But like all children of the village, I knew not to trust the voices.
She gave me a grim nod. “But I’m not just talking about mimics. The dark wood has been waiting for you, Adele. It has sensed your ascension coming, and it knows you cannot be snared as easily as other prey, so it will try harder with you. It will speak to you directly, in a voice of its own. You cannot believe what you see or hear when you’re alone in the dark wood. Promise me.”
“I promise.”
“I have one more thing for you, before you go. Do not let Sofia play with this. It is not a toy.” Gran turned from the trunk against one wall, and I saw that she was holding a leather belt similar to her own. Hanging from a loop on the right side was a hatchet with a polished wooden handle, wrapped with a leather grip.
She held my cloak up while I buckled the belt. The new weight felt odd, but it also felt right. Comforting.
“Keep it covered,” she reminded me as she pulled my cloak closed over my dress, fastening a button-and-loop I hadn’t noticed before. “There’s no reason for a girl your age to be carrying a hatchet. And—”
“And stay on the path. I know.”
“Come back next week, when you can, and I’ll take you farther into the wood. It is time to familiarize yourself with the things that live in the dark.”
I nodded solemnly, dread and excitement warring within me.
“Before you go . . .” Gran gave me an almost mischievous smile I recognized instantly. “Is there any news from the village?”
And by news, she meant gossip, the only thing she truly seemed to miss about communal living.
“Oh! Yes, I almost forgot. Elena Rousseau got betrothed today. To Simon Laurent. There’s a celebration tonight.”
My grandmother didn’t smile. She seemed to be assessing my reaction, much as my mother had. “Elena will be the first of your friends to wed?”
“Yes. And she’s a month younger than I am.”
She was quiet for the span of several heartbeats. “There’s no hurry, child.”
“I know. But has Mama told you that Grainger asked for my hand? That he’s been waiting a month for an answer?” What if he grew tired of waiting, and his eye began to wander?
Gran sighed. “She did tell me, and surely you understand her hesitation now. He is not a good match for you, Adele. He’s dangerous to our entire family.”
My hope wilted like a cut flower. “How can you know that, without giving him a chance? He cares for me, Gran.”
“Yet if he truly knew you, he would fear you, and a man with a weapon in his hand and fear in his heart is a danger to everyone.”
Frustration drew my lips into a frown.
“I’m sorry, chère. I know that’s difficult to hear.”
I nodded. I felt confident that I could convince both my mother and grandmother that they were wrong, but that would probably take more than words. They would have to see that Grainger would never hurt me.
“Give my love to your mother and sister.” Gran planted a kiss on my forehead, then she opened the front door, and I accepted the well-wishes as a cue to take my leave. But when she remained standing on the top step, rather than retreating into the warmth of her cabin, I realized she intended to watch me until I passed out of sight.
I managed to stay focused on the task at hand—sticking to the path—even as my initial shock and acceptance of everything I’d just learned gave way to a stunned numbness. To a thousand questions I hadn’t thought of when Gran had been around to answer them. In part, that was because my feet knew the way. However, it was also easier than ever to stay on the trail now that I could see it properly, even without a lantern.
Until a high-pitched wail nearly startled me out of my skin.
My feet froze on the path. My right hand slid beneath my cloak to grip the head of my new hatchet, evidently ready to wield it through some brand-new instinct, even though I’d never used a hatchet for anything other than chopping firewood.
I turned warily toward the sound, just as the screeching wail shattered into bouncing sobs. Someone was crying. Someone young. Out there in the forest.
There was a child in the dark wood. A lost—maybe injured—child. At least, that’s what the dark wood wanted me to believe. But what if that sob, like my father’s voice, was bait on the end of a fishing line, intended to lure me to my death?
I turned my back on the heartbreaking sound and kept walking.
The crying continued, sobs echoing toward me from the darkness. Twisting my heart into pulp within my chest. The child sounded like Sofia. Yet it wasn’t Sofia. I didn’t recognize the voice, which meant the dark wood wasn’t drawing it from my mind. Which meant it could be real.
What if there truly was a child in need of help out there? Gran had said her greatest sorrow was that she couldn’t help people she didn’t know to expect in the forest. She would never leave a defenseless child all alone out there. And neither could I.
I stepped off the path, following the sobs. Vines slithered toward my feet, faster than before. Branches reached for me. And twice, I heard the snort of something large, off in the distance. But I kept going until finally I saw a small form standing in the underbrush, in dead leaves up to his little ankles. He was small and pale, with a shock of blond hair, and despite the cold, he didn’t have a single stitch on.
Small children went naked in the village all the time in the warmer months, but in the heart of winter? In the middle of the forest?
In the distance, I could see the silhouette of a wagon among the trees. It could only be the one attacked by the whitewulf. The one my grandmother had been too late to save.
Mon dieu, the merchant and his wife had a son. Somehow, he’d survived the whitewulf. He must have been hiding, too scared to come out, even when my grandmother captured the wolf.
“Hey!” I whispered as loud as I could, hoping to catch his attention without alerting any nearby beasts.
The boy spun toward me, startled silent. Tear tracks cut through the dirt on his face, and I could see from here that there were twigs tangled in his hair and grime caked on his bare legs.
“Are you okay?” I stepped over a twisting vine and shoved aside a branch that seemed to be grasping for my hair. “Hey! Little boy!”
He stared at me, wide-eyed, as I made my way carefully toward him, one hand gripping the handle of my hatchet beneath my cloak. For a moment, I thought he would flee. But he only sniffled as he watched me approach.
“I just want to help you. Are you hurt?”
The child didn’t answer, but by then I was almost close enough to touch him. Instead, I knelt in front of him, trying to ignore the vine snaking its way toward us across the ground. “I’m Adele. What’s your name?” I asked, but again, no answer came. “How old are you?”
He didn’t respond to that either, but he couldn’t have been any older than five or six. He was smaller than my eight-year-old sister, and his cheeks were fuller. His
teeth smaller. He didn’t seem to have lost any of them yet.
“Are you from Oldefort?” That was a day’s journey down the river during the warmer months and easily a three-day walk on foot, once one made it through the dark wood. Not that I’d ever been on the other side of the forest surrounding our little village. “Did you come here with your parents? Are they merchants?” Were they merchants?
The child remained silent, and I regretted asking about his parents. He’d probably seen them slaughtered. No wonder he wouldn’t speak.
“Well, you must be freezing.” That vine slithered closer, and I slowly pulled my hatchet from my belt. “Come with me, and we’ll get you something warm to wear and something good to eat. Okay?”
The vine reached for my ankle, and I swung the hatchet at it. My new blade sank through the woody rope with a satisfying thunk, and the child flinched, even as what was left of the vine retreated into the shadows, rustling dead leaves on its way.
“Come, mon loulou,” I said, addressing the nameless boy as I might one of the boys from the village. How had a child survived out here on his own, even for a few minutes?
I dropped the hatchet through the loop on my belt and held my hand out again, and this time the boy slid his grimy little fingers into my grip. His trust was a warmth blossoming inside me, in spite of the cold, and suddenly I truly understood what Gran had been trying to tell me. I could make a difference. And I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I turned my back on such a responsibility.
I gave the child a reassuring smile, pushing back my own fear as I turned and led him in the direction I’d come from.
We came out of the forest exactly where I’d entered it hours before, on the path that led between the fallow rye field and the empty bean field. Several boys from the village ran by in a little pack, scaring crows from what was left of the dried-up stalks. The boy in my care canted his head to one side, watching them play.
Before we’d made it more than a few feet from the tree line, footsteps thumped toward us from the east, on the dirt path that ran around the outside of the village. “Adele!”
I turned toward Grainger’s voice, relieved for a second before I remembered to close my cloak. To hide my hatchet.
To hide myself.
“What—?” He stopped a few feet away, frowning down at the naked child. “Where’s your mother? And who’s this?”
“Mama’s busy with the Laurents’ order.”
“You went into the dark wood alone?” Grainger frowned, his voice gruff with concern. “If I’d known, I would have come with you. It’s the watch’s duty to escort people who have business traveling in the dark wood.”
“I know. But Gran’s cottage is only a half hour’s walk, and I’ve been many times. And look!” I glanced down at the child whose hand I still held, hoping the distraction would keep Grainger from noticing my broken lamp. From asking questions I couldn’t answer. “I found him in the woods, but he hasn’t said a word so far.”
“You found him in the dark wood?”
“Yes. Near a merchant’s wagon. I think it belonged to his parents. And I don’t think they made it,” I added in a whisper, trying not to choke on all that I was concealing from him.
Grainger knelt in front of the boy, his sword clanging as it grazed the ground. “What’s your name, little one?” But the child only stared up at him with pale blue eyes. “You must be cold. You’re covered in goose bumps.”
Finally, the boy nodded.
Grainger removed his leather cloak. “Is it okay if I wrap you up in this? Bundle you up like a loaf of Adele’s bread?”
The child gave him another mute nod, and I couldn’t resist a smile when Grainger draped his cloak around the boy’s shoulders. It trailed over the grass behind him for at least a foot, but Grainger only tugged the cloak closed and buttoned it, as if the fit were perfect. The child smiled up at him, clearly enamored of the fine garment.
“I’m going to pick you up, okay? If I carry you, we can get you inside faster.” The boy nodded, and his gaze tracked Grainger as he stood. Then Grainger carefully lifted the child into his arms, as if he were carrying a very delicate bundle of firewood. Or a baby.
I tucked the ends of the leather cloak around him, which was when I noticed several spots of blood on the soles of his bare feet. “He’s a little cut up,” I said as I covered them. “But not as much as I’d expect, considering.”
“Where are his clothes?” Grainger asked as we set off down the dirt path into the village.
“I don’t know. He was like that when I found him. Crying. Alone in the dark wood.”
Grainger’s brows drew low over eyes a darker shade of blue than the child’s as we passed the miller’s workshop. “Poor kid. We probably won’t be able to get him back home—wherever that is—before the thaw.”
“I know.”
As we approached the first of the cottages, Madame Gosse, the potter’s wife, paused in her conversation with the thatcher’s wife, Madame Paget, and they turned curious gazes our way.
“Grainger! What have you there?” Madame Paget asked as both women headed for us.
“Adele found a child in the forest,” Grainger said, and I pulled back the hood of his cape to reveal the boy’s face.
“In the dark wood?” Madame Gosse asked. As we might possibly have meant another forest. “What were you doing out there?”
“I was taking a delivery to my grandmother.”
Madame Gosse’s scowl said exactly what she thought of a woman living alone in the woods, and I bit my tongue to keep from defending Gran, who—as it turned out—was perfectly capable of defending herself.
“What was he doing out there?” Madame Paget frowned as Grainger’s cape fell open, and she realized the boy was unclothed. “And bare as the day he was born, in this cold. He was alone?”
“Yes. He hasn’t spoken a word,” I told her. “But I found him near a merchant’s wagon. I don’t think his parents made it, but there doesn’t seem to be a scratch on him.”
“Well then, I’d say he’s blessed beyond reason. A shame about his parents, though.” Madame Paget heaved a grim shrug. “Bring him to my cottage, Grainger. I’ll see that he’s fed and clothed.”
We followed Madame Paget to her cottage next to the church, where she opened the door to let us into the small, warm space. Her home was modest, but it was roomier than mine, because in addition to the room in back where the thatcher and his wife slept, there was a loft where little Jeanne and Romy shared a bed, over the main room.
Jeanne was just a year younger than my sister, and Romy was five. When we came in, both girls looked up from the poppets they were playing with near the hearth, and the moment she saw what Grainger was carrying, Jeanne jumped to her feet, her doll forgotten. “Who’s that, Mama?”
“He hasn’t yet told us his name.” Madame Paget headed straight for the hearth and added a log to the fire. “Jeanne, go get a bucket of water. Take your sister with you.”
Jeanne grabbed a bucket and herded her sister outside.
Grainger set the boy down in front of the hearth, and Madame Paget removed the cloak and handed it back to him, so she could examine the little boy. He shied away from the roaring blaze while she ran her hands down all of his limbs. “He’s frightfully cold, but you’re right—he doesn’t appear to have any injuries. And he doesn’t look sick. Are you hungry, child?”
The boy nodded, eyes wide as he took in all the adults staring down at him in the cramped space.
“Here.” Madame Paget broke off a bit of flat bread from a bowl sitting on a shelf over the hearth, and the boy devoured it in three bites. I uncovered half of my basket and pulled off a small hunk of the venison roast for him.
He ate that just as quickly, then sucked his filthy fingers clean.
Jeanne and Romy came back with a bucket of water while Madame Paget was going through a trunk in the back room. She returned with a clean tunic made of sackcloth just as her daughters set the bucket o
n the hearth.
“Let’s get you washed off, then we’ll try this on you. It’ll swallow you whole, but that’s better than nothing, isn’t it?”
The boy only blinked at her, and Jeanne giggled.
“Girls, in the loft or outside. It’s getting a bit cramped in here.”
The Paget girls grabbed their dolls and raced up the ladder to the loft, where they watched from overhead while their mother wet a rag and carefully cleaned the filthy child, who began to shiver from the cold water.
“There you are. Just look at your handsome face! It was very nearly hidden by all that dirt!” Madame Paget exclaimed, but the boy seemed unaffected by her praise. “Hands up, please.” She raised her own in demonstration.
He lifted his arms, and she slid the tunic into place so that it settled around his calves like a nightshirt, the laces at the neckline hanging loose to his waist.
“That’s better. Now, what’s your name? Else, I’ll have to call you ‘Boy.’”
The child blinked again.
“You do have a name, don’t you, child?” Madame Gosse demanded, in as amicable a voice as I’d ever heard from her.
The boy only shrugged.
“‘Boy’ it is, then.” Madame Paget stood and wiped her hands on her apron. “Up the ladder with you and play with my girls, while we figure out what to do with you.”
For a second, the child only stared at her. Then she gestured at the ladder, and he scampered up to the loft, before Madame Gosse could demand to know whether his legs were functional.
Madame Paget escorted us outside. “You will spread the word during your patrol, won’t you, Grainger? Find out if anyone knows anything about a merchant wagon? We need to find out where he’s from.”
“Of course,” he promised.
“I would accompany you,” I said. “But I’m sure my mother will need my help with the Laurents’ order for tonight.” And she was probably at her wit’s end, fearing that I’d perished in the dark wood.
Red Wolf Page 5
