by Kevin Sands
I watched her body rise and fall with Tom’s breaths and thought of the one thing she’d been able to say.
Puritan.
After Rawlin had left our room, I’d told Tom and Sally about the strange reaction I’d got downstairs when I’d asked about Puritans. They’d both seemed puzzled, until Sally realized our mistake.
She smacked her forehead and groaned. “I forgot about your disguise. We scared them.”
“But I didn’t do anything,” I said.
“You didn’t have to. They think you’re Lord Ashcombe’s grandson.”
“So?”
“Lord Ashcombe hates Puritans. After the king returned, he wanted to execute them all.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
“What would you think if Lord Ashcombe’s grandson showed up unannounced and started asking where the Puritans are? I doubt they even believe our shipwreck story anymore. They probably think we were sent here by your grandfather to investigate the town.”
This was a disaster. If Puritans were involved, we needed to know how—and how Moppet, the missing children, and my memories were tied together. But now they’d be sure to keep their heads down, if not flee the village entirely. Or worse: come after us.
I watched the girl sleep and wondered. If she’s not from this area, then where did she come from? How did she get here? And how is she involved in all of this?
The blood mark, was all my master would say. You need to see that symbol.
• • •
I spoke to Willoughby at the first sliver of sunrise. He marked the location of Crook’s Hollow on my map: along the river, a half mile north of Robert’s farm. We set out, Tom plowing a path in front like yesterday. Moppet rode on his shoulders, directing him with an imperious finger, while Bridget swooped overhead.
As for Sally, the visit to the Blood and Barrel seemed to have awakened something musical in her. She sang us some jaunty catches as we walked, trying to get us to join in.
“You’re cheerful this morning,” I grumbled.
“Why shouldn’t I be?”
“Because according to Rawlin, we’re off to find the Devil’s mark, a corrupted ghost, and quite possibly a witch.”
“Would being gloomy help?” she asked.
“I suppose not.”
“There you are, then.”
Between songs, we spoke of idle things to pass the time, and I glanced every so often at her left hand. Since last night, I’d been watching her, and I saw that she avoided using it as much as possible—and when she had to, she barely moved it. After a few hours, when we stopped to take a break, I asked Tom about it while Sally sipped from the river.
“She got hurt when we were in Paris,” he said quietly.
“What happened?”
“A man hit her on the head. It left her out cold for several days. When she woke, she’d lost some memories, and she couldn’t really use her hand. She won’t admit it.”
“Whyever not?”
“I think it’s because she knows if anyone finds out, she won’t be able to get work. She was a chambermaid for one of the Court ladies. If she’s a cripple, she won’t be able to go back. No one would take her.”
Now I understood her silence. But she couldn’t conceal an injury like that forever. “Even if she gets her old job back, they’ll find out eventually.”
Tom shrugged. “I guess she’s trying not to think about it.”
I regarded her thoughtfully. “Just because her hand doesn’t work now doesn’t mean it’ll never work again. She should be trying to use it. It’s the best thing for an injury like that.”
“You already told her so.”
“She didn’t listen?”
“She screamed at you. Then she cried. Then she ran away. You can try again, if you like. Though you might wait until we’re not in the middle of nowhere. I don’t want to hunt for another lost friend.”
I wasn’t all that keen on any screaming. I resolved to bring it up later. Much later.
• • •
Crook’s Hollow was a simple place. Like every other hamlet we passed, it was that same mix of old stone and cob. Here, the dwellings had been built in a row, opposite a string of ancient houses that had collapsed long ago. A track of muddy white furrowed through the snow between them.
Beyond the houses, in an unfenced field, a man stood watch over a score of sheep, the animals rooting in the snow for something to eat. When he spied us coming, he waved, and we trekked through the field to join him. He nodded a friendly greeting. “Good day to you.”
“Is this Crook’s Hollow?” I asked.
“It is. Are you looking for someone?”
Sally stepped forward. “I’m the Lady Grace,” she said, “And this is the Baron Ashcombe.”
He bowed in surprise. “My apologies, my lady; my lord. I didn’t recognize you.”
That puzzled me—was there some reason he should recognize me?—and then I realized what had confused him: my clothing. My sapphire silk shirt and breeches, markers of my lordship, were concealed behind the simple sheepskin coat Robert had given me, and my fine leather boots were buried in the snow. Without those, I supposed I looked like an ordinary boy. Which I was, really.
“I’m John,” the man said. “John Morrow.”
“Joseph Rawlin told us,” I said, “that a child went missing by the river a few days ago.”
John’s face turned grave. “Allan Cavill’s boy. David.” He looked at me hopefully. “Have you seen him?”
“I’m sorry, no. But I was told a mark was left behind.”
The man shuddered and crossed his fingers. “God save us.”
“Can we see it?”
He seemed shocked. “You don’t want to look at that, my lord. It blackens the soul.”
“I don’t know if I have to worry about that,” I said bitterly.
“My lord?”
“Never mind. We’d like to see the mark, nonetheless. Perhaps it might help us find the missing children.”
And though he seemed surprised by that, too, he was grateful. “We’ll gladly take any help you could give. Times have been terrible hard round here of late. Kate!” He shouted toward the house. “Call your brother to tend the flock, and come with us to the river.”
A girl of about Sally’s age appeared at the door. She threw a cloak around her shoulders and hustled a younger boy out to take care of the sheep.
“My daughter,” John said, and he told the girl who we were. “She’s the one what found the mark. Don’t stare, girl.”
Kate, gawking at Sally in awe, bowed her head, chastised.
“Can you tell us what happened?” Sally said kindly, and her demeanor eased the girl’s shyness. As we walked toward the water, she explained what she’d seen.
“It was dinnertime, my lady, already dark. I called for the children, but David didn’t come. I knew he’d been playing by the river, so I went down. And I found that.”
She pointed to the riverbank. A large, flat stone lay on the snow, a foot from the edge of the water.
The girl wouldn’t go any closer. John stayed with her, hands placed protectively on her shoulders. So the rest of us went down to the stone by ourselves. I studied it, but it didn’t seem like anything special to me, just a simple slate of red sandstone.
“I was told there was a mark on it,” I said.
Kate nodded. “I knew the stone was strange as soon as I saw it. It hadn’t been there before, and it was too big for David to carry. When I turned it over, I saw the mark.”
“I flipped it back, my lord,” John said. “It’s not safe to keep evil exposed.”
Tom worked his fingers under the edge. It was heavy—too heavy, as the girl said, for a boy of five—but it flipped over readily enough in Tom’s hands. I stood back, and we stared at the blood mark below.
CHAPTER
23
SALLY STOOD CLOSE TO ME, her shoulder pressed into my arm. Tom crossed his fingers. Moppet peered over To
m’s head curiously, but otherwise showed no reaction.
“What is that?” Tom said, shaken.
I knelt next to it. “I don’t know.”
It was a strange collection of slashes, loops, and curves, like some ancient, alien script. On one side was a small star; on the other, a . . . I wasn’t certain what. It looked a bit like an alembic—an alchemical still—with a stoppered tube at the top. As for the mark itself, it was unquestionably drawn with blood, now dried, some of it flaking off into the snow.
What is this? I asked Master Benedict, but he didn’t answer.
I called over to John. “Has anyone seen this mark before?”
He shook his head. “The vicar said we should throw it in the river.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Well . . . I thought . . . no one here knows anything about magic. What if we needed it to get David back?”
Kate whispered something to him.
“Hush, girl,” he said.
Sally spoke up. “What did she say?”
“Nothing to trouble yourself with, my lady.”
“I wish to hear it, Mr. Morrow,” Sally said, somewhat sharply.
John flushed. “She said someone should ask Old Sybil. She’s a . . . woman . . . around these parts. She . . . knows things.”
“The cunning woman,” I said.
John hesitated. “Some call her that, my lord.”
“And what do you say?”
He shuffled from foot to foot, uncomfortable. “She’s never harmed us, far as I know. But Allan Cavill says she’s a witch. He says she’s responsible for his missing boy.”
Rawlin had certainly agreed. “Where’s Mr. Cavill now?”
“Hunting, my lord. Food’s hard to come by in winter, ’less we want to cull the flock.”
I returned to the mark on the stone. I wanted to study it, but given John’s nervousness, I didn’t think it wise to linger, and the stone was too big to carry.
“Do you have a spare cloth?” I asked him. He took me back to the house and gave me an old shirt with a hole in the side. I gave him a penny for it.
“You should have a new shirt for that,” he objected, but I waved him off. I was only going to ruin it anyway.
I told Sally to keep them distracted with questions while I returned to the river’s edge. Using the ink from my sash, I copied the symbol onto the shirt, then tucked it under my coat so they wouldn’t see what I’d done. Then we took our farewell and headed south.
Sally was surprised. “Are we not going to see Sybil?”
“We are,” I said, though by now I’d lost all enthusiasm for it. “But first we need to go back to Robert’s farm.”
“Why?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “But I think there might be something we need to see.”
• • •
I studied the mark as we walked. I had the feeling I’d never seen it before, yet something nagged at the back of my mind. Something familiar.
Try looking at it a different way, Master Benedict said.
I wasn’t sure what he meant. I tilted my head, and—wait a minute. . . .
“Come look at this,” I said.
We all stopped. Tom and Sally peered over my shoulder as I flipped the cloth over and held it up. “What does this look like?”
“I don’t know,” Sally said. Tom shrugged.
“Look carefully. Look at this part.” I pointed to the mark at the end, just before the star.
Sally blinked. “Is that a letter?”
“An n,” Tom said thoughtfully.
“I think it is. And look at the mark before it—could that be an a? I think this is a word.”
“In English?”
“I don’t know. It’s definitely the Latin alphabet.”
“It could be a word of magic,” Sally said.
“Or of evil,” Tom said.
What would be a word of evil? I examined the letters—assuming that’s what they were—and tried to work out what they spelled.
The first symbol curved a bit, like an elongated S.
Then a loop with a tail—an o? Or an e?
I couldn’t make out the next letter. A D? Or maybe it was a combination of letters? Ending in an a?
The long stroke in the middle looked like an l.
Then came an n—maybe an h—an a, and finally the n.
“That stroke above the first part of the word,” Sally said. “Maybe that’s a dot. For an i, or a j.”
Could be. I put all that together, and got:
SoD?i?alh?an
“Does that mean something?” Tom said.
I shrugged. “Not to me.”
Neither of them had any idea, either. Which left us back at nowhere.
We trudged on.
• • •
It was a strange feeling, going back to Robert’s farm. Waking up there and not knowing anyone had been terrifying. Now it was the only place that felt familiar. In a way, it was like I was going home.
I think Moppet felt it, too. She began to fidget as we climbed the hills, paying close attention to the passing landscape. When we crossed a pair of tracks, she looked down from atop Tom’s shoulders and pointed.
I nodded. “Those are ours, from yesterday.”
She seemed more excited now. She kicked her heels like Tom was a horse, urging him on. He whinnied, and she laughed in surprised delight.
“You’re really good with her,” I said to him.
“She’s easy to be good with.” He reached up and tickled her as we walked. She giggled as she fended him off, and when he put his arms down, he looked sad. “I miss my sisters.”
“Molly,” I said suddenly.
Tom stopped, stared at me. “Yes,” he said.
A searing pain shot across my forehead. I gasped. I could see names, as if written in flame on my mind.
“Cecily,” I said. I pressed my hands to my temples, trying to fight the burning. “Isabel. Catherine. Emma. And Molly.”
“That’s it. That’s them!” He grabbed my shoulders. “You remember!”
The pain. My skull pounded, my brain blazed. I crumpled.
“Christopher!”
Tom picked me up; Sally brushed the snow off my collar. Moppet, back on the ground, looked over at me, her expression serious. I drew deep, cold breaths, until the fire quelled in my head. I felt like throwing up.
“Are you all right?” Tom said.
I nodded. Even that made my stomach lurch.
“You remembered,” Sally said.
“I didn’t,” I said.
“But you know their names,” Tom said.
“And that’s all I know. Just names. I don’t know those girls. What they look like, what they sound like . . . they may as well be the king’s personal guards, for all I remember.”
Still, as the nausea faded, I wondered if this was a good sign. The names of Tom’s sisters were the most personal things I’d recalled yet.
Tom pulled me from my thoughts. “Someone’s coming.”
It was Wise. He crested the hill, longbow in hands, a rabbit skin slung over one shoulder, its carcass on the other. Smiling, he waved for us to join him, and we made our way back to the farm together. Robert was just as pleased I’d returned—and even more relieved to see Moppet.
“We looked everywhere for you,” he chided the girl.
I apologized; of course he’d have been worried. “I should have sent word.”
“I’m just glad she’s well, my lord. And apparently in good hands.”
I introduced Tom and Sally, using our disguises. I felt bad lying to him—if anyone deserved the truth, it was Robert—but if people found out we’d been playing at lordship, we’d be in big trouble. As for Robert, he was delighted I’d found my friends, and, when I told him I was the Baron Ashcombe, he was even more delighted I now knew who I was.
“Told you you were a lord,” he said cheerfully.
“Uh . . . yes.”
“And your memories . . . ?”
I shook my head.
“Well, let’s hope Sybil can help,” he said.
Tom, Sally, and I exchanged a glance.
Robert frowned. “What have people been telling you?”
I expected he already knew the answer. “That she’s a witch.”
“She’s not,” he said. “She’s never done anyone any harm.”
“What about me?”
“You? Sybil saved you. From your illness.”
“It was suggested,” I said, “that she took my memories.”
“Why would she do that?”
“I don’t know. But you said she wants something from me. Maybe this is her way of guaranteeing she’ll get it.”
Robert looked troubled by the notion—though not quite prepared to believe it. “My lord . . . I know what people say about Sybil, but she’s done nothing but good for this farm. I beg you, have a care with your words. If you were to say she was a witch, that she’d stolen your soul . . . an accusation from you would carry weight.”
That hadn’t occurred to me. If Baron Ashcombe were to say Sybil O’Malley had cursed him, never mind a trial, she could be lynched. It was alarming to realize I held Sybil’s life in my hands—and I’d never even met the woman.
I’d clearly need to watch what I said. In the meantime, I hadn’t returned to Robert’s farm just to ask about Sybil. “When Emma Lisle disappeared,” I said, “did anyone find a blood mark? Something like this?”
I showed him the cloth. He studied it, frowning, then passed it to Wise, who shook his head. “No one saw any blood at all.”
I spotted Tom looking thoughtfully back the way we came. “What is it?”
“Well,” he said, “at Crook’s Hollow, the blood mark was hidden. I mean, it was in an obvious place—a strange stone sitting in the middle of nowhere—but you wouldn’t see the mark unless you turned it over.”
That was a good point. Maybe we’d missed something. “We should check back at the river.”
All of us went. By now, the snow next to the bank had been well trampled. “Do you remember seeing a stone of any kind?” I asked Wise.
He shook his head.
I hadn’t seen one, either. But Emma had disappeared during the storm. If there was a stone, it would be hidden under the snow.
