She awoke later in the day to find the room empty. The fire was still burning and there was the pleasant aroma of food cooking in the kitchen. The chair he'd been sat on was gone, moved back into the corner where it was normally kept. Moll wasn't there either. The rug in front of the hearth was empty and that familiar scent of the forest was gone.
“Alan?” she managed to call out. There were footsteps outside and the door opened a little.
“Sarah?” asked her Papa. “Are you okay?”
“Where's Alan and Moll?” she asked. “They were here earlier.”
“They've gone,” he mumbled. “Left this afternoon.”
“When will they be back?” she asked. He didn't reply and she knew then that it was over, that's she'd succeeded in driving him away. She wanted to be happy about that, but she wasn't. She looked for that steely resolve she always drew on when someone got too close and needed to be pushed back but it was nowhere to be seen.
“Do you want something to eat, dear?” he asked.
“Please, Papa. I'll try to eat something.”
When he was gone she let the tears fall onto the pristine white sheets covering her black and blue body. He'd saved her and she hated him for it. More debt. More guilt. He'd heaped it on her like burning coals and now he'd gone and left her to burn. He'd finished her by doing exactly what she wanted him to do and now she didn't know if she'd ever be the same again.
It took most of the winter for her to recover. She spent her days reading in bed or sometimes, if she felt able to, she shuffled into the living room to sit in her favourite chair by the fire with a mug of tea. Her father hired a local girl from the village to help Lou with the stables and while the cold winter days slipped by, life went on as it always had done before that day when the stranger rode into town.
Gail visited often. They never spoke of what happened at Calderbank's camp or what she'd had to endure. Instead they talked about the settlement and shared gossip over cakes and coffee and sandwiches. It'd become a taboo to mention it, as if speaking it out loud might make it all real instead of the distant nightmare they'd transformed those long hours into. After all, thought Sarah, she'd been doing that for so very long already.
When spring arrived, Sarah took Ziggy out for her first ride since returning. It was a bitterly cold day when she saddled the horse and took him out into the early morning sunshine with a rug on his back. He'd been well fed to keep him warm and as she climbed carefully into the saddle he seemed eager to be moving again.
“Be careful,” said her Papa from the stables.
“I will,” she replied. “I'm just going to see Sidney at the pub and then I'll return. I don't think I have the strength for more than that.”
“Okay then. Bring me back a bottle.”
“Really?” she said, raising an eyebrow. “You haven't drunk anything since...”
He patted her hand and smiled.
“That's behind us now. Time to move on.” She nodded and, urging the beast onwards, set off towards the path and into the shade of the woods.
The ride was bearable for the first hour or so. After that the movement of Ziggy, the uneven parts of the trail and the long time spent in bed all conspired to set the pain of her broken ribs off again, conducting them into a variation on the theme. Often she would pull the horse up and stop, waiting for the agony to subside before carrying on, trotting through the early signs of life springing up from the cold, hard earth once again. She passed the bare branches with their early buds, the first footprints of deer across the path and the sounds of the birds returning to sing their new-year chorus. Although the discomfort in her sides often brought her to tears, the sights, smells and sounds of a new season cheered her on and made it all worthwhile.
When she reached the pub, Charlie was sat on a stool outside the stables. He had a cup of coffee in one hand and a half-eaten bacon sandwich in the other and seemed to be contemplating the cows that had wandered near to the fence along the road.
“Sarah!” he cried. “How are you?”
“I've been better, Charlie,” she said. “How are you? How's business?”
“It's picking up now winter is pretty much done. We're seeing a lot more people coming down from Abbingdon and some have passed through from the south.”
“The south?” she said, climbing down. “That far?”
“We had a couple stay for the night just last week,” he said, putting down his meal and taking the reins. “Says things are booming down there, that things are on the verge of really turning around for us.”
“That's great,” she said, looking past him and into the stalls. There was only one horse there, right at the far end and she recognised it instantly. Her heart leapt into her mouth and she struggled to find the words to say. “Is that...?”
Charlie turned and stared. “The Shire?” he said.
“Yes! It's his, isn't it?”
“It was. He left it here over a month ago and bought another.”
“Why?”
“He left it for you with instructions to care for him until you took him to the farm. I hope you’re having him; he's eating all my hard feed and hay; I can't afford to keep him.”
Her heart sank. She smiled a false, brittle kind of expression and walked towards the door, leaving Charlie without an answer. Inside the crowd was its usual sort and the low murmur of voices met her like a rising tide as she entered. Some turned but others didn't. When Sidney saw her he let out a loud 'ho!' and beckoned her over to the bar.
“My dear!” he cried. “How are you?”
“I'm feeling much better, thanks,” she replied. “Not quite ready to deliver the mail though.”
“Well thanks to you that should be a much safer thing in the future. Since you returned from Calderbank's camp we've seen nothing of them, not even a hint. Things are getting better, Sarah. I can feel it.”
He set a pint-pot of ale in front of her which sloshed over the side and made a foamy puddle on the top of the bar which he speedily wiped up with the cloth slung over one shoulder.
“I saw the Shire in the stable,” she said, trying to look unconcerned. “Has Alan been through recently?”
“I'd say it was at least a month ago. He stayed the night and left the following day and we haven't seen him or that dog since.”
“Did he say why he was here?” Sidney shrugged.
“I don't think so. He offered an extortionate sum of gold pieces for Daryl's mare and left on it. Other than that, I don't know.”
“Did he say where he was going?”
“No, he didn't. He took the boy with him though. I guess he was taking him back to his parents. That's all I know really. Didn't he drop in on you and your Papa?”
She shook her head and he sighed.
“Sorry. I thought you two were quite-”
“We weren't,” she snapped. “I needed him to help me get Gail back, that's all.”
They made arrangements to have the horse brought up to the farm the following week. Then she took a seat in the corner and fought back the turmoil she was feeling in her heart. He'd kept to his word and delivered the horse, but in leaving it at the pub he'd sent her the same message she'd sent him - whatever friendship they had was over. She felt hot with shame which made the anger inside her froth up as it was violently shaken by regret. None of this was new to her; Alan wouldn't be the first friendly face she'd driven away and he probably wouldn't be the last. Still, she realised, it felt worse each time it happened.
She drank some of the ale and wiped the foam from her lips. No one spoke to her. No one turned in their seats to greet her. She might as well have been a ghost. She was old news now that the Calderbanks were dead and all his followers with him. They were happy, life was good and safe again and they didn't care about the price that'd been paid to make it that way.
“So this is what he felt,” she whispered to herself there in amongst the smoke and fumes, the heat from the open fire and the aromas of cooking meat coming from the k
itchens. Since Meggy died the pain had become like a raw wound, sensitive to the touch and always awake in the back of her mind. But this had reached whole new levels of agony; this was a cold, hollow thing, like being on the verge of tears from morning until night. Was it just loneliness? Or guilt? She couldn't fathom it, couldn't reason it out and as she sat there, drinking the ale, she realised she didn't really want to.
As the bottom of the crude clay pot started to appear, she considered staying longer in the pub. It seemed easier than facing the saddle again, or anything else for that matter. The pain in her ribs was slowly waking up again as the cold worked on those fractured bones that would probably never feel right. But before she was able to get up and order another drink, one appeared in front of her.
“May I join you?” said the young man standing at her table, indicating the seat opposite. She looked up and saw that he was tall with a long blonde pony-tail and a pleasant smile. He wore dusty looking travelling clothes and his riding coat was neatly draped over one arm.
“I'm not much company,” she replied. “But sure. Why not?”
He hung the coat on the back of the chair and sat down, pushing the ale towards her and taking a delicate sip from his own. He seemed to be waiting for something from her. He had that look about him, a kind of perpetual expectation that events would take their own course in their own time and he didn't need to bother involving himself in them.
“I'm Sarah. How can I help you?” she asked.
“I guess you don't remember me,” he said.
“I'm afraid I don't. I'm sorry.”
“It doesn't matter. I was in the book shop. The one at Abbingdon. You were talking to the owner. Dickens, was it?”
“Please forgive me,” she said. “I don't remember seeing you there. It's a wonderful place though, isn't it?”
“It is!” he suddenly cried. “Oh yes, it is indeed. I myself go there often to immerse myself in the tales of the old-world too. Like you I was born too late to remember them but in those books I often imagine myself living in those times, driving my car and listening to the latest tricks.”
“Tracks,” she corrected. “I think they called them 'tracks'.”
“Oh, of course,” he blushed. “Lots of words to remember, lots of different meanings.”
“Where are you from?” she asked.
“Where am I from?” He suddenly seemed flustered by the question and for a moment it looked like he didn't know the answer. Then he smiled, showing the usual set of flawed teeth common with the children of the new-world. “I came from Abbingdon a week ago and stayed here, in this establishment.”
“I meant, where are you from originally? Where were you born?”
His face turned a bright red, almost like a cherry and it contrasted strongly with his flaxen hair. She felt like giving him a hug and ordering him a cup of warm milk from the bar. She guessed he was only a boy, maybe seventeen or eighteen at most.
“I... I don't really know,” he said. “My parents and I have been travelling for a long time, as long as I can remember. I don't really have any recollection of any other kind of life.”
“Are your parents here too?” she asked.
“No. They're dead. They were killed last autumn when we were heading north to cross the border.”
“I'm sorry.”
“Thank you. It was quick. We were ambushed on the road. Bullets, thankfully, not knives and swords. I only escaped because I was hidden under my sister's body.”
Sarah felt herself slipping deeper into the depression that had plagued her since returning from Calderbank's camp. Were there no more happy endings anymore? Would they only ever be found in her books? Right there and then she wanted to leave, to find some dark and quiet corner to escape from the world if only for an hour or two.
“And then what happened?” she asked.
“I knew that there was a settlement somewhere nearby. Some of the travellers coming the other way often stopped and shared what they knew with us and they told us about Abbingdon. I managed to walk the distance and I've been here ever since.”
“Well done for making it through,” she said. “That must have taken some guts.”
“Thank you. Again.”
She drank some of the ale and started to feel a little fuzzy. Now that things had picked up on the farm she had a little more metal in her pockets and, with the generous amount Alan had left behind, life had been a little easier on them as she'd recovered. So when she signaled to a barmaid for a meal, she was able to offer the young man the same.
“Oh,” he said. “That would be wonderful. If it's not too much trouble.”
“Not at all. We're even now,” she replied, gesturing to the ale.
The bowls of hot rabbit stew came shortly after, served in more crude clay pottery which the barmaid had to carry in on a tray. There was fresh bread too and, after tearing off chunks from the loaf, they resumed talking.
“You never told me your name,” said Sarah between mouthfuls.
“Didn't I?” he said. There was gravy running down his hairless chin and he wiped it with a piece of cloth from his pocket that he must have been using as a handkerchief. “It's Michael. Michael Nibbs.”
“Well Michael Nibbs, it's a pleasure to meet you. Are you going to get around to asking me what you want?”
“Oh yes, certainly,” he said. His bowl of stew had vanished and most of the bread along with it. Sarah was still working through hers but she still felt too tender to attack it with the same vigour. “After seeing you at the bookshop I asked the owner who you were and he explained that you're a 'postman' of sorts. Post lady, perhaps.”
“Well, not quite,” she replied. “I just deliver mail between here and Abbingdon. I've gone further sometimes, but not as often now.”
“Well I was wondering if you'd be willing to deliver something for me?”
“I'd be happy to but it would all depend on where you wanted me to take it.”
“Ah,” he said, arranging the bowl, the spoon and the empty breadbasket in a neat line. “That's the question, isn't it?”
“I think it is,” she smiled.
He looked down at the table, clearly nervous as he contemplated his next few words.
“It's a letter and a package.”
“Yes?”
“It's a letter and a package and it's to go to my Uncle John.”
“Okay. Where?”
“To a coastal settlement in the northeast.”
Sarah laughed a little and smiled.
“That's fine,” she said. “I'll take it for you.” The boy almost collapsed in his seat from relief.
“You will? Oh, thank you, you've taken a load off my mind. I'd go myself, of course, but after what happened I don't think I... Well, you seem much better equipped than I and...”
“I understand. If you're willing to wait until next week when I think I'll be feeling like my old self, I'd be happy to go.”
He stood up and held out his hand, grinning. They shook.
“Thank you, Sarah. Getting my family's belongings back to Uncle John will really help me to move on and honour their memory. Thank you again. And thank you for the food.”
“It's no problem at all,” she replied, standing herself. “I'll come and find you in Abbingdon next week. Say, Monday?”
“Excellent! Perhaps we could meet in the bookshop again?”
“Yes, that would be lovely.”
“Goodbye, Sarah.”
And with that she paid Sidney for the meals along with two bottles of spirits before leaving for the stables. She felt happier now that she had work to do and maybe, just maybe, she thought, it was a step closer to moving on. To where? That was a question that still had no answer.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The ride home felt longer. So much longer, in fact, that she had to get off and walk some of the way, leading Ziggy along behind her to try and ease the pain in her sides. The day became overcast with the sharp aroma of rain in the air, willing he
r on at a faster pace. When she reached the woodlands surrounding her home, the clouds broke and the rain began to fall with such violence that she cowered under her hood and allowed it to beat down on her.
“Hurry!” called Lou from the stables as she beckoned her inside. Helping her down from the saddle, the girl passed her a rag and tugged her out of her coat. “It's awful, isn't it?”
“I was hoping to stay ahead of it,” said Sarah. “I guess it wasn't meant to be.”
She looked at the only two empty stalls and thought about the Shire waiting at the pub. They had room enough for it and now that spring was coming, studding him would be a fantastic investment.
“Can you clear stall six for me?” she asked.
“Of course. A new arrival?”
“Alan's Shire is at the pub,” she explained. “He left it for us. Charlie says he'll bring it over early next week.”
“That's excellent!” she said. “I'll have Diana clear it out and order more hay. When people hear about this we'll be swamped with orders.” The girl clapped her hands with excitement but again, Sarah felt that cold spot in her chest and it refused to budge, even for the bubbly girl.
She said goodbye and ran for the house, holding her coat over her head and the two bottles in her free hand. When she was inside she could feel the warmth from the hearth calling to her and she went straight to it, holding her hands in front of the glowing coals.
“How was your ride?” asked her father from the kitchen.
“Painful,” she replied. “But I'm glad I did it. Your bottle is there.”
“Thanks, but I didn't ask for two.”
“One's for me.”
He said nothing but took them both and put them in some cold water to chill. Then he returned with a mug of tea for her and sat down on the couch.
“I'll get out of these clothes first,” she said.
Beyond Hope (Tales from the Brink Book 3) Page 12
