Kate knew she was hoping Allegra would return the favor.
Once I used to be a girl who liked horses, she thought. She wondered when it changed. When Mojo fell in battle?
Or when Marthen had her tied to the crossbar in the center of the camp?
It was hard enough having to tell her parents everything that had happened to her. She didn’t think she had the heart to tell them that she was no longer the same horse crazy girl she had been last summer. So she dutifully rode Allegra each afternoon with all the heart and spirit of a sack of potatoes.
Josh jogged over to catch his bus, and Colar threw himself into the passenger seat, buckling the seat belt. Kate got in and started the engine. When her dad and mom said they could have a car (“Used, now, you kids are spoiled enough as it is”), they had pored over the want ads, Kate explaining the abbreviations. As soon as she came to the Jeep ad, they looked at one another, and that was it. Kate’s mom looked like she was going to object, but at a look from her husband that did not escape Kate’s notice, she subsided.
They didn’t talk as they pulled out of the parking lot and headed down the twisting road toward the stables. The outskirts of Gordath Wood sailed along beside them, freshly picked out in pale green on black branches. They could see rushing streams in the woods, spring runoff trailing over rocks and swirling with last year’s leaves. Ice still hung along the stream beds, and in the sandy places on the edge of the road, coltsfoots and bloodroot poked out of the litter.
Ahead of them the Wood proper hove into view, the central spars looming into the sky. She cast a quick glance at Colar. He seemed absorbed in the view. He looked like a regular high school student in jeans and T-shirt, his shoulders filling out his jacket, his hair cut short. She had never noticed his acne before, when he was Colar Terrick, and not Cole Mossland, her adopted brother.
To remind herself that he was someone different, she said, “Do you miss home?”
“Yes. And no. I miss my mother and my little brother and sisters, and I worry—” he stopped but plunged on almost immediately. “I see your mother, and I think, you came back, but my mother is left behind, and I did not. And she was worried, when I went to war with my father, that that would happen. I was the eldest son and would have brought her a wife to keep her company when I went away to war as the Lord of Terrick, so now she has neither me nor a daughter.”
Kate kept her attention on the road, but she could see him out of the corner of her eye. His face was sad, his voice tired.
“And my father was harsh and serious, but I miss him, too. He taught me many things, and I think he would have liked to have seen the world on this side of Gordath Wood. I miss being able to go back and tell him what I’ve learned.” She felt him glance at her. “But I’m glad I’m here and have this chance. Someday I’m going to try to get back and bring back what I learned.”
“What!” she exclaimed. The Jeep swerved, and she brought it back under control. She threw him a glance. “Colar, you know you can’t.”
He made an impatient face. “Shouldn’t or can’t? Maybe Lord Tharp had the right idea but the wrong method. Maybe the more knowledge people have of the gordath, the more that can be used to open and close it at will.”
They pulled up into the driveway of Hunter’s Chase, and she put the car in neutral and set the brake.
“Promise me you won’t go without telling me,” she said. He hesitated, then nodded. She knew a promise meant more to him than it did to anyone else.
“But you have to promise me something,” he said, and surprised, she paused in the act of getting out and letting him slide into the driver’s side.
“Become happy again.” He looked uncomfortable. “You should come to Josh’s,” he added. “He likes you.”
“But you don’t.” She said it flatly.
“I—I—” He looked away. “Kate, it’s not that.”
She got out and began gathering her riding gear from the rear seat.
“It’s not that!” he said again. His voice was urgent, desperate. “Kate, you don’t understand. You’re my sister now. That’s what fostering means to us.”
She stopped, her arms full of her boots, chaps, and helmet. Her throat was swollen with unshed tears. “I know. I know. It’s just—it’s like we never liked each other at all. Like it never happened. ”
She started bawling and buried her face in the suede chaps. Colar turned off the engine and got out to stand beside her.
“Kate—” he said, and she heard the helplessness in his voice.
That made her feel like an idiot, and she wiped her face. “Look, you should get going. Josh is waiting.”
“Will you be all right?”
She nodded and smiled through her tears.
“I’ll be fine. Don’t worry. I’ll come to Josh’s the next time, okay?”
“Okay.” He said it reluctantly but got behind the wheel and started the car.
After he drove off, Kate walked up the drive, hoping she didn’t look too tearstained and swollen. She saw Allegra in the field along the drive look up from grazing. After a moment, the mare ambled over, her eyes soft and her ears forward. It was a far cry from her usual half-crazed expression. She wasn’t really a bad horse, Kate had to admit. Carolyn had her in a heavy bit and wore spurs when she rode her. Kate soon discovered that Allegra hated even the slightest pressure on her mouth, and she goosed easily. She responded well to Kate’s lack of personal interest, as if she had had too much emotion under her previous owner and was fine with Kate’s neutrality. Kate stopped and leaned over the fence.
“Oh, so you decide to be good now,” she told the horse. Allegra snorted at her but didn’t come any closer. “Well, I just promised to be happy, so I guess you can be good, right? I mean, miracles can happen.”
Allegra opened her mouth and reached out her long neck. Kate shifted her armload to scratch the horse’s mane. Something was breaking loose inside her, and she wondered if the crying had something to do with it. “Just don’t expect me to get all mushy over you, okay? Because it’s not my way anymore.”
Lynn watched from the kitchen at Hunter’s Chase as Kate made her way up the drive, Allegra following her along the fence line. Those two have made peace, she thought. She finished pouring two cups of coffee and went into the living room where her guest waited.
Lieutenant Spencer turned at her approach. He was looking at the photos and silver cups on the mantelpiece, and now he turned his same quizzical gaze on Lynn. He took the coffee she offered him.
“Nice room,” he said. “All this yours?”
Lynn sipped her coffee to give herself a chance to restore her composure. It wasn’t hers. None of it was. It seemed easier just to let things be for now, but it still felt like living in a hotel. She had only been to her barn apartment once, to gather a few of her things. There were more ghosts there, to tell the truth, and she didn’t fit in anywhere.
“Yes,” she said coolly. “That’s the way it worked.”
She knew she shouldn’t be too belligerent; this man was dangerous. He knew there was more to the story than he had been told.
Spencer set the coffee down without even making a pretense of drinking.
“Our investigation stated there was no foul play. She signed over the farm to you, via her lawyer—and disappeared. ” He looked at Lynn, his eyes penetrating.
She held his gaze.
“She went home,” Lynn said.
“To her husband.” It was not a question. Lynn nodded anyway.
“Was she happy?”
That was unexpected, and she found herself answering cautiously.
“I think—relieved. I think she felt she made the right decision. ”
He raised an eyebrow. “You were there?”
Not in the official version of the story, no.
“No. I’m just guessing from what little I knew of her.”
“Lucky you, then, that she made that decision.”
“Lucky me.” You have no idea
, Lieutenant.
He nodded. “Let me give you some advice, Ms. Romano. Don’t get too comfortable here. You might not be staying long.”
She watched him go from the front door, his car as nondescript as himself, and then went back into the kitchen to rinse out the mugs. Her arm twinged. It still did that, even though she had had it reset and diligently practiced the physical therapy exercises she had been assigned. Lynn dried her hands on the dish towel, watching from the window as Kate warmed up Allegra in the ring. The girl had lost so much weight—not only from dysentery from the camp, but also pneumonia, not to mention her poor back—she looked frail and unwell. She seemed to be coping, but coping wasn’t thriving, and Lynn knew that it would have repercussions for a long time to come.
From the window she could see the apartment, the white curtains just a blur in the distance. The apartment was musty and lifeless. A few of Joe’s things were scattered around, but he didn’t have much; he was used to traveling light. She hadn’t been back inside since.
She set the mugs to dry in the sink and rested her forehead against her hands. So many lives rearranged, she thought. She wished she could peer through the gordath and catch a glimpse of them, if just for a moment. She remembered the last time she had seen Crae, holding Dungiven’s rein so he could kiss her good-bye. And Joe, holding the gordath open.
Be well, she sent silently. Be well, take care, don’t get lost in the woods. Be safe. I love—She stopped abruptly. Some things were too big for words to contain.
A light spring rain misted down on the terraces of Trieve. A faint blush of green tinged the grasses and the trees, bringing a dusting of green to the gardens as the first shoots poked out of the dark brown soil. Crae looked through the blurred windows, trying to see out past the rain and the wavy glass. Behind him a fire crackled in the fireplace, taking the chill out of the air. He was warmly clothed: a thick brocaded brown vest over a rich cream shirt, the material soft as lamb’s wool. His trousers bloused over fine shoes, so different from the boots he had worn for so long. A chain hung around his neck, and his hair was trimmed.
He heard a knock on the door, low down toward the floor, and smiled and turned around. “Come in, Tevani,” he called. The door handle rattled and turned.
“Captain Crae!” She ran toward him, and he scooped her up. She put her head against his shoulder and her thumb in her mouth.
“Calyne said you are going to stay with us always now,” she mumbled around her thumb.
He nodded, wondering how much she understood. “Yes, I am. Do you know what today’s ceremony is?”
The little divot appeared between her eyebrows. He had seen it a lot, whenever they—he and Jessamy—had tried to explain to her. Her father’s death. Crae’s place at Jessamy’s side. Today’s ceremony, in which he was to marry Jessamy.
“You and my mother are to wed,” she said.
“That’s right.”
“But what about my father?”
He died in a war he didn’t want, in a fight that wasn’t his. His last act was to give his chain of lordship to Crae and make him promise.
Take care of them, Crae.
Crae sat Tevani down on the chair in front of the fireplace. He knelt before her and coughed to control his voice.
“Your father had to go away to battle for Lord Tharp,” he said. “And he died in the fight. But before he did, he told me to take care of you and your mother. And I promised him I would.”
The confusion in her face deepened. Crae thought he knew how she felt. Stavin had not meant this, he was sure.
Trust the Council to take their revenge where they could. The lords had been furious with Jessamy for turning Kenery, and they expressed it in their sanctions against Trieve. Tevani was to be fostered out to another lord’s family, and the unborn child Jessamy carried would, once weaned, be sent to yet a different country. The line of Trieve would have been broken, were it not for Crae.
For after they were through venting their bile on her, they gifted Crae with Council rights for his role in helping close the portal. His first act was to petition to wed Jessamy and thus void the sanctions against her. He almost thought she would have turned him down, but her back was to the wall, after all.
There came another knock on the door, and Jessamy came in, her kerchief askew. Her belly was huge. She tsked. “There you are,” she said. “Tevani, what are you doing, bothering Cap—Lord Crae?”
"I’m not!”
"She’s not,” he said.
“Here. You need to go to Calyne,” Jessamy said and held out her hands. The little girl squirmed out of the chair. Jessamy looked at Crae, her gaze half-appraising, half-guilty. “You look—very well.”
He nodded. “Thank you. You look—disheveled.”
She sighed. “I am so busy, trying to get everything ready in time, and the baby wants to kick his way out today.” All of a sudden, she caught herself. “I will be much more presentable for our vows.”
“I know.”
She hesitated and then looked at Tevani. “Please go find Calyne, there’s a good girl. Then you can help me get into my pretty gown.”
“Okay!” Tevani left them at a run, calling for her nurse.
“I don’t know what is going to come of this,” Jessamy said, toying with her kerchief. “I know this isn’t what either of us wants.” She held up a hand, forestalling his protest. “No. There is no love here, where there had come to be love between Stavin and me. I don’t know if I can do that again, Crae. I don’t know. I am so angry at him for doing that to Tevani. To me.”
As if Stavin had gone and gotten himself killed on purpose. Crae bit back his anger. “I am not asking for your love or your gratitude, Jessamy. I made a promise that I intend to keep. That’s all.” No matter how much you wish to drive me away.
Her lips went white.
“Then we know where we stand,” she said, and she followed her little daughter out the door, leaving him alone.
Crae sighed. He had hoped Jessamy would accept him as a companion, a friend if not a beloved, but her heart had hardened to him. She blamed him for Stavin’s death, after all. He turned to look out the window again, letting his gaze focus on the terraces and the woods beyond. The mist shrouded the land beyond, but he knew it by heart, when it had been covered by a blanket of snow, under the cold light of the winter stars.
Be safe. Be well. I love you.
Joe tapped Arrim on the shoulder and nodded at a half-buried object in the woods up ahead, next to a flashing stream. The forest was coming back to life. The burned wood was birthing new shoots, pale and golden green, though snow and ice still clung to the hollows and the north side of swales and banks. Joe had learned to take the cold. He learned to accept the closeness of the woods that only allowed the barest slivers of sky to cut between the trees. He learned not to think about the wide-open roads in Texas, in case homesickness made him lose his way.
The object was white and black, soiled from the weather and smudged with moss. Joe knelt and fished it out of the leaves and mud in which it lay, knocking dirt off. A riding helmet.
“It was Lynn’s,” he said. “That day she crossed over.”
Arrim knelt beside him. “She gave me water in it.” He looked around. “The portal was not far from here.”
Joe held his breath, but no nausea hit him. It had been happening less and less as the gordath closed in on itself. The guardians walked softly this past winter, avoiding the gordath to keep from reopening it. Arrim said it was still sensitive, like someone after a fever. Joe couldn’t blame it.
Soon, the guardians would be able to walk from one length of Gordath Wood to another, and the only signs of the portal would be cracks in the ground. Even they would close and become covered up with brush and leaves, the cracks in buildings and in rocks just simple oddities with nothing to account for them. Then everyone would forget the stories about the strange Wood, and they would be back to vague warnings and folk tales, with only the guardians to know the trut
h.
Joe put the helmet back in its bed of dirt and composted leaves, packing it into place. This helmet would become just another part of the folk stories that clung to the Wood until finally its materials deteriorated. He didn’t plan to come back until it did. Mrs. Hunt’s tale of yearning to be lost stayed with him. He knew if he returned to the helmet often enough, he would begin searching for the portal just as she had. Joe got up, brushed off his hands, and took one last look at the helmet in its grave before following Arrim through the Wood.
Gordath Wood Page 36
