by Annie Cosby
Could I really leave Maisie to grow old alone? The woman had taken me in when I was orphaned. Could I really walk away on The Great and Mighty Voyage just as she was facing the years in which she would need care and love?
“Child? What are you doing staring like you’ve seen a ghost?” Maisie had stuck her head out the little window and was smiling warmly at me. Probably the first smile she’d given all day, I thought. She didn’t smile as much as she used to.
Before she could go on, her old eyes squinted at my finger and an even bigger smile lit up her face. “Ah, a visitor, I see!”
She shut the window with a rap and, a few moments later, appeared in the doorway, wiping her hands on the long, blue apron embroidered with colorful birds, which she’d worn every day since I was little. Little holes were scattered throughout the fabric now, but Maisie wasn’t the type to care.
“Hello, dear creature,” she said. She stepped carefully through the rock-strewn yard. “Won’t grow a weed,” she muttered, kicking angrily at a rock that blocked her path. It bounced across the yard and landed in a pathetic bunch of lettuce that we’d been trying to grow for months. The rocky terrain of Killybeg only increased the townspeople’s dependence on the wealth of the mines, but that didn’t stop Maisie from trying to grow vegetables with increasing annoyance.
She stopped in front of me, her brow wrinkled. Most people found her rather harsh and difficult, but I knew the real Maisie. The one who’d tucked me in all through my childhood and sat up with me when the trees outside cast scary shadows on my bedspread. She wiped the back of her arm across her forehead, ruffling the tips of her curly, white hair that she always wore short – “practical,” she would say. Her sight wasn’t what it once was, and she had to squint to see the tiny creature. “Did you come to visit Ruby?”
“I went to visit her,” I corrected.
“Ah. Of course. But she’d only travel all that way with a true friend,” she explained. “In the old days, you know, before the siege, people who claimed to be mages said that they would tame hummingbirds for the royal family to keep as pets.”
Of course I had heard this all before. I’d been hearing it all my life. But along with her sight and her frail body, Maisie’s memory was not what it had been. People whispered that her mind was going. And it was the fear for her health that kept me from correcting the old woman now.
“Yes, it was a symbol of the royal house.” She touched one wrinkled finger to the hummingbird’s back and instead of shrinking away like she did when Wyn tried to touch her, the hummingbird bent her head into Maisie’s touch.
“It was said the mages could talk to the hummingbirds,” I offered, playing along to Maisie’s favorite fairy tale.
“Mm-hm, that’s right, child.” As she smiled, her eyes crinkled, and such love and pride shone through the gold flecks that I couldn’t find it in me to believe what people said about her. Maisie was old as the mines, but she’d outlast each one of us.
“And the way these creatures follow you,” she went on. “Why, you must have mage blood in you.”
She said it with some humor, as though she didn’t actually believe in the mages, but she had no idea how many times I’d wished, prayed, hoped, begged the God above that I was a mage. Anything to change my quiet orphan existence into something exciting. Something worth living.
But the God I prayed to had never seen fit to reveal my true heritage to me, and now that he was finally giving me a way to live an exciting life, going across the water with Wyn, I was shrinking away from it. I was scared. And that made me feel guilty.
“Let’s go start dinner,” I said, placing a hand on her arm and steering her back toward the house.
As we neared the door, Zora’s wings started their frantic dance and she lifted away with a hum. Inside, it was sweltering. Maisie had two fires going despite the warmth outside, and my spine straightened involuntarily. Was the old woman’s mind really going?
“Are you cold, Maisie?” I asked skeptically.
“Ah, heavens no, child. Isn’t it a million and two degrees outside?”
“Then why have you lit the fires?”
“Ah, the little one’s feeling blue. The poor thing’s been shivering since the morning,” she explained, pointing a crooked thumb toward the open fireplace.
Relief and concern flooded me at the same time. Maisie wasn’t going mad just yet, but a tiny lamb was curled up on a red yarn blanket in front of the fire. As I knelt beside him, I could see that his tiny limbs were shaking.
“What’s wrong with him?” I asked, gingerly running a finger over his curly wool back. Maisie’s sheep made the warmest sweaters on the Amethyst Coast, so they were taken care of as the tiny princes and princesses they were.
“Times are difficult for everyone, child,” she said cryptically. “Did you hear about the stranger?”
I nodded, but realized Maisie was busy cooking and wouldn’t have seen me. “Yes … ” I said, my voice trailing away. Mentioning that I’d spoken to the man would only worry Maisie. And if Sarah found out … she was the worry queen.
“Word has it he’s been walking around asking all sorts of questions,” Maisie said.
“Like what?”
“Like what sort of mines are in the area. How much of that is retained here, and how much is traded. Pat Manor has it in that thick skull of his that he’s sizing the place up for a band of thieves.” She didn’t sound particularly convinced.
“It’s not unheard of,” I said. “Especially in a town with such close wood coverage. They’d escape as easily as that.” I snapped my fingers.
But she didn’t look convinced, and I myself didn’t actually believe a thief had come to Killybeg. If he truly intended to sack the place, surely he wouldn’t be so bold as to stay in a boardinghouse in the town, seen by all. Would he? The feeling of his eyes on my ruby necklace sent a spark of shivers across my back. Maybe he would.
I heard Felix barking before I heard the angry chatter that followed him. When the front door creaked open, Felix darted inside before the Martins.
“Why are you shouting on my doorstep?” Maisie demanded, hands dripping with gravy perched on her hips.
“Because this here lad’s just told his poor mother he intends to take to the mines!”
Chapter Five
Felix stepped quietly toward me and looked down at the lamb in my lap, pressing his wet, black nose against the lamb’s head. The hackles on his back slowly raised and I clamped a hand around his muzzle before he could bark.
“You leave him alone!” I snapped. The dog’s ears fell backward and his eyes opened wide, embarrassed to have been reprimanded for doing his job. I scratched him behind the ears to let him know I wasn’t angry.
“Why would you risk your life like that, child?” Maisie demanded of Wyn. She had yet to return to the soup, which was bubbling over on the cooking fire.
“Why’s everyone so worried?” Wyn demanded. He plopped down on the straw mat in the corner of the room that served as Maisie’s bed. “Nearly all the men on the Amethyst Coast work in the mines. Why should I be any different?”
“You’re not a man!” Maisie said with a mean laugh.
“Near enough!” Wyn shouted back.
My cheeks went scarlet. It had been a long time, if ever, since I’d heard Wyn raise his voice. And it was down to me. To The Great and Mighty Voyage. Which we’d never exactly told Sarah or Maisie about. In fact, we’d very carefully not told them. In order to avoid a conversation exactly like this one.
“Edwyn, why are you in such a hurry to grow up, dearie?” Sarah asked gently. “If there’s not a collapse, it’ll be your skin or your heart that suffers.”
“It’s not like the old days,” he protested. “It’s safer now. It’s not as though they’re mining Diamond’s Peak or anywhere else that’s dangerous.”
The room fell silent as Maisie turned back to stir her soupy concoction, and Sarah joined her in the corner. Maisie was known to throw anything
she could find into a big pot and boil it until she could call it soup, but the smell emanating from the corner was not what was making my stomach churn.
I felt just as strongly as the older women, but the truth was the truth. Wyn wasn’t a child anymore. My own body’s reaction to his gaze was testament to that. Besides, was working the mine any less dangerous than sailing across the ocean to a new world?
His face softened and he seemed uncomfortable with the silence. “The old gaffer was in to Mam again today,” he said for a change of subject.
Sarah snorted. “He’s only an ‘old gaffer’ to you, child. Sure, isn’t he ten years younger than me?” Her smile belied the tiny bit of pride she felt at being pursued by a younger man. “But I don’t encourage him. He’s got problems enough without adding me to the batch.”
“That’s three days this week,” I chirped up.
“You should set him straight,” Maisie said, shaking her head. “It’s only trouble he’ll bring.”
“Sure, haven’t I tried every day I’ve ever spoken to him?” Sarah cried. “The last day he was in pure drunk. In front of the child and all.” She nodded toward me, and my pride bristled at all the mention of “child” being thrown around. I’d grown taller in recent years, and filled out until my body was shaped more like a woman than a girl. So why did they still call me a child?
“He constantly smells of rum,” Wyn complained.
That day Oren had appeared at the bakery all sweaty and stinky and drunk, I myself had told him to get lost a few times, but the man had only chuckled. What did a little girl know about adults and their urges, he wanted to know.
More than you, I wanted to answer, thinking of his trying to court such a disinterested woman.
“If you had another man it wouldn’t be a problem, you know,” Maisie said.
Sarah snorted. “If he fell off Diamond’s Peak when nobody was looking, it wouldn’t be a problem, either.”
“Sarah Martin!” Maisie gasped, appalled. She glanced over her shoulder at Wyn and me, sitting by the open fire. “Maybe that’s where your boy gets his rebellious spark.”
Sarah’s smile eased and she looked melancholy as she turned to gaze at us, petting the lamb and uttering commands at Felix to stay away. “No, I’d say that comes from his father.” She looked wistfully at Wyn, and I did likewise, taking in his disheveled brown hair and shiny, chocolate eyes. As he sat near me, stroking the little lamb with the practiced hand of a shepherd, he looked older, stronger, and manlier than my familiar Wyn, the one I held in my heart. He looked almost strong enough to make his own way in the world. To work in the mines. To whisk me away across the sea.
As Sarah turned back to the food, I whispered, “Just be safe,” loud enough for only Wyn to hear.
Without needing clarification, he slid off the straw mat to sit beside me, and said, “I always am.” He smiled. “How would I protect you lot if I wasn’t safe myself?”
Across the room, Maisie banged her spoon against the iron pot, the telltale sign that supper was ready.
Sarah had the earthen bowls on the table and a pile of bread ready to be smeared with gravy. “Have you seen the stranger?” she asked as we settled around the table.
“Not with my own eyes,” Maisie said. “But enough of Killybeg has, I’d say.”
I looked to Wyn. He met my stare and shook his head once, so slightly that I wasn’t positive he’d done it at all. But his eyes held all the answer I needed. He was right – Sarah didn’t need another thing to worry about.
“Sizing up all of our defenses so he can run and tell the other thieves, I’d say,” Sarah said, and slurped her soup.
“Defenses?” Wyn snorted.
“Not you, too!” Maisie moaned, swinging her spoon at Sarah. “Worrying’s all this town’s good for anymore.”
“Well, I won’t lay like a sitting duck and let them catch me off guard.” Sarah shook her head again, angrily tossing her beige hair about. “Wyn, be a good lad and lock up the animals before you sleep.”
“You think they’re wanting your old sheepdog, do you?” Maisie chuckled. “Maybe that old cow that’s stopped giving you milk?”
Sarah ignored her. “And the windows, child. Bolt all the windows. It’s not a lot of nice things I have, but there’s enough that I’d be sad to lose ‘em.”
“I will,” Wyn said. He didn’t make light of Sarah’s worrying or protest that she was overreacting. No, he would always protect us without complaint. Without a second thought. He was my own knight, lacking only the shining armor.
I was already in my own room, a tiny nook poking off the back of the house, when I realized I could hear Maisie speaking outside. I was curled up in bed with the ill lamb, listening to Wyn’s pipe playing somewhere outside as he meandered home, Zora perched in my open window. And I could hear Maisie talking to Sarah. Rather angrily.
“Keep your voice down,” Maisie commanded quietly. It sounded as though the pair were in the back of the cottage, near the sheep’s night shed.
The Martins had just left our house – Wyn to lock up the animals and Sarah to sleep – and Maisie had already bolted our door for the night. What had called her back outside? I crept to the window and Zora hopped playfully onto my hand, but I wasn’t there to play.
“You don’t think it’s wise?” Sarah asked, her voice breaking near the end.
“You’re worrying over nothing,” Maisie assured her.
“But –”
“Where would we go?” Maisie asked in exasperation. “There is nowhere. This is the safest place.”
What on Earth are they talking about? Was Sarah so very scared of this stranger that she wanted to flee Killybeg?
“Maisie –”
“Acting now will only arouse suspicion.”
“Mam,” Wyn’s voice interrupted, the music stopping. “The sheep are shut up. Let’s go home.”
I sat up in my bed, pulse pounding in my neck and my heart racing, and wiped a shaking hand across my sweaty forehead. I’d dreamed that dream again.
I’d told Maisie about it once, when I was younger, and she’d scolded me for making up fairy tales. So I’d kept it to myself ever since, cradling it close like a precious gem. It was always the same.
It started with me walking in the Haunted Wood, then coming upon a clearing bathed in an ethereal pink light. It was a clearing I had never seen in the real Haunted Wood, no matter how long and hard I looked. I could only find it in this dream. There was a great big willow tree in the middle of the clearing, with long, weepy branches creating a green dome. Every time, as soon as I neared it, a smiling face would peek out through the silky branches. A face I recognized in the dream. It was my mother.
Of course, it wasn’t my real mother. I’d never seen my parents’ likenesses, so there was no way for me to dream of them. But what orphan doesn’t dream of her parents? In the dream, I knew this was my mother. And for now, that’s all I had – a dream mother. In fact, that’s all I would ever have.
In my dream, the woman with big bouncy curls like my own would sweep the branches aside like a curtain and gesture for me to join her. Inside, hummingbirds crowded the air like flies. Big, beautiful flies that squeaked with excitement.
There were parts of the dream that I never remembered. I knew I played with my mother, but I never heard her voice or could recall the games we played. I only memorized her happy, shining face.
But the dream ended the same way every time.
There would be a great roar and the woman would tremble in fright. And though I sometimes knew it was a dream, and what was coming, I was always scared.
The hummingbirds wailed and my dream mother shook until tears fell from her eyes. The roar grew so loud, it sounded as though there was a great lion outside the willow tree. And then a tiny orange flame would lick a branch.
And it would grow. The woman would cry and I would cover my ears, willing myself to wake up as flames engulfed the tree.
Eventually, I’d wake. S
weating, scared, and determined. Determined to go back to the Haunted Wood. Because if the little girls I saw there had been real people, long ago, those could be their ghosts. Real ghosts. And if ghosts were real, maybe, just maybe, I could see my mother. Not the one from my dream, concocted by a heartbroken child’s flighty imagination, but my real mother. And maybe my father, too. Long dead now, my only hope of seeing them with my own eyes would be in a haunted wood.
Chapter Six
“We shouldn’t be in here, Ruby!”
“Do what you want, Cath,” I snapped. “I’m going in.” I stepped defiantly into the woods. As I placed a hand on an old oak to steady myself and climbed over a fallen branch, a trio of hummingbirds appeared and danced happily around my head. I giggled and ducked my head to see around the blurry wings as they squeaked to each other in their little language. They moved around me like planets orbiting the Earth, and we moved forward together like that. My own little universe.
“What if the stranger was a thief?” Cath insisted. “Or, or what if he’s trying to enslave people to work in the mines? Or what if –”
“Then what good would the two of us be to him?”
“Or what if he’s a murderer looking for souls to sacrifice?”
“Somebody’s been listening to Pat Manor too much,” I muttered. Cath had the imagination of a scared child, but she was the only girl in town I could even remotely stand to be with. The others talked of kissing and boys and marriage nonstop. I wouldn’t have called Cath a friend exactly, but she was better than being alone. Sometimes.
