by David Leslie Johnson; David Leslie Johnson; Catherine Hardwicke Sarah Blakley-Cartwright
But his lungs decided differently, at first nagging, then demanding, and finally threatening to explode.
His head burst through the surface. His eyes blinked away the water. He looked to the shore—and blinked again to be sure.
The laborers were gone.
And Peter with them.
Some of the other boys had quieted, looking nervously at Henry. It was silent, except for a fluttering bird in the nearby pines. Henry’s father seemed especially concerned. Adrien watched his son from the shore, but Henry refused to meet his gaze. Instead, he swam away furiously, in perfect form, his muscles burning, feeling as though they were going to tear open. The lesser shock of the cold was a comfort after the shock of seeing Peter.
He tried to swim away the horrible memory of the day Peter left town.
Even if he swam to the end of the world, though, it wouldn’t be far enough to leave behind the image of his father, a tough man, tall and strong, bawling wet tears over his mother lying in the road.
Seeing Henry Lazar staring at him in horror had sickened Peter. Just like it had on that day so many years ago. He had to walk away before Henry emerged again from the water. He found an excuse—he told the men they should help set up the women’s camp.
Why had he returned to the village? For so many years, Peter had avoided Daggorhorn, the site of the awful accident.
He hammered at a stake, driving it mercilessly into the earth, a rhythm to which he could sort his thoughts. There was something about Daggorhorn that had always called to him, he reminded himself. But he was afraid of being there. With her. His memory loved her too much. They had been just kids. Better to keep her as she’d been, hold her safe like a polished stone.
Coming in on the wagon, Peter had found his way as if he were in a dream, pulled forward by an irresistible force to the village he had once known so well. How strange that everything in sight, every tree, every slight bend in the road, would remind him of the same girl, the one with the huge green eyes. And here she was, still.
Beautiful. A beauty so potent that it almost hurt.
But it prompted memories of a past he had tried to forget.
The horn sounded from the fields, signaling the end of lunch, signaling the end of memory. It was time to go back to work.
Why did I return?
The Reeve, the weary overseer, was pairing up the women, who would stomp the grass flat in the beds of the wagons, with the men, who would heave armfuls up to them. The Reeve’s thick beard had gone wiry in the heat, like steel wool. Valerie stared ahead at the row of tightly knotted buns ahead of her and glanced to her left at the line of men, searching for him. Something drew her gaze to the middle of the line. Peter’s liquid eyes were fixed on hers, and the distance between them seemed to radiate with a white heat. Valerie, without thinking, sidestepped a few eager women behind her and dropped back in the line. She would be paired with Peter.
The Reeve made his way down the aisle between the men and the women, tapping shoulders to assign partners. With his rough palm, he patted Valerie, then Peter, and he muttered “you and you” in a gruff voice. Though she heard the Reeve continue droning these same words down the line, she felt that, when said in reference to her and Peter, they rang out magically, making the connection between them tangible.
Her pulse was fast as they worked hard all afternoon, close together. She liked feeling the bales he’d only just held.
And yet, he never once looked at her. It was the not looking, though, that meant more than looking. Or was Valerie only imagining that?
The Reeve wove between the rows, constantly monitoring, and there was never a chance to talk. Eyes were on them all afternoon. It seemed she wasn’t the only one who noticed the striking man—or remembered him. Every time Valerie started to lean down, set on saying something, someone else came by to cut her off.
The day slowly wound to a close, the sky turning a dusty gray-green. The Reeve stood nearby looking on, leaning on one leg, one ankle crossed over the other. His big, dark horse blinked its eyes slowly and watched, too, because there was not much else to see besides the villagers clustering together, hesitant to leave the day behind. The sooner the night came, they knew, the sooner the morning.
Having worked themselves too hard, they were useless now, their hands hanging limply by their sides, clenching outdated tools. They gathered in a mass like a swarm of locusts and laughed boldly as if they didn’t have a care. Boys played tag, dodging one another, pulling at each other’s shirts, their young bodies feeling awakened after the day’s stiff work. They drank in the cool of the outdoors, feeling the way their roughened hands moved through the deadened evening air, hazy with hay.
Stacking her final bushel, Valerie saw Peter bending down for his sack, about to leave.
It was now or never.
“Peter…”
He straightened, his back to her like a wall. Then, slowly, he turned his face toward her and met her eyes. His gaze sliced through her like a knife.
Before she could stop herself, she asked, “Do you remember—?”
He took a step toward her. She felt the heat flare up between them.
“How could I forget?”
She felt weak with joy.
The supervisor blew his horn over the rusty, glistening crop fields, signaling the end of the day and the start of the campfire celebration.
Peter held her eyes a moment more before turning and walking away. Valerie watched from her perch in the wagon bed as he disappeared amidst the trees.
5
Down by the river, a harvester was pulling fistfuls of feathers off a limp chicken, flicking them carelessly to the ground. Villagers were roasting another bird over a fire, rotating the long skewer. The ruddy smell of the freshly cut hay, rolled up into unruly bales, had awakened the villagers’ animal instincts. They felt lustful in their exhaustion.
Valerie watched the men set out enormous kegs that, when empty, could be used for rides down the hill. Kegs like ones that Valerie and Peter themselves had spent some time in once, hiding from adults. The outer world had been reduced to a dull roar from the woody confines where they crouched, giggling.
Her memories of her time with Peter were smooth and compact, like eggs she could hold.
“How could I forget?” The new memory sliced through the old one.
Someone was playing a flute now, a haunting melody. Her father ate to the music, theatrically chomping down with every trill. “Helps the digestion,” Cesaire said, motioning with his head to the flautist. It was the first time she’d seen him all day.
Valerie bit into the biggest chicken leg, her second. Prudence enviously measured Valerie’s tiny waist with her two hands, her fingers touching. “It’s not fair,” she said.
Rose pulled the girls aside and led them down to the riverside to reveal an old rowboat that had been hidden in the shoreline brush that afternoon. It was faded gray from the sun, stained with bird droppings and traces of muddy water, the disappointing brown of coffee stains.
“This’ll do,” Valerie said with an approving nod.
Walking back from the river, Valerie saw that Peter had returned and that the Reeve had stopped in front of him. “We’re clearing pines tomorrow and could use a man like you. We’ll hire you on.”
“You’re a good worker,” Cesaire added, unbidden. Valerie was surprised her father had spoken, but pleased.
Peter listened, looking doubtful.
“We’ll provide you with an axe,” the Reeve said. His cheeks were thick and roughened.
Peter whipped his own axe out from a back pocket, spinning it. “I’ve got my own. I want double, to chop trees.”
The Reeve raised an eyebrow but reluctantly agreed to the price. The boy was a good worker. He had cleared more hay than anyone else.
“Okay.” He turned. “Men on the big rocks other side of the river! The women will stay on this side.” As per tradition, the men and the women would set up camp separately.
De
spite the usual setup, Prudence’s mother was concerned. It was the first year her daughter was there, and it was said that, long ago, someone had been killed there by the Wolf. Some said it had been a child; some said it had been three little girls who had wandered away during a swim. Others said it had been a woman who had run off after being caught with a lover.
As with so much of the Wolf lore, no one knew for sure exactly what had happened or to whom. Everyone knew only that something had happened to someone.
“I hope we’ll be safe out here. Maybe my husband could stay.” She always looked like she was about to sneeze or cry.
“Mother,” Prudence said sternly, “it’s nothing to worry about. The Wolf took a lamb last night from the altar. We’re safe for another month.”
“Women only,” another woman said brusquely. “You’ll be just fine.”
“Okay then, girls.” Prudence’s mother pulled the girls close to give them private instruction. “Be sure to sleep with your shoes under your pillows. Don’t want them getting stolen in the night.”
The girls nodded in false solemnity. They were used to her eccentricities.
“But, wait, he hasn’t sung yet. You’ll want to hear it,” one harvester called out, motioning to a squat man with a nose that sat on his face like a cucumber.
“Sing us a song, then. Get on with it,” the Reeve ordered, no nonsense.
“I couldn’t,” said the squat harvester, falsely modest.
“Yes, you could.”
“Oh, well, sure. I guess I could.”
His song was winding and beautiful, a ballad. The villagers leaned back and let themselves be consumed by the sound, a sound that skimmed the river, that wrapped the woods, that brought everything together at once. Valerie closed her eyes but opened them again when she felt someone close to her. It was Peter. He had come very near, his breath warming her ear. “Find me later.”
She boldly turned to look him in the face. “How?” Up close, he was jarringly beautiful. His thick, dark hair fell over one eye.
“Watch for my light.”
All she could do was nod, stunned by her own physical reaction. She managed to collect herself, but he’d already gone.
After the men set off in boats to their campsite across the river, the girls gathered inside the tent they were sharing with Prudence’s mother. Seated in a circle, weaving wreaths to serve as weights on top of the haystacks, they waited for sleep to overtake their fidgety chaperone. They had set up on smooth land and were circled around a large lantern, which had a design cut into it: Dots and squiggles radiated from the center, casting a world of shapes onto the ground and the tent’s billowy canvas walls.
“The tea,” Prudence whispered, holding out her open palm. Her mother was showing no sign of sleepiness. On the one night that they needed her to go to sleep, she was alert with worry, and Prudence wanted to make sure she didn’t wake with every shifting of the fire logs. Valerie dug out a pouch of her grandmother’s sleep-inducing sage tea from the depths of her satchel.
Prudence stepped outside the tent to prepare the sleeping brew, her eyes glinting as she bent over the fire’s dying coals. She ducked back in and handed each girl a mug of plain tea, saving Grandmother’s special brew for the last cup, which she handed to her mother.
They waited for her to drink it, trying not to look overinterested.
“Thank you.” Prudence’s mother raised it to her lips, then set it down.
“Too hot,” she said, wincing.
The girls looked at one another. But soon, in her quick, nervous way, she picked it up again.
As she sipped her tea, the girls chatted about nothing, anything. The brew didn’t seem to be having any effect. Within a few more moments, though, the girls looked down and she had curled up in her blankets.
“Now, girls, get to bed.” That was all she managed to get out, propped up on her elbows, before feeling herself become weighty. Soon she’d fallen asleep and lay snoring on the ground. The girls pulled aside the tent flap, a window onto the pitch-dark men’s camp across the river, anxious to see what the night would hold. Prudence coughed loudly, a test. Her mother did not stir. Now they could talk openly.
Roxanne couldn’t contain her excitement. “Valerie, I saw Henry looking at you today.”
“I don’t know what to do,” Valerie spilled out. “I think he was, too. I mean, he’s nice. But that’s… it.”
“Nice? Valerie, he’s rich!”
“I would kill to be in your position,” Prudence said convincingly. “You shouldn’t throw such an opportunity away.”
“I just don’t know,” Valerie mused, thinking of the way she’d felt seeing Peter. “What is love supposed to feel like?”
“If you don’t know what it feels like, then obviously you’re not in it,” Lucie snapped uncharacteristically. Valerie felt hurt. She did know, though, that while Lucie made other people fall in love with her instantly, there was something that prevented her from being the girl whom every boy loved. Valerie knew it was a sensitive subject, and so, impressed with her own tact, she kept quiet.
“Can you believe Peter’s back?” Roxanne asked, quickly changing the subject as she combed through her flame-colored hair with her fingers to dislodge any remaining straw.
“No,” Valerie said, glad for the shift in topics, until she realized she couldn’t be outspoken about this one, either. She shook her head to herself. “No, I really can’t.”
“He is so unbelievably gorgeous.”
“I think he looks like a villain!” Lucie held an imaginary scythe and imitated his stalking gait, sending the girls into a fit. She closed her eyes when she laughed, something Valeire had always liked about her sister.
Prudence, though, remained serious. “Do you think he’s killed people?”
“Like who?” Roxanne wondered.
“Like women.”
Roxanne looked uncomfortable.
“What I can’t believe is that you used to be his best friend,” Prudence said to Valerie.
“They used to do everything together,” Lucie said, a bit grudgingly. Valerie was surprised. Lucie did not seem like herself.
“Before he became a murderer,” Prudence delighted in saying.
The girls considered this. Valerie had always been afraid to know the precise details of what had happened. It had been an accident. When Peter and his criminal father escaped town, their horse had reared up in fear, frightened by the mob and their torches—and Henry’s mother had been struck. Valerie knew only vaguely of the incident, having been too young to be told at the time and the subject being unspoken of afterward—forbidden. Daggorhorn was like that. Traumas came and went. They had to be gotten over, and that was to be the end of it. But Valerie did know that Henry had never gotten over it.
“Wait,” Prudence said. “I have something.” She reached into her pack and pulled out a few jars. She had stolen some of the oak bark beer her father brewed in a large vat at the back of his herding shed.
“I figured he wouldn’t notice a few jarfuls missing,” she said.
The girls took turns downing small swigs of the burning liquid, but Rose was the most enthusiastic.
“I’ve heard it can blind you.” Lucie scowled before reaching for a bottle.
Valerie tried it and spat it out. “Tastes like rotten porridge.”
Prudence looked at her, offended. She didn’t like it, either, but she felt somehow that Valerie’s proclamation reflected badly on her father. “Fine, more for us, then,” she snapped.
“Roxanne?” Rose offered the jar, teasing, already knowing the answer.
“I’ve heard that, too, about the blinding.” She looked cornered. “Otherwise, I would,” she added quickly.
“Suit yourself.” Rose shrugged. Emboldened with drink, she blurted out what she’d obviously been dying to share. “Henry may have been looking at you, Valerie, but it was my shoulder he touched as he passed by in church this week.”
“Touched how?” aske
d Roxanne.
“Very gently and sweetly.” Rose demonstrated on Valerie. In one of her rare moments of girlish earnestness, she asked, “Do you think that’s flirting?”
“I do!” Roxanne was optimistic.
Lucie flushed pink. She’d always been uncomfortable talking about boys.
“You’re going to have to face them sometime, Lucie,” Roxanne chided her. “Come on, you must think someone’s handsome….”
Lucie beamed, and tears formed in her eyes from both laughter and embarrassment. Smiling, she leaned over and muffled her face in Valerie’s lap.
The girls’ conversation lulled as the night darkened to utter black. Together, they were comfortable without conversation, listening only to the elements of the outdoors.
Valerie gazed down at Lucie, who had fallen asleep in her lap, her hands clasped together under her cheek. Funny that sometimes it felt like she was the older sister.
“Do you ever wonder,” Rose inquired, leaning into the circle, “what Henry looks like…”
“What he looks like?” Roxanne wrinkled her freckled snub nose, confused.
“Without his clothes on?” Rose blurted out.
“Eww! No! Do you?”
Rose smiled devilishly and tossed her hair. “I guess I do, if I’m asking.” The scene Rose envisioned included, of course, a crackling fire, draped animal furs, and copious goblets of wine.
“I saw my father’s once,” Prudence cut in.
The girls squealed together, both thrilled and disgusted, then quickly quieted. Tea or no tea, they might wake Prudence’s mother.
Lucie, cradled still in Valerie’s lap, woke to their screams just as Valerie saw Peter’s signal, a candle flickering dimly, on the other side of the river.
