Never Trust a Dead Man

by Vivian Vande Velde

Page 17

 

  "You lie. " The quavering old voice was Derians. He stood looking at them from the back window of the mill. Farolds window. "You lie," he repeated. "Why would I?"

  Selwyn looked around until he found Anora. "For the same reason everyone thought I wanted Farold dead. To win Anora. "

  Anora covered her mouth with her hands, which made her expression hard to read.

  Derian laughed. "Im an old man," he said.

  Selwyn told the people, "I found that when Derian thought I was Kendra. . . " He wasnt quite sure how to word this.

  The real Kendra put her hand on her hip and tossed her hair. "Derian Miller cant keep his hands to himself," she said. "Ill tell you that. He makes all sorts of promises. "

  "To Kendra?" Anora cried to Derian. "You arranged with my father to marry me. "

  "What?" Derian said, his hearing conveniently fading.

  Kendra ignored him. "Oh no," she said to Anora, sounding - Selwyn thought - more sympathetic than condemning. "Surely you didnt believe him?"

  Anora grew tight-lipped. "Dont speak to me," she snapped. "At least I know to make the man wait until were married. I didnt try to leave a baby with the nuns of Saint Hildas. "

  Kendra hugged her baby closely. She held her head high though her voice shook. "At least I loved the man, not his money. "

  "Which man?" Anora jeered. "Farold, or Derian? They both offered to marry me. "

  "Neither," Kendra said. "And for all that, I think I have fared better than you. "

  I offered, too, Selwyn thought. I wanted to marry you, once. Did Anora not mention him because his love was not relevant now, or because he had never counted? It made no difference, but it still hurt.

  Anora glowered at Kendra. "Slut," she said.

  "Enough. " Bowden looked from Anora to Kendra to Derian to Selwyn. He said, "None of this is to the point I will not have my daughters name and reputation sullied. The arrangement our family made with Derian after Farold died is not of concern to the entire village. "

  "Soon after Farold died," Wilona called out.

  Bowden looked ready to knock her down: two parents, protecting their children. "The point is" - he jabbed his finger at Selwyn to emphasize his words - "it was your knife that killed Farold. "

  "My knife," Selwyn said, "that I lost, that Merton found, and that Merton gave to Farold. " He turned on Merton, who looked as though he would deny it.

  But after a moments hesitation, Merton nodded, saying, "This is true. "

  "Oh, Im sure it is," Bowden snorted. "But why tell it only now?"

  "I was afraid," Merton said, "that if people knew Farold had the knife. . . " - he looked helplessly at Selwyn and finished all in a rush - "they would consider that one more reason for Selwyn to hate Farold and want him dead: to get the knife back. "

  Suddenly Mertons silence made sense. Selwyn could see people looking at him suspiciously even now. Just when I needed you, Farold, he thought, but it wasnt anger or annoyance he felt. He said to Merton, "Except how would I know Farold had it unless you told me, or Farold did, before he died? Obviously Farold had no call to tell me. . . "

  "Nor did I," Merton told the people.

  The villagers glanced at each other as though to see if anybody could tell what Selwyn was trying to say.

  They had already seen him change form before their very eyes. He told the rest of it "I sought help from a witch," he said, "the same witch who changed my appearance. Through her, I learned the truth from Farold after he was dead. "

  "What nonsense - ," Bowden started.

  "Or rather, I learned from his spirit" And still Selwyn held some back for Lintons sake, not to say, "He was alive and well, and you rashly killed him," unwilling to force the man to live with that knowledge. Farold, why did you have to get in the way? Selwyn had to take another deep breath to keep from shaking.

  "Lies," Derian said.

  "Pathetic lies," Bowden amended.

  "Farold told me he kept the knife in his room," Selwyn said, "and there Derian could easily get to it. "

  "Farolds room was his own," Derian said. "I didnt go in there. "

  "Youre in there now. "

  Derian threw his arms up in exasperation. "Because you were in here," he protested. "You - disguised as Kendra - opened the shutters. "

  "Enough of this," Bowden told Linton. "Gag him and bring him back to my house until we decide whats to be done with him. "

  "You did go in there," Selwyn said to Derian as Linton bent to pick up the rag. He spoke in a rush. "In front of Holt Blacksmith yesterday you admitted youd seen me the night of the murder. You described me, trying to get Anora to come to the window. " He found Holt in the crowd, and Holt was nodding.

  "I remember," Holt told everyone.

  Linton hesitated.

  Selwyn finished, "But your room is in the front of the mill, Derian, overlooking the street. "

  Derian licked his lips. "I couldnt sleep that night I . . . thought I heard a noise in Farolds room, so I went to look. The shutters were open - that was what I heard, one of them rattling - and I looked out the window and saw you. You must have come in through there after I went back to bed. "

  Thorne said, "You heard the shutters rattling when you normally cant hear a customer banging on your front door? When you told us you slept soundly all night? When you told us you didnt hear a thing?"

  "I meant after that," Derian said lamely. "Farold was my boy. You cant imagine Id kill him. Dont you remember when his father was the miller, and the mill caught fire? I rushed into the flames and rescued him. I raised him as a son. "

  Selwyn remembered when he and Farold had been talking to Elswyth about Thornes son, Alden, burning down the smithy, and Elswyth had said, "Just because a fire starts during a storm doesnt mean the storm caused the fire. " Now, he said, "Farold was fortunate you were close by that night And you, of course, were fortunate that only the living quarters burned - only people died - and the machinery wasnt damaged. I remember everyone patting you on the back, calling you a hero. But 1 say you were there to make sure the mill itself didnt go up in flames; I say you rescued Farold only so people wouldnt wonder why you were there. No one asks what a hero is doing so close to the disaster. Its obvious: rescuing poor little orphan nephews. "

  "Lies," Derian repeated. But this time Bowden didnt agree with him.

  Selwyn said, "Youve been in the habit of killing to get what you want for a dozen years now. "

  "Boy, this witch of yours has affected your mind," Derian said.

  Which everyone knew was no answer.

  Derian disappeared from the window.

  "Murderer!" Linton shouted, pushing past Selwyn, not even seeing him. "You murdered your own kins-people. "

  It was over. With that, Selwyn knew it was over.

  Other people began shouting, running. Someone screamed to stop the miller - that he would try to set fire to the mill, to take everything with him.

  Oh, Farold, Selwyn thought, looking down at the insignificant little birds body in the grass. From the beginning, he had known it would have to come down to this. For everyone - eventually, one way or another - everything came down to this. But not in such a way, Selwyn thought.

  He could hear the thumping of feet in the mill building, downstairs, upstairs, and then the shutters on the side slammed open, those on the second floor that overlooked the giant waterwheel. By the sounds, Derian flung himself out. By the sounds, he must have hit the wheel. Several times. People gasped or screamed, and moved in closer, but still Selwyn couldnt look up to see what was happening, couldnt look away from what had already happened.

  Eventually, he walked back to the tavern, to find his father and his mother.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  According to the bargain Selwyn had made with Elswyth, he had four days left to spend with his family before his nine and a half years of servitude began.

  His mother wept and urged flight, pointing out that if th
ere were enough miles between Selwyn and the witch, the spell to summon him might not work. If they could get on a boat, she was sure that the sea separating them would diminish the strength of the tug of magic.

  His father said to let the spell call Selwyn. He would go, too, and chop off the witchs head.

  "Father," Selwyn said, "no. I agreed. She fulfilled her part of the bargain. I will do this. "

  "Well see," his father said in that tone that meant his mind was perfectly well made up already.

  And so, to avoid certain disaster, Selwyn left home after only three days.

  He told his parents - which was true - that he was going into the village to say good-bye to Kendra. He just did not tell them that he would not return to say good-bye to them.

  He had already walked beyond the fields, beyond even the path that led up into the hills. He had walked to where the road curved and dipped right before the start of the woods when, around the curve, came a tall young woman - a goose girl, apparently, for a large ungainly white duck waddled along beside her.

  The duck lifted its wings, but they must have been clipped, for it stayed earthbound. The creature charged toward Selwyn, its wings extended and flapping, looking as awkward as a young child running soon after learning to walk.

  Selwyn braced himself, though ducks are not generally so aggressive as geese.

  The duck wrapped its wings around Selwyns leg and said, "Selwyn, you dumb twit, Im amazed but happy that youre still alive! What happened, did you get confused, youre coming a day too early, how did you escape?"

  "Farold?" Selwyn said.

  "How many talking ducks do you know?" the duck asked.

  Selwyn knelt to sweep him up into his arms. "I didnt know I knew any!" he cried. "And Im amazed and delighted to see that youre still alive. " Which he was - more than he would ever have guessed. "What hap pened?" he asked. By then the young woman had reached them, and he added, "And whos this?"

  The young woman smacked him on the side of the head.

  "Oh," he said over the ringing in his ear. "Elswyth. " He remembered she had kept saying she was gathering the ingredients for an important spell. Now he saw what the spell must have been. She was young, looking hardly older than he himself "I would have come," he told her. Turning his attention to Farold, he asked, "And why are you a duck?"

  Farold said, "After that dunderhead of a cousin of mine started swatting, I suddenly found myself in the afterlife again - which, I suppose, means he hit me. "

  Selwyn nodded.

  "So, I thought, Well, its one thing for me to be dead, having been through it already and all; its another thing for the dumb twit to be on his own. I was certain those villagers were going to toss you into that stream or tear you apart. So I said to myself, Well, I cant do anything here, not having a working body anymore, so Ill go get the old witch and see what she can do. "

  Elswyth showed her teeth in a grin.

  "Except shes not old anymore," Selwyn observed.

  "She was still easy to find. Certain things are easier in the afterlife, you know - even though I cant tell you about it. Not having a body, I haunted her until she got tired of that and gave me one. " Farold held his wings up. "Unfortunately, she didnt have too much to choose from. What about you? Did you find out who killed me? The first time, I mean, not counting Linton?"

  "Oh," Selwyn said, reluctant to break the news. "Im afraid it was Derian. "

  "Derian?" Farold said. "My own uncle?"

  "Im afraid so. "

  Elswyth made a disappointed sound and shook her head. "I was sure it was the beautiful girlfriend," she said.

  Farold ignored her. "But you said it wasnt him, because I was running the mill so well. "

  "You said it wasnt him, because you were running the mill so well," Selwyn corrected. "And it had nothing to do with that It turns out he killed you to win Anora. "

  "Ha!" Elswyth gave an I-told-you-so smirk.

  "It also turns out," Selwyn finished, "that he set the fire that killed your family when you were a child, to get the mill from your father. Everybody turned against him, and he jumped from the upper window and killed himself. "

  Farold sat down in the dust of the road with a sigh, which sounded odd coming from a beak.

  "Im sorry," Selwyn said.

  "Its just quite a shock," Farold told him.

  Elswyth sighed also, to indicate she was getting bored.

  After a few moments Farold said to Selwyn, "But they let you go, even knowing that witchcraft had been involved in your disguise?"

  "I think," Selwyn said, "only because they felt so bad about putting me in the burial cave. But for the most part they wouldnt talk to me, wouldnt look at me if they came face-to-face with me in the street. Anora spit at me, but I think thats because nobody will talk to her, either. It came out that she was going to marry Derian, and everybody saw it was because of the money, and also she said some horrid things to Kendra. And as for Kendra, it turns out the father of her baby is Alden Thorneson. "

  "Kendra," Elswyth said. "The other beautiful girl with the. . . " She gestured.

  "Poor Kendra," Farold said. "She would have done better with me after all. "

  Selwyn said, "She was trying to protect Alden, thinking hed marry her when they were both in Saint Hildas, but he wouldnt. But Raedan wants to marry her. Apparently hes loved her for years. He wants her and the baby. Kendra and Raedan are some of the only people willing to speak to me - and Kendra, of all of them, has the greatest cause to complain of me. "

  "Is that why you were leaving early," Elswyth asked, "instead of waiting for the spell?"

  "No," Selwyn admitted. "I was afraid my parents might . . . do something to try to help me. "