Winterkill (19 page)

He strikes a flint. “After you,” he says, gesturing toward the pulpit at the front of the hall.

He lights the torches as we make our way to the front and soon the space is pockmarked with circles of yellow light. The shadows from the ceremonial table, with its wooden box and candles, stretch tall to the thatched ceiling above us.

We climb the stairs to the table, my heart beating hard. At the top he turns me toward him. I remember that prey bird plucking the walleye from the river right in front of us. I swallow and meet his eyes—praying to Almighty I look nervous like any young girl with a suitor would, not nervous like I know something about him I shouldn't.

He tucks a lock of his hair behind his ear. “Thank you for accompanying me here.”

“Course,” I say, wondering what choice I had.

“I'm keeping you from your work, no doubt,” he says.

I shrug, trying to look easy. “The poultices can wait.”

“And the gathering?”

Why is he asking after that? I feel my cheeks start to pink. “Not much to gather these days.”

“But you often head outside the fortification.”

My insides freeze over. I'm back in the woods, face pressed to the earth on that hill . . .

Go with something close to the truth.

I think about the arrowheads and bone tools tucked under my bed. “I spend my free time on the riverbank, looking for left-behinds.”

“You have a fascination with such things, don't you?”

“Tom and I've been gathering left-behinds since we were children.”

“Since you were children. But”—he leans close—“you are no longer a child, Emmeline.”

I swallow. “I'm just interested.”

“And interesting.” His gaze traces over my face and lingers on my mouth. I want to clap my hands over it. I look around for something—anything—to look at, and settle on the locked wooden box on the ceremonial table beside us.

He notices. “The sacraments.”

I nod. I know the sacraments for the virtues commitment ceremony at Affirmation lie inside: a sacred plate and cup, a cloth. But I've always wondered, “Why is it locked?”

“Because what's inside is much more than a ceremony symbol.”

My eyebrows raise.

“Inside is our commitment to life, or to death. What we decide for the days ahead.” He looks across the hall, to the dancing flames of the torches. When he looks back at me,
that strange, uncertain look is back in his eyes. “Emmeline, could you . . . tell me your ideas for the days ahead?”

“Days ahead.” I repeat his words, trying to figure them. Is he speaking on the proposal or something else? I don't want to address the proposal so I hedge with the something else: “I . . . I want to prove my Discovery virtue.”

A pause. “Do you.”

“I want to prove it so everyone knows I'm . . . worthy.”

“I already find you worthy.” His gaze makes the room suddenly smaller, the walls tunneling in around us. It's not proper: him and me alone together, in this dark hall.

I have to drop my eyes—I can feel my cheeks growing hot—as I fumble for something to say. “It's just . . . you said our salvation lies in Discovery. And I believe that too. But I'm not always certain proving Discovery is possible without disobeying Council.” His eyes narrow.

Grace!

“I mean, we can't risk the safety of the settlement, I know that. But how will we ever know what can help us if we don't venture out, if we don't . . .”

What am I saying? I'm making it worse. I trail off, a trout gasping for air on the riverbank.

But he smiles. “You are a thinker, Emmeline. I admire that.”

I duck my head. The leader admiring me? He can't mean it.

“Discovery is something I have thought long and hard about. To what lengths should we go in order to uphold that virtue? How can we be sure the risk will result in a better life for our people?” He rubs a hand over his jaw. “It's something
my grandfather wrestled with. My father had no use for such ponderings; he thought my grandfather was a doddering fool.”

That squirmy feeling is back in the pit of my stomach. What risk is he speaking on? How does he know what his grandpa thought about?

“My father's idea of leadership was clear. He had no use for decisions made from impulse, from desire”—he pauses and holds my gaze—“from love.”

I swallow hard.

“He taught me that I could lead, or I could desire. But never both.” His hands go to the ties of his cloak. “I have been waiting for nearly ten years, wondering if it was possible to prove him wrong. Thinking. Praying.”

Then he does something I'm not prepared for. He undoes the tie of his cloak and lets it billow to the floor at his feet.

My breath stops as he grabs the leather ties at the neck of his shirt and pulls them loose in one quick motion, jerking the fabric aside, revealing a bare shoulder.

My face burns. I should drop my eyes, I should look away.

But I can't.

I can't because I can see the deep, violent marks snaking over his shoulder and onto his chest. He turns away from me, drawing his shirt back further. The scars continue down his back, disappear under the shirt.

Seeing his damaged skin . . . my stomach hollows out. The scars dance in the candlelight, twisting, winding. Without thinking I reach toward his back—my fingers want to trace those scars.

He freezes.

I drop my hand, press into my bad foot. Hard.

He turns around and tugs his shirt back in place.

“That—” I swallow. “
That
helped you learn his teachings?”

A muscle twitches in his jaw. He doesn't reply, but that unguarded look in his eyes is back. Like he's answering me. Like he could only ever speak this plain with me. The pressure of his pa's expectations is plain. And I understand.

The torches flicker long shadows around us.

He leans forward and lifts a hand to my face, brushing a wisp of hair from my cheek. “Tell me what you do out there. Outside the walls.” His fingers trail to rest on my collarbone.

My Wayward acts scream around my head. I want to lie, but the look in his eyes . . . it's like he's seeing my thoughts plain. Images tear through my mind: Brother Jameson strangling that shearer, the bone-filled gibbets, the cabin. What does he want to hear? Why has he been waiting near ten years?

I can feel a flush starting up my neck. “I . . . well, I look for left-behinds.”

He waits, his eyes liquid. Hopeful.

“And . . . I listen.”

He is mesmerized. His fingers start to travel upward, beyond the collar of my dress to my bare neck. “What do you listen to?”

“Everything. The river, the wind, the birds. I mean, it sounds addled, but”—I swallow—“sometimes it seems the woods are talking to me.”

His fingers stop. “I've—I've often felt that way.”

We stare at one another in the half-light. Then his fingers burn a single line as they trace to my chin. He tilts my face
toward him, his chiseled face, shining dark hair. “But I don't know what they say.”

“I think I know.”

He leans close. That hope in his eyes—it makes me want to lean close too.

My voice is a whisper. “They say
Find us.
”

He stops dead. For a moment I think that he's going to pull away. But then something flashes across his face—excitement? Relief? He leans forward to put his lips to my brow. The kiss brands my skin, sends hot pins and needles everywhere.

He steps back, looking me over. “You are very much like her.”

I take a short, hiccupy breath. “Who?”

“Your grandmother.”

I draw back, the pins and needles turning to ice. “How can you possibly know that?”

His smile falters.

“Brother Stockham.” We both jump. Brother Jameson appears from nowhere, stepping out from a dark corner of the hall.

Oh, for the grace! When did he come in?

His hand is across his chest in the Peace of the Almighty, but there's no peace in his eyes. “This is a most unusual sight.”

My eyes fly to Brother Stockham, stepping away from me. The laces of his shirt are undone, his cloak lies around our feet. Blood rushes loud through my ears, heating my face.

“Brother Jameson,” Brother Stockham says, “I didn't see you there.”

Brother Jameson walks toward us, his hands clasped behind his back. He's leveling me a look I'm well used to. I want to disappear.

Brother Jameson raises his eyebrows. “I am interrupting.”

“Nonsense.”

There's a silence. The hall creaks around us, the torches flicker.

Brother Jameson stops. “You've taken to giving Virtue Talks privately?”

“This is a courting visit.”

Brother Jameson's eyes go wide with shock. Then they narrow with disdain. “Is it.” He's looking at me like I'm not fit to clean the sheep pens.

“It is.” Brother Stockham's face is pleasant enough, but there's a warning in his voice.

“And when were you going to inform Council you had chosen a life mate? That you'd chosen a . . . Stained?”

“I'm telling you now.” They stare at one another, shadows dancing on the walls, on their faces. Something real strange passes between them.

I'm used to being eyeballed, but a part of me wants Brother Stockham to set Brother Jameson straight, tell him to speak to me with more respect. Another part of me wants to scream that the proposal's not a done deal, not yet.

Brother Jameson straightens. “Well, then, I will tell Council the good news.” He turns on his heel and sweeps out. The door bangs shut behind him, echoing in the hall.

Bleeding Almighty! Everyone will know about the proposal within a day. My secret heart dies a thousand deaths right there.

I turn to Brother Stockham, my cheeks hot. “I have to go. Soeur Manon needs all the rose hips I can find.” Bleed it! I already told him there was nothing left to gather.

But he just says, “Of course,” and I can see his thoughts are elsewhere. His eyes trace over the wooden box behind me.

I swallow and turn to start down the steps, but he catches hold of my hand.

I'm brought up short, and as I turn back, he brings my hand to his mouth, places a kiss on my knuckles. His eyes are piercing. “We will prove him wrong.”

I don't know who he's speaking on: Jameson or his pa. A sick flush washes me. I nod and remove my hand careful, then all but throw myself down the steps and out the hall doors.

Our quarters are empty, thanks be. I dash into my room, thinking to look for one of my left-behinds, thinking mayhap that little clay figure might soothe me. Instead, my hands move as if of their own accord, and I grab my grandma'am's ring from under my pillow. Then I tuck it into my moccasin. A wave of exhaustion sweeps me and for a minute I think about lying down, burying my face in the pillow. But I need out of here. Out of these walls. I need to get back to that cabin.

I slip out the side door, turn at the corner of our quarters, and head for the west gates.

Once I get past the Watch flats and into the first line of trees, I run.

I SPRINT FOR THE WOODS, RAGE RUNNING UNDER
my skin like a herd of bison, trampling my good sense into dust. Brother Stockham's hands, his eyes, Brother Jameson's sneer—it all swims before me, mixing with my tears, blurring my sight. I don't know why I'm crying and it fills me with new fury. Brittle undergrowth claws and slaps at my legs, pulls at my bad foot, but I just run and run. The hem of my dress catches on a branch. I pull hard at the skirt and keep going.

Panting, I get to the grove and fall to my knees on the cold earth. When I catch my breath and raise my head, the forest looms, dwarfing me.

I sit quiet for a minute, but it's just the familiar noises of the woods around me—creaking poplars, rustling leaves. The Lost People are whispering in the tops of the branches, looking on. Out here, far from Brother Stockham, far from the hope in my pa's eyes, I can breathe. I feel better tucked away in here, in these trees.

As my heart slows and my skin cools, I realize I'm not dressed proper; it's a bright autumn afternoon but crisp, and inside the trees it's right chill. I should have brought at least my cloak. My dress is also torn something awful—up one side to above my knee. I smooth the fabric, feeling a pang of regret. This dress is the only thing I have that was my ma's. Inside my moccasin, the ring digs into the side of my bad foot and snuffs out the thought. I don't have time for regrets. I have just enough time to get to that cabin, get inside. Unless . . .

I try to shove the thought from my mind, but it barrels in: unless Brother Stockham really can be in two places at once. Or two moments in time, because what did he mean, speaking on my grandma'am like that? How would he know what she was like? And why did I feel like I could tell him about the woods after he lied to me about being out here? Was he trying to trick me?