Winterkill (20 page)

Stop it.

My head aches, echoing the throb in my leg. I'm bone tired, but there's only one thing that matters and I don't have much time. I climb to my feet and head toward the center of the grove to get my bearings. I rub my hands over my arms for warmth and turn to the northwest. A branch snaps behind me.

“What are you doing out here?”

I spin.

Kane is standing at the edge of the clearing, his arms folded over his chest. He's wearing a sensible winter cloak, but his head is bare.

Relief washes me as I let out my breath. A spark of joy
bursts in my heart. I want to run to him. But I draw back. What am
I
doing out here?

“Could ask you the same thing.”

“Came after you.”

“Why?” I can feel the cabin—hidden in the trees behind me—signaling like a torch.

“Saw you leave. All upset-like. Wanted to make sure you were all right.”

“You shouldn't be out here,” I say.

“Neither should you.”

I look him over careful. “Well, I am.”

“Me too.”

I move toward a fallen log on the edge of the clearing and sit.

He crosses and settles beside me. “Aren't you cold?”

“A mite,” I admit. He removes his cloak and drapes it over my shoulders. I think to protest, but I'm too grateful for the warmth. “Thank you.”

“It's all right.”

There's a pause and I'm suddenly aware of how close he sits. I can feel the heat of his body through our clothes. My own skin feels on fire.

“I'm good at this.” He rubs at the back of his neck.

“What?”

“Running after you.”

The false attack. He's admitting it. My feelings about that, lodged inside my secret heart, burst up into my throat. I speak before I lose my nerve. “I know what you did at Harvest, coming after Edith and me—”

He cuts me off. “It's fine, Em. Truly.”

“But you didn't have to do that.”

“Yes, I did.” A silence. Then he smiles. “Just stop running off, all right?”

“I'll try.” I smile back.

“So”—he looks around the grove—“what
are
you doing out here?”

I hesitate. Should I tell him?

“Gathering.”

“This far?”

I shrug.

He rubs a hand over his shaved head. “Without a cloak or satchel?”

I don't answer.

“You're not thinking of going back to the Crossroads, are you?” His eyes are so worried I want to laugh. I
wish
the Crossroads were my concern.

“I'm not going back to the Crossroads.”

“You sure?”

“I'm sure.” And then, just like in the Kitchens, I want to tell him—I want to show him the cabin, tell him about Brother Stockham in the woods the other day. I want to confide in him.

“Good. I don't want you to do anything unthinking. I know Affirmation's coming up.”

I freeze. “Yes . . .”

“I mean, I . . . I heard about Brother Stockham's proposal.”

Word travels fast. My face flames and I cross my arms over my chest. “Don't want to speak on it.” I stare at the ground.

“Don't have to.”

Then, my tongue running along ahead of my mind like a runaway cart, I'm speaking on it. “Course Pa thinks this is the best thing that could happen to us. Finally! A chance to clear our Stain.” I close my eyes and shake my head. “Pa's so hopeful—he's walking about with his head high for the first time in I don't know how long. He doesn't want to hear that I don't want to bind to Brother Stockham. He doesn't want to know that Brother Stockham skitters me—proper skitters me—'cause it's always like he's seeing into my head, seeing my thoughts!”

Oh, for the grace!
I snap my mouth shut.

Kane stares at me with wide eyes.

“I shouldn't have said that.” I turn away from him.

“Em, it's all right.” His tone is so gentle it makes my insides weak.

I clench the edges of the cloak tighter, keeping my hands tucked around me, keeping them from wandering where they have a mind to go. This is addled; I'm addled. My temper boils up again, but now I can't figure at who exactly—Pa? Brother Stockham? Myself?

“Why'd you come after me?” I turn back and stare at him hard. “Truly? Why?”

“I told you—”

“Sure, you were worried. Worried about the Stained girl. The cripple.” I stare at my bad foot, feeling shameful tears throbbing behind my eyes. I can't cry. I won't.

It's silent for a few horrible moments. I half expect him to pick himself up and ask for his cloak back.

When he speaks, though, his voice is soft. “Why does it bother you?” He's looking at my foot.

I bite my lip. Surely he knows why it bothers me. Even so, the words come. Halting and unsure. “It . . . marks me. Can't—can't do things proper.”

“Don't see it holding you back too much,” he says, looking around the grove. “You're out further than anyone I know would dare.”

“You say that like it's a good thing.”

“Good or not, takes courage.”

We sit in silence a moment.

He speaks again. “There was a story in one of my ma's books I read once, about a town overrun with mice. The townspeople called a piper to come and take the mice away. He could do it magic-like; he'd play music on his flute that the mice would follow, so the townspeople promised him a huge reward to drive the mice from the town.”

I look at him from the corner of my eye. I can't figure what he's speaking on, but the gentle currents of his voice are tugging at me again. He's leaning forward, forearms resting on his knees.

“So he played his pipe and headed for the river, and the mice followed him and were washed away and drowned. But when he came for his reward, the townspeople wouldn't pay.

“The piper warned them if they didn't pay, something terrible would happen. And still they wouldn't pay. So he wandered through the town at night, playing a soft, magic tune on his pipe, and all of the children in the town left their beds while their parents slept, and they followed him.”

I lean forward. Never heard a story like this.

“They followed him clear up a mountainside to a cave. The piper played his music and the children followed. But
there was one young girl with a bad leg; she couldn't walk fast like the others, and though she wanted to follow the children, follow the music, she couldn't keep up.

“The piper went on ahead into the mountain, the children followed, and she came in time to see them get sealed inside that cave forever.”

I stare at Kane.

He chews on the side of his lip, eyes on the ground. “When I read that story, I think,
I'd rather be that girl than any of those children who could follow the piper
.”

He looks sideways at me. “That story's about paying what's due, that's plain, but I've always thought it's also about curses being secret blessings.”

I can't speak. I can't see how my foot could ever be a blessing. But that he thinks it—that he'd tell me that story, that way . . .

“I came after you because I wanted to. And to tell you I wish things were different.” He turns me gentle to face him, tugging me forward. I let go of my crossed-arms wall and let him pull me.

He runs a hand up my arm to my neck, my jaw, and holds me like that, his thumb brushing my lower lip. His hands are warm and rough. Then he dips forward and our foreheads touch. I can smell warm woodsmoke, and something that shoots desire straight through me.

I can't breathe.

We shouldn't be out here, he shouldn't be touching me this way, but right now all I want is to be out here with him. Only him.

And then, outside the clearing, branches snap. And snap
again. And again. The brush is being parted violent-like: something or someone is coming toward the clearing at a real determined pace.

Kane grabs me by the shoulders and pulls me to him, toppling us off the log to the forest floor behind us. He puts out a hand to catch our fall, but I hit the ground hard and gasp. I am squeezed between the hard earth and the length of his body. My dress has torn further, and the rough bark of the fallen tree scratches my bare leg and digs into my elbow.

I shift under him and bite back a cry as my thigh catches on a sharp bit of bark.

He clamps a hand over my mouth. We are nose to nose and he's slowing his breathing with some trouble. My heart is beating a violent rhythm, threatening to burst through my chest. His forearm is heavy on my collarbone and his dark eyes plead with me:
Quiet.

It's dead still. No birds sing, no squirrels chatter. The shafts of sunlight that glimmer through the overhead boughs are weak. Even the wind has fled. I search his eyes for—what? Courage? The look he had in his eyes a moment ago—just to see it one last time?

But he turns his head, resting his cheek on the hand covering my mouth and putting an ear to the air. His body is warm on mine, but my blood runs cold.

Several seconds tick by.

And then I hear it.

It sweeps through the low scrub, its body brushing through dry whispering leaves. It enters the clearing, and the twigs snapping under its steps suggest it's sizeable; my weight at least, mayhap bigger. The footfall is regular, plodding.

But the way it is breathing—oh, the
breathing
makes the skin on the back of my neck prickle, every hair on my body rise. It's a low and guttural snuffling, as though following a trail. As though it is . . .

Searching
.

Fear clutches at my heart, my throat. I have to draw air in short, silent sips.

It's crossed the clearing, sounds real near to us now. Just on the other side of the fallen log. If I could reach through the tree, I could touch its bulbous eyes, its hideous snout . . .

And then the footfalls stop and the snuffling quiets. There is a ragged panting. It is
right there.
Kane's body tenses on top of mine and a wave of panic crosses his face and I know, oh Almighty's grace above, I
know
. . .

It's found us.

And then Kane's leaping over the log, metal flashing in his left hand.

A knife. Where did he get a knife?

I hear a loud half-bark, half-squeal. I'm caught in the cloak a moment before I can scramble to my knees. I grasp at the fallen tree to pull myself up, afraid to look . . .

Kane is doubled over, hands on his knees, breathing hard. A flash of black-and-white hindquarters is disappearing into the brush on the far side of the clearing.

Kane straightens and throws his knife halfheartedly into a tree, then turns to me. He's grinning. Has he lost his senses?

He lets out a full breath of air. “A badger,” he says. “A bleeding
badger.
”

“A badger?” It's Watch on the fortification wall with Andre all over again.

“A badger.” He shakes his head, looks to the brush, then back at me. “Do you think we overreacted?”

I climb over the fallen tree and the tightness in my chest eases. And then I bust out laughing. Kane's smile widens and he begins laughing too. We drop onto the fallen tree, cackling with relief, hooting at our panic.

“At least you had your knife,” I say, gasping for breath.

“You should have seen the look on its face!”

This sets us laughing harder, laughing until we are crying. It feels so good to laugh—or to cry—that when we finally get calm I feel reckless, giddy. I wipe at my teary eyes and breathe slow. The moment from before is gone, but I feel so close to Kane. I want to tell him as much.

“Can I trust you with something?”

He stops smiling. His eyes grow serious. “You can trust me.”

“I need to show you.”

Kane crouches beside me, staring at the cabin with disbelief. “What is it?”

“Don't know.”

“You been in?”

I shake my head. “Just found it yesterday.”

“Who else knows about this?”

“I've only told you. But Brother Stockham knows it's here.”

Kane turns wide eyes on me. “How do you know that?”

“Saw him here yesterday.”

“You saw him here yesterday.”

I nod.

“When yesterday?”

“I came in my free time—just after noontime.”

Kane looks at me strange. “Couldn't have.”

“Why?” My heart sinks because I know what he's about to say.

“Because he was with Council all afternoon.”

“I know.” I look at Kane, helpless.

We are quiet a moment.

“Why would he need a cabin here, this far from the fortification?” Kane sits back on his heels. I sit quiet. He jerks his head at the cabin. “Are we going in?”

We've been out here awhile. My pa might figure I'm still with Brother Stockham, or gone to Soeur Manon's. Kane, though—someone might be wondering about him. I glance about. The wind trickles through the spruce behind us: Lost People whispering secrets. Secrets I need.

And that decides it. “We're going in. But Kane”—I grab at his arm as he moves to get up—“someone might be inside.”

Kane stares back a long while. Then he nods. “We'll be real careful.”