Crossing Over (34 page)
Authors: Anna Kendall
“Can’t he say anything for himself?”
Jee blinked and said something. His voice was so thick, from accent or fear, that I couldn’t understand the words. But they made no difference anyway.
“Maggie, his father will come after him. Maybe even after you.”
“I told you, he went on a long hunt yesterday, just before you appeared. Jee says it will be at least three more days before he returns. By that time we’ll be far away, if we move faster. Here, eat this, and you will feel better.”
If we move faster
. The only way we could move faster was if I didn’t spend most of the night moving Cecilia to match our daylight travels. But Cecilia was now a night’s worth of road ahead of us, and if we traveled for two days before I moved her again . . .
. The only way we could move faster was if I didn’t spend most of the night moving Cecilia to match our daylight travels. But Cecilia was now a night’s worth of road ahead of us, and if we traveled for two days before I moved her again . . .
“Eat!” Maggie commanded, and I ate.
“What would we
do
with Jee? Later?”
do
with Jee? Later?”
“What will we do with ourselves?” she said. To which there was no answer. But Maggie was not the girl for no answers. “How much money do you have left?”
“Why?” I countered.
“Because we could maybe start a cookshop in some village at the edge of The Queendom, where Solek’s soldiers don’t go. He hasn’t got all that many soldiers, you know, not to post over the whole Queendom. If you have enough money left to rent some poor cottage and buy just a few vegetables to start, I could cook. Jee can hunt the meat, and we could sleep in the cottage at night. Later on, if we save money hard enough, we can add ale. Come on, Roger—
eat
.”
eat
.”
I ate. Her plan could work, maybe; we could survive with a small, poor cookshop far on a remote edge of The Queendom. I found I hated the idea. But why?
I didn’t know. A year ago, running a cookshop in a quiet village—away from Hartah, away from danger, away from having to cross over—would have seemed the best thing that ever happened to me. But not now. Things were different. I was different.
Different how? I didn’t know the answer to that, either.
“You’ve grown, lad. You’re nearly a man,
” Mother Chilton had said. But it was not that. All boys became men. All boys—
“You’ve grown, lad. You’re nearly a man,
” Mother Chilton had said. But it was not that. All boys became men. All boys—
“What is the month and day?” I asked Maggie. She was efficiently stripping the rest of the rabbit meat from the bones and wrapping it in a clean cloth. She didn’t even have to ponder in order to answer me.
“Month of Sacter, tenth day.”
A month before the summer solstice. Today was my birthday. I was fifteen.
For two days we walked, camping nights as the moon again waxed toward full. Once, from the crest of a wooded hill, I glimpsed soldiers in the valley below. Looking for Cecilia? They would not find her now. The thought brought no comfort.
Jee said little, but without him we would have needed to buy food at houses or inns, both giving away our presence and depleting my coins. Jee, the child, was the only one of us who could hunt, and the snares he set each night produced a steady stream of rabbits. They were spring rabbits, without much meat on their bones, but Maggie roasted them with wild roots and newly budded herbs that she picked as we walked, and by the third day, I had strength enough to go back for Cecilia. When the others slept, I crossed over.
It was a long, weary walk to the windy hilltop where I had left Cecilia. She followed, unresisting, as I led her down the mountains. It was much more difficult here than in the land of the living because the ground shook so. Once it even
shifted
, an abrupt sideways jerk that threw us from our feet into a thicket of thorns. I rose bleeding and bruised. Cecilia rose with her green gown clean as ever, her creamy skin unscratched, her eyes blank. Above us the wind would not stop blowing, and thunder rumbled in streaky clouds.
shifted
, an abrupt sideways jerk that threw us from our feet into a thicket of thorns. I rose bleeding and bruised. Cecilia rose with her green gown clean as ever, her creamy skin unscratched, her eyes blank. Above us the wind would not stop blowing, and thunder rumbled in streaky clouds.
I could not rouse Cecilia but I had roused the country of the Dead, turned it monstrous and deformed. This, too, was my fault.
The next night, I walked Cecilia past the place where Maggie and Jee lay asleep. Not much farther on, the land abruptly descended. From this point on the track, I could see for miles and miles, even under the gray dimness of these thick clouds. On the horizon lay a deeper gray that, I was fairly certain, was the sea.
There was no time to lie with Cecilia in my arms, barely time for a quick embrace. I kissed her cold cheek, sat her down, and crossed back over.
Full sunlight struck my eyes, which had become accustomed to the dimness of that other country. Jee’s whistle played, stopping abruptly as I rose from my bedding. And Maggie stood looking down at me with accusing eyes.
“So you’re back,” she said.
“I was asleep—”
She gave out a single oath, one so filthy that even Hartah had used it only rarely. Jee’s whistling stopped. Maggie said without looking at him, “Go find water, Jee.
Now
. Fill the bag.”
Now
. Fill the bag.”
The child went, eyes wide with fear.
Maggie said, “Nothing I did could rouse you. What you . . . what you . . .” All at once her voice dropped to a whisper, and the sudden terror on her face dwarfed Jee’s. “What you told me in the kitchen. It’s true. Isn’t it?”
I could not see anything to be gained by lying. Not anymore. Besides, she would not believe me. When Maggie made up her mind, not all of Solek’s army could change it.
“Yes. It’s true.”
“You can . . . you can cross over to the country of the Dead.”
“Yes.”
“You’re a witch.”
“No,” I said irritably. “There is no such thing as a witch. I am”—I knew only one word for it—“a
hisaf
.”
So it was with your father
, the old man’s voice whispered in memory,
or you could not be
.
hisaf
.”
So it was with your father
, the old man’s voice whispered in memory,
or you could not be
.
Maggie said, “What’s a ‘
hisaf
’?”
hisaf
’?”
“Someone who can cross over. Maggie, I did not choose this. I was born this way. But I am not a witch, and I swear to you on my mother’s soul that I am no threat or danger to you. To anyone.”
She considered this, her face still twisted with fear, but nonetheless considering. At that moment, fair-haired Maggie reminded me oddly of Queen Caroline, at least in expression.
“You go to her at night,” she said. “You go to Lady Cecilia. That’s where you went last night, isn’t it? I couldn’t wake you this morning but it was not illness, not even exhaustion, it was as if you . . . weren’t here. Because you were not. You were with her.”
“Yes.” Relief washed through me. Maggie understood, she accepted. I could stop hiding and running from her, because now at last there existed one human being who knew what I was but—unlike Hartah, unlike the queen—would not seek to use my “gift” for their own ends. Relief lightened my mind and, despite everything, I nearly laughed aloud. We were free of lies, Maggie and I, and everything from this point on would be so much simpler.
“I hate you!” Maggie screamed, and threw a roasted rabbit at me. Still warm, it burned my cheek and then fell onto the grass, a wet meaty slab. Maggie put her head in her hands and cried as if she would never stop.
“Maggie, what—what—”
“Don’t touch me!” she screamed, although I hadn’t tried to. “You don’t understand anything! You’re the stupidest man I ever met, and the most evil, and the—How can you go to her? She’s dead! Dead, dead, dead, and even when she was alive, she was silly and vain and stupid—even stupider than you are! And I followed you and cooked for you and risked everything for you—don’t touch me!”
“I’m not! Maggie—”
“Go! Get away from me! Or stay here with your dead and rotting whore—I don’t care! I’m going!” She ran down the uneven track.
Even without much sleep, I caught her easily and pinned her arms to her sides as she tried to hit me. Her face was streaked with dirt and tears, she smelled of days of travel, and she bucked in my arms like a captured boar. Then, all at once, the bucking stopped. She threw her body against mine and kissed me hard.
So at last I knew. The suspicion I had had on the island, the suspicion I had worked so hard to dispel, was true.
“Maggie,” I gasped, when I could tear my mouth free of hers, “Maggie, no. I—”
She let me go.
We stood there for a long time, not looking at each other, under a warm noon sun. I had no idea what to say, what to do. A few moments ago I had held Cecilia in my arms—Cecilia, cool and unresponsive and unliving. Cecilia, my lady and my love. And yet I stood there on the mountain track, the land sloping away from me toward the distant sea and spring blooming all around, and my body responded to Maggie’s nearness. Confusion swaddled me like dense fog.
Maggie did not seem confused. She never hesitated. Keeping her face turned away from me, she started down the track. When I ran to catch up with her, she pushed me away, hard.
I caught up with her a third time, grabbed her hand, and pressed into it three of the six silver coins I had left. Again she pushed me away. When I got back to my feet, she had marched ahead. But the coins were not among the weeds on the track; I looked. She had kept them.
Well, she had earned them.
I watched her until she was out of sight. But I didn’t follow her. I couldn’t—I was too weary from my night in the country of the Dead. I had to sleep now, to keep my strength up. For Cecilia.
I found a hidden thicket alive with tender green-yellow leaves, crawled under it, and fell asleep in the sweet warm sunshine.
When I woke, at dusk, I crossed over again. Jee had not returned to me, either, which did not surprise me. It was Maggie whom the child had followed, Maggie who had shown him the only real kindness the poor little rat had ever known. Maggie, who loved me, and whose love I could not return.
Why not
? something whispered inside me. I silenced it. Then, still in my thicket, I crossed over. But this time, I had a desperate, hopeful, insane plan.
? something whispered inside me. I silenced it. Then, still in my thicket, I crossed over. But this time, I had a desperate, hopeful, insane plan.
27
IT WAS THE PLACE
I had left Cecilia that had started me thinking. She was still there, where the mountainside abruptly descended and the land lay spread to the gaze for miles and miles. I had recognized part of that landscape, far below me and above the sea cliffs. It was the clearing where the old queen’s Blues had hung the yellow-haired youth, and the second noose had dangled, awaiting me. Below the cliff at the clearing’s end was the little beach where Hartah and his cohorts had wrecked the
Frances Ormund
.
I had left Cecilia that had started me thinking. She was still there, where the mountainside abruptly descended and the land lay spread to the gaze for miles and miles. I had recognized part of that landscape, far below me and above the sea cliffs. It was the clearing where the old queen’s Blues had hung the yellow-haired youth, and the second noose had dangled, awaiting me. Below the cliff at the clearing’s end was the little beach where Hartah and his cohorts had wrecked the
Frances Ormund
.
I took Cecilia by the hand and led her toward that distant clearing. Each time I could go no farther, I left her and returned to my tranced body in some thicket or sheltered ditch. I slept, bought food as I could, and grew so haggard and filthy that farmwives began giving me bread, from pity. The moon again passed full and began to wane. Each time, I stayed in the land of the living only until my strength had returned, strength that I used only to walk forward to where I had left Cecilia, cross over, and journey with her again. No moon here, only the gray sky shot with flashes of lightning, the storm that never broke, the rumbling earth. Always Cecilia and I moved lower in the mountains, toward the valley where The Queendom lay.
What can I say of those days of walking with Cecilia in that country that had no days, nor any nights? The ground trembled, the sky rumbled, and she did not really know I was there. Yet that time held a wild sweetness for me. Each time I took Cecilia’s hand, put my arm around her slim waist, drew her to lie next to me on the withered ground, feelings surged through me, and none of the feelings fit with any other. I could never have held this woman, a lady, in my arms under any other circumstance. I loved her. And in the round stone house on Soulvine Moor they had—
Whenever that memory assaulted me, I babbled. “Cecilia, I’m so sorry, I didn’t reach you in time, I promised to keep you safe and I failed—I’ll make it right for you, for us, I promise, I
promise
—” And I pressed her to me, and smelled the light flowery scent of her hair, which never changed, and a kind of despairing joy came over me, gone the next moment in a wash of black guilt.
promise
—” And I pressed her to me, and smelled the light flowery scent of her hair, which never changed, and a kind of despairing joy came over me, gone the next moment in a wash of black guilt.
And yet what I remember is the joy.
I don’t know how many days passed this way, but eventually we reached, each in our own country, the cliff above that rocky beach.
In the land of the living, the cabin still stood, deserted and infested with spiders and mice. The yellow-haired youth’s body had disappeared over the winter and spring, probably eaten by crows, but the frayed remains of the noose still swung from the oak tree. I could see the whole horrific scene as if it were not memory but solid reality before me now: Mistress Conyers in her sodden gown, torn between horror and justice. Enfield, the soldier of the Blues, itching to hang me from the same oak tree. And earlier, Hartah on the beach, his arms waving in the driving rain as the
Frances Ormund
struck the rocks and the terrified sailors staggered ashore into the wrecker’s knives. My aunt Jo, shouting to me over the storm, her features blurred by flying water:
Roger! Go! Go now
! The one thing I could not see was myself, the sniveling boy who clutched at the hem of Mistress Conyers’s gown and begged for his life. That boy would not come clear in my eyes, my mind, my muscles. I was no longer him.
Frances Ormund
struck the rocks and the terrified sailors staggered ashore into the wrecker’s knives. My aunt Jo, shouting to me over the storm, her features blurred by flying water:
Roger! Go! Go now
! The one thing I could not see was myself, the sniveling boy who clutched at the hem of Mistress Conyers’s gown and begged for his life. That boy would not come clear in my eyes, my mind, my muscles. I was no longer him.
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