Well of Sorrows (12 page)

5

IGHT FOUND COLIN SITTING ON THE ROCK that offered a view of the plains, his satchel and sling resting on the stone beside him. He’d used the sling to hunt rabbit and squirrel and prairie dog since his day in the penance lock three weeks before—had hunted that evening in the dusk after his father sent him to warn everyone to prepare, to be at the wagons in the morning, ready to go—but the intensity of the hunt had died. He no longer felt the dark thrill of excitement when he touched the cords or held the smoothness of a stone in his hand. That thrill had come from the anticipation of using the sling against Walter, and he had no intention of doing that again. He hadn’t even been down to Portstown since the Armory had dragged him there and Sartori had put him in the locks.

He was done with Walter, with Brunt and Gregor and Rick. In the morning, he’d be on the plains, heading far away from Portstown, its Proprietor, and his son, passing beyond the farms, beyond where even he had hunted. The thought stirred something deep inside him, a prickling in his chest, a quickening of excitement that tingled against his skin.

He sat in the moonlight and stared out across the silvered grass, his knees pulled up to his chin, his arms wrapped around them. In the distance, he could see the eight covered wagons, already loaded and ready to go, like black stones against the plains. A few guards wandered around them, mostly Armory mixed with a few of the chosen settlers from Lean-to, there to protect the wagons from the dissidents and conscripted prisoners who’d banded with Shay. Crickets chirruped, and something small rustled in the grass nearby. Wind gusted against his face and brought with it the smell of earth, sea salt, and the smoke from the tents in Lean-to. He breathed in those scents, held them, exhaled slowly as he rested his chin against his knees and smiled.

He heard Karen approaching long before she arrived, her dress swishing in the stalks of grass. Resentment stabbed through his exhilaration—he’d come up here to be alone—but that died as she reached the rock. Karen and her father had become part of the main group intent on heading into the plains and establishing the town everyone had started to call Haven. She and Colin had stolen away more than once while their parents and the others argued over what was necessary for the trek and what was not, who to allow into the party and who to leave behind, and how to protect everyone. Those excursions—down to the darkened beach, or more often here, to the edge of the moonlit plains and the flat stone— leaped to the forefront of Colin’s mind as she settled down beside him, her legs folded beneath her.

“I thought I’d find you here,” she said. She brushed her hair away from her eyes, tucked the strands behind her ear. It had grown long since he’d first stumbled into her at the stream, but it was still wild. In the moonlight, it appeared black, her skin a pale white. “Our parents are discussing—”

“Food,” he said, cutting her off. “I know. That’s why I left.”

“They don’t think we have enough, not for as many people as are going.”

“We’ll have to hunt as we go. The wagons won’t be able to move that fast, not without a road to follow. We’ll have plenty of time to scout ahead and forage for food.” The words were his father’s, and he said them with the same curt tone. Beside him, Karen stilled, then shifted position, adjusting her dress as she too pulled her knees up to her chin.

After a long moment of silence, she said, “Aren’t you afraid?” Colin turned toward her, brow furrowed in confusion. “Of what?”

“Of what’s out there.”

“Oh.” He relaxed. “No.”

“But it’s so open. So . . . empty.”

“It will be better than the trip here to Portstown, trapped in the hold of the ship, only coming up on deck an hour every day, crammed in there with all the other people, with goats and chickens. I hated the ship. I hated the ocean. And I hate Portstown.”

Karen flinched, and Colin suddenly remembered that she’d lost her mother, brother, and sister on the voyage here. Grimacing, he added, “Besides, it can’t be empty. There’s got to be something out there.”

“What?”

“I don’t know, but the other expeditions—the ones the Proprietor sent out before us—went somewhere. Something had to have happened to them.”

Karen gave him a look. “That doesn’t exactly make me feel any better.”

He shrugged. “I think it’s exciting. We’ll be the first to see it, the first to experience it.” He felt the hairs rise on the backs of his arms. “We’ll be the first ones there, with no Proprietor to tell us what we can and can’t do.”

“But the Proprietor
will
be there, or at least a representative of the Family.” She gave him a significant look.

He waved it aside. “Doesn’t matter. Whoever it is will be outnumbered.”

Karen snorted, but didn’t argue any further. Instead, she lay her head down on her knees, pulled them in tighter, and sighed. “I hope you’re right, Colin.” But her voice was still troubled.

Colin’s brow creased in slight irritation. “I know I’m right,” he said, but quietly, almost to himself. “There’s something out there, waiting for me. For us. I can feel it.”

Karen didn’t say anything. She watched him, the whites of her eyes bright in the moonlight. Her gaze was steady, searching, lips turned down in a slight frown, as if she were trying to come to a decision.

Its intensity made Colin nervous. He glanced toward her, then away, shifting where he sat, pressing his chin into the tops of his knees. The position was vaguely uncomfortable. His legs were too long now to make it comfortable.

A moment before he would have broken and asked her, “What?” she sighed and looked away. He watched her dig into a pocket of her dress, her hand coming out in a tight fist.

“Colin,” she said, then hesitated, ducking her head. Her back straightened, and when she lifted her head again her lips were pressed together.

In a rough voice, she said, “Colin, I want you to have this.” She thrust her fist toward him, opened her fingers.

A pendant sat in the palm of her hand, burning silver in the moonlight, the metal chain that held it trailing through her fingers. It was in the shape of a crescent moon, and in its center lay an oval of hollow glass, empty, without a top or stopper.

A blood vial. An unspoken vow.

Colin froze, panic skittering across his chest. He flushed cold with sweat, glanced up at Karen’s open face, eyes wide. “Karen—” But Karen cut him off, her gaze dropping, her fingers curling around the pendant. “My mother gave it to my sister in Trent. She was older than me, and she expected her to meet someone, to find someone—” She halted, shook her head, grimacing. “But then she died, on the
Merry Weather
. They both died, and it broke my father. He didn’t know what to do, didn’t know how to handle it. Before we cleaned the bodies and sewed them up in cloth to drop overboard, he took the pendant from my sister’s neck and gave it to me. I didn’t want to take it, didn’t want to even touch it. But he insisted. He was crying and I didn’t know what to do. I’d never seen him cry before. So I took it and shoved it into a pocket, and I forgot about it.

“Until I met you.”

She reached out and took Colin’s hand, and he didn’t resist. She rested her closed fist in his palm, but didn’t release it.

She caught his gaze, held it with the intensity in her eyes, with the vulnerability he saw there.

“I’m not saying I want you to make the vow,” she whispered, and he could feel her hand trembling in his. “Not now. Maybe not ever. But I don’t know what we’re going to find on the plains, and I wanted you to have this now, before anything happens. After the gallows and the penance locks, after the last three weeks . . . I wanted you to know.” She drew in a steadying breath. “Will you take it?”

He could hurt her with a simple action, with a single word. But he found that the panic had receded.

“Yes.”

She sighed. A shuddering sigh that brought tears to her eyes, sharp in the pale light. She released the pendant, pressed it into the palm of his hand hard enough he could feel the rounded smoothness of the glass, could feel the sharp metal ends of the crescent moon. And then she sat back onto her heels, scrubbed the tears from her eyes, and laughed. A self-deprecating laugh.

Colin dropped his hand to his lap, uncertain what to do with the pendant, then looked toward Karen, face screwed up. “Would you like me to wear it?”

Karen’s breath caught. “If you want.”

He held it out to her. She took it back, undid the clasp, then shifted forward on her knees.

Colin scooted around, back to her, and as soon as he saw the pendant fall down before his face, he ducked his head. He felt the chain against his neck, felt Karen’s hands brush his skin as she closed the clasp again and sat back.

Turning, he picked the pendant up in his hand, ran his fingers across its cold metal and glass, then slipped it inside his shirt, where its weight rested against his skin.

Karen smiled tentatively, then settled back to the rock beside him.

They sat together staring out into the unknown plains and dark night for another hour without saying a word.

“Are the last of the horses ready?” Colin’s father shouted from the end of the line.

Colin looked down the wagons, saw the foreman on the end signal with a hand wave, then turned back toward his father, cupped his hands around his mouth, and shouted, “All hitched and ready!”

Three wagons down, his father waved, then ducked between the lead horses out of sight. Colin heard him shouting to someone else, men yelling and whistling on all sides. All the families that had been asked to join the wagon train except two had been assembled. One of those families was still frantically dismantling the tent they’d lived in for the past two months; the other had decided at the last minute to return to Andover instead. Colin could still hear the man apologizing to his father and Sam, his wife standing behind him, a stern look on her face, body rigid with disapproval as she stared at the men loading the last of the supplies. As soon as her husband joined her, she headed toward the remains of Lean-to, her husband following meekly behind.

“Looks like he was whipped with a pussy willow,” Sam said as they watched the two retreat. One of the men nearby snickered.

Colin’s father merely grunted. “Two less mouths to feed. And two less souls to worry about. I’m certain more will head back to Portstown and Andover once we get started.”

The wagons appeared ready. Goats bleated, hitched to the backs with rope, and children shrieked as they chased each other and the dogs everywhere, the dogs yipping and barking. Mothers muttered curses, hurrying to get their last-minute supplies onto the wagon beds, and men laughed, standing in small groups, conversing.

Colin scanned the plains ahead, eyes shaded against the morning sun still low on the horizon, and grinned. His satchel hung at his side, containing only a few rocks and his sling. He’d helped his mother strip everything of use from their hut, including wood from the sides and roof. All they were waiting for now was the Proprietor.

Even as he thought it, he heard Sam’s piercing whistle. Abandoning the front of the wagons, where the horses were stamping the ground restlessly with all the heightened activity, Colin slid between the two nearest wagons, hand raised to brush the cured hides that formed their roofs, and emerged on the far side.

Everyone was gathering near the back of the first wagon. Colin saw his father standing in front, but they weren’t waiting for the Proprietor. A group of twenty men approached the wagons from the direction of the rougher section of Lean-to, mostly conscripts, their faces hard, eyes black with hatred. The few members of the Armory who’d remained with the wagons headed out to meet them, most of the men from the wagon train, including Colin’s father, joining them a moment later.

Colin caught his mother searching for him, her face troubled, but before she found him, he jogged down the slope and joined the group, pushing forward to the front, where his father and the man who led the group were facing each other, both tense, both frowning.

“What do you want, Karl?” his father asked.

The leader of the conscripts smiled, but it didn’t touch his eyes above his bristly beard. “So you’re going through with it? You’re really going to take Sartori up on his offer?” His voice blended disbelief, resentment, and sarcasm.