Winterkill (14 page)

FOR DAYS I KEEP MY HEAD REAL LOW. I LEARN
poultices from Soeur Manon, gather from the barns, run things to the Kitchens, keep my eyes ahead and my walk normal. I show at Virtue Talks and stand near the back, then leave quick-like for bed, before Brother Stockham can catch my eye. Before Pa can get around to speaking on anything.

That night of the Crossroads I made up a tale about losing the time at the barns and missing dinner. Pa was so starry-eyed about Brother Stockham's proposal, he didn't seem to mind. I can't decide the worst of it: being untruthful to Pa or heading knowingly to the Crossroads, to the clutches of the
malmaci
.

“Emmeline.” Soeur Manon's voice jolts me from my thoughts.

I glance up from a yellowed page of her plants book. She holds a ladle in one hand, a fistful of rose hips in the other. “It is the season of
le fievre
.” The fever. “You learn a healing broth.”

We bend over her pot on the hearth and I listen to her mutter,
“Ca c'est bon pour le fievre.”
She adds a sprig of spruce needles.
“L'épicéa.”

I know now I was seeing things at the Crossroads: the drawings and the skeletons in the gibbets coming alive—it was all a trick of my fearful mind. But I'm still angry, only now it's at myself. What was I thinking on? What did I hope to gain by brazening it out with someone long dead? I almost got caught outside the fortification at dark. My hopes the Lost People weren't Taken by the
malmaci
were crushed to nothing by those drawings on the rock wall.

Worst of all: that trail leads nowhere but the Crossroads.

“Emmeline!” I snap my eyes to Soeur Manon's weathered face.
“Attention!”

I nod, trying to fix my eyes on her hands.

She straightens and looks at me.
“Viens,”
she says, gesturing to the bench at her table. She settles herself across from me, her eyes raking over me head to misshapen toe.

“It bothers you,” she says.

I look at my foot. “I guess.”

“
Non, pas ton pied
.” She touches her brow.
“Ta tête.”

I frown.

“Tu as les rêves etranges.”

She's right: my dreams are strange. The girl's voice that now calls to me, me running so fast and sure through the woods. I stare at Soeur Manon's creased face, my eyes so wide they're drying up. “Sometimes.”

“How do they look?”

For half an addled moment I think she means the Crossroads, but then I see she's asking after my dreams.

“Jumbled.”

She tilts her snow-white head, waiting for me to continue.

“I'm—I'm in the woods. And sometimes
La Prise
comes, and sometimes it doesn't. And there are voices that call to me.” I stop, my face going red. “They're just foolish dreams.”

“You are sure?”

“Well, I can't figure what they could mean.”

“Ask them.”

“The voices?”

Her toothless mouth pulls into a smile. “
Non
. The woods.”

As I cross the courtyard away from the Healing House, I feel for my grandma'am's gold band tucked inside my
ceinture fléchée
and worry the smooth, warm surface. What would the woods say about me stealing from the Crossroads? What would Soeur Manon say?

She never says much at all, and I figure that's because she's taken me on in the Healing House as an act of mercy: helping the Stained girl learn an important task. Still, she doesn't seem to mind too much when I talk about odd things or ask strange questions.

And it was like she was urging me to listen to my dreams. Mayhap she understands.

Or mayhap she's so old she's losing her senses.

I spot Kane in the southwest corner of the yard, near the shearing pens. I don't have to pass that way to get to our quarters, but I pretend I'm headed somewhere else and swing past. He's on free time, throwing a knife at a fence post from round about thirty strides away. His brow creases as he holds the tip of the knife just so and then lets fly. His
aim is dead sure. He walks forward and pulls the knife from the post, jogs back to his place.

I can't help but stop and watch. It's another warm autumn day and his shirt laces are open at the neck, almost to the middle of his chest. I try not to stare at his collarbone, the way his chest flexes as he draws the knife back behind his neck, elbow high, and then whips it forward. The knife thunks into the fence post—looks to be the exact same spot. He's concentrating so hard he doesn't notice me.

Pas de garçon pour te sauver
.

Did Frère Andre mean Kane left the hall and came
after
Edith and me during the false attack?

My thoughts stall as I notice someone else watching. On the far side of the pens, the Council building looming at his back, Brother Stockham is looking on. My stomach drops.

Kane sees him as he retrieves the knife. He puts the knife in his left hand and offers him the Peace. Brother Stockham raises his eyebrows and nods, then shifts his eyes to me again.

Kane follows his gaze. For half a foolish second, I'm frozen in their stares. Brother Stockham's proposal. I haven't seen him face-to-face since I got word . . .

Kane looks to Brother Stockham. Then he tosses the knife back to his right hand and stabs it into the fence post. Hard. He turns and begins striding over to me, like we're going to have a talk. He's smiling, but it doesn't reach his eyes.

I turn and start walking normal as I can for the other side of the fort.

“Emmeline!”

The fence boards creak. He's scaling the pen, I know it. I
pick up my pace but am pulled up short as he grabs my arm. I whirl, snatching it away.

He draws back, and the forced smile breaks into a grin. “Easy,” he says.

I glance back at the pens, but Brother Stockham has disappeared.

“Where are you going?” he says casual, like we just happened upon one another.

“Home.”

“Oh.” He laces his hands at the back of his neck. His shirt opens and I look away again. “You're going the wrong way,” he points out.

“I—I know,” I stammer. “I'm . . . going the long way. For a walk.”

He cocks his head, his mouth turning up in that half smile. “All right. I'll walk with you.”

My heart leaps. I'm trying hard to keep my eyes from resting on his collarbone, the top of his chest. “Why?”

He shrugs. “Why not?”

The proposal is why not. If it were common news, he'd know what he's doing is frowned upon. Consorting with another man's chosen? A warmth creeps into my cheeks. I let myself believe that for a second: that he knows about the proposal and is choosing to speak to me anyhow.

“Need to talk to Brother Harold about the smokehouse,” he adds.

Grace.
Course he needs to do something chore related. Course he wasn't
consorting
with me. I'm about to open my mouth and accept when a clamor comes from the center of the courtyard.

“Brothers and Sisters!”

It's Jameson and his followers, spilling out from behind the weapons shack, a dark sickness in a furl of cloaks. They're right wound about something: talking amongst themselves, staring at the woman walking beside Jameson, in the middle.

“Brothers and Sisters!” Jameson calls again, his voice ringing out across the courtyard. He's drawing a crowd. People appear out of the buildings, the Kitchens. Tom and his pa emerge from the barns and follow. Even Andre is joining, wandering along with the tall Watcher who was outside his door the other day.

Kane turns from the ruckus and raises an eyebrow at me. “What do you suppose?”

“Don't know.” I glance around. I want to make myself scarce without Jameson noticing, but they're coming straight for us.

“Should we make a run for it?”

“Course not!” I snap my head to Kane's face, a sliver of panic shooting through me that he knew what I was thinking.

There's laughter in his dark eyes. “All right, then,” he says and tilts his head at the crowd.

They're slowing at the pens, veering off toward the Council building. Jameson starts up the stairs with the woman. We venture closer, but I hang near the back, cabbage moths flitting in my stomach.

“Brothers and Sisters,” Jameson says from the stairs. “We are here to acknowledge and laud Discovery.” His jowly face is satisfied, his eyes lit with that spark he gets when speaking on our virtues.

Everyone hushes.

He points to the woman standing beside him. It's one of the Woods girls, from Shearing and Textiles. She's tall and thin, with narrow-set eyes. “Sister Sarah has proven her Discovery virtue.”

The man beside me leans forward.

Our salvation lies in Discovery.

I look around for Brother Stockham. We haven't had a true Discovery in years, not since Jasper Hayes figured out a way to make better tick curry combs for the sheep. It was a big Discovery, I suppose, since every spring and every fall there's a tick surge, and we can't risk the herd getting sick. I'm hoping Brother Stockham won't appear, but surely he'd want to see this?

Jameson reaches into his cloak for a small leather satchel. He dips a hand into it and brings out a pinched thumb and forefinger.

“This”—he rubs his fingers together and a fine sheen of powder sprinkles through the air. It's yellow; the color of goldenrod—“is crushed lichen. When added to red ochre, it creates one of the most beautiful oranges I have ever seen.” He spreads the dust through the air, anointing the crowd. He looks to Sarah, appraising. Her cheeks go pink. “We will be proud to wear this brilliant color, Sister Sarah.”

Dye for the
ceinture fléchée
.

The women ahead of me put their heads together, talking excited-like, but I feel a pang of disappointment. Surely our salvation can't lie in the brilliance of an orange thread?

I turn away from the crowd and find Kane studying me.

“Unimpressed?” he says quiet.

Why can he read my thoughts like that? I look around, but the crowd is too busy with Jameson and Sister Sarah—some people are pushing forward to get a look at that powder.

“I just thought . . .” I shrug. “Thought it might be something different.” As the words leave my mouth I realize how it sounds. My eyes fly to his face. If he thinks my answer is shameful, his eyes don't say it. But he's looking at me hard.

“I have to get home.” I turn and leave quick, before he can offer to come with me again.

Hurrying through the courtyard, I shift weight onto my bad foot and focus on the spike of pain.

My dream self is running fast and quiet through the woods again, slipping down and up ravines, my perfect feet barely touching the ground. The wind is blowing, but this time I can hear her voice beneath it plain as day:
Find us
. I follow that sound to the base of a low hill dotted with spruce trees. I want to climb it, need to see what's on the other side, but movement makes me look to the sky. The hawk is above, circling slow, its eyes seeing into my soul.

NEXT MORNING I'M CROSSING TO SOEUR MANON'S
when I hear a ruckus at the west gates. Council has a man tied up, just inside the walls. I can tell by his clothes he's a shearer. His hands are bound behind his back and his mouth is gagged.

I've never seen this before, but I've heard tales; I know what's happening.

They're sending him to the Crossroads.

There's a small crowd forming around the spectacle. Brother Davies is standing with his arms out, keeping the onlookers back. The shearer makes muffled sounds through the gag, fighting them. His eyes bulge and his tunic is stained with dirt from scuffling about on the earth. There's a smear of blood on his brow, just below his fire-red hair. He thrashes so hard, it takes two of the bigger Councilmen to hold him.

Brother Stockham stands, watching on.

I stop. I don't want to, but I can't look away—my eyes are drinking it in even as my mind tries to shut it out. All at
once his name comes to me: Jacob. Jacob Brigston, from the west quarter.

They're trying to bind his feet, but he's moving so furious they can't grab hold. Finally one of the Councilmen throws him face-first to the earth and another kneels on the backs of his legs, wrapping a piece of twine around them. He's about to cinch it when Jacob twists his body and kicks out. The Councilman pitches forward and when Jacob kicks again, it catches him in the jaw. Three Councilmen—one of them is Brother Jameson—leap at him and everything is a flurry of cloaks and limbs and shouts.

The crowd is murmuring, getting agitated, and more people keep showing up. There's now a semicircle of curious faces watching it all unfold. Jameson's followers huddle together, craning their necks to see. I'm far enough away I can see the whole thing plain.

“Jacob!” A panicked shout.