Winterkill (27 page)

“When did your people leave?”

“Generations ago.”

My heart leaps. The left-behinds. “Why did they leave?”

“Many years ago the animals we shared the land with began to die from a sickness we could not explain. Some of our people died too. And when our peacetime leaders began to dream that visitors would arrive and more death would follow, we left. Took our people and fled to the mountains.”

She's speaking on my people's arrival. A thrill rushes through me. She
is
the Lost People;
this
is what happened to them.

“Years passed and our elders began to dream that the visitors had died. All but one group of people.” She smiles. “Your people, Emmeline. We sent scouts to learn more about you, but when our scouts didn't return, these woods became a forbidden place.”

My thoughts are running with her words. The
malmaci
appeared as a sickness at first, then it started the Takings. I stare at her. It's by Almighty's grace alone she and these two boys have survived this long.

“Your scouts were Taken by the
malmaci,
” I say. “It was dangerous for you to come.”

Isi mutters something in their tongue. Matisa looks at her hands. “I listen to my dreams,” she says. “When I began dreaming about a Lost People—and about one girl who was dreaming of me—I knew we had to find you.”

“You came for me?”

She looks up and nods.

“But . . . why?”

“That answer is even longer, but I believe your dreams
have been telling you what mine have been telling me. We were meant to find one another.”

My dreams. They brought me here, to this cabin, to the journal. To the truth about my grandma'am. They urged me to prove my Discovery virtue.

I've done that. I've Discovered the Lost People. I stare at the three. The drink is heating me through, clearing my head. They have the strangest clothes and objects—nothing like the left-behinds Tom and I have found. They're so clean, and none of their clothes have rips or stains. All at once I feel ashamed of my shabby clothes and tangled plait. But one thought washes that away:

They've survived out here.

I pull the blanket off of my shoulders. “You need to come with me to the settlement.”

Matisa shakes her head. “No. My dreams told me to find you. Only you. We have been waiting in these woods, trying to make contact with you.” She looks at the boys. “Nishwa and Isi ventured a bit too close some days.” She points at the mask in Nishwa's hands.

He looks down, sheepish, but Isi frowns. “Scared away that old man, at least.”

Andre. “But why did you need to scare him away?” I ask.

Matisa holds my gaze. “If the wrong person finds us, all is lost. This I know.”

“But they need to know that you're here. You can help us.”

Matisa says nothing, just watches me with her patient brown eyes.

“We've been trapped here five generations! People need to know we can get out, find others.”

They exchange glances. Isi talks to Matisa in their language.

She looks at me. “Our
moshum
—our grandfather—commands our warriors back home. He studies the war habits of other peoples. He told Isi the Lost People would be warlike.”

“We aren't!” I insist. But I think on my dream, with all the Watchers firing on Matisa just as I finally find her, and a spike of fear pierces me. She's right. Her heading back to the settlement with me isn't a good idea. People are too afraid.

“I came to find you,” Matisa says. “My dreams told me you will know who to trust.”

I stare at her hard, figuring her meaning. “You're saying I can't trust just anyone.”

“I dreamt time and again of a hawk circling its prey.” She looks at me careful. “Emmeline,
you
were the prey.”

Isi crawls forward and passes me a hunk of dried meat. The meat is a mite tough, but it's something to occupy my mouth while my thoughts run ahead.

I found the Lost People. I can prove my Discovery virtue, prove my grandma'am wasn't Wayward how everyone thought. I don't have to bind to Brother Stockham . . .

I don't have to bind to Brother Stockham
.

The thought makes my head light with relief. But I push it aside. I have to think this through. Matisa won't come back to the settlement now, and nobody's going to take the word of a Stained girl, are they?

A hawk circling its prey
.

Just like in
my
dreams. Brother Stockham? Whatever is written in the journal is something he doesn't want people to see. Why he never burned it, I can't figure. Unless . . .

Unless he didn't see it, unless someone else was in this cabin. That day I thought I saw him in two places at once. Was it Matisa or one of the boys? Or was it someone else?

If the wrong person finds us, all is lost.

My thoughts flash back to Kane on the Council steps. I shove the thought of his dark eyes, the feeling of his thumb on my lower lip, down deep. Can't let my heart make the decision. Not this time.

The circling hawk in my dreams was always watching me. I think of Jameson's sneer.

When you repeat the mistakes of those Waywards who have gone before, I will be here. And I will set things right.

Grace! As I rub at my eyes, I realize I'm tired, deep in my bones. I have no idea how long I've been outside the fort.

Think
.

I need someone who's real virtuous to help me; someone people will take serious.

Soeur Manon is frail; people might think her mind was getting old. And she doesn't read English. Frère Andre? My pa? Sister Ann can read. But first I need someone to help me talk to people . . .

I need Tom. He's virtuous, well respected. His parents would help him figure out the journal, and he could tell me.

And we've always kept one another's secrets. My throat gets tight. Mayhap we won't need to keep those secrets after this. Mayhap there's something better for both of us, out there. We just need to convince the right people to take that chance.

I need to hurry. If Watch has started a search for me, I won't get the chance to tell Tom anything. But my dreams
have led me here, like Matisa's dreams led her to me. Surely bringing the truth back to the settlement is what I'm meant to do.

It occurs to me I don't yet have that longer answer she was speaking on, but that'll have to wait. I need to get back.

“All right. The three of you need to wait for me here.”

“You're going back?” Matisa asks.

I nod. “But I need to get something first.”

The cellar is cold but less fearful when lit by the strange, bright lamp that Nishwa holds. The light bounces off the walls, revealing a space four strides by five strides. The boys crowd in behind me. The book lies where I dropped it, right in front of the pile of dingy bones.

Nishwa clucks his tongue as Isi pushes past me. I watch Isi kneel next to the skeletons, muttering. He runs his hands over the bones, pulls them from the iron shackles. Nishwa holds the light high.

I step forward, grab the book, and turn to Matisa, fighting the urge to push past her and scramble back up the ladder. “What's he doing?”

“He wants to bury them, like he did the others.”

The others
. I frown into Matisa's face, and then the meaning of her words hits me. The Crossroads. I turn. “You took the bones from the gibbets.”

He looks back at me, his eyes guarded. He nods.

“Why?”

“They deserved rest.” He clenches his jaw and looks away.

Rest. He buried my grandma'am, and what was left of the others. We don't bury our dead—haven't in generations.
There's not enough land near the settlement for that, so the Cleansing Waters have been our way. It skitters me, thinking about their bones under the earth like that. But knowing Isi wanted them to be at rest, even though he didn't even know who they were . . .

I swallow a lump in my throat.

He busies himself, collecting all of the bones into a pile while the light from Nishwa's lamp casts long shadows on the dirt wall behind.

Matisa and I leave the frozen cellar.

“What is this place?” Matisa asks, sorting through her pack and retrieving another hunk of dried meat. She hands it to me.

“I don't know. But I think this book will tell me.” I wish I had enough time for Matisa to read it to me. I tuck it inside my
ceinture fléchée,
tying the knot so it hides the bulge, and then I tie my cloak tighter around me. The light in the cabin is bright from the strange lamp whining away on the floor, but I know the light outside is waning and I need to get back. I stare around the shack, at the small pack in the corner. There's no way they can wait a night for me here, not with the few blankets they have.

“Matisa, how have you survived out here?”

“We have our supplies in a cave, a short ride from here.”

“Ride?”

“We came by horse. They are tied outside.”

Horse. My heart leaps. I've never seen one before, only seen pictures in Soeur Manon's books. Always wanted to see one. They're tall, with large nostrils and big hooves—the moment hiding with Kane in the cellar of this cabin rushes
back. The noise through the woods was hoofbeats, sure, but it was no hell-beast making it. And the sound—well, now that fear isn't addling my mind—it must've been their breath, like sheep huffing out air. Matisa and the boys were looking for me that day, and I disappeared under the shack. I want to burst out laughing.

Matisa is watching me, waiting for me to speak.

“I'll be back,” I say. “Meet me here tomorrow afternoon.”

WHEN I CLIMB UP FROM THE RIVERBANK, I FEEL
like I'm looking on the fortification for the first time. I mean,
really
looking. After being with Matisa and the boys, the weathered posts look sad and tired, not strong and fierce. The bodies shifting around the tops of the walls look that way too. But then I see the glint of a spyglass in one Watcher's hand and the thought of being caught makes my insides turn. I pray to the Almighty no one was spying me with that glass when I slipped away.

The doors on the north side of the river are open, though, which makes me think I'm safe. Surely if someone checked the riverbank and found me gone, they'd assume a Taking and fortify. Likely none of the Watchers have paid my whereabouts much mind since I left the gates. Being the Stained cripple does have its uses. It's a bittersweet thought, considering Kane gave me the idea in the first place.

I cross the Watch flats and duck inside the gates. Brother Jameson is a few strides away, talking with a thin woman—a
gatherer. My stomach clenches hard, but I slip past with a respectful-like nod and limp toward our quarters. He doesn't call after me. I cross the courtyard without anyone so much as glancing my way.

Inside, I close the door behind me and breathe deep. As I cross through the kitchen, I pull the journal from inside my
ceinture,
intending to hide it in my room, but a knock at the door from the common room stops me dead.

Tucking the book back inside the folds of my belt, I tell my insides to stop racing, tell my mind to stay calm. I open the door and find Sister Ann standing there, her mouth in an unhappy line.

“Emmeline, where have you been to? You weren't at the Healing House when I checked. You're meant to be helping with the Affirmation preparations.”

A hot flush rushes through me. “Brother Stockham allowed me to the riverbank this afternoon.”

She frowns. “Whatever for?”

I open my mouth and close it again. What can I tell her? She's looking at me with those tired eyes, waiting on my reply, so I say the only true thing I can. “I accepted his proposal. We're to be bound during
La Prise
.”

I expect her to huff, ask me what that's got to do with anything. But her eyes go soft, the line on her brow smoothes, and her tight shoulders slump. “I heard,” she says.

We look at one another. And there's something in Sister Ann's eyes I've never seen, a . . . sadness. Like she's looking on herself at my age.

“You went for a think.”

“Something like that.” I can't imagine Sister Ann viewing
“going for a think” as useful, but here she is, looking as though she understands.

“I remember the autumn before I was to bind to my husband.” She says it quiet, like she's thinking hard on that memory. “I wanted that autumn to last forever.”

My mouth near drops open at this. I think of Tom's pa. He smiles easy, but he's got a serious manner; Tom's quite a bit like him. There's nothing awful about him, least not to my eyes, but mayhap that's not the point. Mayhap just being expected to bind—to anyone—is burden enough.

I look at Sister Ann. Never figured we had too much in common, her and me. She's so virtuous and I'm so . . . But now that she's standing here, with that understanding look, I can see we are something alike. And that day two years ago, when she would've headed out of the settlement to find Edith—
that's
the kind of Wayward I am. Isn't it?