Chapter Five. Rory
Rory
The December fields stretched around them, dusted uniform white as far as the eye could see. Rory glanced at the stream snaking to their right, then at the horizon again. He was almost sure he was on the right track, despite it being his first time walking to the village by himself.
Well, not really by himself, he amended. He had Daye.
The frisson of excitement at the thought of Daye in the village with him was almost enough to muffle the pang of Wynne’s absence. He wasn’t even surprised that she wasn’t coming this year, but still.
“We should have brought skates,” he mused, looking at the crust already formed on the stream.
“Then we could have skated most of the way to the village. But it’ll be worth the trip, you’ll see.
Wynne and I go to Ashford every year for Saint Winebald’s Day.
Once the sun starts to set, they’ll light candles in the windows, and there’ll be singing and honey cakes …
” Rory trailed off. “Which I guess you’ll have to take my word on, since you can’t eat them, but they’re really good. ”
Daye grinned back, all but skipping with excitement at her very first visit to the village.
All morning, Rory kept catching glimpses of her through the window as she feverishly flitted back and forth in the garden, waiting for his lessons to end.
Her palpable excitement kept drumming up his, until he could barely keep still, no matter how many times his tutor, Mr. Benson, reminded him to pay attention, look here, finish reading the lesson.
And Wynne, with her endless questions for their tutor, only made it worse.
At least next week would make up for it.
“I almost forgot to tell you.” Rory turned to Daye, excitement once again ratcheting up.
“You wouldn’t believe what Mr. Benson said today!
He said that he arranged for Wynne to take a late entrance exam to the university next week.
That making you proves she’s already advanced enough, even though she’s not sixteen yet.
And that since they need to prepare her for it, I might get a full week without classes!
” He punctuated this statement with a skip, hurling over a stone half buried in snow.
Daye smiled victoriously back, then made a confused gesture, mimicking Wynne’s usual frown.
“Wynne? Oh, you’re asking about the university?”
Daye nodded.
“It’s a place you learn, like Wynne and I do with Mr. Benson.
Only it’s huge, and it’s for people Wynne’s age, and you learn with lots of other people you don’t know.
” Rory could still remember his parents pointing it out the last time they took him and Wynne to the city.
The enormous doors and the stream of people moving in and out of them, under the watchful eyes of stone owls.
Daye made a show of looking around her, wiggling her palm as if asking for directions.
“Where is it? It’s in the city where my parents live, St. Claire.
It’s a few hours away from here. You have to take the train.
” The train ride was usually the best part of the visit.
He and Wynne got to run up and down the aisle, taking turns feeding coins into the vending construction so they could watch it reach inside its cage of branches and pry out the snack they chose.
Ms. Lucy even let them eat all the snacks at once, so that by the time he got to the city, he was always sugar-sated and just a little dreamy, making everything feel not quite real.
He could just barely remember a different kind of trip: his parent’s car, the smell of leather and orange mints, the sloping silhouettes of his parents, twin mountains in the front seats.
But that hadn’t happened in years and years.
Rory shook himself. “Or at least the university Wynne wants to go to is,” he added.
“Mr. Benson said there are more, I think, but I don’t know where those are. ”
Finally, the first houses of Ashford appeared in the distance, gabled roofs dusted white and tidy shoveled stoops.
Daye’s eyes were growing round with wonder. She tugged on his sleeve, gesturing as if to encompass the impossibility of so many houses.
Rory laughed. “If you think this is big, wait till you see the city. St. Claire is like … ten times—no, a hundred times as big.”
He was busy telling her about the candy one could buy in St. Claire—red and green and pink and utterly wonderful—when five kids came hurtling down the road, stopping before them in a spray of snow and shouted greetings.
They were vaguely familiar from years of village visits, though Rory had never learned their names.
Daye tugged at Rory’s arm, looking alarmed.
“Don’t worry.” Rory smiled at her. “They’re just kids from the village.”
If possible, Daye’s eyes grew even rounder, her mouth parting in an O of astonishment.
The tallest of the kids, easily two heads above Rory and at least five years older, took a step forward, eyes squinted in recognition.
“Hey, you’re the kid from down by the woods, right?
The younger one? I recognize you from last year.
” He continued without waiting for Rory’s answer.
“I’m Owen. My aunt, Mrs. Matthews, is your housekeeper. ”
“Yeah.” Rory nodded cautiously. “I’m Rory. This is my friend Daye.” Rory gestured at her.
Daye waved timidly.
“Where is she from?” another kid, this one with a bright-red corduroy jacket, asked.
“Um, she lives with us.”
“Why? Is she your cousin or something like that?” Corduroy Jacket peered closer at Daye, then back at Rory. “She doesn’t look like your cousin.”
“She isn’t,” Rory said, a hint of frustration in his voice.
“So what is she doing with you?” Corduroy Jacket asked, while another with a blue hat asked, “Where did she come from?” and a third kid, from the back of the huddle, prodded, “For how long is she—”
From the center of the village, bells began to toll, their ringing clang drowning out whatever else the kids might have said. And then, behind the peal of bells, the familiar sound of singing voices rose through the air.
Daye’s lips parted in awe. She looked at him, then toward the center of the village, her hands moving in rapid succession to mimic first a bird, then a flower, before clasping them to her chest as if to express the immensity of her joy.
That was a mistake.
Suddenly the kids were huddling closer, their voices swelling over the carols, shouting, “What is she doing?” “What was that?” “Is she having a fit?”
“No! Of course not,” Rory exclaimed.
The sun was slanting downward, reflecting berry-red from the snow, reducing the kids before them to dark silhouettes, nothing but eyes and hats and teeth. Mrs. Matthews’s nephew’s eyes moved from Rory to Daye, narrowing. “Why doesn’t she speak?” he demanded.
Rory swallowed. “She can’t.”
“What do you mean? Is she mute?” Owen studied Daye, mouth scrunched with distaste in a way that made him look very much like his aunt.
“Yeah,” Rory said, kicking at the snow.
Now the kids were pressing even closer, their eyes sliding over Daye like they were looking for loose threads. Under their gazes Daye shrank back, the awe that had widened her eyes moments ago fast transmuting to the roundness of fear.
“She looks like a doll,” exclaimed the girl with the blue hat. “She’s all perfect, and her hair has so many colors, like she colored it with markers!” She reached out past Rory to touch Daye’s hair.
“She does look like a doll!” another said. “And how come she doesn’t have a coat or gloves?” He gestured at Daye’s dress, a thin hand-me-down from Wynne, his hands unfurling toward her.
Rory tried to step between Daye and the village kids, but they were suddenly everywhere, loud and shadowy and so much bigger than Daye and him.
“Is she even a real girl?” Mrs. Matthews’s nephew demanded, lips pursed in suspicion.
“My aunt told me his sister is going to the university. You know what kind of things they’re doing there.
” Suddenly Daye’s wrist was in his hand, and he was making a show of examining it from all sides—like he might find a way to unzip her skin—before dropping it again.
“Maybe she is a doll!” another answered from behind Daye, stepping even closer.
Daye shrank back against Rory, her wrist cradled to her chest. Her lips were parted in silent pants, her eyes darting between Rory and the kids surrounding them. There was a sour taste in the back of Rory’s throat. Like spoiled milk. Or shame.
From the center of the village, the carols surged again, drowning for a moment the voices around them.
Rory took a deep breath. “You know what?” he said, turning toward Daye and taking her hand in his. “It’s getting late. We should probably head back home before it gets too dark.”
Daye nodded emphatically, her fingers tightening around his. He squeezed her hand back, trying to look reassuring.
“You’re going now?” Blue Hat asked, looking disappointed. “But the feast’s just starting. You’ll miss the cakes.”
The word cakes rippled through the throng like a plucked string, producing a small shuffling movement, hands opening and closing in indecision.
“I’ll get them next year.” Rory shrugged, trying his best to look unconcerned. “Though you should probably hurry,” he added, just a little too loudly, “or all the good ones will be gone. Last year, by the time I got there, only the burnt ones were left.”
He waited for one beat, two, body tense and quivering, but whispers of cakes spread through the village kids like wildfire, and soon the road was clear, nothing but churned-up snow to indicate they had ever been there.
Rory let out a long breath, his fingers relaxing around Daye’s.
“Come on,” he said quietly. Daye nodded.
They turned and started the long trek back home, hand in hand. The carols spilled behind them, echoing over the fields long after the village disappeared from sight.