Chapter 8
Penny
“Ican take a turn, you know.” I nodded at the wheelbarrow Kit pushed along the winding path sloping gradually uphill.
It was heavy laden with metal goods to be delivered after he dropped me off at home with Rosie.
Baking at our cottage would be a nice change of scenery, and I’d stayed up late the night before making sure the kitchen was scrubbed clean and ready for the new mess we were sure to make.
“It’s no trouble.” Kit shook his head. “Besides, this is my work. You have your own.”
I’d told him about Rosie’s offer to pay me for baking, a rather happy arrangement. Leatherworking was a fine trade, and I did seem to have a knack for it, but I only enjoyed it as much as I did because it kept me in close proximity to Kit.
We’d almost crested the low hill when an idea wiggled into my brain, and I grinned.
“In that case…” I stepped in front of the wheelbarrow and brought Kit to a halt. Clambering atop it, I swung my legs around either side of the wooden handles to fit myself between Kit’s arms.
“Careful!” he said as I settled.
I craned my neck to look up and found him frowning. “I should rest,” I explained, “for all the standing I’ll soon be doing in the kitchen.”
Kit gave an exaggerated nod and began pushing again. “Of course. Hard work, all that mixing and sifting.”
With a sigh, I reclined onto his chest. “Rosie makes me do all the mixing. And the kneading. Especially with the stiff doughs.” I lolled my head back to study a cluster of low-hung clouds. “Soon, I’ll have muscles like yours just from turning a spoon round and round.”
His chuckle rumbled against my back. “You think so?”
I reached over to grab my bicep and give it a testing squeeze. “Perhaps it’s already begun.”
Kit laughed again, and we bumped along, coming around the corner into the view of our cottage. Rosie waited on the stoop with a basket hooked over her arm. She waved, and I bounded off the cart and rushed ahead to greet her.
After a quick hug, I lifted the corner of the kerchief covering her basket.
“What are we making?” I asked.
“He’s been anxious to get back to it,” Kit said as he drew up behind me. “I’m a bit relieved myself. Better for all the sweets he’s made to go to your shop than my stomach.” He rolled the wheelbarrow to a stop and dusted his hands down his trousers.
I smirked at him over my shoulder. “You like them, Kit.”
He nodded. “Too much.”
Rosie giggled as he walked forward and reached into the pocket of the leather apron he’d worn since we left the smithy. He pulled out a small dagger tucked into a sheath I’d stitched together that morning and extended it toward her.
“For your protection,” he said.
She hesitated, scanning over the weapon with a small amount of trepidation.
I knew she and Kit had spoken after he’d gotten the word about Merrick’s poison plot, and after we found out she would be with Otis for the remainder of the Oaths.
Since he was implicated in the attempted murder as well, he had been added to the growing list of people in Ashpoint we could not trust.
After a moment, she took the knife and tucked it in the pocket of her trousers. “Thank you.”
“Don’t go showing it around,” I quipped. “Merrick may accuse you of helping us stage a coup.”
“Pen…” Kit shook his head.
Rosie’s forehead scrunched. “What?”
“Nothing,” I told her.
With a cartful of deliveries, I expected Kit to leave us. Instead, he ventured past and opened the door to usher Rosie and me inside.
“What about your orders?” I asked as I stepped over the threshold into the cottage.
“I’m actually expecting an order of my own,” he replied.
Rosie went into the kitchen and began unloading her basket while I waited by the door with Kit. He had a mischievous glint to his eyes as he took up a post in the doorframe and gazed at the path outside.
I stepped into his side, mostly shadowed in the home’s interior, and tipped my head against his shoulder. He hooked his arm low around my waist, and we watched the empty neighborhood street for several quiet moments.
Finally, I bumped my elbow into his ribs. “You’re up to something, Mister Mosel.”
Kit hummed but gave no reply.
I was ready to press him again when the local carpenter crested the hill carrying a burlap bag. Kit broke free of me and went to his cart, rifling through it to pull out a paper wrapped set of chisels I’d seen him sharpening the day before.
He met the carpenter a ways down the lane, exchanging pleasantries and swapping her bag for the chisels.
“Penny, are you ready?” Rosie called from the kitchen.
“In a minute,” I told her.
Kit returned with the sack tucked under his arm and steered me toward the kitchen, this time pushing the door closed behind us.
Ember skittered into view, leaping to scramble up Kit’s pant leg until he lifted her to his shoulder with his free hand.
She settled in tucked against his neck. Nutmeg was close behind, paws pattering on the floor as she followed us toward the back of the house where Kit set the bag on the dining table.
He smiled wide as he fished inside and pulled out a large carved wooden bowl, a set of long handled spoons, and a rolling pin. Rosie and I hung at his sides, and she gave a soft whistle of appreciation.
“Oh, those are lovely,” she said.
Heat bloomed in my cheeks as Kit arranged the items, then folded the empty burlap sack and pushed it aside. He turned toward me, so clearly pleased with himself that I broke into a grin.
“I’m starting to think you make a game of spoiling me,” I said.
“Call it a habit,” he replied.
I grabbed him and pulled him in for a kiss, then turned quickly to the utensils and mixing bowl, all freshly oiled and gleaming, ready for use.
Kit slipped his arm around me for a parting hug before setting Ember on the floor and starting toward the door. “Have fun, you two. I’ll be back soon.”
After marveling over the wooden items—the bowl especially had a fascinating grain—I sighed.
Happiness fluttered in my chest. Since our talk a few nights earlier, the mood had been gloomy.
I didn’t mind being at Kit’s side more constantly than usual, but the reason for our extra caution made me weary.
If Kit intended to lift my spirits, this had definitely done the trick.
Rosie held the rolling pin with both hands as she gazed toward the exit. “He certainly is smitten, isn’t he?”
When I only smiled and didn’t respond, she turned the rolling pin toward me, poking one end into my stomach. “Maybe I should take lessons from you on how to thoroughly enchant a man.”
Laughing, I loaded the utensils into the bowl and carried them to the counter where Rosie’s ingredients were spread out. Judging by the large pile of flour, bottle of dark syrup, and set of loaf pans, we would be making bread.
I acted on my assumption and went to the sink to pump water into a cup. “How much?” I asked.
“That’s good,” she said after I’d filled the bottom. “I forgot salt. Do you have some?”
Grabbing my apron off the wall hook, I put it on, then indicated the salt cellar tucked in the corner. Rosie measured two kinds of flour into my new bowl, then added a pinch of the salt and a sprinkle of seed that looked to be caraway.
I pushed the rolling pin back and forth on the counter, smiling to myself over Kit sneaking around to barter, and deciding he must have arranged the trade the day before when we were at the tavern for lunch when Rosie spoke up.
“I will say, I would know better what to do with new spoons and bowls than this.” She pulled the dagger out of her pocket and laid it on the counter. “Not that I’m ungrateful. It’s probably wise…”
We both stared at the weapon. It was finely crafted, but Kit’s workmanship was never in question.
I had a feeling she felt like I did, unsure she could use the thing should the need arise.
Or, worse than that, she could have remembered the last time she used a knife to carve into Tessa’s dead flesh. The thought sent a shiver down my back.
“I’m sorry about your brother,” Rosie said.
I didn’t bother adding the “half” qualifier. It felt unimportant in the moment. Petty.
Rosie moved away from the knife to stir the dry ingredients in the bowl, then beckoned me to add the water and, of course, mix.
“I told Kit I’ve thought about leaving,” she said. “There are people in this place… Not just the Shroud Warden… It’s not what I thought it was. Not what it should be.”
When I’d anticipated resuming baking with Rosie, it wasn’t for this.
I liked talking to her, but I would rather have discussed my courtship or what a wedding would look like on the farm.
If Kit and I married in the fall, the sunflowers would be in bloom.
We could stand before a wall of bright yellow and green, exchanging vows while Mother and Sayla stood by.
My hope for that future felt more fragile than ever, but Rosie kept talking, so I nodded and worked the spoon through the increasingly stiff dough.
“He said you might come with us if we did,” she added. “I think you should.”
“We can’t.”
She frowned. “Why not?”
The bread had come together in a ball ready for kneading, so I set the spoon aside and dumped the dough onto the counter Rosie had already dusted with flour.
“If we all go, it will only leave the bad people behind,” I explained while pushing my palms into the dough. “The ones who are making Ashpoint what it shouldn’t be. And they’ll make it worse. Here and everywhere else.”
Rosie considered my words, then nodded. “That’s probably true.”
I knew it was. They would take the farm and my dream of being married there. They would run my family out of Eastcliff, and Sayla away from her suitor, and my mother would be right about Eeus’s curse. This would all have been for nothing.
Besides, Kit was bound and determined to see his mission through, and he couldn’t do it alone. But even the two of us made for a pitiful resistance. It would take more than that, which made me wonder.
“Rosie, can I tell you something?” I glanced over at where she had scooped Ember off the floor and was swinging the kitten in her arms.
“Of course,” she said.
I’d wanted to tell her this before, almost from the start. I was no good at keeping secrets. No good at lying. And Rosie had proven herself trustworthy about my relationship with Kit. Perhaps I could trust her with an even greater truth.
It took a handful of seconds to arrange my thoughts, and another several to gather the nerve for what could be a staggering confession. I meant to explain it all deliberately, but instead it seemed to spill out of me, long past ready to be told.
“I brought Kit here,” I began. “Not the other way around. Well, he brought me, but only because he knew the way. It was my idea.”
Rosie stopped swinging Ember and grew very still. “Okay…?”
That wasn’t it, and she knew it. I drew as deep a breath as my lungs would allow and started again, this time from the very beginning.
“After my father died, we didn’t burn him.
We buried him, then Merrick stole his body and brought it here to sacrifice to Eeus.
I never wanted to join the Bone Men. I still don’t.
I only came to get my father’s body and take it home.
But that wasn’t possible, so I stayed because of Kit. He came back…”
Only then did I pause, because the rest of that statement was the most damning of all, but it had to be said. I swallowed. “He came back to destroy this place.”
Rosie’s face went ashen, but she didn’t back away. “What do you mean?”
I smoothed my hands down my apron when I realized they were trembling. She could take this to Levitt. She could betray us. Then again, Levitt hadn’t been willing to act on Isla’s accusations, so he might treat Rosie’s the same, but it didn’t seem prudent to leave such a thing to chance.
Was it chance? Or faith?
“He’s planning to take Merrick’s position.” As I said it, my voice cracked. “He intends to become the next Shroud Warden and convince Levitt… to stop.”
“Stop what?” Rosie asked, barely a whisper.
“Everything.”
Quiet ruled the tiny cottage. I wadded my apron in my fists, holding my breath and waiting, waiting for Rosie to say something.
She let Ember down, and I worried she might run.
If she tried to leave, would I go after her?
Chase her down in the street, and drag her back here, and…
what? There was no unsaying it. She knew now, and if she thought Kit and I were traitors, she could ruin us both.
We’d only just discussed what to do if he were arrested, or worse.
I didn’t imagine then that I could be the one to cause it by being honest with a friend.
With her hands empty, Rosie stepped forward and grabbed my wrists. She fixed her brown eyes on mine.
“How can I help?”
Such relief washed over me I thought I might cry. I threw myself at her and bundled her up in a crushing hug. “Thank you. So much. I can’t wait to tell Kit—”
“Penny.” Rosie pulled free, and her face was stern. “I’m serious. What can I do? This isn’t something you undertake without a plan, or plenty of hands helping to move things along. I can convince my parents, but we’ll need more.”
I nodded while blinking fast, spurring my mind to think. “Like who? I don’t know many people here…”
Rosie bobbed her head. “Then that’s what I’ll do. I know everyone in Ashpoint. Good and bad. And I already have an idea to get the word out.”
“How?”
She indicated the bread dough resting on the counter and grinned. “Free samples.”