Chapter 4
GARRICK
Before
The sun was going down, but if I ran, I would beat it to the horizon.
My arms ached from shoveling grain, but I’d gone twice as long and as hard as any of the other boys, and the reward jingled in my pocket to prove it.
My legs, however, were fresh as the water from the spring that hid in the forest behind our little house.
Hut, more accurately. But ours. It was the first place that ever had been.
I crested the hill, and it appeared in the distance, a tiny speck amid the brambleberry bushes that made the land otherwise unusable. Those bushes were the reason we’d been able to afford the place at all.
One last dare to the sun—try to catch me—and I darted down the road.
No more than a double-wide track, it would narrow when I crossed onto our land, where not even a cart could pass, nor needed to.
The last rays of sunshine caught on the golden grasses that edged the last section of road.
Another summer and I’d be tall enough to see over them, and I would have seen the man pushing through before he stepped into the road.
“Ho, Garrick!” he called.
Anyone else would have careened into the man, but my reflexes were faster than most. I skidded to a stop and kept my balance.
“Master Walden.” I dipped my head but not my eyes.
I was always wary of our neighbor. He’d never said an unkind word, but I’d once seen him kick his dog.
I’d never asked my mother about it, nor mentioned it to her.
Even I knew that the life we’d carved out on the edges of the village was precarious.
She did not need to worry about our neighbors.
If the worst Master Walden did was kick a dog…
well, at least he traded the flour from his mill for my mother’s tomatoes.
We hadn’t been hungry since we settled here.
But I remembered hunger well enough to not mention the dog to my mother… even if I was unwilling to forget it.
He rubbed a hand across his stubbled jaw, making a disgusting squelch as he worked his mouth. Adding the word ‘master’ was a gesture of respect. Staring him down was the opposite. His reason for stopping me would determine how much one weighed against the other.
I rocked back on my heels, giving the impression that he was taller than me. He wasn’t. At twelve-years-old, my height was nearly as conspicuous as my silver hair. I’d learned that they made certain types of people uncomfortable.
“The alderman handed me this to pass along to your mother.”
Walden finally reached inside his vest and pulled out a folded and sealed letter.
Its size and shape said letter, but the color…
I’d never seen paper that color. It was a vivid scarlet.
The same color as blood and sealed with gold wax.
If the flakes in that wax were real, and I could melt it down and separate them out…
my mind swirled with possibilities. The roof of our hut could be re-thatched.
I’d have to do the labor, but we wouldn’t have to trade for materials.
We could buy them outright, which meant our trades could go toward other valuable items.
I took the letter from Walden, my fingers already eager for the possibilities and not a single thought spared for what the letter might contain. Walden did not withdraw his hand.
I understood the unspoken language of trade.
There were two coins in my pocket, both tin.
Not worth much to most people. But they were the difference between an extra shift and a night of rest for my mother.
The gold in the wax seal, though… I did not know if it was real.
If it was fake, and I passed the coins along to Walden, that would be worse than giving him nothing at all.
Walden would not try to take back the letter. But the next one might not make its way to us. Not that we’d ever received such a thing before.
My fingers twitched toward the only other item of value on my person—the tiny amorite stud earring that pierced my left ear. But even then, I could feel the press of my mother’s fingers as they dug into my forearm hard enough to leave bruises.
Never take it out, she’d warned when she found it discarded beside my cot, her eyes wider than I’d ever seen. Promise me, Garrick. On my life, if you so disvalue your own. Promise me, she’d demanded again and again until tears rolled down my five-year-old cheeks.
It was my first solid memory. I’d give up the coins and the letter and a whole lot more before I’d touch that earring again.
“Get along to your mother,” Walden’s mouth said, while his fingers twitched in expectation.
If I ran, he’d never catch me. But the consequences would. I reached into my pocket and dropped one of the slivers of tin into his hand.
Walden grunted down at the meager offering.
I tried to be gone, but even I wasn’t fast enough to miss his mumbled words as he turned back for his mill through the grass.
“Shouldn’t expect any better from riff-raff who can only afford to live beneath the brambles.”
If I’d been alone, I would have turned. If it had been one of my peers, one of the boys in the grain silo who shoveled with me, I would have beaten him for the mumbled words. But I was not alone. My mother waited for me, and I would not jeopardize this home she’d so carefully carved out for us.
Even with Walden’s delay, I crashed through the door before the sun dipped over the horizon.
My mother sat at the small, rectangular table that served as a dining table, cutting board, and schoolroom. As soon as she saw me, she came to her feet.
“Help me move this closer to the fire so I can see what I’m doing,” she said. She was slight of frame, and even the modest table was difficult for her to move herself; especially since one of the legs had come loose.
I did as she asked and didn’t even protest as she leaned over and pressed a kiss to my cheek. So long as she did not do it in sight of any of the other boys in the village, I’d allow it.
“Turn the pot on the fire and then come over so I can measure this against your shoulders,” my mother said, holding up the garment she’d been piecing together. I recognized the blue thread. She’d taken apart her good shift to make me a new shirt.
I reached for the remaining coin in my pocket and the scarlet letter tucked in beside it. But I stopped short. I wanted to surprise her. First, the supper.
I turned the pot as she asked, lifting the heavy lid carefully so I could sniff the contents. I paused long enough to reach in my other pocket, where I’d stuffed some herbs I’d found growing wild during my lunch break. The other boys had been busy with fake sword play using sticks. I foraged.
I stirred in the herbs, pleased with the immediate wafting aroma. As I turned, I slipped one hand into my pocket.
My mother stood at the same time, lifting the garment to measure. We collided, knocking knees and elbows against the table. I caught her easily.
“Oof,” she huffed around a laugh. “What would I do without you?”
I opened my mouth to tell her she’d never have to find out.
But the expression on her face killed the words in my throat.
Even in the golden early evening light, with the warm tones of the fire flickering up at us, her skin was gray.
Her brown eyes, the center of warmth and comfort, were colder than I’d ever seen them. I was suddenly cold, too.
“Where did you get that?” she said in a voice I scarcely recognized.
The envelope. It was in my hand. My fingers had already been closed around it when we’d knocked into one another. I’d pulled it out without thinking. My surprise was ruined, except… she did not look surprised.
She looked scared.
“Walden had it from the alderman,” I said, holding it out. “It is for you.”
She did not reach for it. “Put it on the table.”
Her voice was a smidge softer, a fraction closer to the mother I knew.
I did as she asked. I always did my best to do as she asked.
For twelve years, I’d watched her sacrifice for me, eating two bites instead of three, working until she could not keep her eyes open, cutting up her own clothing so I’d have something to wear that fit my ever-expanding form.
Behind us, the lid on the pot rattled. The stew was about to boil over. I had to tend to it, or the food would be wasted.
But she grabbed my hand before I could turn.
The sorrow in her eyes wiped away every other earthly thought.
My mother squeezed my hand as tightly as she had that day when she’d made me promise never to remove the amorite earring. “Garrick, I must tell you about your father.”