vii. In which Arthur learns to drive a cart #3
She nodded, pulling away to dab at her eyes with the corner of her apron. Arthur slipped the cross into his pocket with the
watch-repairing kit.
“Children,” Charlotte called, her voice wobbly, “your uncle is leaving. Come say goodbye.”
The children hugged him. The goat lipped at the legs of his trousers. Arthur tried to push her away, but it was difficult
with the children in his arms.
“If I can’t come with you,” Sasha said, “will you bring me a present?”
“What kind of present, duck?”
“A sword.” Sasha’s eyes gleamed in anticipation. “A real one instead of a big stick.”
“Don’t get her a sword,” Jonas said. Their mother laughed wetly.
Arthur laughed, too, but there was a sting in it. “I don’t know that I can find a sword, duck, but I’ll tell you what I’ve
found when I come back. Perhaps,” he said, trying to will it into being, “we shall all go to Port Lorne together one day,
and you can choose your own sword. I’m sure you’d prefer that, anyway.”
Jonas groaned. Arthur kissed the top of their head. He barely had to bend to do it anymore; they were almost as tall as Charlotte.
“Take care of your mother,” he murmured in their ear.
They nodded, clung tight to him, and let go. “Be careful,” they whispered.
“I will,” Arthur said, and meant it.
He shooed the goat away, led Maurice through the gate, and clambered into the cart. The wind tussled his hair and tugged at
his coat. Heather undulated around him. Waves crashed at the bottom of the cliff.
“Well,” he said, as stoutly as he could manage, “I’m off.”
He saluted, clicked his tongue at the horse, and rumbled into motion. The trailhead yawned before him.
Determined not to look scared in front of his family, Arthur focused on the image he’d had of entering the wood.
It was like a scene in a book: The intrepid hero, a normal man who would no doubt discover there was more to him than anyone—himself included—had ever imagined, drove toward the trees, gazing fearfully at the forest before breaching its depths anyway.
He’d slap the driving lines, and man, horse, and cart would vanish, like the trees had swallowed them up.
A terrifying image in the end, to be sure, but dreadfully romantic and heroic.
The victory of the human spirit over the insurmountable power of nature and all that.
Instead, branches whacked him in the face.
“Ow,” Arthur mumbled.
His forehead stung. When he touched it, his fingers came away clean. He wasn’t bleeding: just hurt. His face and his dignity, not that he had much dignity anyway, so the less said about that the better. He hunched in his seat, avoiding
the trees’ grasping fingers.
Maurice plodded along without concern. Arthur hoped that was a good sign; animals had a sense for danger, didn’t they?
Something black and furry popped up beside him. Arthur yelped, nearly falling from the cart. Snorting at the disturbance,
the gelding broke into a trot and veered off the path.
“Mrowr,” a familiar voice said.
The cat. Freya had climbed into the cart. She sat beside him, fluffy tail curled around her, and turned her serious golden
gaze on him.
Breathing hard, Arthur turned the horse back toward the path and straightened his glasses.
“Not that I’m not glad of the company,” he told the cat, “but don’t you think you ought to stay home with Lottie and the children?”
She gave him a look that said quite plainly, You need more watching than they do.
Arthur sighed. “True, I suppose. Well, I fancy I need less watching than Sasha, since I’m less likely to run headlong into
danger just because it looks exciting—my present venture excluded. But it doesn’t look dangerous, does it?”
Leaves trembled in the canopy. Here on the forest floor, all was close and quiet.
The path at the horse’s feet, barely wide enough for a single carriage, was the same path his father had taken so many times.
The trees were turning crimson, though it was only the first of September, and the dim light was green-gold.
The fish-gut smell that hung over Seacliff’s narrow streets vanished a short way into the forest; the air smelled like turning leaves and birds flying south and autumn storms.
Arthur breathed deeply. He’d never gotten used to the fish-gut smell, though the cannery had been open for years and the stench
had come along with it. The disappointments of August and Cormac Young and Seacliff and his own failings faded in the distance,
shut out by the surrounding leaves and trunks.
“I’m on an adventure at last,” Arthur told the cat. She licked a paw without responding.
His father had trodden this same trail. Arthur almost clambered out of the cart and walked, to follow in George’s footsteps
if only in a literal sense. But Agnes needed him to return quickly—Charlotte needed him to return quickly—he wanted to return
to his family quickly, so he stayed in the cart and flapped the lines. Maurice’s ears twitched, but he increased the pace
from a plod to a trot. Arthur whistled, really glad, for the first time, to have agreed to Mrs. Livingston’s proposal.