xv. In which Charlotte tries to form a search party, to no avail
In the two days since Agnes Livingston’s horse had returned without her brother, Charlotte had tried to organize a search
party. Her joints ached in the aftermath of the storm. She was fatigued, too, and could barely think straight, except for
that single clear, terrible thought: Arthur is in trouble.
What kind of trouble, she didn’t know. But he certainly hadn’t sent the horse home alone. She didn’t like to think what might
have separated them. Perhaps whatever had left the claw marks in Maurice’s flanks.
With each of the family’s losses, Charlotte had thought it was the worst thing they could face. Now, with her brother gone,
she knew: This was the worst. All those times before, she and Arthur had lost—but they’d had each other.
Leaning on her cane, she went to house after house, and the few open shops, asking anyone she’d ever helped with an ailment
or injury, however slight, to please, please, help find her brother.
No one would do it. Long suspicious of Shiftleaf, Seacliff was spooked worse than ever by the appearance of Brigid Tierney’s body.
People who had, a week ago, risked the forest’s edge for food or firewood, with prayers or rowan or yellow flowers for protection, would now not risk it at all.
Even the reward Agnes set at Charlotte’s request was not enough to entice the villagers into the wood.
By Thursday afternoon, Charlotte was filled with a sense of dread. No one would help find her brother.
Numb, she stopped in at Agnes’s to check on Gracie. Her condition hadn’t changed, which was only a comfort because any change
would be for the worse. Charlotte once more gave her tea and a tincture and sat in the drawing room with Agnes. She’d run
herself ragged, going all over town, but she couldn’t bear to stay home. If she stopped moving for too long, she feared, the
knowledge her brother was lost in the wood would overwhelm her.
Agnes was in her habitual spot on the davenport, thumbing through her old deck of cards. “Any change?”
“No.”
“Any word from Arthur?”
Charlotte rubbed her fingers. Her joints were stiff. “No.”
Agnes nodded, looking like she hadn’t heard. Charlotte had never seen her so distracted.
“I’ll be by again tomorrow,” Charlotte said, and stood.
A wave of dizziness swept over her. She swayed, gripping her cane.
Agnes glanced up for the first time, with a faint frown. “Charlotte dear? Are you quite all right?”
“Yes, of course. Good day, Mrs. Livingston.”
“Good day, Charlotte.”
Charlotte took it as a bad sign that Agnes hadn’t corrected her. Not that Charlotte planned to stop addressing her as such,
but Agnes never failed to correct her. Gracie’s illness had her reeling.
Charlotte slipped briefly into the stable to examine Maurice’s claw marks.
Her nose wrinkled; the straw smelled as if it hadn’t been changed in days.
The carriage horses and a single mule whinnied as she entered.
She patted each of them, but her lips pressed into a line at the sight of their dry water buckets.
With her servants run off, Agnes evidently wasn’t taking care of them.
Rubbing her forehead, deeply annoyed, Charlotte went searching for the spigot and feed. This wasn’t her job. Surely Agnes
could pay someone enough to look after her stables, though no one would enter the manor. Charlotte didn’t feel up to mucking
out stalls, but she could feed and water the horses. This time. She’d bring the issue up with Agnes when she stopped by tomorrow.
The feeding done, she lingered in Maurice’s stall. Maybe the claw marks could provide a clue to whatever had happened to Arthur—but
no. Charlotte didn’t know what had made them, or whether it had separated Arthur from his horse or sunk its claws into the
horse after he’d run off. At least they hadn’t shown any sign of wood sickness. Charlotte tried to tell herself that was something,
but it was paltry comfort when claws could do quite enough damage.
She made her slow way through the village until she reached the McGills’. Young Dougal McGill’s stump was healing well after
the incident in the cannery. His mother had changed the dressing for him frequently and prevented him from doing overmuch
while he convalesced. Often, the villagers ignored Charlotte’s instructions to rest and let themselves heal after illness
or injury, so she was grateful his mother had taken her orders seriously.
But the boy was considerably less cheery than he’d been Monday, spooked by phantom pains in a hand he no longer had.
“That’s quite common, I’m afraid,” Charlotte told him wearily. “It should lessen over time.”
She was certain she knew of treatments for phantom limb pain, but she couldn’t think what. So she didn’t mention them. She left dissatisfied, feeling like she’d accomplished nothing.
Old fishwives populated the village square, having their afternoon gossip. They nodded at Charlotte; she nodded back. Hardly
had she passed them before they huddled together, whispering—in the way of old women who were trying to be discreet but were
also half deaf—about her brother’s disappearance. And, worse, mortifyingly, about her.
“. . . no denying he’s an odd one, but I do feel for the family.”
“Yes, of course—can’t imagine he’s much of a provider, but her having to take care of the children all on her own . . .”
“I’ve always wondered why some nice widower hasn’t snatched her up. She might’ve had a decent provider if she’d remarried.”
“Too late now. With how sick she’s been, she probably can’t handle a cannery worker’s passel of brats when she’s got two of
her own already, I shouldn’t wonder . . .”
“Nonsense. She could handle that and more if she’d try harder.”
Charlotte reddened, her skin prickling, and hurried to escape their overloud whispers. Perhaps it didn’t matter what she did,
how respectable she was. How hard she worked, even at her own expense. She’d given Seacliff no reason to talk about her through
the years, but here the old gossips were, talking about her anyway, for things beyond her control.
She could manage on her own. She could. She could.
And Arthur—well, wanting him back had nothing to do with how useful he might be.
She wanted him back because he was her brother.
As for a nice widower, she’d known for a long time a new husband might’ve made life easier.
She’d been courted briefly several years back, by an unmarried man around Arthur’s age.
But she’d caught him shaking Jonas, for some minor offense the nature of which she didn’t know to this day, and frostily told him he needn’t come around again.
She’d had no offers since, but that was a relief.
A new husband, even a kind one, would’ve been another ball to juggle.
The family had made do so far. Somehow, they’d keep going.
That was what she’d thought, until Arthur’s horse had come back without him.
There was a hand at her back. Charlotte jumped, jarring her aching joints.
“Sorry,” a familiar voice murmured in her ear. “Didn’t meant to scare you none.”
It was the woman who’d helped her home Monday afternoon, in shirt and trousers, with Arthur’s ugly old flat cap jammed on
her head.
Charlotte rubbed her chest, letting out a breath. “You’re still here.”
The woman nodded.
“Need to restock before heading back through the wood. They told me there was no market till Friday.” Her voice soured with
annoyance. “Back in Port Lorne, there’s a market every day.”
“Yes, well,” Charlotte said irritably. “We’re not as big as Port Lorne, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”
The woman took her arm like they were old friends. Charlotte wanted to snap at her and shake her off, but she didn’t. To her
surprise, the woman led her on a circuitous path through deserted alleyways and side streets.
“Why are we going this way?”
“The better to talk private-like.” In sight of the fishwives, the woman’s voice had been deepened; now she let it return to normal.
“Besides, you said they’d not like a woman in trousers.
With those kids of yours, figured you’re married, or used to be.
Didn’t think folks’d like it if you was walking arm in arm with a stranger, neither, especially one what’s been upsetting ’em with a bunch of questions. Figured they might talk.”
Charlotte huffed a bitter laugh. “They certainly would talk, even if we were merely taking a turn about the square together.
What did you want to discuss?”
“I’ve had my ear to the ground, I’ll own to it. Your brother’s vanished in the forest, and your neighbors won’t look for him.
That right?”
Charlotte’s throat tightened. She nodded.
The woman squeezed her arm. “All right, so we’re in the same boat. My sister, Maggie, visited a while back. Friend of that
Bess Little what lives in Port Lorne now, but she come home when her sister had her baby, and she asked Maggie to go with
her. Well, Maggie was supposed to be back two weeks ago, only she never showed. I tried wiring to see if maybe she’d stayed
longer without telling us, must’ve sent dozens of telegrams in two, three days, but I never got a response.”
She thumbed the flat cap higher up her forehead.
“I would’ve come sooner, but with Gran and Granddad half laid up with age it’s my work in the textile mill what keeps us fed
anymore. Thought it’d make matters worse if I left Gran and Granddad alone—all right, not alone, there’s all my cousins hanging around making a nuisance of themselves, but if I could trust ’em to take care of Gran and
Granddad we’d not be so hard up as we are in the first place.
“Well, Gran come to talk to me a few days after I sent all those messages and told me if I wanted to come see about Maggie,
I might as well do it. Said she had a feeling, and I’d best listen to it and go. And I said to myself, if no one in Seacliff’ll
wire me back, I guess I’ll go there myself, and I’ll give my cousins a good earful first about checking on Gran and Granddad
while I’m gone.
“I found this—” she fished a silver acorn on a chain from her shirt “—in the wood.”