Chapter 3
Fenna left before dawn, without saying goodbye to Rhea, which appears to have made her even more sour than yesterday.
Though the girl didn’t seem overly attached to her minder, perhaps being passed from hand to hand, in constant motion, is discombobulating and losing even the slightest connection is upsetting.
In fact, I know it is, so I try to be kinder over breakfast, which has no effect whatsoever – I’m treated to one-word answers and grunts that I’m quite sure her rich parents didn’t teach her or, if they did, never intended her to use in any situation because for all intents and purposes she was raised to be a lady.
It’s only when I finish my porridge, wash my bowl and cup (leaving her to hers), and check the contents of the small backpack I prepared last night (hatchet, length of rope, rolled leather kit of medicinal items, a water skin and a ploughman’s lunch) that she shows some interest. She follows me out the front door, hesitating on the threshold, sounding childlike as she asks, ‘Where are you going?’
‘To the woods, I’ve things to do.’
‘Can I come?’
‘Best not.’ I can’t think of anything worse than mother-henning this brat when I’m trying to concentrate.
‘Stay here and settle in, rest. There’ll be work to do if you’re willing – and even if you’re unwilling, work is the price of your safety.
Many have deemed you worth saving and put themselves at risk to do so.
If you’re going to be in my home, then you’ll be helping around the place. ’
‘I want…’ She stops and I can see the effort it takes her not to demand. To say please. ‘Please. I want to go for a walk that’s not a forced march for my life. I will help, but… today I want to stroll. I want to explore. And… I don’t want to be alone.’
I decide against taking the bow today, ensure the knife’s in the sheath on my belt, and hitch my skirt up to one side to make the walking easier.
My trews need mending and I wonder if the girl’s got any skill with a needle; it’s something I hate doing.
I’m careful not to look at her as her voice trembles until she clears her throat, speaks firmly once more. ‘Please.’
‘You can come along if you promise to do as you’re told. No questions, no arguments.’
She nods without hesitation.
I point at her fine dress, dirty as it is.
‘That’s all you’ve got to wear?’ I know it is; she arrived in it, no pack or other baggage.
‘We’ll have to see to that soon.’ She clutches at her fine blue skirts and I recognise the gesture – the idea of letting go of the last connection to home feels like a physical blow.
I’m taller than she, my clothes would hang on her like a child playing dress-ups.
There’ll be something we can take up, perhaps, but not right now.
It was months before I burned my finery, before I could bring myself to let go of those silken rags.
‘Don’t worry, we’ll clean that up, make it like new. You won’t lose it.’
She nods. ‘Thank you.’
I look at the shoes peeking from beneath the hem of her skirt: terribly fine though worn-looking.
Her only choice – my feet are much bigger than hers, so my second-best boots won’t help.
She’ll just have to cope. ‘I’ll have the cobbler make you a sturdy pair of clod-hoppers.
They’ll be ugly but will see you through winter and any further travels, should you need to flee. ’
The joke falls flat as she pales; clearly the idea of taking to the roads again is not appealing.
‘Come along.’
But as I close the door behind her and turn towards the path that will lead from my holding and into the woods, I see someone standing just beyond the tree line.
My heart thuds, thinking of yesterday deep in the woods, of the sense of being found, and hold my breath.
Then the figure steps out of the shade and resolves into a man and a woman peering over his shoulder before her shadow separates from his and they both walk reluctantly towards the gate in the white picket fence.
I move to meet them, urging Rhea to go back in the cottage.
Up closer, I recognise them: the bakers, Anselm and Gida Hadderholm.
They live in the village almost an hour’s walk away – Berhta’s Forge – far enough for it to be an effort to come here, and the village itself far enough from civilisation that no church has ever been built there.
No bells ever to ring in the Great Forest.
‘Hello, Gida, Anselm,’ I say gently. Even in places where churches and god-hounds are few and far between, people can be tentative about coming to see a witch in the woods. ‘How can I help? Are you unwell?’
Anselm’s hulking, bearded, a smattering of flour still in his hair, small puffs of it across his dark jacket as if he dressed in a hurry and his wife was too distracted to dust him down, or no longer loves him enough to do so.
As I recall they’re a loving couple, no violence between them.
She’s small, delicate, seeming to curve in on herself; sometimes that’s aging but many women learn to take up more space rather than less.
Perhaps in this case it’s something else.
Anselm shakes his head. ‘We can see you’re about to go out’ – a convenient excuse to not cross my threshold – ‘and we don’t wish to trouble you, but—’
‘—our daughter’s missing. The youngest,’ Gida interjects, her pitch high, sharp. ‘And we cannot find her. We hoped you—’
‘—we can pay.’ Anselm’s pulling a coin purse from his pocket, waving it in my direction like a carrot to a donkey. Not the sack or basket of bread and cheese or game that’s my usual payment-in-kind. ‘We can pay for your help. Only we thought you might be able to see her? See where she’s gone?’
They’ve not brought things I can actually use because, for some reason, they think this is a gold coin service. That its value is beyond that of food (which is foolish – what can I use coin for out here?). Holding up a silencing hand, I ask, ‘When did she disappear? Where was she last seen?’
‘Three days ago. Ari went to collect mushrooms.’ Gida’s wringing her fingers now, fit to twist them off though I don’t think she’s aware of the motion.
‘And you’ve been searching?’
Anselm nods. ‘No sign.’
‘What was she wearing?’ I address Gida – many fathers are barely able to recall their children’s faces, let alone clothing.
‘A blue shift. A red cloak. Her grandmother made it,’ sobs Gida. ‘She loves the colour so, my dear girl.’
Neither of them have paid attention to Rhea – whom I note has not gone back inside – until now, and the haunted stares make me think their Ari is another bright girl who likes to stand out. ‘That’s my cousin’s child come to visit,’ I lie. ‘How old is Ari?’
‘Eleven next month. Dark hair, brown eyes. Not tall. Takes after me,’ says Gida around the eruptions of hiccups she’s developed in trying to suppress her weeping.
I try to remember if I’ve met the child, but there’s only a hazy recollection of the older children, all moved away now to larger towns or small farms in the forest, with their own families started.
‘Did she go past Falda’s holding? Or Brecca’s?’
‘Falda’s. The mushrooms were growing by the pond there – the far bank.’ Hastily said in case anyone thinks they’d sent their child to steal from another’s land.
And not so far from the village. ‘You’ve spoken to Falda?’
They nod. ‘Except she wasn’t home – was at the smithy, having her horse re-shod by Faolan.’
The name makes me twitch. ‘Who saw Ari last?’
‘Caraid Cawes’ children, we think. They saw her walk past while they were playing on the common. No one else has spoken up.’
Or no one else who’ll admit it.
The Hadderholms have always been polite when I’ve been in the village, bought some of their pastries as a treat, dropped my wheat at the mill next door run by Anselm’s sister.
Gida herself has visited the cottage on her own, sat at my table, drunk my tea, taken what medicines I’ve offered, asked me to read cards for the future of this endeavour and that.
This, however, is the first time Anselm has come to the woods, and there’s a sense they’re here out of desperation; he’s searched as far as he’s brave enough to, now wants me to do better.
I wonder, if Gida were alone, would she come inside?
‘I’ll keep a look out today when I’m in the forest.’ Although why she’d have come this far is beyond me, but it occurs that no one’s brave enough to search this far into the forest. ‘If I can find no sign, I’ll scry tonight.’
‘Why not now?’ demands the baker and I glare.
‘I’ll forgive you that, because I know you’re worried for your child, Anselm.’ I say this to remind him that I’m a witch and I know his name, and my kind might use such a thing for good or ill. ‘Scrying requires much effort, and it costs me dearly.’
‘We can pay!’ Again, the purse is waved at me.
‘It’s not a matter of money. I’ll take no payment for this.
Now, do you have something of hers for me?
’ Gida pulls a handkerchief – white and embroidered, a fine thing, a name-day gift – from inside her cloak and hands it over.
‘Thank you. Go home. I’ll come to you when I know anything, whether it’s good or bad. ’
‘When?’ cries Gida.
‘When I can.’ I hold up a hand once more. ‘As soon as I can. Gida, you’ve trusted me before. I bid you do so again.’
I can see their reluctance, but in the end they leave. They move off, re-join the path that leads into the forest, that will take them back home, to a house that’s emptier than it should be, to rooms that echo not as they should.
* * *
‘Will you be able to find the child?’
I’d almost forgotten Rhea was trailing behind me.
I’d waited until the couple had disappeared into the undergrowth before trotting off in the opposite direction.
Hadn’t mitigated my pace to account for Rhea’s pretty, pointless shoes; so, I slow down, and she falls in beside me, where the path is wide, puffing a little.
‘I don’t know. I’ll try. I’ve another task today that cannot wait, but I’ll keep an eye out. You should too – you need to get to know the forest for however long you stay. I can’t chaperone you every hour of every day.’
‘I don’t expect you to!’ Defensive.
‘It’s easy to get lost is all I’m saying.’
‘Shouldn’t we be searching where the child was last seen?’
As if I’m going to take her into the village so soon. I shrug. ‘Search parties have been doing that for three days. If they couldn’t find her close to home then she’s wandered farther afield, either by her own will or not.’
‘If not?’
‘Then perhaps none can find her.’ I shake my head. ‘There may well be no sign of her out here.’
‘What about that trap you were in? That you told Fenna about?’
I look sideways at her. ‘Someone’s got big ears.’
She reddens but doesn’t break eye contact. ‘My mother always says the only way to learn anything useful is to listen.’
‘Wise woman, your mother. Just remember that eavesdroppers hear no good of themselves either.’
She snorts.
I go on: ‘Since you were listening, you’ll recall that trap might not be newly laid.
Could be old, old, old. Something from a decade ago, a century, more.
People leave behind layers of their existence, which are easier to see in cities, but in forests?
More easily concealed here because of regrowth, because there are fewer folk around, and things can lie undiscovered for a very long time indeed.
If Ari fell into such a trap – just as if she drowned in a lake or fell off a cliff or into an abyss, or broke an ankle, a leg, too far for anyone to hear her cries? We’ll likely never know.’
‘And if you scry? Will you know?’ She sounds eager and I wonder how much she’s been taught, about her own power, that of others.
‘Perhaps.’ We come to an intersection with our path.
‘For now, there are lessons to learn. See the trunk of that tree at your left? Yes? See the leaves? Look at them carefully so you recognise them. Feel the right side of the trunk, about head height – mine, not yours – what’s there, beneath your fingertips? ’
‘A carving – an arrow!’ She laughs, pleased with herself.
‘Lesson number one: whenever you come to a crossroad like this? In my part of the woods? There’ll be an arrow as a guide.
If you can’t find one then you’ve strayed – retrace your steps.
Eventually you’ll be able to make your way without them, but for the moment they’ll help keep you on the path. ’ I nod. ‘Come along. More to do.’