i. In which Arthur tells a bedtime story
August was a disappointment.
Arthur looked forward to it every year. In August, the world held its breath. Anticipating something—promising something.
To the west, the sea glittered in the late summer sun, still and silent like an empty church, seething with expectation. The
first storms rolled in, black clouds on the horizon, lightning forking out to sea. As crimson and gold limned the first autumn
leaves, Arthur stood in the garden with bated breath, waiting for a storm to burst on the vacuity of his life and fill it
with adventure and romance.
But every year, when August ended, his life was exactly as it had been before.
He’d voiced this to Charlotte once, but she’d said, Of course it is. You never do anything to change it. Arthur hadn’t brought it up again.
He kept thinking it, however. August had heralded so many changes in his youth: school starting, however much he didn’t want
it to; his father preparing for his annual trip to Port Lorne, taking stock of his medical supplies to see what needed replenishing;
a time of plenty for the fishermen down in the village, their boats overflowing with pollack and salmon.
Now, from his place by the laundry line on the second-to-last evening of August, Arthur gazed down at Seacliff. He’d gone out to bring in the day’s washing, leaving Charlotte in her armchair; she’d had another dizzy spell.
What was the point, he wondered, unpinning a pair of trousers, of trying to change one’s life in a place like Seacliff? The
slate-gray rooftops and narrow cobbled streets half a mile downhill from the Throckmorton-Prentices’ cottage were exactly
the same as they had been in Arthur’s childhood, as were the villagers. All merely shabbier. The cannery that had opened two
decades ago spewed smog over everything and always smelled of fish guts. The commercial fishing venture that had opened five
years before that had long since cleared Seacliff’s fishing grounds and moved on to richer waters.
Lights twinkled down in the village as darkness fell, so much fewer than they used to be. Half the shops in Seacliff had closed
in the last decade. Most of the young people left, going to Port Lorne or Glenwhistle to seek their fortunes.
Arthur finished taking down the laundry and put a hand to his lower back, massaging the twinge that had flared up. Beyond
the garden and laundry line, the trees rustled. Arthur bit his lip, feeling as if they were gazing back at him.
He remembered his father’s many stories about the forest. The enchantment. The trees going about their business, uprooting
themselves to walk about like men. The Lord of the Wood. Despite the dangers the forest held, Arthur couldn’t let the stories
go.
Not for the first time, he imagined a magnificent stag appearing at the wood’s edge, its pelt burnished gold. It would gaze
at him with large, liquid eyes. Then, suddenly, it would transform into a man. The man would smile, and beckon Arthur close,
and say . . . and say . . .
I’ve been waiting for you, maybe. Like they were old friends, though of course the Lord of the Wood would not know who Arthur was just because Arthur knew who he was.
Or, You’re not like anyone I’ve ever met, but it would be a compliment.
Whatever was said—whatever Arthur decided he would most like to hear—the Lord of the Wood
would smile and welcome him, and they’d have a splendid time of things.
With a soft sigh, Arthur hauled the laundry basket into the cottage, ignoring the goat bleating at him as he went.
Inside, Charlotte’s children sat at the kitchen table. Jonas was having Sasha read a book aloud to them for practice before
school began in another couple of weeks. Sasha was a mirror image of her father, with cool, dark brown skin and dark brown
eyes ever twinkling with curiosity and excitement. Jonas favored Charlotte, but their curls were brown instead of black and
their eyes green instead of brown.
The laundry basket tipped over as Arthur set it down. He narrowly stopped clean clothes from falling all over the floor and
sent the children to get ready for bed. It wasn’t quite their bedtime (Sasha informed him promptly), but bedtime was an eternal
struggle. Best to get an early start.
As usual, Jonas went without fuss. Sasha, however, was in and out of bed several times in the next twenty minutes. At ten
past nine, she was finally in her nightgown only because Arthur had put on his nightshirt.
Back in the kitchen, he found Charlotte at the sink, in her shirtwaist, skirt, and boots, with her black hair in its chignon,
washing the supper things.
“I could’ve done that after the children were asleep,” Arthur said. “You didn’t need to get up.”
She grimaced.
“Yes, I did.” Glancing at him, she sighed. “Heaven’s sakes. Why are you in your nightshirt? It’s not your bedtime.”
Arthur grabbed a glass from the cupboard beside the sink. Sasha had requested milk and a story and sworn to him she would, at last, go to bed if he’d provide them.
“Sasha made an excellent point about the unfairness of her and Jonas having to be in their nighties while you and I are in
our day clothes.”
Charlotte pinched the bridge of her nose. “She’s eight.”
“She’s very persuasive.”
Charlotte sighed again but didn’t argue.
Someone knocked at the front door. Charlotte dried her hands, but Arthur said, “I’ll get it.”
“In your nightshirt?”
“They ought to expect it, if they’re going to call so late.”
Arthur did, however, tug on his dressing gown before answering, since he didn’t want to scandalize anyone.
At the door, a fisherman twisted his cap in his hands. Weatherbeaten and gruff, he looked near ten years older than Arthur,
but they were both in their forties. They’d been schoolmates until the fisherman, name of Cormac Young, had left school at
age ten to join the men at work. Arthur had joined them briefly at twelve, having left school when his father vanished, but
the fishermen had scared him off after he’d lost a net, sprung a leak in a boat, and cried over the one fish he’d caught.
He’d let it go, pretending it had escaped, because the men would forgive a boy’s clumsy hands, if begrudgingly, before his
tears.
Cormac’s eyes swooped down to Arthur’s bare feet and back up. Arthur curled his toes against the floorboards. He wished he’d
thought to grab his slippers.
“Good evening,” he squeaked.
He hadn’t meant to squeak, but Cormac had very blue eyes, which had, for unclear reasons, made Arthur desperate to be friends with him back in school.
Cormac hadn’t been one of his bullies, but he’d ignored Arthur except occasionally for paltry things like holding doors open rather than letting them slam in Arthur’s face.
“Evening.” Cormac shifted from foot to foot, avoiding Arthur’s gaze. “Mrs. Prentice about? Rosie’s coughing something fierce.”
Arthur nodded, turning to get his sister, but she was already making her way to the door, leaning on her cane. “Good evening,
Mr. Young. Rosie?”
The fisherman nodded. “Fever’s down, but the coughing . . . She can’t get to sleep. If you’ve anything might help—”
“Certainly. Arthur,” Charlotte said, and he snapped to attention, eager to show Cormac Young how helpful he was. “The syrup
in the blue bottles.”
Arthur rabbited away. Sasha had trailed into the kitchen with a frown.
“Why aren’t you in bed, duck?” Arthur asked absently, digging through the cabinet in which Charlotte kept her most-used herbs
and medicines.
“You said you’d bring me milk.”
“Half a moment. Mr. Young is here for— Aha,” Arthur said under his breath, finding several small blue bottles. “I’ll be there
once we’ve finished with him, I promise.”
He nudged her back toward the bedroom and dashed away with a bottle in hand.
“. . . not the sickness, thank the Lord,” Cormac was saying. “But I’ll feel easier when Rosie stops coughing. She’s had such
fits as makes it hard for her to breathe.”
Charlotte’s jaw clenched at the sidewise mention of wood sickness, but since Rosie Young didn’t have it, all she said was,
“What about when she’s not coughing? Has she any shortness of breath?”
Cormac shook his head. “Goes on so cheery between coughing fits you’d not think her sick at all if she weren’t so pale, now the fever’s broke.”
“I hope she’ll recover quickly,” Arthur said desperately, handing the blue bottle to him. “Here.”
A brief glance as Cormac took the bottle, a quiet “thanks” that made Arthur’s heart thump painfully. Then, to his disappointment,
Cormac jammed his cap on and turned back to Charlotte. “We’re sure grateful, Mrs. Prentice. I’ll bring a fish by this week,
or probably a few if they’re so small as the ones been coming in lately.”
“There’s no need for that.”
Cormac hesitated. “You done so much for Rosie already—”
“Which you’ve already paid me for. She’ll recover sooner if she eats well.”
Like their father, Charlotte often failed to charge the villagers for her services as a healer. Despite the cannery’s promises
of work and riches, Seacliff was poorer now than it had been in their youth. The village had been dying a slow death for years.
Perhaps things did change in Seacliff, Arthur thought, but only ever for the worse.
After a long moment, Cormac tipped his cap, slipped the medicine into his pocket, and trudged back downhill, where darkness
swallowed him up. Arthur let out a soft sigh.
Charlotte squeezed his arm. She returned to the kitchen, the sink, and the remaining dishes.
“I really can do that,” Arthur said.
“I know,” she replied, but she didn’t stop. Arthur hesitated but poured Sasha’s milk and returned to the tiny back-corner
bedroom without another word.
A screen was crammed between the children’s beds.
Since turning twelve that spring, Jonas had become shy about their body and didn’t want anyone to see them dressing or undressing.
Besides the privacy it afforded, the screen blocked (more or less) the constant opening and shutting of the door as Sasha attempted to avoid bedtime.