Crossing Over - Anna Kendall [6]
“. . . and dyed her hair black, like her friend Catherine Littlejohn’s,” Hartah finished. The woman in the tent burst into tears.
Again I lay under my table, but I already knew that this time I was not needed. The woman sobbed, “Oh, it was my mother! No one else could know those things, not all those details, not like that—oh! And she said she’s safe and happy. . . .”
“Yes. And that she loves you very much,” said Hartah. For these occasions he used a voice that Aunt Jo and I seldom heard: low, slow, completely scrubbed of his usual snarl. He sat far away from the women—our customers were usually women—both to not make them uneasy with his great bulk and to give himself an air of mystery. Hatred of him filled my mouth like rancid meat.
“My good mother! Oh, thank you, good sir, I can never thank you enough, you have given me a gift beyond price!”
But of course there was a price. Hartah exacted it, plus a promise of silence, from Mrs. Ann Littlejohn, born Humphries. He did the same with Catherine Carter, born Littlejohn, and with Joan St. Clare and her young cousin Geoffrey Morton. They had all lived in Stonegreen their entire lives, the Humphries and Carters and Littlejohns and St. Clares, as had their parents and grandparents before them. Their family secrets were shared secrets, and the dead Mrs. Humphries had known them all.
“A good day’s work,” Hartah said to me after the last customer had left the tent. He meant his work, not mine. Already he had forgotten the beating he’d given me this morning, blotted from his mind as completely as the grave blotted love from the minds of the Dead.
“May I go?” I tried to keep anger and fear from my voice.
“Yes, yes, go, who needs you now?”
Outside, long shadows fell across the faire field. Dusk gathered on the horizon, soft and blue and smelling of the night to come. Farmers drove their wagons, lighter by what they’d sold and heavier by what they’d bought, down the Stonegreen Road toward home. The cottagers of Stonegreen lingered at the remaining booths and at the ale tent, not wanting their brief holiday to end. Several, men and women alike, were drunk. They staggered about, singing and laughing, their merriment echoing from group to group. I found my aunt sitting in the shade of Hartah’s wagon. With no money to enjoy the faire, she had probably sat there most of the day. Wordlessly she raised her eyes to mine.
“A good take,” I said. “We will eat.”
She didn’t smile; all smiles had left her years ago. But she laced her hands together on her skinny belly, as if in thanks-giving prayer. I couldn’t stand to watch. Grateful prayer, for a crust of bread and slice of cheese! I stalked away, to the river, and found myself standing under the same great overhanging tree where I had sat with Mrs. Humphries in the country of the Dead.
Under the tree, staring at the dappled shadows on the river, stood the girl from the inn yard this morning. The girl with the long black braids. “You’re back,” she said, and I froze.
“Where did you go all day?” she continued. “I didn’t see you anywhere at the faire.”
She had looked for me. She had looked for me. And she didn’t know where I’d been. So why had she looked for me? I couldn’t think of anything to say, and so stood there, wordless, like the oaf that I am.
“Oh!” she cried suddenly. “What’s wrong with your hand?”
The bruise where I had hit myself with the sharp stone. It had bled a little, the blood had crusted over, and around the angry wound my flesh was puffy and red, rapidly turning purple. Foolishly I covered it with my other hand, clasping both in front of me. Then I realized that the gesture was exactly what my aunt had done, and I scowled ferociously.
The girl didn’t notice. She’d darted toward me, picked