I stepped in.
The stalks pushed aside with an easy pliancy as I slipped between them. I was only a few feet in but already felt swallowed by their magnitude.
A crack sounded from deep in the midst of the swaying stalks. I paused, straining my ears to hear it again. John Brewster, Trinity’s father and one of the Falls’s farmers, said you could stand in a field of corn and actually hear the plants growing, crackling, and popping as they shot skyward.
Was wheat like that too? Or was there someone else in the field with me?
“No,” I reprimanded myself. “Stop this foolishness and light the Our Ladies.”
I pushed on, keenly aware of a rustling to my left. It kept pace with me, speeding up when I broke into a sprint, pausing when I stopped. The stalks were too dense for my lantern’s light to penetrate, but I thought I heard a soft in and out, like someone catching their breath, just beyond where I was.
Or was it only the wind?
The wheat could drive a person mad.
Nearing the end of the field, I could finally make out the pines looming, as formidable as a fortress. They blocked out the scope of sky and starlight.
A tinkling of Bells rose as I broke free of the wheat. A few stalks clung to my skirts, desperate to pull me back into their ranks. The first Our Lady was just ahead of me. Twelve feet tall and ten feet wide, she towered over the landscape, her arms outstretched to beckon wayward travelers home. If Papa and Sam were still in the area, they would have to see her.
The ground around the Our Ladies was razed, scorched from previous fires. Fallen limbs, lashed together with old rope, made up the structure. The base was stuffed with logs, broken bits of furniture too far gone to save, and an outer layer of twigs and dried leaves. The whole thing reeked of tar and varnish—a special concoction the Lathetons had perfected.
I set my lantern upon the blackened soil and fumbled to free a bit of kindling from her skirt. It caught quickly and I fed it into the base, gently blowing on the sparks to strengthen the flames. There was a quick flare as the tar lit and the fire danced up the structure, bringing light into the world once more.
I watched her burn for a minute, maybe two, until I was satisfied she was well and truly ablaze, then turned toward the next one. The Our Ladies dotted the boundary lines, spread out every half mile or so. It was going to be a long night. Hopefully others in town would see that the eastern Our Ladies had been lit and would rush to help, setting fire to the ones in the far west.
When I reached the second structure, I caught a bit of movement at the periphery of my eye. A girl emerged from the wheat, pushing aside and parting the stalks as if they were the Red Sea. She was too far away to properly identify and traveled without a lantern, but her dress glowed pale blue under the light of the rising moon.
My eyes flickered to the Danforths’ farm, only a mile or so away. The cabin was at the top of a rolling hill, and I could just make out the glow of candles from within.
Rebecca.
I raised my hand in greeting but couldn’t tell if she noticed. She wandered over to the Our Lady closest to her—two structures down from where I stood—and paused before kneeling. Moments later there was a spark of metal against flint and the Our Lady caught fire. Rebecca circled around to the far side, disappearing behind the burning edifice.
I turned back to my own Our Lady and grabbed a fistful of kindling from it. Others along the perimeter lit as I worked, and I whispered a prayer of gratitude for the swift feet of our neighbors.
As more and more Our Ladies caught fire, the valley warmed, growing bright and golden. I imagined the pack of wolves racing through the forest, pausing at such an unusual sight before slinking back into the safety of the night, far from Papa, far from Sam.
I started the trek to the next pyre, but a burst of clattering chimes from the pines drew my attention.
Something was moving within the shadows, caught in a tangle of Bells.
Something big.
I raised my lantern, squinting against its glare. A figure, then another, stumbled from the tree line. They were a disjointed mess of dark smudges against the black earth, and for a moment, I couldn’t tell if they were human or wolf.
“Ellerie?” a familiar voice called out. “Is that you?”
“Papa!” I shouted, and broke into a sprint, racing toward him. He and Samuel huddled against one another, holding each other up. There was a makeshift splint on Sam’s ankle, and though it was tightly lashed with strips of torn shirt, the skin was swollen enough to have split open.
They both stank, covered in a mixture of blood, old sweat, and above all, the stench of fear.
I’d never seen my father look like this. He seemed to have lost ten pounds overnight. His cheeks had a hollowed gauntness, and his eyes were shaky and haunted.
“It’s okay. You’re home now. You’re safe,” I said, embracing him. I tried to not wrinkle my nose, feeling the cold, wet grime cling to his shirt, cling to me. We’d have to use an entire bar of soap to get the stink from their clothes.
I took the moment to peek over his shoulder, searching for the others from the supply run. No one else followed them out of the pines.
“Is there—did you find…?” I trailed off, knowing there was no decent way to phrase a question I already knew the answer to.
“Not…not now, Ellerie.”
The gritty coarseness of his voice chilled me. He must have spent all day and night shouting for the missing men. Even his breathing had a harsh rasp to it.
Samuel groaned. His eyes were glazed over, and a light seemed missing from within him. He stared ahead with dull incomprehension. I don’t think he even registered where he was.
“Let’s get you both home. Mama and I have been making bread all day—and there’s stew. And I’ll heat water for a bath—you won’t have to do a thing. And then—”
“Samuel? Sam!”
Rebecca Danforth came racing across the field, her hair swinging wildly behind her. She sounded near hysterics.
“You’re hurt,” she exclaimed, kneeling to examine his ankle. “What happened? We’ve been so worried. We—”
“We need to get them back to the house,” I said, cutting her off. “Can you help us?”
“Of course, of course.” She slipped beneath his arm, pressing herself against his side, and together they stumbled off.
I snaked my arm around Papa’s waist and started after them.
“Hang back, Ellerie,” he mumbled. “Give them a moment together. I think Sam needs it.”
We watched as they staggered off. At first, Rebecca did all the work, propping my brother and all but dragging him alongside her. Just as they stepped into the wheat, he seemed to come back to his senses, and his hand fell across her back, tracing fond circles.
I paused, squinting at his fingers. They stood out in stark contrast to the floral print of her dress.
Her dark floral print.
With confusion, I glanced back to the row of burning Our Ladies, but the girl in the pale dress was gone.
I dreamt of a forest glade, shrouded in shadows and dotted with eyes.
Silver glowing eyes.
Waking up, I lashed out, caught in a confusion of tangled bedsheets, fighting against one twisted around my ankle.
“Stop it, Ellerie,” Merry muttered, still asleep as she snatched the quilt from me, leaving the cold to sober my racing mind.
I sat up, grumbly and miserable. We hadn’t gone to bed until long after midnight, and judging by the gray sky, dawn was still an hour away.
Rumors of Papa’s return had spread quickly through the Falls, and the three Elders had raced to the farmhouse to pepper him with questions.
Had he found Amos’s son?
Had he seen evidence of the attack?
What exactly was in those woods?
Amos’s dark skin had turned ashen before he’d suggested that a town meeting be set for the next morning. The Elders had left with deeply furrowed brows, whispering uneasily among themselves.
I rolled out of bed and tiptoed to the window, careful to skirt the two squeaky floorboards in the middle of the loft. The room was tight quarters, and my siblings were all notoriously light sleepers. Sadie huddled on the other side of Merry, snoring gently. Samuel’s bed was wedged into a dark corner, as far from us girls as he could get. An old sheet had been hung a few years ago, as our bodies—once so familiar to one another—had taken on lives of their own. Though it afforded us a modicum of privacy, the faded check print was thin enough that we heard every toss, turn, and mumble he made.
I peered out the small diamond-paned window and across the still fields. The Our Ladies were nothing more than smoking piles of embers and ash now. They’d have to be cleared away at dawn’s light. A team of volunteers would be needed to scour the outer edges of the forest, looking for fallen branches, before Edmund Latheton could start on their replacements.
After Papa spoke at the town meeting, I wondered if anyone would be brave enough to offer their assistance.
Papa and Mama had talked into the early hours of the morning. I’d heard their hushed whispers carried up the stairs, though I hadn’t been able to make out actual words. That worried me more than anything else, I think. Papa was always early to bed. He’d wake before the sun rose, to start his work around the farm. I couldn’t begin to imagine how Mama would budge him from bed this morning.
From behind the curtain, Samuel coughed once and rolled over.
My eyes fell on the Danforth farm. Their crops bordered along our garden, and it never ceased to amuse me that even Cyrus’s rows of corn ran perpendicular to Papa’s tomatoes and beets. The cabin was dark and still, and the windows met my gaze with a vacant, hollow stare. It reminded me of the expression on Samuel’s face as he’d staggered from the pines last night, and I looked away.
The color of Rebecca’s dress still gnawed at me. Someone in a pale gown had lit that Our Lady, I was certain of it. But who could it have been? Rebecca wouldn’t have had time or cause to race home to change, and there were no other women who lived in the vicinity. Rebecca’s mother had died giving birth to her little brother, Mark, and—as the Danforths supplied most of Amity Falls’s produce—their property was enormous. Their next neighbor was miles away.
“Ellerie, is that you?” Samuel whispered.
I filled a cup of water from the pitcher at the bureau and slipped behind the sheet. Sam was sitting up, struggling to adjust the pillow beneath his swollen ankle.
“Let me do that,” I offered, giving him the water before plumping the battered pillow.
A tattered book jostled free and fell to the floor.
“Heroes of Greek Myths,” I read, before tucking it near him. “I haven’t seen that book since we were children at school. Remember how we used to pore through it?”
“Sadie brought it home—I thought I’d borrow it for a bit.” He downed the water in one long swallow before beckoning for me to join him. My knees creaked as I knelt beside the bedframe, and I suddenly felt so much older than eighteen years of age. I was grateful when Samuel handed over one of his blankets, and I wrapped it around my shoulders to ward off the morning’s chill.
“How are you feeling?”
His eyebrows, golden and thick even in the dimly lit loft, furrowed together as he winced, sinking back under the quilts. “The ankle hurts, I’m not going to lie. But it’ll be all right. I don’t think anything is broken.”
After Samuel had eaten last night, Mama had pried him away from Rebecca and helped him up the stairs. She’d snuck him a shot of Papa’s whiskey to help him sleep, and he’d been gone to the world before the Elders had arrived. Rebecca had stood peering up at the loft, chewing on the inside of her cheek, until Papa had gently suggested she return home. Her eyes had met mine, wet and miserable, until I’d offered a small smile. She’d returned it with a tentative one of her own, and for a moment, all had felt right between us.
“What happened?” I asked, pushing aside the memory of my friend’s worry.
“We found Samson’s trail easy enough. There was so much blood. Swathed all along the brambles and the trunks…It was even up real high.” He paused to gesture with his fingers. “Dripping down from the pine needles….How’d it get way up there? Then we…we got separated. It gets dark early in the forest, you know?” Samuel continued. “One minute Papa was right behind me, trying to pull down some of those…branches to burn…and the next, I couldn’t see him anywhere. It was just me and the fires and all that blood. I shouted for him but never heard a reply. I tried…I tried following the flames—he’d have to be at the end of them, right? But he wasn’t. It was just…those things.”
“The wolves?” My nightmare lingered uneasily.
He shook his head slowly. “Those weren’t like any kind of wolf I’ve seen before. They were big, Ellerie, so big. Bigger than a bear, bigger than the hive boxes, big enough to swallow the world whole.”
A patch of icy unease formed at the back of my neck, and grew large enough to plummet down my spine like raindrops on a windowpane. Growing up, I’d assumed that the legends of monsters in the woods were nothing more than elaborate fairy tales, stories told to keep foolish children from getting lost in the pines.
Were the stories true?
Were the monsters real?
“Whatever they were, they went after me, but it wasn’t like a chase. They were too fast for that. I could have never outrun them. I twisted my ankle, trying to get away. But it was…it was almost like a game to them. They were playing with me, laughing at my fear.”
“You heard them laugh?” The words fluttered from my mouth, as insubstantial as autumn leaves caught in a brusque wind.
Samuel scrunched his eyes shut. “I hear them laughing even now.”
Sweat beaded across his brow, and I dabbed it away with a corner of my blanket. His skin was flushed hot. A fever and nothing more.
“Don’t think about that now, Sam. You’re at home and you’re safe and those things can’t get you here.”
I glanced out the window, pleased to see soft gray light filtering through. Mama would be up soon. She’d know what to do, what medicines Samuel ought to have.
Medicines.
Jeb and all those men had been on their way out of the mountains to secure supplies for the Falls. Runs usually took place twice a year—as soon as the ice melted away, ensuring the pass out of God’s Grasp was clear, and again at the end of summer, before early snows could set in, making travel impossible. We hadn’t had a group head out since April. How low were Dr. Ambrose’s supplies?
Another group would have to be sent out, and soon. It was as simple as that. Medicine wasn’t the only thing brought back. We relied on those runs to get supplies that couldn’t be procured in town.
Guns and bullets. Cloth and thread. Books. Sugar. Tea. Coffee.
They simply couldn’t be produced in a town so small.
Selfishly I’d hoped for fabric for a new dress. I’d shot up two inches since spring. Mama thought it must be my final growth spurt, and I prayed she was right. No clothing hung properly on my frame. Bodices stretched uncomfortably as I went about my chores, and my wool stockings could be seen, peeking above the leather of my black boots. I was already taller than Mama, and the only cloth at McCleary’s were two bolts of floral batiste. They were beautiful, to be sure, but would do nothing to keep me warm once leaves began to fall.
“Ellerie?” Samuel whispered.
His lips were chapped, and I fished a tin of salve from the rickety tab
le near his bed. Mama made balms and lotions with the abandoned beeswax after harvest.
“You believe me, about the monsters, don’t you?” His gray eyes were glassy, but I couldn’t tell if it was from the fever or if he was about to cry.
“It must have been terrifying,” I answered carefully.
He grabbed my hand. “I thought I’d never see you again.”
I squeezed his fingers. It was only his fevered imagination, but my heart thunked out of rhythm as I envisioned a world without my twin.
“You’ll keep me safe, won’t you? You’ve always kept me safe. Ever since we were little.”
He sounded little now, younger than even Sadie. A sad, small, lost boy, desperately in need of protection.
“Of course.”
“I couldn’t…I couldn’t stand the thought of being without you. We’ve never not been together. It just…” He broke off into a sob.
“Don’t think like that, Sam. We’re a team, right? You and I. You know I’d never let anything happen to you.”
His eyelids fluttered shut as he slipped back into the uneasy embrace of exhaustion.
I could count on one hand the number of times I’d seen Samuel cry. Though I was sorry he’d hurt himself, and had such a frightening experience in the woods, I wondered if this moment would be a turning point for us. All summer we’d been growing further apart, me remaining at home while he snuck off on adventures unknown. But now…perhaps everything could go back to what it had been like before.
I watched his chest rise and fall, a satisfied peace settling over me as I counted to one hundred before deciding it was finally late enough to wake Mama.
But when I tried slipping my hand from Samuel’s grip, he tightened his hold.
I flexed and twisted my fingers but couldn’t squirm free. Though his face was slack, his grasp was as tight as a bear trap. I tried prying loose, to no avail.
Samuel’s lips were moving. Just barely.
I leaned in close, pressing my ear to hear the refrain he whispered over and over, like a prayer, an entreaty.
Small Favors Page 4