A Poisoned Apple

by Caryn Pinkston

  I glanced up to see the girl roll her eyes and shake her head. I was relieved that she hadn’t thought she was in danger, but her answer made the situation even more confusing.

  Trying to push away the last of my confusion, I asked her, “Why don’t you want to go back to town?” I had never heard of a person lost in the woods being unhappy at the thought of getting found, but then, maybe girls were like that—I really didn’t have any way of knowing. The only girls I had known were my mother and a couple of young women who helped their parents run the shops I purchased from when I went into town.

  The girl stared down at her lap, not wanting to answer. I suppressed a sigh. I was pretty sure that if I wanted her to trust me, I would have to remain patient. “Are you running away from something?” I asked, although I couldn’t imagine what she would be running away from. With a face like hers, she would doubtless have a doting husband, or at the very least, a protective father to keep her out of harm’s way, and I couldn’t imagine anyone leaving her to her own devices.

  She grimaced, looking as if she might start to cry, and nodded. I felt a jolt as I wondered just what kind of monster would dare to make this girl afraid. I was positive that it was a person she was running from—any other kind of trouble could be resolved easily enough that she likely wouldn’t have run away from home for it—and I simply couldn’t understand what kind of person would be cold enough to hurt or frighten her.

  I shifted my weight on my feet and rubbed the back of my neck. This was a very difficult situation, and I hated to be the one who had to resolve it. Not for the first time, I wished my mother had still been with us—doubtless, Mother would know what to do with this frightened girl. “Miss,” I began uncomfortably, “that is quite the problem, but I can’t let you go running off into the woods again. All kinds of awful things could happen to you out there, especially if you got caught after dark, and I would feel terrible if something happened to you because I wasn’t vigilant. I can take you back to town, or I could take you to wherever you’re going, but I can’t leave you to fend for yourself. I’m sorry that my brother frightened you, but I can’t just turn you loose.”

  The girl stared up at me for a long moment, then gave a very unladylike scowl. She folded her arms over her chest and glared down at the ground. She apparently intended to be difficult until we gave in. I sighed. What was I supposed to do now? Taking her anywhere against her will was a bad idea for a number of reasons, but she simply had to be somewhere. The woods were truly no place for a young girl.

  Darren interrupted my thoughts by saying, “Why doesn’t she stay with us? No one would find her here.”

  She blinked and gave Darren a look that was something between alarm and gratitude, and I startled. “We can’t keep her, lad. It wouldn’t be right.”

  “Why not?” Cedric replied. “We’re getting by all right, and if we expand the house again there would be room. If you’re worried about feeding her, it wouldn’t be that hard to start hunting a little more.” He made the entire project sound far simpler than it actually was, even though he knew as well as I did that expanding the house was no easy thing.

  I put a hand over my face. Evidently, Cedric had missed the biggest reason why taking in a girl would be difficult. “She’d need quite a bit more than food and shelter,” I explained. “She would need her own room, clothing that I don’t know how to make, and whatever else it is a young woman uses.” I was certain that the girl would need quite a lot of things, and I was ill-suited to provide them, but the biggest problem was the issue of her privacy.

  The lass stood up a little shakily, walked over to the house’s front step, and seated herself on it, as if to make it clear what she wanted, and I was more than a little dismayed. If I watched over her, I was sure I would botch it horribly. I would be a poor substitute for her father, and I had been hoping to talk her into either going back to town or telling me where she wanted to go.

  It struck me as odd how she hadn’t said one word since she got here. At first I had assumed she was either out of breath or too frightened to speak, but neither one seemed to be the case any longer. She was breathing fine now, and she was asserting what she wanted, which I was sure she wouldn’t do if she was afraid. I studied her face a moment. Perhaps some illness was giving her trouble. “Did something happen to your voice, lass?”

  She glared at me as if I had said something insulting, so I decided not to press the question. I wondered why she had reacted that way. I certainly wasn’t trying to be rude, but then, maybe all girls were that sensitive. I could remember my mother telling me that woman got their feelings hurt a bit more easily than men did, but somehow, this wasn’t what I was expecting.

  I could feel eyes on me, and I realized my brothers were still waiting for me to come to a decision. I rubbed the bridge of my nose for a long moment. “If she wants to stay, I’m not about to make her leave, but there will be rules.”

  The second part of my sentence was cut off by my brothers—a couple of them cheering, some asking questions, and others seeming to shout for no other reason than to make themselves heard. A few of them came right up to the girl, ready to give her what they must have thought was a proper welcome, clapping her on the shoulder and tousling her hair, which she didn’t like at all.

  Feeling alarmed that things had already gone wrong, I whistled again, and the brothers nearest her backed away, expressions saying they hadn’t the slightest idea what they had done wrong.

  I gave a long sigh. “No one is allowed to move one more step until I’ve explained the rules. The first one is that we can’t do anything to the lass that Mother wouldn’t have liked if we had done it to her. That includes mussing her hair, slapping her back, roughhousing, crowding, or speaking too loudly right next to her. Is this clear?”

  My brothers blinked a few times as if surprised to realize that they hadn’t behaved themselves well without ever meaning to annoy the girl.

  “Next rule,” I asserted quickly while I still had their attention, “is that until we get her room built, we sleep in the barn and let her have the house to herself.” That alone should prevent a lot of problems. The house’s door locked and the shutters closed, which would keep anyone from intruding on her by accident.

  “Do all girls need that much space to themselves?” Darren asked bewilderedly. “Just how big will her room need to be?”

  A few of the older brothers roared with laughter and began to tease Darren for being such a child, and I don’t know how far the joke would have gone if I hadn’t interrupted them with yet another whistle. My mouth was starting to get tired, and I wished my confounded brothers would stay quiet for once and let me talk.

  “Third rule is that we do whatever she asks,” I fairly barked, trying to sound serious enough to keep them from getting distracted. “If she doesn’t like something we’re doing around her for any reason at all, we stop, and if she needs anything, we get it for her.”

  Cedric gave a groan. “What if she asks for things she doesn’t need? We could become her servants.”

  Before I could respond, Jeffrey said, sounding alarmed, “What if she makes us go into town every day?” Jeffrey, like most of us, hated going to town because people always stared and made fun of us, and we always had to be careful not to get robbed.

  “What if she doesn’t like rabbits? What if she wants me to bring home deer all the time?” Keaton demanded anxiously. He hated carrying large game home because it put a strain on his back.

  The brothers stopped taking turns asking their questions, all of them shouting to be heard over the other, and I found I had to whistle once more. “We do everything she asks,” I repeated, nearly growling. If my brothers thought it was up to them to decide which of her requests were reasonable, I was sure that would cause more trouble than her demands would. I was taking a gamble on her being of a sensible sort of person, and I really did hope I hadn’t guessed wrong.

  The brothers stayed silent, as if finally understanding how seriou
s I was. I looked between them, then focused in on Landon, who appeared to be daydreaming, which annoyed me. I knew that was uncharitable of me—Landon couldn’t help but daydream—but I needed him to understand. “Landon!” I barked, which made him startle and look at me. “Landon, what are the rules?” I sounded gruffer than I really needed to, but I was getting tired of this entire ordeal.

  Landon blinked at me, looking as if I had asked him an obvious question. “We are to treat Snow with the same consideration that Father treated Mother.” That was a fair way to describe what I was asking of him, but I found myself confused.

  “Snow?” I repeated.

  Landon suddenly looked sheepish. “Oh, I forgot to ask her if she liked that nickname. Her pale coloring reminds me of fresh snow.” He gave her an anxious look. “Is that name all right?”

  She examined one of her arms as if trying to decide if she liked being named for the pale color of her skin, then she gave him a nod, smiling a little, evidently amused.

  Landon looked relieved by this, and from then on we called her Snow. I thought it would be temporary, only something to call her by until her voice came back to tell us what her name really was, but that’s not exactly how it happened.

  Chapter Two

  The first morning after we found Snow, I crept out of the hayloft where I had been sleeping before my brothers were alert. I often got up early to prevent a brother from causing some kind of trouble while I was asleep. I was fully expecting to find the house still closed and shuttered, but there was Snow, looking as if she had been awake far longer than I had, sweeping the front steps. I didn’t know why she felt the need to be sweeping at this hour—the steps weren’t even that dirty to begin with—but if that’s what she wanted to do, I wouldn’t stop her.

  Looking up from her work, Snow gave me a bright smile, but then immediately turned her attention back to the broom. I took that to mean that she wasn’t quite ready for conversation—not surprising, considering that her voice hadn’t worked at all the previous day—so I went around the back of the house and started cutting wood for our stove. The chore had been neglected the day before because of Snow’s sudden appearance, and if we weren’t careful, we would run out. My stomach growled, but I didn’t see any reason in making breakfast now when my brothers likely wouldn’t be up for another hour.

  I had been working on the chopping for about thirty minutes when I heard an awful sound coming from the barn, and I rushed over, thinking something terrible and bizarre was taking place. I was at once both annoyed and relieved to see it was only Snow, pot in one hand, ladle in the other, banging them together right outside the barn door. I was about to ask her why when Cedric stumbled out, looking outraged. “Be quiet!” he screeched.

  My first impulse was to scold him for being so rude, but I found myself holding back, curious to see how Snow would handle this. She gave him a glare as fierce as his own and struck her pot with a particularly loud bang, then pointed to the house commandingly with the ladle. By now, most of the other brothers had gathered around the doorway of the barn curiously. I watched what was going on, fascinated. Aside from Mother and Father, I had never seen anyone directly challenge Cedric before.

  “No!” Cedric exploded. “I’m not going into the house! Now, quit that banging! I want to sleep!” However, as he spoke, all five of the other brothers started to walk around him and wander in the direction of the house, apparently as curious as I was to know what all this was about.

  Not even flinching at Cedric’s outburst, Snow pursed her lips and frowned at him for a long moment, spun on her heel, and practically stomped back to the house. I was sure she would have been muttering angrily to herself if she could. Cedric turned to go back to bed, and I followed her, feeling both amused and a little concerned. Apparently, the lass had a temper to rival Cedric’s, and I hoped those two would somehow learn to get along if she happened to stay for a while. Otherwise, our home life would become very difficult.

  As we approached the house, the smell of something freshly baked answered the question of why Snow wanted us in the house—she had made breakfast. My brothers and I picked up our pace until we were nearly running. Darren gave a shout of joy as he went, and I didn’t wonder. Although I was far better at cooking than any of my brothers, my meals were passable at best.

  When I got inside and saw the spread on the table, I felt more than a little off balance. I had expected something fairly good, but the lass had apparently spared no effort. She had baked fresh bread that was far lighter than anything I had ever managed, boiled berries to make something of a sauce to go with it, warmed and seasoned the rabbit meat from the night before, and she had even made it a point to brew some variety of sweet-smelling tea, which sat in the middle of the table. My brothers tore into the food ravenously, and Snow walked around the table and gave a few of them a firm poke on the shoulder if she thought their manners were too far amiss. I found that it took a good deal of self-control to keep myself from sitting down next to them and devouring everything in sight.

  “Miss,” I said to Snow, amazed to find that for once I had no problem being heard—my brothers were all so busy eating that the usual chatter was nearly non-existent. “You didn’t have to go through all this trouble. I would have made breakfast if you hadn’t beaten me to it.” It wouldn’t do for her to think this chore was required of her—I hadn’t even had a chance to think about whether I wanted her to do something in particular to earn her keep—but at the same time, I really hoped she would do this again, and often.

  She gave me a big smile and gestured for me to sit at the table. Apparently, she had noticed how hard it was for me to hold myself back. Taking that smile to mean that she had been happy to do this for us, I sat down, served myself food, and inhaled it, worried that if I didn’t act quickly, the best things at the table would be gone. I couldn’t tell you how happy it made me not to have to cook, and to be served something so pleasant. This was the first time in a long time that I felt like I was sitting down to a real meal.

  Godwin gave a start and said around a mouthful of food, “Shouldn’t we tell Cedric about this?” Godwin couldn’t stand the thought of anyone being left out of something.

  I hesitated. If someone went to get Cedric, it would mean leaving the table, and the food would likely be gone by the time they came back. Cedric would be hopping mad if no one went to summon him, but it would definitely cause an argument if someone had to leave. I supposed that I should be the one to go, being the one responsible for making sure my brothers got fed, but I could think of nothing I’d rather do less.

  Snow gave Godwin a mischievous grin and shook her head, making the decision for me. I was a little bit annoyed to have my authority usurped in this way until I remembered just how rude Cedric had been to Snow minutes earlier. I realized that missing this meal would teach him to be polite more quickly than whatever other punishment I could come up with. Maybe, if I was lucky, it would also make him reconsider his foul temper, but that seemed like a bit of a stretch. For now, I would be happy if he simply started to talk to our guest more respectfully—she certainly deserved better than to be screeched at for trying to feed him breakfast.

  Godwin’s appetite apparently won out over his conscience, and he went back to eating, shoving nearly an entire slice of bread in his mouth, which earned him a rebuking poke from Snow. I admit she had to poke me no fewer than three or four times before I was finished. Having all that food in front of me and eating it slowly would have been too much to endure.

  As it happened, Cedric wandered into the house just as we were clearing the table, and Darren told him innocently that he had just missed the best meal we’d ever eaten. Cedric looked struck for a moment, and I was expecting him to fly into a rage, but instead he quietly picked up dishes off the table and took them outside to the pump to wash them, his expression downright grief-stricken. I had a hard time holding back my laughter until I got out of earshot. Doubtless, no one had ever managed to defeat him so thoroughl
y before, and it would take him some time to recover from this blow. The thought that it was a delicate-looking young girl who did this to him made the entire situation even funnier in my mind.

  We all went about our normal chores as best we could, as Snow had already cleaned the house herself, which made me wonder if she had slept at all the night before. Landon was sent to fish again, for lack of a better idea of what to do with him. Keaton went out to forage for some more things to stock the kitchen, Jeffrey started chopping wood, Godwin stayed near the house to help Cedric with the dishes, and Darren attempted to make another chair for our table so Snow could sit with us. Darren’s woodworking skills weren’t anywhere near good enough to make a functioning piece of furniture, but I chose not to stop him—he wouldn’t improve unless I let him try. What I really wanted him doing was fishing, staying upstream enough from Landon that Landon didn’t realize what was going on, but I figured I could just as easily do the fishing myself.

  I found myself falling to my usual task of moving between brothers and trying to do a handful of chores between wanderings. I was very anxious that nothing go amiss during Snow’s stay. I was sure it wouldn’t take much to frighten her, and the last thing I wanted was for her to go running off into the woods again.

  I was inspecting the dishes Cedric and Godwin had done—Cedric’s were scrubbed well, but Godwin’s looked as if they had barely been touched—when Snow came marching out of the house with a livid expression on her face and a kitchen knife in her hand. She walked up to me and waved the knife at me, which made me fall down backwards with surprise, and for a moment I honestly thought she planned to murder me until I realized she was pointing at the blade of the knife with her other hand, gesturing wildly.

  Relieved that she only meant to show me the knife and not cut me with it, I took it from her by the handle and looked closely at the blade. It was slightly bent, probably from someone using it to pry up a floorboard or something else better done with a different tool. I knew that the curve of the blade would make it difficult to use, but I couldn’t understand why it would have upset Snow this much. I placed the knife on the ground, put my foot on the flat of the blade, grabbed the handle, then gave it a firm tug to straighten it. I looked down the length of the blade to see if it was flat, then repeated the process once more, this time getting the blade almost perfectly corrected. I then wiped the knife on my tunic and handed it back to Snow.