For reasons I couldn’t understand, Snow was only slightly less angry than before, and she went frowning back into the house, waving for me to follow her. I trailed along, curious to see where she was taking me and why.
We arrived in the kitchen, and she gestured angrily at the pantry. I assumed she meant she wasn’t happy with the contents, but I couldn’t see why. It was nowhere near empty, and we had a bag or two brimming with jerky and several baskets of nuts and dried berries. “I don’t understand the problem.”
She rolled her eyes in complete exasperation, took me by the arm, then towed me outside. I followed her, feeling confused and a little concerned. She took me over to a large, mostly flat patch of dirt, picked up a stick, then, with surprising skill, drew a bean. “Yes, we’ll buy some beans. Is there anything else you need?” I couldn’t see why she thought beans were essential, but I chose to humor her. After all, she was the one who would be making our meals.
She sketched a pig, which I took to mean that she wanted pork, and I promised her we’d get some for her. After that, her frustration seemed to diminish, and her expression became almost cheerful as she continued to draw.
As much as I wanted to help Snow prepare our meals, I admit that I felt a growing sense of dismay as she drew picture after picture because the longer she worked, the more I realized there would be no putting off going into town for those provisions, and going into town was always a pain, even when we had little to carry.
When she finally finished her long list of groceries, which I was a little concerned about my ability to remember, I promised her I would take the needed trip first thing in the morning with a few of my brothers, keeping my face composed so she wouldn’t think I was put out by her requests. I was happy to obtain those items for her, especially when she would cook for us in return, but I knew I had quite the ordeal ahead of me. Going into town always required at least three of us carrying heavy staffs to keep ourselves protected from robbers, bullies, and the occasional drunk, and we always had to endure rude stares and taunting remarks when we arrived. The shopkeepers would often charge us more than they would the other customers because our height didn’t exactly command respect. Some shopkeepers even refused to do business with us because of our condition, claiming we must have been cursed by demons to be so undergrown, and I once had a shopkeeper call me a child and threaten to box my ears if I didn’t clear our and quit wasting his time with my absurd stories and ridiculous fake beard.
There was a handful of shopkeepers who weren’t unkind to us, and there was one woman who actually seemed fond of us, but it was impossible to interact only with the pleasant people of the town. We had to buy material for our clothing from a woman who only barely tolerated us, and would yell at us if she thought we were taking too much time making our decisions—we liked to feel every cloth to find the sturdiest one. The man who sold us our candles would deliberately make fun of us in underhanded ways, then put on an innocent expression if we tried to call him out on it. And besides that, we had to pass by people of all temperaments on the street.
Pushing these thoughts aside for a moment, I recited back to Snow her entire list the best I could, and she then drew for me the few items I missed. We repeated this exercise until I could rattle off the entire list without a mistake. She gave me a beaming smile to reward me for my trouble, then turned to go back into the house, probably to take care of some housework duty, but I couldn’t imagine what—the house was clean, and she already had a pot of soup started.
I realized, fretfully, that I should start making arrangements for our trip into town. First, I looked at my piles of carvings so I would have an idea of our budget. I figured, if the woman who liked to buy them was feeling reasonable, we would have just barely enough money for all of Snow’s requests, but only if we brought every carving. I was a little worried about selling off every single one—I always tried to have a few extra on hand in case an emergency came up. If worse came to worst, I supposed I could persuade Cedric to help me with the pretty work, but I knew he would have little patience for it, and would likely growl about it the whole time.
The next thing I had to consider was which brothers I should take along. Of course, we would be carrying much more of value than we usually did, so I should take all of them, but I didn’t like the idea of leaving Snow unguarded. Besides that, Landon and Darren would be more of a hindrance than a help if we had to defend ourselves. Landon’s coordination couldn't be depended on—sometimes he behaved as if he forgot he had a body at all—and Darren simply didn’t have the muscle to fight effectively yet, although his technique wasn’t all that bad.
The next thing I had to do was to inform the brothers who were going, which got me many reactions of dismay, and understandably so. Those who were chosen didn’t enjoy going into town any more than I did, and those at home would have much more work to do than usual to make up for our absence. Darren, who hadn’t yet been to town, complained that we never let him do anything fun. The rest of us laughed at that, causing him to stare at us with a completely bewildered expression. Apparently, he hadn’t yet connected our complaints about going into town with the actual implications.
While I was gathering my brothers to discuss more specific assignments, Snow walked up to us, expression perplexed, and stood there without asserting herself in any way. She seemed troubled by our argument over who had to talk to which shopkeeper. Godwin was quick to explain that we didn’t mean any harm to one another by bickering like we did, but she seemed to become even more confused. When we were finally done hashing out what was to be done, Snow caught my sleeve and gave me another questioning expression. I couldn’t figure out what she was trying to ask me, and I was expecting another small explosion of frustration, but she didn’t act annoyed when I told her I couldn’t work out what she wanted. She wandered back to the house, looking as if she was trying very hard to figure out whatever had been bothering her.
The preparations for our trip went as smoothly as they normally did, and the morning of the next day came quickly. We set off, waving to those at home, and Snow stared after us with that same confused, troubled expression. It made me hope that we could somehow figure out what was concerning her later. Right then, we had to focus on our trip.
Chapter Three
The walk up to town was pleasant enough, partly because we knew we didn’t have to worry about some criminal taking everything we had. We had only ever been robbed on the way into town once before. The robbers must have been disappointed to see what was actually in the bag because we found my sack of carvings abandoned on the side of the road about two miles later. The thieves must have told their friends in the trade about it because no one bothered us on our way up after that, although there had been many attempts on our purchases on our way back to our house.
We were all chatting merrily with each other, sometimes passing the bag to another brother if someone got tired of carrying it, but the conversation quieted down the closer we got to town and the more people we passed on our way, and by the time we reached the outermost shop, even Godwin had fallen completely silent. Our errand was an unpleasant one, and we were each determined that we would get this over with as quickly as possible. We walked quickly, careful to stay alert, but at the same time trying to pretend that we didn’t notice the stares, the mocking, and the mothers trying to hurry their pointing children along.
We made our first stop, which was at the novelty store that bought my carvings to resell at a profit. Bargaining with the stern woman behind the counter always took some time, and I felt rather tired by the time it was over, but I had somehow managed to land better prices than I thought she would give me.
I gave each of the brothers the money they needed before we left the shop—I felt we were safer moving our money between us with the shopkeeper watching than we would be on the street. My brothers pocketed what I had given them, and each went to their task. Cedric and Godwin went to the butcher’s, Keaton to the grocer’s, and I went with Jeffrey fo
r the dry goods. As we parted ways, I hoped our errands would all be without incident, but I knew it was unlikely.
We had to go through a much more crowded part of town to get to the dry goods store, and I gripped my staff tightly in both hands, Jeffrey pressing up close to me. Whether he felt more protected near me or if he was simply trying not to lose me, I couldn’t be certain, but it made it hard for me to concentrate on weaving through the crowd. People would stumble over me if I didn’t move quickly enough, acting as if they couldn’t see any person who wasn’t at eye level.
Finally, we arrived at the shop we wanted, and although the store was busy at the moment, it felt downright peaceful in comparison. Hilary, who was standing behind the counter, gave us a bright smile as we walked in. She finished the transaction she was making with another customer, then waved us over. “Hello, Reymond and Jeffery! How are you?”
“We’re doing well,” I replied, even though that wasn’t an entirely honest response. “We’re here for a bag each of flour, sugar, and beans.”
She looked a little disappointed that I didn’t want to stop and talk, but her smile didn’t falter for long. “It’s unusual for you to buy sugar—you’ve always bought only the essentials. What’s the occasion?”
“We have someone else to feed now,” Jeffrey explained before I could stop him. “We found her—Ow!” I jabbed the heel of my staff into the bridge of his foot as inconspicuously as I could. If Snow really was hiding from someone, the last thing I wanted was for that someone to show up on our doorstep.
Hilary stared at Jeffrey, looking concerned. “Are you all right?”
“It’s one of his earaches,” I lied quickly as he glared at me. “It should clear up in a day or so. What he meant to say is that we’ve taken in a dog.”
She gawked. “Why do you need sugar for a dog?”
I was very flustered all of a sudden. “She likes sugar. She likes it so much that she won’t eat anything unless we put something sweet on top of it.” Too late, I realized that a more plausible story would be that we were using the sugar to train the animal, as unlikely as that still was.
Hilary frowned. “You’ll spoil her if you’re not careful. Anyway, the sugar is over there, and the beans have dropped slightly in price since you were last here.” I took the sudden change of subject to mean that she thought this conversation had become too strange for her to handle, and I wasn’t altogether surprised. I must have sounded extremely odd.
I picked up a bag of flour while Jeffrey picked up the other things, sulking quietly, and before long, we were on our way. Once there were no other customers close to us, I made a point to explain to him, “Snow is on the run. No one can know.”
Jeffrey blinked a couple of times, then looked abashed. “Sorry. I guess I didn’t think about that.” I wondered uneasily if my other brothers had also missed that we were hiding Snow, not just housing her, and I prayed no one would say anything to give her away.
After another struggle through the crowd, we met up with Keaton at our usual place. It appeared that Cedric and Godwin hadn’t finished at the butcher’s yet, which wasn’t a surprise—the old man worked so slowly that it could take him a full five minutes to tie paper around a steak.
Jeffrey and Keaton chattered for a moment, but Jeffrey stopped abruptly. “Hey, Reymond? I think we forgot to ask Snow if she needs any clothing.”
I blinked. Jeffrey was right—I hadn’t even thought about what else the lass might need, but I supposed it should have been obvious. Snow only had one dress, and I was sure there were many other things she needed that I wouldn’t know about. I set down my bag of sugar at Jeffrey and Keaton’s feet, excused myself, and rushed off to buy some cloth, feeling the coins in my pocket and trying to guess if I would have enough.
When I came to the fabric shop, I wasn’t altogether certain what I needed, so I bought an entire bolt of red fabric that I hoped was sturdy enough without being coarse, and several spools of thread. It cost quite a bit more than I would have liked to spend, but I was concerned about not coming home with enough material for the skirts on Snow’s new clothing—some dresses were absurdly large.
I met up with my brothers, and I was a little surprised to see that Cedric, aside from the large bundle of meat on his shoulder, was carrying something small and black in his other hand. “What’s that?” I was annoyed that he had bought something without consulting me, and it made me sound sharper than I intended.
“What’s that?” Cedric retorted, tossing the small object to me. “We have all the clothes we need.”
“It’s for Snow,” I replied, glancing down at the object in my hand, which proved to be a slate. It took me a moment to figure out why Cedric thought we needed it—we had all lost interest in writing some time ago, because it we found it too hard without Mother’s guidance—but I found myself grinning. “And so is this. I’m glad you thought of it.”
Cedric shrugged. “I didn’t like to see her having to scribble in the dirt. We had enough money left over after I bought the meat, so I figured we should buy her the slate.”
“Is there anything else you think she wants?” Godwin asked. “Don’t girls need an awful lot of shoes and clothes and baubles?”
I frowned, blinking. “I would think she’d need only two sets of clothing—one to wear while washing the other one. But I’m not certain.” I wished I could go back and ask Hilary what kind of things a woman needed. I was getting a headache from trying to guess.
After a few moments of debating, we decided head home—we were out of funds, even if we did decide that Snow needed something else. We started to walk out of town, but before we had quite made it past the businesses, a group of young men ranging in age from about twelve to fourteen stepped in front of us, obviously wanting to push us around.
“Hey,” said the ringleader. “I thought we told you not to come back.” He was holding a staff, which he thumped on the ground for emphasis. Looking around, I noticed that more of the young men were carrying daggers and staffs than they had the last time we met them, and they had increased their numbers. I surveyed them almost with approval. I didn’t know why these boys were so intent on us that they continually tried to bully us into submission, even though we were better fighters, but at least they were getting somewhat smarter about it.
Barely pausing at the ringleader’s words, my brothers and I kept walking, easily shoving aside a few of the boys as we went. Last time, we had used our staffs to knock the weapons out of their hands, which had been extremely easy, but by now we were tired of this game.
The ringleader stood to one side, looking astonished for some reason, then screamed in his high-pitched voice, “Attack!”
We responded quickly, but the sheer volume of what we were carrying slowed us down enough that one of the boys managed to give Godwin a moderate thunk over the head with a staff. Someone managed to nick Jeffery, which earned the attacker a kick in the stomach that made him practically fly backwards. Cedric came forward to engage with Godwin’s attacker, giving the unfortunate boy a firm smack on the backside with the staff. The fight was over in a matter of seconds, the boys scattering in random directions, some of them yelping or wailing like much younger children, although most of us really hadn't been all that rough with them.
After checking Godwin and Jeffrey’s injuries to make sure they weren’t serious, we gathered up the things we had let fall to the ground and went on our way, following our usual pattern of conversation. We stopped briefly to eat our lunches once we reached the woods, then pressed forward, although by now our burdens were starting to feel heavy. Thankfully, we encountered no thieves in the woods on our way home, and we were happy when we finally reached our home’s clearing. Snow was sitting on the steps waiting for us, which I thought was curious. Just how long had she been there?
She beamed and started to come forward to meet us, but stopped with a horrified expression. She gently lifted Jeffery’s hand to look at his injured wrist, which had been bound in a litt
le of the cloth meant for Snow’s dress. Snow started to unwrap the wound, slowly and carefully, eyes watering as if she might start to cry. “It’s all right,” Jeffrey reassured her. “It’s not very deep, and it should stop bleeding in no time at all.”
Snow, not responding to his attempt to comfort her, blinked down at the wound, retied the bandage, then began looking at the rest of us for any other signs of injury. “It’s really all right, Snow,” I said. “These things happen all the time. His cut won’t even need to be stitched.”
Still not allowing herself to be soothed, she continued to move between us, stopping when she saw the bump on Godwin’s forehead. She winced, poking the edge of the bump softly. I don’t know what she could have been feeling for, but I chose not to ask about it just then.
Not understanding why she was so concerned, we trailed past her to put away the things we were carrying, then sat down at the kitchen table to talk to Landon and Darren about our trip. Snow’s chair wasn’t ready yet, so she sat down on the edge of the table, which, thankfully, was sturdy enough not to break.
As we rehashed what had happened, each of us interrupting the others from time to time, Darren and Landon looked distinctly entertained by our sometimes mocking accounts of the ruder people we had met. Even those of us who actually experienced it got to laughing, and everyone roared when we got to the part when the young boys tried to give us trouble.
A Poisoned Apple Page 3