by Rita Woods
“Well, if it isn’t the prodigal daughter.” He turned slightly, pulling Margot with him as he raised his gun. “Welcome to the party.”
Winter stared narrow-eyed at him. She felt as if she’d been planted, as if she’d taken root where she stood. Swirling snow blew across her face in the frigid air, but she was beyond feeling it. Colm’s voice came to her as if from very far away. She pulled her lips back from her teeth in a snarl and saw him flinch, a fleeting shadow of fear crossing his face, the hunter sensing danger.
Across the fire, Petal had gone silent. All of Remembrance had gone silent. The only sounds were the crackling of the fire and the soft murmuring of the snow as it fell to the ground.
Colm’s mouth turned up, his eyes dark holes in his pale face. “Our feelings have been deeply hurt, haven’t they, Frank?”
The big slaver grunted but said nothing.
“Well,” Colm went on, his smile wide. “You and that other one, the ugly one, didn’t seem to much appreciate our hospitality. And that cuts me deeply. To the quick, in point of fact.”
He took a step toward Winter.
She stared at him, feeling her power churning. She saw him. Saw his dirty green jacket. Saw the suspenders that bit into the frayed wool of his pants. She saw him. All of him. And she held herself motionless, breathing frost-laden air into her lungs.
“I’m not used to having to chase my bounty twice,” said Colm. The smile vanished as his face contorted into a mask of rage. “And just how am I to be paid back for that, do you think?”
He waited. Winter cocked her head and regarded him silently. The slaver’s face twisted. “How?” he screamed. “How do you plan to make that up to me? To us?”
He leaned toward her, breathing hard, his breath sour on her face. He wiped the back of one hand across his lips, then straightened. And then he smiled.
The few armed black men, David Henry’s men, inched closer, but the slavers were careful to not give them a chance at a clear shot.
“I know, Frank,” he said, his eyes never leaving Winter’s. “We came here looking for the witch that broke our brother’s mind. First, we just got you and the ugly one, but now, it looks like we’re too late for the witch.” He jerked his head toward the fallen priestess.
Winter breathed in slowly through her nose but held Colm’s gaze. “You’re going to leave this place,” she said quietly.
Surprise flared in Colm’s eyes before he could hide it.
“Leave?” Frank’s voice cut through the stunned quiet. “Oh, we’ll be leaving alright. And we’ll be taking way more than we came with. All you niggers up there, throw down those damn guns and get down here.”
No one moved. The men kept their guns raised, waiting for the moment when they could fire on the slavers without hitting one of their own, their wrath a low thrum against Winter’s skin.
“Don’t make me ask you all again,” growled Frank.
“My brother’s not known for his patience or goodwill toward his fellow man,” said Colm. He grinned at Winter. “Why don’t you tell them, lass? You yourself have been on the receiving end of our Frank’s bad temperament. Now tell them to be good boys and throw down those guns before somebody gets hurt.”
She stared, unblinking. She felt nothing, not the cold, not fear. Even her anger felt like a distant echo. Colm was nothing. His brother Frank and the taciturn Paddy, they were nothing. Millions and millions of spinning particles, held together in the shape of men.
“Tell them,” screamed Colm. Spittle flew from his lips, mixing with the blowing snow. When she remained silent, the slaver signaled with his free hand.
“Paddy!” called Frank. “Bring your ass out here. Tired of playin’ with these niggers.”
The third slaver stepped from between two cottages. Knife-thin and silent, Paddy held a small bundle carelessly in each hand. Petal’s scream ripped through the settlement, the sound of pure agony.
“My babies! Not my babies!”
Ripping free of Frank, she dashed, screaming, toward Paddy. The skeletal slaver made as if to toss the infants into the fire, and Petal froze. She stood rigid in front of Paddy, her arms outstretched, reaching for her twins, then collapsed at the slaver’s feet.
“Please,” she begged. “Please. I’ll go with you. Just give me my babies. Please give me my babies.”
The three slavers laughed as the freed slaves of Remembrance looked on in horror.
Winter had turned to fire inside. Snowflakes sizzled to steam the instant they touched her skin. The world around her pulsed red with each beat of her heart. Petal screamed and screamed, and the screams braided themselves through Winter’s soul like barbed wire.
One ex-slave, then another, threw his gun down then stepped forward as requested, but it was fury, not defeat in their eyes. All except for one, Daniel, who stepped forward, his rifle shouldered. Paddy shook the babies again, taunting him as Petal cowered at his feet, each shake of her children sending a ripple of anguish through her tiny body.
Paddy held one of the twins, Aron, over the open flame of the Central Fire. The child’s cries became frantic as the swaddling cloth that wrapped him began to steam.
Margot moved.
She spun away from the gun, and a knife appeared as if out of nowhere. Sunlight flashed on metal as it arced through the air, slashing toward Colm’s throat. It caught in the collar of the pattyroller’s jacket, slowing the blade as it sliced through the taut skin at the edge of Colm’s jaw. Screaming, she whirled, preparing to come at him again.
But the slaver was faster. Cursing, he backpedaled, deflecting the second blow with the butt of his gun, knocking the knife from her hand. Hissing in fury, Margot clawed at Colm’s face with her nails, but she was off-balance and fell.
“Bitch!” screeched Colm. Blood ran into his collar, turning it black. “You nigger bitch!”
Winter could see him, through him. The structure of his skin, the pale, thin octagons layered atop each other like fallen leaves, and the spaces beneath that. His muscles, the long, thin fibers lying side by side. She could see into him. Deeper and deeper. The skin and muscles that made him, and the particles that made the skin and muscle, all spinning, round and round, holding him together. There, in that space, the blood in his veins, his bones fine as ash.
Colm raised the gun again, and Winter breathed in a fiery breath, leaned in to touch the pieces of him and pull them apart.
Ready.
But in that half beat of time between one breath and the next, in the instant just before she could release the power that would turn Colm into not-Colm, Dix erupted from the shadow of the trees.
“No,” he shouted. “No, Colm.”
Colm whirled on the boy.
“Wait!” Dix held his arms away from his body to show he was unarmed.
The slaver stared at the boy, the rifle in his hands trembling. He looked Dix up and down, his eyes wild with fury. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“These ain’t slaves, Colm. You said we was gonna be trackin’ slaves.”
Colm threw back his head and laughed, the sound brittle. “What the hell difference does that make, boy? A nigger is a nigger. Now get over here and start tying up some of these young bucks.”
Dix was shaking his head. “No. This ain’t right.”
The slaver stared at him, his face red. “You are a disgrace of a white man. We should have left you to freeze to death in that ditch where we found you. You are worse than a nigger. Least they know what they are.”
He spit out the words, each one thick with loathing, then spit on the ground at Dix’s feet. He turned back to Margot.
“We got no use for a nigger that attacks a white man, no matter how lovely the face.” He raised the rifle and rammed the barrel against her throat. “And get rid of those mewling brats, Paddy. They’re less than useless. Will not waste a crust of bread on a nigger that can’t do a day’s work.”
“No!” Dix’s scream fused with Petal’s in the cold morning, s
eeming to whip the snow into a miniature cyclone.
Winter saw Paddy fling Petal’s baby boy toward the fire. Heard the sharp report of a gunshot. In that last instant, she saw a flash of movement as Dix lunged past her.
And then she could hold it no more.
She saw only Paddy, smiling, his rotted teeth, black stubs in his mouth. She saw the rot that was his mind. It was easy. So easy. His brain was like a ripe blackberry, the ridges smooth and wet in her hand. She leaned in and fell into the spaces between the spaces, touching the thing that was his brain. Even his fear in those last moments was a thing she could push, change. And she did, laughing as his brain tore itself apart.
And now Frank.
Did he think he could run from her?
Skin.
He was only skin and bones and blood and sinew. Particles strung together, just like the cold dirt on which they stood. Dust to dust. A quote Belle always said at Sunday supper. He tried to run, but Winter could see inside him, see the millions and millions of pieces that held him together, and she pushed them apart, pushed them as hard as she could. From very far away, she heard a man screaming.
They could not touch her.
They could not stop her. They were nothing but insignificant particles that she had the power to twist and bend any way she wanted.
“Winter.”
Mother Abigail whispered her name in the wind.
But there was one more.
She locked eyes with Colm. He gaped at her, his eyes wild, the gun pointed at her chest. She pushed at the pieces that formed the metal of the gun, forced them to speed up until they were rotating at the same speed as the finger that gripped the trigger, pushed until the gun and the hand were indistinguishable.
He screamed. She stared into his eyes, feeling the power roar from her, pushing it toward him, into him, as Colm became not-Colm, losing his man shape. Becoming … something else.
The ground seemed to vanish beneath her feet, and the air burned her face, her lungs. And she could feel herself starting to come apart, feel herself becoming not-Winter.
“Stop, petite! Stop now, child!”
She felt the priestess’s breath soft on her face, a faint wind cooling her, bringing her back to a memory of herself. She fell. And fell some more. Until she fell back into Remembrance.
54
Margot
She stepped out onto the tiny stoop and inhaled. The air smelled fresh and green. After a long, harsh winter, Remembrance was coming alive. Even now, all these months later, it still felt odd to think of the tiny cabin as home. Perched between two birch trees, it was slightly uphill from Petal and Daniel’s cabin. Nearly every morning on her way down to the Central Fire, she made a point to stop in and see their babies, her babies.
It surprised her how much joy she got from cuddling the fat, warm twins in her arms, inhaling their yeasty, baby smell. They trilled slobbery laughter whenever she pressed her nose to theirs, and in just the past week, both of them, Aron and Delilah, had produced teeth. This thrilled her beyond measure. She stepped from the stoop, stopping as she saw a familiar figure making his way up the trail in the early morning light.
“Bonjour.”
“Mornin’,” said David Henry, grinning. He liked it when she spoke French.
“When did you return?” she asked.
“Just now. Rode out before sunrise.”
David Henry and two other men had gone to Ashtabula to sell Remembrance’s iron, honey, and flour, and Sir Galahad’s goat cheese. Now that they were out in the world, their reputation, and the Outsider’s appetite, for these things had only grown.
“Got you somethin’.”
Her eyes widened as he pulled a delicate mother-of-pearl hair comb from his jacket pocket.
“It is beautiful,” she exclaimed. She turned so that he could slip it into her hair.
He took her hand and they smiled at each other.
“Have you eaten?”
He shook his head, and she turned to lead him down the trail to the Central Fire. She would see the babies later. Margot had only taken a few steps when she felt resistance. Turning, she found David Henry gazing up the trail into the trees.
“You miss her,” she said, following his gaze toward Mother Abigail’s now-empty cabin.
“I do.” He sighed. “She was everything. If she hadn’a been, wouldn’t none a’ this have been.”
He tried to smile. “It’s good now, though, right? Different, but good.”
She nodded as he reached to caress her cheek.
They had buried Mother Abigail at the foot of the giant mulberry, where her spirit could watch over Remembrance for always.
“Come,” she said.
He exhaled and turned to follow her. At the bottom of the hill, Dixon McHugh stood holding a cup of coffee in one hand, a rifle in the other.
Since the day Winter had destroyed the other slavers, Dix had chosen to remain in Remembrance. It had taken the settlers a while to accept him. Some still didn’t. They blamed him for what had happened to Mother Abigail, to Winter. Blamed him for the fact that Remembrance was now visible to the world. Most couldn’t understand why he would want to stay, but Margot understood the need to belong to something.
Those first few weeks he’d been skinny, bruised, jumping at every sound, sleeping alone in the woods. Now the circles under his eyes were gone and his lean frame had filled out. He still preferred to sleep in one of the lean-to shelters at the edge of the settlement, but he seemed happy. He stood now at the head of the trail, sipping a cup of coffee. His face was turned away from them, and she could see the thick scar, shiny and twisted, that ran down the side of his face and into his shirt collar, a permanent reminder of that morning when he’d leaped into the fire to catch baby Aron in those last few seconds.
“Good morning,” she called.
Dix turned, and they saw that his pale hair had been pulled back from his face into pigtails and tied with red string. David Henry laughed out loud at the sight of him.
Dix grinned. “Mornin’.”
Margot eyed his hair. “This is … inhabituel! Unusual.”
“Esther,” he said, rolling his eyes.
“Ah,” she answered, exchanging knowing looks with David Henry.
“Goin’ huntin’ for boar,” said Dix to David Henry. “Welcome to join.”
David Henry shook his head. “Nah, still got work to do on the reverend’s school. It seem like we got new kids showin’ up every day. Definitely next time.”
Dix saluted him with his cup and headed up the trail. David Henry watched him go. “Catches me by surprise every time I see him walkin’ around. But he a alright white boy.”
“He appears to have stolen Esther’s heart.”
“Maybe we can have a double weddin’. That is, if Hannah still fancy’s me.” He grinned.
She laughed.
“Heard we expectin’ more folks runnin’ north,” he said, turning serious.
“Yes, soon.”
There were rumblings of a coming war, and every day more and more slaves found their way to them.
“Then I best get busy on that schoolhouse.”
She watched him walk away and then made her way slowly around the Central Fire. Even now, nearly six months after those hideous men had come into Remembrance, the settlement bore the scars of that day.
Around the Central Fire itself, the ground was hard and nearly transparent. Nothing could grow anywhere near it, no shovel or ax could pierce it. To Margot, it looked uncannily like a massive diamond, but that was impossible. Nearby, trees were bent and blackened. But the most unnerving thing for her, the thing she could not bear to look at, even now, was the huge stone at the edge of the Central Fire.
It was there that the slaver had rammed a gun against her throat; in her dreams she still felt the metal between her collarbones. It was there that she’d tried to stab him before he struck her to the ground.
And then Winter had been there.
She r
emembered the swirling snow, and the heat. So hot it burned her throat.
She remembered the sound. The wind and screaming.
And then silence.
When she opened her eyes, the slaver was gone. There was only this mound of stone in the exact place he’d been standing.
Margot shuddered. She poured herself a cup of coffee, then cornered one of the younger children to run a basket of food up to Louisa. Except when someone was ill, the healer almost never left her gardens.
It was late afternoon and the sun had disappeared behind the clouds before she had another quiet moment. So many new people meant so much to do. She walked the now-familiar path through the cemetery and out to the edge of the clearing. Across the greening grass, the giant mulberry was coming into bud. She hunched her shoulders against the growing chill.
Mother Abigail was gone. From where she stood, she could see the tiny marker that showed where the old priestess had been laid to rest.
Josiah was gone. No one had seen him since the night the slavers tore through Remembrance.
And Winter was gone.
After that day, she’d moved through Remembrance like a wound, scarred, silent, no one except Dix daring to approach her.
And then she was gone, too.
Margot glanced at the sky. Tonight more would come seeking sanctuary. Or tomorrow night or the night after. And they were still here.
Remembrance was still here.
Winter
She stood on the top of a ridge. The sun was rising and the fog rolled like a river across the countryside below her. She didn’t know where she was going, only that she would know it when she got there. Remembrance no longer belonged to her. She no longer belonged to Remembrance.
She ran a hand across her scalp. Still tender, the smoothness of it was still so strange.
She’d woken in her cabin, confused, her scalp, her skin burning, images playing in her head.
Colm. Paddy.
David Henry had been standing over her. And the new girl, Margot, one eye swollen shut.