by John Corwin
"Cursed?" Ambria giggled but abruptly stopped, a troubled look on her face. "When I think about how many times you've been fostered, it makes me think you might be right."
It was fantasy, of course. There was no such thing as magical curses. Then again, before this morning, I hadn't realized a human could control animals. I wondered if I should tell Ambria, but quashed the idea. She would be horrified to know I'd killed someone. Instead of thinking I was cursed, she'd conclude I was a murderer who'd intricately plotted the deaths of my foster parents and might possibly start dispatching the other children next.
Kill them all, a harsh voice whispered in my head.
I flinched, but Ambria didn't seem to notice.
"I can't get over how much different you are now than when you left with your last fosters." She peered into my eyes as if trying to see through dirty windows. "What changed?"
I shrugged. "I must have hit my head."
A smile stretched her plump lips. "I'm sure that's it."
Despite the pleasant conversation, I couldn't stop thinking about the debacle with the sheep and chickens this morning. I couldn't decide if I should leave breakfast early and try to clean up the mess, or act as if nothing was wrong and go about my day. I decided on the latter. There was no time to bury the dead animals, and certainly no way to disguise that several chickens and sheep were missing.
On the other hand, I was the only one with the early morning chores. If someone noticed the extra chore to check the water tank, they could easily conclude I was to blame. Since neither of the Goodleighs had come and asked me about the additional task, it likely meant they hadn't checked the board yet.
"It's been nice talking," I told Ambria. "I'm going to rest for a few minutes before the work day begins."
She touched my hand. "Take care of yourself, Conrad."
Her touch warmed my heart. Was this what it was like to have someone genuinely care about you? "Thank you."
I put my bowl in the sink and went into the back hallway where the chalkboard hung. After looking both ways to be sure I was alone, I erased the forged handwriting and looked it over to be sure no traces remained.
"What do you think you're doing?" Mrs. Goodleigh said.
I nearly jumped, but somehow managed to retain my composure. "I was looking at the rest of my duties."
She walked up behind me and peered at the board. "Even a dullard such as yourself should be able to see you'll be repairing fences the rest of the day."
"Yes, Mother." I let my shoulders slump and adopted a dull look in my eyes. "I'm sorry I disappoint you."
"Apologies are poor substitutes for inadequacies." Her gaze sharpened into a severe look. "I'm afraid you'll never rise to expectations." With that, she marched toward the main office.
A long breath escaped me. My hands shook. That was too close. I had to remain calm and hope things played out in such a way I didn't catch the blame. I looked over the chalkboard and saw that William and Stephan were assigned to walk the perimeter and check the pasture walls. If they followed their usual route, they shouldn't end up near the sheep pasture for a couple of hours. All the other boys were assigned various lawn and grounds maintenance tasks, which took them nowhere near the sheep pasture.
I also realized for the first time there were only four other boys left at the orphanage according to the duty roster—William, Stephan, Toddy, and Sam. Since I'd been living with the Cullens, six of them must have been either adopted or fostered. I couldn't remember how many females there'd been before, but eleven were listed on the chalkboard. As usual, their tasks dealt with cleaning the manor.
I walked onto the back porch and noted with some relief the surviving chickens had returned to the coop. The rooster had apparently survived and was patrolling his reduced flock. Two of the hens limped and hopped about; another fluttered a crooked, possibly broken wing. I returned inside and sat on the mud bench. I didn't want to be the first outside.
A few minutes later, Brickle came along and collected me. We finished the pigpen by lunchtime. As we were putting away the equipment, William and Stephan raced over to us from the direction of the sheep pasture.
"Mr. Brickle, you have to come!" William said. "Something's happened to the sheep and chickens."
The big man narrowed his eyes. "What's happened?"
"A bunch are dead."
Brickle set off at a brisk walk toward the pasture while the rest of us jogged to keep up with his long strides. He stopped abruptly when he reached the pasture gate. "What in the name of the moon happened here?"
Even though I knew what to expect, the sight twisted my lips into a grimace. Spattered blood painted a canvas of soil, grass, and corpses. Crimson streams pooled where hooves had carved a depression in the earth. Feathers and chicken parts littered the area, making it difficult to count how many had actually died. Three sheep, including the ram, lay broken, limbs askew, on the ground.
A beautiful masterpiece of gore.
I shook myself from the troubling thoughts and spoke. "What happened? Was it a wolf?" I didn't actually know what sort of predators existed in the countryside, if any.
Brickle knelt next to the sheep and shook his head. "They did this to themselves." He scanned the ground. "Looks like something spooked them."
"Why were the chickens out here?" William asked. He gave me a suspicious look. "Conrad had the morning duties. I'll bet he chased the chickens out here and scared the sheep."
"The chickens wander all over the place." Brickle stood and looked further into the pasture.
"Look there," Stephan said. "A footprint."
I saw the large imprint in the soggy ground where the madman had stood. Thankfully, any footprints I'd made had been obliterated by the stampede.
Brickle walked to the footprint and inspected it. He looked at our feet. "Come over here."
Repressing the urge to run away, I walked over to him and put my boot next to the footprint. Even if my boot were as large as the footprint, the tread wouldn't match. Brickle made each of us put our boots next to the footprint. He seemed satisfied it didn't match any of ours.
He stood and walked a few paces around the area where he discovered a few more traces of the interloper. "Whoever made these footprints scared the sheep. Probably made them stampede right into the fence." Brickle sniffed the air. "Wait 'til I find whoever did this." He turned to me. "Go tell the Goodleighs."
I swallowed a nervous lump. I was not currently in the good graces of the Goodleighs. As the bearer of bad news, I would likely be the one to bear the blame. "Maybe William should tell them since he found the dead sheep."
Brickle narrowed his eyes at me. "Go tell the Goodleighs."
I maintained eye contact with him so it wouldn't appear I was submitting to his will, though in reality that was exactly what I had to do. "You're right. William isn't brave enough to face the Goodleighs."
"I'm not afraid of them," William protested. "Let me go tell them."
Brickle shook his head. "No, you help me look around for more footprints. I want to trace the path."
I hadn't even thought about backtracking the crazy man's origin. Had he left a car parked nearby? If so, it might have his identification and more clues inside. Somehow, I had to reach that car first. I walked purposefully toward the gate and rounded the corner on the road back toward the house. The moment I was out of sight of Brickle and the others, I raced for the manor. Stopping on the back porch to catch my breath, I pulled off my boots and went inside.
The main office was adjacent to the common room with the doorway just inside the main entrance. I knocked on the office door. The latch must not have been fully engaged because it swung open. The Goodleighs were not inside. I remembered it was lunchtime so they were likely in the dining hall. As I turned to go, I noticed a glowing screen on the desk.
It appeared to be a tablet computer. Though I'd seen them plenty of times, I'd never had the pleasure of using one. I walked over to the thin device and examined it. The scr
een dimmed. I tapped it with a knuckle and it brightened. The Goodleighs must have just left the office seconds ago.
I resisted the desire to toy with the tablet since my fingers were dirty and swiping across the clean screen would leave marks. My eyes focused on the open document on the tablet. Ambria's name caught my eye. I went back to the beginning of the text.
Mr. Hova:
We have an ideal female candidate for you. Though Ambria is not physically fit, she can be trained and brought up to standard. Cumberbatch measured her AP at a healthy fourteen, which should lend itself well to your particular line of work.
The previous candidates we've sold to you have met or exceeded expectations. As you know, we procure only the finest of specimens. We will be listing this new candidate for auction at the end of this month in the usual location. Please find her pedigree attached.
Yours,
Felicity Goodleigh
My heart turned to solid ice. Auction?
They weren't finding parents for Ambria—they were finding a buyer!
Chapter 7
I simply couldn't believe what I'd read. But upon rereading it, certain words refused to let me believe it was simple misinterpretation. One did not refer to an orphan as a specimen. And how did they procure their specimens in the first place?
This tablet held the answers.
Unfortunately, I had only minutes before Brickle wondered at my long absence, and someone could happen by at any moment and see me in this forbidden zone. It was no wonder the Goodleighs had been so strict about keeping us out of this room.
Using a clean knuckle, I scrolled down and found other open documents. Some of them referred to other children I'd assumed had recently been adopted. Instead, the letters detailed the final sale of each one. Another who'd not met expectations by his thirteenth birthday had been given away as a servant—a bonus prize to a valued buyer.
I looked at the clock and realized I'd been poring over this for nearly five minutes. I quickly scrolled back to the letter about Ambria and left on the screen since it would eventually deactivate on its own. Peering around the corner, I saw the common room was empty. Just as I was about to close the office door, an idea came to me. I ran back to the window and unlatched it then quickly exited the office and pulled the door completely shut behind me.
Time was of the essence, so I briskly made my way to the dining hall and approached the Goodleighs at the front table.
"Mother, Father, there has been a serious incident in the sheep pasture and Brickle asked that I come get you." I made sure to keep a dull, submissive aura about me.
Mrs. Goodleigh stabbed a spear of asparagus on her fork. "What have you done now?"
"Brickle said someone scared the sheep." I maintained eye contact with her.
Mr. Goodleigh sighed and threw down his napkin. "Let's go see what the fuss is."
When we reached the pasture, Brickle was still pacing around the same area, his nostrils flaring as if he hoped to sniff out the culprit. Even his ears seemed to twitch. I occurred to me that he would probably get his hounds to find the scent of the perpetrator.
They'll find the body for sure.
My knees wobbled at the thought.
The Goodleighs pulled Brickle aside and spoke to him, faces deadly serious. I pretended to look on the ground for footprints. I found several fresh dung heaps from the sheep. They were small and black, shaped like berries. Though the odor wasn't too strong, I hoped it might confuse a dog's sense of smell. Kneeling as if to inspect the ground, I gathered what I could in my hands and took the droppings into the trees near the grave. I dropped the feces around the tree and over the grave.
As the Goodleighs continued their conversation, I repeated the dung relocation process several times. William and Stephan stood a little ways from the group of adults, worried looks plain on their faces. Everyone seemed preoccupied. Thinking furiously, I came up with one more idea that might keep the corpse hidden.
Running back to the barn, I grabbed a small shovel, then ran into the other barn for one of the buckets filled with discarded bits from the bull. With the others preoccupied, I dug several small holes and deposited bull guts into them, then tossed the shovel and bucket over the stone wall to hide them.
Several minutes later, the adults broke their huddle. Brickle went to retrieve the hounds.
"Look for footprints," Mrs. Goodleigh commanded. "Walk back and forth across this field and mark everything you see."
"Yes, Mother," we three boys replied, meek as mice.
I walked a distance from the others and surveyed the field. In the mornings, the sheep usually congregated beneath a stand of trees in the middle of the field. The tree stood on a slight rise, which offered them a better view of the pasture. Although I knew of no predators in these lands, the animals' instincts probably guided them to seek safety at night. On rare occasions, someone herded them into a stockyard on the farm, but not during the night. Mrs. Goodleigh complained they were too noisy.
If the sheep had been in the center of the field, it made sense the strange man had gone there first. If so, I might find his footprints and determine the direction they'd originated. Two roads bordered the pasturelands but I wouldn't have time to survey them both. I needed to find his car quickly to see if he'd left his identification inside.
William and Stephan adopted a more deliberate approach and began walking back and forth where the massacre had occurred. I pretended to do the same but wandered in what I hoped looked like an aimless pattern. The Goodleighs, thanks to their low opinion of my intelligence, likely wouldn't suspect anything. I walked into the grove of gnarled oaks in the middle of the pasture and tripped on a bundle sitting at the base of a tree.
My knee slammed painfully into a large root. I bit back a cry. Rubbing my joint to sooth the pain, I looked back at the neatly rolled bundle. It looked like a carpet. I unrolled it and discovered it was just that. Hidden within the folds was a smartphone. I quickly pocketed it.
"Why would he stash a phone in a carpet here?" Though the ground beneath the trees was quite firm, it was mostly bare earth. I found two footprints leading away from the middle of the grove, but none leading into it. I wondered if he'd used the carpet to drag over his tracks, but dismissed the idea. The man hadn't bothered to conceal his tracks anywhere else, so why bother doing it from the road to the grove?
Besides, the grass in the field would hide most tracks unless he happened through a particularly soggy area. I heard baying in the distance and saw Brickle leading his hounds on the search. The carpet seemed rather innocuous, but my improved intellect told me it was something more than a decoration. Why else would the man bring it with him into a sheep pasture? Had he intended to bundle my corpse into it once the sheep trampled me to death? I needed time to solve the mystery, but there was no way I could spirit a rug across the field. If I left it on the ground, the hounds would sniff it out.
Thankfully, the sheep had rubbed against the trees, leaving wool and most importantly, their scent all over the trunks. I looked up and knew what I had to do. One tree offered an easier climb than the others, so I tucked the carpet under one arm and shimmied up to the first branch. From there, I was able to climb two thirds of the way up and nestle the bundled carpet between two branches.
The height also provided a good view of the surrounding area. I peered at the roads paralleling the stone pasture walls but saw no trace of a parked car near either one. Unless the man had driven into a ditch, I should be able to see his vehicle from here. I climbed back down and looked toward the Brickle and the others.
The hounds were sniffing around the trees where I'd buried the man.
Panic frosted in my chest. I walked quickly back toward the others as they observed the hounds.
"Got something!" Brickle shouted.
My heart pounded in my chest, the echo of its beat thudding in my ears. I followed Brickle around the tree just as a big brown hound ripped something bloody from the ground. The other hounds joine
d the first, two of them dragging a string of guts from the dirt.
"What is the meaning of this?" Mrs. Goodleigh said. Her gaze whipped toward me.
"What's that doing here?" Brickle stared at entrails.
"You told me to get rid of the remains." I kept my voice as steady as possible. "I thought you wanted me to bury them."
"Idiot!" Mrs. Goodleigh blew out a frustrated breath and turned back to Brickle. "There's nothing over here but whatever this fool child buried." She motioned toward the rest of the field. "Take the hounds out there and see what you find."
Brickle sniffed the air as if he could detect the scents better than the hounds. "There's something around here that don't smell right."
"The field," Mr. Goodleigh said. "Go now."
The big man narrowed his eyes and looked as if he wanted to retort. Instead, he growled and turned toward the field.
"The rest of you get the dead sheep to the slaughterhouse." Mrs. Goodleigh turned her piercing eyes on me. "You will assist Brickle with the butchery."
My stomach growled. I still hadn't eaten lunch. I knew for a fact Brickle wouldn't go without eating, though he wouldn't care if I ever received food or not.
"Yes, Mother." I walked toward the closest sheep.
"You're a moron." William clenched a fist. "Wish I could punch you in the face."
I kept my face calm and regarded him. "You could waste time being mad, or we can get these sheep into the slaughter house quickly and still have a chance to eat lunch."
"I'm really hungry," Stephan said.
Surprise lit William's eyes. "Since when did you start talking in complete sentences?"
I reached under the dead ram. "Are we going to hurry or not?"
Stephan reached under the ram's back. "I am."
Grudgingly, William gripped the ram's head. "Fine. Let's do this."
We synchronized our steps and got the ram into the slaughterhouse quickly. Within another ten minutes, we had the other dead sheep inside as well.