Crossing Over

by Anna Kendall

  They would make their move soon—robbery at best, murder at worst—and I must make mine first. “Warm in here, is it not?” I said.

  No answer.

  “Very warm.” I made a great show of wiping my forehead and neck. And I waited.

  Finally one growled, “Where ye bound, boy?” His teeth were broken, brown as his cloak.

  “I’m looking for my lady mistress.”

  That got both their attention, and the innkeeper’s as well.

  “She fled her father’s estate a few days ago, and forgot to tell me where to meet her.”

  “Forgot? What d’ye mean, boy? Speak plain!”

  “I am speaking plain.” I opened my eyes wide, looking as guileless as I could, and then clutched my stomach.

  “You sick?”

  “No, no, just something bad that I ate . . . Yes, she forgot. And she never forgets me. I’m her musician, you see, and she is very musical. Shall I sing for you?”

  “No,” he growled as I knew he would. “What’s your mistress’s name?”

  “Lady Margaret. Although I think she might ...” I scrunched up my face, like a half-wit trying to remember something. “I think she might use another name. I forget what.”

  The innkeeper said, “Your lady mistress runs away—”

  “Not runs away—flees.”

  “—flees from her father’s home to the Unclaimed Lands? Not likely, lad.”

  The other man at the table was now watching me more closely. He had as yet said nothing at all. I spoke directly to him. “Have you seen her? She’s small, with brown hair and green eyes and she’s very, very pretty.”

  There was a sudden silence among the three men. Finally the innkeeper said, “She does not travel alone.”

  “No.” Mother Chilton had told me as much, and then had not told me whom Cecilia was with, calling me stupid for even asking.

  The man with broken teeth said, “You’re a fool, boy.”

  “I am told that often,” I said with a big sunny smile. “But in her haste my lady forgot me, and my brother and I must follow her. Do you know where she went?”

  They all glared at me now. I knew I had not much time. The one with broken teeth said, “She went inland, of course. Where else should one like her keeper go? She went toward Soulvine Moor, toward Hygryll. But you—”

  I cried, interrupting him, “Oh, thank you! You see, I—” I knocked my pile of coins to the floor, dove under the table after it, and pulled a hair in my nose as hard as I could. When I rose again, staggering and without the coins, my eyes watered, my face had gone red, and I was sneezing violently. “Oh . . . oh, I’m afraid I . . . Help me, please, my lady fled her estate because of the plague there and my brother. . . . Help us. ...”

  The men froze. The innkeeper breathed, “Plague!” Then all three scuttled away from me.

  “Help ...” I collapsed against the table.

  One man drew his sword. The other said sharply, “No! Don’t go near him!”

  “The coins—”

  “Leave them, you idiot!”

  All three left the inn, striding out into the night.

  I went upstairs, collected Maggie, and we slipped away, making camp a few miles down the road in a deep thicket. First, however, I took food from the inn and another old, patched, but still serviceable blanket. It would be cold going over the mountains to Soulvine Moor.

  Where my mother had died. Where Cecilia had fled, in the company of . . . whom? Where I might, at last, find the truth of both my past and my future.

  24

  “WE CANNOT GO to Soulvine Moor,” Maggie said. “We cannot.”

  Morning, and Maggie and I faced each other across the embers of our campfire. Last night she had been too frightened to ask me much, but this morning she was herself again. Still afraid—if anything, she was more afraid since I had told her our destination—but since she was also Maggie, her fear led her to fight rather than cower.

  I retorted, “At least you said the name. In the palace you would not even utter ‘Soulvine Moor.’ As if the words alone could somehow harm you.”

  “Not the words, you idiot! The people who might overhear them!”

  That made sense. I had not known then how the palace was riddled with spy holes, with spies, with factions. I knew now. But we were not now in the palace.

  “Tell me,” I said. “Tell me what Soulvine Moor is.”

  Despite the beautiful morning, she shuddered.

  It was a beautiful morning. Overnight, spring had turned to the first taste of summer. Golden light lay on the half-budded trees. Hawthorne leaves unfurled with that tender yellow-green seen only once each year. Birds sang. The woods smelled fresh and expectant, spawning life.

  She said, “Soulvine Moor is death.”

  “No riddles, Maggie. Tell me true. Who lives on Soulvine Moor?”

  “The ones who never die.”

  “Witches?” I still wasn’t sure what had happened to me at Mother Chilton’s, or what I believed about it.

  “No. They burn witches there, as everywhere else. But they also . . . they ...”

  “Tell me!”

  She shuddered. But no one could say that Maggie did not have courage. “They don’t die, because they take the life from others. They murder them and steal their souls to gain their strength to add to their own. And so they live forever.”

  “Nothing lives forever.” I, of all people, had cause to know that! “How do they steal the souls from others?”

  “I don’t know. The ceremony is secret, known only to them. There are rumors . . . but no one really knows.”

  “Are you sure this is not just a folktale? A story meant to frighten children into being good, like the hawk-man or the monster under the mountain?”

  Her temper flared. “How should I know? Do you mean, have I ever gone to Soulvine Moor to find out? I have not, and I am not going there now. If Lady Cecilia is in the Unclaimed Lands, then I will stay with you until you find her, but not afterward. Do you hear me, Roger? Not afterward! I will not stay as a serving woman to Lady Cecilia, as you so charmingly suggested days ago. I would rather live as a scullery maid, a pig tender, even a whore! Do you understand me?”

  I was shocked. Maggie, a whore? Even though I knew she didn’t mean it, the words gave me a queer feeling in my heart. It was not like Maggie to be so irrational. Nothing made sense.

  But I didn’t dwell long on Maggie’s tantrum. As I scattered the fire and we returned to trudging along the rough road, my mind roiled with what she had told me. Soulvine Moor, from whatever terrible and fearful belief, killed intruders. To “steal their souls.”

  My mother, Aunt Jo said, had died in Soulvine Moor.

  Had she been murdered? How?

  No. I could not think that. I would go mad, if I thought that. It was nothing but a folktale anyway; no one could gain immortality by taking in the souls of others. Souls could not be taken in. They could only cross over to live on in the country of the Dead, if that could be called “living.” But here, in the land of the living, my Cecilia could be harmed.

  “She went toward Soulvine Moor, toward Hygryll, ” the man with the broken teeth had said. “Where else should one like her keeper go?” What keeper? What did I not know about Cecilia? Lady Margaret had said there had “always been something strange about Cecilia.” But to me she was like a small stream, swift and light and clear to the bottom, babbling happily along in its little course. The man with the broken teeth had been lying, or mistaken, or cruel. Mother Chilton had not sent her to Hygryll—“I told her to go into the unclaimed Lands but not to enter Soulvine.” Cecilia was somewhere in the Unclaimed Lands, and I would find her. I would.

  And my mother—

  Don’t think such thoughts!

  But there was only one way to stop the thoughts. I would do what I had intended to do over half a year ago, ever since Aunt Jo told me where my mother died. I would go as close to Soulvine Moor, to Hygryll, as was safe, and I would cross over.
I would find my mother in the country of the Dead. Old women often talked to me there. My mother was not old, but she was there, and she would talk to me, her only child. From her, I would finally have answers.

  Having a plan cheered me. It was an idiotic cheerfulness, since all difficulties still remained. But I had a plan: Find Cecilia. Enter her service, just to be around her. Then ask for a brief leave, go to the edge of Soulvine Moor, cross over, and find my mother. I could do all that. I had done so much already! And the sun shone warm, the birds trilled in the fair morning, and I was away from the palace and its ruthless, contradictory, passionate, and imprisoned queen. So my imbecilic cheerfulness sang in my blood. I whistled as we walked, something I had not done for months.

  Maggie trudged beside me, head down, saying nothing.

  Information was not hard to come by in the Unclaimed Lands, not once we had turned away from the sea. Along the coast were the smugglers, the wreckers, the road that carried whatever travelers there were. But as the land rose in wild ravines and desolate moors, there seemed to be only one road, sometimes dwindling to a mere cart track, sometimes lost altogether so that, cursing, I had to search to find it again. The cottages were few and mean, and their inhabitants, once they set aside their initial suspicion of strangers, were glad of travelers to break the monotonous pattern of their days. Goatherds, hunters, farmers trying to survive on a couple of poor upland acres and a fierce independence, they gave us food and shelter in exchange for a few pennies and scraps of news. Nor did they seem surprised at two young “brothers” traveling alone. Boys grew up quickly in this wild land. The food that Maggie and I were offered was scanty and sometimes almost inedible, but not once did we feel menaced as we slept among the ashes of the hearth—unless that place was already occupied by a flock of big-eyed children or by the family pig.

  And nearly all of the upland folk had seen, or heard of, Cecilia.

  “She be here yestreen a twelveday,” they said, and their accents were the same as Bat’s, the seaman off the Frances Ormund. “A nineday.” “A threeday.” We were drawing closer to her.

  “How was the lady traveling?” I asked that first night. “And who was with her? ”

  “On a donkey, she come,” an old woman told me. But when I looked closer, I saw that she was not old at all. Bent, slack-bellied, gap-toothed, she had no lines around her eyes. This woman was younger than Lady Margaret, younger than the queen, no more than thirty at the most. Her smile was sweet.

  “Who was with the lady? ” My stomach tightened.

  “Her serving man. To take her to her cousin’s manor, beyond the mountains.”

  Maggie was careful to not look at me. Before I could react, the woman said, “Old he seemed, for such travel. Spry enough, but old.” She, who never was nor ever had a servant, shook her head over the ways of ladies, gentlemen, and their train.

  Old. Who was he? And what “cousin’s manor”—I had never heard of Cecilia having a relative in the Unclaimed Lands, nor that “cousin” having a manor. Although most of these mountain people had never been more than a few miles from their homes, so that “beyond the mountains” might be only their words for every place different, farther away, unknown to them.

  Over the next days, at houses even poorer, in mountain dells even higher, I learned more. Cecilia and her servant had stayed one night. The lady looked tired and worn, her servant very old. No, said the next family to give us shelter, he was not her servant, he was her cousin, taking her to his farm. No, said the next, there be no “manors” in these mountains—was I a fool? Nor were there any “ladies.” The woman, dressed in a plain wool gown, and her uncle were going home, farther toward the border. As he said this, the man’s gaze would not meet my eyes.

  “What border?”

  But the man turned away and stared into the fire, scowling fiercely.

  The last dwelling, the poorest yet, was far along the track from its nearest neighbor. In fact, the track seemed to end here. There was only a rough hut set in a mountain hollow, beside a high, thin, cold waterfall. A silent family, parents and four ragged children, crowded into a single drafty room. No one would answer my questions at all. When I repeated them, the man told me to hold my tongue. Maggie and I slept that night in the goat shed.

  In the morning, a child brought us two small loaves of bread. In the Unclaimed Lands, hospitality was practically law, and even unwelcome, too-inquisitive guests must be fed. The bread was hard and sour, the child ragged and barefoot. Some sort of fungus grew on one of his calloused feet, between the toes and over them. It smelled bad. I caught hold of his bony wrist.

  “I have something for you.”

  “Unhand Jee!”

  “Jee, I have something nice for you.” With my free hand I drew from my pocket a carved willow whistle. I had made it one night at a campfire by a small creek, where willows grew. I blew on it softly, and a single sweet note sounded.

  Jee stared. It was clear he had never seen such a thing. He wanted it, badly. I said, “You can have it if you answer my questions. What is the border?”

  For a long moment I thought he wouldn’t answer. His little face twisted horribly, he reached down to scratch at the fungus on his foot, but his gaze stayed on the whistle. Greed triumphed over fear. He croaked, “To the cursed land.”

  Soulvine. “Where is the border?”

  “Be due east.”

  “How far?”

  “A day’s walk.”

  “A day’s walk.”

  “And the lady . . . I mean, woman ...”

  “Hemfree be taking Cecilia home.”

  A gasp from the prone figure on the straw; Maggie was awake and had heard. In my astonishment, I let go of Jee’s wrist. He snatched the whistle from my hand.

  “Hemfree be taking Cecilia home.” The child knew their names, knew who they were. How many others of the householders had also known, and withheld the information from the outlanders, the strangers from The Queendom? Who was Hemfree? And “home”—

  “They maun travel hard,” the boy said. “Soldiers be coming after them.”

  Queen Caroline’s soldiers. She had sent men to find Cecilia, who had ruined all of the queen’s plans. Was that why Hemfree had brought Cecilia so close to Soulvine Moor—because pursuers were close on their trail? How close?

  I seized Jee’s arm. “How do you know that soldiers are after the lady?”

  “I see them. From a tree.”

  Maggie looked from the boy to me. She said slowly, “‘Home.’ Lady Cecilia is from the Unclaimed Lands. No, she couldn’t be—the way she talked, moved . . . she is . . . is it possible she came from ...”

  “Yes,” I said, “she did.”

  When Cecilia had sent me to Mother Chilton for the milady posset, I had not thought it strange. After all, even Maggie had recognized the name and known the old woman as a healer. But Mother Chilton had done so much more for Cecilia. She had sheltered her when Cecilia fled the queen’s wrath. She had sent Cecilia home, with the unknown “Hemfree” to escort her. And Mother Chilton had said something else on my last anguished visit to her, something about the queen. . . .

  “Caroline studied the soul arts but she has no talent. Still, it is why the queen recognized you.” And, I realized with sickness in my belly, why the queen had brought Cecilia to court as a child. Caroline hoped that Cecilia would develop that “talent” that the queen lacked. She had not. But evidently there existed an underground web of these women, a web that spread gossamer threads from The Queendom to Soulvine Moor. Cecilia, Mother Chilton, Queen Caroline. Perhaps that web was why Queen Eleanor had refused to turn The Queendom over to her daughter. She knew that Caroline waded in dangerous waters. And now Cecilia, pursued by Greens, was being driven back to Soulvine Moor.

  I don’t know how long I sat there on the reeking straw of the goat shed, blind and dumb from my inner terror. Finally Maggie said softly, “Roger?”

  “Yes.” My voice did not sound like my own.

  “Is Cec
ilia on Soulvine Moor?”

  “I think so. Yes.”

  “Does she . . . Is she ...”

  “I don’t know what she is.”

  But the moment I said it, I knew it was not true. I knew what Cecilia was. She was exactly as I had always known her: childish, heedless, sweet-natured, lovely, adorable. She was the “pretty little kitten” that Mother Chilton had called her. No more, but no less. She had no “talent”—that was why Mother Chilton had hoped that she could “find some goatherd or scrub farmer to marry her.” That was why this unknown Hemfree had been sent to take care of her. Cecilia needed taking care of. That was why I, too, was here. To find and take care of Cecilia, my sweet kitten, my love.

  Maggie said, “Who is ‘Hemfree’?”

  “Some relative or friend of Mother Chilton.” And perhaps of Cecilia, as well. Someone who knew the country and the people and, perhaps even knew Soulvine Moor itself. Someone who Mother Chilton could order about, as the queen ordered Lord Robert. A man who lived in the shadow of female power. Like me.

  “Roger, what are you going to do?”

  “If Cecilia has gone onto Soulvine Moor, I must go after her.”

  “Please do not.” Her voice was reasonable, but reason barely holding back a storm of emotion.

  “I must.”

  “Why? To find a silly girl who doesn’t care three pennies about you?”

  “I have to go, Maggie.”

  The storm broke. “Why?” she yelled. “To be killed? To have your soul taken? Why?”

  “That’s a folktale. No one can take souls from the Dead.”

  “You don’t know that!”

  “Yes,” I said slowly. “I do.”

  “It isn’t—”

  “Maggie,” I said, taking both her hands in mine. “I’m going. If you don’t want to go, then stay in the Unclaimed Lands. Go back to that farm three days’ walk from here, they will take you, you’re a hard worker. Here, take this.” I fished out two of my remaining silver coins and held them out to her.