Hands grabbed at him from all sides as Hereward was ripped away from him. He heard the pig-boy grunt as he hit the floor. The men surrounding him hauled him to his feet as the priest, with his enormous gut, moved into the middle of the fray. He gave Hereward a fierce scowl, then turned a withering look of condemnation toward Elric.
“This is the house of the Lord!” he yelled. “What is the meaning of this?”
“He hit me for no reason!” Hereward shouted, pulling his arm free of the men holding him down and wiping his bloody nose on his sleeve. The motion left a trail of black mud across his cheek and nose. Osgar laughed and pointed, holding his stomach as if his gut would burst with mirth. So much for the loyalty of younger brothers.
Elric forced himself out of the grip of the men holding him and stood. He didn’t intend for any of this to be amusing, and yet it was clear what he had said about half-wits didn’t matter to either of the brothers. They didn’t care who they insulted. They didn’t care who they hurt.
The portly priest cleared his throat. “Wrath is a deadly sin,” he said. “What would cause you to strike another?”
Elric looked the old priest in the eye as he tried to figure out how a boyish tussle deserved scolding, but threatening to burn a baby alive didn’t earn a comment. Thunder clapped overhead as if God himself intended to have his say in the matter.
He couldn’t admit why Hereward’s words had bothered him as much as they had. She was a secret; he and his father were always so careful to keep her concealed. He knew what would happen if the village at large turned their attention toward her. This night had only proven how deadly the superstitions of the peasants could be. She was innocent, his sister.
A changeling child.
“Forgive me, Father . . . ,” Elric mumbled. He touched the back of his hand to his stinging lip, and tasted the filth mingled with his blood.
The priest smiled in his self-important way. “Fear not, my son, you are for—”
“Because I’m not sorry,” Elric said. He straightened his cloak and walked out the door, letting it slam behind him. The rain crashed around him, falling in thick sheets that moved across the flooded streets like ghostly waves. He lifted his hood and set out into the darkness.
CHAPTER TWO
Wynn
THE SUN ROSE PINK AND orange in the sky. It was pretty, and the light felt good on Wynn’s cheeks. The storm had frightened her, and water dripped through the roof on her all night. The rain nearly put the fire out. The night was so cold.
Mother kept coughing. She needed the fire to keep warm. Wynn had been worried because she wasn’t good at starting fires, but she could tend them. She just needed wood. There wasn’t much in the house. She had work to do. The storm knocked down many branches in the woods. She could keep the fire hot for Mother with enough sticks. And she was very good at picking up sticks.
“Pick up sticks, pick up sticks,” she murmured under her breath as she bent and scrounged on the ground for deadfall. Carefully she placed twigs along behind her, pointing back toward home so she wouldn’t lose her way. Mother needed her. She shouldn’t get lost. No one would come to find her.
Mother was always so cold now. She didn’t really leave her bed anymore, which made Wynn sad. She and Mother had been alone a long time in the woods. Elric said that when he was a baby, he and Mother had lived in the village with Father, but Father and Mother fought when she was born and they had to live apart.
Now Mother lived with Wynn in the woods, and Elric stayed with Father. But Elric liked to visit sometimes, unless he had work in the fields with the sheep. Father didn’t visit hardly ever, only when he needed something from Mother’s garden. She hadn’t seen him in a very long time. That was fine. She wasn’t fond of him. He always seemed angry with her and she didn’t know why. It didn’t matter. She and Mother were alone. She had to make Mother better by herself. The fire would help.
Wynn bunched the group of sticks she had in her hand. Her fingers stretched around them as the prickly bark scratched her palms. She tucked them with the others under a strap of rope so she could carry the large bundle back to the house.
Tightening the rope was difficult with her short, fat thumbs. They never bent quite the right way, but she managed. Mother would be proud of her. Wynn did a good job at finding sticks. It was a task that never frustrated her. Not like the rest of her more difficult chores.
Water dripped off the branches here and there, landing on the wet and slippery leaves on the ground.
“Pick up sticks, pick up sticks,” she repeated. She did her best to make the sounds right, the way her brother, Elric, taught her. She always had trouble with making sharp sounds in the back of her throat. Every time she said Elric’s name, it sounded more like “Elrith,” which rhymed with “Wynnfrith.” She liked rhymes. But Elric always corrected her, so she tried to make his name sound the right way. She liked it when he said she did a good job speaking.
Her mother said she had trouble learning because she could speak the fairy tongue, and had trouble with the human one. Wynn didn’t know if that was true. She tried to speak with the fairies, but she couldn’t see them, and they didn’t answer back.
A loud caw broke the peaceful quiet of the morning.
The sound startled Wynn, and she looked up.
A raven sat on a branch only an arm’s length from her face. Oh, he was handsome, with coal-black feathers. They shined in the morning sunlight. He cocked his head to the side in the way birds sometimes did. Wynn mimicked his motion, wondering why he liked to look at things sideways.
Caw! The raven called again, and shook out his wings. His shoulders hitched up, turning his feathers into a spiky crest. His call repeated, as if the wind had become taken with the sound. Maybe he liked to practice his sounds too.
Wings fluttered behind her.
Wynn turned.
Two more ravens landed. The bare branches rattled as the birds flapped and settled in the tree. A shower of drops fell over her, feeling cold on her head and neck. A twig broke off and landed at her feet. Wynn bent and picked it up. A sharp sliver poked into her wide and stunted thumb. She dropped the stick quickly.
Another raven came, and another.
Wynn looked around the scattered grove. A large cluster of ravens joined the others in the tree. She tried to count them, but she made it only to thirteen before more came too quickly. She had never seen so many before.
In the distance she could see her home through the bare branches of the wood. The tiny mud-walled hut hid behind the dead plants that the winter had killed in the garden.
No smoke rose from the thatched roof.
Oh no.
The fire had gone out!
Wynn ran as fast as she could, brambles and wet leaves slapping at her ankles. She could feel every sharp rock against the thin soles of her shoes, but she didn’t stop. Sticks came loose from her rope and fell against the backs of her legs and heels as she ran.
The ravens took flight and swooped close over her head, catching the wind as they dipped low. They flapped their wings with a sound like a roar and collected on the roof, a storm of black wings and sharp beaks. They cawed. The sound filled the woods.
Wynn could feel it in her tummy. There was danger here.
Her heart stuttered and skipped, and her tongue felt thick and dry. She came to the broken gate. Elric needed to fix it, but he hadn’t come in a very long time. Wynn yanked hard on the gate, but it wouldn’t budge. The fence was short, sticks buried in the ground and woven together with rope to keep rabbits out. But the sharp ends of the sticks pointed up.
Wynn tried to straddle the fence, but the point of a stick caught under the long skirt of her kirtle dress and scratched her leg. She tumbled over the top, landing hard on the cold, wet ground of the garden and pulling down half the fence. The chickens scattered. Wynn picked herself up and ran to the door.
The ravens on the roof watched her with their shining eyes. They didn’t pick at the thatching the way t
hey usually did. She crept in through the open doorway. Her rope strap for her stick bundle had come undone and only two of her sticks remained, tangled in the braided fibers. She dropped the old rope near the door.
“Modder?” Wynn called, hating that the word came out so wrong. She didn’t have time to think about it. The small fire had gone out. A chill lingered in the air. The morning sunlight slanted through the door and fell across her mother’s face.
Her mother’s eyes stared toward the door, one hand falling limply over the edge of the bed. A fly landed on her mother’s cheek, crawling toward her eye.
Wynn stood motionless in the doorway as the ravens cried and cried.
Danger.
Wynn took hesitant steps across the small hut. A gust of wind blew in from the door, scattering pale ashes across the hearthstone.
“I’m sorry, Mother,” she whispered as she sat on the edge of the blanket covering the crinkling hay. She tried to hold her mother’s hand, but it was cold. Her fingers didn’t curl around Wynn’s palm the way they always had. “The fire went out. I didn’t bring your sticks.”
Wynn sat for a long time with her hand on her mother’s knee and listened to the ravens. She let the tears fall over her cheeks because she didn’t know what else to do. She let them fall because she loved her mother. She let them fall because she was cold and scared. She let them fall because she’d never been so alone.
Lifting her head, she wiped her nose on her sleeve and looked around. She couldn’t stay in the house with her dead mother through the night. She had to do something. She needed to find her brother before it turned dark and she had no fire. Elric would know what to do.
Wynn left the house. The chickens scratched in the yard. They didn’t listen to the ravens. Her body felt heavy and sick. Her favorite black hen trotted at her heels, but stopped when she pushed hard on the gate. It broke off the fence and collapsed on the path.
Elric would fix it.
Wynn’s stomach rumbled as she followed the path that Elric always took when he left. If she followed it long enough, she would find him. She hadn’t eaten, but with the ill feeling in her middle, she didn’t want to.
The woods thinned out to large open patches of brown mud that stretched over the hills. A big garden could grow there. Wynn’s garden was little.
A scary-looking man with only one eye stared at her as she passed on the muddy path. She kept her eyes down and didn’t speak, just as her mother told her. She wasn’t ever supposed to look at or speak to anyone if they ever came near the hut. She was supposed to hide. She pulled her long braid over her shoulder, then hunched, hoping the man wouldn’t speak to her, because then she would have to say something and he would know she didn’t say her words right.
Wynn had never been here and it made her feel scared. Elric told her never to leave the woods, that the people of the village weren’t nice. She believed Elric, because he never lied to her.
Maybe she didn’t have to speak to anyone to find her brother. “Elric?” she called, hoping he would hear her. “Elric?”
A woman in a dark dress passed by, patting the back of a wiggly baby. Wynn smiled at the baby. He laughed at her.
“Hello,” the woman said. She looked pale and tired. Or maybe she’d been crying. Her eyes were red.
Wynn blinked at her, then looked at the skirt of her own long kirtle.
“Are you looking for something?” she asked.
Wynn nodded. “Elric,” she said.
“Who is Elrith?” The woman tipped her head and looked at her the way Mother had when she couldn’t understand Wynn’s words.
Wynn took a deep breath. “El . . . rit.” It sounded better, but it still wasn’t right, and Wynn knew it. She hated that her mouth wouldn’t form the sound.
“Oh, do you mean Elric?” the woman asked, shifting the baby to her other hip.
“Yes!” Wynn smiled at her, hopeful for the first time. Elric was wrong. The people in the village were very nice.
“My sister said he’s been sent afield to gather the animals that ran off in the storm. He won’t return for days yet. If you see him, can you tell him that Ailith is grateful to him? He’ll know why.” She hugged her baby very tightly.
Wynn nodded, but she didn’t think she would remember. She would try, though.
The woman continued on with her baby, walking down the path. The baby smiled at Wynn from over the woman’s shoulder. Wynn’s heart sank as she watched the woman disappear. Elric was gone with the sheep and couldn’t help her.
Something grabbed her elbow. She froze as a man turned her around.
“Wynnfrith, what are you doing here?” Her father’s face was red, which made the scar down his cheek look even scarier. His shaggy barley-colored hair fell into his eyes as he glared at her. His voice sounded angry, and he was so big. She was supposed to stay away from him. Mother told her never to cross him, and he was cross now. “You know you’re not supposed to be here.”
Her words wouldn’t come. Her mind was moving slowly again. She couldn’t make her mouth move right. She blinked as tears formed in her eyes.
“Where is your mother?” He tightened his grip on her elbow and dragged her back along the road toward the woods, sending pain up her arm. “She swore she would keep you hidden away. That was our bargain when I let her keep you.”
Her father hurt her as he dragged her along the path, but she couldn’t say anything, and she was afraid to make him more angry if she did. He hated the way she spoke. The few times he had come to the hut, he didn’t even look at her. “I should have forced her to return to me,” he muttered under his breath. “She is still my wife. Make no mistake. Perhaps it is time for our arrangement to change.”
Wynn stumbled as he dragged her. His legs were long and hers were not. She couldn’t keep her feet under her. When she tripped on her hem, he yanked her back up, pulling her shoulder so hard she cried out.
Once he reached the garden, he let go, and Wynn collapsed in the dried-out husks of the old pumpkin vine and rubbed her sore elbow. He violently pushed open the door. “Hild!” he shouted, then he fell still. “Hild?”
He entered the hut slowly. Wynn followed him to the door and watched as he knelt next to her mother and took her limp hand in his. He kissed the back of it and reached out to close her eyes.
“When did this happen?” he asked, his voice very different than it had been.
Wynn couldn’t say anything.
“Answer me!” he shouted.
Wynn took a step back. “The storm.”
He looked down and nodded his head. “You’ve grown since the last time I saw you. How old are you now?”
She swallowed, her mind searching for the right answer. Thankfully he waited without yelling at her. “I . . . am . . . eleven,” she whispered.
She didn’t want to live with her father. She wanted to stay here in her hut with her chickens. Elric could help her. She would be good. She would never go toward the village again.
Her father lifted her mother in his arms and carried her to the door. It almost looked as if Mother was sleeping.
“I’ll take care of this,” her father said. His mouth set in a grim line as he strode back through the door, forcing Wynn to move away as if she wasn’t really there. “I should have taken care of things long ago.”
CHAPTER THREE
Elric
ELRIC WHISTLED TO THE FLOCK as he drove them down the muddy road. Over the past few days, the entire hamlet had been busy with repairs to the houses and digging mud out of homes near the bottom of the hill. He hadn’t been digging mud out of houses, but he looked as if he had. He’d climbed through endless soggy fields and swollen creeks in his search for all the lost sheep. Now mud caked on his legs so thick, his feet looked like the trunks of gnarled trees.
It had taken him four days to gather the animals through briars and bogs, and all he wanted now was to curl up on a dry bed of straw and sleep for a week. At least the solitude of the countryside was plea
sant and he didn’t have to hear his father’s complaints about tending the land assigned to him by their lord. Still, he was hungry, tired, thirsty, and in a foul mood as he used a stick to drive the filthy sheep back toward the village.
Thankfully he’d recovered nearly the whole flock. Two of the sheep had been mauled by wild dogs. One had broken a leg and drowned in the swollen creek. The others looked grimy, but healthy. He didn’t envy Ailith, who would have to clean the wool. Maybe that was a task he could teach Wynn to do. He’d have to show her next time he found a free day to visit her and Mother. He hadn’t seen them in several weeks. Elric picked up his pace. The fallow fields where the animals could graze weren’t far.
A strange feeling crept over Elric’s neck, and he glanced behind him. A man followed him. In the glare of the late afternoon, Elric didn’t recognize him at first. Squinting, he realized who it was and immediately wished he could turn and walk the other way. There was no mistaking the way his father hunched his shoulders, or the hitch in his step as he walked.
“Elric!” he called, raising his hand. “Son!”
Elric stopped and stiffened. He had no choice now but to wait for his father to reach him.
“What a fortune meeting you on the road like this,” he said, short of breath. It was strange. Elric couldn’t imagine what his father was doing so far from the village. Surely the others needed his skill to replace the damaged thatching on the roofs after such a powerful storm.
His father squinted into the sun, the skin around his eyes wrinkling deeply.
Elric wondered if he would look as worn as his father when he grew older. They shared a lanky build, light brown hair and wide mouth, but his father had a sunken eyes, a hollow look to his cheeks, and an ugly scar across his face. It began near the bridge of his nose, dangerously close to his eye, and crossed his cheek until it touched his ear—a gift from their lord when he had been a boy. His father was lucky he had only one horrible scar, at least on his flesh. His mind carried far more.
The Silver Gate Page 2