“How are you feeling?”
I half smiled at Gid’s formal tone. My entire family had performed a tiptoe dance around me for the last month and a half, exercising the kind of wariness one employed with the mad and dangerously unpredictable. But my favorite brother had been especially cautious. Perhaps he knew, better than the others, what that January day had cost me.
I didn’t want his sympathy. Straightening, I answered briskly, “Absolutely fine. Like a dandelion seed.”
“In this weather?”
“Yes. I’ve slipped away, and I’m soaring toward no-man’s-land.”
“Few-men’s-land.”
I nodded. “Bob and Ed probably have their cabin up by now. And of course there’s Rachel”—I gave him a sidelong glance—“the love of your life.”
His smile slipped. “Too bad it’s such a lonely love.” He shrugged. “She likes you better than me.”
“We’re singing chums.” I scratched Fancy behind the ears. Her tail swept my lap. “None of them even know I’m coming.” The family hadn’t advertised my leaving. Most likely, our parents had hoped I might change my mind.
The last encounter with Daniel Long, like an oft-told, terrible tale, replayed in my head. I cringed. There was no changing my mind. I couldn’t.
“A dandelion seed,” I sighed, running my thumbs over Fancy’s silky head. “Unfettered.” I wished. Oh, how I wished it were so.
“Beautifully free.”
I smiled slightly. He didn’t know it yet, but I was about to get even freer.
*
We happened upon a rude camp close to a trickle of a stream and decided to stop there for the night. A hovel slumped against a hill, the way a mouth without teeth caves into the head. The breeze combed snow from the roof into an airy curl, and a gray oilcloth flapped in the doorway.
The cabin was eerie.
But I refused to become Faint-Hearted Harriet. I grabbed the foot stove and followed Fancy inside. It took a moment for my snow-dazzled eyes to adjust to the dimness. A crumbling fireplace occupied a wall, and the lingering scent of burned wood suggested others had sojourned here recently.
Gideon arranged a handful of kindling on the hearth. “Peddlers probably use the place.” He peered around. “It’ll do.”
Making camp was like playing: Our supper of bread and molasses became a picnic, and the hut, without chinking or a decent door, might as well have been a snow fort. But my brother and I barely exchanged a word. As soon as we finished feeding and watering the oxen, we stretched out by the fire. Gid fell asleep immediately. I shivered under my blankets for a long time.
Middleton seemed many worlds away. Daniel, even farther.
*
When I awoke, I was alone, with not even the dog around to keep me company. The room, soft with dawn and silent, made me want to go back to sleep.
However, I had work to do. After counting out a minute of blissful heat, I threw off the blankets and opened the satchel I’d carried in the previous night to use as a pillow. I emptied its contents and listened carefully.
Nothing. Gideon must have gone to the stream.
I smiled, thinking about the shocker that would greet him upon his return.
First, the scissors.
*
Gideon was talking before he even pulled aside the oilcloth. “Come take a peek at these tracks on the bank with me, Harry.” Light, wind, snow, and brother entered the hut all at once. “Could be a wolf’s, though we never see them anymore back ho—” He screamed.
Oh, the look on his face.
I doubled over with laughter, and Fancy shot around me, panting, tail wagging, ready to join in on the fun. When I straightened to execute the jaunty bow I’d practiced, just one glimpse of my brother’s expression, how his eyes bulged as if ready to pop out of his head and how his mouth remained open in a silent howl of horror, toppled me into another spell of the whoops. “Gid, Gid, Gid,” I gasped through my laughter. Swiping at the tears on my cheeks, I managed, “You scream just like Grace does when she spots a—a—mouse!” I imitated his reaction and slapped my hands against my thighs and shook with more laughter.
He finally snapped his mouth shut. As soon as I’d quieted to a soft tee-heeing, he said curtly, “I scream just like a girl, and you look just like a boy. Good. God. You are seriously dicked in the nob.”
“Well, if folks saw me now, most would assume I was dicked somewhere.”
“Harry. That’s disgusting. And you’re…” He primly pursed his lips.
“A boy.”
“Insane.”
“Free!”
“Unhinged.” He waved a hand to indicate my person. “Fix this.”
“I don’t want to. Besides, my hair’s gone.”
“Your hair. Your pretty yellow hair,” he moaned. “I’d better take you back home.” He ran his hands over his face and gripped his darker (and now longer-than-mine) locks. “Mama’s going to kill me.”
A little uneasiness unfurled. I’d known he’d be stunned. I hadn’t expected him to be tragic. “I’m not going home.”
“How—where—when…” He thrust his hands toward my apparel and fluttered another wave.
I proudly patted my front. “I made them when I was sick. The girls had to cover my chores. The house was empty. Not even Betsy suspected.” I spun around with my arms outstretched. “What do you think?”
“No boy would twirl like that,” he answered darkly.
I gazed down at myself in satisfaction. The coat of butternut-colored wool, short and snug, fit precisely over my perfectly tailored linen shirt. I’d bound my breasts, and a heavy tow-cloth vest hid any remaining hint of femininity.
But the pantaloons: They were the best part of my revolutionary regalia. They absolutely liberated my legs. I could climb a stone wall, leap across a stream, hang upside down from a tree, even, if given the chance, ride astride a horse, without experiencing the tiniest bit of encumbrance, the least threat to my modesty. Until now, I’d never realized how symbolic a woman’s clothing was: the skirt that twisted around the legs and slowed her down, the hampering, cramping style of her boots, the way fashion dictated just enough exposure of the arms and neck to leave the skin perpetually chilled. Women’s clothing was a punishment, a trap.
My new clothes emancipated me. Indeed, for the first time since that disastrous last afternoon with Daniel Long, I experienced a swell of hope. Maybe my future wouldn’t be entirely dismal after all.
Gideon pointed at my feet accusingly. “Those are mine.”
“They were. What do you care? They don’t fit you anymore.” I’d uncovered the boots in the woodshed and polished them clean. Shoes were hard to come by, but since Gid was the youngest boy, no one had inherited his outgrown boots.
But he did care. I could tell. He looked positively mulish, standing there with his arms akimbo. “How am I supposed to explain what happened to Harriet?”
“That’s the beauty of this situation, Gid. You don’t have to explain a thing. Not a single Welds is expecting your sister to arrive with you.” I shrugged and conceded, “Of course, they might recognize me.” Especially Rachel. But I could depend on my pal to keep quiet.
“Wouldn’t count on it,” he said flatly.
I grinned. “It’s a convincing disguise, isn’t it?”
“Frighteningly. Still, it won’t work at the Hubers’.”
I stared at him blankly. “The who?”
“The Hubers. Promised Mama we’d stop in Londonbury to pay her old pal a visit. Sally Huber’s a great one for letter writing. You can bet she’ll mention Gid and the Mystery Boy in her next one.”
I shrugged. “So I’ll change back to a girl for the visit.”
“Ah. And grow out your hair?”
I tackled my scalp with some furious scratching. “Lice. Had to chop it.”
He grimaced. “Lovely.” After a moment, he said, “I don’t know how I’ll explain this to the Weldses—my accompanying a perfect stranger into the wilderness.”
“I’ll be an orphan you discovered, stranded by the road after my poor family was beset by bandits.”