A crack of thunder brought me back to the present and our game of marbles. “I don’t mind,” I answered. “Watch, Ephraim. It goes like this.” Kneeling, I flipped a marble from knee level. The children and I followed the not-quite-round object as it traveled an erratic route across the floor.
A damp gust blasted the room. Rachel hurriedly shut the door behind her and shrugged off her cape. She hung it on a peg, shivered, and patted her damp hair. As she unlaced her boots, she said, “I took him his dinner, but he complained it’d take more than a few hot potatoes to warm him up.” She straightened and beamed a satisfied smile. “He’s soaked to the skin and looks just like a drowned rat.” On her way to the fire, she added airily, “Ah, well, we all warned him this wasn’t the day to go traipsing outside. Now he’ll probably catch cold and die.”
Marian raised her eyebrows. “You don’t have to sound so happy about it.”
She shrugged. “He didn’t have to be so stupid.”
I drew up my legs. Rachel sat on the floor beside me and held her hands to the fire. I eyed her curiously. She and Phineas were always fighting, fighting, fighting. Seemed like Phin went out of his way to instigate the squabbles. I wondered why. Was he trying to divert her thoughts from what she’d been through? Or was there a less noble motivation behind his troublemaking? Skittishness, for instance. After all, if he kept the mood light, he could avoid confronting a heavy topic.
Phineas’s sister added mildly, “He wants to get ahead in his chores so we’re ready for Friday.”
“What’s happening Friday?” I gave a marble an underhand troll.
Marian twinkled a smile over her shoulder. “We’re having a welcoming party for our newcomers.”
Rachel looked up. “A party for us?”
I considered what I knew about this place: trees, trees, and more trees. “Who will come?”
“You’ll be surprised,” Marian said. “We’re not the only pioneers around here. We’ll whip together a decent showing and have fiddling and dancing, to boot.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You mean Phineas actually plays that instrument he cradles?”
“Wait and see.”
I turned to share my smile with Rachel.
Her entire demeanor had changed. She was staring, aghast, at the floor. “You won’t invite everyone in these parts, though, will you?”
“No, definitely not everyone,” Marian said. “Don’t fret, dear. Certain folks will never step foot in my house.” She went back to stirring and muttered something under her breath about louses and jail being too good for some people.
Rachel and I shared a somber glance. Phineas had obviously told Marian about Linton. We didn’t want him at the gathering.
“What about the Welds brothers?” I asked, finding my friend’s hand and giving it a squeeze. And what about Daniel? My spirits lifted at the thought of seeing him soon.
“They’re better, so I’m sure they’ll be here. Phin said Mr. Long hasn’t even stayed with them the better part of the week.” At my curious look, Marian explained, “He’s been working day and night with Mr. Winter, finishing widening the trail.”
I grunted. I should have known Mr. Helpful wouldn’t linger at the Weldses’ any longer than he had to. The man had a bad case of the good neighbor.
Marian rinsed her hands in the basin. “Phin rode out to help them yesterday and couldn’t believe what they’ve done already. The Monday after the party, weather permitting, we’ll have a logging bee there and help clear some semblance of a field. Then it’s the cabin.” She gave me a pensive smile.
Rachel pinched my cheek. (Around Phineas she was my passionate lover. She’d apparently decided that rather than permit him to tease her about the engagement farce, she would goad him with it. The strategy seemed to be working. In Phin’s absence, however, she turned into my big sister.) “Marian’s missing you already.”
“Of course.” Marian dried her hands on her apron. “Freddy’s the only boy I know who’s as comfortable throwing together a chicken stew as he is chopping up firewood.”
She ought to see what I can do with a needle and thread. “An apprentice picks up a lot of this and that,” I explained vaguely before asking a question about the food preparations for Friday.
I barely attended to her answer, too busy thinking about what would happen after Friday’s gathering. It was time for me to leave. The swelling on my head had gone down, and it was generally agreed I would be able to rejoin Gid at the beginning of next week. And I wanted to. Rejoining Gid meant seeing Daniel. I missed him.
But I still hadn’t accomplished what I wanted to do here. Rachel and I needed time to talk, and we needed to talk alone.
*
Phineas didn’t sicken from his rainy-day labors. Instead, the following morning, it was Adam who woke ill, not with a cold but with a stomach ailment that brought the usual assortment of ugly symptoms. The small cabin didn’t leave many places to steer clear of the contagion, but Rachel and I insisted Marian let us handle the patient. It wouldn’t do for her to risk infection, not in her condition.
We squirreled Adam in the bed I’d lately used. (Phineas, the good sport, had been sharing the loft with the children every night.) The poor boy couldn’t find comfort in the feather mattress or our ministrations. All morning and afternoon, he moaned and shivered and vomited on the hour, so regularly we could have set a clock by his heaving. He didn’t keep down a drop of broth until nightfall. Fortunately, the sickness proved as fast as it was frightful. The next day, he was weak but otherwise recovered. I escaped the house to help Rachel prepare Marian’s kitchen garden for the spring planting.
The brook was high. A warm breeze carried the sound of gurgling water to our moist plot of soil, and the sun shone across the fields and glinted off the rain that had collected in the lowest dips and furrows. Everywhere, puddles winked like silver coins.
I wrenched out a clump of weeds and tossed it onto the grass. Rachel followed suit with a large rock and, smiling suddenly, pointed. “Bluebird.”
“Pretty.” I frowned distractedly at the creature. Worries swirled in my head, but broaching the gravest one was proving harder than I expected.
“Well? What’s first?”
I shoved back my bangs with a sweaty arm. “Peas?”
“Not for sowing. Talking. There’s Daniel the evil silversmith, Freddy the foundling, the strange fate of Harriet of Middleton. Speak.”
“The most pressing subject is you.”
She glanced up warily.
When she didn’t say anything, I tugged on my ear and blurted, “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, bringing up anything hurtful. But I also don’t want you to think I haven’t asked you about what happened for my sake, like I’d be too disturbed to handle the details.” Leaning on the shovel, I gazed at her steadily. “If you want to talk, I’m here for you.” In the distance, Phineas was manuring the field. I indicated him with a jerk of my chin. “He suggested I should avoid mentioning the Lintons, said whatever happened there is over and done with and fit for nothing but forgetting.”
“He did, did he?” She flicked him a dark look. “Easy for him to say.”
“Yes,” I murmured, but then conceded, “At least he was being serious for once.”
“Phineas and his foolery.” She sniffed. “He means well, I suppose—wants to distract me, make me laugh so I don’t cry.” She cocked an eyebrow. “Phineas Standen will do whatever it takes to stop a person from weeping.” Her gaze turned in his direction. “I should be more grateful. You, Marian, even Phineas … good friends with good intentions. But what you’re all kindly setting out to do for me doesn’t change the fact that there’s a man in this area who is a dangerous threat. I don’t need to be patted and coddled. I don’t want to laugh along with Phin like everything is fine now. What I crave is justice. Linton should pay for his wrongs.”