“I’m listenin’, Dad.”
In that last moment before sleep claimed him, his eyes became very bright. “Rosie,” he said, “keep yourself safe, d’you hear me? Keep your face covered, for they won’t know what to make of a face like yours. And never forget, you were the greatest gift to me.”
With that, he let go of her hand and fell asleep, filling their hovel with his thunderous snores. And when the sun crested the mountain and Rose Red went to shake him awake before the porridge went cold, she found he’d gone and died on her without so much as a by-your-leave.
She’d had to carry his body down to Hill House. Those who served in Hill House were honored to be buried among their predecessors, and Mousehand deserved that honor more than anyone. Down the deer trail and the mountain path Rose Red had borne him, to the gates of Hill House . . . then the most horrible part. She could not call out to those in the house. She could not ask for their aid. No, she must leave the man she called father there by the gate to be discovered later that day, for the household to suppose that he had died on his way to work.
For if the household saw him with her, even in death, they would shun him and refuse to lay him to rest in the house graveyard.
He was found, he was buried, his name carved on a wooden marker.
She did not realize until he was gone just how greatly she had depended on the old gardener. Of course she had loved him and been cared for by him. Though they had lived simply, she had never had to worry about where the food would come from. Mousehand would venture down to the village to buy the meal and barley. Mousehand had purchased seeds as needed for the kitchen garden, and when the garden was insufficient, Mousehand had provided supplements.
Rose Red, covered in her veils, dared not venture to town. So she remained in the forest, and winter set in, and she rationed out her meager supplies. Those supplies failed, and Rose Red starved.
Eventually, things became so bad that hunger drove her from her safe cottage yard and into the more remote mountainfolk homesteads. She stole for the first time in her life. Only little bits and pieces, things she was almost certain would not be missed. But that did not make it any easier on her, and she hated herself for having come to this state.
“Don’t blame yourself, Rosie,” Beana told her. “If these folks were as good and kind as they like to think themselves, all you’d have to do is ask, and they’d give you as much or more.”
There could be no asking, however. So Rose Red stole from storage houses and took no comfort in Beana’s words. After all, Beana was only a goat. What did she know?
The only relief in all this terrible time was that when she fell asleep at night, she never dreamed.
When spring and summer returned, survival became a little easier. Rose Red could find roots and wild vegetables, and her body was tougher than anyone looking at her small form might suppose. Beana was always there with her to comfort her. She busied herself making plans for the coming winter, attempting to salvage what she could of the kitchen garden despite the lack of new seeds.
But then Leo had returned to Hill House. And with him came the dreams.
Angry dreams born, Rose Red was sure, out of her hurt and fear. Dreams that grew angrier with each passing day, until even in waking hours she still felt that anger surging along beside her. Beana sensed it too, but they never spoke of it, nor of Leo. But what work Rose Red had managed on the kitchen garden failed, and ruin took the cottage yard in a hold that would never be broken. The summer was passing; winter would soon be upon them.
As she knelt that night before Mousehand’s grave, her back to the house and her veiled face streaked with drying tears, Rose Red knew that she would not survive another such winter.
“Bah.”
A gentle nose nuzzled the back of her neck. Rose Red startled only a little before turning to put an arm over Beana’s neck. “What you doin’ here, fool goat?”
“I could ask the same of you,” Beana replied.
“How’d you get through the gate?”
“You left it open.”
Rose Red frowned. “I didn’t.”
The goat tossed her horns. “You’re not supposed to come down here. It isn’t safe; you know that.”
Rose Red turned back to the grave and rested one hand on the mound of earth under which the old gardener rested. “I miss him sometimes.”
“Doesn’t make it any less dangerous,” said Beana, but she knelt down beside the girl anyway, and they remained awhile in silence, listening to the sounds of the night.
“Beana,” Rose Red said, her gloved fingers twining in the goat’s hair, “what becomes of a person when they die?”