“Yes?” said she, her mouth just hinting at a smile.
“Maybe . . . maybe you’d like to come stay at my house this winter?” He spoke the words in a bit of a rush, and his tongue tangled around several of them. “I’m sure my mother would love to have you.”
“Your mother?”
“Yes, I know she would.”
“What about you, Leo?”
His mouth opened, but his brain could not form any words. Her smile was growing, and he found it difficult to think. “Um,” he tried, and it was not a propitious beginning. “I think . . . well, I think—”
He heard the sound as though he’d been listening for it all along. It was faint through the closed window, but unmistakable.
“Baaaah!”
Leo was on his feet in an instant, sliding past Daylily, who remained blinking where she stood for a moment before following him to the window. Leo opened the casement and leaned out, and a gust of mountain air caught his hair and tossed it back from his face. He saw the garden gate open, and he saw who entered.
“Rose Red!” he shouted.
She heard him, all the way out there by the gate. He saw her hesitate as she gazed about, looking for him. Beana, that shaggy old nanny, walked in her footsteps. Leo leaned farther out the window, waving an arm. “Rose Red! Rosie!”
She saw him. One gloved hand raised in a hesitant wave.
Leo cupped his hands around his mouth. “Wait there! I’ll be right down!”
“What is it?” Daylily demanded, pressing up behind him and trying to see through the window herself. She received an elbow in the stomach for her pains, and then a string of hasty apologies as Leo excused himself around her. All trace of a smile vanished from her face.
“She’s coming!” Leo cried, disappearing out the door. Daylily looked out the open window. She saw the girl, covered in rags from head to toe, making tentative progress into the yard. She saw the veils, and her teeth set on edge.
Perhaps Foxbrush wasn’t such a blessed fool after all.
Leo pounded down the stairs and was out the kitchen door within moments, running across the garden to meet his friend. “Rosie!” he cried as he approached. She had stopped in her tracks, as though afraid to progress any farther, but the set of her shoulders relaxed as he neared. “Rosie, have you decided?”
She nodded. “I think I’d like to be your servant, Leo. I think I’d like that very well.”
“Lumé’s crown!” Leo could not stop his smiles. “I knew you would; I knew it! Just wait and see what a difference it’ll make to you, getting off this mountain.”
“Bah,” Beana said.
“You can bring Beana too, of course,” Leo added with another smile for the goat. He reached out to stroke her ears, but Beana gave him a look like death, and he retrieved his hand. “There’s plenty of room in my father’s stables for her, especially if she gives good milk.”
But Rose Red no longer saw Leo. She watched over his shoulder as person after person stepped through Hill House’s various doors and approached up the lawn. It took all her willpower to keep from vanishing right then, fleeing back into the forest. Redbird came from the kitchen, her face pale as a sheet, her meaty hand gripping an iron ladle. Leanbear appeared soon after, and he held fire irons in both fists. Foxbrush followed, his eyes huge beneath his oiled hair, and behind him came several footmen and servants, clustering together for the comfort of numbers.
Rose Red saw this cluster of servants part as Daylily marched between them. Her face was like that of some queen of old. She moved ahead of the others, but Leanbear, Redbird, and Foxbrush fell into step just behind, and the others followed after. She was so beautiful that Rose Red’s heart leapt with terror at the sight.
Leo, turning around and seeing what Rose Red saw, reached out and quickly squeezed her hand. “Don’t worry,” he said, and his voice was not like that of the Leo she knew. It was, in that moment, older. And harder. “Don’t disappear.”
Beana stepped in front of her like a forbidding fortress, and Leo faced the oncoming folk, his arms crossed over his chest.
“So, Leo,” said Daylily, and the smile on her face as she neared was very lovely indeed. “You found your goat girl again, did you?”
Leo smiled back, but his shoulders were tense. “This is Rose Red,” he said. “She grew up in the mountains, but her parents are dead. I’ve offered her a position as my servant, and she will be joining us tomorrow when we leave.” He turned to Redbird and the other servants. “You will make sure she is fitted out properly for the journey.”
“By the Sleeper’s waking snort,” Leanbear growled. “That we certainly won’t.” He was trembling in every limb as he clutched his fire irons. “She ain’t welcome in these parts. Ain’t welcome in the village, nor on this mountain neither.”