“No. Do not bring a stranger into this. We do not want every other village hearing of our troubles.”
“Try to imagine it. I will bring in the Inquisitor and let him find the guilty man. Then he will declare the town free of all evil influences, and the markets will thrive. It will be over in a fortnight. You won’t have to do anything. No one will care if you don’t make an arrest. But we will all gain recognition. God could very well be in this tragedy for our good.”
“No,” Bjorn said in a tone meant to end the conversation. “No outsiders. Don’t speak of it again.”
“Bjorn,” Stefan said, his face turning red. “Have you seen the way they look at me? Everyone in town looks at me as if I allowed this. Even you accuse me, in your way. I’m not stupid.”
“Then don’t act it. An Inquisitor will come here looking for the Devil, and he may very well find one. How will you look then?”
“You’re wrong,” Stefan said.
“Look at your feet, my friend.”
Stefan looked down. The edges of his robe were a bit dirty, but his feet were clean, despite the mud and chaos of spring.
“Do you see the ground you’re standing on?”
Stefan looked up. “Yes.”
Bjorn pointed a finger at him. “That’s the only thing you know for certain. You hear what people want to tell you, only the sins they feel guilt for. The difference between you and me? I see what they do when they leave your church. I see the sins they commit without guilt or shame.”
Stefan watched him walk away, standing there in the dirt with chaos not far away. A red fleck caught his eye, a cardinal in a barren tree. The branches were just beginning to build up at the ends, preparing for spring, and the bird glistened, a trembling ruby startling in its perfection, in its dazzling, unrepentant red. Stefan stared at it until the sun caught its feathers just right, and for a moment he saw his whole village blinded with red. Beyond the barren tree, behind the houses with dark smoke curling from their chimneys, a wolf howled.
Cold wind stung his cheeks, and he shook free of the moment, pulling his arms in with a shiver. Winter had not finished with them yet.
Chapter Six
Mia was startled awake when she heard a spoon bang against the wall. Margarite was anxious for supper.
“Coming, Margarite,” Mia yelled. Yelling made her sound angry, but Margarite could not help being deaf.
Margarite groaned and hit the spoon against the wall once more. The busyness of meals, of interacting with Mia, made Margarite forget the pain, Mia suspected. Food became something they could still do together, one last link. Mia did not know if the woman even tasted the food or just wanted Mia to touch her and look at her. When old ones stopped eating, they died. Everyone knew that, including Margarite. She wasn’t ready to die.
The old woman held on even though her body failed more every day and the pain in her bones grew steadily worse. Her wasting disease showed no remorse, daily marching her closer to death. Mia did not understood why Margarite held on. She, too, once had a will to live, even through times when nothing existed to live for. But then she had been young, and there had been hope. For Margarite, what hope was there but death? Death would relieve Margarite’s suffering, so why did she resist it?
Mia sighed, walking to the pottage, waving a hand at Margarite to signal that the meal was on the way. She stirred the pottage, careful to scrape along the bottom where most of the meat had sunk. Margarite should put some more weight on her frail frame. She might feel better if she had more cushion, more softness around her bones.
Mia hoped Margarite’s sense of smell was still intact. The sage, already good for picking this early in the season, blended well with the rosemary. Sage lent a lovely green undertone in their tiny home that always smelled of sharp, sweet rosemary. Rosemary stayed green and lush through the final frost of spring and needed no care from Mia. She loved it for being so dependable. She loved it for not needing her.
Ladling the pottage into a wooden bowl, Mia pushed a chair close to Margarite’s and took the spoon from her. Margarite stared at her with a closed mouth, nodding in the direction of Alma, who played with a kitten. The kitten’s mother had depended on Mia for scraps in the winter, and Mia regarded the kitten as a welcome visitor. She would have to shoo it outside before Bjorn got home. But it was not the kitten that agitated Margarite.
Little Alma had those dark red circles under her eyes again, looking as if she had been beaten overnight.