All is ready. I wait for O’Neill, feeling the flutter of butterflies in my stomach, as if he has been gone all winter and is about to come home again—to me. I wish I had changed my dress and tidied my hair, but I hear his boots on the steps and it is too late for fussing.
Little raindrops glisten in his golden hair. His somber expression melts away as he beholds the arrangement of plain food and exotic tableware. “You are an artist,” he says. “I should paint it rather than eating it.”
“Nonsense,” I say. “Will you bring Maren’s tub to her place? Even though she cannot eat, she would hate to miss a caravan picnic.”
“Of course,” he says.
After O’Neill sets Maren’s washtub down, he settles among the cushions. For a moment, he is the picture of relaxation. But then our mermaid awakens and signs her demand: O’Neill must move closer to her so that she may hold his hand. He obeys.
I pour cider into the goblets and pass one to O’Neill.
“Let us pretend,” he says. “Let us make believe that the caravan is parked in front of Auntie’s cottage. We have spent the day exploring the mountainside, getting scratched by thornbushes and eating wild blackberries. We have held wriggling red salamanders in our hands and watched baby birds learn to fly. We have seen strange flowers growing along rushing streams, and we have walked barefoot over spongy moss. Now we are tired and happy and hungry, and this is the best of suppers in the best of places.”
“Yes,” I say. “And after our meal, you will tell us of your travels and show us some special treasure you found on a riverbank or in an abandoned tent.”
Lightning flashes. Thunder shakes the wagon. Osbert whimpers and begins to pace. Storms make him uneasy, and he has no cellar to retreat to here.
“Sit, Osbert,” O’Neill says gently. “It is just a little storm.”
“Perhaps he needs to go out,” I say. I do not intend to let a silly wyvern ruin my picnic.
Half flying and half running, Osbert dashes out the door as soon as O’Neill opens it. “I guess you were right,” he says, going to close the windows as the rain begins to lash at the wagon.
The wind makes the caravan creak and sway on its axles as the storm grows fiercer. But we are in our own little world. Maren naps again, and O’Neill and I eat all the pickles and drink all the cider. We are beyond full when O’Neill pulls a tin of shortbread biscuits out of a drawer—yet we devour them all. We take turns reminding each other of the events of our childhood, and we laugh until our bellies ache.
“It’s late,” O’Neill says. He begins to gather dishes and jars. “Let’s set these things aside to make room for your cot and deal with them in the morning.”
I yawn. “That is a fine idea,” I say. I reach for his goblet, and my hand brushes against his. Both of us freeze. For a moment, our eyes meet. I could die happy right now, I think. He opens his mouth to speak, and a strange sound somewhere between a cough and a hiss comes from behind him.
I pull my hand away. Maren is glaring at me, her ocean-colored eyes dark with anger. “Forgive me,” I say to O’Neill. “How clumsy I am.”
“Do not mention it,” he says. His face is flushed with embarrassment—a rare thing for our worldly peddler boy. “I will venture out to see how Job and January are faring.”
He leaves me alone with Maren. “You do not need to be jealous,” I say. “I know how you feel about him, sister. And you would have to be blind not to see how he favors you.”
She slaps her tail against the water and pouts. I will say no more to her tonight. There will be no pleasing her.
Something is very wrong.
Coughing and choking, I force my eyelids to open.
The air swirls with thick smoke and orange and yellow flashes, like a lightning-filled thundercloud is somehow trapped within the caravan.
The caravan is on fire. Tongues of flame dance across the tapestried bed. Scarff’s treasures ignite one after the other, the fire roaring its delight as it consumes more and more of them.
Lungs burning, I crawl toward the place where Maren’s tub usually sits. I call her name, but my voice comes out in a weak croak.
“Is anyone in there?” a stranger’s voice calls as the door is flung open. The flames jump with joy at the influx of air.
“Yes,” I answer feebly. Seconds later, strong arms lift me and carry me through the smoke and flames to safety. “Two more,” I say to the man as he lowers me to the ground.
The man bounds back into the wagon and emerges with O’Neill slung over his shoulder. O’Neill’s clothes are singed and his head lolls against the rescuer’s shoulder blade.
I grab the man’s arm as he sets O’Neill beside me. “My sister. In a washtub,” I say between coughs.
“There is no one else,” he says.
Flames shoot into the sky above the wagon. Bottles tinkle and pop as they explode. The bright paint blackens and flakes off into the night.
I will find Maren, I tell myself. I try to stand, but the smoke has weakened me. I crumple to the dirt as the blazing caravan collapses into an unrecognizable heap.
“Poor dears! Such a tragedy!” a woman says. Her voice is lyrical and strangely accented. “Bring them to our camp, Jasper. I will see to their wounds.”
“Maren,” I whisper. My throat feels seared. “My sister.”
The woman bends over me. She is veiled in red-and-purple silk, and her skin is the color of caramel. “Do not speak. The smoke is in your throat. I will get it out, and then you may tell us your story.”
“My sister,” I whisper again. “In the washtub.”
The woman stands. “Jasper?”
“I checked, Mama. Three times. She’s gone.”
“That cannot be! You must find her. Look there—I see footprints in the dirt. The footprints of a big man. Follow them!”
The rescuer, Jasper, runs.
My chest tightens with fear.
Maren is gone. Taken.
By Simon? Did Simon set the caravan ablaze?
I try to sit up but fail.
The woman says, “Rest here. I will bring you water and blankets. When my son returns, he will take you to our tents and we will make you more comfortable, poor lamb.”
Only then do I remember Pilsner. I pray that he managed to escape.
What of Job and January, left to graze nearby?
And where is Osbert? He never returned after he ran off panicking in the storm.
Have I lost my most dear, nonhuman companions, and my sister, in one night?
Beside me, O’Neill stirs. “Clara?”
“I am here,” I whisper. I find his hand and grasp it. He squeezes my fingers tightly, with the grip of someone in great pain.
I turn my head toward him. The moonlight shows me his soot-covered profile. A thin strip of whiteness runs from the corner of his eye to the lobe of his ear, marking the trail of his tears. I want to cry out for the woman to return, to beg her to bring something to ease his suffering, but I am overcome by another fit of coughing.
As my coughing lessens, O’Neill’s hand relaxes in mine. He is either asleep or unconscious, in a temporary escape from pain. Auntie would say that it is a good thing, that a mind at rest frees the body to work at healing itself.
But is there anything in the world that will heal his heart once he hears that Maren is gone?
CHAPTER SIXTEEN