The next evening, in an odd little town that Jasper says is entirely populated by shoemakers, the show goes on. I swear it will be my last—and Maren’s. Whether I find time to cook the sleeping draught or not, tomorrow morning, or perhaps afternoon, we will leave the Phipps family behind. I vow this to myself, over and over. I will tell O’Neill of my plans tonight if I find a way to speak to him alone. He will object, but I will not be swayed this time. I must take this last chance to save my sister’s life.
After the show, an almost impossibly tall cobbler sidles up to me. (I know he is a cobbler because he forgot to remove his tool belt before leaving his shop.) With the air of a frightened rabbit, he looks down into my face, and then at my boots. He is polite enough to resist staring at my scanty costume.
“Pardon me, miss,” he says. “If I might measure your lovely foot, I would reward you with a pair of fine shoes before the sun rises.”
“That is very kind,” I reply. “But I have no money to pay you.”
“I would do it for the joy of it,” he says quietly. “And for a single strand of your beautiful hair.”
“Clara!” O’Neill shouts. “You are needed in the wagon. Urgently!”
“I am sorry,” I say to the timid cobbler. New shoes—shoes made for my feet rather than Soraya’s—would have been most useful on my upcoming journey. “Sorry.”
Gripped with fear, I climb the steps into the wagon. Is Maren worse? Is she dead?
“What is it?” I ask.
“You were in grave danger,” O’Neill says. “That shoemaker’s wares cost a terrible price.”
I laugh. “You are mistaken. He said he’d make them for the joy of doing so.”
“And a strand of your hair. And with that exchange, you would be bound to him and his kind forever.”
“Is that some kind of ancient shoemaker marriage ritual?” I think O’Neill is making a fool of me again.
“He is of elven blood. And so are most of the citizens of this mountain. Jasper knows it, and he brought us here anyway. He endangers us all.”
Soraya speaks from the dark corner where she holds vigil over the doctor. “Jasper came here because I asked him to. These elven folk grow the seven-needle root I need to cure Dr. Phipps.”
“And has Jasper procured it?” O’Neill asks. “Or shall we spend the night here and risk our mortal souls?”
“Neelo, child! How dramatic you are!” She laughs. “So suited for the stage!” She leans back and languidly flutters her fan. “Yes, Jasper has the root. Go strike the show and hitch the horses, and we can flee this place that turns you into a scared little boy.” She giggles behind her fan. I suspect that she has been drinking wine from the cabinet behind her.
“I will change out of my costume and help you,” I say to O’Neill. Through the open window, I glimpse Osbert in the treetops, and I wonder if he would have swooped down to save me from the shoemaker if O’Neill had not intervened. Who can know the mind of a wyvern?
“I must speak to you,” I whisper to O’Neill as I brush past him.
But Jasper joins us and keeps close as a shadow until the last item is packed. And then he commands O’Neill to take the driver’s seat of the smaller wagon. It seems that Jasper is as anxious to leave the elven folk as O’Neill is. So we set out in the dark, traveling slowly by the light of the moon.
Come morning, I will tell O’Neill of my plan to rescue Maren.
The moon is now on her slow slide down the sky. Morning will come very, very soon, and someday I will tell the tale of this new day: the day of our escape.
I wish I could say for certain that my tale will be a good one.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The river rushes by, tumbling over rocks and around the skeleton of a fallen tree. The sun hides behind a veil of clouds. Near where I sit on the stony beach, Soraya boils her latest pot of miracle cure. This one stinks worse than any of its predecessors. Stewed seven-needle root smells like an angry skunk bathed in sulfur.
The water moves fast. Would it carry my sister to the sea if I asked it to? She weighs very little and would be so willing to ride its currents. She would cause it no trouble at all.
I hug my knees to my chest. Grief has its fingers about my throat and I can barely breathe. Should I place Maren’s body in the river? At least then she would be free. And perhaps she would make it to the ocean. Perhaps she would live.
If she remains ensconced in that jar, she will, undoubtedly, die before the week is out.
Can I make it to the ocean in time? Is it possible?
For a moment, O’Neill’s spicy Christmas scent eclipses the stench of Soraya’s medicine. He crouches next to me. “Something is going to happen tonight,” he whispers. “I think we will take our leave.” His gaze is fixed on a heron standing on twig-like legs in the shallow water near the opposite shore. I study his face, admiring the shape of his nose, the color of his eyes, the certainty of his jaw, the little heart-shaped birthmark on his chin.
“How do you know?” I watch the heron dip its bill into the dark water.
“It is a feeling I have. An intuition the gypsies taught me to respect.”
“What should we do?”
“Nothing, for the moment. Things will unfold, I think, without our interference.”
“I was planning to go today, to take Maren, no matter what,” I say. “But I trust you. I will do as you say, as long as it is today.” In the trees above the heron, I glimpse the wing of my pet wyvern. “Osbert,” I whisper.
“I see him,” O’Neill says. He picks up a small round stone and rolls it in his hand, and then he makes it disappear. “Clara,” he says softly, somehow making the two syllables of my name as beautiful as any sonnet.
I remember his kiss.
“What?” I do not know what else to say. My knees begin to tremble and I hug them more tightly. The memory of his mouth touching mine is the strongest memory I have, so strong that it makes my chest ache.
“If we fail, if we die here—”
“You must not say that,” I say. “It is bad luck.”
“Well, then,” he says.
“Come, Neelo,” Soraya beckons from behind us. “Come hold this bottle for me so I may fill it.”
He looks into my eyes and I think he must see my soul. He must know what I have tried so hard to deny. He must know that I love him beyond all reason.
But he stands and leaves me without another word.
Dinner is over, the dishes have been wiped clean in the river, and Soraya has gone into the wagon to tend to the doctor.