“Thank you for your patience,” I reply. Papa’s eyes are trained on me. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
The collector grunts noncommittally. Silence rings in his wake as he walks out, the door slamming behind him.
“How much time do you have left?” The question seems to burst from my lips of its own accord.
He either doesn’t hear me or chooses to ignore me. He looks down at the table, blotting the cut on his palm with a cloth. “Jules—”
“How much time?” I press.
“Enough.” I can’t tell if this is an answer or a rebuke. He takes a deep breath. “You’re a child. You should be going back to school.”
“You should have told me we were behind on the rent. I could have paid. I have the time.”
“No,” my father says, and for the first time his voice is sharp. “I won’t let that happen.”
“But work is scarce.” The anger I’ve pushed down, the rage I couldn’t show the rent collector, twists and churns inside me. “Where does that leave us—leave you? I need you, Papa.” To my dismay, I can feel tears springing to my eyes. “Did you think of that before you let the collector bleed you?”
“There are things you don’t know about the world, Jules.” The confrontation has left him worn-out, slumping in his seat. Guilt pricks at me—he did just have a month bled from him, and he must be exhausted. “The Gerlings are evil, greed-driven people,” he fumes. “That boy, Liam, would have seen us executed before he told the truth about the fire—”
His words are lost in an onset of coughing. The next words are so soft, so weak, that I almost think I imagine them. “I won’t let them have you.”
“They won’t have me. They won’t even notice me,” I say, trying to keep the frustration out of my voice. I’m tired of hiding, of waiting. “And if I make enough time, I can go back to school.”
“No.” Steel runs below the surface of his voice. “You will not go back to Everless. I forbid you.”
“Papa, please. No one will recognize me.” I can hear how I sound—wheedling, childish. Papa’s outburst has shaken me. I know he hates the Gerlings—I do too—but it’s not worth bleeding his life out to keep me away from them. Has fear come to dominate his mind so much?
“I’m still your father,” he says. “As long as you live under my roof, you’ll do what I say.”
I’ve opened my mouth to argue when an ugly thought skitters across the surface of my mind.
He can’t stop me.
After Papa had chased Liam off that night when I was twelve, he decided to shed our past. The villagers’ knowing that the Gerlings’ disgraced blacksmith had landed in their midst would raise eyebrows, questions: Why had Papa left such a high station for a hardscrabble life in the village? Worse—what if Liam found us again, to enact some petty revenge? Easier, Papa said, to create a dull, typical history. A farmer and his daughter, abandoning the fields after a blight. He taught me how to lie, so no one would look too closely at us.
He doesn’t realize it, but he’s taught me too well.
I sigh heavily. “Amma is leaving for Everless,” I say. “Maybe the butcher will give me her job.”
Papa’s gaze softens. “Maybe.” He reaches out, puts a hand over mine. “I hate that you have to work at all. But at least here, we’re together.”
I smile at him, wishing I could tell the truth—that the idea of returning to Everless sickens me and fills me with dread, but I’m going to do it anyway. He’s smiling, relieved, and I know he doesn’t see through me. I stand, kiss him on the brow, and make for the kitchen to go about dinner.
When Papa’s not looking, I take the figurine of the Sorceress from the window—the one that belonged to my mother—and slip it into my dress pocket. Maybe the Sorceress can give me luck. Maybe the thought of her will give me strength.
At dawn, I’ll need both.
3
I go to bed before Papa. In my cot by the fireplace beneath a thin blanket, my eyes closed, I listen to him scratch notes in his ledger. I know he’s tallying up his time, as if by checking and rechecking the figures he’ll suddenly find a way to pay for all the things we can’t afford. Then the cottage door creaks as he goes to fetch water from the old well outside; the fire crackles as he puts on another log. Eventually, he kisses my forehead and retreats into his room, sighing as he goes.
I wait until his breathing has evened out into sleep. Then, I slip carefully from the cot and gather my things, as quietly as I can. I take a few rolls of dark bread from the cupboard, just enough for a meal or two. I pick out my nicest dress, though the threadbare blue linen will seem humble beside the ladies of Everless. I tuck my hunting knife, sheathed, into my belt and fold a few belongings into a knapsack.
My eyes settle on the wall, on a drawing of my mother that Papa made. He loved to draw, before his eyes went bad—one day, I found the drawing tucked away in his mattress, as if he couldn’t bear to be reminded of what we’d lost. I had to plead with him to let me hang it up on the wall. The paper is yellow and curled with age, but the likeness is striking: a young woman with my curly hair and brown eyes looking over her shoulder and laughing. I reach out and trace my mother’s face. I wonder if she would approve of the choice I’m making. Her statue of the Sorceress is still tucked in my pocket. Luck, I think, my heart slowing.
On the back of one of the papers he’s left scattered on the table, I scribble a note, deliberately casual: Went to see the butcher. Back before dark.
I leave it on top of his ledger. Papa won’t realize the lie right away, I hope. If he does, I wouldn’t trust him not to limp into the village himself, trying to chase the Gerlings’ carriages down.
When he realizes what I’ve done, what will he do?
If I think too long about Papa—how worried he’ll be—my nerves will fail me. So I pull on my boots as silently as I can and take up my bag. I’ll be gone a month, two at the most, and I’ll write him a letter from Everless to reassure him that everything is fine. When I come home, the purseful of blood-irons will make up for my deceit.