Gullible. Foolish. I blushed and tucked the covering back down, listening as the birds gradually calmed and fell silent. The old woman returned to her singing, and perhaps it was what kept the creatures so still and quiet during the bumpy ride.
We crested the hill as night came on in earnest, the rain slowing and giving us momentary reprieve. The two hunched and plodding horses took the descent haltingly, hooves clattering unevenly as they tried to keep purchase on the slick ground. I could feel the tension in their bodies, the reins jerking in the crone’s hands as the beasts ignored whatever pulls and whistles she gave.
“Come now, steady, ye nags!” she shouted at them, snapping the reins.
It had the intended effect, but too much of one—the horses bolted, finding some last burst of energy to send us flying down the hill. The wagon bounced madly, the birds coming to life again. That drove the horses faster, as if they could outrun the piercing cries of alarm from the birds. Rattling and rattling, the wheels making only occasional contact with the road, we thundered toward the dip at the bottom, where the foul weather had left an enormous ditch of standing water.
“Slow them!” I screamed, barely louder than the birds. “Slow down!”
The crone clucked and called and heaved backward on the reins, but the horses ignored her, carrying us at reckless, mortal speed toward the bottom of the hill. I felt the wagon list before I heard the spoke crack. Then the wheel spun off into the darkness, vanishing over the swell of the hill. I scrambled to hold on to the seat, both hands braced on the wooden lip near the crone’s knee.
The horses checked at the loss of the wheel, slowing, but it was too late; the momentum of the heavy wagon was already too great, carrying us at top speed toward the watery hole not ten yards away.
I closed my eyes and clenched my teeth together, holding every sinew in tightly as impact loomed. The crone gave a sudden yip, and then a rousing, trilling sound like Alalu! and we were weightless, in the air, soaring over the ditch and to a rough but safe landing on the other side. The wagon stuttered to a stop, the horses snorting and stamping, refusing to pull us another inch. I stared at the ground below, ground that should have shattered the old wagon to pieces. Slowly, the horses nosed toward the grass on the right side of the road, angling us away from the ditch and toward a valley clustered with wildflowers.
“How did you do that?” I breathed, shaking. The splintered remains of the wheel spoke dripped with mud and rainwater, and I could only tear my eyes away from them gradually and back to the crone. She shrugged and collected her dry bush of hair, smoothing it back from her ears.
“You drive this stretch of road long enough, you learn to master its miseries.”
The woman dropped the reins and vaulted with surprising vigor out of the seat to the ground. Her boots sank into the mud, and she high-stepped around to my side of the wagon, sighing and shaking her head as she inspected the damage.
“And no spares with me on this trip,” she said, more to herself than me. “Perhaps I have not mastered every misery.”
“So what do we do now?” I asked, still trembling from the shock of the landing. From the ancient wagon to the ancient woman to the ancient, weak horses, I could not imagine how we had jumped the ditch and come away from it in one piece. Judging from the quiet, lazy way the horses munched their grass, this was an everyday occasion for them.
“We cook one of the birds,” the crone replied at once.
Before I protested, she rolled her eye and beckoned me down. “I jest. We make a fire and eat a little porridge, and then, my girl, we hope for a miracle.”
Chapter Three
The old woman built a serviceable fire in the gravel-and-mud clearing on the other side of the ditch. She worked quickly, efficiently, the crookedness of her hands no hindrance as she unrolled a bundle of kindling from the back of the wagon and stacked the sticks into a tidy pyramid.
“Are you just going to stand there gawping?” the woman barked.
“I am likely to freeze unless you employ me,” I replied, pacing to demonstrate as much, trying to stamp feeling back into my icy feet and ankles. The blankets she supplied did little to banish the cold, even though the crone forwent them all herself and piled them on my shoulders.
“In the back,” she said in that same short way. “Gather the crockery and oats. There should be a can of grease and a pair of wooden spoons.”
A part of me chafed at the idea of taking orders from this stranger. She had offered me an escape from the crowd at Malton, but what power did that give her? To respect and obey one’s elders, they taught at Pitney School, was the responsibility of every educated young woman. The idea seemed as laughable then as it did now. What did the teachers at Pitney School know, for all their advanced years? How to slap and scold, how to make a child stand in the freezing cold as punishment for dirty fingernails, how to deny bread, water, and sleep when it pleased them?
Naughty children please no one but the Devil.
I had heard it a hundred times or more from Miss Jane Henslow at Pitney, and recalling the phrase sent a shiver down my spine. Miss Henslow, cold, mousy, and fragile, gave a beating like nobody else at the school. I could feel the ghost of her rod smacking my shoulders as I hurried to the back of the wagon. The crone’s eyes followed me. I didn’t need to look at her to feel it; they were as real as a pinch.
“You travel this road often,” I observed, eager for some distraction.
“I said as much. What of it?”
“You stoked that fire handily enough. It’s damp as a duck’s backside and yet it gave you not an ounce of trouble. Are you accustomed to cooking in the rain?”
The wagon covering, drenched with icy rain, stung my fingertips. As she’d said, a handful of baskets heaped with necessities were crammed into the back. They seemed almost an afterthought, the numerous birdcages the clear priority. Those cages were quiet now, soft blankets masking the din of the birds within, but not their pungent smell. The boards of the cart glowed, slick and white with droppings.
“I might have known you would be a nosy one,” the crone said with a sigh. “Did that serve you in the past? That sharp eye of yours?”
“Sometimes, yes,” I said honestly, gathering the ingredients for supper. “And oftentimes no.”