“You’re too nice. Like Mary. I’d rather eat it.”
I thought on that for a bit as we followed the fence outlining the properties until we met the road, then turned onto that, taking it east toward the shepherd’s cottage. The little golden pin with the serpent was on my frock, of course, for now I was too nervous to part with it.
“We don’t seem to want for food,” I told her. “I used to steal quite a lot, but only ever to survive. If I had food enough for myself I wouldn’t steal. Don’t you think that’s how it should be?”
Poppy scrunched up her chin, her arms swinging like a soldier’s as she marched beside me. Her pup, of course, trotted just behind. “There is sense to that. Mrs. Haylam says the people who come to Coldthistle get here because they’re greedy and cross. Maybe they take too much. Maybe they steal even when they have plenty.”
I nodded, and we walked for a little while in silence, the lamb bleating occasionally, the insects in the tall grass coming to life, singing their high, reedy song.
Poppy glanced up at me now and then, chewing her cheek.
“Yes?” I asked.
“I don’t mean to bother,” she replied, coy.
“But?”
“But are you going to stay with us? Forever?” Both she and the puppy stared up at me. If Poppy could grow a tail right then and wag it, I’m certain she would have.
“I don’t know that yet,” I said. It seemed more and more like a possibility, even if Lee had to be delivered from the house before he came to harm. “Was it easy for you to decide to stay?”
“I’ve been here for as long as I can remember,” Poppy chirped. “The family that adopted me wanted to send me away. I wasn’t normal and it frightened them. They were mean and I didn’t know why. I know why now, but it was confusing before Mrs. Haylam came and helped me. The nasty brothers beat me and locked me in the attic and poisoned my food. I was sick for a long time and I think I almost died.”
“God, Poppy, that’s awful. I’m so sorry. What did Mrs. Haylam do?” Part of me dreaded the answer, knowing the girl would give it with her unusual directness.
“It’s hard to remember now,” she said, chewing her cheek again. “But I remember she came with a book and she looked funny and hunchy, not nice and clean like she does now. Mr. Morningside was with her, too, but he didn’t talk much. And she said that if I wanted my family to do what I said, she could make that happen, and that it would make the book happy. It made me happy, too. Now they’re all shadows, but they can’t hurt me anymore and they almost always do what Mrs. Haylam wants.”
I blinked down at her. “The Residents are your old family?”
Poppy nodded hard, grinning, her braids swinging. “I like them better now. Were your family like mine, Louisa? Is that why you left them?”
“In a way,” I said slowly, still trying to digest the fact that Poppy’s cruel parents were nothing but creepy shadow beings haunting the attic. “The teachers at my school were nasty, but at least they never poisoned me. Starved me a little sometimes, and there were beatings, but we survived.”
She blinked hard, frowning. “Nobody will beat you or starve you here. Why would you want to leave?”
“Because it’s scary,” I told her. “It’s scary to think I don’t belong anywhere else. That because I’m different, my life is set on a path that cannot be changed.”
“I think I understand,” she replied slowly. “But I also think it is better to belong somewhere with people who like you than to spend your whole life wandering about. That would be quite lonely.”
I let that lie. Solitude had never bothered me, but then I had to consider that it was because I never had trusted friends who weren’t imaginary.
We reached the shepherd’s cottage without incident, though I kept checking the skies for clouds of birds. None came, although the shepherd’s dog did come out to greet us. The lamb kicked in my arms as the two dogs circled each other and sniffed and then growled, Bartholomew’s one yip sending the bigger dog running.
The blind shepherd’s laugh arrived before his body. The door to his little house opened swiftly and he chuckled, ambling out of the cottage with a cane until his dog, Big Earl, returned to guide him toward us.
“We found one of your lambs,” I told him. “Poppy and I came to return it.”
“Thank you, my dears, you’ve done a good deed this day. Joanna!” he called, and presently the kind young girl joined us. She gave me a toothy smile and slid the lamb from my arms and cradled it, cooing.
“Oh, you sweet thing,” she said with a giggle, touching her nose to the lamb’s. The flock was not far away, grazing in a giant white mass behind the cottage. “Let’s return you to your mum, yes? You’ll both like that. I thought you might be gone for good; second wee one this week to wander away. If only we’d found the first.”
“I confess I know little of sheep,” I said, watching her carry the lamb away. “Can they really tell their own children from any other lamb?”
“They smell them, yes,” the old man said, turning his head toward Joanna as she left. “You can see them nose the young as soon as they’re born and long after. It’s like a man’s signature, you see, perfectly unique.”
A man’s signature. I smoothed my hands over my apron, feeling for the scrap of burnt paper in the pocket next to the spoon. The penmanship. I could take the little scrap and search through George Bremerton’s things. . . . Lee had only checked his bags, but if he kept a journal or any correspondence, I could at least make certain he hadn’t written the note in the fireplace. That would put me at greater ease, knowing that he had nothing to do with the death of Lee’s mother. And if he did . . .
Well, I knew Lee needed to be away from the house soon, but that would make his leaving even more dire.
“This kindness deserves a reward,” the old man was saying, turning back toward the house. “Why don’t you join us for a bit of brandy?”
Poppy sighed and tugged hard at my sleeve. “Louisa, no. No, no! We should be going. I need to get back to the house and poison that grumpy old man with the mustache,” she said in a whisper that was, quite frankly, too loud to qualify truly as such.
And I agreed we should leave, but not for her peculiar reasons.
“Actually, we’re both needed back at the house,” I said, giving a little bow that he would not see.