“I’ve kept you out too late,” said William solemnly. “I hope you won’t be in trouble.”
“Never,” said Tess optimistically. “Thank you for walking me home, William.”
“Will, to friends,” he said. He reached boldly for her hand and pressed it between his. “Will I see you again? You still owe me some quigutl myths, but more than that, I’d love to show you St. Bert’s. Whatever your curiosity demands, let me know and I can guide you. I live upstairs at the Mullet, easy to find.”
“Then I will find you,” said Tess with what she hoped was an arch smile.
He pressed her fingers to his lips, lightly, like a butterfly landing.
Tess felt her insides effervesce.
“Forgive me,” he said, releasing her.
“Nothing to forgive,” said Tess.
She flitted into the shrine and leaned against the door to catch her breath.
Sprightly intelligence. She still wasn’t over it.
She raised her gaze to the wooden statue before her. St. Siucre was always depicted as a wizened old woman, with bent back and bright eyes. She was a quiet kind of Saint, the sort nobody much thought about, and she was Tess’s patroness, to her infinite embarrassment. She’d much rather have had someone witty and gregarious, like St. Willibald, or mighty like St. Masha; even Jeanne’s stolid St. Gobnait would have been preferable to this ancient, grandmotherly, forgotten Saint, whose great claim to fame was that she’d help you find things you’d lost.
For the first time, this struck Tess as apropos. She was the patroness of memory. Tess lit a candle and stuck it in the box of sand; there were only two others there. “Sweet St. Siucre,” Tess began, using the traditional epithet. It was aspirational: all memories should be sweet ones. “Never let me forget this night,” she prayed, getting down on one knee. “How he kissed my fingers, how he took me seriously, how I’m feeling right now.”
She paused, heart beating hopefully. “I think…I might love him. I hope so. I want to.”
She fidgeted, her knee sore against the flagstones. She wasn’t sure how to end the prayer; she’d never been a great one for listening in church. “Bless us all forever and ever, let it be, thank you. Um. Good night?”
Then she lit a second taper in the shrine and used it to light her way home.
“Awake, awake!” Pathka was in her face again. It was no earlier than she usually woke; it only felt earlier, since she’d been up half the night, remembering.
“I’ve had an idea,” said the quigutl as Tess rolled away from his breath. “I saw a big house yesterday while foraging. They’ll have the metals I need to make the thniks I mentioned.”
Tess packed up groggily, too sleepy to argue. The morning fog made it hard to follow Pathka; he had to keep circling back so she could see him.
He was like a perpetual-motion machine. Some of Will’s friends had been trying to build one, but the spoilsport dragons kept giving away the punch line: it would never work. Nobody had thought to harness a quigutl.
She liked fog. In the city, she’d always found it cozy, filling the spaces between known objects and making the world feel closer and smaller. It was like a veil over a familiar face.
Now she had no notion what might lie behind the gray. Maybe wonders and dangers yet unimagined; maybe nothing at all. She imagined the world didn’t exist, that the fog congealed as she walked into it and created everything on the fly—a logical blocky barn, the fanciful fingers of trees. The mists imagined objects into being as she passed.
What a wonder, to walk into the unseen unknown. Nothing was set in stone.
After all her rage and grief last night, that was a profound relief.
The fog thinned enough that she could tell Pathka was leading her off the main road, down an eastern spur. It was well maintained, covered in pea gravel, like the carriage drive to a manor house.
He’d said something about a big house, she recalled now that she was more awake. Her steps slowed. “We’re going where, exactly?”
“Don’t worry. Nobody’s home,” said Pathka. “There’s an old caretaker, but—”
“I’m not breaking into a manor.” The slope steepened; gravel skittered beneath her boots.
“It’s more of a hunting lodge,” said Pathka, as if that were better.
They reached the bank of a large, sluggish river, mists dancing on its dark face. The road ended there, and it looked like they could go no farther. A stout rope, tied to a post, stretched over the water and disappeared into the fog, presumably tied to something on the other side.
“Ferry crossing,” said Pathka, explaining the rope. “You can haul yourself across with the rope if the ferryman’s not here to row you—and he’s not here, don’t fret. Too bad the boat’s on the far bank.”
This seemed like a natural place to balk. Tess went stiff-legged like Faffy when it rained.
“Pathka, I’m a terrible thief. You’ve seen it firsthand. I’ve had dogs set on me a dozen times. I’ll trip on a rake or almost fall into the well. Remember the time I scared up a field of crows and the farmer chased me with an axe?”
“I was beside you, befuddling the dogs and tripping the farmer,” said Pathka, curling around her ankles. “And I want you here, Teth, in case anything goes wrong. We are nest to each other.”
“I—I’m honored that you’d say that,” she said. “But stealing to eat is one thing.”
“I’ll do all the stealing,” said Pathka. “It will be just this once, I promise.”
“But how do we get there?” She kicked the water with her boot. “I don’t swim.”
“Hold the ferry rope,” said Pathka. “Anything that can’t get wet, I’ll carry on my back.”
The offer didn’t extend to Tess’s person, alas. She handed Pathka her pack and, somewhat reluctantly, her boots. He might as well have her stockings, while she was at it, and Florian’s jacket, and then, since she’d gone that far, she decided to strip down completely and have a bit of a bath. She hadn’t had a bath since Ranleigh Cottage.
“I’m glad you reached that conclusion on your own,” said Pathka, stuffing her clothing into her satchel. “I didn’t want to have to tell you how terrible you smell.”
“This, from a quigutl!” scoffed Tess.
“Exactly.” Pathka sounded relieved. “You see how dire it is. Also: your monthlies are nearly here.”
Tess froze, appalled that he’d mention such a thing.
“Don’t doubt this nose,” said Pathka, unfazed by her glare. “You’ll want to plan for them, because it’ll be hard to maintain your disguise if your breeches—”
“Stop talking. Now, please,” snapped Tess, rubbing her goose bump–covered arms.
Pathka clasped her belongings to his back, boots on top, and swam into the mist. He was out of sight before Tess, already shivering, managed to stick her feet in. The water was cold, and the rocks on the bottom were slimy. She waded up to her thighs, excruciatingly slowly, clutching the towrope. The current wasn’t strong this close to the bank, but she disliked not seeing the other side. It felt like walking into the underworld.
The sun, which had been dithering in the trees, rose higher and began melting the fog. Tess felt unpleasantly exposed; the water was only up to her hips.
Even though it meant letting go of the towrope, she crouched in the shallow water so she wouldn’t have to see herself illuminated, white belly, flat breasts. Her body horrified and embarrassed her. It was the locus of her badness.
And here she was, in the middle of nowhere, stark naked in a river. She never learned.
She waded in deeper until she could stand with only her head and neck exposed. She had assumed she’d be able to reach the towrope again, but it hung just out of range. The current tugged and sucked at her ankles like a baby, and then she was in too deep, standing on tiptoe, face lifted to the sky. The weight of water constricted her lungs, and she felt a twinge of terror.