“We could run away,” Katie proffered. “Just run out into the plains and make camp. She would never find us there.”
“Ah, Rapunzel.” Row placed a hand on her cheek, and Katie smiled involuntarily. The first time they met, she had been crying behind the schoolhouse, because Brian Lord had pulled her hair, pulled it hard, and she didn’t want to go back after recess because Brian would be there—he sat right behind her, and he pulled her hair all the time. Mrs. Warren had talked to him about it, but he would only wait until she wasn’t looking before doing it again. The unfairness of this situation, the cruelty of it, had made six-year-old Katie weep, and she was just considering chopping off all of her hair, making it as short as Aunt Maddy’s, when Row sat down beside her against the schoolhouse wall. Katie had been afraid of him—he was a third-grader—but he listened carefully to her complaint, inspected her head, and then told her the story of Rapunzel, whose long hair had allowed her to escape from prison.
If only we could, Katie thought now, an echo of her earlier impatience with the Town. If only.
“Row!” Mrs. Finn had come all the way out on the porch now. She was a gaunt woman, with wide, needy eyes, the corners of her mouth pinched downward in disapproval. Katie, who had been thinking of inviting herself to dinner, suddenly decided to go home. “Row, come in now!”
“My mother might not find us,” Row continued. “But yours would.”
“You’re right. Mum’s a bloodhound.”
“Row!” his mother called again. “Where have you been?”
Row smiled, trapped, and trudged away up the path to his porch. Katie turned and continued up the lane. Row lived on one of the higher slopes of the hill, but Katie’s house was at the very top, right next to William Tear’s. He was well protected, Tear was, with Mum’s house on one side and Maddy Freeman’s on the other. No one in town wanted to tangle with either of them.
“Katie!”
Mrs. Gannett, calling from her porch. Katie wanted to keep walking—Mrs. Gannett was nothing but a gossip—but that sort of thing always got back to Mum. She halted and waved.
“He’s over at your house,” Mrs. Gannett told Katie.
“Who?”
“You know.” Mrs. Gannett lowered her voice almost to a whisper. “Him. Tear.”
With an effort, Katie kept from rolling her eyes. She knew she was supposed to worship Tear, as everyone did, but whenever she heard someone speak Tear’s name with reverence, a rogue part of her longed to call Tear names and prove that he wasn’t much. But she didn’t dare. There was something about Tear, perhaps only the way he had of looking at her, grey eyes piercing. Those eyes scared Katie. They seemed to see right to the core of her, things she didn’t want anyone else to know. She tried never to speak directly to him.
She liked Lily, Tear’s wife—not wife, her mind reminded her; William Tear and Lily had never been married—but then, everyone liked Lily. She was one of the few genuine women in Katie’s acquaintance, but Katie sensed that Lily’s honesty had been hard-won, for there was something sorrowful about her as well, a melancholy that Katie glimpsed from time to time when Lily didn’t think anyone was watching. Did William Tear see it too? He must, for he seemed to see everything.
The sun was just beginning to set as she crested the hill, but all of the lamps were already lit, flickering gently as the candles inside were buffeted by the light evening wind. That was another apprenticeship Katie could choose: learning to make candles. She had no interest in going anywhere near the Town beehives, but Mum had told her that beekeeping was separate, that candle makers only had to deal with the wax. Katie didn’t know why the apprenticeship was so much on her mind today; it was still months away. Maybe because it would be a sure sign that she was growing older. She was so tired of being young.
“Katie!”
She looked up and found Mum waiting for her on the porch, her hands on her hips. Her hair was tied up into a messy bun and her shirt was splattered with bits of what looked like stew. Some days she drove Katie crazy, but on other days, like today, Katie was swept with a sudden wave of love for her mother, who was so stubborn that she even refused to wear an apron while she cooked.
“Come on, rags,” Mum told her, giving her a hug and ushering her inside. “We’ve got company.”
All of the lamps in the house had already been lit, and as Katie’s eyes adjusted to the low light in the living room, she saw William Tear and Aunt Maddy by the fireplace, talking in low voices.