Crossing Over (30 page)
Authors: Anna Kendall
I was shocked. Maggie, a whore? Even though I knew she didn’t mean it, the words gave me a queer feeling in my heart. It was not like Maggie to be so irrational. Nothing made sense.
But I didn’t dwell long on Maggie’s tantrum. As I scattered the fire and we returned to trudging along the rough road, my mind roiled with what she had told me. Soulvine Moor, from whatever terrible and fearful belief, killed intruders. To “steal their souls.”
My mother, Aunt Jo said, had died in Soulvine Moor.
Had she been murdered? How?
No. I could not think that. I would go mad, if I thought that. It was nothing but a folktale anyway; no one could gain immortality by taking in the souls of others. Souls could not be taken in. They could only cross over to live on in the country of the Dead, if that could be called “living.” But here, in the land of the living, my Cecilia could be harmed.
“She went toward Soulvine Moor, toward Hygryll,
” the man with the broken teeth had said.
“Where else should one like her keeper go?”
What keeper? What did I not know about Cecilia? Lady Margaret had said there had “always been something strange about Cecilia.” But to me she was like a small stream, swift and light and clear to the bottom, babbling happily along in its little course. The man with the broken teeth had been lying, or mistaken, or cruel. Mother Chilton had not sent her to Hygryll—
“I told her to go into the unclaimed Lands but not to enter Soulvine.”
Cecilia was somewhere in the Unclaimed Lands, and I would find her. I would.
” the man with the broken teeth had said.
“Where else should one like her keeper go?”
What keeper? What did I not know about Cecilia? Lady Margaret had said there had “always been something strange about Cecilia.” But to me she was like a small stream, swift and light and clear to the bottom, babbling happily along in its little course. The man with the broken teeth had been lying, or mistaken, or cruel. Mother Chilton had not sent her to Hygryll—
“I told her to go into the unclaimed Lands but not to enter Soulvine.”
Cecilia was somewhere in the Unclaimed Lands, and I would find her. I would.
And my mother—
Don’t think such thoughts!
But there was only one way to stop the thoughts. I would do what I had intended to do over half a year ago, ever since Aunt Jo told me where my mother died. I would go as close to Soulvine Moor, to Hygryll, as was safe, and I would cross over. I would find my mother in the country of the Dead. Old women often talked to me there. My mother was not old, but she was there, and she would talk to me, her only child. From her, I would finally have answers.
Having a plan cheered me. It was an idiotic cheerfulness, since all difficulties still remained. But I had a plan: Find Cecilia. Enter her service, just to be around her. Then ask for a brief leave, go to the edge of Soulvine Moor, cross over, and find my mother. I could do all that. I had done so much already! And the sun shone warm, the birds trilled in the fair morning, and I was away from the palace and its ruthless, contradictory, passionate, and imprisoned queen. So my imbecilic cheerfulness sang in my blood. I whistled as we walked, something I had not done for months.
Maggie trudged beside me, head down, saying nothing.
Information was not hard to come by in the Unclaimed Lands, not once we had turned away from the sea. Along the coast were the smugglers, the wreckers, the road that carried whatever travelers there were. But as the land rose in wild ravines and desolate moors, there seemed to be only one road, sometimes dwindling to a mere cart track, sometimes lost altogether so that, cursing, I had to search to find it again. The cottages were few and mean, and their inhabitants, once they set aside their initial suspicion of strangers, were glad of travelers to break the monotonous pattern of their days. Goatherds, hunters, farmers trying to survive on a couple of poor upland acres and a fierce independence, they gave us food and shelter in exchange for a few pennies and scraps of news. Nor did they seem surprised at two young “brothers” traveling alone. Boys grew up quickly in this wild land. The food that Maggie and I were offered was scanty and sometimes almost inedible, but not once did we feel menaced as we slept among the ashes of the hearth—unless that place was already occupied by a flock of big-eyed children or by the family pig.
And nearly all of the upland folk had seen, or heard of, Cecilia.
“She be here yestreen a twelveday,” they said, and their accents were the same as Bat’s, the seaman off the
Frances Ormund
. “A nineday.” “A threeday.” We were drawing closer to her.
Frances Ormund
. “A nineday.” “A threeday.” We were drawing closer to her.
“How was the lady traveling?” I asked that first night. “And who was with her? ”
“On a donkey, she come,” an old woman told me. But when I looked closer, I saw that she was not old at all. Bent, slack-bellied, gap-toothed, she had no lines around her eyes. This woman was younger than Lady Margaret, younger than the queen, no more than thirty at the most. Her smile was sweet.
“Who was with the lady? ” My stomach tightened.
“Her serving man. To take her to her cousin’s manor, beyond the mountains.”
Maggie was careful to not look at me. Before I could react, the woman said, “Old he seemed, for such travel. Spry enough, but old.” She, who never was nor ever had a servant, shook her head over the ways of ladies, gentlemen, and their train.
Old. Who was he? And what “cousin’s manor”—I had never heard of Cecilia having a relative in the Unclaimed Lands, nor that “cousin” having a manor. Although most of these mountain people had never been more than a few miles from their homes, so that “beyond the mountains” might be only their words for every place different, farther away, unknown to them.
Over the next days, at houses even poorer, in mountain dells even higher, I learned more. Cecilia and her servant had stayed one night. The lady looked tired and worn, her servant very old. No, said the next family to give us shelter, he was not her servant, he was her cousin, taking her to his farm. No, said the next, there be no “manors” in these mountains—was I a fool? Nor were there any “ladies.” The woman, dressed in a plain wool gown, and her uncle were going home, farther toward the border. As he said this, the man’s gaze would not meet my eyes.
“What border?”
But the man turned away and stared into the fire, scowling fiercely.
The last dwelling, the poorest yet, was far along the track from its nearest neighbor. In fact, the track seemed to end here. There was only a rough hut set in a mountain hollow, beside a high, thin, cold waterfall. A silent family, parents and four ragged children, crowded into a single drafty room. No one would answer my questions at all. When I repeated them, the man told me to hold my tongue. Maggie and I slept that night in the goat shed.
In the morning, a child brought us two small loaves of bread. In the Unclaimed Lands, hospitality was practically law, and even unwelcome, too-inquisitive guests must be fed. The bread was hard and sour, the child ragged and barefoot. Some sort of fungus grew on one of his calloused feet, between the toes and over them. It smelled bad. I caught hold of his bony wrist.
“I have something for you.”
“Unhand Jee!”
“Jee, I have something nice for you.” With my free hand I drew from my pocket a carved willow whistle. I had made it one night at a campfire by a small creek, where willows grew. I blew on it softly, and a single sweet note sounded.
Jee stared. It was clear he had never seen such a thing. He wanted it, badly. I said, “You can have it if you answer my questions. What is the border?”
For a long moment I thought he wouldn’t answer. His little face twisted horribly, he reached down to scratch at the fungus on his foot, but his gaze stayed on the whistle. Greed triumphed over fear. He croaked, “To the cursed land.”
Soulvine. “Where is the border?”
“Be due east.”
“How far?”
“A day’s walk.”
“A day’s walk.”
“And the lady . . . I mean, woman ...”
“Hemfree be taking Cecilia home.”
A gasp from the prone figure on the straw; Maggie was awake and had heard. In my astonishment, I let go of Jee’s wrist. He snatched the whistle from my hand.
“Hemfree be taking Cecilia home.
” The child knew their names, knew who they were. How many others of the householders had also known, and withheld the information from the outlanders, the strangers from The Queendom? Who was Hemfree? And “home”—
” The child knew their names, knew who they were. How many others of the householders had also known, and withheld the information from the outlanders, the strangers from The Queendom? Who was Hemfree? And “home”—
“They maun travel hard,” the boy said. “Soldiers be coming after them.”
Queen Caroline’s soldiers. She had sent men to find Cecilia, who had ruined all of the queen’s plans. Was that why Hemfree had brought Cecilia so close to Soulvine Moor—because pursuers were close on their trail? How close?
I seized Jee’s arm. “How do you know that soldiers are after the lady?”
“I see them. From a tree.”
Maggie looked from the boy to me. She said slowly, “‘Home.’ Lady Cecilia is from the Unclaimed Lands. No, she couldn’t be—the way she talked, moved . . . she is . . . is it possible she came from ...”
“Yes,” I said, “she did.”
When Cecilia had sent me to Mother Chilton for the milady posset, I had not thought it strange. After all, even Maggie had recognized the name and known the old woman as a healer. But Mother Chilton had done so much more for Cecilia. She had sheltered her when Cecilia fled the queen’s wrath. She had sent Cecilia home, with the unknown “Hemfree” to escort her. And Mother Chilton had said something else on my last anguished visit to her, something about the queen. . . .
“
Caroline studied the soul arts but she has no talent. Still, it is why the queen recognized you
.” And, I realized with sickness in my belly, why the queen had brought Cecilia to court as a child. Caroline hoped that Cecilia would develop that “talent” that the queen lacked. She had not. But evidently there existed an underground web of these women, a web that spread gossamer threads from The Queendom to Soulvine Moor. Cecilia, Mother Chilton, Queen Caroline. Perhaps that web was why Queen Eleanor had refused to turn The Queendom over to her daughter. She knew that Caroline waded in dangerous waters. And now Cecilia, pursued by Greens, was being driven back to Soulvine Moor.
Caroline studied the soul arts but she has no talent. Still, it is why the queen recognized you
.” And, I realized with sickness in my belly, why the queen had brought Cecilia to court as a child. Caroline hoped that Cecilia would develop that “talent” that the queen lacked. She had not. But evidently there existed an underground web of these women, a web that spread gossamer threads from The Queendom to Soulvine Moor. Cecilia, Mother Chilton, Queen Caroline. Perhaps that web was why Queen Eleanor had refused to turn The Queendom over to her daughter. She knew that Caroline waded in dangerous waters. And now Cecilia, pursued by Greens, was being driven back to Soulvine Moor.
I don’t know how long I sat there on the reeking straw of the goat shed, blind and dumb from my inner terror. Finally Maggie said softly, “Roger?”
“Yes.” My voice did not sound like my own.
“Is Cecilia on Soulvine Moor?”
“I think so. Yes.”
“Does she . . . Is she ...”
“I don’t know what she is.”
But the moment I said it, I knew it was not true. I knew what Cecilia was. She was exactly as I had always known her: childish, heedless, sweet-natured, lovely, adorable. She was the “pretty little kitten” that Mother Chilton had called her. No more, but no less. She had no “talent”—that was why Mother Chilton had hoped that she could “find some goatherd or scrub farmer to marry her.” That was why this unknown Hemfree had been sent to take care of her. Cecilia needed taking care of. That was why I, too, was here. To find and take care of Cecilia, my sweet kitten, my love.
Maggie said, “Who is ‘Hemfree’?”
“Some relative or friend of Mother Chilton.” And perhaps of Cecilia, as well. Someone who knew the country and the people and, perhaps even knew Soulvine Moor itself. Someone who Mother Chilton could order about, as the queen ordered Lord Robert. A man who lived in the shadow of female power. Like me.
“Roger, what are you going to do?”
“If Cecilia has gone onto Soulvine Moor, I must go after her.”
“Please do not.” Her voice was reasonable, but reason barely holding back a storm of emotion.
“I must.”
“Why? To find a silly girl who doesn’t care three pennies about you?”
“I have to go, Maggie.”
The storm broke. “
Why
?” she yelled. “To be killed? To have your soul taken? Why?”
Why
?” she yelled. “To be killed? To have your soul taken? Why?”
“That’s a folktale. No one can take souls from the Dead.”
“You don’t know that!”
“Yes,” I said slowly. “I do.”
“It isn’t—”
“Maggie,” I said, taking both her hands in mine. “I’m going. If you don’t want to go, then stay in the Unclaimed Lands. Go back to that farm three days’ walk from here, they will take you, you’re a hard worker. Here, take this.” I fished out two of my remaining silver coins and held them out to her.
She threw the coins into the straw. “Keep your filthy money! But you can’t go into Soulvine!”
“I can. I will.”
“I won’t be—”
I lost all patience. “No one asked you to be anything! Go back to that last farm! Go back to The Queendom! I don’t care!”
She put her head into her hands and wept.
It was a gale of tears such as I had not imagined was in her, a deluge, nothing like the silent tears I had seen her shed for her slain brother. She wailed and sobbed—sensible, sharp-tongued Maggie! I didn’t put my arms around her. I sat, sullen, until the storm was over and she had grown quiet, and then I again laid the two silvers on her knee and left the goat shed. I headed east, toward the border, toward Soulvine Moor, and Cecilia.
25
A DAY’S WALK,
and the land smoothed out. It didn’t drop, but the ravines and hollows and mountains flattened to a vast upland plain. Nothing marked the border, but I knew I had crossed it. This was a moor, Soulvine Moor.
and the land smoothed out. It didn’t drop, but the ravines and hollows and mountains flattened to a vast upland plain. Nothing marked the border, but I knew I had crossed it. This was a moor, Soulvine Moor.
Almost treeless, the moor nonetheless had its own beauty. I don’t know what I had expected—bare and blasted heath, maybe—but the ground was spongy, covered with moss between clumps of low, deep purple flowers. Occasionally huge outcroppings of rock thrust up from the springy peat. These outcroppings bore green moss, reminding me of the boulder in the village of Stonegreen. But there were no villages here, no cattle grazing on rich grass, no chickens or harvest faires or pretty, doomed girls like Cat Starling.
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