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CHAPTER TEN

T
HE CANDLE FLAME
flickered shadows on the walls, touched the white dress, lighted the sparkles on the blue dancing slippers that waited beneath it.

I stood on the bed and peered through the window. Rain poured down it in a steady stream, and I could see nothing through the fog of it. I ran my fingers along its edges. It had been opened in the past. The cords to raise and lower the sash were still there, but time and weather had stuck it closed. I took the quill from my pocket and poked its point into its lowest edge. A crumb of rotten wood fell onto my bed.

I caught my breath, then prodded some more.

I could do it. If I could get this unstuck, and if I could get the window to push up, I had a way out. I jabbed harder. The spike of the quill snapped off and stuck in the rotted wood.

No! No! No!

“Josie!” That was my aunt calling from the bottom of the stairs.

I looked despairingly at the embedded quill point but comforted myself that I could not, in any case, have moved the window in time for tonight.

The sitting room and kitchen were warm and filled with the smells of fresh bannock. The table was set with plates and a jug of milk and the big pat of yellow butter.

“Sit you down,” my uncle said, addressing me but not looking at me. My aunt immediately came from the stove to join us.

My uncle stood to give the blessing, but there was an air of excitement and urgency in his voice. He spoke so quickly, the words ran together.

“Some hae meat an’ canna eat . . .”

The plate my aunt set before me had two coddled eggs on it. She sliced the bannock and shoved it across the table toward me. It was still warm.

I spread butter on it. “This is so tasty,” I said. “You are an excellent cook, Auntie.” I acknowledged to myself that I said the words not only because they were true but also to gain her favor.

She grunted.

By the hearth, Lamb wolfed down what I took to be the remains of the fish stew we had partaken of last night.

“Eat up,” my uncle said to me. “There is no time for talk.”

Perhaps,
I thought,
there will be no time for readings or prayers tonight either.
But I was wrong.

“Stay where you are,” he told me when we’d finished eating. My aunt leaned across the table and lit the three red candles. My uncle opened the big Bible and read aloud. I tried to keep my mind on the words, but that was beyond my capabilities.

“Josie!”

I realized that the reading had ended, and I rose from my chair and knelt for the prayer.

Their eyes were closed. I reached behind me, slid the knife I’d used from the table and slipped it beneath my skirt. A knife to pry open the window!

Aunt Minnie’s hard brandy-ball eyes were open now and fixed on me.

“Put it back,” she whispered.

Denial would have been to no avail. She had seen.

“Be quiet,” Uncle Caleb said loudly. “I am speaking with the Lord.”

I wriggled the knife from where I had hidden it and eased it back in place.

After a few more minutes, while my uncle conversed with God, I let my thoughts wander to the window upstairs. So how else . . .

My uncle suddenly called out, his voice loud enough to startle me from my musings.

“Minnie!”

My aunt stood and began to sing. I think it was a chant, the kind that I had heard were done in Papist churches, though not in our staid Presbyterian meeting halls.

“Lighten our darkness, we beseech Thee, O Lord . . .”

My uncle’s eyes were closed, his chin quivered with emotion, his fingers caressed the growths on his ears.

My aunt’s voice was strong and harsh but incredibly moving, as were the words.

“And by Thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night.”

There was a softness in my aunt’s face as she sang. The severe lines had smoothed out. She looked pure in heart.

Warmth suffused me. Perhaps I was mistaken in suspecting them of nefarious doings? Perhaps tonight
was
just a business meeting to discuss the price of fish or the best fishing grounds.

My aunt sat and bowed her head, and my uncle spoke.

“Josie! Get up to your room and stay there. Do not come out until we summon you.”

I stared at him. My devout uncle had vanished. This change of tone, of attitude, jarred me back to my earlier instincts. This was not to be an ordinary meeting.

I went across to the hearth and retrieved the trousers.

They were dry and warm from the fire. I hung them over my arm, took the bucket and my candle, and started upstairs. Once I turned on the stairs and saw my aunt bend to Lamb and knew she was whispering to him. They both glanced up at me.

Instantly I knew.

As I had suspected, Lamb was to guard me tonight. He had been given his orders. I was not to be allowed out of the house.

Outside the storm blustered, thumping the tree branches as if some demon was trying to get in. The sea smashed on the shore far below.

I heard a sliding sound outside my door, the sounds of a body settling.

Lamb was there, keeping me under close watch.

It was not long till I heard the whinnying of a horse somewhere outside. Then the sound of hoofbeats and the rattle of cart wheels. Voices.

I strained to hear, but the rumble of the storm kept the words from me.

Another horse and cart were arriving below. The associates were gathering.

There was laughter, a shout of “a good night for it,” and the answering shout of “aye.”

“It’ll be here this hour. Angus MacCormick sent the word. It be’s coming now. It’s past Seal Cove, headed in the right direction. All it needs is a bit of help.”

There was a guffaw of laughter.

I climbed again on my bed and tried to see outside, but there was only rain and mist.

More horses. Had I counted four?

I nibbled at my thumb.

But now there was a change. The voices were inside, down in the living room. I pressed my ear against the door. Only a muddle of sound and laughter.

What if Lamb knew me well enough now to let me out?

If I could just be on the stairs, I would be able to hear and then, by the conversations, to determine what was happening.

I took off my nightdress and attired myself in jersey and trousers, my last thick stockings, my shoes. The trousers fitted well enough. I had no mirror in which to see myself, but I could imagine the ugly cut of me.

I took a deep breath and eased the door open, just a finger’s breadth.

A babble of noise came at me from below.

Lamb’s head lifted, but he made no other move.

My hand on the doorknob was clammy as fish skin.

“Lamb,” I whispered, and took a step out onto the landing.

He was up before I could say more. Every hair bristled. His lips were curled back on his teeth as he snarled.

I smashed the door shut.

Oh, my heaven! One more second, and he would have sprung at me.

I leaned against the inside wall, pressing my hand against the jolting of my heart.

I was imprisoned, and Lamb was my jailer.

But he hadn’t attacked me when I had simply opened the door and stayed inside my room. Could it be . . . ? Was I now trying to think like a dog?

It took every ounce of courage that I had to open the door again, just a pinch.

Through the narrow gap, I could see him, half asleep again, his giant head between his giant paws.

“Lamb?”

No movement from the dog.

The smell of strong spirits wafted up to me, making me want to sneeze. A sneeze could be disastrous. The need passed.

A few of the voices below were audible to me now. Some words jumbled over themselves; some were indistinguishable.

A man was speaking, gruff and loud. “We made a covenant, Caleb. Just us.”

“Aye.” Several voices. “We put a luck penny on it.”

“You and Minnie agreed to it.”

Lamb twitched and scratched his underbelly. I retreated a step and waited till he settled.

“Boris is right, Caleb. The fewer that’s sharin’, the better. You said it would be so—”

“But that was afore she came. She’s to be here for two years.” My uncle’s strident voice.

I clenched my fists. I was the “she” they were arguing over.

My aunt Minnie, the only female voice in the room, shouted, “She’ll be in agreement. I’ll see to it. Caleb and I can use help . . . Who better than our own flesh and blood?”

“Does she have the boldness for it?” A high, piercing tone.

“We’ll . . . she does. She’ll . . . on it right soon, anyway.”

Not every word was clear.

“Better with us than agin’ us,” somebody said.

In my mind’s vision, I saw my uncle standing before them. How many were there? Four men, one woman? I imagined him scowling, fingering his ear, playing on the bumps like on an accordion, along one way, back the next. “’Twill not be this night,” he went on, speaking so clearly that I could distinguish every word. “We first needed your take on it, and she needs trainin’. All right, men! Who is for us? Can we get a vote?”

There was mumbling below.

How I wished that I could rush down the stairs and scream at them, “I don’t know what you are devising. But I wager it’s villainous. It matters not how you vote. I will not be part of it.”

I was shaking and bone-chilled.

There were shouts of “Aye.” “Aye.” “Aye.”

“It’s done, then. We’ll get the lass ready for the next time. Minnie has her ways.”

“Are we takin’ Nag this night, Caleb?”

“Aye. An’ you’re the one to lead him, Bruce. Up and down, man. Up and down. Make sure you bind it tight.”

There was some subdued laughter. “Aye. A light’s no use to us if it falls off, Bruce. Ye remember the last time! Use a fisherman’s knot.”

My aunt Minnie yelled, “A brandy, then, to seal the pact afore the launching. The night’s a-wastin’. There’s four of us here’ll be on the water. With luck, we’ll need more than one trip.”

“Aye. God please there’ll be two or even three.”

They were going to launch their boats. What else could it be? They weren’t set on fishing. That I knew.

I gently closed the door, careful that Lamb did not hear me, and lay on my bed, imagining them riding tonight, dark and deadly on a dark and deadly sea.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I
LAY, MY BRAIN IN TURMOIL,
the candle sputtering on the dresser. Two nights I’d spent in this bed, two uneasy nights.

All was quiet inside Raven’s Roost. But outside, below my window, horses moved restlessly, whinnied, stomped their hooves.

Plop, plop, plop.

The monotonous sound of the rain falling into the bucket unstrung me.

It was not long till I heard voices below my window and the new sounds of horses’ hooves and the rattle of cart wheels. They were leaving? No. They were going to the boats. But why take the horses and the carts? The distance was no more than a stone’s throw.

I replayed in my mind the overheard conversations. Some of their words had been about me. Some about Dobbin, whom they called Nag, and some about fisherman’s knots and launching the boats.

Storm wind roared around the walls. A branch of the tree by my window banged the glass.
Let me in! Let me in!

Smash harder,
I thought.
Smash the glass into smithereens so I can climb through you and escape.

I sat up. I would smash it. There was no time to be weak.

I hefted the candlestick. One blow to the glass, two.

Nervousness, fear, excitement choked me.

The window cracked, then fell out with a splintery crash.

Rain and freezing air rushed in and blew out the candle, leaving me in the dark. No matter. I felt my way off the bed. I put on my shoes and stockings, limped softly to the door, and opened it a crack.

Lamb was asleep, but at the small noise I made, he came awake and unfolded himself sufficiently to make a move toward me. Silently I closed the door again and leaned against it, listening.

My eyes were becoming accustomed to the dark, and I could see the outline of the gaping square of window. Though I yearned to rush to it, climb through and avail myself of the sudden freedom, I made myself wait till I was convinced Lamb had again fallen into sleep, then climbed on the bed.

The words my aunt Minnie had chanted tonight tolled like a dirge in my brain.

Lighten our darkness, we beseech Thee, O Lord; and by Thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night.

CHAPTER TWELVE

T
HE WINDOW WAS SMALL.
Shards of glass adhered to the crumbling wooden surround. Outside, just beyond my arm’s reach, I saw the moving tree branch, leafless, skeletal. I had planned on stretching, catching hold of it, somehow lowering myself down. But there was that infernal gap between my hand and the limb.

Carefully I picked the points of glass from the bottom of the broken window and tossed them down to the outside ground, then lay flat on my stomach. I squeezed out as far as I dared, the heavy jersey saving me from splinters and wicked glass shards.

“Come closer,” I silently begged the branch. “I need you.”

Wind plucked at me, hurled my hair across my face, threatened to cast me away, but I stretched myself so I almost tumbled to the ground below and caught the branch. I stretched farther, though that seemed impossible, managed to get both hands around it, and pulled myself out. There I hung, suspended, my hands in danger of slipping on the scaly limb. Dark pressed in on me. I had thought I could wend myself across to the tree trunk and climb down it, but I could see that would be impossible. The branch I clung to swayed and dipped. Between it and the tree trunk was a confusion of other branches and the silhouette of sharp twigs. I was not sufficiently strong or agile to climb through all of them and reach the trunk. How far below me was the ground? Already my wrists were aching with the strain of my weight on them. I had to let go, drop myself into the blackness.