The Last Sin Eater (3 page)

“Go on and tell him, Katrina Anice,” Lilybet whispered, still concealed among the leafy branches behind me. “Maybe he’ll help you.”

“She made me miss!” Cull said, the spear gripped in his hand.

Fagan turned on him. “This is Kai land and I decide who’s welcome. If ye canna hold yer tongue, get yer gear and go!” He yanked his fish from the spear and bent down to slip a thin piece of rope through its gills and out its mouth. Dropping it back into the water, he left it drifting with two others.

“I dinna say she wasn’t welcome,” Cull said sullenly. “I just don’t like people sneaking up on me is all.”

“I dinna mean to scare ye, Cullen Hume.”

Cull’s face darkened. “I wasna scared!”

“Yes you were,” Glynnis laughed. “Yer face went white as the underbelly of that fish.”

Cull turned on his sister, and with a shrieking laugh she darted away. At a safe distance, she taunted him more. “Cullen was scared. Cullen was scared.” When he pitched a rock at her, she ducked. Straightening again, she stuck out her tongue at him and continued the harangue. “You missed me! You missed me!”

“On purpose,” he shouted at her. “If I hit ye, ye’d just go crying home to Mama.” Turning his back on her, he glared at me as though all his misery was my fault. And maybe it was, since I was the one who’d startled him in the first place and given Glynnis the ammunition for torment.

“So?” Fagan said. “What’re you doing on Kai land?”

He was looking square at me.

“I wasna thinking on whose land I was. I was just following the river.”

“Following to where?”

I shrugged, for I wasn’t sure I could trust them with my quest. Cull seemed downright unfriendly. Though Fagan was playing gentleman, he might tire of it quick enough if I mentioned the sin eater. After a minute of waiting for an answer, Fagan gave a shrug and headed out to the fishing rock again.

“When ye going to quit?” Cull called out to him.

“When I’ve got me one more.”

“That’s what you said about the last one!”

“Cadi’ll need one to roast over the coals.”

I blushed, embarrassed by Cull’s resentful stare. “Thank ye kindly, Fagan Kai, but I gotta be going.” I edged toward the woods.

“Stand fast. It’ll only take me a few minutes.” Fagan stood poised on the rock, his spear raised once more.

One didn’t ignore the command of a Kai, be he the father, Brogan, or one of his three sons. Even this one, the youngest and least, commanded deference. I stood as I’d been told, wishing I had never let myself be seen, while at the same time glad to have gained some small bit of attention from one so important in our mountains. I had always been drawn to this boy. He measured up to Iwan.

Fagan cast his spear and leaned forward quickly. Grabbing the end, he lifted it high, sporting a writhing fish on the end. I expected him to give a yelp of triumph as he had before, but this time he returned to the riverbank with an air of dignity.

Glynnis came back, giving over her badgering of her brother. She admired Fagan’s catch with fulsome words and then turned a jaundiced eye upon me. “Does yer mama know where ye are?”

“She doesna mind my wandering.”

Cullen gave a short laugh. “I heard she ain’t been right in the head since—”

I ran for the woods. Fagan called out to me, but I didn’t stop. I was not going to stand and hear the rest of what Cullen Hume had to say, Fagan Kai or no Fagan Kai.

Diving into the leafy branches, I raced between the trees heading up the hill and along the wooded hillside.

“Cadi!”

Ducking into some thick bushes, I crouched down, out of breath. Sitting as far back in the leafy cave as I could, I drew my knees up tight against my chest and waited, scrubbing the tears from my eyes.

“Ye canna let words hurt ye so,” Lilybet whispered.

Words could be sharper than a two-edged sword. They cut deep and left me bleeding. I tensed and held my breath as I heard footsteps coming my way.

“Cadi!” Fagan stood not far from my refuge. He looked around slowly. “Cadi, where are ye, girl?” He stood quiet for a long moment, his head cocked slightly.

Like a cornered rabbit, I remained still.

“Cullen’s sorry. He dinna mean anything. He’s just sore because he ain’t caught a fish today. Come on out, Cadi. Ye must have a good reason to be so far afield.”

“Say something, Katrina Anice. Maybe you and Fagan and the others can find the sin eater.”

“I’m your friend, ain’t I, Cadi Forbes?”

“Are you?” I said from my hiding place.

He turned sharply, looking in my direction, but I could tell he hadna seen me.

“Go out, Cadi,” Lilybet said.

“Be silent,” I whispered to her.

“Go on out to him.”

“No.”

“He may know something that would help.”

“What could he know?”

“Ye won’t know until ye ask, now will ye?”

Pushing the branches aside, I stood up. He grinned at me. “Ye run faster than a deer, you know?”

Pressing my way through the shrubs, I stood in front of him, my cheeks hot. “Ye dinna have to follow.”

“No, I dinna,” he said and nodded his head in the direction of the river. “Come on back.”

We didn’t say anything to one another on the way, and I began to regret taking Lilybet’s advice. Cullen and Glynnis were roasting fish.

“I didn’t mean nothing,” Cullen said and handed me a long stick with a trout. It had been gutted and cleaned. I thanked him and sat down to roast it. Glynnis talked about helping catch the fish by scaring them toward the boys holding the spears.

“Fagan’s done it before,” Cullen said. “He’s teaching me.”

“You’ll do better next time.” Fagan tossed a fish head with skeleton attached into the brush. “I learned from my brothers. They used to plague me something awful about my aim. Took a sight of time to learn just when and how to throw. You’ll catch on, Cullen.”

“What’re you doing so far from your house?” Glynnis looked at me with curious interest.

Taking a deep breath, I let it out slowly, hoping my heart would slow down and drop back into its rightful rhythm. “I’m trying to find out about the sin eater.”

Cullen swore exactly like his father. “The sin eater! What’re you doing wanting to find out about the likes of him?”

“He’s a monster.” Glynnis’s eyes were wide. “He has fire red eyes like the devil and long fangs like a wolf. And his hands are claws.”

I knew that was not so but said nothing about it. Glynnis would want to know how I knew, and I was loath to admit I had looked at the acurst man when he was taking Granny’s sins upon himself. I had seen no fangs, but that didn’t mean he had none. He had surely eaten like a ravenous wolf. “Who told you these things?”

“My mama did.”

“He must’ve been a man once,” Fagan said.

“A man who gave himself to the devil,” Cullen said. “He loves sin. He spends his whole life looking for it so he can feast on it.”

“Maybe that isna so,” I said. “He sounded so awful sorrowful after eating my granny’s sins. And he called her ‘dear,’ as though he cared for her.”

Fagan, Cull, and Glynnis said nothing for a long moment. Fagan was staring off toward the mountains, frowning slightly. “I wonder where he lives.”

“No one knows.” Cullen shrugged. “Only time he ever comes into the cove is when the passing bell rings for somebody.”

“I’d be afraid to go looking for him,” Glynnis said.

“He must be somewhere close enough to hear the ringing,” Fagan said, still contemplating the mountains. “Maybe up there somewhere.”He pointed toward the highest mountain to the west. “My father’s always told me to keep away from those mountains.”

“Could be he lives up one of them hollows.”

Glynnis shook her head. “Couldn’t hear nothing if he did.”

“Well, maybe someone tells him when someone’s died. Who says he hears the bell?” Cullen said.

“Who’d it be?” I said.

“Gervase Odara maybe.” He shrugged. “She’s the one who’d know if someone was dying, her being the healer and all. Maybe she tells him.”

I thought about that. Maybe I could talk with her when she was visiting with Elda Kendric. She was there every few days with a remedy to ease the old woman’s swollen joints. “She used to come by our house and visit with Mama, but that was a long while ago.”

“Your mama don’t make people welcome no more,” Glynnis said. “Mama said she’s so deep in grieving over her dead that she ain’t got time anymore for the living.”

They all looked at me. I wasn’t comforted by their attention. I hadn’t come for pity but to find out anything I could about the sin eater. It appeared to me they didn’t know much more than I. Everything they’d said so far was guessing, and I could do that all by myself. I looked up at the mountains to the west and wondered if he was up there somewhere. “Seems a lonely place . . .”

“Maybe he ain’t far away at all,” Cullen said.

Fagan got up and washed his hands in the river. “Cullen could be right.Who’s to say the sin eater stays up on a mountain. Maybe he comes down and watches people.”

“He could be watching us right now.” Glynnis shuddered and looked around, face paling. “I wish you hadn’t said that, Fagan. I ain’t going to sleep nights now wondering if he’s peering in our windows.”

“Maybe he knows when someone’s going to die.” The thought clearly troubled Fagan.

Cullen tossed his fish bones into the fire. “Maybe he’s like the wolves sensing when an animal’s sick. He can smell death coming and prowls around until he can feast on it.”

“He dinna come when Elen died,” I said.

Fagan sat down again. “There was no need. She wasna old enough to have done anything wrong.”

That was not the only reason, of course. But he was kind enough not to say it.

I blinked back tears. “Granny told me once that all of us are sinners. They taught her that back in Wales.”

“If he dinna come, it must mean she dinna have any sins big enough to need eating.” Fagan’s tone was soothing. “He knows when he’s to come, Cadi. The night of your granny’s funeral, Mama said the sin eater knows when he’s needed.”

Did he? Was he out there somewhere watching us? Were his eyes fixed upon me?

“You going to eat that fish?” Cullen said to me. I handed him the stick with the half-eaten fish.

“Why don’t we look for him?” Fagan said.

Cullen’s head came up. “If he so much as looks at you with his evil eye, you’re dead.”

“No you’re not,” I said before I thought better of it.

Three pairs of eyes turned on me, wide and questioning. I blushed and put my head down on my knees.

“You looked at him, dinna ye?” Fagan said.

I’d opened the door to more grief and disregard. Would he tell my brother first chance he had?

Glynnis drew back slightly. “Dinna ye know you’re not supposed to look at him, Cadi Forbes? Dinna anyone tell ye?”

“I cudna help myself! He sounded so sorrowful.”

“He gave you the evil eye, didn’t he?” Cullen cringed back.

“Oh, you’re in it now. You’re in it.”

I jumped up, standing over them. “He dinna have red eyes. And his hands were fine and clean, not claws at all.”

“And his teeth?” Cullen leaned forward. “What about his teeth?”

“I dinna see his teeth.” My passion was spent and I looked away. “He was wearing a hood with eyeholes and a flap over his mouth.”

“He was probably hiding them,” Cullen said and sank his teeth into the rest of my fish.

“He must be a monster for all the sin he’s eaten,” Glynnis said.

“That must be why he covers his face,” Fagan said. “Whoever he is, he’s been the sin eater since before I was born.”

Glynnis shook her head. “Could we talk about summat else?”

“Now who’s scared?” Cullen said smugly.

“So what if I am? You ought to be, too.” She looked at me warily. “You shouldn’t talk about him at all, Cadi Forbes. Sum-mat terrible could happen to you.”

“Talking about him ain’t going to bring him down on her head,” Fagan said.

“Who’s to say?” Glynnis looked at him. “You don’t know what could come of it!”

“And you do?”

“I know enough to know he’s evil and no good can come of even thinking on him.”

“Why don’t you run on back to Mama?” Cullen taunted.

“If I do, I’m going to tell her what you’re talking about!”

“And I’ll tell her you’re a liar!”

“And she’ll take a switch to both of you,” Fagan said.

I sat silent, feeling the prickles of fear rising.Why had I trusted them? If Glynnis went home and told her mother we were talking about the sin eater, her mother would want to know how they dared. Cadi Forbes, that’s who dared. And Cadi Forbes hadn’t just dared talk about him. She had looked at him. Oh, I had sins aplenty onmy head and here was another. I could not go through a day without committing another grievous error.

“Glynnis is right.” I hoped I hadn’t done them harm. “I’m sorry I said anything about him. Just forget it.” It was my trouble and I would sort it out.

“You’ll have to pray,” Glynnis said. “Pray hard to almighty God that the evil don’t take hold of you.”

“I know.” I had done a lot of praying over the past year, but I didn’t think God was listening. I held more hope in Granny’s prayers on my behalf than anything I had said on my own. And Granny was gone. There was no one to intercede for me now.

I didn’t linger with them long after that, but made my excuses and headed back. Lilybet met me on the trail. “They don’t know any more than I do,” I said to her.

“Are you going to give over looking for the sin eater?”

I considered it as I headed home. Maybe it was a poor idea trying to find someone who was so much an outcast. Yet wasn’t I? Not an outcast from the community but from my mother’s heart. And maybe Papa’s, too, for that matter, though he didn’t make it as apparent. He could talk to me without that heart-split look in his eyes. Maybe men didn’t feel as deeply as women.

Yet, feeling as I did, I could not leave it as it was. I had to seek the man out, whatever the cost. Lilybet seemed pleased that I had not given up my quest. “Do ye know what ye’ll ask him when ye meet?”

“I’ve not thought that far ahead.”

“Think it through then, Katrina Anice. I think ye’ll come upon him sooner than ye think.”