“If you want to cross the river, there’s a better place back in the meadowlands below your house. Let’s cross over there.”
Cocking my head, I stared at her, having no recollection of ever seeing her before. She had a cloud of golden hair that curled about her face and shoulders. And her eyes were very blue. They reminded me of what Granny had said about Ian Forbes’s eyes, and I got to wondering if she was some far-off and forgotten relative. And then I wondered how she came to be sitting there with nary a warning at her coming. She just appeared, quiet as a drifting bird, and called me Katrina Anice. It was a pretty name, though not my own. Cadi. That was my given name. Simple Cadi Forbes and nothing else. Oh, but I liked Katrina Anice so much better. It sounded like a name much thought on before its hinges were set in place.Wouldn’t it be nice to be someone special, someone loved? It would be a great relief to be anyone other than Cadi Forbes, even if just for a little while.
“I’m Lilybet,” she said when I stayed in my solemn silence. “My father told me about you.”
That surprised me. “He did?” I had no idea who her father was.
“Yes.” She rose and stood in front of me. “I know all about what happened, Katrina Anice.” Her expression was so tender I felt as though love reached out to encircle me in gentle arms. “I know everything about you.”
Lowering my head, I looked down into the river again. “Everybody knows.” My throat closed, hot with tears.
“Everybody knows something, Katrina Anice, but who knows everything?”
Lifting my head, I looked at her again, perplexed. “God knows.” God will judge. That did not bear contemplation. God is a consuming fire.
She smiled at me. “I want to be your friend.”
The ache inside my heart eased a little. Maybe, just for a little while, I would feel reprieved. “Where’d ye come from?”
“Someplace far away and near.”
I giggled, amused by her conversation. “You are very strange.”
She laughed, and the sound was like birdsong and a cleansing stream. “The same has been said of you, Katrina Anice, but I think we understand one another very well, don’t we?”
“Aye, we do at that.”
“And even better given time.”
Retrieving the basket, I headed back with her, climbing the rocks along the river, ducking beneath low, leafy branches. Returning to the meadowlands, we sat on a warm sandy bank and skipped stones. I talked, a flood of words after a long drought. And I dreamed, too, of times ahead. Mama would laugh again and Papa would play his dulcimer and Iwan would dance.
Lilybet had called me Katrina Anice, and the name offered a new beginning. Like Granny, she seemed to love me without cause. And though I knew in my heart I was undeserving, I grasped Lilybet’s offer of friendship with both hands and survived in it.
I took Lilybet home with me that first day, thinking to share the joy with Mama, but she paid Lilybet no mind, never even looking once at her. Not that this surprised me, for she didn’t look at me anymore either. Papa was not comforted by her presence; he didn’t like strangers about the place, and Lilybet was a stranger and inexplicable besides. She was unlike anyone I had ever met before or would ever meet again. Even Iwan was disturbed by her.
“Maybe ye shudna spend so much time talking with Lilybet, Cadi,” he said several days after Lilybet first came. “Leastwise, not around Mama and Papa. Ye ken, my dear?”
I did understand and took his gentle advice to heart.
It was in Lilybet’s company that I decided I must find the sin eater. The idea so fixed itself in my head that I thought of little else.
“Where do you think he might be, Lilybet?”
“He’ll be someplace where no one can easily find him.”
I couldn’t ask Mama about the sin eater for fear of what words she might lay upon my head for more disobedience. After all, Gervase Odara had commanded me not to look at the man, and my own cursed curiosity had done me in. As for Papa, well, he had such a dark countenance most times that approaching him about anything took more courage than I possessed. Yet I was plagued about the sin eater. Finally, I sought Iwan out as he was repairing a harness.
“Why for are ye asking on him?”
“He seemed such a sorry old soul.”
“And rightful so. He’s taken enough sin upon himself to curse him for all eternity.”
“But why would he do it, Iwan?”
“How should I know, my dear?”
“Oh, Iwan, why would he so forsake himself and give his soul over to hell?”
He lowered the strap of leather and looked at me grimly. “Ye shudna be asking about that mon, Cadi. Where would poor Granny be without him, aye? Ye shudna be thinking on him with pity. He’s gone now. He wilna come back until he’s needed again. Now, go on with ye and play. I’ve work to do, and it’s too fine a spring day for a little girl to be thinking such heavy thoughts.”
Iwan could be as firm as Brogan Kai was commanding. They both said the same thing: Forget him.
How could I forget him when he had looked at me and set his claws into my very soul? For every time I thought of the man, my wounded heart ached. He didn’t even have a name, but was called by what he did. Sin eater. Dear to goodness, even thinking about him made my flesh grow cold and prickly. Yet I had to know who he was and how he came to be.
And if he could rescue me.
It got so I couldn’t sleep at night without dreaming about the man. He would come to me in the darkest time just before dawn and say, “Who’ll take my sins away, Cadi Forbes?” And he would reach out for me, waking me up in a cold sweat.
During my wanderings with Lilybet, I saw Fagan Kai, Cullen Hume, and Cull’s sister Glynnis on the riverbank. They’d built a small fire and were roasting fish. Creeping closer, I watched them for some time from the green-and-pink veiling of rhododendrons and a blooming serviceberry tree. The boys were spearfishing, Fagan having all the luck.
“Why don’t you go down and ask them about the sin eater?” Lilybet said, but even thinking about it made me tremble.
“I’m fine right here,” I whispered. “I can hear what they’re saying.” And I could watch Fagan.
“He’s very handsome,” Lilybet said.
“Aye.”
“He’s a nice boy. He’s a friend of Iwan’s.”
“They’ve gone hunting together.” Fagan was standing on a rock in the middle of the stream, holding a spear high.
“There’s a big one swimming for you!” Glynnis pointed excitedly.
“Quiet or you’ll scare mine away,” her brother said in disgust. “Why don’t you go back and help Mama make soap?”
“You’re making more noise than I am,” Glynnis said, lower jaw jutting. “And besides that, you couldn’t spear the cow, even tied up.”
Fagan hurled the sharpened branch and gave a yelp of triumph. Stepping into the water, he raised his spear with a wriggling fish on the end.
“You did it! You did it!” Glynnis clapped and jumped up and down excitedly.
So impressed was I with his prowess, I stood, startling Glynnis, who startled Cull, who then missed his fish. “Yer lucky I don’t have a gun, Cadi Forbes. I might have shot ye for an injun!” Red-faced, he waded into the water to retrieve his sharpened stick.
Fagan told him to be quiet.
“It’s her fault I missed!”
Fagan waded back to shore with his catch. “I said leave her be, Cull.” He looked up at me standing at a distance. “What’re ye doing this far afield, Cadi Forbes?”
“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.