“Time enow tomorrow, Katrina Anice,” Lilybet said, keeping pace with me. “Ye’d best go on home, now. It’s getting late in the day.”
Closing my ears to her, I kept on.
The burbling stream drowned out the sound, and I moved away from it, pausing to listen again. One last crack sounded, and then there was silence. Through a veiling of laurel, I saw a small cabin set back against the base of Dead Man’s Mountain, a thin spire of smoke rising from the chimney. A slender woman with a long, blonde braid was carrying an armload of firewood up the steps. She disappeared inside the house, leaving the door open.
I wanted to stay longer, but the sound of crickets was growing louder as the sun was slipping behind the western mountains. I had to go.
As I made my way through the heart of the valley, I was made uneasy by the mists rolling in. They was seeping through the trees and approaching fast. If not for the moon, I’d have lost my way.
Just then, a sound like a woman’s scream split the night, making the hair stand up on my neck. I knew what made that sound. A painter, it was, and close enough to have my scent. Thinking to keep the stream between me and the beast, I splashed across, slipping twice and soaking myself from the waist down. I didn’t care how wet I got as long as I put distance and obstacles between me and that great prowling cat of the night.
When the crickets stopped chirping, I knew it had leapt across and was stalking me. Whether it was behind or before me, I didn’t know. Too afraid I might run the wrong way, I stood frozen, staring into the growing darkness.
No insect rasped.
No owl hooted.
My heart picked up speed, pounding harder and faster with each breath. I heard a twig snap behind me and my breath expelled. I burst forward, running as fast as my legs would carry me. All I could hear was the pounding of my own heart and the sobbing breath escaping my lungs.
Why hadn’t I listened to Lilybet? Why hadn’t I started for home before the sun dropped past the horizon? A thousand thoughts raced through my head as my feet pounded the grassy earth. Not even the rosy glow remained, and the sky grew darker with each minute that passed.
Lungs burning, I stumbled. Catching myself up before I fell, I lunged on. Something was coming fast, bounding behind me, catching up. I could hear it gaining ground. The thump and rustle of leaves warned me of its swift advance. Turning, I saw a dark shadow streaking toward me. I had never seen an animal move as fast as that big cat did. My thoughts froze; I couldn’t move. Its sleek body bunched and then stretched out long as it leaped.
And then it let out a fearsome scream, for something struck it. I heard the thud and saw the beast spasm in midair and fall clumsily. The beast rose again, nervous and snarling viciously. Crouching, it crept closer to me—ears flattened, fangs bared in a deep roar. There was another thud, and the beast gave a sharp cry of pain, swinging to the side to face its hidden attacker. It let out a scream of rage as it was struck a third time, then bounded off into the forest again.
Panting, heart racing, I didn’t move.
“Go on home now, Cadi Forbes,” came a low voice from the dark shadows of the forest.
I knew that voice. I had heard it once before in the graveyard the night Granny was buried.
All reason fled. With a cry, I ran. I raced as fast as my legs could carry me across the meadows. My breath came out with each step, my heart pounding in my ears. Clambering up the hill, I bumped and scraped myself. Bounding up the steps of the cabin, I burst in the door, slammed it, and threw my body back against it.
Papa was standing near the fire with Mama, the rifle tucked under his arm, barrel down. They both glanced around sharply at my entrance. Mama took one long look at me up and down, shut her eyes, and turned away. Head down, her shoulders shook. Papa slammed the rifle back into its mount and came toward me. His relief was short-lived. “You’re all wet.”
“I slipped in the creek, Papa.” It was a lie, but if I told him I was on the other side of the river, he’d use the belt on me. I was still shaking from what had happened and scared enough to lose water. I didn’t need more torment.
He was not fooled. His mouth pulled down, his eyes narrowing in anger. “Adding lies to everything else, are ye, Cadi girl?”
A cold chill washed over me at the tone of his voice.
“Go wash up, Cadi,” Mama said, her back still to me.
“And after ye do that, ye con go to the woodshed and wait for me thar.”
Shoulders slumping and still trembling, I went back outside. I took a long, slow look around before I went down those stairs. I wondered if the sin eater was still out there in the darkness and mists watching me. There was wash water in the bucket. Staring off downhill toward the woods, I splashed some on my face and arms and then washed my hands. Shivering, I went to the woodshed and closed myself in. Sitting in the darkness, I waited for Papa.
He came with his belt. I could tell the anger had gone out of him. “I take no pleasure in this, Cadi.”
“I know, Papa.”
He disciplined me without another word. I didn’t cry for his sake. “I’m sorry, Papa,” I said when he was done.
“Being sorry ain’t enow,” he said grimly. “Ye ought to know that by now.” He left me alone.
I cried. Oh how I cried and pondered my sins. Seemed every day they grew heavier and harder to bear. They seemed to master me for I could not understand myself at all. I wanted to do right, but nothing I did turned out that way. I always ended up doing the wrong I hated. And even as I was doing it, like looking for the sin eater in spite of all warnings against it, I knew perfectly well what I was doing and did it anyway. I couldn’t help myself. It seemed sin was inside me making me do wrong. No matter which way I turned, I couldn’t make myself do right.
And it was going to get worse because I wasn’t going to stop looking for the sin eater. I was going to keep on until I found the one who could help me. And I was going to steal some of Mama’s preserves to try to draw him down from his mountain hiding place.
“I want to stop doing wrong, Lilybet, but I can’t,” I said, tears running down my face. “Even when I want to do what’s right, I do what’s wrong.” I knew how Mama would feel about me taking a jar of her preserves, but I was going to take them anyway. And leather-britches beans, and molasses, and cornmeal, and whatever else it took. More wrongs to try to make things right. I was more miserable now than when I’d started the quest after the man I thought could save me.
But he had saved me, hadn’t he? From the painter, at least. Trouble was, could he save me from all the rest?
“Keep looking, Katrina Anice,” Lilybet said. “Don’t stop where you are. Keep on and you’ll find who it is you’re looking for.”
“The sin eater was there, Lilybet,” I whispered. “Right there. He must’ve been following me.”
“Yes. The man helped you, Katrina Anice.”
“He hit that devil beast three times without a miss. Hit him hard enow to change his mind about eating me. He must have a slingshot, like Fagan. That must be how he hunts.”
“He’s but a poor man.”
“I was so scared, Lilybet. I’ve been looking for him days and days, and then, when he was right there, I ran.” I cried harder. “I’m a fool, a pure, cussed fool!” My chance had presented itself, and I had lacked the courage to grasp it.
Someone tapped on the door. “Come on back inside, Cadi,” Iwan said.
“Papa said—”
“Papa sent me. Now come on out.”
The dishes were cleared away. My stomach tightened at the aroma of the meal they’d shared without me. Iwan’s hound was eating my portion. I felt no tinge of resentment. I’d rather lose a meal than have Papa still mad at me. I’d deserved the lashing he’d given me. Maybe if he’d beaten me more, I’d feel cleansed instead of miserable.
Papa glanced at me. “Go on to bed.” He looked so tired and worn down.
“Yes, Papa.” I’d been to bed without supper before, but Granny had
always slipped me something. I knew there’d be nothing tonight, and I was resigned to waiting until morning to feed the wolf in my belly.
I slipped beneath the covers on Granny’s cot and pulled the quilts high over my head, burrowing down and curling up. Hunger pangs gripped my stomach. I’d had porridge for breakfast and then been too busy hunting for the sin eater to think much about eating. Six afternoons I’d been up on Dead Man’s Mountain with Fagan Kai and seen nothing of the sin eater. Six!
“Go on home now.”
He was there all the time, close enough to be watching us!
Oh, why had I run away? Why hadn’t I stood my ground and called out to him? He had been no more than twenty feet away, hiding in the night shadows, and I had run from him like he was death itself. I was ashamed for my cowardice. Had the man wanted harm to come to me, he would have let the painter make me his supper.
It was a warm night, and Iwan went out on the porch to sleep in the hammock. Mama went to bed after cleaning up the dishes and doing mending. Papa sat a long while, staring at nothing and then followed her. I heard them mumbling. He sounded gruff; she was softly plaintive.
“I canna help it,” Mama said.
“Ye can and you know it. How long’s it gonna go on?”
“I never want to go through it again.”
“Do ye think I do?”
“I can’t bear it.”
“There’s the truth of it. Ye want me to bear the load.”
“I never said that.”
“Ye dinna have to. Every time ye turn your back on me, you’re saying it.”
“Ye don’t even try to understand.”
“Then make me understand. Explain it to me.”
“It shudna have been Elen!”
“Ye’d rather it’d been Cadi. Is that what you’re saying?”
Mama started crying soft, broken sobs.
“Fia,” Papa said, his tone changed. I could tell by it that she was tearing his heart out with her grief. “Fia, ye canna go on this way.” His voice softened so that I only heard the gentle murmur as he tried to console Mama.
She would not be comforted.
It should have been me and not Elen. That was the thing of it. I knew it would have been right had it been me. For in truth, it was my doing, the tragedy that had befallen us. Leastwise, I could have prevented it. Miz Elda tried to excuse me because I was a child and I was thoughtless. Would that it were that simple. I hadn’t intended harm to come to Elen. I had simply wished her away.
Long after Mama and Papa were sleeping, I lay awake thinking about my sin, troubled into my soul, held captive by the terrible guilt. I wanted to tell Elen I was sorry. I’d been so happy when she’d been born, but hated her when she took Mama’s love away from me. It only got worse.
“Take care of Elen, Cadi,” Mama would say. “Watch out for our little angel.” And when Elen would cry, “Give her your doll, Cadi. It won’t hurt to let her play with it awhile.”
My throat was tight with sorrow. I sat up for a long while whispering to Lilybet. “Do ye think she con hear me, Lilybet? Papa said being sorry ain’t enow, but I’d like her to know. She never done nothing terrible wrong, and I was mean. I dinna want her following me. And that morning—”
“Who ye be talking to, Cadi?” Papa asked from across the room.
Looking over, I saw the large, dark shape of him sitting up in bed. “Lilybet.”
“Tell her to leave.”
My breath came out softly and I hung my head. “She’s gone, Papa.”
“I don’t want ye talking to her anymore. Do ye ken what I’m saying to ye?” He was angry.
Tears welled. “Yes, Papa.”
“Never again. Do ye hear?”
“I hear, Papa.” And I knew even as I said it, I didn’t mean I wouldn’t do it.
“Time ye stop acting like ye’re crazy. Now, go to sleep.”
Burrowing beneath the blankets once more, I closed my eyes.
“He doesn’t understand, Cadi,” Lilybet said softly. “Someday he and your mama will understand all of this. And so will you.”
Clinging to that promise, I closed my eyes and went to sleep.
S I X
Papa was up before dawn. He went out to milk the cow, awakening Iwan when he came back in. Mama filled them with porridge before they left to work in the fields, leaving me to clean up the dishes while she went out to work in the garden. I finished quick as I could and stole a jar of berry preserves from the back of the shelf. Setting it on the table, I rearranged the others so it wouldn’t be missed. I peered out the door to make sure no one was looking, then ducked out. I hurried down the steps, slipped around the side of the house, and darted up the hill into the forest. I hid the jar among some ferns where I could fetch it later.
After I fed the chickens, Mama set me to work pulling more weeds while she went down to tote water for washing. Papa had set up the big iron pot outside for her. She poured in bucket after bucket of clear creek water, then dipped each article of clothing until it was soaked. Rubbing soap onto the soiled spots, she scrubbed each garment up and down on her washboard. I toted water up the hill and poured it into the rinse barrel.
The sun was well up before the clothes were rinsed and the pot and barrel emptied a bucketful at a time around the seedlings coming up. Mama pulled up some potatoes, carrots, and onions and put them in her basket, which she held out to me. “Wash ’em in the creek while I get salt pork.” Soon as I took it, she headed off for the springhouse where Papa kept the meat.
Mama had the pot over the fire and the salt pork soaking by the time I got back from our creek. She was punching down the bread dough she’d made that morning before doing the wash. I set the basket on the table and stood watching her, wishing for a kind word. She glanced at me as though my presence discomforted her and dabbed beads of sweat from her brow with the back of her hand. Summer was just outside the door, heating up fast. Papa and Iwan were likely done with the fieldwork and fishing by now.
“Go on with ye,” Mama said, still not looking at me.
I fetched the jar of stolen preserves and headed straight for the family cemetery. Filled with dread, I entered the gate. My fears soon departed in the quiet. Green grass had already sprouted on the mound of rich earth over Granny Forbes. A smooth, multicolored river stone the size of a large pumpkin had been placed at the head of her resting place. By Papa, I reckoned. Putting the jar of preserves on it, I sat, raised my knees, and buried my head in my arms. Most of the time, my grief was tolerable. Then, sometimes unexpected, it welled up until it fair choked me.
Lilybet came and sat next to me. “She wasn’t afraid to die, Katrina Anice. She was tired.”
“It was too hard living in a house filled with sorrow and silence. She wanted peace. Now she has it.”
“Yes, she does,” said Lilybet.
“Only I wish she hadn’t gone.”
“She couldn’t help you.”
“Remember that last day when she was so quiet? She was thinking back over her life, wasn’t she? She missed seeing the spring beauties at Bearwallow for herself.”
“She missed more than that, Katrina Anice.”
Weary, I lay down beside the earthen mound and ran my hand over the sprouts of grass coming up from the earth blanket that covered Granny. I wondered what it would be like to sleep for eternity. Would she dream? Some nights I went to sleep so tired; then I woke up without a remembered thought for the hours that had passed. Was death like that? A dreamless sleep from which no one awakened until Judgment Day? Would time pass like a blink of an eye the way a dreamless night passed? Or was death a troubled sleep, filled with confusing dreams?
“What is it like, Lilybet?”
“I don’t know anything of death, Katrina Anice. I only know life. Turn your heart toward that.”
“Death is all around me. It’s right here with me.” Not just inside the gate of the cemetery, but all around us.
“So is life. You must choose.”
br /> Lilybet bewildered me. Sometimes she seemed a child much like me, and at other times older than even Miz Elda. There was something she was trying to show me, something important, something that would change everything, but I could not grasp it no matter how hard I tried. And I was tired, too tired from the night before to want to do much serious thinking on anything anyway. I thought perhaps she didn’t understand my meaning about death, for it was a feeling deep inside me. Even down in Kai Valley meadowlands, with the sun shining upon me, I could feel the dark forces surrounding us all. The sin I had committed was terrible, but there was more—so much more beyond my understanding. Part of me wanted to find whatever it was I was looking for, and another loathed the mere thought of changing anything.
I likened it to the gathering of clouds and the heavy air pressing down before the skies opened up and the jagged shafts of light struck the mountains. Sometimes the air was so full of power, my hair would stand on end and my skin tingle. God was in it, but there were others, too. Taints and demons, Granny always said. And I stood betwixt—hell so close I could feel the blackened pull of it, and heaven so distant . . .
Somehow, someway, the sin eater held the answers to all of it. If only I could find him.
Leaving the berry preserves behind, I went out the gate and hid among the ferns where I could see the sin eater when he came, but he would not see me.
And there I waited.
And waited as the day grew warmer and warmer.
Yawning, I lay on my back, knees up and hands behind my head, and gazed through the canopy of green to the blue sky beyond. Birds flitted from branch to branch, chirping and twitching this way and that before swooping off. And the heat came down through the trees, weighting my eyelids. Curling on my side toward the cemetery, I bent one fern frond down so that I could see through to where I’d left the jar of preserves. If the sin eater came, I’d see him straightaway. All this from the comfort of my soft, forest bed.