I approached the open door of the schoolhouse just in time to hear the scrape of chairs being pushed back for dinner break. About twenty students of differing ages came bustling out, pails in hand. I watched them stream past, searching for the telltale hop-skip step that gave Lilah away in a crowd. But she wasn’t among any of the groups gathering in clusters to eat and holler and tease.
I stepped inside to find her at the teacher’s desk, having lunch with her new guardian.
When she noticed me, Lilah leapt up, the contents of her lunch pail scattering across the desktop. The force of her running hug sent me tottering backward, and I nearly dropped the pen and papers clutched in my hand. I felt dizzy from the gust of relief that swept over me. “I’m so happy you’re here, Very,” she said, squeezing my middle. “Miss Maeve heard you were living on a farm. You don’t know a thing about animals or farming! Has anything tried to bite you? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine now,” I said into her hair. “Goodness, you’re squeezing tighter than a corset.” She eased her hold a little, but neither of us let go. At last, I handed Lilah her fountain pen, along with the draft of the story she’d been working on. “You left these in the trunk,” I said. “Let me know when you finish. I want to read it, cotton-candy clouds and all.”
“Deal,” Lilah said, raising the top of a nearby desk and tucking the things inside.
“Hello again.” Miss Maeve’s pale eyes met mine. I couldn’t help but return the smile she offered. I was struck again by her flawless porcelain complexion, the fairest I’d seen in this sunbaked country. Her beauty was not like Della’s warm loveliness; it was cool and shimmery, like fine silver. Miss Maeve handed Lilah an apple. “I hope you’re settling in well with the Weatheringtons,” she said.
“I have a lot to learn,” I said, surprised at how easy it was to be candid with the schoolteacher. Something about her invited me to say more than I intended. “The Weatheringtons are doing their best to make me feel welcome, but I’m afraid I’m more of a hindrance than a help to them right now.” I looked at the well-swept floor, unsure of what to say next.
“I believe I know something of how you must be feeling, Verity. I was about your age when Uncle Reuben took me in. My parents and my dear sister, Aurelia, died in an influenza outbreak. I didn’t know a soul in this town, but they all welcomed me as one of their own. Give yourself time, and you’ll find your place here, too.”
Miss Maeve reached out a slim hand and touched my cheek. I stiffened under her cool fingers, the unexpected contact straining the ease of our conversation. “I know it’s hard to believe for a girl your age, but things have a way of working out, given enough time.” She couldn’t yet be thirty, but spoke like someone a good deal older. “Be easy on yourself,” she went on. “You’ve had a great deal of upheaval and change in the past few days.”
“Verity likes to run things.” Lilah polished the apple on her skirt and bit down with a crunch. “She’s always planning something or other.”
“Not a bad trait,” Miss Maeve said. “You can’t let other people captain your ship. What if they run it aground?”
I laughed, a little uncertainly. Mr. Lybrand ran Maeve’s affairs for her, and it seemed almost everyone had a say in what happened in my life except me. “Will you two be at the fair?” I asked. “Maybe we could all walk around together.”
“Perhaps we’ll stop by for a bit. The fair is so hectic and crowded, I’m afraid it’s not really to my taste.” Miss Maeve folded her slim hands at her waist. “But why don’t you plan to come to our house for Sunday dinner? It will give you a chance to see Lilah’s new home, and we can all become better acquainted.”
“I’d like that very much,” I said.
“You’ll love it, Very.” Lilah clapped her hands. “Miss Maeve had so many fine things waiting for me. I have a whole dresser drawer full of hair ribbons. Don’t worry, I’ll share.” She paused to wrinkle her nose at my ragged braid. “Have you been doing your hundred brushstrokes every night? Because it doesn’t look like it.”
“Excuse me, Sassy Britches.” I covered her mouth with a hand and laughed. “I’m the big sister. I’m supposed to tell you what to do, not the other way around.”
Lilah’s response was to lick my palm. I gave a startled yelp and my sister dissolved into peals of laughter.
“Lilah.” Miss Maeve’s voice was firm, but kind. Lilah clamped her lips together and raised wide eyes to Miss Maeve’s face. “We must always think before we act. Do you remember what I told the class this morning? Every small choice we make helps create our character.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Lilah said, drawing a circle on the floor with the toe of one shoe. “I’m sorry.”
“Tell your sister. She is the one your behavior affected.”
“It’s nothing, really.” I didn’t know which bothered me more: seeing someone else take charge of Lilah’s upbringing and instruction, or seeing my boisterous, untamable little sister actually listening for a change. “She’s done far worse. I remember once when she got hold of the chamber pot—”
Miss Maeve lifted a hand to stop me. “Lilah will be much more respectful in the future. Won’t you?”
Lilah nodded, and I saw she was relieved to be in Miss Maeve’s good graces again. Lilah, who tied my shoelaces together and once braided my hair around the slats of my headboard while I slept. Lilah, who pestered and harassed and pranked with abandon, gave Miss Maeve Donovan a grateful smile. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to call the children in. Lilah, don’t forget to clean up your dinner things,” Miss Maeve said before going to ring the bell.
“I’ll see you soon. Sorry I have to go, but I’m on an errand for Mrs. Weatherington, so I can’t stay long.”
“That’s all right.” Lilah gave me another fierce hug. “Bye, Very.”
I felt my smile fade as I watched her settle back into her seat. Truly, it was a relief to see her adjusting well. But did she have to do it so easily?
I retrieved Lady May and started back toward the farm in mellowed spirits. For a quarter mile or so, the path went straight toward the woods before veering north to skirt their perimeter. I found myself giving the trees sidelong glances, feeling as though I almost glimpsed something in their depths. I was telling myself not to be silly when Lady May abruptly lifted her head, stopped, and stared into the woods. The muscles in her neck shivered, and she began an antsy sidestep.
“Easy there.” I forced calm into my voice, hoping she couldn’t sense my anxiety. “Everything’s fine.”
Lady May pinned her ears back. She whinnied and pawed the ground, backing away from the woods, her pupils ringed in white.
“Now, listen,” I said sternly, using my best “I’m the boss” voice, the one I’d practiced with Lilah countless times. “There’ll be none of this foolishness. You’re fine, do you hear?” I released the reins with one hand to give the horse a reassuring pat.
With a frightened squeal, Lady May dropped her head and bucked. The sudden motion pulled the reins from my other hand, sending me sliding sideways. My sweaty fingers scrabbled for anything to hold, but I caught only a few strands of mane as another buck sent me flying.
I hit the ground. My vision blackened with the impact. I blinked hard, regaining sight just in time to see the spooked mare spin and rear. Sun glinted off horseshoes above my head.
Hooves crashed back to earth right beside me. I had no breath in my lungs to cry out, but Lady May let loose a terrified whinny. A spray of gravel showered my face as she wheeled and galloped away.
When the sky stopped spinning, I sat up and watched the horse disappear from sight. A fine goose egg swelled on the back of my head. I pressed the lump experimentally, wincing. I could only hope I didn’t have a concussion. The sacks of flour and salt lay nearby, still tightly tied, next to the open satchel.
Head pounding, I gathered the fallen items. My hip throbbed. Shaking, I climbed to my feet and tried to walk. Each hobbling step sent bolts of pain sizzling down my leg.
I forced myself to focus through the pain, and the nauseating worry that I might’ve just lost the Weatheringtons’ horse. There was a chance Lady May would return to the farm on her own, since she’d bolted in that direction, but there was no way to be sure what the spooked creature would do next. I had to get back and alert Big Tom and Hettie that she was missing. But walking the road back to the house with a banged-up leg would take ages. Lady May could be long gone before I reached the Weatheringtons.
I stood and squinted into the murky woods. It would be much faster to cut straight across, rather than following the far-flung road all the way around. The trees couldn’t span more than a quarter mile across. I’d be through and back out onto the road in no time. If I were lucky, I might even come across the horse before I made it back to the farm.
With my jaw clenched, I stepped off the path and waded through knee-high grass until I stood at the edge of the woods. A cool breeze wafted from the shadowy depths, toying with the tendrils around my face.
It took only a few steps for me to leave the sunlight behind and pass into the dim forest.
The heat dissipated as soon as I moved under the outstretched branches. Patches of velvety emerald moss peeked out from under a thick carpet of fallen leaves. Ferns draped along low-hanging branches, kissed by green-tinged light filtering down from the canopy high above. I walked along, breathing in the damp earth scent, grateful for the cooler air.
For several minutes, I didn’t notice the unusual quiet. Then, all at once, the silence seemed to mass into a nearly solid thing at my back. No hint of birds rustling in the treetops, not even the shush of a breeze in the canopy. My steps suddenly sounded too loud. I gripped the satchel close and, ignoring my aching hip, walked faster.
As I made my way closer to the heart of the woods, the trees began to change. Scrubby pines and spindly oaks were replaced by towering trees with smooth gray trunks so massive I doubted even a chain of three Big Toms could reach around them. I hurried along hard-packed black earth, absent of the scrubby bushes I’d been dodging until now.
The air grew cooler. Then cold. My breaths came faster as I realized each ragged exhalation hung before me in the air. I watched the impossible sight, breathing out frozen clouds on a summer day. A violent shiver racked my body. I had stepped into frigid midwinter.
Alarm trickled through my veins. Something was wrong. Every icy breath heightened my distress. It was too cold, too still. And too quiet. This was the charged silence of hide-and-seek, when I knew someone—somewhere—crouched in wait. But this didn’t feel like a child’s game. This felt dangerous.
I broke into a jog, looking over my shoulder, my injured hip pulsing with pain. Briars snagged in my hair and ripped at my bare forearms. The cold only intensified. Goose bumps raced down my arms. Something followed. I was certain. The unseen thing pressed at my back, pushing me deeper into the trees.
Herding me.
My pulse pounded harder, faster, so loud in my ears I could hear nothing except a primal part of my brain shouting a warning: Behind you. Behind you. Look behind you! I whirled around, eyes wide as I searched for my pursuer.
There was no one there. Only the watchful trees witnessed my panic.
The intense feeling of being pursued ebbed away. My hammering heart began to slow. The goose bumps dotting my arms faded, and the air felt less bitter against my skin. I exhaled and saw nothing in the air before me. Yet I knew I couldn’t feel calm again until I’d made it through the woods.
Head down, eyes fixed on my feet, I kept up my brisk pace. I went only a few more yards before stepping into a clearing.
At the heart of the open space stood a well.
The posts and well wheel were gone, leaving only a ring of rock about knee high, its surface patched with moss and lichen. I guessed it to be nearly eight feet across, far larger than any well I’d seen before. I felt a stirring in my chest. The low, gray stones, worn smooth with age, seemed to call me. The need to place my hands on the neatly stacked rocks swelled.
I moved on noiseless feet, feeling dragged forward almost against my will. Hesitantly, I reached out. This well was far, far older than anything I’d ever encountered. I closed my eyes and pressed my palms against the stones. The hairs along my arms lifted. There was power here, something strong and ancient. I felt it snaking under my feet, lurking in the dark waters, seeping into the ground to be drunk in by the trees.
I jerked my hands back as though I’d been shocked.
Chafing my fingers together, I willed the ridiculous notion away. Reading so many of Lilah’s stories must have caught up with me. Laughing aloud at the fancy, I shook my head and opened my eyes.
In my peripheral vision, a shadow flitted past.
Squinting, I peered into the dim woods and again caught the quick dart of a small figure. “Hello?” I called.
A face peeked out from behind a mottled gray trunk.
The shock of seeing the little girl nearly startled me into fleeing, but I found my feet rooted to the spot. Her eyes, set in a round face, were deepest brown, rimmed by bruise-dark shadows. Long black hair lay over her shoulders, the same shade as her knee-length dress. She emerged from the gloom, her small, white hands hanging limp at her sides.
I blinked hard, to make sure my vision hadn’t deceived me. When I looked again, she was gone.
I scanned the forest to my left, then right, and spied her disappearing behind another tree. “Are you lost?” I called, going after her.
Slowly, she stopped. My heart jittered against my ribs. “Do you need me to help you find your way home?” My voice took on a hushed tone, the way one speaks in an empty church.
She shook her head. An explanation for this unexpected encounter came to me in a flash. The child must have followed me from the schoolyard. The feeling of being trailed through the trees made sense now.
“You can talk to me,” I said with what I hoped was an encouraging smile. Her face remained blank. Some of the anxiety I’d dispelled crept back in. Her expression reminded me of the few times I’d seen Lilah sleepwalk.
“You need to come with me,” I said, annoyance and unease mixing in a sour brew in my gut. No matter how odd the child was, I couldn’t leave her alone in the woods. “You can’t hide out here all day. They’ll be worried about you at school.”
I reached for her. Without a sound, the girl turned and moved swiftly away. She went straight into the forest, slipping between the trees on silent feet. The black of her hair and dress melted into the dark of the woods as she slid further into the shadows.
“Wait! Where are you going?” I hurried after her, but the laces of my right boot snagged in briars. With a groan of frustration, I sank to a crouch and began quickly untangling the knotted mess.
A creeping, slithering silence wound itself around me. Once freed, I straightened and called after her. No one answered. The little girl was gone. I searched for a while, until at last, only the looming trees watched me turn to go. Hopefully she’d returned to the schoolhouse, scared out of her truancy by our meeting.
When I pushed out of the trees and stepped back onto the road, I inhaled the humid, sticky air with gratitude. I threw backward glances at the woods for the remainder of my walk. The farther I traveled from the trees, the less troubling the inexplicable cold and the encounter with the child felt.
Blanketed by the flawless June sky, I hurried on and let myself think only of delivering Hettie’s groceries and finding the missing horse. I tilted my face to the sun, grateful for the relentless Arkansas heat.