A Time to Run
We worked through the night and eventually fell asleep strewn across a couple of armchairs.
Dreams came, hectic and disjointed; I was trapped in an underground building larger than anything human hands could build. The stairs wound in on themselves; the hallways spiraled into nonsense geometry, and the only exit I found was a waterfall into nothing. Shadowless people lurked around corners, pretending to want to help me. Something ran across the ceiling, chasing me. I steeled myself to turn back and face it, but I heard Miss Crosman.
“…leave, right now.”
I woke and, disappointingly, still heard her.
“I don’t care if she’s engaged to the tanner’s grandmother, she has to go!”
I opened my eyes to see Ancuţa and the maestress deadlocked in a heated argument that only Ancuţa tried to whisper. “We can’t toss her out. With all due respect—”
“Shove that respect right up your nose. It’ll only get worse if she doesn’t go. I warned her again and again. The mayor did. We all did.”
I shifted so that they could both see me. It was still dark, and I must only have had an hour or two of sleep. My mood stood testament. “Can we include me in this conversation?”
Crosman didn’t miss a moment. “Have you got your money with you?”
“Of course, I always have—”
“Get up. Now. I’ll not risk my life for you if you dawdle. Move it, you wereslug’s bottom.”
Ancuţa shuffled around, looking for something in a cupboard. For a second I suspected she only wanted to get out of the way, but she quickly returned with an intricately braided white charm made of the same forest Vâlva fur we’d been experimenting on.
“Shifter fur will get you through my Ward, but I don’t know about the rest of them.”
“I’ve ripped your contract up.” Crosman shoved torn paper squares in my hand. She’d done a thorough job, and many of them fluttered to the floor. “Not that you did more for it than fetch one letter and get drunk with your friends. Now let’s move.”
“Do I get an opinion?”
“Not if you want to keep your head.”
“Wh—”
“Shut up, girl. I haven’t got the time. It’s all gone tits up. There’ve been questions about what happened in the woods, and you came up as the answer. Those led to questions about the good reverend, and young Florin’s leg. Again and again, they point to you. The mayor isn’t saying anything, because apparently you’ve been a nuisance to him. Now, Pierduta’s gone, and people are about ready to ask you all those questions. Some of them would like to bring pliers to the conversation. We’re putting ourselves in a great deal of danger to remove the Wards and let you pass.”
Perdy? Where could she have gone? Wherever it was, I needed to be alive to find her. I gathered my wits and belongings. Angry mobs were only something you ever experienced once; either you learned the lesson, or you didn’t survive.
“I didn’t cause any of those things.”
“You know that for sure? Generations of people studying what goes on here can’t say a damned thing with any certainty, and you’ve got answers after three days.”
Ancuţa fluttered around. “There’s a back door. It leads—”
The maestress raised a silencing hand. “I know exactly where it leads, I wasn’t born this spring. Hush now, and when they come knocking, you haven’t seen us.”
We slunk out into a navy dawn, pressed up against the low stone wall that separated the woods from town. I figured we’d cling to that wall all the way to the trading post, but she immediately reached for a makeshift wooden door that seemed stuck right in the middle between the Wardens’ Warren and the home next to it. A thin pole lay across the threshold. She took it and stuck it into the gap under the door, searching for something. There was a clack, and it opened into a dark passageway.
“Mind your step, it goes down. Feel your way down the stairs with your toes. Quick and careful.”
I was so preoccupied trying to figure out how to be quick and careful all at once that I didn’t even question what we were doing until I was four steps down and the door shut behind us.
I was in a cellar. “Where are you taking me?”
“Are you daft? Out, I told you.”
A dark, damp cellar. “Through a basement?” I had visions of my body hanging to dry like meat being cured.
“You don’t have tunnels where you came from?” She scoffed. “You’re smarter than this. Ask me what you mean, plain and simple.”
A dark, damp cellar where Alec was waiting. “How do I know you’re not leading me into trouble?”
“I have better things to do with my time.”
I couldn’t budge. “You also have better things to do than help a bothersome stranger.”
“That is true, and I expect a ‘thank you’ whenever you please. We’ll be up again in no time, on the other side of the main road. All it is is two cellars stuck together.”
Goddamned cellars. I wanted to move on, but my clenched jaw and tense shoulders didn’t. Moving forward at all was like dragging my feet through knee-high mud. The back of my neck tingled, and it was all I could do not to whine in terror. It took three or four steps in the dark, walking across my own blind trust that she wouldn’t hurt me, but then I saw it; there was a light ahead. A door out. My relief belied my desire to call myself trusting.
“Once we’re outside again, stay as close as a shadow. Don’t make a sound. Don’t even think until you’re out of town.”
I couldn’t if I’d wanted to. A heaviness in my chest took up all my concentration to decipher. Could I leave, now? Did I want to? Did I have a choice? I was being kicked out, and that thought filled me with overwhelming sadness and shame. I couldn’t have fallen so hard for such a place in only a few days, but perhaps the feeling of being needed, of being able to help – that only took moments to get attached to.
Whatever it was I felt, I had to make my peace with it. I wouldn’t put myself through another mock trial ever again, and that was that.
Miss Crosman pushed the doors open just a hint. Light flooded down the dusty stone steps and brought a sigh of relief to my lips. “How are we going to cross town unseen?”
“Hush.” She peeked outside and gestured for me to follow.
The stairs took us up to a small alley right next to the bakery. It was quiet, but serious voices from the main road floated down the breeze. Miss Crosman dragged me by the sleeves into a doorway I hadn’t even noticed her opening.
Behind her, a startled baker, elbows-deep in flour, held up a blob of dough like a shield between him and the inevitable. “Maestress. I—”
“Noticed nothing suspicious.”
“The mayor—”
“Has no doubt offered a reward that isn’t worth your wife learning about your secret midnight meetings with Miss Bianca from across the road.”
“But I—”
“Haven’t seen us and we haven’t seen you. Nobody needs the trouble.”
His face looked like his insides were trying to burst through his nose, but he turned back to his countertop and smacked the dough on the stone surface. As he worked, we scurried across the room and to another door.
A set of wooden stairs led up to a handful of cozy rooms. My heart was pounding from the fear and the surprisingly rapid pace the sturdy woman set. A little blond girl playing with her corn husk dolls eyed us, surprised but unworried. I waved at her as Miss Crosman rolled up a window.
“Are we jumping?”
She only shushed me and pointed outside.
There was a broad balcony that nearly touched on another balcony belonging to the building across the street, but with my meagre knowledge of the town’s geography, I couldn’t remember what that building was. The gap would be easy to hop across.
She shoved me at the window and I gracelessly gathered my skirts to cross over the mantle. As soon as my boots thunked on the wood, more voices from below alerted me to a small crowd.
Relaxed and easy, a woman spoke. “Maybe we’ll finally have some quiet after they take her in hand.”
“We can’t just get rid of everyone we don’t like, can we?”
Both voices seemed rather amused. I crouched and crept to the banister, grateful for the wind and general noises from the nearby street covering my trundle somewhat. Right below us, three shopping basket-laden women chattered away peacefully. One chimed in through a mouthful of apple. “Why not?”
“Yeah, why not? That’s what civilized places do. I’ve read about it.”
“Oh, you’ve read about it.”
“I have. Sooner or later, we’ve got to be a civilized place too.”
“What happens when you’re the one people don’t agree with, Marta?”
“Why would anyone not agree with me?”
Miss Crosman kicked my heels and nodded toward the other balcony. I mouthed, “Now?” and she nodded some more. I had been quite enjoying the time to catch my breath.
I awkwardly balanced on the banister and rose, wobbling, to my feet. A laden market cart passed on the main road just then, and I used the roll of the wheels to cover for my step across.
“Who would be stupid enough to hide her?”
The ladies chittered gaily below me and I had to suppress a laugh thinking of the view they’d get if they looked up my skirt that very instant. It’d mean my head too, most likely, but it was no less ridiculous for it.
Hopping across, I did my best to land quietly on the other side. Fully expecting the maestress to fumble as much as I had, or more, given her age, I turned with a grin, only to see her gingerly sit on the edge and gracefully slide both her legs across. She scooted over without so much as a rustle. Well, then. Country living clearly suited her.
“Did you hear about poor Franca’s son, leg clean off?”
“That’s what happens when you bring strangers in just to stir trouble. You get trouble. It’s not complicated.”
“What’ll we do with her when we find her?”
“The mayor said she’d be put to rights and set to work for the town. That’s not so bad, is it?”
“Depends on what he means by ‘put to rights’. I wouldn’t want to be in her shoes.”
I rolled my eyes and moved toward the balcony door, but caught one more phrase before Miss Crosman shoved me inside, and it sent a wobble through my knees.
“That lost girl, though? If she ever comes back, I’ll skin her myself.”
Before I could pick up any more of the conversation, we were already rushing past rows of doors that opened into small and garishly painted bedrooms. A brothel? In Whisperwood? All was quiet, but downstairs, a dainty woman in green velvets smiled up at us from behind a counter.
“What’ll the ladies be buying today?”
Her tone was almost mocking, but Miss Crosman slammed two silver coins on the counter and replied as earnestly as though she were haggling over fish. “Discretion. I understand there’s no shortage here.”
The woman pursed her lips and nodded, and out we went again through the back door. I was so turned around I hadn’t expected to see thinning houses and a sliver of the road out of town in the distance, but there it was.
“Not out of the woods yet. This’ll be the worst part.”
It was full morning, bright and clear, and people stirred everywhere. A couple passed with a turnip-laden cart, but took no notice of us. We’d made it as far as the fish cleaner’s house with relative ease when a gaggle of women rounded the corner. Miss Crosman shoved me behind a barrel with such force she knocked the air out of my lungs; a good thing too, for the smell coming out of the barrel put me in mind of a sea monster bedding in a pigsty.
A raspy voice cracked like a whip. “Carolina.”
I peeked through the space left between the barrel and the wall. An ancient woman with a fine pair of brass spectacles brandished a wooden spoon at Miss Crosman. The maestress, looking almost spry in comparison, propped her arms on her hips in the most defensive posture I’ve ever seen her take, like a dog with raised hackles trying to make itself seem bigger.
“Elena.”
“Us old hens don’t go by our first names, Carolina. I’ve been Missus Balint longer than I haven’t.”
Miss Crosman shuffled and used her skirts to better cover my hiding place. “Out for a walk then, ladies?”
“You know very well who we’re out for. Have you seen her?”
“I’ve not.” Her voice was steady as the seasons.
“Would you tell us if you had?”
“I’d not. What for, so you can hang a stranger by the toes?”
“Did you no small measure of good when you first arrived.” The old woman cackled, and I found my mouth hanging in surprise. She went on, merrily. “In fact, many say it’s the only reason you’ve done as well for yourself as you have, Old Missus Balint’s tough love.”
Cobblestones crackled and Miss Crosman moved to the side to let the ladies pass, thoroughly hiding me between the barrel and her skirts in the process. If I didn’t gag from the smell of fish, they’d never see me.
“Good day, Carolina dear. And keep your nose clean.”
We stood in silence for another moment, then the maestress exhaled loudly, and off we went. She muttered under her breath the entire time, and though I caught ‘not in charge anymore’ and ‘old bat’, I figured it wiser to let her be for a while. As soon as we passed the last house, she swung us across the road and into a woodland trail that paralleled it.
“This leads right back to the trading post. It’s the old trail from before they built the main street.”
“Did I hear that right, you were a stranger here too?”
She hurried on, her skirts causing the leaves to rustle.
“How many of the people here are really foreigners?”
“This is Whisperwood. Everyone’s a foreigner, even the ones born here. Nobody belongs. We do our best. This is where life put us.”
I caught up to her, and we walked side by side for a time. “Maybe I don’t have to leave either, then. Maybe I can just lie low until Perdy—”
“Don’t kick at your last chance at freedom.” She stopped and stared me down. “You have no idea the pain I went through, the prices I’ve paid to be where I am. The people I’ve had to hurt to stay safe. To keep them safe. You’d have to be a fool or cruel to stay if you had another choice.”
“What about Perdy?”
She waved her hand. “She goes missing every now and then. Her aunts whip everyone into a froth like she’s been kidnapped by wind spirits. She turns back up. Things settle down. She’s a wild child, but nobody will harm her.” For once, there was actual doubt in her voice.
“You’re not sure.”
“You can’t help her, either way. If I only have one of you to worry about, I can maybe do something. Settle them down. Both of you, and the mayor’s ire, and it’ll be worse for everyone. Be on your way.”
Up ahead, the trees thinned, and I recognized the lay of the land.
“This is as far as I’m going. Walk on out and don’t look back, now.”
“What about the Wards?”
“The contract you signed with me was one, broken when we broke it. The Vâlva fur charm in your pocket will let you pass through the one belonging to the Wardens, and the one set by the Praedictors won’t be enough to stop you by itself, not if you don’t let it. I didn’t have time to ask them for help, so it’ll sure hurt like all hell, but it won’t be enough. Go.”
She took a moment to spit in her bosom, draw a circle in the dirt, then cross it, before rushing back toward town, actually picking up her feet for a light jog. I believed her, that she truly didn’t want harm to come to anyone unnecessarily, but I doubted that her and my definitions of ‘necessary’ were nearly the same.
I, on the other hand, dragged my feet through the leaves, doing my best impersonation of a petulant child. I walked in the right direction, at least, but couldn’t stop my mind from wondering what I might have done to change the course of things. What if I’d spoken to the mayor? What if I had taken a job? The Warren needed more hands, or the brewery.
What if I found Perdy? I hadn’t the slightest idea where she was, but the others might know something. Florin probably would.
I kicked a stone ahead, but the rustle that followed seemed too great. Holding my breath, I listened. There was a faint flutter from the trading post, then nothing. I peeked out from behind a tree, and my heart thumped up my throat.
Someone hung from the walnut tree.
I ran to them before I could think clearly, shouting for help. Two figures swung from one of the lower branches. The whole square was a mess and I tripped over something. Stumbling, I got a better look, and stopped.
The hanging figures were Pierduta and I.