Heartseeker Read online

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  I WAS EXCUSED from the rest of my chores.

  Non offered to look after me down in the cool of the cellar. Mama still wasn’t best pleased, but she used a wet cloth to wipe down my burning cheeks in the washroom. “Don’t think this is over,” she warned. “But right now, you rest. We’ll talk later.”

  My brothers, both hot and tousled, shot me dirty looks as they disappeared outside to finish their tasks. Non took me by the hand.

  “Come on now, let’s get you comfortable.”

  She led me down the steps to the cellar, where she’d set up a pallet. On the hottest nights, the whole family would sometimes sleep down there on folding beds. It always seemed strange to go to sleep under bits of dried meat or next to bushels of fruit, but the dark cellar was a welcome escape from the heat upstairs. Only Non didn’t join us on account of her snoring, which Papa said could wake the three days’ dead.

  I slipped under an old sheet on the rough canvas. Non brought me a cup of ginger water, cool, sweet, and spicy, to settle my stomach. As I laid my head on the down pillow, I sighed with relief and closed my eyes. I wanted to drift off, but Non’s stare was burning a hole in me, so I opened them again.

  “You got a story to tell, missus. Had your mam in a worry. The rest of us, too.”

  My aching head couldn’t take another lie. “It was the Ordish, Non. Two of them, in the roost, taking eggs.”

  Non puffed up like the barn cat when a stray dog wandered into its path. “Why didn’t you tell anyone? Did they hurt you?”

  I shook my head, even though it complained. “No, I chased after them. But—”

  “Chased after them?” exclaimed Non. “Child, you ain’t got the common sense Mother All gave to a horsefly! You went running after two Ordish in your underthings? Has the heat tainted your wits?”

  “They were whelps!” I pleaded. “I was so wild at them for stealing, I didn’t think. But then . . .” I bit the inside of my lip. “Their papa caught them. He was dreadful sore, and I kept thinking about the ransomers, so I told him I gave them the eggs.”

  Non went real quiet until she finally said, “And that’s when you got to feeling peculiar?”

  My head throbbed again just remembering. “Every time I say something not true, it hurts till I can hardly stand it.”

  She frowned. “That started a few years ago, didn’t it, right round your birthing day? Has it gotten worse since then?”

  I nodded miserably. Non crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair, staring at the wall. “Seems like it’s growing right along with you, like a bad knee that troubles you more the older you get.”

  I rested my cheek against the cool pillow. “It ain’t gonna get much worse than this, is it? What’s it even good for?”

  Non rested her chin in her hands. “Don’t rightly know. Show me the way of it again—I’ll do some fibbing and you tell me what you see.” Her eyes narrowed. Then she straightened up with a half smile on her face.

  “Once,” she said slyly, “when I was a girl, I wrestled with a dragon.”

  A quick volley of twinkling lights burst out around her, and I couldn’t help but grin. “Tall tales and kindnesses look like a bunch of candles flickering out.”

  “Pst, that was an easy one,” she scoffed. “Try this. When I was a girl of sixteen, my best friend and I were sweet on the same young man. It pained me to do it, but I told her she should be the one to ask him to dance at the harvest festival.”

  A blue shimmer began to ring her round. I frowned. “Did you do something shameful, Non?”

  “You ain’t got any kind of right mind when you’re sixteen. I did tell her to ask him, but then I ran and asked him myself before she had a chance. Then I told her that he asked me.” She shook her head. “Only reason that I ain’t more sorry is because the young man was your grandpap.”

  I went warm inside, imagining Non as a lovesick whelp. “Those were pretty easy ones. You only had one thing in mind while telling ’em. It’s when there’s more than—”

  “If you keep your head down, Pip, I don’t reckon there’s any danger in your little talent,” she interrupted.

  The warm feeling turned cold as winter as the dim cellar lit with green and twinkling white—the telltale marks of both fear and charity. My grandmother’s face told me all I needed to know—after all these years, my little trick had her worried.

  “Non . . .”

  Suddenly, upstairs, there was a rap on the front door.

  Non and I glanced at each other, perplexed. Friends and neighbors always used the stable door in back. Non said the only time you should come through the front door is if you’re being carried—coming home from the midwife’s as a babe, being hoisted after a hand-fasting, or being borne to the burying yard for a sending-off. Since no one’d been born, married, or died, the knock meant business.

  “Wonder who that could be?” Non mused. “Everyone in town’s doing morning chores.” She eased herself out of her chair and headed for the cellar steps. “Won’t be a tick.”

  As Non disappeared up the creaky stairs, I stared at a bundle of dried lavender hanging from the rafters above my head. Its faint sweetness drifted down like the orchard itself was trying to soothe my troubles.

  “Only?” Non called from the top step. “Child, I do believe it’s for you.”

  No soul had ever come to the door in search of me. “Who is it?”

  She held out my dressing gown to me and jerked her head in the direction of the great room. “See for yourself.”

  I shrugged on the dressing gown and padded across the kitchen, then poked my head round the corner.

  What I saw made me jump straight back. Sitting on the gathering bench and looking a bit lost were Lark and Rowan. I turned to Non in amazement. What are they doing here? I mouthed. Non, who’d begun to peel potatoes for luncheon at the sink, shrugged her shoulders and shooed me into the great room with her free hand.

  I took a deep breath and stepped around the corner. The two children had been swinging their legs and casting curious looks round the room, but when I appeared, they both leapt off the bench and stood stick straight. Both of them had unruly, dark brown hair with colorful strands of thread-woven braids throughout, sun-kissed skin, and the same uncanny silver-green eyes their papa had. Their red tunics swished as they rocked back and forth, all aflutter. The three of us stared at one another, just as we had in the coop, until the boy finally elbowed his sister. She stepped forward.

  “Good met, miss.”

  “Good met,” I started suspiciously. “What do you want?”

  “Um, you see, my brother and me, we . . . just wanted to say . . . to say . . .” She broke off, biting her lip and worrying the end of her braid.

  “To say sorry,” the boy piped up. “And thank you. For not ratting us to Pa.” He had a mischief smile, just like Ether. And just like Ether, it made me sore to see it.

  I puffed up just like Non, forgetting for a minute how small I was. “You were thieving from us!”

  “I know, I know,” Lark said hurriedly, “and it was dreadful poor thanks for the work your pa gives us. This here . . .” She thrust her hand out toward me. “This is to beg your pardon.”

  In her palm was a doll. Its head was made from reeds woven cunning like around a dried walnut and fastened tight at the neck with a string of small, olive-colored beads. Its legs and feet were carved from branches. But the most interesting part was in the middle—the belly was a cage of carefully bent willow with an acorn rattling at its bars. It was a marvelous little thing, and for a minute, I forgot I was angry.

  “What is it?” I asked in wonder.

  “It’s Jack of the Green,” Rowan replied, as if any fool would know.

  “It’s the prettiest doll I ever seen,” I said, reaching out to trace the lines of the willow. Lark quickly thrust it into my hands
.

  “The Jack ain’t a doll,” exclaimed Rowan. “He’s a spirit who lives in the forest. Likes to play tricks. Sometimes he’ll take the antlers of a deer and give ’em to a rabbit. And then he’ll take the rabbit’s long floppy ears and stick them on a snake.”

  I knew the Ordish didn’t go to sanctuary. Unlike Master Anslo, Mama said that their beliefs didn’t do no one any harm, but Jack of the Green certainly didn’t sound like the friendliest of spirits. I ran my thumb over the beads at his neck. “Does he do . . . anything else?”

  Lark rolled her eyes at Rowan. “Don’t listen to Ro. He likes all the stupid stories about the Jack.” She pointed to the acorn. “What he really does is watch over things waiting to grow. Mothers bury one in the ground when we come to a new place so he’ll watch over the whelps while we’re there.” Her words pricked at my heart, and she scratched the back of her neck nervously. “Anyways, we don’t often come crosses with someone who wants to save our hides, so we made him for you. Some of the craftier folk make real fancy ones of bone or metal, but . . . I like the wood ones best. They feel more like the Jack’s right there with you.” She poked a careful finger into the Jack’s belly. “Besides, with the metal ones, you can’t do this.”

  As her finger touched the acorn, it burst into a tiny flame. I gasped and almost dropped it in surprise.

  “Don’t fret—it’s just a glamour,” she said quickly. “Have you never seen one before?”

  I shook my head dumbly. I’d always heard of Ordish magics, but having one done right in front of my eyes was stupefying, but I held my nerve. Don’t be chickenhearted! I chided myself. You’re more than a little acquainted with augury! I turned the Jack over, watching the burning nut roll this way and that, merrily aflame without so much as singeing my fingers.

  “W-will it stay like that? It won’t set anything on fire, will it?”

  The girl smiled and folded her arms. “Pssht, no. Glamours ain’t real. But it should stay lit for a good long while.”

  For the first time since I set eyes on them, I was afraid. Was this why folks were so rattled when the Ordish floated into the valley? The whelp had just cast an augury in my house without a care—as easy as tripping over your own feet. As if it weren’t something dangerous for her or her family. As if she didn’t care what people like Master Anslo would say if he knew.

  Wouldn’t that be nice? a little voice in the back of my head whispered.

  While I wasn’t sure how I felt about the augury, or a spirit that liked to tinker with animals, I was sure that the two Ordish had been kinder to me than anyone at halls had in years. I wasn’t about to overlook a gift of two whelps who might want to befriend me. My green-apple side decided to take a chance.

  “Thank you. I like him very much.”

  Lark and Rowan beamed. “D’ya think your pa would let you come down for campfire tonight?” Rowan blurted out. “It would be awfully fine to have you. Older Harven’s strung a new fiddle and there’ll be dancing!”

  “Oh . . . I . . . ,” I stammered, “I don’t know . . .”

  “I don’t think her folks would want her to come down for campfire, Rowan,” scolded Lark. “It ain’t . . .” She dropped her eyes to the ground. “Well, it ain’t seemly for a landsman’s girl.”

  “Seemly don’t keep her brothers away,” complained Rowan. “Auntie Maven says Master Jonquin’s sweet on Mauralee. She says last season she saw them behind—”

  “Rowan, mind your mouth!” Lark hissed. She looked at me and bit her lip. “Sorry, he don’t always know when to stop talking.”

  So that’s how Jonquin knew the Ordish! How come I didn’t guess he had a sweetheart on the river? More to the point, I wondered how Mama and Papa would feel to know that Jon—the Jon that could do no wrong—was stealing away during the harvest to frolic with river folk.

  Despite being shook by news of Jon’s secret flame, I felt like I had a burning acorn right in the heart of me that was cracking its shell to let out an adventurous sprout. “I’ll come,” I said. I didn’t stop to think how foolish it would be to disobey my parents twice in one day, or how I couldn’t possibly explain myself if I were caught. But I knew I’d go just the same.

  The children exchanged surprised looks and grinned at me. “We’ll look for you, then—by the big oak just after the first star,” Rowan said as he and Lark made to leave the way they’d come in. I reached out to grab his hand.

  “No, not that way. None of our friends use the front door.”

  There came a light in Lark’s eyes, warmer than the flame in the Jack. “You’re a good ’un, Only,” she said as the two of them bounded out the door.

  The latch on the gate had barely clicked when Non cleared her throat.

  “So.”

  I turned to her, eyes pleading. “Non, I know you heard all of it, but please don’t tell Mama and Papa. Lark and Rowan seem so pleasant and they don’t care that I’m . . . I’m . . .”

  “A lady of a house,” Non finished, regarding me with a raised brow. “With a warrant from the king.”

  Even with her smile that meant all fun, I wasn’t sure if I understood her meaning. “Does that mean I can go?”

  “I reckon you’re old enough to look after yourself.”

  Unable to believe my luck, I threw my arms around her waist and hugged her. “Thank you, Non!”

  “Not too fast, child,” she chided, tapping my head lightly with the dripping spoon. “I’ll not tell your mam and pap, but if they come looking for you, you’ll have to lie in your own bed, you understand?”

  “I understand.” To tell the truth, I wasn’t hardly listening to her—my imagination was too busy conjuring up fantasies of laughter and wild dancing beneath the half-moon.

  Non recognized the faraway look in my eyes. “And just so we’re clear, little dreamer, this don’t mean that I’ll have with all manner of rule breaking from now on . . . but those two whelps seem like they’ll have a care of you. And more’n likely, your brothers won’t be far off neither. Especially if Mistress Mauralee’s about this season.”

  I rolled the acorn round the Jack’s belly. “Non, you don’t suppose any of their folk might know anything about . . . what I got, do you?”

  I might have imagined it, but Non didn’t seem to want to meet my eye as she gave the potatoes a rough tumble in the pot. “I don’t reckon it’s wise to go asking around, no matter how kind they seem. You’ll no doubt see all manner of strange and wonderful things tonight, but you keep yourself to yourself, you hear? Sometimes auguries can call like to like, so you stay canny.”

  “All this time, I’ve never told another living soul,” I protested. “I ain’t going to start now.”

  “I know you won’t, Pip, I know. It’s just that magics aren’t so predictable.” She smiled and shook her head. “The Ordish are interesting folk. You must’ve made quite an impression for them to give you that. Can I have a gander?”

  The acorn spit and guttered as I handed over the Jack. She traced the bowed wooden bars of its cage, studying it. After a moment, she broke into a soft, singsong voice.

  Bonny Jack, Merry Jack

  In’th bush and briar.

  Wise Jack, Wily Jack

  Crack the seed with fire.

  Crack with water, crack with ice,

  Crack with weight of earth

  For only in the breaking

  Are seedlings fin’ly birthed.

  “What’s that, Non?”

  She waved her hand before handing the Jack back to me. “Just a Ordish children’s rhyme. Now, you go stow that someplace safe and secret in your room.” She gave me a gentle shove toward the hallway. “Then have more of a rest until luncheon. You’ll need some spirit in you tonight.”

  I sprinted to my room. I ducked under my bed and pulled out the small wooden chest Papa had made me for my nameday the year before. I
nside were my birthday Allcloth, feathers from an applejay, a few smooth pebbles I’d found by the river, a purple snail shell, and a bunch of dried lavender. I tucked the Jack with its tiny, harmless flame under the Allcloth, closed the lid, and slid it back as far as it could go into the darkness underneath the pallet.

  Non came with my pillow and my sheet, so I made myself comfortable as she tucked it all around me.

  “Sleep well, Pip,” she whispered, kissing my forehead. She made to leave my room, but stopped at the threshold. “You remember now, stay canny.”

  “I will,” I murmured.

  As Non’s footsteps faded up the hallway, I drifted off to sleep dreaming of seeds, fire, and fiddles.

  5

  Dusk couldn’t come fast enough.

  But first, I had to take what was coming to me. A week of taking care of the roost before harvest chores, Mama told me. And I had to beg pardon from my brothers before dinner. I knew I was getting off light. If Ether or Jonquin had skipped out on their chores and ran out into the countryside in their underthings, they’d have been in ten times the pickle. They knew it, too, so I doubted my apology was going to make either of them any happier.

  As the six of us took our seats round the table, Papa folded his hands. “Before we sup, I believe Only has something she’d like to say.”

  Mama and Papa believed we shouldn’t break bread together if there was anger around the table, so whoever needed to beg pardon always did it right before we ate. Ether had it down to an art form—he had to stand up before dinner practically every day. It’s probably why he looked so pleased when I pushed my chair out and cleared my throat.

  “Mama, Papa, Non,” I began, looking at each of them in turn, “I beg your pardon for leaving my chores this morning, for being dressed improper, and for worrying you.”

  “You’re pardoned,” they all said together. Non’s mouth quirked up at the corners.

  I turned to my brothers. “Ether and Jonquin, I beg your pardon for making you run round looking for me.”