Remembrance by Rita Woods

Author:Rita Woods [Woods, Rita]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

27

Winter

When Josiah appeared at the door to her cottage, hours before sunrise, Winter had asked no questions, simply followed him into the dark woods. She’d have gone mad anyway if she’d stayed in that cabin alone with her thoughts a second longer. She didn’t know where they were going or why, but anything was better than staring up into the darkness, waiting for something to happen, someone to do something.

With only a tiny lantern for light, they made their way to the edge of the small clearing marked on one side by the hollowed-out oak tree and on the other by the massive mulberry bush, the same clearing where, days before, dogs had come racing out of the moonlight to tear her and Margot to pieces.

At the hollow tree, Josiah dropped to the ground and pulled a pipe from his jacket pocket. He tapped out the ash, refilled, then lit it. He gave a grunt of pleasure as he inhaled. Winter waited for him to speak, waited for him to explain why they’d slipped away from the settlement before dawn and come here, but he silently smoked his pipe and gazed sightlessly across the clearing, almost as if he’d forgotten she was there. She looked around. Everything—the drying grass, the tree limbs—was covered in a glaze of frost and twinkled in the half-light. A translucent fog hovered just above the ground, throwing odd shadows everywhere. She’d come to this place countless times in her eighteen years—it was here that Mother Abigail had found her as an infant, just past the mulberry—but on this early morning, the place felt foreign, frightening.

Something rustled in the brush and she inhaled sharply, but it was only a possum and its mate. She swallowed, forcing down her nerves.

“Josiah?” she whispered. “What are we doing out here?”

“Waiting,” came the reply.

“What,” she asked as calmly as she could manage, “… are we waiting for?”

“For Abigail.”

Winter frowned. They were alone. “Well … where is she?”

“She’ll be ’round directly.”

“Why didn’t we all just come out here together?”

“Cause we ain’t together.”

The hair stood up on the back of her neck. She shook her head, confused. What did that mean? Why couldn’t he just speak plainly for once?

“What about the pattyrollers, Josiah?” she said through clenched teeth. “You think they’ll come this way? Is that why we’re here?”

He puffed on his pipe, not answering. With a grunt of irritation, she made to stand. His hand shot out and locked around her wrist, and she cried out as he pulled her back down, hard, beside him. She could smell the cherry tobacco from his pipe.

“Just sit a while, child. Quiet your mind.”

Winter lurched forward so that her face was only inches from the old man’s. His flat, gray-white eyes seemed to absorb the little light there was.

“What are we doing here, Josiah?” she hissed again. “Something’s wrong, isn’t it? That’s why we’re here? Because something’s wrong? Where is Mother Abigail?”

The old man stared at her, unblinking, and her breath caught in her throat.

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