Tonight or Else by M. King

Author:M. King [King, M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press

MORNING seemed to come without the intervention of sleep, and Jamie stumbled through his day. Chores ran on from one another with neither meaning nor importance and, when Saul sent him to the butcher for a brace of coneys and two pounds of brisket, Jamie stood in front of the shop like it was a foreign land, no idea how he’d come to be there. He waited for the hours to pass in the hope that, keeping busy, he’d either see the night for what it had been—a dream of some kind—or that it would shrivel away in the daylight and never have happened.

All the same, he packed a bindle.

Jamie carefully folded the few clothes he had—spare shirts, breeches, Sunday garb, and boots—into an old feed sack he’d taken from the stables, tucked in a comb, a Bible, and the other odds and ends he called his own, along with two apples, bread, and some mousetrap cheese. He frowned at the meager bundle before he fastened it, no idea what he was doing. He might have thought to leave, but… like this? Still, the thought of Will intruded into his mind.

He’d only be going to find out the truth, Jamie assured himself. It wasn’t as if he harbored no anger toward the man, and Will deserved to answer for it. A year and no word. To leave those that love—that worried after him, Jamie corrected himself—and then sneak back in the middle of the night, secrets and riddles in the dark?

He’d go, Jamie decided.

The truth couldn’t be as bad as the things he’d imagined.

He planned to catch some sleep before he left, but there was no chance of that. Jamie sat up wide-eyed until the moon rose, fidgeting, ready to make his move. Easy enough, like before, to get out of the pub without waking anyone. He passed by each wall wondering if this would be the last time he saw it and cursed himself for such sentiment. The horses shifted in their stalls, and he bade them a silent farewell before making his way, soft-shoed, down the hill.

Keeping away from the main drag of the village, out of sight of darkened windows and bolted doors, Jamie crept up to the other side of the bay and the huer’s hut, nestled into the bosom of the cliffs. He didn’t know how old the hut was. Seemed like it must have stood there from time immemorial, or for at least as long as the village had depended on the fish. Nothing more than a tiny, low shack, its lopsided walls bulged outward where they met the earth, like the ankles of a fat woman.

Yet in the thin light of the moon, it seemed magical. Jamie marveled at how different everything looked in the small hours of the night. To do with the witching hour, he supposed, for it drew ever closer to midnight, and the superstitious thrill of that touched his bones. He gave a low whistle as he approached the huer’s hut, waited for an answering call, and his stomach flipped when it came.

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