Page 52 of The Thirteenth Child
Now my stomach was a ball of nerves, and every muscle in me jangled with barely suppressed anticipation.
We were actually doing this.
We were packing up and leaving Alletois for good.
I had no pretensions that Merrick would be unable to find us, to findme,wherever I went. But Kieron and I would be married by then, man and wife, and there wasn’t a thing my godfather could doto break that vow.
My fingers tapped on the sill. Where was Kieron?
The clock on the mantel said it was half past eleven, and he’d promised to arrive by noon. There was still time left—so, so, so much time—but I felt annoyed with the wait. If our roles were reversed and it was me meeting him, I would have had the horse and cart waiting outside his farmhouse at daybreak.
I whirled away from the window, pushing aside the unhelpful thoughts.
Kieron had wanted to finish his chores, the last ones he’d do for his father, and see that everything at the farm was left just so. Following his lead, I stalked about my own house, making sure I’d not left anything important behind, scrawling out a list of instructions for the young boy I’d hired to look after the cottage until someone else would move in. Cosmos would come with us, but there were all my fowls and the gardens to tend to.
As I paced from room to room, feeling my anxiety and trying to understand its root, my pup skittered after me, his nails clicking on the wooden floors.
When the clock chimed twelve, I raced to the front window, but there was still no sign of Kieron.
Restless, I moved my belongings to the porch, certain he’d be here soon. He’d probably gotten caught up saying farewell to his parents.
The ghosts were in a line in their spot across the field, againstthe fence, nothing more than dark shapes on the horizon, but even from a distance, I could tell they were watching me. I’d driven them back there earlier that morning, then surrounded them with a circle of salt. I knew it wouldn’t keep them there forever, knew eventually the circle would wear thin and break, but Kieron and I would be long gone by then. It could take them months to finally stumble their way to me again.
Unsure of what to do with myself, I went through the house one last time. I spotted my valise under the worktable in the study but left it where it was. I didn’t know what the future held for me, for us, but I planned to never treat another person again. I would not add to my collection of ghosts. If I was cutting ties with Merrick and his dreams for me, I was going to sever them all.
A quarter of an hour went by.
Then another. And another.
And still no Kieron.
At one o’clock, I decided to go after him.
I loaded the cart with my bags and hitched up my dappled mare. I whistled for Cosmos to hop into the back and I left the cottage behind without a second glance. There was too much promise ahead to spend the day looking backward.
We took the land at a brisk trot, flying by the ghosts without acknowledgment. The sun was shining and the day smelled of warmed earth and flowering trees. I nearly laughed aloud as I pictured Kieron on his way to me now, how we’d run into each other on the narrow little lane and have to decide whose cart we’d take. But we didn’t meet on the lane, and we didn’t meet on the road, and I made it all the way to the LeCompte farm without seeing my beloved.
I hitched Zadie to a post, expecting Kieron to come out in a rush of apologies and explanations, but the farmhouse was still.
No one answered when I knocked, and I paused, wholly unsure of what I ought to do next. Were they still at work in the orchards? Had they gone into the village for supplies? It would be just like Kieron to want to help his father for as long as he could, putting in a full day’s work before he snuck off to elope.
I was just about to go to the barn, to see if their cart was there, when I heard a swiftcrackfrom the back of the house.
Curiosity led me around the porch.
I found Kieron, still in his work clothes, splitting logs. I leaned against the railing to admire my almost-husband, watching the way the sunlight played across his long, lean form, the way the sleeves of his shirt strained over his biceps.
But something was wrong.
The swing of his axe was wide and unfocused, never striking its intended mark.
“Kieron?” I called, keeping my voice light. “Have you forgotten what time it is? What day it is?”
I tried to laugh, as if this would be a joke we’d tell many times throughout our lives, even when we were old and wrinkled and gray.Do you remember the time you forgot you were eloping with me?I smiled too widely, desperately trying to push down the sense of unease growing in my middle telling me that something wasn’t right, that something was terribly, terribly wrong.
He turned on shaking legs, his eyes listing vaguely somewhere above my right shoulder, and all traces of my attempted laughter died away.
“Hazel!” he exclaimed, and his voice was wrong too, thick with consonants grown soft. A curtain of blood fell from his hairline.
