02 - The Land of the Silver Apples Read online

  “Jack!” cried another voice. The boy swung around.

  “Mother?” he whispered.

  “This is very, very bad,” said the Bard, hurrying past Mother to lift up Pega. “Oh, my poor dear!” Her chin was dripping blood. She wasn’t crying, only staring at him with wide, frightened eyes.

  “Mother,” Jack said again, dazed by what he’d just done.

  “I came to fetch you home,” Mother said. “Lucy’s gone mad.”

  Chapter Seven

  GILES’ SECRET

  Jack followed his mother down the path. He was shaky, as though he were coming down with fever. He remembered his hand striking Pega’s mouth and her spinning away. An ache in his arm told him how hard he had hit her.

  “Why did you do that?” came Mother’s quiet voice.

  Jack didn’t know why the rage had swept over him. It was just so wonderful to see Thorgil. He’d never expected to, not in this life or in Heaven. Girls like Thorgil didn’t end up in Heaven, not even close. And then Pega spoiled it, coming between him and the vision.

  “I suppose I’m jealous,” Jack said.

  “Of Pega?” said Mother, amazed. She had wanted to treat the girl’s injury, but the Bard had waved her away.

  “Pega will recover more quickly with that boy out of here,” he’d said.

  That boy. Jack cringed inwardly. “I know it’s wicked to be jealous,” he explained, “but she sings so well and the Bard likes her so much. I’m not sorry I freed her,” he went on hastily, “but I thought… somehow… she’d go away.”

  “Pega worships you,” said Mother. “She tells everyone how wonderful you are.”

  “She won’t now.”

  They walked on in silence. The path descended from the sea cliff to meadows drenched in wildflowers—cowslips, marigolds, and daisies. Jack and Mother forded a stream buried in ferns. Skylarks called to one another from high above the ground.

  As they drew near the farm, Mother stopped. “I must explain,” she said. “Ever since the need-fire ceremony, Lucy hasn’t been right in the head. Oh, she behaves well enough around others. She can feed herself and talk, but she’s become convinced she’s a real princess.”

  “She went mad in the Northland too,” said Jack.

  Mother gazed at the farmhouse with its thread of smoke coming from the smoke hole. “Lucy has always been fanciful. So has Giles.”

  Jack could see it worried her to criticize Father.

  “He knows what’s real and what isn’t,” Mother went on. “Lucy doesn’t. She orders us around like servants. She won’t let her father touch her, says he’s a peasant. It hurts him.”

  “I hurt him,” Jack said. “What makes you think he won’t throw me out again?”

  “Your father is sorry for what he did. He won’t admit it, but if you ask his forgiveness, he’ll give it.”

  “He’ll also thrash me.”

  Mother sighed. “He probably will.” And then she added with a hint of mischief, “You could always offer up your pain to God.” Jack was startled. Father went on and on about how pain was good for you and how you could offer it up to God. Mother had never contradicted him. It seemed she had her own ideas on the subject.

  Why do I always have to be the one in the wrong? thought Jack as they continued on. But he knew he deserved a thrashing for striking Pega. What had possessed him to do such a thing?

  Jack had not been home in months, and he was shocked at his father’s appearance. The man’s shoulders were hunched, as though he carried a heavy burden. His face was full of shadows. He crouched on a stool by the hearth and whittled a chunk of wood. It wasn’t normal for Father to be indoors at this time of day. A farm in springtime wasn’t a place you could ignore.

  “What muck!” Lucy sneered, throwing a clumsily carved animal into the fire. “You’ll never be as good as Olaf One-Brow. Never, never, never! He made me beautiful toys.” She was dressed in her white Yule dress, now smudged with soot, and wore the necklace of silver leaves.

  “Father?” said Jack, swallowing hard. Giles Crookleg looked up. “Father, I’ve come to apologize.”

  “So you should,” said the man.

  Jack forced down a surge of anger. “I was wrong to hide the money. It was disloyal and dishonest. I’m here to take whatever punishment you think fit.”

  “I’d say you deserve it.” Giles reached into the heap of kindling and selected a birch rod. Jack mustered his courage. Father hit hard and thought anything less than six of the best was a holiday.

  “You’ve been bad,” Lucy announced smugly, wiping her hands on her grimy Yule dress. “I shall enjoy watching you suffer.” Jack promised himself to take the silver necklace away the first time he got her alone. Father grabbed Jack’s hair and raised the birch rod. The boy braced himself.

  But instead of striking him, Giles Crookleg hurled the rod away and sank to his knees. “I can’t do it! I can’t do it!” he cried. He began to howl.

  Jack was horrified. He’d never seen his father so distraught. “It’s all right, Da,” he said uncertainly.

  “I shouldn’t have lied,” the man wailed. “It’s my fault. Lucy’s my fault. It was the sin of pride.”

  “You must lie down, Giles,” Mother said, kneeling beside him. “I think you have a fever—yes, I can feel it. Come to the loft. I’ll get you a healing drink.”

  Jack and Mother walked Father to the ladder. He climbed slowly and painfully with Jack behind in case he fell. Giles crawled into bed, still sobbing, and Mother brought him a tea of lettuce and willow to make him sleep. Presently, he went off to whatever dreams awaited him.

  Jack sat by the fire, too stunned to talk. What had Father lied about? What sin had he committed?

  “I did not give him permission to sleep,” said Lucy, curling her hair around her finger and pursing her rosebud lips. “I shall have my knights thrash him.”

  Jack felt a tremor of dread as he looked at his sister. She had gone mad, and so, apparently, had Father. After what he’d done to Pega that morning, Jack wondered if he had too.

  It was a long, depressing afternoon. A boy from another farm arrived to help with chores. Most of the black-faced sheep had been driven to pasture, but a pair of milking ewes remained. They tried to force their way through the fence the boys were repairing, to get at the peas and beans. When they failed, they chased poor Bluebell for sheer malice until she fell down with exhaustion. Jack had to shut her into the barn.

  Ewes could leap onto a stone wall taller than a man, pause delicately with all four feet together, and spring to the other side. But a fence stopped them because they couldn’t balance on the narrow top. Jack watched with satisfaction as the ewes attempted the leap and failed.

  Jack ignored Lucy’s repeated attempts to give him orders. He didn’t think she was really out of her mind. She wasn’t like Daft Tom, the miller’s father, who had to be tied to a tree to keep him from harm. Lucy had simply hidden herself away, as she had when Queen Frith held her captive. With patience, Jack thought he could call her back.

  I could try farseeing, he thought. I found Thorgil. Would it be any different hunting for Lucy? But it might be very different. Thorgil inhabited the same world as he did. In what strange realm was Lucy wandering?

  Shortly before sundown the Bard arrived at the door of the farmhouse with Pega in his wake. “We’ll sort things out, Alditha,” the Bard told Mother. He frowned at Lucy in her smudged dress and at Father hunched by the fire. “You can stop staring, Jack,” the old man said. “Pega’s decided to forgive you.” Jack saw to his horror that her mouth was swollen and she had a long cut on her lip.

  “I—I didn’t mean to hit you. I’m awfully sorry,” he stammered.

  “I’ve been hit harder. Dozens of times,” boasted the girl.

  “Well, um.” Jack’s wits were scattered by her response. “That’s not good either.”

  “I, however, was not sure about forgiving you,” said the Bard. “It’s vile and shameful to hit someone who b
arely comes up to your shoulder.”

  Jack said nothing. What could he say?

  “But I’ve been thinking about this family all afternoon. It seems nothing has gone right since the need-fire ceremony.”

  Silence fell over the room. The last long rays of sunlight faded from the doorway, and the hearth fire, by contrast, grew brighter. It was a mild spring evening with hardly a breath of wind. Jack heard a nightingale call from the apple tree by the barn.

  “There were dark forces abroad that night,” said the Bard.

  “The door lay open between life and death, and it was of critical importance to have an innocent child receive the flame. Unfortunately, Lucy was not innocent.” He gazed intently at the little girl. She stared back at him, untroubled by his concern. “At first I thought only Lucy was vulnerable to whatever crept through, but it seems she has passed it on. I should have guessed it when Giles tried to buy Pega.”

  “It’s my fault! It’s the sin of pride!” Father moaned, rocking back and forth.

  The Bard glared at him and continued. “I’ve been worried about you as well, Alditha. You were forbidden to see Jack, but a loving mother would have sent messages to him. It seemed you had closed your heart.”

  “I hadn’t! I swear,” cried Mother. “But things were so difficult here.”

  “It’s not like you to be cruel,” the old man said, “yet you called Jack back, knowing Giles would probably beat him. This morning, when I saw what Jack had done to Pega, I was prepared to turn him into a toad at the very least. What were you thinking of, lad? You could have broken her jaw!”

  “I—I wasn’t thinking,” Jack said. He wanted to crawl under a rock and never come out.

  “I raised my staff, but Pega caught my arm. ‘He’s not like that,’ she said. ‘He didn’t know what he was doing.’ And I realized she was right. If it hadn’t been for her, lad, you’d be hopping around a swamp right now.”

  “Thank you, Pega,” said Jack humbly.

  “It’s the least I can do for someone who freed me from slavery,” Pega declared. “Besides, I’ve been hit by champions. Your blow wasn’t even in third place.”

  Jack had trouble sorting out the compliments from the insults in that statement.

  “Harm came to Lucy during the ceremony. It spread to Giles and then to Alditha. Last of all, it came to Jack,” said the Bard. “It’s like a fever in the life force. For all I know, it will infect the whole village.”

  It was entirely dark outside now, and a cool breeze began to stir from the hills to the west. Mother got up to close the door. The hearth cast a dancing light, and everyone’s shadow stretched out behind him or her to make giant figures on the walls.

  “Why hasn’t anyone given me dinner?” demanded Lucy. The light glittered coldly on her necklace of silver leaves. While the hearth was warm and yellow, the light on the necklace had a blue quality that made you think of glaciers and frozen lakes.

  “We’ll eat later,” said Mother.

  “I want food now!” shouted Lucy. “I’m a princess, and I don’t have to wait! Tell that froggy slave to get moving!”

  Pega jumped up with her fists clenched. “You take that back! I’m no slave!”

  “Froggy, froggy, froggy,” taunted Lucy. Pega lunged, but the Bard blocked her path.

  “That’s how it begins!” he cried, raising his staff. Jack felt a wave of heat, and Pega sank down where she stood. The air rustled as though something was flying over the house on giant wings. The Bard lowered his staff, and the moment passed.

  “That’s how the contagion moves,” the old man said. “It brings a fever and a rage. We must drive it off before it consumes all of us. The first thing is to get rid of that necklace.”

  “No!” screamed Lucy. “It’s mine! It’s mine! It was given to me by my real mother! I won’t let any of you touch it!” She became completely hysterical then, and Father placed himself between her and the others.

  “I won’t let you hurt her,” he said.

  “Giles, you loon, we’re trying to help her,” said the Bard. “She was vulnerable during the need-fire ceremony because of that necklace. It must go.” Mother, Jack, and Pega stood behind the old man. Jack felt somewhat hysterical himself. It seemed possible they would have to overpower Father, and the outcome of that wasn’t certain. Father might be lame, but he’d been hardened by years of farmwork. He was as tough as an old oak tree and as stubborn as a black-faced ram.

  “It’s not her fault, see,” Giles Crookleg said. “It’s mine, from a lie I told long ago. I knew better—yes, I did—but I had the sin of pride. I was tempted and found wanting. Now the wages of sin have come upon me.”

  The Bard sat down on a bench and rubbed his eyes. “You’re making even less sense than usual. I swear you’re responsible for half the headaches in this village.” The dangerous tension in the room ebbed away. Jack and Pega settled themselves at the Bard’s feet, and Jack was heartily grateful they hadn’t come to blows.

  “You’d better tell me about that lie, Giles,” said the old man, massaging his forehead. “From all the sin you keep going on about, I’m sure it’s going to be spectacular.”

  Chapter Eight

  THE LOST CHILD

  “Lucy was only two days old,” Father began, “but Alditha was sick with milk fever. She was unable to nurse the infant. Fortunately, the tanner’s wife had just given birth to a child. I packed Lucy in a basket and carried her to the tannery, which, as you know, is on the other side of the hazel wood.” Jack knew the place—who didn’t? Before the tanner had died two years ago, you could smell his workyard long before you could see it. He soaked hides people brought him in a great lime pit. After the hair had fallen off, he scraped the skins, soaked them in a sludge of bark to turn them brown, and packed them in whatever rotten fruit he could beg from farmers. He finished with a coating of pig and chicken manure. To say the place reeked like the back gate of Hell didn’t even come close.

  But it was a matter of life and death, Jack realized, for Lucy to be taken there. He half remembered her being gone. He’d been more concerned with Mother’s illness at the time.

  “The tanner’s wife, bless her, nursed Lucy until Alditha recovered,” Father said. “I went to fetch the infant home, and on the way back I saw that the ground of the hazel wood was covered with ripe nuts. It was a fine opportunity. That late in the season, the wild pigs had usually cleaned them up. I wedged Lucy’s basket into the branches of an elder tree at the edge of the wood. She was well hidden there, sleeping like a little angel. I remember thinking how like me she was.”

  Jack, the Bard, and Mother all sat up straight. Pega, not being that familiar with the family, continued to watch Father with rapt attention. The others knew that Lucy was nothing like Giles Crookleg. That was the wonder of her. She was golden-haired and blue-eyed, as pretty as a sunbeam in a dark forest.

  “I thought she’d be safe,” mourned Father. “I thought nothing could reach her. I filled a bag with hazelnuts, and when I returned, I saw something move in the elder tree. I dropped the bag and ran. I heard the most terrible keening noise, worse than the howling of wolves. From all sides of the elder tree jumped a swarm of… things.

  “They were like small, misshapen men, dappled and spotted as the grass on a forest floor. They moved around in a dizzying way, first visible, then melting into the leaves, then visible again. They scuttled around like spiders, passing a bundle from one to the other, and I saw—I saw—that it was Lucy!”

  Father bent double, almost putting his head on his knees. Jack thought the man was going to be sick. He felt sick himself at the thought of that tiny baby being tossed back and forth. Mother had turned white with shock.

  “What happened next?” asked the Bard.

  Giles Crookleg sat up, his face twisted with pain. “I tried to catch them, but they kept weaving back and forth, tossing the baby between them. They sped off through the trees and up into the hills, away from the village. They went under branches so
low, I couldn’t follow and through gaps so narrow, I had to go around. I cursed my lameness. My speed was no match for theirs. They pulled away, going farther and farther ahead until they were only a blur in the distance. And then they were gone.

  “Still I ran, calling and promising them anything if only they would give me back my child. But they never answered. There were dozens of trails in the forest, dozens of little streams and valleys. I searched one after the other until darkness began to fall. At last I returned to the elder tree. I knelt down under it and prayed to God for mercy, if not for me, for Alditha.

  “And as I prayed, I heard the wonderful, warbling sound of a happy baby. I climbed up to the basket, and there, wrapped in a blanket, was the most beautiful infant I had ever seen. I knew God had sent her,” said Giles Crookleg, his eyes alight with joy. He looked utterly transported, but as the moments passed with no one breaking the silence, the rapture faded from his face.

  “I hope God sent her,” he said.

  It broke the spell. “Do you mean Lucy isn’t my child?” cried Mother.

  “I told you I wasn’t,” said Lucy comfortably. Of all the people in the room, she was the only one who wasn’t dismayed. She stretched her arms like a cat and yawned delicately. “Da always said I was a princess.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me the truth?” shrilled Mother. “I would have taken this Lucy, but I’d have searched for the other one. The whole village could have helped.”

  “Yes, well, you were ill. You were quite out of your head for a while.”

  “Not then! Not when you came back! I thought the baby looked different, but I’d only seen her briefly. Oh, Giles, how could you?”

  “I was tempted and found wanting,” Father said in a hollow voice. “I fell into sin. Don’t think I haven’t scourged myself for weakness!”

  “Please stop offering up your pain to God,” the Bard said wearily. “We have a serious problem, and it hasn’t been helped by your deception.” He walked over to Lucy and looked into her eyes. Mother had sunk to a bench. She hardly seemed to breathe. Jack felt he was in a bad dream. How could Lucy stop being his sister? But he had to admit she sometimes acted strangely.