Chapter 6 of 9·6 min read·The morning after Evelyn's arrival, through sunset
What I Could Give
Mateo took me to the north cabins after breakfast, and I carried my bandaged hand in my pocket so no one would mistake it for an offer.
The cabins stood beyond the windmill, where the ground rose toward the bluff. They were smaller than the houses by the gate, with roofs patched in tin and boards. A woman was splitting kindling beside the nearest one. She glanced at Mateo, then at Vincent’s badge, and kept working.
“Some of these families came last month,” Mateo said. “The others have been here longer. They’re still short on windows and roof boards.”
“I can see that.”
He accepted the answer without trying to improve it. Vincent walked behind us, his injured shoulder held stiff beneath his coat. I had offered to change the bandage again before we left, but he had refused. His refusal seemed less about pain than about not wanting to need anything from me.
At the second cabin, a little girl sat on the step with a tin cup between her knees. She watched my hand when it came out of my pocket to lift my skirt clear of the mud. I put it away again.
A man working on the cabin’s window frame looked over. “You’re the woman who came in with Mateo.”
“I am.”
“I’m fixing the sash. It keeps dropping.” He tapped the frame with the butt of his hammer. “The glass is cracked besides.”
Mateo asked whether he had another pane. The man shook his head. He had a board he could nail over the opening, but it would block the light and leave the room cold at night. He said it without accusation. He had already measured the board.
“Do you want help with that?” I asked.
The man looked at Mateo before answering. “If you know how.”
“I know how to hold a board while somebody else nails it.”
“That’ll do.”
Mateo fetched the board from the side of the cabin. I took one end, and the man took the other. The little girl carried the nails inside, careful not to spill them. Vincent stayed near the door, watching our hands and the lane beyond us in turn.
The board covered most of the opening. The cracked pane still sat in its frame above it, its lower edge loose. The man reached up to test the sash. The wood gave a sharp complaint. The glass slid down.
I heard the girl call from inside. She was still near the window.
My hand burned through the bandage. I reached before I could think of a better way. The pane stopped with its bottom edge level with the board. It shivered in the frame, held there by a force I could not see. The girl stepped back. The man caught the sash and pushed it up into place.
Next
Evelyn has written a question for the Pale Rider, but she still must learn whether he is bound to answer it.
He moved the girl away, and I eased the pane outward. It tipped free and broke against the dirt outside the cabin. The pieces scattered at our feet.
The burning in my palm deepened. I tucked it against my dress, but the cloth did nothing to cool it. No light came from my hand. The mark had not vanished; I could feel its shape under the bandage, hot and awake.
Vincent came close enough to speak without the others hearing. “That will help him find you.”
“I know.”
“You had time to choose.”
“I did.”
His mouth tightened, and he looked toward the road. He did not tell me I had been foolish. That would have been easier to answer.
The man stared at the broken glass. “You could’ve been cut.”
“So could she.”
The girl had gone to her mother, who had come out of the cabin when the pane fell. She put an arm around the child and thanked me, then began scolding her for standing too near the window. The little girl kept watching my hand.
Mateo had not moved closer. He was looking at me, waiting for me to decide whether I wanted him there. I was glad of it, and annoyed that I was glad.
“Can you do that again?” he asked.
“Perhaps.”
“For the cabins?”
“I said perhaps.”
He lowered his voice. “I won’t ask you to spend yourself to prove you belong here.”
“I don’t know that I belong here.”
“Then don’t decide today.”
The man hammered the board into place. Each strike drove it a little tighter against the frame. I helped him hold the far end, though my palm throbbed with every blow. The little girl’s mother brought us a jar of putty and a strip of cloth to cover the crack that remained in the upper pane. It was work I knew how to do without magic, and I was grateful for that.
When the window was secure, Mateo walked me farther up the row. We passed a cabin whose roof had been reinforced with old wagon boards, then another where a harpy woman was mending a child’s coat on the porch. She asked Mateo about flour. He told her the storehouse would send a sack before supper. She asked whether he had written down the amount. He said he had, and she made him repeat it.
“People here are particular about what they’re owed,” I said when we had passed.
“They have reason to be.”
He did not explain. I thought of the crossed-out names in his ledger and the way his finger had paused over one. There were absences in this place that no tidy account could repair.
“I can help with the books,” I said. “And with the work that needs doing. I won’t promise to use my magic for the settlement.”
“I understand.”
“I may choose to use it again. That will be my choice each time, not a service you can count on.”
“I understand that, too.”
I waited for him to turn the offer into a bargain. He only asked, “Would you like to see where the supplies are kept?”
“Yes.”
He offered his arm on the uneven ground. I took it, though I could have managed without. His sleeve was warm under my fingers. He did not look down at my hand or make a joke of the choice. We walked that way to the storehouse, past the cabins and the people who had allowed me through their gate.
Vincent came with us. At the door, he stopped to adjust his hat against the sun. I waited for him. He had walked west after me, and though his protection could not take root inside these boundaries, he had stayed when it mattered to me that he stay.
“You should let me look at your hand,” he said.
“I will, after we’re done here.”
He nodded once. “All right.”
The storehouse held flour, beans, nails, lamp oil, and several shelves of tools. Mateo showed me the ledger for the supplies. I found two entries with the same date and asked which was right. He checked the tally and corrected one. Then he gave me the pencil.
I wrote the amount in the margin, careful with the figures. My brother had taught me to keep a household account when I was young. He used to check my sums with the blunt end of a pencil and tap the page where I had gone wrong. The old habit steadied my hand now, though the mark in my palm kept pulsing beneath the cloth.
By late afternoon, I had helped sort the nails and made a clean copy of the flour count. I had given the settlement labor, a little of my skill, and one use of magic that I had chosen for myself. The last part frightened me more than the rest. I could not take it back, and I could not pretend it had happened by accident.
Before sunset, Mateo gathered the residents near the gate. He renewed his offer of shelter, and people answered as they had the night before. I added my own words in writing and gave them to him to read aloud. The Pale Rider waited beyond the fence, white against the dusty road. His gaze rested on my bandaged hand. I kept my mouth shut.
After the people returned to their homes, I asked Mateo for a clean sheet of paper.
“What do you need?” he said.
“I want to ask the Pale Rider what other rule governs his claim.”
Vincent came from the gate, where he had been watching the road. “He may refuse.”
“He may.” I set the paper on the storehouse counter. “But I won’t ask him aloud.”
I wrote the question slowly, then folded the page and put it in my pocket. The sanctuary held for tonight. Tomorrow I would learn whether the collector could be made to answer on paper.