The Safe-Keeper's Secret Read online

  Reed, who rarely had the patience to sit at the hearth and plait tree limbs together, had been outside in the cold dark since directly after dinner. But now he came bursting through the front door, bringing starlight and frost in with him.

  “Reed! Close the door!” Isadora begged.

  It slammed behind him as he came bounding up to the five of them seated on the floor. “I found it!” he panted.

  Fiona and the others looked up at him. He had grown another inch the past two months and resisted getting his fair hair cut, and so he looked the very picture of a ragged, abandoned urchin. But his green eyes were alight with excitement, and he could not have looked happier. “Found what?” Angeline and Damiana asked together.

  But Fiona knew. “Oh, Reed, did you?” she exclaimed, jumping to her feet. “Let me see.”

  He carefully unwrapped a length of blue cotton while the adults came to their feet and drew close enough to see. There, coiled in five thin circles, was a length of truelove vine, its flat, heart-shaped leaves still red from the onslaught of autumn.

  “Elminstra told me she’s only found it once for Wintermoon, but she looks every year,” Reed said. “I knew if I looked and looked and looked, I’d find it sometime.”

  Damiana picked it delicately from his hands, and it twined around her wrist and fingers like a live thing. “I don’t think I’ve ever found any at this time of year,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t even know what it’s supposed to represent on the wreath. Love? Heart’s ease? Does anybody know?”

  “I’ll take some down to Elminstra and ask her,” Fiona suggested.

  “Oh, good idea. There’s plenty here to share,” her mother answered.

  “I’ll go, too,” Reed said.

  Fiona looked over at him. “I didn’t mean now.”

  “We can’t bind it into the wreaths until we know what it’s for,” Isadora said.

  “We can finish the wreaths tomorrow,” said Damiana.

  But Fiona had already sighed and headed toward the doorway, where they kept their winter boots in a somewhat muddy box. “Oh, very well, we’ll go now. But I want very hot tea and a very large piece of cake when I get back.”

  In a few minutes, she and Reed were bundled up to their eyebrows in coats and scarves, and they were running down the road to Elminstra’s. It was so cold that Fiona could feel the inside of her nose freeze; her throat filled with icicles when she breathed. Reed raced ahead of her and then ran back to make sure she was not stumbling in the frozen ruts of the road. Her fingers tingled with cold. Within five minutes, she could no longer feel her toes.

  But it was not far to Elminstra’s, and soon enough they were pounding on her door and tumbling inside. All was chaos at the witch’s house, for it was filled with Elminstra’s children and grandchildren and what might have been half a dozen friends besides. The fire burned brightly on the hearth and candles had been thrust into sconces throughout the main room, revealing piles of wood and greenery in all stages of weaving.

  “Bless you, children, what are you doing out on such a night?” Elminstra demanded. “Your mother—is something wrong?”

  “No, we have a Wintermoon gift for you—” Fiona started.

  “And a question to ask,” Reed finished.

  “Take off your coats, then. Though I can’t imagine what question … Do you want tea or hot chocolate to warm you up?”

  Fiona shook her head, though Reed immediately opted for hot chocolate. Pausing only to take off his dirty boots and unwind a wool scarf from his face, Reed ran to the kitchen behind Greg and his mother.

  “So what is it you’ve come to ask me?” Elminstra said.

  Fiona handed her the square of black silk in which Damiana had wrapped about six inches of truelove vine. “If we’re to tie this into our Wintermoon wreaths,” she said, “what is it we’re asking for?”

  Elminstra gasped as she folded back the black silk and revealed the bright red leaves of the vine. Two of her daughters crowded around her to see what had amazed her. “Truelove!” Elminstra exclaimed. “Wherever did you get it? And fresh picked, too, because it’s still springy and bright.”

  “Reed found it somewhere in the forest. We thought you should have some. But Isadora said we couldn’t weave it into our wreaths until we knew what it would bring us.”

  Elminstra lifted it reverently from its black bed and let the curling vine insinuate itself between her fingers. “Heart’s desire,” she said, a little absently. “It means something different for everyone.”

  Fiona was a little disappointed in the answer, though she supposed it made sense. She had been hoping for something more grand from something deemed so precious. True love, for instance; shouldn’t that be what was conferred by a vine with such a name? “I’ll tell my mother,” she said.

  Reed reappeared, fortified by cocoa, winding his scarf back around his face. “Are we ready to go?” he demanded. “There’s cake waiting at home.”

  “No wonder he just keeps growing,” Elminstra said. “He just keeps eating. Reed, thank you so much for the truelove. It was kind of you to think of me.”

  “What’s it for?” he asked.

  “Your heart’s desire,” Fiona said.

  He considered that and shrugged. “I think I already have everything I want,” he said.

  Elminstra laughed and patted him on the head, through the layers of wool. “That’s because you’re young and can’t think of much to want,” she said. “Trust me, the older you get, the more will come to mind.”

  “Come on,” he said to Fiona. “Let’s go home and finish the wreaths.”

  In fact, it was another two days before the wreaths were finished, since they kept taking breaks to do other things. Thomas insisted on chopping two months’ worth of wood to stack up behind the house, though Damiana said she was perfectly capable of cutting her own logs, thank you very much. “And Reed’s gotten very handy with an ax,” she added.

  “Reed will be bigger than I am in a few years’ time, but for now, he’s ten years old and I’m here,” Thomas replied.

  The women went visiting, taking bread and baked treats to friends and neighbors, and entertained others who dropped by the Safe-Keeper’s house. Fiona went with them some of the time, and some of the time played with Reed, running through the bare-branched woods or pausing by the frozen stream. If they chipped down through the top layer of ice, they could find the running water beneath, so cold that it hurt their mouths to take a swallow. They always drank from it anyway, then shrieked with pain and delight.

  On Wintermoon night itself, they ate a feast of a dinner and drank two bottles of wine. Fiona and Reed were allowed only one glass apiece, and Fiona didn’t particularly care for the taste of even that much, but she drank it anyway because it was supposed to be festive. The adults seemed to relish the rare treat, though. Angeline grew silly, and Isadora laughed as if she didn’t have a single care. Thomas became much more mellow, his voice losing its sarcastic edge and his eyes their haunted shadows. Damiana did not seem to change at all, merely smiling at them all as if she loved them with her entire heart. But she always did that.

  After the meal, they went outside to light the great bonfire that Thomas and Reed had built before the sun went down. The wood was dry and caught quickly, and soon they had a fierce blaze going that they would feed till dawn. Reed and Fiona climbed a nearby tree so that they could gaze some distance up and down the road and spot similar fires in Elminstra’s yard and other houses even farther away.

  When the fire had burned a good hour or two, Thomas went into the house and came out bearing the big wreath that had hung over the fireplace for the past two days. It was bound with all their most precious mementos—the strand of truelove, Thomas’s bells, Angeline’s lace—and carried with it all their hopes and dreams for the new year.

  “Put it on the fire, then,” Damiana said, and he tossed it on the very top of the blaze. It seemed to Fiona that for a moment there was a circle of concentrated fir
e within the random tongues of flame, and then the wreath seemed to crumple and disappear.

  “May we have all we hoped for,” Angeline said. “May we have happiness and health and love and well-being all of next year.”

  “And the next,” said Isadora.

  “And the next,” said Thomas.

  “And the next,” said Fiona.

  “And the next,” said Reed.

  Damiana said nothing, just poked at the fire with the end of a thin, blackened stick. Fiona was to remember that long after this blaze fell to ashes and Summermoons came and Wintermoons came, and came and came again. Of the six of them, only five had spoken up to lay claim to happiness in the coming years. If Damiana had lifted her voice that night, would happiness have visited them a sixth year as well? Or had she remained silent because she already knew the truth and had determined to keep it a secret? The fire burned through the oak, the birch, the cedar, the truelove, the lace, the ribbon, the gold, and they all watched it, and no one chose to speak about the things that were to come.

  Part Two

  Chapter Seven

  The year she was fifteen, Fiona spent much of her time learning herb lore at Elminstra’s house. She had never wavered in her desire to be a Safe-Keeper, but her mother had convinced her that it was a good idea to have a steady source of income besides.

  “Your aunt sews. I make fair copies of correspondence and compose letters for people who can’t write,” Damiana said. “There’s not much money in Safe-Keeping, and it’s not the sort of profession that allows you to turn people away if they can’t pay you. So it’s best to have a second career, one that brings in a little money, and you like the herb work. You’re so good in the garden.”

  Fiona did, indeed, enjoy the herb work, the medicinal and sometimes almost magical properties that could be found in seed and root and petal. And she enjoyed her time with Elminstra, who was always so open and friendly, and whose house was always filled with other people.

  While Fiona learned herb lore, Reed tried various apprenticeships in the village. But he was too restless to apply himself to any one of them for long. He had the strength to be a blacksmith, said Ned, but he couldn’t be trusted to keep his eyes on the fire. He had an aptitude for woodmaking, said the carpenter, but at any minute he would lay down his chisel or lathe and go dashing out into the street when he thought of a more interesting engagement.

  “He’s smart, and he remembers everything, and I could teach him to be the best brewmaster in five counties, but he can’t be relied on,” said Dirk’s father, who ran the local tavern. “He doesn’t seem to have a sense of time or urgency.”

  Indeed, Fiona could have told any of these potential masters that Reed’s sense of time and urgency were both dictated by adventurous possibilities: You must come to the forest with me this minute, to see the moonflowers opening up…. The fish will only bite at dawn—wake up now! … Fiona, why are you so slow? The fireflies are just coming out. Tasks that could keep, skills that could be learned over a period of time, those were not things that would hold Reed’s interest for long.

  “I don’t think he’ll be a brewer or a carpenter or a blacksmith or a farmer or anything you’ve envisioned,” Thomas told Damiana at the beginning of the summer. Fiona was supposed to be making dinner, but instead was eavesdropping on the conversation as they sat in the main room and sipped tea. His arrival had come as a surprise to Fiona, though Damiana had greeted him as if they had planned this visit a long time ago.

  Damiana laughed a little. “Then what will he be? Where will he go?”

  “Have you ever thought he might want to seek his father? Go to Wodenderry and try his fortune?”

  “No,” Damiana said, and her voice was troubled.

  “I am sure it has crossed his mind. It’s a very lively mind he has, and everything crosses it at some time or another.”

  Fiona could attest to that. She could also have corroborated Thomas’s speculation. Reed had talked about going to the royal city to see what he could learn about King Marcus—but he’d also talked about going to Lowford and Thrush Hollow, or moving to Stilton and learning to sail a boat, or bundling up all his belongings in a bag and walking across the entire world. It was hard to know what might seriously catch his fancy.

  “Well, we’ll see if he likes the merchant life,” Damiana said. “And after that—well, we’ll just see.”

  Fiona supposed that meant Damiana might next decide to apprentice Reed to one of the merchants in town—but, it turned out, she supposed wrong. Over dinner that night, their mother laid out an entirely different plan.

  “I’d like you both to go spend the summer in Lowford with Angeline,” Damiana said. “Reed, I’ve arranged for you to spend a few months working with Robert Bayliss in his trading business. He’s looking forward to teaching you what he knows and I’d like you to be a great help to him if you can. Fiona, Angeline’s neighbor Kate is an herbalist like Elminstra, but she cultivates a variety of plants there in the wetter region that Elminstra can’t grow here. I think you’ll both learn a great deal.”

  “Marvelous! When do we go?” Reed demanded, but Fiona just stared at her mother.

  “But—leave you alone all summer—we can’t do that,” she said.

  Damiana smiled and touched her arm. “I have some projects I’d like to get done around the house, and I won’t mind at all being alone. Besides, you know there’s never anything like true solitude in a Safe-Keeper’s house. And if I get too lonely, I’ll walk down to Elminstra’s. Or she’ll loan me one of her granddaughters to keep me company.”

  “I’ll keep you company,” Fiona said. “Reed can go this year and I’ll go next year.”

  “Oh, I think it will be much less disruptive to everybody if you both go,” Damiana said, her gaze flicking from Fiona to Reed and back again. “Your aunt isn’t used to having someone in the house who’s as high-spirited as Reed. You can help her … contain him.”

  Reed burst out laughing, and Fiona managed a little smile. It was true that Fiona was the only one who was ever able to instill a sense of direction or purpose in her brother, and he would always do what she asked, even if he didn’t like the task. Fiona might be able to keep him more focused on his merchant apprenticeship than either Robert Bayliss or Angeline. Perhaps this whole trip had been planned for Reed’s benefit, and Fiona’s true role was to help him along. In which case she could not really protest.

  “But I hate the idea of leaving you,” she said.

  “And I’ll miss you,” Damiana said. “But think what fun you’ll have! Angeline is so excited about having you to herself for a whole summer. I’ll get a lot done here and be happy to see you when you get back.”

  “When do we go?” Reed asked again.

  “As soon as you can pack,” Thomas said. “Tomorrow or the day after.”

  “Tomorrow!” Fiona exclaimed, staring at her mother again.

  “I can pack in five minutes,” Reed said.

  “Or the day after,” Damiana amended. “You might need that much time to get used to the idea.”

  But Fiona still wasn’t quite used to the idea when, two days later, they loaded up Thomas’s wagon and headed west to Lowford. Damiana had hugged all three of them good-bye and stood at the gate waving gaily as they departed, but Fiona couldn’t feel excited about the adventure. Well, she didn’t much like adventure anyway. She was always willing to participate in one of Reed’s escapades, but those were harmless and close to home. She had never traveled to Lowford—or anywhere—without her mother, and she had to scowl fiercely to keep herself from crying.

  The trip itself was monotonous, and Fiona’s sadness eventually gave way to boredom. They stopped three or four times to eat and stretch their bones, and pulled into Lowford a little after the noon hour. Angeline lived on the north side of town, on the outskirts like Damiana, so Thomas pointed out various sights as they traveled through the pretty city center. Fiona and Reed had been here before, of course, but not for a coup
le of years. Fiona had to admit, the bustle of the marketplace and the unfamiliarity of the street arrangements were rather exciting. Lowford was nearly twice as big as Tambleham and a crossroads as well; there was much more going on here than in her own sleepy town.

  Angeline was waiting for them at the front door, and hugged them and kissed them as if it had been years since she’d seen them, instead of two months. One arm around Fiona and one around Reed, she looked up at Thomas with a smile. “Are you staying for dinner? There’s plenty.”

  He smiled back. “I think Fiona at least is tired of my company,” he said. “But I’ll be by from time to time to check on them and take reports back to Tambleham.”

  “Good,” Angeline said. “You’re welcome any time.”

  “Rare words for a Truth-Teller,” he commented, and they both laughed.

  “Good-bye, then,” she said. “Now, my magnificent niece and my adorable nephew, come inside and have dinner. See how happy I am to have you for a whole summer!”

  Despite the fact that she missed her mother a great deal, Fiona really did have a wonderful summer. Angeline’s friend Kate was thin, tall, fey, and fierce, one of the oddest people Fiona had ever met, but she knew plants like nobody else Fiona had ever encountered. They would wander through Kate’s garden completely at random, and the older woman would point to this flower or that herb and rattle off a description of its properties and how it could best be used to cure fever or heartache. They spent hours in her greenhouse, something that Fiona had never seen before. It was constructed carefully of glass and metal and designed to create an indoor climate that was more favorable to certain species than the outdoor one. Inside its transparent walls they would discuss soil, fertilizer, and pests. The entire house appeared to have been given over to cuttings, and everywhere stems and tubers sat in glass jars full of water, sprouting coiled, needle-thin roots. Even the kitchen table, even the kitchen stove, had to be cleared now and then so Kate and Fiona could make or consume a meal.