“Shut up!” Stane moved back off the carpet as if she held vipers before her.
“No one helps you, and the blood … the blood is everywhere. The blood is horrible. Can there be that much blood in a person?” Gwen paused, looking at the floor and shaking her head in genuine dismay. Her hands came up to shelter her ears. “You keep screaming as he hoists you up and lights the candles.”
“I said shut your mouth!”
“After he leaves, as you die, people come out. They look up, but no one helps. They know what you are-they’ve always known, even though they never knew all the things you did. One person knows about Avon, but none of them know about Ruth, Irene, and Elsie. And no one ever found out about Callahan’s wife.”
“How do you know about them?” Stane looked terrified.
“And Oldham’s daughters-both of them. You’re an awful, awful man, Stane.”
Rose had never seen anyone’s face filled with as much fear as Stane’-s-his eyes wide and darting.
“They watch you die,” Gwen continued, though even Rose wished she would stop. “One man actually puts a bucket beneath your feet to catch the blood. He’s going to mix it with feed and give it to his pigs. Oh, Stane, what you did to Avon, what you did to all of them was so terrible, and you should die for that, but even I wouldn’t wish this on you … but, I suppose … you do deserve it.”
No matter what effect Gwen’s words had on Stane, they sent a chill deeper into Rose’s bones than any wind ever could, but it was the look on Gwen’s face, the genuine sympathy and revulsion that stopped her heart. Somehow Gwen could actually see Stane’s death. And through her, he and Rose saw it too.
“You’re a crazy bitch-that’s what you are!” Stane shouted at her. “And you can just leave me alone.” He retreated out the door, slamming it behind him.
Gwen wavered and reached out to steady herself.
“Are you all right?” Rose asked, racing to Gwen’s side.
She grabbed Rose, squeezed tight, and cried.
“Here,” Rose said, holding out the steaming cup of tea.
“A porcelain cup and saucer?” Gwen looked at her, stunned.
“We were planning on giving it to you for Wintertide, but you look like you could use it now, and by then we’ll be able to get you something better.”
“Better than a porcelain cup?”
“You’ll just have to wait and see.”
The two were on the porch, which smelled of fresh paint and sawdust. They sat curled up on the wooden bench, their feet tucked, wrapped in a blanket that Rose had pulled off her bed. It was one of the original blankets they had wrapped in that first night they had spent in the dark parlor, sharing a loaf of bread and a brick of cheese.
That night seemed very long ago. So much had changed that it felt like another lifetime. The era they spent in servitude to Grue happened to a different set of women. It couldn’t have been them. It certainly could never have been Gwen. Resting against her on the porch of their house, after having seen her drive off Stane as if he were an opossum routing in their garbage, Rose couldn’t imagine Gwen ever having obeyed Raynor.
The night was cold and soon it began to rain. She first noticed it pattering on the roofs along Wayward Street; then the drops grew bigger, falling faster, and finally the patter became a constant hum. The porch was covered and the runoff from the roof made Rose feel like she was on the inside of a waterfall.
“How are you feeling?”
Gwen tilted her head against Rose. “Much better thanks to you. This tea is wonderful.”
“Gwen…” She faltered. “What just happened? What did you do to Stane? Was that…”
Gwen set the cup and saucer down on the arm of the bench and pulled the blanket tighter. She had a stern, almost angry look on her face. “I’m not a witch, Rose.”
“Of course not. I wasn’t thinking that.” Rose turned to face her, careful not to disturb the fragile cup.
“What are you thinking?” Gwen refused to look, staring instead at the rain, and though Gwen was enveloped in the blanket, Rose could tell her arms were folded.
“I don’t know-that’s why I’m asking.”
Gwen huffed. “I just looked in his eyes, okay? I looked and I saw … I saw his death. It’s hard to explain.”
“Is it magic?” Rose asked in a soft voice. She knew magic was supposed to be evil. Her mother had said so. But if Gwen could do magic, then it couldn’t be evil because as far as Rose was concerned, Gwen was perfection, and Rose’s mother had been dimmer than a starless night.
“No,” Gwen said quickly, still staring at the rain. “It’s a gift.”
She finally turned to face Rose again. “That’s what my mother always said. She called it the Sight. Some women, mostly Tenkins from the deep forests who are blessed with the Sight, can look at a person and actually see their future. Palms are the safest, but the eyes … the eyes can be an open window to the soul. Peering too deeply, you just topple in and become lost. You see, hear, and feel everything.” Gwen took a breath. “My mother had the Sight and so do I.”
There was a moment of silence that hung in the air.
“What are you thinking now?” Gwen asked. “Are you scared of me?”
Rose reached out and took Gwen’s hand. “No. I’ve just never seen anything like that before.”
“What I did with Stane … I didn’t mean for it to happen. It doesn’t usually. Almost never really.”
“It was good that it did,” Rose pointed out. “I doubt Stane will be back. Thank you, and not just for scaring Stane. What you did for me, for all of us really, is … well, you’ve given us a chance that we could never have had without you. You saved us all. You’re my hero.”
“We saved each other,” Gwen insisted.
“I don’t think so.”
“Sure we did. We’re like a family, and families take care of each other, support one another and-”
“Like a family?” Rose almost laughed, but it really wasn’t that funny-not funny at all when she thought about it. “That’s not how families work-trust me.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m just saying that’s not how families work.”
“That’s how it was with me and my mother,” Gwen said.
Rose shifted, turning away. She didn’t like disagreeing with Gwen.
“How was it with you?”
“It’s not important,” Rose replied. “It feels like centuries ago. I was … Well, that’s too long ago to remember.”
“I know the others’ stories,” Gwen said gently. “I know Jollin’s and Mae’s and Etta’s. You never told me yours.”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“Was it awful?”
Rose thought a moment, then shook her head. That was the worst part; it wasn’t terrible. She hadn’t been beaten or locked in a closet. Her family hadn’t sold her into slavery, and they weren’t murdered by highwaymen. Nothing so vile as that had driven her into the gutter. “No,” she said at last. “Just sad.”
“Tell me.”
Rose felt awkward now. Foolish that the conversation had taken the turn it had. She shrugged as if doing so would assure Gwen that what she was about to say meant little to her. “My parents worked a bit of land just outside Cold Hollow-that’s a couple miles east, between the King’s Road and Westfield. Lots of rocks and briers but little else. I guess my father tried, but maybe he didn’t know what he was doing, or maybe the land was bad-it looked bad. Maybe the seeds were no good or the weather too cold. My mother made excuses for him. Never knew why, as the only thing I know he ever gave her was blame. Then one day he was gone. He just left and never came back. My mother said it was because we were all starving and he couldn’t take seeing us die. I guess she saw it as his way of saying he loved us. I saw it as just one more excuse-the last one at least.”
Rose felt Gwen’s hand rubbing her arm under the blanket, those dark, almond-shaped eyes looking so soft and kind. Gwen was being so sympathetic. She expected a horrible tale, and Rose felt bad she had nothing awful to give-nothing but the harvest stupidity brings.
“We had nothing after that,” she went on. “My father, who loved us so much, took the mule and the last of the copper. We survived on roots and nuts that winter. My mother liked to joke that we lived like squirrels, but by then I had forgotten how to laugh. She wouldn’t beg and refused to ask for help. She would say things like, ‘He’ll be back. You’ll see. Your father will find work and come back to us with bags of flour, pigs, chickens, and maybe even a goat for milk-you’d like that, wouldn’t you?’ I was chewing bark for my dinner when she said this.