“Oh, Em, I’m sorry,” faltered Kate, looking up through the darkness at the pale smudge that was all she could distinguish of her sister’s face. “It’s old news, really; no one minds. Our great-grandmother was adopted into the family, that’s all.”
There was a pause. Then Marak urged the horse back into a walk.
“I can’t say I’m sorry,” he said thoughtfully. “New blood is very good for the Hill. But which great-grandmother are you talking about?” Thoroughly cowed, Kate told the story of Elizabeth’s adoption, Adele’s death, and their own consequent arrival, but she was rather scandalized when Marak laughed at all the wrong places.
“That’s not how my mother told that story, Kate,” he said carelessly. “I wouldn’t believe everything that fool Roberts tells you.” Emily snorted delightedly, but Kate was bewildered.
“Do you mean you think he lied about the adoption?” she asked, struggling along by the horse’s side.
“Oh, no. That’s the only thing I do believe, but what a thing to tell you. Poor Kate!” he teased. “I don’t think Roberts likes you at all.”
If he calls me Kate one more time, thought Kate, I’ll do some thing horrible. Then she thought about the several horrible things she had already done that evening and subsided into misery again.
“We don’t like him, either,” confided Emily heatedly. “He’s just hateful, with his long words, and his hallow hill, and his hollow hill, and his linguistic persistence of ignorance.”
“What?” The rider seemed highly amused. “He’s been explaining everything for you, has he? Tell me, what did he say about the Hill?” Emily went into a somewhat confused rendition of their cousin’s speech on the place-names, and this time Marak laughed at all the right places.
“Well, Letter M,” he announced, “almost every bit of that is wrong. Completely and thoroughly wrong. Pigheaded. Would you like to know why it’s really called Hollow Lake?”
“Yes!” exclaimed Emily.
“It’s called Hollow Lake—because it’s hollow.” There was a momentary pause.
“Now, what does that mean?” Emily burst out.
“It’s just hollow, that’s all.”
“How is it supposed to be hollow?” demanded Emily. “You’re just being silly!”
“No,” the man replied pleasantly, “I assure you I never lie. Now, that’s a funny thing, lying. If you notice, M, most humans can’t do without it. They consider it an essential component of—how shall I call it?—polite society.” Kate felt the sting in his words and set her teeth. She wondered when this interminable journey would end.
“Humans lie to each other constantly. They mean to. They think it best. They tell you what a clever child you are when they mean someone should muzzle you, and they tell one another how handsome they look when they think they look absurd. They believe they’re doing the world a favor by lying. Why, take your sister as a case in point.”
I won’t say a word, Kate promised herself stoically, and Emily rushed to defend her sister against her newfound favorite.
“Kate doesn’t lie!” she said indignantly.
“Oh, doesn’t she?” answered Marak, sounding much amused. “Well, M, I’m sure she doesn’t lie often, but such is the frail nature of humans that she simply couldn’t help herself. Imagine”—he lowered his voice dramatically—“as she stood by the bonfire tonight, she saw outlandish and otherworldly sights, and when I came toward her to lift her onto this horse here, she knew—she just knew—that if she let me put her onto this horse, she’d be galloped away beyond the world we know into some strange, shadowy underworld.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “And not one of the mortals on this earth would ever see her again.”
Emily went off into gales of laughter. Kate felt a swift chill run through her. How could this stranger know what she had felt? She hadn’t even known it herself. But that was it exactly, down to the last detail.
“And so,” continued Emily’s storyteller cheerfully, “what on earth could your sister say? Could she say, I think you are about to steal me for what awful ends I know not? No, she is a human. She fell back on the polite lie. And so she said”—and here he took on a haughty tone—“ ‘I prefer to walk.’ ”
Kate forgot her promise to keep quiet. “You must think that I am a perfect fool!” she exclaimed.
“Oh, no,” the rider assured her. “You are a woman of rare perception. Not one woman in a hundred—maybe a thousand—would have realized in time. I find myself wondering,” he added thoughtfully, “just how you managed it.”
Kate tried to puzzle out this strange speech. Another riddle for her to solve. It sounded very important, but she was too tired to make any sense of it. If the walk continued much longer, she was afraid she would collapse. She felt as if she had never done anything else but stumble through blackness.
“And here we are,” concluded Marak. They came up a rise. The orchard trees loomed out at them. Gravel crunched underfoot. And in another minute, there stood the Lodge itself, solid and comforting, with golden light streaming out of all the downstairs windows. The rider swung down from the saddle and lifted Emily to the ground. “Off you go,” he told her. “I stay here.”
“But won’t you come in, Mr. Marak?” begged Emily. “I know the aunts would love to meet you.”
“Oh, I know them,” he answered carelessly. “I remember when they first came here. A pretty young thing the blond was then, I assure you! But newly widowed. That was a real pity,” he added feelingly. “No, I’ll come in another time.”
“Good-bye, then, and thank you for the ride!” Emily wrung his hand and dashed up the path. He turned to Kate, who stood hesitating, almost too tired to walk farther. Now that they were back in the light again, she found his cloak and hood insulting. She could make out nothing about him, and he seemed to know everything about her.
“Kate, you look terrible!” he said sincerely. “You’re completely exhausted. Well, you won tonight, and I’m not a good loser. I’m not used to it. But until next time”—and he held out his six-fingered hand.
Kate shook her head and put her hands behind her back. She glared up at him, beside herself with indignation. She said firmly, “I hate to appear rude—”
“Yes, you do, don’t you.” He laughed. “Oh, I know what’s bothering you,” he teased before she could turn away in disgust. “The cloak and hood. It’s been on your nerves all evening. You’ve been imagining all sorts of horrors, I’d guess.”
This is just another way to goad me, Kate thought grimly, but he was absolutely right.
Marak tugged back his hood and examined her stunned expression. He watched her cheeks grow pale, her lips bloodless. He grinned in delighted amusement.
“You imagined all sorts of horrors. But maybe not this one.” And he swung back into the saddle and rode away.
Chapter 3
“Mr. Marak brought us home,” Emily said from Aunt Celia’s arms. “He’s so nice, he let me ride his horse, and it was such a beauty, too! We should invite him over to say thank you.”
Aunt Prim knelt before the fire, heating water for tea. Never mind that it had been steamy all day; with the thunderstorms around, the air at the Lodge had turned gusty and chill. Besides, Aunt Prim believed in treating any case of accidental contact with inclement weather as if the victim had just been dragged out of a snowbank.
“Who’s Mr. Marak, dear?” asked Aunt Celia, yawning and smoothing back Emily’s tumbled hair. It was one o’clock in the morning, and both aunts had been too frantic to sleep.