The Endless Forest
Page 165

Jennet paused, and Nicholas closed his jaw with a snap. “Did he go back to the Queen of Elfland and the elves?”
“I canna say. The story as I know it stopped there. Can you imagine, so much fortune, good and bad, from an apple?”
Callie was smiling, as if she could answer that question if someone would only ask her.
“What kind of apple was it?” Nicholas wanted to know. “Maybe my sister has a tree like that in her orchard. Do you have a tree like the elf apple tree, sister? Do you know its name?”
“If the apple tree had a name, that was never told to me,” Jennet said. “But I suppose you could give it one. Stories are passed from hand to hand, and some things fall away and others things stick as they go. Now will you go and get your dinner? Your belly is growling as loud as Thomas’s.”
“An apple needs a name,” Nicholas muttered as he turned toward the house.
Lily’s shoulders were shaking with laughter and Elizabeth herself was having a difficult time holding her smile in check.
“Such an earnest child,” Jennet said. “He doesna ken the difference between stories and reality.”
“Many never learn that,” Callie said dryly.
“That’s true,” Lily said. “But it’s also sad. His world is a much more colorful one than ours.”
Just then Nicholas turned back toward them from across the clearing. “I know!” he shouted. “I know a name for the elves’ apple tree! Let’s call it the Bleeding Heart!”
“I was looking at her directly, as close as we are now,” Elizabeth told Nathaniel later that day. “The color drained out of her, as though someone had pulled a plug. I thought at first she would faint, but after a moment she pulled herself up and just—walked away. She didn’t even give Lily the message Simon had sent about coming late for supper, though we didn’t find that out until much later.”
“So what do you think this is all about?” her husband asked. “What gave Callie such a shock?”
“I have no idea,” Elizabeth said. “I sent a message down to ask after her, but Nathan came back without a reply.”
Nathaniel was quiet for a long minute. When he was like this, Elizabeth let him be so that he could gather his thoughts.
“It’s a nice evening,” he said. “Why don’t you and me take a stroll down to call on Ethan and Callie. See if we can be of any help.”
“I was hoping you would say that.” Elizabeth squeezed his arm and put her brow against his shoulder. “Something feels wrong, and I won’t sleep for worry.”
“You think this is about Jemima?” He cupped the back of her head with one hand.
“I don’t see how, but I’m afraid it is.”
“I think I could go the rest of my life without another one of Jemima’s surprises,” Nathaniel said. “I imagine Callie and Martha feel like they’ll never get out from under.”
Birdie said, “It’s unfair.”
“Maybe so,” said Nathaniel. “But you’ll stay right where you are or I’ll have to take a switch to your backside, little girl. Your ma and me, we’re going down to the village alone. Do you understand me?”
Birdie’s face was ablaze with frustration and anger. She had folded her lips in so that her mouth was no more than a slit in her face, but she didn’t dare ignore her father. She nodded.
Elizabeth waited until they were out of earshot before she let out the sigh she was holding.
“She is so very hardheaded,” Elizabeth said.
“Comes by it honest. Ow! Boots, take care or I’ll start pinching you back. What? You look like you forgot something.”
“Curiosity,” Elizabeth said. “Maybe we should take Curiosity along with us.”
Nathaniel lowered his head to look at her down the slope of his nose. “You know that’s not a good idea. You don’t want to startle Callie. She needs careful coaxing.”
For the rest of the walk Elizabeth considered what it would look like to Callie if her house were suddenly filled with people.
“She likes Curiosity,” Elizabeth said finally. Nathaniel made a sound deep in his throat that was an admonition. It meant: You’re missing the point, and you know it. She might have pursued this line of discussion, but they came out of the woods to the garden behind Ethan’s small house, and the sound of Callie’s voice raised in anger.
“Then who?” she was shouting. “If not you, then who?”
Nathaniel rapped on the kitchen door and then went in directly without waiting for an invitation, and Elizabeth followed closely.
Ethan and Callie stood in the parlor facing a visibly angry Levi Fiddler. Ethan stood poised as if he expected to have to put himself between his wife and the orchard manager.
“Seems like we missed the beginning of this party,” Nathaniel said. “Callie, Levi. The glass is shaking in the windowpanes, you’re making such a fuss.”
“This doesn’t concern you,” Callie snapped. She was trembling.
“Callie,” Ethan said. His tone was as close to sharp as it ever came, and Callie’s gaze skittered toward him. “These are my family too, and I’d be glad of some help trying to sort out this mess. Do you object to them being here, Levi?”
The muscles clenched and rolled along Levi’s jaw. “They welcome to stay. I got nothing to hide.”
“Well, that’s good,” Nathaniel said. “So let’s set.”