The Endless Forest
Page 168

Even Ma played, whooping with delight when she evaded capture, her cheeks flushed a deep red. When Ma got tagged the little people capered with delight to see her dragged off because she didn’t go quietly, but argued all the way and reminded them that she had broken out of—and into—more than one gaol in her time. That made Da laugh like a boy.
But Ma and Da weren’t playing tonight. They were gone down to see Ethan and Callie. And what was that about? No one seemed to have even the slightest idea, even Curiosity, though Birdie had asked more than one way.
A lot of outraged laughter erupted from behind the house, and Nicholas Wilde came trotting around the corner with the other side’s flag—a piece of an old red flannel hunting shirt—raised high overhead. At the same time Anje poked her head out of the door and said Curiosity was asking for Birdie’s help in the kitchen.
Curiosity didn’t really need her help; that was clear to Birdie before she went through the swinging door into the clean and ordered kitchen. The fact that her father sat across from Curiosity at the table did take her by surprise.
“Da,” she said. “I thought you were down in the village at Ethan’s place.”
“Came up the back way. I’ve got to go back right now, but I need to ask you to do something first.”
Her da’s voice and expression were calm and steady, but a shiver went up Birdie’s spine anyway.
“What’s wrong?”
Curiosity shook her head. “Why you got to jump to that conclusion, little girl?”
“Because there’s something wrong, I can almost smell it.”
Curiosity’s expression softened a little. “Yes, I suppose you can.”
“Da?”
He got up from the table. “We’re trying to figure that out, daughter. I need you to keep Nicholas here until somebody comes to fetch him home to Ethan’s.”
Curiosity said, “And that might could be a while.”
“Has he done something bad?”
“No,” Birdie’s da said. “But he’d be in the way just now. So will you do that for me?”
Birdie nodded. “If he starts to talk about going home I’ll think of something.”
He put his hand on her head and smiled. “I know you will.” And then: “You got any good words lately for your notebook?”
It took her a moment to clear her thoughts. “One,” she said. “Inscrutable. Do you know what it means?”
“Sounds like some kind of skin rash.” But he winked when he said it.
“It’s the word you use when you can’t make out what somebody’s really thinking from their face. Mostly you’re inscrutable and Ma’s scrutable, but just now I can see you’ve got something on your mind.”
She hated it when grown-ups laughed at things she said when she was serious, but Curiosity and Da only looked at each other. Then he said, “Have you ever heard Nicholas talking about a place called Banfield?”
“He’s talkative,” Birdie said. “But I never heard him mention any Banfield. Do you want me to ask him?”
“No, don’t ask him. We’ll try to sort this out without that for the time being.”
He went to the door and picked up his rifle from where he had leaned it against the wall.
“Nathaniel Bonner,” Curiosity said. “Don’t you walk out that door before you tell us what a place called Banfield got to do with anything at all.”
He smiled, which put some of Birdie’s worry to rest. Da wasn’t one to put a false face on things.
“Banfield is a village on the Deerfield River. It’s where Nicholas grew up, as far as we can tell.”
“But I thought he came from Boston,” Birdie said.
“So did we. That’s what we’ve got to sort out before Callie goes and jumps to all kinds of conclusions.”
Curiosity closed her eyes. “If you are saying what I think you’re saying, I will see to it that Jemima pays. I swear it.”
“You won’t have to take that on alone,” Birdie’s da said, and he slipped out the door. Birdie watched him disappear into the woods, and then she asked Curiosity the question she couldn’t hold back.
“Does this mean that Nicholas isn’t really Callie’s brother?”
Curiosity took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She said, “Pray the good Lord it don’t.”
They had started another game while Birdie was in the kitchen, and she was glad of the chance to sit down and think for a few minutes. Lily was knitting, glancing up now and then to follow the game, and smiling to herself. She was smiling a lot lately, which made Birdie glad and worried her too. More than once Hannah and Curiosity had stopped talking when she came into the room, and she couldn’t help thinking it had to do with Lily and her baby.
There was something odd going on in the game. She looked more closely and looked again.
“Look,” she said to Lily. “See that bush to the right of the low path? The one that wasn’t there a quarter hour ago?”
Lily raised an eyebrow. “Brother Daniel has been teaching the little people some of his old tricks. And there’s Nicholas walking right into the—”
The bush leaped in that moment, and two strong brown arms reached through the branches to grab Nicholas by the wrist. Nicholas jumped a good foot straight into the air and then fell.
“Henry Savard!” Hannah shouted. “Careful or you’ll put an eye out!”