“He’ll also thrash me.”
Mother sighed. “He probably will.” And then she added with a hint of mischief, “You could always offer up your pain to God.” Jack was startled. Father went on and on about how pain was good for you and how you could offer it up to God. Mother had never contradicted him. It seemed she had her own ideas on the subject.
Why do I always have to be the one in the wrong? thought Jack as they continued on. But he knew he deserved a thrashing for striking Pega. What had possessed him to do such a thing?
Jack had not been home in months, and he was shocked at his father’s appearance. The man’s shoulders were hunched, as though he carried a heavy burden. His face was full of shadows. He crouched on a stool by the hearth and whittled a chunk of wood. It wasn’t normal for Father to be indoors at this time of day. A farm in springtime wasn’t a place you could ignore.
“What muck!” Lucy sneered, throwing a clumsily carved animal into the fire. “You’ll never be as good as Olaf One-Brow. Never, never, never! He made me beautiful toys.” She was dressed in her white Yule dress, now smudged with soot, and wore the necklace of silver leaves.
“Father?” said Jack, swallowing hard. Giles Crookleg looked up. “Father, I’ve come to apologize.”
“So you should,” said the man.
Jack forced down a surge of anger. “I was wrong to hide the money. It was disloyal and dishonest. I’m here to take whatever punishment you think fit.”
“I’d say you deserve it.” Giles reached into the heap of kindling and selected a birch rod. Jack mustered his courage. Father hit hard and thought anything less than six of the best was a holiday.
“You’ve been bad,” Lucy announced smugly, wiping her hands on her grimy Yule dress. “I shall enjoy watching you suffer.” Jack promised himself to take the silver necklace away the first time he got her alone. Father grabbed Jack’s hair and raised the birch rod. The boy braced himself.
But instead of striking him, Giles Crookleg hurled the rod away and sank to his knees. “I can’t do it! I can’t do it!” he cried. He began to howl.
Jack was horrified. He’d never seen his father so distraught. “It’s all right, Da,” he said uncertainly.
“I shouldn’t have lied,” the man wailed. “It’s my fault. Lucy’s my fault. It was the sin of pride.”
“You must lie down, Giles,” Mother said, kneeling beside him. “I think you have a fever—yes, I can feel it. Come to the loft. I’ll get you a healing drink.”
Jack and Mother walked Father to the ladder. He climbed slowly and painfully with Jack behind in case he fell. Giles crawled into bed, still sobbing, and Mother brought him a tea of lettuce and willow to make him sleep. Presently, he went off to whatever dreams awaited him.
Jack sat by the fire, too stunned to talk. What had Father lied about? What sin had he committed?
“I did not give him permission to sleep,” said Lucy, curling her hair around her finger and pursing her rosebud lips. “I shall have my knights thrash him.”
Jack felt a tremor of dread as he looked at his sister. She had gone mad, and so, apparently, had Father. After what he’d done to Pega that morning, Jack wondered if he had too.
It was a long, depressing afternoon. A boy from another farm arrived to help with chores. Most of the black-faced sheep had been driven to pasture, but a pair of milking ewes remained. They tried to force their way through the fence the boys were repairing, to get at the peas and beans. When they failed, they chased poor Bluebell for sheer malice until she fell down with exhaustion. Jack had to shut her into the barn.
Ewes could leap onto a stone wall taller than a man, pause delicately with all four feet together, and spring to the other side. But a fence stopped them because they couldn’t balance on the narrow top. Jack watched with satisfaction as the ewes attempted the leap and failed.
Jack ignored Lucy’s repeated attempts to give him orders. He didn’t think she was really out of her mind. She wasn’t like Daft Tom, the miller’s father, who had to be tied to a tree to keep him from harm. Lucy had simply hidden herself away, as she had when Queen Frith held her captive. With patience, Jack thought he could call her back.
I could try farseeing, he thought. I found Thorgil. Would it be any different hunting for Lucy? But it might be very different. Thorgil inhabited the same world as he did. In what strange realm was Lucy wandering?
Shortly before sundown the Bard arrived at the door of the farmhouse with Pega in his wake. “We’ll sort things out, Alditha,” the Bard told Mother. He frowned at Lucy in her smudged dress and at Father hunched by the fire. “You can stop staring, Jack,” the old man said. “Pega’s decided to forgive you.” Jack saw to his horror that her mouth was swollen and she had a long cut on her lip.
“I—I didn’t mean to hit you. I’m awfully sorry,” he stammered.
“I’ve been hit harder. Dozens of times,” boasted the girl.
“Well, um.” Jack’s wits were scattered by her response. “That’s not good either.”
“I, however, was not sure about forgiving you,” said the Bard. “It’s vile and shameful to hit someone who barely comes up to your shoulder.”
Jack said nothing. What could he say?
“But I’ve been thinking about this family all afternoon. It seems nothing has gone right since the need-fire ceremony.”
Silence fell over the room. The last long rays of sunlight faded from the doorway, and the hearth fire, by contrast, grew brighter. It was a mild spring evening with hardly a breath of wind. Jack heard a nightingale call from the apple tree by the barn.
“There were dark forces abroad that night,” said the Bard.
“The door lay open between life and death, and it was of critical importance to have an innocent child receive the flame. Unfortunately, Lucy was not innocent.” He gazed intently at the little girl. She stared back at him, untroubled by his concern. “At first I thought only Lucy was vulnerable to whatever crept through, but it seems she has passed it on. I should have guessed it when Giles tried to buy Pega.”
“It’s my fault! It’s the sin of pride!” Father moaned, rocking back and forth.
The Bard glared at him and continued. “I’ve been worried about you as well, Alditha. You were forbidden to see Jack, but a loving mother would have sent messages to him. It seemed you had closed your heart.”
“I hadn’t! I swear,” cried Mother. “But things were so difficult here.”
“It’s not like you to be cruel,” the old man said, “yet you called Jack back, knowing Giles would probably beat him. This morning, when I saw what Jack had done to Pega, I was prepared to turn him into a toad at the very least. What were you thinking of, lad? You could have broken her jaw!”
“I—I wasn’t thinking,” Jack said. He wanted to crawl under a rock and never come out.
“I raised my staff, but Pega caught my arm. ‘He’s not like that,’ she said. ‘He didn’t know what he was doing.’ And I realized she was right. If it hadn’t been for her, lad, you’d be hopping around a swamp right now.”
“Thank you, Pega,” said Jack humbly.
“It’s the least I can do for someone who freed me from slavery,” Pega declared. “Besides, I’ve been hit by champions. Your blow wasn’t even in third place.”
Jack had trouble sorting out the compliments from the insults in that statement.
“Harm came to Lucy during the ceremony. It spread to Giles and then to Alditha. Last of all, it came to Jack,” said the Bard. “It’s like a fever in the life force. For all I know, it will infect the whole village.”