Linda Ronstadt

hearts call
hearts fall
swallowed in the rain
who knows life grows
hollow and so vain
wandering in the winter light
the wicked and the sane
bear witness to salvation
and life starts over again

now the clear sky is all around you
love's shadow will surround you
all through the night
star glowing in the twilight
tell me true
hope whispers and i will follow
till you love me too

Labels: quote, Winter Light

As she sat in her room, contemplating the new turn of her life, her thoughts turned to Anton, and his unnerving resemblance to the figment in her dreams. She felt inexplicably drawn to him, as though he were the answer to a puzzle she had worked over in her mind all of her life.

She noticed him standing on the balcony, high above her head. Madeleine put her hands to her head, feeling a sudden sense of disorientation. She wanted to shout up to him, to demand the answers from him. But he would think her only mad. Perhaps he was only just there! Perhaps he had not gone there to watch her struggle with her disturbing visions.

Did she imagine that he was some sort of sorcerer, and that he had conjured those visions to torment her in her sleep? It could not be! He was not a magician, only a man.

But all of this changed for her on the day she met Barbara.

Madeleine turned from him in the garden. "I did not know... about Barbara," she said merely.

"Didn't you?" he asked. "What of it?"

"You are to marry her!" Her voice reverberated in the stillness. "You led me to believe..." Madeleine turned on him in fury.

Anton continued to look at her coolly. "You do not know the half of it," he said.

At his cool tone, Madeleine felt even more angry. "Don't touch me again," she said merely, and walked from him.

His hands came to either side of her head, and she found herself lodged against the cool stone. No, she thought, this must not happen. But she felt powerless to stop the passion between them. She did not protest as his mouth met hers. He tightened his hold on her as spray blew up in the wind and dampened their faces and clothes.

Madeleine pushed him away.

"You are so proud!" he said.

"Too proud, you might say, to become involved with someone like yourself.

*

Now that Madeleine knew the truth, everything was different. Anton had wanted her to learn the truth! He had deliberately provoked her dreams, tried in every way he knew to make her realize the truth, without seeming to do so. Why? Madeleine wanted to demand.

She could not understand why he would torture her in such a way. Then it came to her that perhaps he saw her as a means to escape his relationship to Barbara, who was clearly viperous and would make him miserable all of his life. Barbara! How she would hate Madeleine, perhaps, if she knew the truth!

Madeleine stifled a small cry of dismay. How could she have involved herself with Anton in such a way? Why was she so powerless to fight the passion she felt for him? What he had done to her was so wrong!

But Madeleine had once been Anton's betrothed. Luther had decreed it so. Did Anton think things would change if it was known that Madeleine had once been Gisela Weisse, the girl that Anton would marry, however unwillingly? It was a mad plot. Madeleine could not suspect it even of Anton. But in many ways, she felt as afraid of Anton as she did of Luther, who had once imprisoned and abused her.

Barbara presented herself in the parlor, her pixie-like face surrounded by clusters of brown curls. She was impish-looking at first, but another glance yielded notice of a darker implication behind her playful jibes.

Hildegarde hated her. She pouted every time that Barbara entered the room, and she railed against the way Barbara patronized her, acting almost motherly. Hildegarde acted as though she were caught in a web, flailing everytime Barbara drew her into her embrace.

Madeleine found Barbara particularly repulsive. Barbara was the one who was qualified to receive Anton's embraces. And how she gloried in them! Perhaps once she had found them boring, but now that she had a rival! Everytime she had the opportunity, she kissed Anton on the cheek, or pressed his hand in a proper but intimate manner. His face seemed to be made of granite each time Barbara touched him.

Madeleine could not help but think how mobile his mouth had been when he had kissed her... How their passion had known no boundaries when she had first come to Heidelburg. But all of that was done now! Anton had only been using her, using her passion, perhaps, to play into his plan. Did he really think when she learned her identity that she would be truly willing to marry him?

Someone at the castle wished to harm her! And she could not be sure that it was not Anton! How could she approach Luther with him and reveal the truth about her past? She would not do it! She could not stay in this house a moment longer.

*

They were in the greenhouse, the three of them. How curiously warm it was! Madeleine thought of how the glass trapped the warmth of the sun within the greenhouse, causing it to be warming than the world outside of it.

"How beautiful you look," Anton said to Madeleine in a low voice as they paused in a corner.

She stared at him, shocked by his boldness. She communicated her feelings with her eyes, but he only smiled. He touched one hand to the folds of her gown, quite removed from herself as they were by the stiff crinoline, but it still seemed an intimacy as she watched him work the pale blue material thoughtfully between his fingers.

"My father has bought this for you," he said, his brows lifting.

The material was too expensive for a governess's salary. That was his implication.

Madeleine's heart quailed as she remembered how she had admired it in Mannheim, and Luther had sent it to her in short order. She should not have accepted it! But she should not have thought much of it if Anton had not brought it in such a sinister light with so few words. Luther had bought the gown for her! Luther was spending an inordinate amount of time with her!

But it was Anton who was taking liberties or was at least attempting to do so.

"I'll have done with your implications!" Madeleine said, too loudly, and elicted Barbara's notice.

Her brow creased delicately in concern as she looked from one to the other, and went to them, her ruffles sussurating in the close space against the ends of tables and low shelves. "It is a beautiful gown, Madeleine," she said with a smile to Madeleine which was too kind, then looked to Anton with an expression of mild rebuke. "Have you embarrassed her?" she demanded of him. "It is too unkind of you. Madeleine looks lovely today, and the wonders she has worked with Hildegarde would justify Luther's purchase of a dozen such lovely gowns. It is fitting she be justly rewarded for her miracles."

Barbara drew Madeleine from Anton and smiled at her confidingly. "You must have heard by now what an incorrigible child Hildegarde was before you came to the castle! How undisciplined! How immature! If I may say so, Miss Kerrin, despite your own breeding, you have turned our Hildegarde into a proper lady."

Hildegarde's reaction, Madeleine thought, would have been anything but ladylike had she heard Barbara's provoking words.

As it was, Anton raised a brow in annoyance. "My dear," he said, "you exaggerate to the extreme, and flatter Miss Kerrin to no end. Have done with her. Look at the violets you have come to see, and we will be done with this."

Barbara went quickly to the violets and studied them, the flowers she so loved, which seemed to Madeleine, more so now that she knew Barbara liked them, sinister flowers, which grew in darkness, apparently delicate like Barbara, but thriving in black, rotted soil beneath forest leaves.

"What did you care to see, Miss Kerrin?" Anton asked, bringing a quick blush to Madeleine's cheeks at his direct look. As though he could guess her unkind thoughts!

"The venus fly trap," she said immediately. "Lord von Heidel told me of it, and I must confess my reluctance to believe its existence!"

"Ah," he said. "Three have died which Father brought from South America, but one is still alive. It is the hardiest of them, but I do not know if it will survive the winter."

"How strange it is to think of a carnivorous plant as delicate!" Madeleine remarked as she went to him, and again she was reminded of Barbara, and had to stop herself from more uncharitable thoughts about her.

But the venus fly trap was fascinating in its own right. It was not a lovely plant, but it was delicate, smaller than Barbara's violets, and a pale, sickly green which testified that it might not last the cold German winter.

"I am shocked that you would be so inclined toward such an appalling plant," Anton commented. "It really brings out the worst in people. Soon you will be catching a fly to give it."

"I should not do that!" Madeleine objected. "It is an appalling plant, but an honest one too! It makes no pretentions about its intents. The tendrils without each leaf do resemble a row of teeth. How fascinating. I have only seen these in books."

"I should have taken it to the conservatory long ago to salvage it were I not disgusted by it," Anton commented drily.

Madeleine picked up the small pot immediately. "Then you must allow me to nurture it!" she said. "It is such a fascinating specimen that I cannot allow it to die. And it will catch far more flies in the conservatory, when they blow in from the kitchen, then it will here."

Anton smiled ruefully at her. "How well you love unloveable things!" He caught her gaze, and Madeleine felt something meaningful pass between them. As before, it was as though Barbara were no longer in the room. But perhaps he was so immoral, that he did not care where he looked at another woman, or how openly he flirted with her.

Madeleine turned from him quickly.

Labels: excerpt, Winter Light

"Oh, Roger..." Margaret pressed one hand to her bosom. "I'm so sorry..."

"Don't." His voice was sharp, his expression forbidding. "Don't say anything like that to me about the matter. I'm very happy for Katherine."

She reached out to touch his hand, feeling sad at the stabbing pain in his eyes. "Then I am too, of course," she said.

A commotion from down the hall made them both look up. The children were running toward them with energetic cries, trailed by a tall, dark-haired man. For a moment, as Margaret met his stern gray eyes, she almost didn't recognize him. The expression on his face chilled her. She jerked her hand away from Roger's and stood quickly.

"Drew!" Roger moved toward him quickly. He shook his hand and clapped him on the back. "What a pleasure! It's been too long since I've seen you, old chap."

"Roger." Drew's lips upturned in a terse smile and he shook his old friend's hand firmly. Then he turned his hard stare back to Margaret. "Who is this girl?"

Margaret stood quickly, looking at him with astonishment.

Roger chuckled with surprise. "Why, Drew, don't you recognize our old friend, Margaret?" he asked. "She looks after your brothers and sisters now, of course."

"Of course," he said, striding toward her on legs that seemed impossibly long. "How do you do, Margaret?"

"Very well, Drew." She felt hot color creep to her face and looked away from him quickly, uncomfortable at his stare. How handsome he was! He had only grown more so in the years he had been away at college. But there was something quite different about his face now. It was no longer boyish, but quite stern. His gray eyes were hard as stones.

"We were just about to have lunch, Drew," Roger said. "Please join us."

The three of them sat. The children had taken advantage of the commotion and were eating sloppily, allowing mustard and dressing to slip from their sandwiches onto the table and onto their clothes.

Margaret had been so disturbed by Drew's sudden appearance that she had not noticed them. Now she rose quickly and went to them, lifting a napkin and wiping Duncan's dirty face. "Use your napkins!" she commanded sharply. "And sit straight in your chairs. Lean over your plates. Where are your manners, children?"

Drew's eyes followed Margaret's movements, and his gaze lingered on her as Roger spoke to him. "You're home far sooner than we expected," he said. "Was your train early?"

"I took a different train," he said, his gaze flint-hard. "I didn't want a fuss made over my return. I came early to avoid any whoo-doo." He made an absent wave with his hand.

Margaret returned to her seat once the children were behaving properly. She realized with discomfiture that she was as nervous as she had been around Drew eight years ago. Her hand trembled as she poured tea for all of them.

Drew's eyes were trained on her face. "What are you still doing here, Margaret?" he asked. "I thought you would go off to school."

Her face colored. Surely he must know that she was too poor to attend finishing school. Calmly she set the teapot down and picked up the cream. "When my father died, I became an orphan. I had no money. I have been working since I was twenty." She managed to return his gaze directly.

He looked her over thoughtfully. "Here?" he asked.

"I have had other jobs. Mr. Russell has employed me to look after the children in light of your mother's illness. I have had sufficient training in grade school to teach the children," she said quickly, feeling defensive under his gaze.

His black, slender brows rose on his pale face at her words. "Of course," he said with surprise. "You were always a very intelligent girl." His brows developed a crook and his lips twisted. "If not a little willful. I hope that you have grown past taking dares. It can get you into trouble."

Margaret smiled at him mockingly over her tea cup. "I am not above a dare," she said.

He leaned closer to her. "Really?" he asked. "I might impose one on you. Challenge how much courage you really have."

She leaned forward. "I think you will find that I am not easily bested. You will have to use your imagination."

"I have quite an imagination." He leaned closer still, his gray eyes sparking with the first life she had seen since he had come through the door. "I fear my capacity for imagination might shock you."

Roger cleared his throat, startled Margaret from the intriguing depths of Drew's gaze. She looked at Roger, feeling a little dizzy.

Labels: excerpt

This is so embarrassing: I wrote it when I was sixteen. I don't imagine it would be of entertainment to anyone but myself. The prelude is a poem I wrote myself, too, unfortunately.


Ah, fickle love!
You cannot decide, can you?!
Can you?!
Thrust me aside and look upon me no more
Or kiss me again


Even through the near-impermeable walls the storm raged, and as I leaned in an arcade in relief I felt the shudder of thunder. I shivered, and it was then that I realized the cloak I wore was warm, heated with a touch alien to my own, and I shuddered again, in horror, and wrenched it from my shoulders, holding it gingerly in one hand.

The walls which surrounded me were unfamiliar, hazy, and seemed even more foreign still as steam rose from an arched, open window and filled the room with curling threads of vapor. There was silence but for the steady roar out of doors.

I was not aware that I was in near-darkness until a sudden, alarming orange flame shot up from the wall opposite me. My breath lodged in my throat until I realized I was looking at a vast marble fireplace, thick with dust and web.

As my fascinated eyes stared the flame enlarged and separated, and the room was suddenly filled with a strange, warm glow.

How? I asked myself, but only for a moment, for I was shocked once more at the whisper which I might have heard.

Could have heard.

If only the rain would not pound so loudly...

The self-originated fire crackled merrily and invited me to kneel before it, and I closed my eyes in relief as the warmth permeated my damp, shivering body.

"Listen to me listen to me..."

I looked around and rose, the doctor's cloak slipping through my fingers. My heartbeat was audible.

"Listen to me listen to me listen to me..."

Was I hearing a voice? I blinked, and looked around again. The vapor seemed to cover the floor, and was beginning to reach my feet. I watched it until it curled around my ankles.

"Eloise..."

"Who's there?" I cried loudly, and my own voice was childlike, thin.

The flames crackled before my eyes in a mesmerizing glow. Were they coming closer to me, or I to them?

Then I was aware of the stone beneath me, and I was seated before the fire again.

"Eloise..."

Yes, it was the fire. I was certain of it. It spoke to me in a rich, dark voice.

"Yes; I'm listening."

"Eloise...you are the chosen and the cursed. Marry, and bear children, and you will carry on a legacy of evil and madness."

"What nonsense is this?" I scoffed at the flames.

A sharp crack, like an impatient throat clearing itself. "Your dreams are to fall in love and be wed, are they not?"

"Yes; what business is it of yours?"

"You are mad, Eloise."

"I am entirely coherent."

"Your children will be mad as well, Eloise. Countless generations will suffer from your afflictions if you carry out your selfish plans."

"My plans are normal," I said, confused and disappointed and a little angry. "I am a woman, or will be one day, and I deserve to be able to have children! And, anyway, I don't know why you are concerned. I shall never fall in love here, after all. My dreams will probably never come true, but I refuse to surrender my pleasant wishes."

Was the glow lessening? Was the fire dying?

"Stay away from the beds of men."

I frowned. "What?"

The fire was dying, and I was distressed.

"You shan't understand it now. Just remember my words; heed my warning. Your virginity is the future's salvation."

My eyes widened considerably. "Why...what a dramatic and strange thing to say! My maidenhood is not your concern, and your statement reeks of histronics!"

I was on my feet, and I was glaring angrily into a cold, empty fireplace. Feeling a little dizzy, I staggered backward and gingerly touched my forehead. The mist which had poured so freely from the windowsill had vanished, and a faint but steady rain fell upon Otranto.

Unconsciously I drew the doctor's cloak about me, a frightened feeling stirring within me. I had not liked the fire's words. Was there something the matter with me? Without warning, I suddenly felt trapped in a chasm of uncertainty.

I did not know what was real anymore; I was wandering through the castle's halls, and I saw smokelike images rise around me, beckon to me, and for the first time I was frightened of them, for I did not know what they were, who they were. Or if they were truly there.

Drawing back from the translucent white hands I hurried through the passages, tears of distress coming to my eyes. I continued on, giving in to the icy tears which clung to my lashes and cheeks, and biting my lip to keep from sobbing aloud.

God, I was so afraid. I did not know what was the matter with me.

And then there was Isabel, looking out of a window into the bleak, wet air. Relief filled me as I halted in the doorway, and I watched her.

I made no sound, but nevertheless, without warning she turned to me, and her relief echoed mine.

"Eloise," she chided in a breaking voice. "Dear, I did not know what had happened to you. I..."

I rushed into Isabel's familiar arms and a sob escaped my throat. "Help me, I whispered into her shoulder, scented with lavender. "I need to know what is real."



Isabel allowed me to remove my shoes in order to pace the deliciously cool, wet grass. I lingered behind her as she steadily trod to the ruined cathedral, not once looking back to make sure I followed. She knew I would not run away this time.

The sun looked sleepy as he moved from the cover of the last of the green-grey clouds. The light he bestowed was gentle and hesitant.

The closer we came to the cathedral the more my heart began to pound. Isabel seemed so certain of herself, ahead. She knew precisely where she was going. How well did she know my sanctuary?

I plucked idly at my freshly-washed gown, a mournful black silk, but relieved with lace at the elbows. I looked ahead again, and saw that we were coming closer to a garden beside the church, a garden of tombs. I was fascinated and frightened, and I stopped at the gate, clutching onto the damp iron balustrade in desperation.

Immediately Isabel turned around. "Come here." It was not softened with a plea, or hardened with a telling edge, but a single, collected statement.

I obeyed her, though inwardly I recoiled.

The graves were covered in a tangled mass of weeds and wildflowers, and the stones were covered in ivy; they were crumbling. Isabel made her way through the cemetery, looking around, halting before a pair of graves at the far edge, motioning for me to join her.

I felt faint; I knew I was going to see something I did not wish to. My own voice mocked me with my urgent question, "What is real?"

Perhaps I said it aloud, because Isabel said slowly and softly, "This is real."

And I moved beside Isabel and I saw the gravestones, framed in masses of ivy and morning glory.

The one nearest to me said "Horatio L'Agassi; birth unknown; death November 15, 1584."

The other read, merely, "Beth Dela Mer."

Oh, I had seen the graves before. I had seen them long ago, long before I even knew what death was. I had read the names and I had spoken aloud, spoken to my unseen neighbors in earnest. And I had brought them flowers.

And I had created my friends, Horatio and Beth, from the depths of my mind.

Labels: excerpt

When she was a girl she had gone there once, wading amidst waist-high weeds and picking through the brambles to get to the old cottage. She remembered it somehow. She had found a key in a drawer in an old dresser box in the spare room and had speculated endlessly about what it might open. It was the size and shape of a key which might fit into a door.

One day when Kate had been riding with her father she had seen the old cottage and had asked him about it. It's abandoned, he had told her. It was hard now to recall his voice because he had been dead for so many years. She had developed the idea that the key she had found must open the old cottage. It was on her father's property but it had not been inhabited for years. None of the servants seemed to know anything about it.

Kate had gone to the cottage at dusk, when her parents were occupied with preparing dinner and finishing up household tasks. She had opened the door with the key she had found and had entered the small building.

She remembered the effect the place had had on her senses. As she had stepped over the threshold she felt a sudden chill, perhaps because she had not expected to see the place kept, or to see anything inside it but old junk. She looked around, round-eyed, at a fine green velvet sofa, a polished mahogany table, and in the corner, a gold candleabra. The well-dressed room smelled of fine musk perfume.

The dim light streaming through the window revealed a bronze statue seated on a polished cherry pedestal. It was so unlike anything she had seen that she stared at it with fascination. As she moved closer she could make out the shape of it in the dim light. It was in the likeness of a gorilla, posed intimidatingly, with a threatening expression. Kate felt further unnerved in the cottage but she didn’t leave.

She became aware that bubbles were floating around her in the air. Turning she watched them, and realized they were issuing from the bronze gorilla’s mouth. She moved closer to the statue to study the phenomenon, but her gaze became caught by her reflection in the bubble.

It appeared to be her reflection at first, but as she stared she could see other images, the face of a man, tall, with dark hair. He held a woman in his arms and kissed her. Kate stared in astonishment.

She turned to another bubble and saw the image in it, a tall slim woman with skirts lifting, stumbling over rocks in the darkness. Her fine blue dress was torn and her long red hair was loose and tangled. Kate watched as she slipped, then clung to the rocks. Her mouth opened as though to cry out, but Kate heard no sounds except the chirping of birds in the rafters.

The sound of it jerked her to attention, and she looked back at the room. She saw the sofa, now covered with a white dust-cloth and several years’ worth of dust, and the table too covered with a cloth. The candleabra was tarnished and the white wax candles had melted and crumbled to bits.

Kate brought her arms close, rubbing at the sudden chills that came over her as she realized nothing was as she had first seen it. The bronze gorilla had disappeared.

Frightened, she backed out of the cottage and locked the door, then turned, intending to hurry back toward the house. Along the way the key fell out of her pocket. It landed somewhere in the high grass and she searched for it frantically. She was more concerned with returning home than finding the key, and she gave up her search after several moments.

The experience had printed itself on her mind. The man standing before her, a vagrant, brought it all back to her as he gestured toward the place. Kate was standing with him on the porch. It was dusk, like it had been that night years ago. She looked back at him, studying him. She was unable to make out his features in the shadows.

“The old place has been locked up for years of course,” she said. “You will have to make it presentable. The key has been lost. We will have to remove the door and install a new one.”

“I can do that,” he said, in a voice she low she could not really trace an inflection. “There’s no door. It looks as though someone broke into the place a while ago.”

Kate nodded. “Perhaps. I don’t know. I haven’t attended to it.”

Nicole stepped onto the porch, looking from Kate to the vagrant with curiosity. The stranger met her inquiring gaze levelly. Kate turned, then cast the vagrant an apologetic look. “Excuse us for a moment.”

In the parlor she faced her cousin. “Kate,” Nicole said, her brow knitted with unease, “who is that?”

“He’s looking for work. He wants to stay in the old cottage. He will do tasks around the house.”

Nicole looked appalled. “No,” she said, “we can’t have some stranger stay on our property. There’s only me and you living here, two women.”

“He doesn’t want money. He only wants to live in the cottage. You won’t notice him.”

Nicole looked discontent. “We don’t know him. We don’t know anything about him. I won’t feel secure living here, with him around.”

Kate knew that even though she owned the deed to the house she still ought to take her cousin’s feelings into account. Everything Nicole said was true and she was right to feel as she did. It was Kate who was behaving unnaturally. She had been on her guard until the vagrant had mentioned staying at the cottage, and then her memories of it had tumbled back.

For some reason she wanted him to stay there. She was afraid to enter the cottage but she wanted to see what it would be like for someone else. Even though the vagrant was completely mysterious Kate did not feel threatened by him.

“He will probably not stay long,” Kate said. “Likely enough a few nights and then he will be gone. I know the sort. I don’t want to turn him away. It’s just not in me to do that.”

Nicole was dumbfounded and her eyes still expressed protest but Kate pretended not to see. “I’m going back to speak with him,” she said, and went back to the porch.

The stranger was gone. Kate’s heart skipped a beat. She had expected him to remain, had expected that something would come of him but he must have heard her conversation with Nicole. She felt a trace of pity for him.

It was almost winter, which in Texas didn’t mean blizzards, but a hard freeze could be miserable or detrimental to someone who didn’t have shelter. She went to the far end of the porch, feeling strangely bereft, then she saw him.

He was moving toward the cottage.

Kate gave a swift intake of breath then stepped from the porch and followed him.

In the dusk she felt a curious sense of returning to herself, wading through the waist high grass toward the tree-shrouded, vine-covered cottage on the hillside.

The vagrant had already entered the cottage.

Kate followed him, pausing in the doorway.

He turned, and she felt curious as his dark eyes met hers. In the dimness his face was barely visible but his features appealed to her. She found herself moving toward him. She accepted his outstretched hand.

In the darkness part of her cried out against the behavior, against the illogical feeling which swept her. Dreamlike she looked around the room. It looked as it had for that brief moment long ago. The sofa was clad in green velvet. The mahogany furnishings glowed in the dim light. The brone gorilla stooped on its pedestal against one wall and spouted bubbles which floated on the cool air.

A breeze swept Kate’s face as she looked at the vagrant. Strands of hair covered her cheek, which he reached to brush aside. His eyes narrowed and his dark head neared hers, his high, arched brows furrowed with some unnamed emotion.

A sudden pain jerked her to awareness and Kate buckled to her knees. She grasped her ankle and he was beside her. He smelled of earth, smoke and hay, perhaps testifying to the places where he had slept. As Kate landed on the floor she became aware of the powder-fine dust, the dead dry leaves. He wasn’t looking at her with the same expression she had imagined, and the furniture was covered in dust cloths. There were no bubbles or bronze statue.

Kate gave a cry of pain as she moved her ankle. He touched it gingerly. “Easy,” he said, and for the first time she really heard the timbre of his voice. It was deep, and gentle. “You tripped over something in the doorway.”

Kate jerked her head back toward the door, then saw a loose board coming up. There were boards coming up everywhere. There were also cracks in the walls, and probably leaks in the roof.

She had imagined her encounter with him as well. He had crossed the room to reach her as she had stepped over the threshold, then tripped and fallen.

Kate felt foolish, afraid and slightly mad.

She wanted to say something to ground them in reality. “I don’t know if this is a good idea,” she said.

His eyes darkened slightly. Was he angry? When he spoke he sounded resigned. “When I approached the house I didn’t know there were only women. I’m sorry. You might have told me.” He was almost as aware of propriety as Nicole, Kate thought with faint amazement. It wasn’t something she had expected a vagrant to say.

“What’s your name?” she asked suddenly, truly wanting to know. The question hung in the air like dust. He didn’t answer or meet her eyes.

He rose to his feet, leaving her crouched on the floor.

“You want to live here,” she said. It wasn’t a question this time.

He still avoided her eyes. “I can use the work,” he said, “but I’m not going to beg you. If you’re going to tell me no, then do it, so I can look somewhere else for a job.”

“You can stay here,” Kate said. She realized she was still sitting on the floor, had made no move to get up because she had felt so disoriented, and felt foolish. She stumbled quickly to her feet. “What do you know how to do?”

“I’ll clean up your yard. I can clean out the barn. Maybe you and your sister can get cows or chickens.”

“She’s my cousin,” Kate said, then felt sorry she had volunteered the information. Maybe the less he knew about them the better. “We don’t know anything about animals. You can clean out the barn if you want. The house needs to be re-shingled. Know anything about that?”

“I can do that,” he said, meeting her gaze evenly.

“That’s good. This cottage doesn’t suffice as payment. I’ll give you some money. We can work it out later. For the time being I’m going back to the house. It’s late.”

He didn’t argue. He seemed to be waiting for her to leave as she turned and stepped out of the cottage, then crossed the field. She could feel his eyes on her back.


She couldn’t sleep that night.

Kate was awakened by the sound of scraping on the roof. Her eyes flew wide as she listened avidly to the unfamiliar sound. She got out of bed and dressed quickly, then entered the kitchen. Nicole was standing in the middle of the room holding a cup of coffee. She wore the same discontented expression Kate had seen last night.

"What is he doing up there?" Nicole hissed to her.
The previous evening's events rushed back to her. Her eyes widened as she remembered the vagrant. She didn't even know his name. "I gave him work to do," Kate said. "He's taking the shingles off the roof. If this doesn't work then I'll tell him to go. That's all there is to it."

Nicole gave her a doubtful look. "This is so unlike you," she said. "We don't know anything about this man."

Kate felt weary at the prospect of more of the previous evening's argument. "I will talk to him this afternoon," Kate said. "I want to know his name, and where he's come from."

"Do you think he will tell you that much? From the look of him he wants nothing to do with us, really."

Kate realized it was true. He probably wanted to tell them nothing about his past, but that made it seem all the more pertinent that she know at least the basic facts about him.

She went outside and crossed her arms, watching him on the roof. His sleeves were rolled up and his hair was mussed from the strong wind that blew over the house. "Do you want breakfast?" Kate shouted to him.

He turned at the sound of her voice, and his eyes narrowed. He crept to the edge of the roof and knelt down to her.

Kate smiled more pleasantly and moved closer. "Good morning," she said. "Nicole has scrambled some eggs, and there are biscuits. I can bring you something if you would like."

Though they were separated by an expanse of several feet Kate still felt his proximity. His face was clearly visible in the sunlight and Kate studied it momentarily, admiring what she saw. His hair swept in a black mass over his high, pale brow, framing green eyes which appeared to be looking her over.

"Thank you," he said, and Kate felt a slight, inexplicable relief at his agreement. It seemed somehow a step closer to speaking with him about his past.

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