Beneath the Apple Leaves(88)

Andrew turned stealthily onto the main street of town, jogged past the post office to the blacksmith’s shop in the back. The open stall was stained black from wall to ceiling and the blacksmith stood over a steel drum of water. With each submerged tool, the water cried and hissed, rose in steam to the rafters. The man didn’t turn. “Need something?” he asked curtly.

Andrew pulled his father’s miner tags from his shirt and held them up. “Can you melt these down?”

The man touched the tags, inspected the brass in his onyx hands. “Into what?”

“A ring.” Andrew pulled out the green gem in his pocket. “Set with this.”





CHAPTER 42

Lily bent over the cucumbers. She should have picked them earlier. The biggest were cracked on the top, the brown-scabbed skin knitting the crevices. Absently, she placed the vegetables in the bucket, her mind distant and active while her fingers did the plucking.

The wind shifted and she hurried with the task, her heart beating fast in her chest. She reached for the last fat cucumber, saw the swift movement of a man’s boot and ducked her head just as the kick landed with a shuddering smack against the metal pail, sending it flying above her stooped shoulders. Vegetables bounced and scattered across the garden. The bucket skipped and then landed, rolled slowly. Lily kept her head buried even after the noise stopped.

“Stand up, goddammit!”

Lily uncoiled, stood straight and faced Frank.

“I swear I could wring your damn neck with my bare hands!” he screamed.

She didn’t move, set dead eyes upon him, surrendered to what was to come. She could almost feel his hands on her neck squeezing out the life, could feel the way she would close her eyes and drift into death under his fingertips.

Her silence rattled him. He took a step forward and raised his hand to strike her cheek, but she didn’t waver.

He dropped it and turned, spit into the ground. “Goddammit!”

He cursed and kicked the dirt, turned in circles mumbling obscenities. “If they kick me out of the APL for this, so help me . . .”

“I was there,” she defended. “Andrew never said those things.”

Her voice only fueled Frank’s rage. “I don’t give a damn what he said!”

“He was helping me! Dan was coming after me. Andrew stopped him,” she cried. The fire rose in her throat. “All he was trying to do was protect me.”

Frank barreled upon her, his finger pointing at her face in jabs. “You . . . don’t . . . ever . . . see . . . him again. You hear me?”

“But he didn’t do anything wrong.”

“So help me, if you ever talk to that man again, ever so much as look his way or pass him on the street, I’ll have him back in that cell before you can blink.”

Lily’s brows inched together and she gritted her teeth.

“Think I’m bluffing, don’t you?” Frank snorted. “Try me, Lilith. Just try me,” he threatened. “Next time I’ll make sure the officer accidentally leaves the cell door unlocked. Never know when Dan and his buddies might want to make a visit.”

“I hate you.”

“Oh, Lilith,” he jeered. “I hate you more.”

*

On Friday, Lily waited next to the spring in the woods as promised. Frank would never know, and besides, she had to warn Andrew to stay away.

The air in the forest hung cool and shaded, mystical. The stones seemed to sweat water, each damp, some with trickles and drops, some just glistening in the filtered sunlight. She pressed her fingers into the spongy moss, dark and brilliant.

She touched the surface of the pool with her palm, the water frigid and so clear she could see the rocks piled at the bottom. The ripples left by her hand soon faded, the surface turned to glass, her reflection as refined as in a hand mirror.

She studied her nose and eyes, the arch of her brows, the hair that hung around her shoulders, and wondered if she was pretty. Squinting, Lily tried to see herself objectively but stared so long that her skin blended with her eyes and features. She cocked her head at the image, thought of Andrew and smiled. And she realized that she was pretty when she thought of him, as if his light shone straight through her eyes.

The cool air dropped a degree and another form entered the glass surface; two eyes and a hat grew above her head like a serpent emerging from the lake. Lily jumped and turned, just long enough to see her smile morph into terror.

“Thought you were out milking,” Frank accused. “But you were coming to meet that cripple, weren’t you?”

She backed up, braced against the spring’s wall, the water instantly freezing and soaking her back. Lily’s fingers found a rock and she traced her fingers around the edge, thought how easy it would be to strike it against him. If she hit hard enough, it would kill him; if it didn’t, the nightmare would grow worse.

Frank’s anger left and he seemed suddenly lost. He looked up at the trees as if the limbs and leaves confused him. “You know I don’t like this any more than you do.”

Something about his tone made her skin break out in a cold sweat. A look passed over his face, the ashen contrition she had only seen once before. “You need to come back to the house and get changed,” he ordered softly.

Panic swelled and she shook her head. She tried to step back, but there was no room. “No,” she said fiercely.