Brightly Woven(35)

There was, however, the strangest sensation at my feet. Even through the leather of my boots, I could feel the brush of cool silk against my skin. The mist from the mountains had rolled down into the forest, hovering around my ankles in a pool of white.

Yet when I moved, so did the mist. It swirled without the aid of wind, gathering into large pockets between the trees. A breeze lifted the hem of my dress and sent my hair flying.

I took a step back. My skin felt ready to crawl off my bones.

The hand that latched on to my bare arm felt frozen to the touch, and that alone was enough to make me scream.

“Miss Mirabil!” Lady Aphra said in a rush of breath. Her face had lost all its robust color. “Do you not understand the concept of danger? Or is there so much dust and dirt crammed up in your ears that you can’t listen to the warnings people have given you?”

“Did you see?” I gasped. “Did you see it?”

“I saw nothing but a foolish girl, running out into the woods to get herself killed!”

The old woman’s fingernails dug into my skin like claws and didn’t release me until we were halfway up the hill to her cottage. When I did look back, I saw nothing to be frightened of except the suddenly empty air.

I was tempted to escape the confines of Aphra’s cabin more than once, and the desire grew with each passing hour—each minute—North was gone. I forced myself to stay inside, alternating between weaving North’s cloak and playing with those few potion ingredients I had left. My mind was too restless to settle.

After a few hours, Lady Aphra shut the door quietly behind her and set a small basket beside me on the floor. I looked, surprised to find it full of more plants than I could identify.

“They go to waste in my garden,” she explained, her voice low and rough. “I don’t have the patience for such things. I suspect you’ll need them more than I will.”

“Thank you,” I said. It wasn’t an apology for the way she had scolded me earlier, but it was likely the closest thing I would receive. I poured the pain elixir I had just finished into an empty jar.

Lady Aphra walked over to the small window. Her eyes were cast out over the valley below, but I knew exactly what they were searching for.

“He’ll take care of it,” I said, trying to sound confident.

“I’m sure. I am getting a little concerned, however,” she said. She wiped her hands on her apron. “He’d better be back before dark.”

“Are the children still inside?” I asked.

“We’ve kept them in the schoolhouse all day, but they won’t stand for it much longer,” she said.

“I’m sure—” I began, but her body tightened like a spring, and she shot toward the door.

I jumped to my feet and followed her outside. I hoped that with the day’s work done, North would be open to the idea of traveling that night.

But when North came into sight, it was clear we would not be traveling.

“What happened?” Lady Aphra demanded.

Supported on either side by a villager, North was barely able to keep his own head up. Several of his cloaks had nasty gashes or were missing pieces entirely. His dark pants and shirt were spotted with dirt and blood. He had a shallow cut on his face, and his dark eyes were closed.

“North…” At my touch, he blinked.

“Hullo, Syd,” he mumbled as the men lifted him up the steps of the cabin and onto the nearest pile of bedding. His breathing was low and hard—I couldn’t understand what he was trying to say.

Seeing the grimace of pain on his face, I lifted the jar of pain elixir to his mouth and helped him to drink it.

“If you have something for sleep, you’d better give him that, too,” Aphra said in a low voice. I retrieved another jar from my bag, and North drank its contents just as obediently. I lowered his head back onto the bedding.

Lady Aphra rose and signaled for the other men to follow her outside.

“What happened?” I whispered. “Are you all right?”

“He got away…,” North breathed, succumbing to the sleeping draft. “He…”

I leaned back, finally releasing the anxiety and fear I had been holding inside of me all day.

“It’s all right,” I said, though I knew he couldn’t hear me. I began unlacing one of his boots. “We’ll get him. We won’t let him stop us.”

Beneath the leather were the shreds of a sock, a sock that may or may not have been red at one point in its miserable life but was now a faint pink. A sock that was gaping open at the heel and sliding down North’s ankle, completely stretched out.

“I guess I’ll have to forget about the cloak for a while,” I said, covering my mouth and nose with my free hand. “Socks it is.” In his sleep, North seemed to snort in approval. I peeled the sock away, holding it in front of me like a rotten piece of fruit. I held my breath while I used my free hand to open the window and drop the sock outside.

The other boot was laced tighter than the first, and I had a terrible time picking apart the knot with my stubby fingernails. As a weaver, I prided myself on being able to untangle the worst of knots, but this one was almost impossible. North didn’t help me much, either; he kept shifting away from my hands. I held him firmly in place, giving him a look that I wished he had been awake to see. I was practically screaming in frustration when the worn string finally gave. I ripped the boot off his foot none too gently. Another worn-out sock came with it, leaving a large, reeking, perfectly black foot in my lap.