“I can help.” Pushing onto my knees, I scurried to collect the scattered horseshoes and stack them up my arm.
Kit snatched them off my wrist, then hung them on the rack. “I think you’ve done enough,” he said, as condescending as before.
I stood and stepped back as he collected the spilled items and returned them to their places. He did fine work. My father would have been impressed by the craftsmanship of the farm tools, especially. The sharp glint of the curved blade of a sickle caught my eye as Kit returned it to the rack, and I remembered his work in progress.
Glancing back at the forge found the knife and tongs sitting—apparently unscathed—on the stone ledge surrounding the coals. I sighed in relief and noticed Kit glaring.
“Actually, thereissomething you could do to help,” he said.
“Oh?”
Kit nodded, then said in a stern voice, “You can leave.”
3
Penny
I’d only ventured this far from home once before, and while the lively bustle of Forstford was a stark and thrilling contrast to my quiet farming village of Eastcliff, it was hard to savor the experience with empty pockets.
I talked—a fair bit, in fact—and asked after the elusive Kit Mosel, hoping someone might reveal something new. When they didn’t, I shifted my questions toward where he might have come from, thinking I’d take myself there next.
By the end of my fifth day, the stories here felt far less sensational than the ones that had first lured me to town. They mostly echoed what the barmaid had told me, though at a fraction of the cost.
Kit Mosel kept to himself. He had no friends to speak of, no social life to dissect, no wife or family in tow. He came into town strictly to work the smithy—where I was far too ashamed to show my face—or to buy supplies at the market.
So, to the market I went in hopes of catching him.
Wandering down the rows of vendors, my body movedforward while my head lolled back, tantalized by the sights and smells of various foods for sale. Temptation warred with me as I slowed to a stop in front of the cheese monger’s stand. Hard waxed wheels, soft, creamy cakes, and angular smoked wedges stacked the wooden table and spilled out of baskets, a bounty the likes of which I’d never seen. I thought fondly of our cows back home, how they lowed for the early morning milking when I would drink my fill of fresh, warm cream before carting the sloshing pails inside.
I savored the smell, as it was all I could afford, before willing my feet into motion. One step was all it took to send me straight into the path of an oncoming stranger. The collision staggered us both, and the other man dropped the burlap sack he’d been carrying, setting apples loose to scatter across the ground.
I froze. Locked from the knees up, jaw slack, breath caught somewhere in my throat as I looked up at the tall, dark-haired man I’d been hoping to find any other way than this.
“Hello again, Mister…” I caught myself and cleared my throat before correcting, “Kit.”
“Should’ve told you not to call methat, either,” he grumbled, then knelt to scoop the now bruised and dusty apples into his bag.
I’d learned from the incident at the forge not to offer my assistance, but it felt awkward to stand idly by, so I spoke. “I had a thought.”
I’d had several of them while I wandered the quiet streets the night before, looking for a stoop to curl up on after being turned out of the inn. Fortunately, it hadn’t rained, though the dreary skies overhead didn’t promise the same luck for the coming night.
Kit finished collecting his goods and rose to full height as I continued.
“Perhaps, if you’re unwilling to take me to the Bone Men, you could draw me a map?”
Kit shouldered his shopping bag with a scoff. “Some navigator you’d be. Can’t even walk through town without crashing into people.”
My chest swelled with a haughty breath, and I crossed my arms, standing staunch before him. “I’ll have you know I made it here on my own from some miles away. I can manage myself.”
Rather than face me, Kit stepped around, approaching the cheese monger’s booth to peruse the goods I’d only just finished drooling over. I followed closely at his heels, near enough my nose tickled at the scent of juniper wafting off him.
“You’d walk yourself off a cliff holding the map wrong side up,” he muttered. “All because it said there should be a road there.”
He indicated one of the small, waxed wheels and requested a quarter of it. My stomach growled, a reminder of my three meals-a-day lifestyle recently reduced to one as the coin in my pocket reached dangerously low levels.
“And it’s more than ‘some miles,’” Kit continued while the vendor sliced and wrapped the wedge of cheese in waxed paper. “When I left that place, I went as far as my feet would take me, then kept going.”
Aggravation prickled at me almost as much as the hunger. Five days I’d wasted asking for help and favors, but it seemed Kit and I were speaking different languages. So, I tried again in terms he might better understand.
