I shrugged, because indeed I had no idea who was coming. “From Black Hill,” I said.
He turned away then, going back to his companion and the landlord, who said something to the men that made them laugh, but he looked over at me with a new curiosity. Some minutes later a barmaid brought me a plate of cold roast beef and a knob of bread, but I shook my head, telling her I had no money to pay. She smiled, showing blackened teeth. “Never mind,” she said, and she shoved the plate into my hands. I fell to it, thinking it the best meal I had had in months.
I must have nodded off, because the next thing I knew someone was shaking me awake. I opened my eyes to see a man, short and broad and nearly square, grasping my shoulders with both hands. “Master Rochester,” he said in a gravelly voice, “is this you?”
I nodded wordlessly.
“And it’s me to get you,” he said. When, still dazed with sleep, I didn’t respond, he added, “For Black Hill.”
With that I was up like a shot. He shouldered my trunk and led the way to an old cart parked outside, drawn by an even older horse. There was but one seat—for the driver—so I climbed into the cart and sat beside my trunk as we jolted along in the darkness. Not a star was in sight; even the moon had disappeared, and I wondered how the strange man could find the way in such complete darkness, until I realized that he was probably giving the horse its rein and letting it find its own way home.
It must have been about an hour, though it seemed half the night, before the driver turned to me and said, “There it is, just ahead.” I could still see nothing—no candle burning in a window, no slant of moonlight against a brass door handle, nothing. Then I began to hear a difference in the hoofbeats, as if the horse were hurrying toward the stable, and the driver said, “Yee,” to stop him. In the sudden silence I could hear only the wind in the trees and a distant owl and the snort of the horse.
The driver climbed down and pulled my trunk from the cart, leaving me to get out in darkness as he walked to the door. He did not pull a bell but just walked in, and as soon as the door opened I could see a faint light—enough to follow him by. He preceded me into a room with a fireplace burning low and a lump of something seen dimly in the glow of a single candle.
As we came closer, the lump stirred and I could make out that it must be a man sitting in a chair, and I stopped. The cart driver dropped my trunk unceremoniously and left. “Come closer,” said the man in the chair. “Let me see you in the light.”
I stepped as close as I dared, shivering from the cold or from anxiety, or both.
“Closer,” he said, and I took another step. “Do you know who I am?” he asked.
“Mr. Hiram Lincoln?” I responded.
“You are young Edward Rochester,” he said. It was not a question, so I did not reply.
“Are you not?” he demanded.
“Yes, sir, I am,” I said.
“You are very late.”
“I had to wait for the cart. I did not know how to come otherwise.”
“Hmm,” he said. I had gotten a better look at him by then—he seemed a huge man, both tall and heavy, and his voice was unusually high. “We go to bed with the sun here at Black Hill,” he said.
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir,” I said.
“And we rise with the sun.”
“Yes, sir.”
He gazed at me for a time without saying anything. There was something about him that I sensed, a kind of latent power, and I realized that not only was I powerless—a feeling I was used to anyway—but I had little idea of where I was, or for how long, or what was to become of me afterwards. “There are three of you boys now,” he said. “The other two share the big bed. You will sleep on the cot. Did you bring your own bedding?”
“No, sir, I did not know—”
“You should have known. Your people should have told you.”
I said nothing, dismay rising in my throat.
He sighed heavily. “It’s up the steps,” he said. “Just the one room. You will have to sleep in your clothes tonight, then.”
Standing, he proved to be the biggest man I had ever seen, even in the semidarkness. “Are you waiting for a candle?” he asked. “You won’t need one; the cot is just at the top of the steps, next to the wall on your left.” He turned away, taking the one candle with him, and I scurried to the steps before the candle glow fully disappeared, leaving my trunk where the driver had dropped it.
Chapter 3
Athumb and forefinger lifted my eyelid. “He’s dark,” said a voice.
I shook my head away from the fingers, opening my eyes on my own and raising myself on my elbows. There were two boys. One appeared to be three or four years older than I, with flaming ginger hair; the other was small, with a freckled oval face and light brown hair.
