Charlotte didn’t understand then that Keir was trying to keep her safe. She had cried and shouted at him. Keir hadn’t shouted back—he rarely did—but he would not budge. He didn’t understand what it meant to her. They would get into the same argument again and again for years, right up until the day she went over the falls wearing a dress.
So when Charlotte saw Keir mourning her, she didn’t understand it. She thought he would be happy she was gone.
On that Winter Solstice night more than three years later, it finally seemed like he was. A carriage had arrived the day before, and Charlotte had spotted them—Keir and their cousin, Rory—playing in the fields outside of Weldan House.
She had heard the shouting first. She raced to the edge of the woods, keeping herself close to the trees to let the korrigan’s magic hide her as they had taught her to do. Winter had come early that year; the snows had started right after the harvest and had rarely let up since. Out in the yard, the boys were having a snowball fight.
Charlotte listened to the boys shouting and playing, their laughter echoing over the frozen ground, and felt a powerful sense of jealousy and loss.
She should be there with them.
She watched them for hours. She couldn’t see them clearly from such a distance, but she could picture them. The rosy red of Keir’s cheeks. Rory, breathless, crouched behind a tree, lying in wait.
If she had been there, she would have scaled the great old oak and pelted them both before they even knew what had hit them.
But she couldn’t join them, not now. It had been too long. How could she explain what she had done? How could she make Keir understand why she had to leave, why she couldn’t go back to the house even though she was so close?
He would be angry. And Father would be angrier. He might hurt the korrigans for helping her. They were good at hiding, but people spotted them sometimes. She couldn’t risk their safety for her sake.
So she reluctantly dragged herself back into the woods as the sun set. Hours later, she heard the chime of the dinner bell on the breeze. She had eaten already with the korrigans, but as delicious as their fish stew was, she longed for a taste of the traditional Solstice roast.
She would settle for just seeing it. She crept back through the woods to the spot from which she’d watched the boys earlier. There was no need to sneak—the korrigans would not be angry with her for going—but she did so nonetheless. Perhaps it was herself she was hiding from.
The windows of the manor were lit with flickering candlelight. Smoke poured from a dozen chimneys, leaving a hazy cloud over the great building.
It was so warm, so inviting. The cold barely touched her now that she had lived among the korrigans for so long, but she was still tempted by the promise of a night spent beside a roaring fire, a cup of hot cocoa in hand. It was almost enough to make her forget what had happened to her in that house.
The dining room faced the eastern courtyard where the boys had been playing. It was such a grand room that it had no fewer than eight windows. The heavy curtains had been drawn over them, but there was a gap between them on the third window from the left.
Charlotte crept over the fresh snow, passing through the bushes and climbing onto a thin ledge of stone to peer inside. The gap was narrow, but it gave Charlotte a good look at the end of the table.
Keir was there, and so was Rory. They had bathed and dressed in their finest attire. Keir was thirteen then, and this was likely his first Solstice dinner at the adult table. He was doing his best to mind his manners and look the part of the future lord of the house, but she could hear his gentle laughter at some joke he shared with Rory, could see him fighting off the fit of giggles that desperately wanted to escape.
Charlotte’s breath caught in her throat as she watched. It was so…ordinary, so joyful, in a way their family dinners never had been.
She realized it then: she was right. They were better off without her.
Keir lifted a glass of amber liquid, and as he took a sip, he caught Charlotte’s eyes for a moment.
Charlotte stood still as she watched the color drain from his face. He froze there, the drink still touching his lips, his eyes wide open and staring straight ahead.
As Keir lowered his glass, Charlotte bolted.
She leapt from the windowsill onto the snowy ground, not noticing the pain of the impact. Not daring to look back, to see if they were coming for her, she tore across the moonlit yard into the night.
She crossed the river—the river that had nearly killed her—effortlessly. The water was as familiar to her now as her old room in the manor, as much her home as any other place. But she didn’t want to be at home. Not now.
Her feet carried her through the woods, past the korrigan’s camp, up and up, to the edge of her father’s land where it met the road into Herot’s Hollow.
With everyone at home enjoying the Winter Solstice feast, the roads were silent and still, the only sound the quick crunch of her feet through the freshly fallen snow. Charlotte knew where she was heading.
What she didn’t know was what she’d do once she got there.
Across the river, there was a line of shops with living quarters in their upper stories. Charlotte passed the tailor and the apothecary and stood in front of the third shop in the lane: Mrs. Knox’s Bakery.
Charlotte looked into the window: the shop was dark, but she could just make out the empty shelves behind the counter. It looked just the same as it had the last time she had been there over three years earlier, the same simple wooden tables with the chairs stacked on top, the same hand-drawn sign, tucked in the corner:
1dz Solstice biscuits1s
