“What d’you think?” he asked. Freya stretched luxuriously. “Should we keep following the stream and hope for the best?”
Beginning her morning bath, Freya did not respond, except to hack up a hair ball. She resumed her bathing. Arthur’s nose wrinkled.
He dragged himself from the shrubs, grimacing as his back acted up. His stomach rumbled. He gazed at it dolefully.
“I can’t do anything for you right now,” he told it. “I’m sure something in this forest bears fruit, but I don’t know that I’d be able to tell a poisonous berry from a safe berry—assuming any berry in this forestissafe.”
He imagined biting into a berry that spit black ooze instead of juice, and lost his appetite.
“Come on, Freya.”
They set out, following the stream. Arthur kept one hand on the acorn and the other in his pocket, on his father’s watch, but his mind wandered back to Ira. Ira touching him, tenderly and often, long before they’d kissed. Taking care of him.
Asking him to stay.
Ira going home without him because he was too frightened and angry to listen, even though he’d said Arthur made him feel hopeful. Ira accusing Arthur of never trying to change anything, which stung no matter how true.
Well, Arthur was trying now. He’d continue onward, replant the heart of the wood, and save himself and Charlotte and Ira whether Ira thought it possible or not.
The open sky above the stream didn’t improve his mood: dingy gray like a used dishcloth. Freya crouched periodically in the grass, flicking her tail, and pounced at a spider or a late-season butterfly. Arthur sighed. She’d seemed much better company before he’d had another person to talk to.
His mood dropped lower the longer they walked. The water still smelled mechanical, the sky’s color did not improve, he was hungry and thirsty, and he kept thinking with a shudder of yesterday’s fog. At midmorning, feet aching, he dropped his knapsack and sat on a rock by the stream. Breathing deeply, he turned the rowan cross over and over, ran his fingers along its edges.
“We’ll never make it, will we? I don’t know why I thought I could do this.”
Pressed against him, Freya didn’t respond. Her ears twitched at a distant rustling.
The rustling came closer, and now it sounded bigger. Something was coming their way, and quickly. Arthur staggered to his feet and lunged for the nearest stick. He raised it like a sword, arms trembling.
A creature burst through the trees. Arthur dropped his stick, scrambling out of the way—then realized what he was seeing.
A horse. A massive gelding with a tan coat and flaxen hair and feathered feet. Except for the scarring on his hindquarters, he looked as he had when Arthur had last seen him.
“Maurice?”
“Uncle Arthur!”
His heart leaped. When Maurice turned, Sasha vaulted off his bare back. She barreled into Arthur with a laugh, hugginghim tight. Behind her, Jonas dismounted more carefully. They stumbled, but Arthur caught them and pulled them into his arms.
It was a trick of the forest, it had to be, but Arthur laughed through his tears, kissing the tops of the children’s heads over and over. They were reassuringly warm and solid. Freya arched against them, twisting between all of their legs.
Maurice stood guard. Two pillowcases were slung over his back with rope.
“I told you we’d find him!” Sasha said in triumph. “Hullo, Freya!”
“Did not,” Jonas mumbled, sniffling into Arthur’s neck. “You said we’d find Mama.”
Arthur’s stomach clenched. “How long since she left, duck?”
“She left Saturday to come find you with Miss Elspeth,” Sasha said. “Miss Tierney has been looking after us.”
“She was supposed to take us to the convent Monday morning,” Jonas mumbled. “But...”
They scuffed their shoes.
“But we came looking for Mama,” Sasha said. “Jonas wanted me to go home, but I wouldn’t. I guess it’s okay they came, though, since it was their idea to borrow Maurice.”
Jonas looked up anxiously. “We’ll bring him back when we get home, honest.”
