“Happens. Told you. S’all right. We’ve got the acorn.”
“That might help if we were going to the first tree. I don’t see how it’ll help us find the Lord of the Wood.”
Elspeth smiled crookedly. That was the only way she’d smiled since yesterday, crookedly. Charlotte missed the easy grin she’d worn back in Seacliff.
“Never you mind. It’ll save us getting lost, and that’s all you need bother about.”
Not long after that, the temperature dropped, cold and sharp. Unseasonable frost limned the foliage around them. Elspeth whistled, wrapping her cloak around herself.
Charlotte had no cloak. She had an old coat that would have protected her from an autumn chill but not the sudden winter that had befallen. The cold knifed into her.
Ahead of them, a fox slunk across the path. Charlotteshuddered, drawing closer to Elspeth. The fox’s skull showed through its fur.
Spooked by the forest, Charlotte wanted to believe she was imagining it, but she remembered Elspeth’s description of the sparrowhawk that had attacked her. The fox gazed at them with eyes blank and black. It should’ve been more skittish, Charlotte thought.
The fox regarded them then slunk onward, vanishing into the underbrush.
Elspeth shook her head and clucked at the mule. His ears twitched as they continued onward.
Realizing how close she’d gotten to Elspeth, Charlotte shifted away. She missed the warmth immediately. Her fingers were stiff, her joints aching, but it was hard to say, just now, what bothered her more: the pain or the memory of the fox’s skull showing through its fur. She curled in on herself, shivering.
Wordlessly, Elspeth removed her cloak and offered it to Charlotte.
Charlotte hesitated. “You’ll be cold.”
“Not as cold as you, I reckon.”
Charlotte took the cloak gratefully. She meant to saythank you, but what came out was, “Why is it so cold?”
Elspeth shrugged but offered no answer.
Charlotte curled away from her. Elspeth’s kindness made her burn with shame. They’d hardly spoken a word to each other after her outburst yesterday, but Elspeth had built a fire, cooked them supper, and seen that Charlotte was comfortable when they’d bedded down for the night.
Charlotte hadn’t even known what Elspeth was going to say. How she thought they were alike. It could’ve been anything, not that Charlotte could think of many ways they were similar and fewer still that might be signaled by the giving ofa cap. But she’d thought so much lately of feelings she’d suppressed for decades that she’d jumped to conclusions.
She snuggled into the cloak, squeezing her eyes shut. “I’m sorry.”
“What for?”
“For... for yesterday. For...”
She sputtered into silence. Elspeth shrugged again, but her brow puckered.
Then she straightened, tense as a bowstring. “Maggie?”
Charlotte glanced at her. “What?”
Elspeth’s dark eyes snapped, but she spoke in a hushed voice. “It’sMaggie.”
Charlotte’s heart sank. She tried not to picture what Maggie McIntire might look like, grown over like Brigid. “I’m—”
Elspeth slapped the driving lines with a laugh. “Maggie!”
Charlotte clutched at the seat. “What—”
“Just there.” Elspeth pointed through the gloom. “Don’t you see her?”
Charlotte squinted. Through the trees, a figure in white materialized. It looked in their direction, or appeared to. At this distance, in the frigid gloom, it seemed to have no face.
