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He tiptoed to the bedroom door, which stood open. There in bed lay his mother, her hands clasped on the counterpane, her eyes staring sightlessly up at the ceiling.
“Mama?” Tim whispered.
For a moment she didn’t stir, and Tim felt a cold shaft of fear. He thought, I’m too late. She’s a-lying there dead.
Then Nell rose on her elbows, her hair cascading in a flood to the down pillow behind her, and looked toward him. Her face was wild with hope. “Tim? Is it you, or am I dreaming?”
“You’re awake,” he said.
And rushed to her.
Her arms enfolded him in a strong grip, and she covered his face with the heartfelt kisses that are only a mother’s to give. “I thought you were killed! Oh, Tim! And when the storm came, I made sure of it, and I wanted to die myself. Where have you been? How could you break my heart so, you bad boy?” And then the kissing began again.
Tim gave himself over to it, smiling and rejoicing in the familiar clean smell of her, but then he remembered what Maerlyn had said: When thee gets home, what’s the first thing thee’ll do?
“Where have you been? Tell me!”
“I’ll tell you everything, Mama, but first lie back and open your eyes wide. As wide as you can.”
“Why?” Her hands kept fluttering over his eyes and nose and mouth, as if to reassure herself that he was really here. The eyes Tim hoped to cure stared at him . . . and through him. They had begun to take on a milky look. “Why, Tim?”
He didn’t want to say, in case the promised cure didn’t work. He didn’t believe Maerlyn would have lied—it was the Covenant Man who made lies his hobby—but he might have been mistaken.
Oh please, don’t let him have been mistaken.
“Never mind. I’ve brought medicine, but there’s only a little, so you must lie very still.”
“I don’t understand.”
In her darkness, Nell thought what he said next might have come from the dead father rather than the living son. “Just know I’ve been far and dared much for what I hold. Now lie still!”
She did as he bade, looking up at him with her blind eyes. Her lips were trembling.
Tim’s hands were, too. He commanded them to grow still, and for a wonder, they did. He took a deep breath, held it, and unscrewed the top of the precious bottle. He drew all there was into the dropper, which was little enough. The liquid didn’t even fill half of the short, thin tube. He leaned over Nell.
“Still, Mama! Promise me, for it may burn.”
“Still as can be,” she whispered.
One drop in the left eye. “Does it?” he asked. “Does it burn?”
“No,” said she. “Cool as a blessing. Put some in the other, will ya please.”
Tim put a drop into the right eye, then sat back, biting his lip. Was the milkiness a little less, or was that only wishing?
“Can you see anything, Mama?”
“No, but . . .” Her breath caught. “There’s light! Tim, there’s light!”
She started to rise up on her elbows again, but Tim pressed her back. He put another drop in each eye. It would have to be enough, for the dropper was empty. A good thing, too, for when Nell shrieked, Tim dropped it on the floor.
“Mama? Mama! What is it?”
“I see thy face!” she cried, and put her hands on his cheeks. Now her eyes were filling with tears, but that did Tim very well, because now they were looking at him instead of through him. And they were as bright as they ever had been. “Oh, Tim, oh my dear, I see thy face, I see it very well !”
Next came a bit of time which needs no telling—a good thing, too, for some moments of joy are beyond description.
You must give thy father’s ax to her.
Tim fumbled in his belt, brought the hand-ax from it, and placed it beside her on the bed. She looked at it—and saw it, a thing still marvelous to both of them—then touched the handle, which had been worn smooth by long years and much use. She raised her face to him questioningly.
Tim could only shake his head, smiling. “The man who gave me the drops told me to give it to you. That’s all I know.”
“Who, Tim? What man?”
“That’s a long story, and one that would go better with some breakfast.”
“Eggs!” she said, starting to rise. “At least a dozen! And the pork side from the cold pantry!”
Still smiling, Tim gripped her shoulders and pushed her gently back to the pillow. “I can scramble eggs and fry meat. I’ll even bring it to you.” A thought occurred to him. “Sai Smack can eat with us. It’s a wonder all the shouting didn’t wake her.”
“She came when the wind began to blow, and was up all through the storm, feeding the fire,” Nell said. “We thought the house would blow over, but it stood. She must be so tired. Wake her, Tim, but be gentle about it.”
Tim kissed his mother’s cheek again and left the room. The Widow slept on in the dead man’s chair by the fire, her chin upon her breast, too tired even to snore. Tim shook her gently by the shoulder. Her head jiggled and rolled, then fell back to its original position.
Filled with a horrid certainty, Tim went around to the front of the chair. What he saw stole the strength from his legs and he collapsed to his knees. Her veil had been torn away. The ruin of a face once beautiful hung slack and dead. Her one remaining eye stared blankly at Tim. The bosom of her black dress was rusty with dried blood, for her throat had been cut from ear to ear.
He drew in breath to scream, but was unable to let it out, for strong hands had closed around his throat.
Bern Kells had stolen into the main room from the mudroom, where he had been sitting on his trunk and trying to remember why he had killed the old woman. He thought it was the fire. He had spent two nights shivering under a pile of hay in Deaf Rincon’s barn, and this old kitty, she who had put all sorts of useless learning into his stepson’s head, had been warm as toast the whole time. ’Twasn’t right.
He had watched the boy go into his mother’s room. He had heard Nell’s cries of joy, and each one was like a nail in his vitals. She had no right to cry out with anything but pain. She was the author of all his misery; had bewitched him with her high breasts, slim waist, long hair, and laughing eyes. He had believed her hold on his mind would lessen over the years, but it never had. Finally he simply had to have her. Why else would he have murdered his best and oldest friend?
Now came the boy who had turned him into a hunted man. The bitch was bad and the whelp was worse. And what was that jammed into his belt? Was it a gun, by gods? Where had he gotten such a thing?
Kells choked Tim until the boy’s struggles began to weaken and he simply hung from the woodsman’s strong hands, rasping. Then he plucked the gun from Tim’s belt and tossed it aside.
“A bullet’s too good for a meddler such as you,” Kells said. His mouth was against Tim’s ear. Distantly—as if all sensation were retreating deep into his body—Tim felt his steppa’s beard tickling his skin. “So’s the knife I used to cut the diseased old bitch’s throat. It’s the fire for you, whelp. There’s plenty of coals yet. Enough to fry your eyeballs and boil the skin from your—”
There was a low, meaty sound, and suddenly the choking hands were gone. Tim turned, gasping in air that burned like fire.
Kells stood beside Big Ross’s chair, looking unbelievingly over Tim’s head at the gray fieldstone chimney. Blood pattered down on the right sleeve of his fla
Slowly, slowly, Big Kells shuffled around to face her. He touched the buried blade of the ax, and held his hand out to her, the palm full of blood.
“I cut the rope so, chary man!” Nell screamed into his face, and as if the words rather than the ax had done it, Bern Kells collapsed dead on the floor.