The Safe-Keeper's Secret (10 page)

But of course Fiona didn't.

Everyone arrived at once, Angeline and Thomas from the west, Isadora from the east, and they all hurried into the house to get warm. Everyone was loaded down with bundles—clothes for a few days' stay, of course, as well as the traditional gifts of the holiday—and all the travelers carried inside with them the sweet, clean scent of winter.

“My, I don't remember a winter so cold in at least ten years,” Isadora exclaimed. “Poor Helwick, he'd loaded up his wagon with hot bricks for my feet, and he kept asking me if I was warm enough, but of course I wasn't. I finally snapped at him, ‘Well, it would be a dream come true if the whole cart caught fire right now and I could get warm all over.' So the whole rest of the trip he kept looking around, afraid everything in the wagon was going to go up in flames.”

“It wouldn't be so bad if it would snow,” said Angeline.

“It would be worse!” Thomas replied. “Then it would be cold
and
wet, and your trip back to Lowford would be even slower than your trip here.”

“But at least it would be pretty,” Damiana said.

“Till the horses churned it up and your kids mucked it up and it melted and froze a few more times—”

“
He's
in a fine mood,” Damiana observed to her sister. “Was he like this the whole way from Lowford?”

Angeline grinned. “He doesn't like the cold.”

“Well, it's warm inside,” Damiana said. “Everybody get your things settled in. Fiona and I will put dinner on the table.”

Since the six of them had celebrated Wintermoon together for as long as Fiona could remember, everyone knew exactly where their bundles belonged. Reed had already been moved to Fiona's room, to sleep on a mat on the floor; Angeline would sleep in his bed. Isadora, who claimed she could not climb stairs of any kind, would sleep on the sofa in the main room. Thomas would stow his gear in Damiana's own room, as he always did. The house would be full, but merry.

After the meal, which was delicious, they gathered in the main room to begin decorating the house. Fiona and Reed had spent the last two days roaming the woods to find the proper boughs—oak for strength, birch for beauty, cedar for serenity, evergreen for steadfastness, rowan for faith—and they had brought them all back to make a huge pile in the middle of the main room. They would weave all the branches together—the thin, bare limbs of the wood twined with the supple bright strands of evergreen—to make ropes to wind over every surface or dangle above every doorway. They would save the best branches, of course, for the big wreath that would hang over the fireplace until Wintermoon night.

The women had hoarded ribbons and scraps from sewing projects all year, and these were used to bind the branches and add their own magic and memories. “Lace from a young girl's wedding gown—that's for hope,” Angeline said, dropping her contribution into the pile.

“Red ribbon from Fiona's winter dress—that's for merriment,” said Damiana.

“Gold thread for riches,” said Isadora.

“Blue silk for summer,” said Fiona.

Thomas, who did most of the work of binding and hanging the branches, rarely had actual items to contribute, but this year he pulled out a long strand of twine hung with tiny brass bells. “Given to me by an unfriendly merchant who found my revelations less than appealing,” Thomas said with a little smile. “He said I should always wear these wrapped like a collar around my neck, so that everyone could hear me coming and prepare.”

Damiana and Angeline laughed at that, though Fiona didn't think it was so funny. Who would want to be the kind of person whose arrival made everyone apprehensive?

“What shall they represent?” Angeline asked.

Thomas raised his eyebrows at that, as if the answer “truth” was so obvious that he didn't need to state it. But Damiana took hold of the long string of bells and shook them to a sweet frenzy. “Let them stand for celebration,” she said, and they all agreed.

Reed, who rarely had the patience to sit at the hearth and plait tree limbs together, had been outside in the cold dark since directly after dinner. But now he came bursting through the front door, bringing starlight and frost in with him.

“Reed! Close the door!” Isadora begged.

It slammed behind him as he came bounding up to the five of them seated on the floor. “I found it!” he panted.

Fiona and the others looked up at him. He had grown another inch the past two months and resisted getting his fair hair cut, and so he looked the very picture of a ragged, abandoned urchin. But his green eyes were alight with excitement, and he could not have looked happier. “Found what?” Angeline and Damiana asked together.

But Fiona knew. “Oh, Reed, did you?” she exclaimed, jumping to her feet. “Let me see.”

He carefully unwrapped a length of blue cotton while the adults came to their feet and drew close enough to see. There, coiled in five thin circles, was a length of truelove vine, its flat, heart-shaped leaves still red from the onslaught of autumn.

“Elminstra told me she's only found it once for Wintermoon, but she looks every year,” Reed said. “I knew if I looked and looked and
looked
, I'd find it sometime.”

Damiana picked it delicately from his hands, and it twined around her wrist and fingers like a live thing. “I don't think I've ever found any at this time of year,” she said, shaking her head. “I don't even know what it's supposed to represent on the wreath. Love? Heart's ease? Does anybody know?”

“I'll take some down to Elminstra and ask her,” Fiona suggested.

“Oh, good idea. There's plenty here to share,” her mother answered.

“I'll go, too,” Reed said.

Fiona looked over at him. “I didn't mean
now
.”

“We can't bind it into the wreaths until we know what it's for,” Isadora said.

“We can finish the wreaths tomorrow,” said Damiana.

But Fiona had already sighed and headed toward the doorway, where they kept their winter boots in a somewhat muddy box. “Oh, very well, we'll go now. But I want very hot tea and a very large piece of cake when I get back.”

In a few minutes, she and Reed were bundled up to their eyebrows in coats and scarves, and they were running down the road to Elminstra's. It was so cold that Fiona could feel the inside of her nose freeze; her throat filled with icicles when she breathed. Reed raced ahead of her and then ran back to make sure she was not stumbling in the frozen ruts of the road. Her fingers tingled with cold. Within five minutes, she could no longer feel her toes.

But it was not far to Elminstra's, and soon enough they were pounding on her door and tumbling inside. All was chaos at the witch's house, for it was filled with Elminstra's children and grandchildren and what might have been half a dozen friends besides. The fire burned brightly on the hearth and candles had been thrust into sconces throughout the main room, revealing piles of wood and greenery in all stages of weaving.

“Bless you, children, what are you doing out on such a night?” Elminstra demanded. “Your mother—is something wrong?”

“No, we have a Wintermoon gift for you—” Fiona started.

“And a question to ask,” Reed finished.

“Take off your coats, then. Though I can't imagine what question … Do you want tea or hot chocolate to warm you up?”

Fiona shook her head, though Reed immediately opted for hot chocolate. Pausing only to take off his dirty boots and unwind a wool scarf from his face, Reed ran to the kitchen behind Greg and his mother.

“So what is it you've come to ask me?” Elminstra said.

Fiona handed her the square of black silk in which Damiana had wrapped about six inches of truelove vine. “If we're to tie this into our Wintermoon wreaths,” she said, “what is it we're asking for?”

Elminstra gasped as she folded back the black silk and revealed the bright red leaves of the vine. Two of her daughters crowded around her to see what had amazed her. “Truelove!” Elminstra exclaimed. “Wherever did you get it? And fresh picked, too, because it's still springy and bright.”

“Reed found it somewhere in the forest. We thought you should have some. But Isadora said we couldn't weave it into our wreaths until we knew what it would bring us.”

Elminstra lifted it reverently from its black bed and let the curling vine insinuate itself between her fingers. “Heart's desire,” she said, a little absently. “It means something different for everyone.”

Fiona was a little disappointed in the answer, though she supposed it made sense. She had been hoping for something more grand from something deemed so precious. True love, for instance; shouldn't that be what was conferred by a vine with such a name? “I'll tell my mother,” she said.

Reed reappeared, fortified by cocoa, winding his scarf back around his face. “Are we ready to go?” he demanded. “There's cake waiting at home.”

“No wonder he just keeps growing,” Elminstra said. “He just keeps eating. Reed, thank you so much for the truelove. It was kind of you to think of me.”

“What's it for?” he asked.

“Your heart's desire,” Fiona said.

He considered that and shrugged. “I think I already have everything I want,” he said.

Elminstra laughed and patted him on the head, through the layers of wool. “That's because you're young and can't think of much to want,” she said. “Trust me, the older you get, the more will come to mind.”

“Come on,” he said to Fiona. “Let's go home and finish the wreaths.”

In fact, it was another two days before the wreaths were finished, since they kept taking breaks to do other things. Thomas insisted on chopping two months' worth of wood to stack up behind the house, though Damiana said she was perfectly capable of cutting her own logs, thank you very much. “And Reed's gotten very handy with an ax,” she added.

“Reed will be bigger than I am in a few years' time, but for now, he's ten years old and I'm here,” Thomas replied.

The women went visiting, taking bread and baked treats to friends and neighbors, and entertained others who dropped by the Safe-Keeper's house. Fiona went with them some of the time, and some of the time played with Reed, running through the bare-branched woods or pausing by the frozen stream. If they chipped down through the top layer of ice, they could find the running water beneath, so cold that it hurt their mouths to take a swallow. They always drank from it anyway, then shrieked with pain and delight.

On Wintermoon night itself, they ate a feast of a dinner and drank two bottles of wine. Fiona and Reed were allowed only one glass apiece, and Fiona didn't particularly care for the taste of even that much, but she drank it anyway because it was supposed to be festive. The adults seemed to relish the rare treat, though. Angeline grew silly, and Isadora laughed as if she didn't have a single care. Thomas became much more mellow, his voice losing its sarcastic edge and his eyes their haunted shadows.
Damiana did not seem to change at all, merely smiling at them all as if she loved them with her entire heart. But she always did that.

After the meal, they went outside to light the great bonfire that Thomas and Reed had built before the sun went down. The wood was dry and caught quickly, and soon they had a fierce blaze going that they would feed till dawn. Reed and Fiona climbed a nearby tree so that they could gaze some distance up and down the road and spot similar fires in Elminstra's yard and other houses even farther away.

When the fire had burned a good hour or two, Thomas went into the house and came out bearing the big wreath that had hung over the fireplace for the past two days. It was bound with all their most precious mementos—the strand of truelove, Thomas's bells, Angeline's lace—and carried with it all their hopes and dreams for the new year.

“Put it on the fire, then,” Damiana said, and he tossed it on the very top of the blaze. It seemed to Fiona that for a moment there was a circle of concentrated fire within the random tongues of flame, and then the wreath seemed to crumple and disappear.

“May we have all we hoped for,” Angeline said. “May we have happiness and health and love and well-being all of next year.”

“And the next,” said Isadora.

“And the next,” said Thomas.

“And the next,” said Fiona.

“And the next,” said Reed.

Damiana said nothing, just poked at the fire with the end of a thin, blackened stick. Fiona was to remember that long after this blaze fell to ashes and Summermoons came and Wintermoons came, and came and came again. Of the six of them, only five had spoken up to lay claim to happiness in the coming years. If Damiana had lifted her voice that night, would happiness have visited them a sixth year as well? Or had she remained silent because she already knew the truth and had determined to keep it a secret? The fire burned through the oak, the birch, the cedar, the truelove, the lace, the ribbon, the gold, and they all watched it, and no one chose to speak about the things that were to come.

Chapter Seven