The Safe-Keeper's Secret (17 page)

Fiona could tell that Reed enjoyed his job at the tavern, because Reed liked people and he liked to be in constant motion, but she could also tell that it was starting to pall within a couple of months. So she was not at all surprised, when spring first made a few feints at greenery, to find him impatient to try something new.

“The copper mines?” she asked him one day when she found him restlessly chopping more wood than they would need for the next two months. “The great ships at Merendon? What's calling you now?”

He laid aside his ax and gave her a rueful grin. “There's a horse breeder in Thrush Hollow,” he said. “He was at the tavern a week ago. Said he'd train me if I wanted to come out.”

“Did you warn him that you wouldn't stay?”

“I did tell him that I'd like to try a variety of jobs before I settle into any particular one.”

“I've never even seen you so much as unhitch Thomas's wagon.”

“No, but, see, that's why I want to learn!” he said eagerly. “I've never been around horses! I might find I like them better than anything. But I won't know unless I go there and find out.”

“Just as long as you're here at Summermoon,” she said.

“Oh, I'll be back to visit a dozen times before then. You'll scarcely realize I'm gone.”

But she did realize it. His absence emptied the house, made even Allison's cheerfulness seem whispery quiet. There were distractions, of course, foremost among them being spring itself, with its demands of digging and planting and watering. Fiona found Allison's willing energy much more useful than she'd expected to, and the two of them dug a bigger garden than Fiona had been able to maintain in the past. Elminstra visited every few days, exclaiming with envy and offering some of her own cuttings.

“We'll become the showplace of the southern region,” Elminstra predicted. “People will journey for a hundred miles to buy herbs and potions from us.”

“I might make more money from this than from Safe-Keeping,” Fiona said with a smile.

“Well, a late freeze can ruin a garden, and a drought can burn it, so there's no real safe money in planting,” Elminstra said. “But people will always have secrets, no matter what the season.”

That turned out to be even truer than Fiona had expected, for she was busier during spring than she had been all six months before. She thought some of it had to do with the fact that people in Tambleham were beginning to trust her, to realize that she had not repeated any of the details told to her so far, and they were bringing to her secrets they might have otherwise taken to a Safe-Keeper in Thrush Hollow or Marring Cross. Or perhaps they were too busy, now that it was time to plant crops and breed livestock and make repairs on the barn, to travel so far just to relieve their minds of pressing burdens.

Whatever the reason, every week someone came knocking at the door, asking for a little private time with Fiona. Allison seemed perfectly content to continue working in the garden while Fiona served tea in the kitchen. For the most part, the tales were not so shocking, though now and then Fiona was hard-pressed not to react with anger or disgust. Only once, though, was she told a secret that she did not think she would be able to bear.

“Let's go outside and sit under the kirrenberry tree,” said her visitor, a thin, tired woman named Janice. “The day is so pretty, and I like to listen to the silence.”

So they brought a blanket and sat under the spreading branches and watched the limbs sway and rub together and make absolutely no noise at all.

“My daughter is bearing my husband's child,” Janice said with no preamble. “I thought to come to you for a potion that would—that would—make the child go away, but I waited too long and it is too big in her belly now. And then I thought, he will not bother her so much when she is with child. This gives her a little break from him.”

Fiona was filled with such rage that it was almost more than she could do to sit there and be quiet. She clenched her hands into fists and listened to the silence of the kirrenberry tree. She wondered if, in their own mute way, the very bark and branches of the tree were screaming in soundless agony.

“How old is your daughter?”

“Going on fifteen.”

Fiona thought. “Was she in school when I was? I should know her if she's only a year or two younger than I am.”

Janice shook her head. “We kept her at home. But she learned a lot! She can read, because she taught herself, and she can cook and clean. Well, you've seen our house, there right off the road on the south edge of town. A big place, and she can run the whole thing without my help. I've been sickly,” Janice added apologetically. “I can't do so much. And I
know that's why my husband has turned to Jillian. If I could have done all my duties, he would not have—”

Again, Fiona kept her hands tight and her outrage stilled. “And your own sickness?” she asked quietly. “What is its nature? Perhaps I have some medicines that could help you. I have a little skill with healing.”

Janice shook her head and sighed. “Oh, I've had potions and potions. Nothing gives me any strength,” she said. Fiona did not have to try too hard to guess at another story: The woman preferred the comfort of helplessness and a make-believe disease to dealing with the harsh realities of her life. Fiona could not keep from directing some of her silent fury at someone so weak.

“When is the baby due?” she asked.

“We think within the next couple of weeks.”

“And will your daughter keep it?”

Janice shook her head. “There's a woman in Thrush Hollow who's lost three of her own babies. She's already begged me to let her take my daughter's. And Jillian is more than willing. I'll send her to Thrush Hollow to have the baby when the time comes. She's too young to be raising a child.”

She's too young for any of this
, Fiona thought, but did not say it. “I'd like to meet your daughter, if I may.”

Janice looked alarmed. “You won't tell her I told you, will you? She's a good girl. She knows it's wrong. She doesn't want anyone to know.”

“I won't tell her,” Fiona said. “I just want to see her. I might be able to give her some advice—on how to stop unwanted babies from coming in the future. She might be glad to know such things.”

“Oh, indeed,” Janice said gratefully. “She asked me and asked me, but of course I didn't know. Had five children myself, though only the two of them lived.”

“Another daughter?” Fiona asked carefully.

“No, no. My son. He's young yet, but he's a good boy.”

They talked a while longer, and when Janice left, she seemed comforted and almost light-hearted, as if she had transferred a heavy weight into hands that were strong enough to hold it. Fiona, on the other hand, was burning up as if with fever; she felt that her skin was so hot she could ignite kindling with her touch. She went around back, where Allison was pulling up weeds, and drew a bucket of water from the well. And dumped it over her head.

“Fiona! What—you—are you all right?” Allison cried, and came running over with her trowel in hand. “You look so flushed! Are you sick? Come in and I'll make you some of that soothing tea.”

Fiona just shook her head. Her rage was so bright that it distorted her vision; she could not see the garden or Allison's face very clearly. “I don't think tea will soothe me,” she said in a very polite voice.

“Was it—did that woman tell you a secret?” Allison asked in a hesitant voice.

For a moment, Fiona was tempted. Tempted to tell Allison, then tell Elminstra, then walk to town and knock on Lacey's door, and repeat the story to everyone in the seamstress's shop. For she didn't know how you destroyed evil except by exposing it, and this, to her mind, was evil incarnate.

But she was a Safe-Keeper. She had sat under the leaves of the kirrenberry tree and accepted a confidence. She would betray Janice and everyone else who had trusted her if she told this story now.

“Are you going into town later today?” Fiona asked instead. “Earlier, you said you thought you might.”

Allison nodded and pushed a lock of hair back from her eyes, leaving a streak of dirt across her forehead. “We're low on flour, and there's some mint to sell,” she said. “I thought I'd go in today or tomorrow.”

“I've got to write a letter to Lowford,” Fiona said. “You can post it for me when you go.”

Chapter Twelve

R
obert Bayliss, it turned out, was very happy to get Fiona's letter, and he responded two days later. “Indeed, yes, I know of a position for a young woman who can cook and clean, and is very gentle with an invalid besides,” he wrote. “Our own housekeeper left this spring, and Victoria has tried so hard to do the ordinary chores, but you know how fragile she is. I had asked Angeline to be on the lookout for a nice young woman whom I could hire. I'm sure there must be some in Lowford, but I would be happy to give a chance to the unfortunate girl you mentioned. No doubt, as you say, it will be good for her to put some distance between herself and her young man. If they find they truly love each other, he will come look for her. And if they do not, she will do much better in a new place surrounded by fresh faces. Send her to me when she is well enough to travel.”

That very afternoon, Janice's daughter came to the Safe-Keeper's cottage. She would have been as thin as her mother if her stomach had not been so big with the child, and her face was narrow and still. Though she smiled when Fiona answered the door, her expression remained watchful. Her pale brown eyes were filled with an unbearable sadness.

“My mother said you wanted to see me?” she said in a polite, hesitant voice.

“Come in, come in—my assistant has gone down the road to her grandmother's, so you and I are the only ones here,” Fiona said. “Would you like some tea? Mint—I grow it myself.”

“Tea would be fine, thank you, ma'am.”

“Oh, no, I'm just Fiona,” Fiona said, pouring out two cups of tea.
Ma'am!
She was sixteen—no one called her that! “And your name is Jillian, is that right?”

“Jillian, yes.”

Fiona handed over one cup and sat down next to Jillian at the kitchen table. “You'll think I'm very bold,” Fiona said, “but I've been wondering if I could meddle in your life a little bit.”

Jillian sipped at her tea, and over the rim of her cup, her sad eyes were inquiring. “Ma'am? What do you mean?”

“I ran into your mother the other day, and she mentioned that you were expecting a child, and I got the impression that—well—that you might not want to continue your relationship with the baby's father,” Fiona said. It was as hard for her to appear artless as it was for her to throttle rage, but she had a greater incentive for this little act, and she rather thought she was pulling it off nicely. “And I happen to know a very nice couple in Lowford. Robert and Victoria. Robert runs a trading business where my brother works from time to time. Victoria is very sweet, but often ailing, and she cannot do her household chores. I had heard that they were looking for a housekeeper and someone who could also assist Victoria when she needed help bathing or dressing. And I thought—if you wanted to leave Tambleham and move someplace altogether new, I could arrange for you to get this job as housekeeper.”

Jillian stared at her, and for a long, tense moment, Fiona thought she would refuse.

“Oh, ma'am,” she said, her voice very low, “I would like that so much I can hardly tell you. But I don't know—I'm not sure—”

“It might be hard for your parents to give you up, I know, you being so young,” Fiona rattled on. “But I thought—since you're going to Thrush Hollow to have the baby—my brother is working there this summer. And he could take you up to Lowford, no trouble at all. And introduce you to Robert and Victoria, and to my aunt Angeline as well, who lives very close. Your parents wouldn't have to know of it until you were already settled.”