Chapter 5: The Suitor at the Tree Line

When Angeau needed something from the forest, it did not go in after it. It walked to the end of the last field, stopped well short of the first tree, and called, loudly and politely, like a man at a neighbor’s door who suspects the neighbor is home and has no plan for what happens if he answers.

The town had been calling for generations and nothing had ever come out, which it took as proof the method was sound. It was calling again now, for its healer, whom it believed to be at her grandmother’s, and it was shouting from half a day away. The shouting carried further than anyone in Angeau would have believed. It carried to ears the town did not know were there.

The healer, for her part, was doing her best not to think about the date.

Sunday went by without me, and I let it.

I didn’t forget. I woke up knowing which morning it was, and lying there listening to the fire tick, I thought, very clearly, that somewhere in Angeau a table was being laid for a supper I had promised to attend. After that I stopped thinking about it, with real discipline, the way I stop thinking about a bad tooth, and for the next several days I was extremely good at it.

The days were easy to fill. I dressed Crispin’s side every morning, for a good deal longer than that cut needed, and told him off for scratching. The willow bark hung from a string by the fire, drying, and I turned it every few hours so it would dry evenly, which is what Professor Aubert’s text says to do and what Nana calls fussing. I did not look at the basket by the nest more than I had to.

It was early on the morning his ears turned. He was crouched at the ring of stones, feeding the coals, and I was watching how he bent, to see whether the side still pulled. His head came up with a piece of kindling still in his hand. Both ears swung toward the crack in the ceiling and stopped there.

“What?” I said.

“Nothing. It’s... a long way off.”

“What is?”

His tail dropped to the floor. “Someone’s saying your name,” he said. “At the edge of the trees. It’s been... I think it’s been going a while. I thought it was birds.”

I listened. I heard the fire and a drip somewhere and nothing else, which tells you what his ears are like. “What are they saying, exactly?”

He told it to the floor. “Red. And then your name.”

I laughed. It came out a little high. “That’s somebody from town, then. Nobody calls me that who isn’t trying to be funny.”

“Thin voice. Cracked. He’s sort of... hoarse.” He put the kindling down. “It’s a morning’s walk. If we go now, he’ll have been at it all morning when we get there.”

“We should go.”

He didn’t say anything, but he got up, and he took my cloak off its peg and held it out to me with his ears pinned back. I took the basket too, with some of the dried bark in it, so I would have a reason to be standing there.

It was a long walk and we said very little. He went ahead of me, slower than he needed to, favoring a side that no longer needed favoring, and every time his ears turned toward the town he slowed down more. I let him. By the time the beeches closed in around us and the light got bright through the leaves ahead, I could hear it myself, thin and cracked, coming from across the stumps. “Red! Noëlle! Red!”

Crispin stopped at the same thick trunk as before and put his back against it.

“I’ll... be here,” he said.

“I know.” His tail was pressed against the back of his leg, and I put my hand on his arm for a second and took it away.

Past the last trunk there was a short stretch of stumps and bramble, and then the fence, waist high, with the cut grass behind it going down toward the town. Astien was standing against the fence on the far side, as far from the trees as he could get and still be touching something. His good hand was cupped around his mouth and the other was in its rag. He was sweating, which was no surprise, since he always was, and he opened his mouth to shout again and saw me instead.

What came out was a croak. He tried again. “Noëlle!”

“Astien. You sound terrible.”

“You’re here.” He swallowed, which obviously hurt. “I thought I’d have to shout all the way to your Nana’s. Your mother said it would carry if I was loud enough. I’ve been at it since first light.” His eyes went past me to the beeches and came back fast. “Where did you come from? You’re supposed to be at your Nana’s. That’s half a day through those trees.”

Here is what I said. I had walked out at first light for willow bark, since there was a good stand at the edge, and I held up the basket, which had the bark in it. And I couldn’t stay long, because Nana’s hip was bad this week and I had to be back before dark. That was the lie. It came out smooth, and he liked me too much to check it.

“Oh,” said Astien. “Her hip. Of course. I told them. I said, she’ll be with her hip.”

“You’re a credit to the town.” I was already reaching over the fence. I wish I could say I decided to. My hand closed around his wrist and turned his hand palm up before I had said a word about it, and he let me, which told me how long it had been since anyone had looked at it. “Astien, this is the same rag.”

“It’s a good rag.”

“It’s a filthy rag.” I peeled it back. The cut had closed to a seam, but it was still angry at one end and there was grit in it. I pressed my thumb beside it and he winced. “Wash it. Don’t wrap it damp. Leave it open to the air when you can.”

“I’ll try.” He pulled the hand back against his chest and remembered why he was there. “Noëlle, you missed Sunday.”

“I know.”

“Your mother waited at Bertrand’s mother’s with her good gloves on. Bertrand’s father said the blessing twice to fill the time. Your mother told them you’d been held up with your Nana, and Bertrand’s mother said that was very devoted. She said it two times.” He took a breath. “Your mother’s sick with worry. She hasn’t said so. She’s been very bright about it.”

I knew that bright. It had a particular sound, like a cup being set down carefully.

“And it’s Josette,” Astien said. “Her cough got into her chest, and last night she was shaking, and she’s hot. Old Penda fell off his back step and his wrist is broken, I saw it, it bends where it shouldn’t. And Jordane says Tobias is eating again, but he keeps asking when the ceiling gets to stop.” He hesitated. “We don’t know what to do, Noëlle. Nobody does. We’re all just waiting for you.”

The back of my throat ached, and I did the sensible thing and talked.

“Penda gets two flat boards and a strip of cloth, snug, not tight, and he keeps his hand higher than his elbow. If he complains, tell him I said it’s the first honest thing his body’s done all year. Josette gets this.” I scooped the willow bark out of the basket and into his good hand, all of it. “In hot water, and she drinks it whether she wants to or not. If she can’t get a breath, you come and shout again. You’ve got the lungs for it. And tell Tobias the ceiling’s still a liar.”

“Can’t you come?”

“Nana’s hip,” I said. “Tell Mother I’m well. Tell her it’s a complicated hip.”

“She’ll want to know when.”

“Tell her soon,” I said, and I watched him believe it.

He backed away across the grass, looking over his shoulder at the trees, and I stayed at the fence until he was a good way off. I stood in the sun with no bark in the basket and a head full of other people’s fevers, and the whole time I was counting the hours until I could get back down the steps. I had always thought of myself as a person who would run toward a broken wrist.

When I turned, I couldn’t see Crispin. I had expected that. I liked it much less than I had expected to. I crossed back over the stumps and went in.

He heard it again the next day, at the fire, with exactly the same face.

“A different one,” he said. “Louder. Not hoarse. He’s shouting like he’s... like he’s sure someone’s going to answer.”

“Does he sound pleased with himself?”

His ears sagged. “Yes.”

I said a word Nana doesn’t know I know, and I got my cloak off the peg myself.

The walk was shorter than the day before, or felt that way. Crispin said even less. I did all the talking. I think the fern came up again. At the last trunk he put his back to the bark, and I stepped out, and I knew the voice before I could see him.

Gaspard was leaning on the fence with both forearms on the top rail and one boot up on the bottom, a man at home on a fence he considered his. He was twenty-six and broad through the shoulders and the chest, with a clean jaw and hair that stayed exactly where he put it. Angeau called him its hero, for reasons that had been explained to me at several suppers and that all came down to his shoulders. He was alone. In my whole life I had never seen him without people around him, and I didn’t like it.

“There she is.” He spread his arms along the rail. His smile was easy and warm. “Noëlle. I knew you’d come if I called. I’d have called sooner. Your mother said to give you your head, and that was kind of her. I’d say you’ve had it.”

“Hello, Gaspard.”

“You’ve been gone long enough, sweetheart. Everyone’s very understanding. Everyone knows you needed a rest. But Penda’s wrist is swelling, and Josette’s coughing up the whole house, and your mother has stopped eating. The town needs you home.”

“Is Penda keeping that hand higher than his elbow?” I said. He looked me over instead, boots to hair and back, taking his time over my chest and my legs, and when he got to the end he had an opinion.

“That’s what you wear to your Nana’s?” His eyes were on the shorts. “The cloak is sweet, I’ve always liked the cloak. But we’ll have to see about the rest of it. I won’t have people talking.”

“People, or you?”

“Same thing,” he said, pleased. He reached over the fence and took hold of the red wool at my collar to straighten it, and gave it a small pull, like a sign he had paid for.

I stepped back into a stump. My hands closed, and they stayed closed. With Astien they had known what to do. They had nothing to do with Gaspard, who needed nothing. The skin between my shoulder blades pulled tight while he looked at me. Crispin was behind me at the last trunk, and I did not turn around.

“I’m not coming back,” I said.

“Of course you are.”

“I’m not.”

He laughed, kindly. “You’re upset. I understand. Your mother pushed that Bertrand on you too hard, and he’s a drip, everyone knows it, I told her myself. That’s finished. Everyone knows how this is going to go.” He waved a big hand between us. “You and me. It’s only taking you a while to see it.”

“Has anyone asked me?”

“I’m asking now.”

“You’re telling me.”

“It comes to the same thing in the end.”

“I’d be a terrible wife to you,” I said, too fast. “I’d treat your pride with mustard plaster and leave it on too long.” He didn’t laugh, and I hadn’t thought he would. I took a breath and said it again, more slowly. “It’s no, Gaspard. Not now and not later.”

His smile stayed put much longer than it should have.

“You’ll feel different once you’ve had a proper rest,” he said. “It’s the forest. It does that to people, all that damp.” He straightened up off the rail and rolled his shoulders. “I’ll tell your mother you’re well. I’ll tell her you’re coming round.”

“I’m not—”

“Coming round. I like it. You’ve got spirit.” He tipped two fingers at me and walked back across the cut grass with his hands in his pockets, whistling. Halfway down he stopped and looked back at me with his head tilted. As far as I could tell, he was baffled that I hadn’t followed him. After a moment he shook it off and went on.

I stood there for longer than I want to say, with my hands still shut.

When I got back under the trees, Crispin was exactly where I had left him. His back was against the trunk and his arms were folded over his ribs, over a cut that didn’t need guarding, with his ears pinned flat and his tail wrapped tight around one leg. He had not done anything, and I knew he had heard every word. I started to say so, and I stopped, because I did not know what I wanted him to have done.

We walked the whole way to the deer track in silence. He kept his eyes on the ground and stayed a step behind me.

“I looked. He’s... very big,” Crispin said. “And he’s... people like him. Nobody would be scared of him. He hasn’t got the... you know.” He touched his own mouth. “Teeth. He’s what a town would want. For you.”

It got me under the ribs, in the same place Mother’s voice gets me.

“Thank you,” I said. “I’ll tell him you approve.”

His ears dropped as far as they could. I hated that I had done it, and I did not say sorry.

At the den I hung the cloak on its peg and went to move the basket out of the way. The first jar of salve was in there, open, the one I had used on his ribs. The second was beside it, with its seal still on. That was Nana’s, for the hip. I picked it up and turned it over in my hands. Nana’s hip had not had a spoonful of it, and I was the one going around telling people how bad it was.

I put the jar down under the yarrow. Crispin was watching me from the ring of stones, and I didn’t say any of it. I asked him what he wanted for supper.