What really bothered me was Blye's success at the dress shop. She would come home talking excitedly about her customers, but never about her pay. After two weeks of living in the Water, she came home with a new dress, saying she needed to look the part to work at such an upscale shop. She gave her old dress to Bryn, who accepted it with a smile of thanks and a comment that a second dress would be handy.
That day, I put on my bag and left the village to forage. The nearby country had been picked fairly clean, so I headed in the direction I knew. Not far after passing over the bridge, I stopped until a curious wave of dizziness passed.
I trudged east, watching for signs of the estate. As soon as I saw the mist creeping around the bases of trees, I sighed with relief and turned north into the mists. The skirt of my dress still wasn't ideal for setting traps, but it was the only thing I owned that I could wear in the Water. Father's old shirt would give too many people lewd ideas.
Too soon, I reached the wall and turned to follow it east-ignoring the gate that swung open in invitation. Finally, I reached the patch of ground that usually held some sort of bounty. The sight of withered brown tops of potato plants greeted me. Using my hands, I clawed at the ground until my bag brimmed with the brown globes. When I stood, the weight made me cringe. Carrying ten extra pounds from here to Konrall wouldn't have been a problem, but to the Water? It would be a trying journey. Still, I hoped for something in my traps as well.
Retracing my steps, I approached the gate and nearly screamed when I was pulled from behind into the maw of darkness. Two strong hands gripped my upper arms and held me against a very large, furry frame.
I didn't turn to look. I knew who had me, but I still remained unsure of his mood.
"Will you assent and stay, Benella?" he said softly.
Eight
"I cannot-"
"Then why have you returned?" he roared, hurting my ears and thrusting me away with enough force that I stumbled and lost a few precious potatoes.
"Because I'm hungry!" Angry, I picked one up, spun, and threw it into the dark. The muffled thud of the potato finding a target in the dense dark fog had me quickly regretting my loss of temper.
"I'm sorry," I whispered.
"If you had stayed, you would not be hungry."
Such an open, foolish statement. Perhaps I wouldn't be hungry because I would be dead. I kept my thoughts to myself and waited.
"So you walked from the Water just for food?"
He sounded very calm, and it worried me.
"Yes," I said.
"From my estate?"
I nodded, my throat suddenly tight.
"Then I think it fair to ask for something in return."
I remembered his last price and started to lower the bag of potatoes to the ground. I would not do that again. I wasn't in a desperate enough situation.
"Wait. Before you give up your prize and have to return home with nothing but dirt-caked nails, listen."
I paused with the bag almost touching the soil.
"I will generously give you as much food as you can carry in return for an hour of your time."
Shaking my head, I set the bag down and barely saw the potatoes spill out.
"Stubborn," he yelled in an almost inarticulate roar. "Why not?"
"I've told you once; I'm not a whore."
He growled long and loud, the sound moving around me as he circled. I wished I could see through the mist.
"Who said anything about whoring?" he said finally. "I need someone to clean the estate."
I couldn't hide my surprise.
"Just clean?"
"Yes," he ground out.
"Then, I can accept," I said, quickly bending to pick up the potatoes. Before the last one fell into the bag, he bade me to follow.
Only the sound of his footfalls led me because as we walked, the heavy mist seemed to trail us, or at least me. It was disorienting to walk blindly ahead. Well, not blindly, but seeing less than two feet before me was hardly reassuring at the fast pace he assumed. We walked a far distance when, suddenly, the same door from my prior visit loomed ahead.
I opened the door and went inside. For a moment, I saw little; then light streamed into the room from the high windows. For a moment, I wondered about the mist that had accompanied me then apparently vanished. But, the state of the kitchen distracted me. It was just as I'd left it, the large tub upside down near the cold hearth and the table turned on its end as a privacy screen.
"What would you have me clean?" I asked. Silence answered me.
Shaking my head, I set to work righting as much of the enormous kitchen as I could. I set shelves back onto their mountings, then lined them with the various cooking pots and stirring spoons that littered the floor. I pried apart one of the table halves and set the wood near the hearth for burning. Several chairs, broken beyond repair, joined the growing pile. The remaining chairs, which had a hope of being repaired, I sat near one wall. Nothing but dust and debris carried in by the seasons remained on the floor when I finished.
Though I knew I'd spent longer than the bargained hour cleaning, I went outside in search of grass and twigs to make a rough broom. When I finished, I spent a good while longer sweeping. Satisfied with my work, I swept the last bit outside the door and went to the counter to shoulder my prize, the bag of potatoes.
When I turned back to the open door, I saw the dark mists swirling toward it and knew the beast approached. It snuffed out the sun shining through the windows and cast the room into premature evening gloom. My eyes didn't adjust quickly enough to see him move into the room, but my ears picked up his feet brushing against the cobbled floor as he strode toward me.
"You've met your end of the bargain and more. Will you return tomorrow?"
"I won't abuse your generosity," I declined carefully. "I have enough to feed us for a week if we're careful."
"A week?" He scoffed. "Come back tomorrow, and I will have sun-ripened tomatoes for you."
My mouth watered.
"And the price?"
"The same. An hour of cleaning."
I frowned as I considered the offer. He'd left me alone to clean this time, but would he do so the next time? And why did he suddenly want someone to clean for him? Food and answers were only likely if I returned.
"I'll see you tomorrow," I said.
He grunted and made another slight noise so soft and so brief I couldn't be sure what is was or what it meant.
He led me to the gate, then disappeared. The walk home wasn't as terrible as I'd anticipated. I had a rabbit to carry in addition to the potatoes, but it was the promise of tomatoes the next day that lightened my step. Before returning to the house, I traded half the potatoes for coin, hoping I wasn't making a mistake, and purchased some oats and milk for breakfast. Living in the Water, we hadn't had room for the goat; and Bryn had sold her to the butcher. I wondered where that coin had gone.
When I walked through the door with potatoes, milk, oats, and rabbit I was surprised that Bryn wasn't inside. I placed the items in the kitchen storage and went to clean up before anyone returned. Dirt smudged my dress from cleaning, so I changed into my trousers and shirt to take the dress outside and air it, which meant hanging it on the line of rope strung between trees and beating the dirt from it. After I finished, I hauled water from our private well to wash my hands and face.
By the time Bryn returned, I once again wore my dress and was reading a book while sitting comfortably in the stuffed chair before the cold hearth. She asked where I'd obtained the food, and I asked where she'd been. She didn't answer so neither did I. She lit the stove, and I listened to her start preparations for dinner. I tried not to let my mouth water.
Father said nothing when we sat down to a dinner of rabbit and baked potatoes, though he did glance at me. Just as Blye and now Bryn had their secrets, so did he. None of us knew where he taught; and when asked, he evaded the question.
* * * *
The next morning, after a hearty meal of milk soaked hot oats, I set out for the estate better prepared.
As I had the day before, I set traps at the edge of the mist before turning north toward the gate. The dense fog of the day before didn't reappear as the gate swung open with a high-pitched screech. Instead of ignoring the invitation to enter and continuing to the dirt patch, I stepped through the gate. I wanted to leave the tomatoes on the vine until the last minute.
Within the beast's domain, only the barest hint of white mist clung to the air.
Walking north, where I thought the house should be, I gasped when an immense structure came into view. I counted two stories of windows on the wing with the kitchen and four on the main building, which extended far into the surrounding trees. I could easily clean one hour each day for the next year.