The horse looks over and I swear I see him smirk.
Groaning, I push myself up and do my best to brush the mud off the back of my skirt. This will definitely require laundering later today.
I’m about to go in for a second try when I hear the door creak open and Jane, the Pattinsons’ six-year-old daughter, slinks into the stall. She’s wearing a dress with a ripped hem that will surely be added to our mending pile any day now. Her sunshine-blond curls are still matted and tangled on one side of her head from sleeping on them. She brushes them clumsily out of her face, revealing a pair of large, inquisitive blue eyes.
Dangling from her hand is the tiny doll, about the size of my hand, that she carries with her wherever she goes. She calls it Lulu. Its body was made from the stained white fabric of one of Mr. Pattinson’s old shirts, and its blue short-sleeved frock was crafted from one of Jane’s outgrown baby dresses. It has a painted-on nose and smile and buttons for eyes.
I’m surprised to see Jane here. Since we arrived, she’s never spoken to me. None of the children have, really. Maybe a few perfunctory words here and there like, May I have some more bread, please? but beyond that, I might as well be a ghost in this house.
There have been a few times when I’ve looked up from my work and caught her watching me from a distance but she always scampers away as soon as she sees me notice her. I’ve convinced myself that she’s terrified of me. But she shows no fear now.
Without a word, she gently places the doll in the front pocket of her dress, walks toward me, removes the halter from my hand, and proceeds to approach the horse.
Blackthorn towers over her and for a minute I wonder if it’s a good idea to even allow her into this stall. One little jerky move from him and she could be crushed to death. I consider dashing after her and scooping her up into my arms but I soon see that this won’t be necessary because the horse actually relaxes the moment he sees her. His nostrils stop flaring, his ears bounce straight up in the air, and he lowers his head so that his eyes are level with hers.
“That’s a good horsie,” she coos, rubbing the top of his nose. His eyes sink closed. She easily slips the halter around his head and ties it. Then she silently points to the harness on the wall behind me. I grab it and take one pace toward him. He tenses again but Jane is quick to soothe him with a soft clucking sound.
I manage to get close enough to toss the harness over his back and buckle the strap around his chest. Then I fetch the fruit baskets from outside his stall and secure them to the hooks on either side. He doesn’t look happy about any of this, but he seems much more tolerant of my presence while Jane is here.
I’m about to say thank you to Jane when I hear an angry huffing sound behind me. We both turn to see Mrs. Pattinson glaring at us. Her eyes drift down from me to her daughter.
“Jane,” she says tightly, “go inside.”
Jane bites her lip and scuttles away. Mrs. Pattinson lingers to give me one more distrustful glower before following her daughter.
She must think she’s out of hearing range when she turns the corner toward the house because she whispers gruffly to Jane, “What did I tell you about conversing with that girl?”
There’s no way for her to know that my actual hearing range reaches far beyond any normal human being’s. That, in reality, I can hear horse hooves clip clopping down the dirt road five minutes before they actually arrive at the house, a hawk flapping its wings in the next valley, or even the hushed early-morning bickering between her and Mr. Pattinson in the kitchen when I’m sitting on the knoll five hundred feet away watching the sunrise.
Although I fear that even if she had known I could hear her, she wouldn’t have cared.
I swallow the stinging in my throat and hook the lead rope to Blackthorn’s halter, pulling him out of the barn and toward the orchard. He follows me obediently but uses the entire length of the rope to put as much distance between us as he can.
3
PRECAUTIONS
One, one thousand. Step.
Two, one thousand. Step.
Three, one thousand. Step.
I take vigilant, measured paces as I walk, counting a full second per stride, just like Zen taught me.
It’s one of the numerous things I have to do on a daily basis to avoid drawing unnecessary attention to myself. To hide who I am. If I move too fast—at the speed my scientifically enhanced legs are capable of carrying me—people will notice.
When I lift heavy objects, I have to pretend to struggle with them. Carrying in the wood for the bread oven is especially frustrating because I could easily carry the entire bundle at once but that would seem unnatural for a woman to be able to do. So instead I have to take three agonizingly slow trips from the chopping block to the kitchen, timing my steps the entire way, and throwing in a few grunts and other exertion noises to make it sound realistic.