Worlds Unseen - Rachel Starr Thomson (beach books .txt) 📗

Pat answered. “No more disappearing. Stay by Mrs. Cook. She’d die of loneliness without you.”

“Enough of that,” Mrs. Cook interjected. “I can handle myself with or without a couple of scamps like you. My life would certainly be quieter without you.”

Two men arrived in the courtyard. Pat was swept up in the bustle of preparing to ride. Before either Maggie or Mrs. Cook had a chance to say anything more, Pat was riding across the fields in a flurry of dust.

Maggie slipped her arm through Mrs. Cook’s. Just before she disappeared into the tree line, Pat turned around and saluted farewell. Maggie and Mrs. Cook returned the salute, and Mrs. Cook smiled.

“She never could stay in one place for long,” she said.

“Did you worry about me terribly when I was gone?” Maggie asked.

“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Cook said. “Would I have come after you if I hadn’t?”

“I don’t know,” Maggie said. “I thought perhaps you had some other reason for coming here.”

“What other reason would I have?” Mrs. Cook said. “Besides the fact that Pat was going, and I couldn’t bear to be alone again.”

“Well…” Maggie faltered and continued. “You were a member of the council. I can’t help wondering-did seeing Old Dan and Lord Robert again make you miss the old days?”

Mrs. Cook became suddenly very quiet, and she waited a long while before answering. “I don’t really know. Worlds unseen-well, who wouldn’t be fascinated with such an idea? To tell you the truth, Maggie, maybe I did start to miss the council days. But if I did, it wasn’t on account of Old Dan, or Lord Robert either.”

“Then what did it?” Maggie asked.

“The girl,” Mrs. Cook replied. “Virginia Ramsey. The minute I laid eyes on her, with her wrists bound and her face so deathly pale as to drain the blood from your own face, I thought to myself, ‘That girl is hope. And someone is trying to kill hope.’ I suppose that’s a very odd thing to think, but there you are. If you hadn’t been missing still, Maggie, I would have gone after Virginia myself.”

“Hope,” Maggie repeated. Into her mind flashed a phrase that Jarin Huss had read to her: When they see beyond the sky… take these Gifts of My Outstretched Hand; Weave them together; I shall come.

“She sees beyond the sky,” Maggie said. It took her a moment to realize that Mrs. Cook was looking at her strangely.

“What did you say?” Mrs. Cook asked.

“‘When they see beyond the sky,’” Maggie said. “It’s a line from an old prophecy. Jarin Huss read it to me.”

“I remember,” Mrs. Cook said abruptly. “Lord Robert thinks like you do. He said Virginia was Gifted.”

Mrs. Cook stopped and wiped her eyes ferociously, and Maggie waited for her to continue. But the elderly woman was done speaking, and she wandered off to the kitchen saying something about Mrs. Korak needing help with supper. Maggie watched her go with troubled eyes, but she did not go after her. Somehow she knew that she ought not to pry.

*

Maggie awoke that night to the sound of horse hooves in the yard. A faint blue light was coming in one of the windows-the moon, Maggie thought, and remembered that there was no moon on this night. But no, she must be mistaken. Moonlight was undoubtedly shining through the window.

She climbed softly out of bed and tiptoed to the window, expecting to see one of the Ploughman’s riders in the yard. It was late, and for a moment she wondered if there was trouble.

When she reached the window, her eyes opened wide. Her fingers reached up and lightly brushed the window pane as though she would touch the being outside.

It was a man on a horse, but both rider and animal were larger than any Maggie had ever seen. The horse’s eyes glowed with white fire. Its mane and tail were blue-white against a body the colour of the night sky. The man wore a long, dark blue cloak with stars woven all through it,and the stars were shining-the source of the light that fell on Maggie’s face and lit the farmyard with magic. The man wore a tunic and leggings and knee-high boots. Around his neck was a silver band, and he held a silver horn in his hand. On his back was slung a bow and a quiver full of arrows that shone like the stars in the cloak. The man’s face was unlike any Maggie had ever seen. It was a beautiful face, both fine and rugged, and framed by long black hair. The man’s eyes were white and blazing, much like the horse’s.

As Maggie watched, the horse reared up on its hind legs. The man raised the silver horn to his lips and sounded a long, deep blast. Before the sound had faded away, the horse and rider had disappeared.

Maggie’s heart burned inside of her, and a phrase she had never heard before was suddenly playing through her mind.

Hear the call of the Huntsman’s horn;

The stars all sing when the chase is on;

Over the sky fields and cross the moon;

The darkness meets its downfall soon.

As the words began to beat a rhythm inside of her, Maggie ran out of the bunkhouse and into the yard. There were no hoofprints, no marks to show that anyone had been here. Only… Maggie crouched down to the hard-packed earth where a faint light was glowing. She picked up the shining thing carefully and found that it was a thread. It must have come from the Huntsman’s cloak, for its slender length shone with the blue-white light of the stars. In her cupped hands it shone all the brighter.

Maggie stood in the center of the empty farmyard and let the light of the thread dance on the earth and the sides of the buildings, recalling the mystical moment when the whole yard was as full of the light as if one of the stars had come down to earth.

With her heart full to the bursting, Maggie sat down cross-legged in the dirt and tilted her head up to the night sky.

She fell asleep there.

*