Red Rider RIsing: Book 2 of the Red Rider Saga by D.A. Randall (best books to read for beginners .TXT) 📗

I turned from them and marched through the cottage. I knocked over books and cleared away half-sewn dresses from Mama’s table.

Papa stood. “Calm yourself this instant, young lady.”

I rummaged through baskets and pots and wooden boxes. “Where is it? I want to wear it. It’s mine! I want to wear it right now!”

“Helena, stop,” Mama begged.

I ran to their room at the rear of the cottage.

I opened boxes of their personal items, boxes I was never allowed to touch. “It’s my cloak!”

“Stop it, Helena,” Papa growled. “Stop now!”

I kept digging, past Mama’s leather-bound journal and her flasks of perfume. Past Papa’s snuff pouches and spare cartridges and his old crossbow from the war.

“Helena!”

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Papa’s massive fist closed around my wrist and yanked me away. He held me against his chest as I thrashed about. I didn’t care if he dragged me outside and flogged me with a switch for acting like a spoiled brat. What did it matter if he beat me? What did anything matter anymore?

He held me. Held me tight and refused to let me go. I wriggled against him, pounding my small fists on his chest. I shut my eyes, ground my teeth, beat my head against him. Then I collapsed and bawled into his tunic. “I want my cloak,” I cried, gushing tears. “I want to wear my red cloak.”

Papa’s breath rustled in and out of his lungs like a bear, as Mama’s gentle hands stroked my hair. “I’ll ask about the horse,” Papa said at last.

“We can build another stall for the stable.”

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9.

“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust …”

We sat quiet and still in the pew at la Chapelle de Saint Matthieu, listening as Father Vestille gave the eulogy and then prayed over the body of Francois Revelier. Incense filled the air, within the dim candlelight that cast dismal shadows on the stone walls and stained glass windows.

The casket was closed.

Father Vestille examined it, as if he could see the body beneath the heavy lid. “I did not know 81

Francois Revelier well,” he said. “I wish I did.

What I do know is that he was a brave man. An honorable man. A man whom others could depend on. As a foreman in his woodcutting business. As a neighbor. And as a friend. Francois Revelier risked his life in an attempt to save his own neighbor, Marie Justine. He heard her cries too late to rescue her, but because of his bravery, his compassion, and his willingness to act, he rescued her granddaughter, Helena Basque, who sits here among us today.”

He extended an open hand toward me.

Several heads turned. Staring at me and my scars.

“Because of his swift and courageous action, the Basque family – and all of us as well –

were spared sorrow upon sorrow. They lost a beloved mother that day, a kind woman I knew back in Burgundy, who moved here to be with her daughter and their family.”

Mama withdrew a lace handkerchief, one she had embroidered herself, and wiped at her eyes, sniffing.

“Francois was a good neighbor to her, to the very end,” Father Vestille continued. “If he could have given his life for hers, I believe he would have. Because that is what he was willing to do for Helena.”

Mama wrapped her arm around me and squeezed me closer.

“It is ironic – and tragic – that he should suffer the same fate as Marie Justine, a year after destroying the wolf that claimed her life.” Father Vestille paused, as though thinking of something 82

else. Something important. Then he went on. “We can’t fully understand these events, any more than we can understand any such tragedy. But I hope we can all agree on one thing. Whether we knew Francois as a close friend or neighbor, or only heard of his actions in saving young Helena, Francois Revelier was a hero.”

I felt as though my guts had been hollowed