Goldeline by Jimmy Cajoleas (i read books txt) 📕

trail. They drag me through the dirt behind them. I kick and fight and make them earn every inch.

“You sure we can’t just kill her?” says the blond one.

“Nuh-uh. Our orders are pretty dang clear.”

What orders? Did Tommy rat on me? Is all of this his fault?

The blond-headed one is stupid. I think maybe I could scare him.

“If you don’t let me go, I’ll curse you,” I say.

“That a fact? What you gonna do, spit on me?”

“I’ll make spiders lay eggs in your nose. I’ll have hornets sting your tongue. You’ll spend every morning pulling leeches off your eyelids forever.”

“Whoa now. Little brat got her a mouth, don’t she?”

The huge guy picks me up and I kick as hard as I can. Then he drops me. I land on my face. It hurts.

“Now shut up and get a move on.”

When we make it to the road they bring me up to a big black carriage. They open the door and toss me in and there’s Tommy.

That’s how they found us. I knew I did wrong keeping him safe, I knew it. And Tommy led them here, to Gruff’s camp. The men dead or captured, and it’s because of Tommy. It’s because of me.

“Don’t put her in here!” Tommy screams. “Not with me!”

I jump on him and bite the first thing I can get to. It’s his thumb. I make good and sure I draw blood. The blond-headed man pulls me off Tommy.

“You little heathen,” he says. “Behave or you’ll wind up in the ditch with the other degenerates.”

He shuts the carriage door and leaves me face-to-face with Tommy.

Tommy’s hair looks redder, and his eyes bluer, and somehow he looks older, like being with me grew him up a little. He holds his bleeding thumb under his arm, and his eyes are full of tears. I take a deep breath and he flinches, like he knows that I could rip him in half if I wanted to. But there’s this other feeling too, this weird one where I’m a little bit glad to see him. Like I have my friend back. Then I remember how I’ve lost everything again and I hate Tommy even more.

“They’re all dead,” I say. “They got them all.”

Except Gruff, but I keep quiet about that.

“Good thing too,” Tommy says. His voice shakes, but he’s not just scared. He’s angry too. His cheeks go red with it and he cries a little. “They deserved it. You better be glad I let you off easy.”

“They were all I had,” I say.

“You lied to me,” says Tommy. “You told me you were an angel.” He wipes his nose on his shirtsleeve. “I was scared when they found me, all lost on the road. Just some men in a carriage going slow through the woods. They picked me up and gave me some food. They asked me what happened and I told them, about how we were ambushed, how bandits robbed us, how the driver and poor Miss Lyons were off lost and starving somewhere. I told them every word. I said I got an aunt Barbara and would they take me to her and they said okay, but first you got to show us where the bandits are. I said okay but they have a little girl with them and you have to protect the girl. I made them promise before I showed them. They said okay so I took them to the trail, I showed them right where it started and I said follow it. I could have had them kill you but I didn’t. It’s my fault you’re still alive. So we’re even.”

I got a few more words for Tommy, but not now. Now I got to get out of here. So I think about Gruff and I make myself mean and tough again. I squint and build a fire inside myself, a roaring, smoking thing, the sort that swallows houses and woods and whole towns. Once it’s big and stoking, I growl back at Tommy.

“Like heck we’re even. They’re going to take me back to Templeton and burn me up, same as they did my momma. At best they’ll put me in jail. Nothing good comes to me after this.”

“Well, I don’t know what you expect me to do about it,” says Tommy. “You better be happy you’re still alive.”

Tommy’s crying big and real now. I almost got him.

“I’ll tell you what you can do about it,” I say. “You can let me loose.”

“Nope. No way.”

“Just untie my hands. I’ll sneak out. No one will know it was you.”

“Who the heck else would it be?” he says.

“Tell them I’m a witch. Tell them I conjured the knots open. Tell them I bit your finger so hard you thought it was gonna fall off. I don’t give a care what you tell them, just let me go.”

That scares him a little, I can tell. He’s covering himself like he thinks I might actually do it.

“All right, all right. But then you better go. I better not ever see you again ever.”

“Cross my heart, slice my tongue, sew my eyeballs shut, never will you ever. Now get the durn ropes off me.”

Tommy gets to fumbling with the knots when I hear a voice that makes my stomach fall, that makes my blood go quiet. It’s one I remember from my dreams, full and gravelly, one that shivers my spine. Tommy finally unties the ropes.

“There. You happy now?”

“Hush up.”

A light rain prattles on the roof of the carriage. I ease the door open a little and take a peek. Just as quick I pull my head back in, my whole body gone grave-cold, the voice like a shadow down inside me.

The man stands as tall as in my nightmares.

The white hair wild under his wide-brimmed black hat, eyes blue as a far-off lake, the draggled scar down his cheek.

The man in every bad dream I ever had, the silvery voice that slithers into my ears, that wakes me up