The Springborn

SABELLA

FEbrUARY 18, 1886

BETWEEN MIDNIGHT AND DAWN

M y cold and clandestine trip to the innkeeper’s tool shed proves fruitful when I find a small saw hanging on the wall. I set my short candlestick on the work bench and take the tool in hand. Its teeth feel adequately sharp to my fingertips. It will do. I tuck it under my cloak and head back across the snowy yard.

Overnight, as usual, my antlers have been gaining length and breadth. They must be removed before breakfast, lest the innkeeper or his guests catch sight of them. No scarf or shawl can effectively conceal them when they’re fully grown.

As much as I loathed my father’s saw, I welcome the weight of this one as I clutch it close. I could have saved myself the trouble of searching if I’d thought to ask Hiram for the gift of his saw—but the past is over and done. Before the break of day, I will beg one of the twins to remove my antlers. If they are too squeamish for the task, I will cut them off myself, heaven help me.

A narrow, unheated room separates the kitchen from the outdoors, a place where mucky boots are shed and odds and ends are kept on shelves. I pause there to shake snow off my boots, and then I cautiously open the kitchen door, cursing it under my breath for its sharp squeak.

The warmth of the kitchen envelops me. I am seized by a sudden desire to lie down at the hearthside and sleep—a foolish and dangerous notion. I force my feet to carry me past the low, orange flames, toward the door. And somehow I collide with something.

Someone.

The impact knocks the candle out of my grasp and onto the floor. As the flame dies, I step backward, careful to keep the saw hidden under my cloak, praying that my scarf-covered antlers don’t betray me and the Springborn.

“Sabella?” Calder whispers. “Have you been wandering out of doors?”

He’s wearing a long, striped nightshirt and his hair stands up like wind-blown hay in a field. He could be mistaken for a scarecrow, if scarecrows carried oil lamps. The sight of him, combined with the shock of being discovered, tempts me to giggle.

“Is something humorous?” he asks as he sets the lamp on the kitchen work table.

“No. Not at all.” I withdraw the saw from the folds of my cloak and present it. “I was on an errand. My antlers…they’ll have to be seen to before breakfast.”

“You should have asked me. I would have fetched that for you.” He squats to retrieve the fallen candlestick and sets it beside the oil lamp.

“I’m capable of going to a tool shed myself. I’m a coal town lass, not a princess. Why are you wandering about at this hour? You’ve been ill. You should not be out of bed.”

He shrugs. “Couldn’t sleep. Too many naps, perhaps. Also, I’m famished.” He crosses the room and flings open cabinet doors until he finds half a loaf of bread and a dish of butter. “Care for any?”

My stomach surprises me by rumbling. I suppose I can risk staying here long enough for a slice of bread. “Please.”

I set the handsaw on the floor, against the wall. I shrug off my cloak and use it to cover the tool—just in case someone else happens into the kitchen. Thank heaven I took the time to put on a day dress before sneaking out of the room I share with the twins and the baby.

Calder tears off hunks of bread and coats each with a thick layer of butter. He hands me one and we sit on the stone floor, close to the low-burning hearth. The butter is salty and rich, and the loaf is soft and slightly sweet. Has anything ever tasted so good?

His acorn-brown eyes catch the firelight. This untidy, whispering Calder has a strangely soothing effect on me, like a familiar quilt. The shadowy kitchen is redolent with ghost scents of past baking and roasting, faint whiffs of herbs and soap. It feels like I always wanted home to feel. Safe and welcoming.

“Do you miss your old family at all?” he asks when his bread is gone.

“No.” I answer right away, not pausing to think. Guilt washes over me as I realize I’ve spoken the truth. If I were a good daughter, I would miss my parents. If I were a good daughter, I would not have left my sick mother. But I was never going to be a good daughter in their minds, no matter how I tried. The antlers made it impossible. “What about you?” I ask him. “Do you miss the family you first had?” I feel more vulnerable asking this than being asked.

He reaches to grab the poker and uses it to stir the embers. “Not anymore. I was young when we parted ways. It was not what I wanted. Yonaz could have collected my tears in buckets. But time covers over the wounds of your heart, if you’re lucky.”

I want to ask him more about his parents, but this does not seem like the time or place for that. I say instead, “I will do everything I can to keep Sparrow from suffering such wounds.”

He sets the poker aside and reaches for my hand as if doing so is the most natural thing in the world. His fingers squeeze gently, and then he lets go. “Sometimes the baskets do choose well, you know. Sparrow will have the best of lives because of you.”

Affection and flattery are strangers to me. A blush heats my face and throat. Does he notice in the flickering firelight? I swallow hard.

“The innkeeper’s wife will be down soon,” Calder says. Outside, a rooster crows to restate the warning. He stands, picks up my cloak and the saw, and places the bundle into my arms. “Promise me you won’t try to use the saw on yourself.”

“I’ll ask one of the twins.”

“Good.” He looks at me for a moment, hard, as if he means to memorize my image. “You go up first. I’ll listen for your door. Wouldn’t want to sully your reputation by being caught together, especially with me in my nightclothes.”

“Good night, Calder,” I say, forgetting morning is nigh.

“Good night, my antler girl,” he replies in a whisper so faint, so full of exquisite tenderness, that I will forever wonder if I imagined it.