The Springborn

SABELLA

MARCH 15, 1886

MORNING

I sit astride the mare, Maeve, with Sparrow in front of me. The recent removal of my antlers has lightened my head, yet I feel like the entire world is pressing down upon me. To my left, Calder waits on Mervyn’s broad back. Above us, the early morning sky is choked with flat, gray clouds. The birds hardly chirp at all, as if they suspect something is amiss.

Robbie comes to my side. He reaches up to grip my hand with both of his. The fiercest rainstorm could not have left his face any wetter. But I am empty of tears, numb in every part of my being.

“Please don’t go,” he pleads. “Sparrow needs us.”

“I’m sorry. She must be with me, and I have to go.”

“It was a misunderstanding. Can you not try to forgive him?”

How can I explain that the misunderstanding was so much more? That his best friend is an untrustworthy schemer? If I were to try, it would only further distress him. “My parents need me,” I say. “It’s my duty to take care of them. Perhaps someday, when Father is well, Sparrow and I can visit you.”

“You know very well that some of us will not last until ‘someday.’ Look at her. She’s gained two more years overnight, maybe three. Darnation, Sabella. You cannot do this. I don’t think I can bear it.” He wipes his nose and eyes on his already sodden shirtsleeve. I make the mistake of glancing downward and see that his bird feet glisten with fallen tears. My numbness lifts enough to allow a pang of sadness to pierce my chest.

Cleona, now in the form of a girl, walks to Robbie’s side and rests a hand on his shoulder. “Come, Robbie. She must do what she thinks is right.”

He shakes his head. “But it isn’t. It isn’t right.”

“We need to leave,” Calder says flatly. “The journey will be a long one.”

Robbie leans closer. He cradles Sparrow’s little foot in his hand and kisses it. And then he turns away from us. His shoulders shudder as he weeps. Cleona takes his arm and guides him toward the wagons.

When they’re gone, Calder asks softly, “Are you sure?”

I do not look at him, fearing I might lose my resolve. I clutch the reins and say, “Let’s go.”

Calder commands Mervyn to walk, and soon thereafter, coaxes him to trot. I hold Sparrow tight to me as we follow on Maeve. We travel at a steady speed, under an ash-gray sky as smooth as a plastered ceiling. Sparrow points out things which delight her along the road: a pair of tan and white cows, a house with pink shutters, a huge black crow atop a copper weathervane. Her speech has lost most of its babyishness, much to my sorrow.

Will Mother and Father be surprised to see that the infant I left with has grown into a five-year-old child? They did raise a daughter with antlers, so perhaps they will not even blink at the change in Sparrow.

After a while, we stop alongside a stream to allow the horses to drink and rest. Calder and I stand a few feet apart. The silence that haunts the space between us is unfamiliar and unsettling. Sparrow picks up pebbles from the bank and examines them carefully before tossing them aside.

“I’m going to find a diamond,” Sparrow says. “Uncle Robbie told me they’re rocks that sparkle like glass, only you can’t break them.”

“That’s a grand idea,” Calder says.

I glance sidelong at him and accidentally meet his gaze as Sparrow skips away.

“Listen,” he says. “I know keeping the letter was wrong, and I’m sorry. But it does seem as though you’re angry with me for much more.”

“You do not need me to list your offenses, Calder. I imagine you know them better than I do.”

“I know I’m guilty of many things, but I love you. With all my unwise, unruly heart, I love you.”

“Deception and dishonesty are not love.”

“Sabella, I…”

I fold my arms over my middle and turn to face him. “Tell me the truth then. The entirety of it. From the first time you saw me until you hid the letter. I want to hear everything. Heaven knows you have nothing to lose by telling me now.”

He bites his lower lip and shifts his weight from one foot to the other. He could not look guiltier if he tried.

I shake my head. “You see? I knew you were keeping more secrets from me.”

“The truth, then.” He stares out over the stream. The horses raise their heads to soak in the warm sunshine. Sparrow flings handfuls of pebbles onto the bank again and again.

“The first time I saw you,” he says solemnly. “You were eleven, or maybe twelve. Yonaz asked me to keep an eye on you when you went to bury your antlers in the woods every morning. He thought it unsafe for you to be out all alone on a tract of land between two mining towns full of rough men. It was summer, and you wore a blue dress with the sleeves rolled to your elbows. Your hair was loose and chestnut brown. I wasn’t much older than you, but I knew . Even if I had not dreamed of you, I would have known without a doubt that we were meant to be together someday.”

I must not let his romantic notions get the better of me. I focus on what was wrong with the situation he described. “You spied on me and allowed me to believe I was alone.”

“Yonaz gave me an assignment and I carried it out. I wanted to, truly, because it was important to me that you were safe. So often I almost approached you. You looked so sad much of the time. I know it sounds sinister, the watching, but it never was. I wanted only to protect you.”

“And then what? You decided I was finally ripe for the picking and came knocking at my door, impersonating a new boarder?”

“I was glad to go, to finally speak to you, but the decision was Yonaz’s. For a while, he’d been hearing mutterings in the town, rumors that your parents were hiding you because you were witch-marked. He’d started to worry that harm would befall you—and then, when you saw me in the woods, he decided the time had come for us to meet. I was supposed to slowly let you know who we are, so maybe you’d choose to join us. You can make it sound lewd and wrong, the spying. But I loved you with a pure heart all along, I swear it.”

I step closer to him and lower my voice so Sparrow will not hear. “You tempted me to look into the basket. You gave me Sparrow to trap me. Admit it.”

“That is completely untrue. I swear on every holy thing in the world that I had nothing to do with Sparrow’s appearance. Either the basket or Delphine made that happen.”

My cheeks and neck burn. My pulse races. “You blame Yonaz and Delphine for almost everything, but I think it was all you, all along. You felt it was time to make me join you, so you helped concoct a situation that would drive me from my home. You wanted me. You ‘rescued’ me. You made me fall in love with you. Everything has been about you. Your desires—and never mine.”

“I beg to disagree. Think, Sabella. Were you happy with your parents? Did you enjoy living as a prisoner? Your father hacking off your antlers every day? Your mother’s drunken insults? It broke my heart to see you living in such circumstances when we could offer you a better life among people who would love you.”

“You can make it sound pretty, but it still reeks of treachery. I cannot trust you, Calder. That is what it all boils down to. And if I cannot trust you, there can be nothing between us, not even friendship.”

Sparrow tugs at my sleeve, startling me. Consumed by the argument, I did not hear her approach. She tugs again. “Mama, please don’t be cross with Uncle Calder. Look. I brought you a pink rock.”

“Thank you, my love,” I say. “It’s very pretty.” I drop the pebble into the pocket of my cloak and it clinks against the wooden heart Calder gave me. The urge to cast his love token into the water is strong, but Sparrow would ask too many painful questions if I threw it away in her presence.

“Uncle Calder, are you crying?” Sparrow asks, her brow furrowed.

He sniffs. “Probably coming down with a cold, little one. Not to worry.”

“Back onto the horse,” I say to Sparrow with false cheer. “We aren’t home yet.”

She slips her hand into mine. “You mean our new home with Uncle Robbie and everyone?”

“A different home.”

Calder gently yanks one of her corn silk-gold braids. “Don’t worry, Sparrow bird. Your mama will take good care of you wherever you go.”

“But I want Uncle Robbie,” she whines. Her lower lip trembles. Fortunately, an owl swoops overhead and captures her attention. “Look!” she says, forgoing her sadness—at least temporarily.

As it is the wrong time of day for owls to venture forth from their nests, I suspect this creature is one of the twins.

Calder boosts me onto Maeve. He sets Sparrow in front of me and gives me the reins. His hand brushes my leg, and for a moment, longing for him stirs anew within me, but I will not entertain it any more than I would entertain the temptation to rob a bank.

“Let’s go, horse,” Sparrow says, bouncing.

“Hold on, little one,” Calder says. He mounts his horse with athletic ease. “Patience is a virtue.”

Is he spouting a proverb to let me know that he will wait for me to forgive him? If he chooses to hold out hope that I’ll fall back into his arms, he will be wasting his time.