The Springborn

SABELLA

JUNE 15, 1886

LATE MORNING

S parrow is as frail and weak as a newborn kitten. It takes me almost an hour to help her to dress, for she requires me to stop every few minutes because of pains in her joints or bones. Not even her best remedies relieve her aches—which concerns me more than I can say.

The hall clock chimes nine as I help her into her favorite chair by the bedroom window. She gazes over the gardens while I needlessly rearrange the books on the bookshelf.

“A moment, miss?” Hazel, our housekeeper, says from the doorway. She is a round, motherly woman with apple cheeks and a baffling fondness for polishing doorknobs. She rarely speaks unless spoken to.

I hug a volume of Shakespearean sonnets to my chest as I turn to face her. “What is it?”

Something in her somber expression unsettles me before she says another word.

“I’ve just returned from Miners Ridge. My brother lives there with his wife and baby.” She pauses, and anxiety rises from my chest to my throat.

“Yes?” I say.

She continues. “While I was there, I heard your name mentioned in the shop. Miss, I’m sorry to tell you, but your mother has died. The funeral is tomorrow afternoon, should you wish to attend.”

I stumble backward and land on the edge of Sparrow’s bed. I grip the quilt with both hands. Words fail me, so I nod.

“Master Calder can take you in the wagon, miss. He’s already hitched it. You’ll need to leave soon to make it there in time for the service.”

Numb, I say, “Thank you.”

Hazel comes to me and pulls me into her arms. I hold onto her as if she’s the only plank within reach after a shipwreck. She smells of starch and beeswax polish and baking, like one would want a mother to smell—rather than alcohol infused medicine and sour bedclothes. When I finally release her, she pats my cheek and says, “I’m sorry, love. If I can do anything, come find me.” She sweeps out of the room, and I sink onto the mattress again.

“I’m so sorry, Mama,” Sparrow says from her chair. “I would go with you if I could. But I fear the trip would be the end of me.”

“I know, my dear.”

I get up to pace, suddenly unable to hold still a second longer. “I’ll need to find a black dress. Do I have a black dress? And oh, heavens! My antlers. I cannot go there with antlers.”

I wander into the dressing room. In the recesses of the wardrobe, I find a plain black gown with jet buttons and a simple lace collar, something fitting for the funeral of a miner’s wife. How had the twins known I’d need such a garment?

My thoughts are molasses-thick as I change and put on black boots. My fingers tremble hard enough to make tying the bootlaces a long ordeal.

My mother is dead. She loved me in her way, I think, as much as she could. And now, she is dead.

The day promises to be hot, but I grab my black shawl from the shelf and slip my fingers into a pair of black lace gloves I found in my dressing table. I kiss Sparrow goodbye. When I open my door to leave the room, Calder is there, hand raised to knock. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he says. “I have the wagon ready if you really want to go. I never got the hang of driving Yonaz’s monstrosity of a carriage, and there are no more trains today, so…”

“I need your help first.” My voice sounds foreign to me, a thin, tight imitation of my real voice. “I need you to cut off these antlers.”

He blanches and shakes his head.

“You know I cannot travel like this.”

“I do know, but I hate knowing.” He groans with exasperation before he relents. “All right. We’ll have to go to the barn to do it. It isn’t something the boys should witness.”

“Fine.”

Each footstep reverberates inside my head as I trail behind Calder. Once within the barn, he turns and bars the door. He takes a saw from the work bench and faces me. His face is pasty and glistening with sweat like he’s fallen ill with a fever.

“Are you sure?” he asks. “After all this time, to…to go back to this .” He scowls at the toothy blade with such loathing that the metal should melt. “Does it not feel wrong to you?”

“I feel nothing right now, Calder. Nothing at all. Please, just do it. We need to get on the road or I’ll miss the funeral altogether.”

“After this trip, I will never do it again. I’d just as soon set fire to a cathedral. It isn’t right.”

“Calder.” I close my eyes and grit my teeth.

He swears under his breath and then releases a loud, huffing sigh. He rests a hand on my neck, holding hard enough to keep me still but gently enough not to hurt me. I hear the grinding of the blade. I smell the dust. After a minute, the first antler breaks free with a faint crack. A strange sound comes from Calder, a choked sob or a grunt of anger. I keep my eyes shut as he sets the blade on the other antler.

The second antler breaks free. I open my eyes to find Calder has fallen to his knees before me. I take his face in my hands. He looks up at me with such stark remorse that I feel something for the first time since Hazel brought me the bitter news. This unnamable emotion churns inside my belly, sadness and gratitude and love and regret all mixed together like one of Sparrow’s pungent, medicinal teas.

“Never again,” I promise him.

My hands are folded in my lap, and he covers them with his. “You don’t have to go to this funeral,” he says. “It can do you no good. They were never worthy of you, your parents.”

“I do have to go.” I cannot explain why, not even to myself.

Silently admitting defeat, he stands. “I’m going with you then. And I don’t mean just driving you there and waiting. I will not leave your side for one solitary minute.”

I, too, know when I am defeated. I stand and brush silvery gray antler dust off my mourning dress. “In that case, you had better hurry and fetch a change of clothes.”