Page 2 of The Silversmith

And on each of their torsos, an X had been carved through their shirts. A mark, or a target, maybe. For what, I didn’t know.

“Move!”

A body much bigger than my own slammed into my back, thrusting me forward and back to the present. Sharp rocks bit through the cloth of my pants and bare skin of my palms as my hands and knees took the brunt of the fall. I’d been too stuck in my own head to see the assailant. Not that it mattered. They were already gone down the rocky path, and I didn’t have an ounce of strength or skill to defend myself.

I got up, not without a few more brutal shoves and glares from multiple passersby. After a look around the market, I resigned myself to returning home. Signs noted the price of goods at each stall. There was nothing worth less than three or four coins, and not a single stall owner looked any more gracious than the one requesting other forms of payment.

If I made it home before dark, at least I wouldn’t die today.

I shuddered. Die today or a few weeks from now—what a choice the gods had given me.

If only they would humble themselves and use their magic to aid the hungry and insignificant.

The return trip took me five hours instead of four. I took a step every second and counted each one. When I lost count, I started over, and over again, the repetitive drudge a mental counterpart to my dragging legs. Counting steps was all I could do to distract myself from the sharp, gnawing aches in my feet, calves, hips. The blisters that split the skin of my ankles. Everything hurt, and it took every bit of willpower to pretend I hadn’t brought the exhaustion and agony upon myself in vain.

Finally, the well-weathered stone chimney of the house I knew poked out above the leafless trees. I pressed forward, each inhale of frigid air a challenge.

Before going inside, I trudged out to the barn to check on the hens. Opening the faded umber door required the full weight of my hungry, trembling frame.

Penny greeted me with a string of hungry clucks.

“I know, girl,” I sniffled, grabbing the dwindling bucket of food pellets and scattering a half-handful across the floor. Rationing was crucial to keeping the chickens alive, just as it was for me. “Come here.” I lifted a reluctant Daisy, then Penny, from their nests, set them on the cold floor of the barn, bit my lip, and swallowed my remorse as they devoured their food. “I’m sorry. I’m hungry too.”

With a heavy sigh, I stepped outside the barn and back toward the house, pausing only to tighten the tattered green shawl around my neck when the wind displaced it. Dried leaves crunched beneath my feet as I moved. In early winter, the branches formed a dry, cross-hatched landscape fading into the endless distance. The dense thicket of dead debris created a bed on the forest floor, a haven for any small creatures seeking shelter from the cold. Despite my loneliness—how I sometimes craved anything but painful quiet—I felt there was a strange, silent beauty in such a desolate place.

Twigs crunched to my left. I turned and watched a white-tailed deer dash into the woods, startled by its own sound. I wondered what it was to have the bravery to truly run free. Wondered if I would ever find that. If I would even know where to begin.

A nasty wind swelled out of the trees and into the clearing. Uninterested in being bit by any more glassy shards of air, I picked up my pace.

Our home had been built by my parents before I was born. Though the knots in the wood had kept their mahogany spirals within the logs of pine, the exterior had worn throughout the years.

I sighed in relief upon reaching the front door and pushing it open. Once indoors, I slid my stockinged feet from my leather boots and lit our wood-burning stove to heat some broth.

The cabin was insignificant on the inside. It was the only home I’d ever known, consisting of one large living area. Space was limited to a sitting area crowded with a sofa and chairs next to a kitchenette with a small two-person table, a wood-burning stove, a small sink, and an insulated chest for preserving goods. Just off the main room was a bathroom and two small bedrooms. It wasn’t much, but it had been enough for us.

I stood near the hearth and stared at the worn leather sofa. Some nights, I had woken to find my mother asleep there, hair cascading behind her head. Her own chestnut pillow.

Groaning, I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands. Perhaps out of some guilt-driven desire to punish myself—and ruin one of the only fond memories I had of her—I recalled the last thing she’d said to me before leaving three months ago.

“I would give you up to have my boy back. I am done being your safe haven.”

That made two of us. I would have switched places with him in a heartbeat.

A heavy pull in my pocket drug a sullen scene through my memory. I wasn’t sure why I kept it with me, that damned note. Perhaps not to forget the day I’d found it, as I’d forgotten so many other things. I remembered the grim luster of the overcast sky, the dread I’d felt when descending the moldy, rickety stairway into the small cellar beneath the house. Knees protesting against the gravel as I knelt behind three boxes of my little brother’s things.

Six months after my father and Ollie were murdered, I went into the cellar to grab a jar of jam. When I turned to go, I noticed the corner of a small note with tattered edges peeking out between two of Ollie’s old children’s books. I saw his name scribbled in my mother’s script and couldn’t not read it.

Now, three months later, the same note was crumpled and torn in the corners, having lived in my pockets since the day I found it. Swallowing down my nerves, I unfolded it. My punishment for being the Gold child still living was forcing myself to read that note each day.

S,

Oliver has pneumonia. Ary has the same cold that caused it. Please send for help or come with provisions yourself. I need you.

- Elowen

Supplies had mysteriously arrived on our doorstep the week we’d both been sick. At the time, I hadn’t thought much of it, but now I wondered if someone else—this S, perhaps—had sent those supplies.

I’d confronted my mother about the note. Her response had been short and cold.