Goldeline Page 2
But when I make it to the Half-Moon Inn, that’s when Gruff will know I’m a real bandit, not just some lonesome little kid. That’s where real bandits belong. That’s where I’ll be home. Until then I’ll live on the road with Gruff and the boys. I’ll be part of a wilder story, the kind of thing you tell kids at night to scare them. I’ll be what they fear most, the Ghost Girl of the Woods, the one who can curse the Townies, the one who when you see her it means death. I’ll be the one they are all scared of, the one they see in their dreams to let them know it’s gonna be a bad one. I’ll get my own revenge on the Townies.
A bandit. That’s what I’ll be, through and through. And a bandit’s what I’ll always be, forever.
“Let’s get on back now,” says Gruff. “We got to up and move camp early tomorrow morning.”
“Again?” I say.
I liked this spot. I think it’s my favorite campsite we’ve had in months.
“’Fraid so, Goldy,” says Gruff. “It wouldn’t do to have folks find out where we’re hiding, now would it?”
“But the Townies don’t think we exist, remember? I’m the Ghost Girl of the Woods!”
I throw my arms up and wiggle my fingers all spooky like, hoping Gruff gets a kick out of that. But Gruff doesn’t much look like laughing.
“Townies ain’t all I’m worried about,” he says.
I know exactly who he means, and it shivers me down to my bones.
“You won’t let the Preacher get me, will you, Gruff?”
“Not on your life, Goldy,” he says. “Gruff’ll good and protect you just fine. Now go on and get you some rest. We got us a big day tomorrow. Got lots to carry, thanks to your work today, and miles and miles to carry it.”
I walk with Gruff back to the camp, singing soft to myself, the moon high and bright above us. The moon is always a mystery, always a secret the sky tells. That’s what Momma used to say. Momma had a lot to say about the moon, about its pull on you, about what the moon will let you do, how if you talk to her she’ll make your hair shine with the dew. It’s true too. Momma never once lied to me, not that I ever heard.
Momma trusted Gruff, so I do too. If Gruff says he can keep me safe from the Preacher, then I believe him.
TWO
We wait only two weeks till we’re out again. I don’t like this so much. For one, it’s too soon. We always wait longer between jobs, at least three weeks, so maybe folks put their guards down a little. But the boys ate up the food too fast, and there wasn’t much gold to be had from Mr. Greencoats. We haven’t had a good meal in a whole week. Gruff was real grumbly when I mentioned it to him.
“You think I don’t know that, Goldy?” he said. “Lord, you’re complaining too. You and everybody else. Who do they want in charge? Who can do a better job than old Gruff?”
That made me feel real bad, like I wasn’t grateful. That’s why I didn’t complain about the new spot either. See, we move to a different place on the trail every couple of jobs, just in case folks get wise to us. I don’t like this new spot Gruff picked at all. It’s at a twisty, windy part of the trail, right past a curve where you can’t see what’s coming. I guess that’s the point, that the carriage can’t see me until the last minute, but it sure makes me nervous. If the carriage driver doesn’t notice me in time I could get squished. I hate that Gruff picked this spot but I don’t say a thing to him about it. I don’t want him knowing that I’m scared.
Because I am scared. The sky is all gray and there aren’t any good birds out, just crows and dark things. There’s a bad taste in the air, like something died too close, like maybe far away someone’s cooking something awful. It’s hard to explain I guess. Sometimes I just get these feelings that start way down in my toes and crawl up me like ants. It’s a bad tickle, a warning. But bandits don’t get scared, not real ones. I sing Momma’s nothingsong and try to spook the bad feelings away.
A cardinal lands on a twig above my head. It sings its little harp song. I think it’s the brightest thing in the whole woods today. Momma said not to trust cardinals because they’re vain and they don’t ever tell you the truth but I think they’re pretty. This cardinal hops up and flies away, leaving the tree branch all alone, and I miss it already.
Right then a carriage comes down the road. It’s a fancy thing, with two big brown horses trotting out front. Must be a rich person. I bet they got all kinds of food in that carriage, gold and pearls and wine. I bet they got velvet lining. I bet they got everything a person could ever want stuffed in there.
I step out of the woods into the road and let my hood fall down like always. I wave my arms and say “Help me!” extra loud so I don’t get run over. The driver’s a short, paunchy man with his hat pulled low. He slows down a little, eyeing me weirdly, but it doesn’t look like he’s going to stop for me. But then a lady sticks her head out of the carriage door. She has red hair piled up in braids on top and her dress is all frilly, like what you’d wear to a ball. She’s kind of pudgy and she smiles real big.
“Slow down, James, slow down,” she says. “There’s a darling little girl out here, and she seems lost.”
“No good stopping in these woods,” says the driver.
“I didn’t ask you your opinion,” says the lady. “I asked you to stop.”
“I heard tell of a ghost girl that haunts these woods. Heard tell of bad things that happen for them that stops.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” says the lady. “There aren’t any ghosts. Now stop the carriage before I have to jump out myself.”
The driver slows the horses until they stop right next to me. The door opens and the lady steps herself out and bends down to me. She’s not a Townie, not one I’ve ever seen before. For one, she’s dressed too nice. Also, she doesn’t have that nervous look all the Townies have ever since the Preacher showed up, like somebody’s always watching them, like they’re scared of getting caught. This lady’s probably never even been to Templeton. She just made a bad decision about what trail to take today.
“What’s wrong, dear?” the woman says.
She seems like a nice lady and I feel real bad about it.
When Gruff and the boys come screaming from the woods, I don’t even try to watch. I shut tight my eyes and stop up my ears with my fingers and count to one hundred. It usually doesn’t take any longer than that.
When I think all the bad is done and over with, I open my eyes. Pugh and Dunce are tying up the woman and her driver, both passed out from the forgetting herbs, from my own magic. All you do is crush the leaves up, then pray over them while you make tea. People don’t remember anything, not a bit. Gruff’s boys will carry them out deep into the woods and leave them there. It hurts me to see the nice lady slumped over like that, her hands bound, all weak and helpless.
A big trunk is tied to the back of the carriage. Gruff dumps it out and he and Murph start digging through it.
“Coins, some bread, some drink”—Murph pops the cork, takes a swig—“even got grapes in here.”
“Goldeline,” Gruff barks, “can you hop in that carriage and see what you find?”
I don’t answer him.
“What’s the matter? Shoot, I’m sorry,” he says. He wipes all the mean off his face and smiles at me real big and he’s Gruff again. “See, it’s just me.” He bends down and ruffles my hair, and I feel a little better. “Goldy, will you check the inside? Me and Murph here are busy at the moment.”
I love Gruff, I really do. He’s my own Gruff and he takes care of me better than anyone ever has, except for Momma. I’d be dead if it wasn’t for Gruff. The Townies would have got me. Their ugly red faces, calling Momma wicked, even though some of them used to come by at night, for medicine or for other things. When the Townies came Momma always made me go outside, even if it was late-late. Momma didn’t want me to see such people in pain. Besides, some matters ought to be private. So she gave me a lantern and I got to walk in the woods and look for owls and raccoons and all the night creatures that wake up w
ith the dark. When I got scared I would sing the nothingsong Momma taught me and then I wouldn’t be scared anymore. She’d put a candle for me in the window I could see for half a mile, a glowing cat’s eye in the dark to call me home.
“Goldy,” says Gruff. “The carriage.”
“Right. Sorry, Gruff.”
This isn’t my normal job. Most of the time I just look innocent and get the carriage to stop. But only three of Gruff’s boys showed up today, and I have to do extra to help. The rest are all at the camp, loafing, waiting on Gruff to bring back food or money. But even if all the boys leave and it’s just me and Gruff I’ll stick by him and one day we’ll go to Moon Haven and be happy forever together.
The carriage is fancy. Velvet curtains, pillows on the seats. Rich stuff. Not much we can use though, just knickknacks, some sewing things, a stiff-bound book too heavy for my pack. I don’t know why, but it seems like it belongs to happy people, like these are the things you get to have when you’re a person with a family.
But then something wonderful happens.
I pick up a blanket bundled on the floor and there’s a boy with bright-red hair hiding underneath. Like a changeling boy from a fairy story. He’s got both hands covering his mouth, trying to keep from crying out. He’s my age, I think. A little younger. He looks at me with the scaredest eyes, and it makes me remember the awful day when Momma died. I look into his eyes and I know just how he feels because that’s how I felt that day too.
I stop for a good long minute. Then I do something maybe stupid. I know I shouldn’t, I know Gruff would beat me raw, I know I’m putting us all in danger, that what I’m about to do is permanent, can never be undone, and maybe it’ll ruin everything. But I can’t help it. It’s like there’s a little voice in me that sings, Look in his eyes, Goldeline. He’s just the same as you.
I stick my head out of the carriage and check to see if Gruff’s looking. He’s not, so I drop the blanket back over the boy.
“Don’t move for a really long time, okay?” I whisper.
I walk over to Gruff and tug on his shirtsleeves.
“You find anything?” he says.
“Nope,” I say. I say it just like I’d say it if it were the truth. See, I’m a real good liar.
“Well I did,” he says. Gruff pulls a white dress from the trunk. It’s so pretty you could call it a gown. It shimmers and sparkles in the sunlight. I never seen anything so beautiful in my life.
“For me?” I say.
“For you,” he says.
I can hardly believe it. It’s the finest thing anyone has ever given me.
“You hang on to that dress now. Don’t let it drag in the dirt.” Gruff turns to Dunce and Buddo. “Let’s get out of here. I’m starved.”
“Hey, Gruff?” I say.
“Yeah, Goldy?”
“If it’s okay with you I’m just going to walk around by myself for a bit.”
“Sure, Goldy.” He bends down on a knee and looks me fierce in the eyes. “Just don’t cross the road, off into those other woods. Nothing there for you. I don’t want to be crawling around the woods all dadgum night looking for you. And if you hear anybody coming down this way you make a run for it. Keep to the trees where they can’t follow you. You hear me?”
“I’ll be careful.”
“Let’s go, boys,” says Gruff.
“Hey, Gruff?”
“Yeah, Goldy?”
“What’s on the other side of the road? Ghosts?”
“Yep,” he says. “And worse.”
“What’s worse than ghosts?”
“You remember the stories, Goldy. I told you a million times.”
“Tell me one more.”
He sighs. “It ain’t just ghosts out there, though there are plenty of those. Dead bandits who never stopped robbing after they died, drowned women come up with lungs full of black water. But there’s worse stuff than that, stranger stuff, wilder stuff.”
“Like what, Gruff?”
Gruff looks at me serious, his eyes gone fierce.
“Bad people, Goldy. Folks who ain’t got any code. Folks who will skin you alive just as soon as wink at you.”
“That’s why you won’t let me cross to the other side of the road, to those other woods?”
“That’s why. Now hush up. We got to get to camp and get some grub. All this action’s got me hungry.”
They walk back into the tree-line dark.
When they’re gone, I hang the dress on a tree branch so it won’t get dirty and climb a bent limb up high and wait. Below me the dress flows and dangles in the wind like a lady’s in it. A dancing ghost lady in her white dress out for the night, all the ghost music us breathers can’t hear.
I shut my eyes until I see blue butterflies under my eyelids and sing the nothingsong so quiet the wind won’t bother to blow it anywhere. I do something I don’t do a lot. I pray to Momma to help. That’s the kind of thing that the Preacher will burn you up for, blasphemy, even worse than the robberies Gruff has done.
I hear little footfalls in the road like a squirrel scamper and I open my eyes and it’s the boy. He stops dead still and glances over his shoulder, like he’s worried Gruff is still out in the woods, waiting for him. He runs again, but pauses at the dress. I look down on him from up in my tree and it makes me sad. See, it’s probably his momma’s dress, not mine, and it never will be mine. Not really. That’s the problem with stealing, with being a bandit. Everything you got is really someone else’s.
The wind twirls the dress on the branch. He reaches out to touch the sleeves but I want the dress for me so I grab a twig off the tree and snap it in two. It cracks like a rifle shot in the silent woods.
The boy screams and runs down the road toward town. I watch him till he’s almost gone. I know what it’s like, being alone in the world, scary things everywhere. I know just what it’s like. If I let him go, he’ll find his way to town fine, so long as a bear or something doesn’t get him. There’s only this road, and it only goes one way. It’s better if I let him go on to town. But I can’t. I don’t know why. It’s the same little voice that made me keep him safe in the first place, a little thing chirping away in my heart. I can’t let him go.
“Hey, little boy.” He runs faster, so I yell in my best Gruff voice, “Stop right there if you know what’s good for you.”
The boy freezes. He’s shaking. I know it’s bad, but seeing him do what I say is kind of fun. I get why Gruff likes being the boss, having power over folks. It’s something I’ve never had before. This boy will do anything I tell him to.
“Turn around real slow,” I say.
He does as I say, the whole time looking around like he can’t find me.
“Up here, stupid,” I say.
When he sees me his eyes get big. Snot’s all dribbled down his chin and his cheeks are dirty and red from crying. He’s actually younger than I thought, maybe about nine, two years younger than me. It’s hard to tell though. I’ve seen roughneck toddlers from the country who look tougher than a rich thirteen-year-old.
“They took them out to the woods,” he says. “I’m the only one left.”
“I know,” I say. “I saved you.”
“Are you an angel?”
“An angel?”
“Aunt Barbara says there are angels all around. She says they’re mostly invisible but sometimes they can be anybody. Even gross old Mr. Sellers down the road could be an angel in real life.”
I’ve been a ghost for a long time, but I’ve never been an angel before. Maybe it’d be better to be an angel. Something pretty that people love instead of just being scared of. A ghost means death, but an angel protects people. A guardian angel. I could be that, just this once. It seems like fun.
“Yes, little boy, I’m your angel. What’s your name?”
“How come you’re my angel and you don’t know my name?”
“I know your heaven name. Not your earth name.”
“What’s my heaven name?”
“A demon?” he says, eyes big and scared.
“What’s your name?”
“Tommy,” he says. “Aunt Barbara says my momma’s an angel. That after she died she went up to heaven, same as my daddy. That they’re angels together in heaven, waiting on me. Do you know my momma?”
I was right, I knew it, I could see it in his eyes. He’s an orphan too. He’s just like me.
“No, I don’t know your momma. But there’s lots of us angels out there. I probably just haven’t bumped into her yet.”
“Well, she’s still new up there. She’s only been an angel for a few months. That’s why I’m going to live with Aunt Barbara. That’s why I had all of Momma’s stuff with me, for Aunt Barbara to remember her by.”
“Was Aunt Barbara the lady in the carriage?”
“Nope. That’s just her friend, Miss Lyons. Aunt Barbara lives in Carrolton.” He looks at me funny. “For an angel, you sure don’t know much.”
“I knew enough to save you from those bandits,” I say, crossing my arms. “And they might be heading back this way any minute. Wouldn’t doubt it, not for a second.”
Tommy whips his head around, gazing deep into the woods, scared all of a sudden.
Looking down the road, all I see is a gold ribbon of empty dirt. I don’t understand being scared in these woods. The dark and scratching noises are nothing but deer and possums and raccoons, owls and mice, even sometimes foxes, who are lucky. Nothing really to be scared of here except us bandits. Better than the town full of wicked, jabbering crones and rat-toothed men. All the rich kids that hate you.