“Then you’d better not repeat it,” Rye said, holding an empty boot to her eye to get a better look. She couldn’t believe that Lottie, of all children, had gotten a full shoe while she had nothing. Not even a potato.
“Wait …” Rye said, finally discovering something deep inside the toe.
She removed a hard, heavy object and examined it in her hand.
“You got coal!” Lottie cackled.
“It’s not coal,” Rye said, rolling the stone over in her palm. It was the size and shape of a somewhat flattened egg, flawless ebony in colour, and smoother than glass, as if polished by centuries of tides. It was also frigid. Instead of warming to her touch, it seemed to draw the heat from her fingers. She’d never seen a stone like it before.
“Rye got coal!” Lottie repeated when their mother appeared behind them. Abby pulled back Lottie’s thick red hair so it wouldn’t stick to the nougat on her cheeks.
“And she said a bad word,” Lottie added quickly. She pretended to share a chocolate with Mona Monster, her pink hobgoblin rag doll.
“Maybe that’s why she got the coal,” Abby said, shooting Rye a look of disapproval.
“It’s a rock,” Rye said glumly. Embarrassed, she tucked it out of sight in her pocket. “Why would Good Harper leave me a rock?” This was shaping up to be the worst Silvermas ever.
“Mistakes happen sometimes, Riley,” Abby said. She shifted her leg so that the hem of her dress concealed her own overflowing shoe. It was too late; Rye had already seen it. “One year the Quartermasts’ hound got loose and ate all the Silvermas shoes,” Abby volunteered. “If that makes you feel any better.”
Rye just frowned. It didn’t.
“Speaking of which—” Abby began.
“Rye! Lottie!” a voice called. A boy in red long johns hopped on one foot from the cottage three doors down, one boot on and the other in his hands. He was tall and reedy, the sleeves of his undershirt ending well short of his wrists.
“Quinn Quartermast,” Abby said, “where in the Shale are your britches? You’ll get icicles in your lungs … or somewhere worse.”
Quinn shrugged and his cheeks turned as red as his long johns. He balanced on one foot and held out a boot full of treats.
“Do you want to trade?” he asked eagerly.
“Rye got coal,” Lottie said, examining Quinn’s haul with a discerning eye.
“I got a stone,” Rye clarified. That had a nicer ring to it than rock.
“Oh,” Quinn said in disappointment, but he quickly put on a happy face for Rye’s benefit. “You can have some of mine. I’ve got plenty of green liquorice.”
“Thanks, Quinn,” Rye said half-heartedly. Lottie turned up her nose at the liquorice and pulled her own pile closer.
Rye saw Quinn’s eyes suddenly go wide. He blinked hard, as if clearing blurry vision. He pointed to the far end of Mud Puddle Lane. “Is that …” he stammered, awestruck.
Rye and Lottie both turned to look. There, at the furthest end of the frozen dirt lane, was an enormous, weatherworn coach pulled by four heavily muscled draft horses. At their reins was a hefty, grey-bearded man in a wide-brimmed hat the colour of a ripe plum. A matching woolly scarf enveloped his neck, its ends draped down to his boots.
Rye looked to her mother, mouth agape.
“You can’t say your father doesn’t have a flair for surprises,” Abby said. There was a tight smirk at the corner of her mouth that told Rye she remained both impressed and exasperated by her father’s special brand of flair. “You, my love, are going for a ride on the Mud Sleigh. Now let’s get you loaded up before Good Harper finds himself overrun by every child in Drowning.”
That was what he told Rye anyway as they left Drowning under a clear morning sky. She suspected that this was precisely the reason her father had arranged for her passage on the Mud Sleigh, and the only reason her mother had allowed it. Rye looked back, waved to Abby, Lottie and Quinn, and examined the contents of the coach. Its hold was loaded up with more gold and silver than a flush noble’s treasure hole.
The River Drowning was still frozen over in long stretches, light snow cover transforming it into a wide, smooth roadway. Rye twitched with the excitement of a new adventure as the village’s twisted rooftops disappeared behind them, the horses pulling the sleigh along the ice so swiftly that the wind rustled her hair. Soon she was shifting in her seat to get a better view of the Western Woods as they travelled southwest, further from home than she had ever been before. Eventually, however, all the trees began to look the same. She asked Good Harper four times if they were almost there, until he said something about having a bad ear and stopped responding altogether. She sang a song to pass the time. Rye’s voice must have miraculously cured Good Harper’s hearing, because he begged her to stop it right away. She sighed and thrust her chin into her hands. It was only midday.
Dusk came early and by nightfall Rye’s boredom had been replaced by a dull anxiety as she huddled under a heavy blanket on top of the driver’s box. They had stopped to make camp on the frozen river itself, at a particular bend where Good Harper said they were to wait for Rye’s father to come collect her. Rye tried to take comfort in the Mud Sleigh’s unblemished history as she listened to howls in the distance. The horses kicked at the ice and shuffled nervously around their camp. These animals must have seen and heard it all in these woods over the years, but tonight something had them spooked.
From his seat next to Rye, Good Harper scratched his beard and popped a cinnamon sweet into his mouth. He offered one to Rye but she just shook her head. It would have been a whole lot nicer if he’d left some for her last night. Good Harper offered her a potato. She turned that down too.
“You’ve gone quiet,” he remarked, which wasn’t entirely true. The fact was, Rye could hardly sneak a word in between his own ramblings. After his long months alone on the Mud Sleigh, Good Harper was well-practised in talking to himself.
“It’s a shame,” he said with a snort. “Good conversation, or even polite small talk, has become harder and harder to come by.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be—”
“The Shale folk have grown stingy,” Good Harper continued, as if he hadn’t heard her at all. “Nowadays they fill their shoes out of nothing more than habit. There seems to be no genuine concern for the needy, not even a healthy fear of bad luck. Drowning is the worst of the lot. It’s a glorified mud hole with its creeping bogs and notorious forest. Most of its residents barely muster up more than a few token bronze bits, and those who do put out shoes that smell like last month’s cheese.” He cast her a quick glance. “No offence, by the way.”
“None taken,” Rye said flatly. That was all true, she had to admit.
“The Earl didn’t even invite me to his Silvermas Eve Feast this year,” Good Harper grumbled on. “He’s got himself a new Constable