Page 34 of Heart of Snow
She covers the jar of powder and tucks it into a basket, then pats Belinda’s shoulder and leaves the room without another word.
Belinda’s smiling face is the last thing I see before closing my eyes.
I sleep, unaware of the danger I face, of how near my soul is to slipping away, but when I awake, it’s to Father’s shouts. He stands beside my bed yelling at a cowering, crying Belinda, and though I try to calm him, my voice is too weak. He only notices me at all when I try to sit up, and he rushes to my side, lifting me into a tight embrace.
He growls at Belinda over my head. “You’ll need a winning explanation if you wish to remain in my employ. Margaretha almost died for your negligence. I’ve a mind to send you back to your uncle.”
Belinda’s eyes shoot wide with fear, tears pooling in them. “Please, Your Lordship. I followed all the healer’s instructions. I used the rag and the urine and kept the blankets on her.”
“Why was the fire not lit? The healer said to keep it lit.”
Beads of sweat forming along Belinda’s brow make me suspect her deceit. She fell asleep again. Of course she did. After long days and nights keeping watch over me, I don’t blame her for it. And I certainly don’t want to see her punished, but if she admits the truth, Father might have her dismissed.
“The fire wouldn’t stay,” she answers. “Every time I’d light it, a sudden wind set upon it, blowing it cold, like it was cursed.”
Father’s eyes narrow.
“I wanted to warn you but feared leaving the countess alone. Please,” she begs again, tears dripping from her chin. “I did all I was asked, though it was none of it natural.”
Father freezes beside me. “What do you mean ‘not natural’?”
“The healer. She said a chant over the countess. She dropped some herbs.” Belinda wipes the tears from her cheeks.
“I don’t see anything unnatural about that.”
“Herbs crushed with white powder and a strong scent. And when the healer passed over the door’s threshold, she spoke to herself, muttering in an unfamiliar tongue before spitting on the ground.” Belinda clasps her hands together, as if begging Father to believe her.
Father holds me at arm’s length to study my face. “Is it true?”
I don’t comprehend his sudden interest in the healer, but Belinda’s wide, imploring eyes and the quiver of her lip are too much to ignore. She gives a slight, almost imperceptible nod, and I realize I must lie or Belinda will be returned to the clutches of her uncle.
“’Tis true,” I answer.
“The herbs and the foreign tongue? You saw this?”
I resist the urge to look at Belinda again, meeting Father’s gaze when I answer. “I saw it all and more.”
Father’s eyes bore into me. “What more?”
I tax my brain, searching for some rumor I’ve heard passing among servants, something else I can say to wholly remove the blame from Belinda. “The healer put a waxen image under my bed.”
Father sets me free and gets down on the floor.
Oh, please don’t search,I think as he pulls the coverlet up, rooting beneath the bed while I shoot Belinda a panicked look.
“It’s gone, Your Lordship,” she interjects. “I found and destroyed it just before the countess started to mend.”
He stays squat on the floor, one hand still pinning the coverlet against the bed as he looks back and forth between the two of us. “And you say a sudden wind took the fire?”
“Yes.” Belinda nods.
Father stands up fast enough that Belinda cowers again, but he only gives me a quick kiss on the forehead before striding out of the room.
The weight of our lies doesn’t crush us until the day they burn the healer. Word spreads through the servants in the castle, rumors of angry townsmen storming the healer’s cottage and dragging her to the town square for burning. With Father gone to the mines, Belinda and I race to the stables and order the coach ready.
Rolling onto the scene, we leap from the coach and force our way through the press, hearing the healer’s screams before we see her.
“Stop this! Set her free!” I yell, but my shouts are drowned beneath the roar of the villagers. When we finally push to the front of the crowd, the flames already touch the healer’s feet, grasping at her chemise and clawing up the fabric to her hands bound firmly behind her back. The fire shoots up waves of smoke and heat, lifting the healer’s hair while she tilts her face toward the sky, letting out an agonizing scream that chills my blood.
