Read Online By These Ten Bones by Clare B. Dunkle - Free Book Online Page A

fail.”
    â€œYou’ll lose more than that,” muttered Ned. “You do just what I say, just like I say, or you’ll be dead in two days. And if you tell the secret to anyone, your lad will be dead in that same hour.”

7
    Maddie made her way back to the house and gave Carver his instructions.
    â€œYou!” gasped the young man, sitting up. “Madeleine, not you!”
    â€œYes, me,” affirmed Maddie. “There’s no one else you can trust.”
    â€œBut I didn’t want it to be you!” he cried, looking wild.
    â€œWell, it is,” she replied sensibly. “The Englishman told me what to do, and it doesn’t sound very hard. He says you’re to leave today so no one will suspect. I’ll leave before sundown tomorrow evening, and you can meet me at the rotten stump that’s just out of sight of the castle. Go now, while Ma’s out, or you won’t have another chance till night.”
    She took down some dried fish for him and cut out a firm square of the morning’s cold porridge. He pushed off the blankets and climbed to his feet, watching her work.
    â€œAnd you’ll be there well before dark,” he cautioned. “Twilight is too late.”
    â€œI know all about it,” she replied with confidence. He hesitated, eyeing her doubtfully. “Be off, then,” she said, handing him the food.
    Fair Sarah was very upset when she returned and found her sick boy gone. “The night is cold,” she worried to Maddie. “He’ll take a bad turn, just like Angus did. I never should have left him. It’s little enough I could do to help. Lachlan hasn’t stirred.”
    Maddie rehearsed her speech the next day as she went about her work. At noon, she took food to her mother and the other women working in the fields.
    â€œLady Mar y is upset about the death of the new lord’s wife,” she said, sitting by her mother as she ate. “She told me at breakfast she wants me to stay with her in the castle tonight.”
    â€œPoor woman,” sighed Fair Sarah. “Do that for her, Maddie. It’s a work of mercy, I’d say.” And the girl walked off, consumed with guilt. She had never lied to her mother before.
    Late that afternoon, Maddie took supper to Lady Mary and paused, looking out the castle doorway. No one was nearby. They were in the fields or at Black Ewan’s house, sitting with Lachlan’s mother over her unconscious child. Maddie took the path beside the loch that led away from the castle and the houses.
    The wood-carver emerged from the forest by the rotten stump, and they walked down the path together. Maddie told him the news about Lachlan and the work in the fields, but he didn’t make any comment. The fever seemed to be working on him. His face was deadly pale. The loch sparkled, and the pine trees were dark green, shading the path now and again with their thick boughs. But the sun already sat on the rim of the high, bare hills across the water.
    â€œThis is the Place of the Hands,” noted Maddie as the path crossed marshy land beside the loch. “It used to be that folk who walked through this place at dusk would see hands carrying a light down the path before them. Then, in Old Dad’s time, the pig-man and his wife were cutting their peats in the bog yonder, and they found a pair of severed hands in the peat, still roped together. They brought them back and buried them in the churchyard under a stone that just says ‘Hands,’ and no one ever saw the light on the path again.”
    â€œWe need to hurry,” muttered the young man, glancing at the sinking sun.
    In another few minutes, Carver left the path and walked a few feet into the bracken, approaching the rocky face of the steep hill that climbed into the sky beside them. Maddie followed him to a narrow crack in the rock wall, just wide enough for a man to slip through. He knelt to retrieve a lighted