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“That was terrifying,” gasped Anne, once they were all walking again on a lane. “I feared we’d be ripped limb from limb, and the turnips watered with our blood.”
“Was your father ironfisted?” Rosalie gave Georgie a sidelong look. “They’re usually ironfisted, the landlords who get ripped limb from limb.”
“You’re on the ogre’s side?” Georgie clutched a bottle to their chest. “Rankest betrayal! He was in a bad mood because the puppies he ate last night for dinner disagreed with him. My father had the opposite of an iron fist. What’s the opposite?”
“Silver fist?” suggested Anne. “Silk fist?”
“Open hand,” decided Georgie. “He rebuilt the village school. And he always sent a doctor around to the cottagers in winter. There was some talk of improving drainage. Or ditches. Or the drainage had something to do with the ditches. That was all some time ago, but I’m sure…” Georgie trailed off. They were sure of nothing. All decisions regarding the management of the estate had been made in absentia for half a decade. Or else left to Mr. Fletcher.
Was everything in rack and ruin?
They applied a bottle to the side of their face. The cool pressure of the glass was reassuring. And reminded them that all they could do at present was watch their step in plowed fields.
And drink.
“I’m thirsty,” they announced. “Champagne, anyone?” They lifted the bottle higher and swerved from the lane. “Meet me under yonder oak!”
Anne reached the oak last. Georgie was already filling glasses, and Rosalie was unpacking the salmagundi.
“So many crows,” said Anne, dropping the bowls box unceremoniously on the grass. “Aren’t they an ill omen?”
“Death,” intoned Rosalie, and reached deeper into the basket. “Oh, good. Plum cakes.”
“Death.”
Something about Anne’s tone brought Georgie’s head up.
She was gazing out over the meadow, gazing at an irregular patch of darkness amid all the green. Georgie squinted and the patch resolved into a lifeless body.
Anne let out a bloodcurdling scream.
9
There was a body in the meadow, but it wasn’t lifeless. Elf didn’t move as Georgie’s shadow fell across her. She did open her eyes and smile. The smile did something new and beautiful to her mouth. To her face. Her hair fanned around her head, a spill of black silk on the clover.
“What’s happened?” Georgie crossed their arms tight over the erratic thumps of their heart. “If you weren’t smiling, I’d worry you’d taken ill. But you’re smiling at me, so I worry you’ve taken very ill. Did you faint?”
“No.” She stretched out her arms, blades of grass peeping between her spread fingers. “But I do feel like I’m dreaming. Can you see it? I’m more or less in the middle.”
Georgie didn’t know what it was. They saw Elf. Elf on her back in a meadow, small, rigid body relaxed in rapture. Like some kind of angel fallen to earth. Or an elfin queen.
They stepped back abruptly and bumped into Anne, who’d rushed up behind.
“What a relief,” cried Anne. “I thought you were dead. The crows misled me.”
“I see it,” said Rosalie, muscling between Anne and Georgie and dropping into a crouch by Elf’s feet. “You’re lying in a dent.”
“A wolf pit.” Elf sat up. “A pit to trap wolves. Farmers used to dig them to protect their flocks.”
“Deplorable!” Anne clasped her hands. “Oh, woeful pit!”
Georgie looked at her with mild surprise. “You’re on the side of wolves?”
“Of course I’m on the side of wolves! I’m on the side of all wild, free, beautiful creatures. Men always try to kill what they can’t control.”
“Your father’s a worsted and woolen manufacturer.” Rosalie put her hands on her hips. “The wool trade is why wolves were hunted to extinction. The English economy depended on sheep.”
“How do you know that?” Anne’s forehead puckered.
