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Prologue
It was best to hide. If they could not find me, they would simply go away.
“Where is your husband?” the man asked.
His black coat was specked with dust. He must have come into town using the northern road. Mom always told me not to use that road, ever since the stone drifted away due to the flood and made it all muddy. She promised me that once winter came and the ground froze, I could go there with Ide to gather pink berries. Those only grew in the forest behind the bridge and I hadn’t been able to go there since the flood. I missed those berries, they were delicious.
“I told you, he travels,” my mom said, her voice shaking. “He makes wooden toys and travels to sell them. Would you like to see the toys?”
Father’s toys were great. All the other children in the town were jealous of me because they thought I got to play with the toys whenever I wanted. But father did not let me play with them, not since I broke one. I was only allowed to play with the few toys he had made specially for me, but those were all old, and they were worn out from use.
He said we needed the new toys to pay for our food. I did not understand why we could not just play with the toys and eat only berries from the forest. But he was my father, he knew what was best.
“We are not interested in toys, woman,” the man replied. I took in a deep breath but tried to keep the sound as low as possible. He looked to the other man whom I could not see from the little gap in the stone. “Your husband has been gone for a while now, hasn’t he?”
“No,” my mother lied. “He will come back at the end of the week.”
“Perhaps he went back home?” the other man asked. His voice was deeper and harsher as though he was getting ready to scold Mom.
But no one scolded Mom. That wasn’t how things worked.
“This is his home,” Mom said. She, too, sounded like she was getting ready to scold.
“And where is your daughter?” the man with the clean-shaven face asked.
“She went with him,” my mom replied.
She was lying. I did not know why. Before Kenneth, the shoemaker’s son, came to warn us that the queen's soldiers were approaching the village, we were cooking soup together. I hated the smell of onion soup but did not want to tell that to my mom. I wanted to help. But after Kenneth said what he said, Mom’s face went pale and she told me to hide. She told me not to make any sounds.
And now she was lying. Mom never lied. I had not known that she could.
“Lying will get you nowhere,” the man whose face I could not see said angrily.
“I am not lying,” my mom lied again.
“We will search the house,” the soldier said. “If we find her, you’re going to be punished for lying to the crown.”
No. They could not punish Mom. I needed to get out of my hiding place and tell them not to be angry with her. If they wanted to talk to me, they could. I did not know what the queen’s soldiers might want from me, but I could not let Mom get punished for lying.
I raised my hands to touch the stone. Parting it was easy. Dad had taught me how to do it long ago. All you had to do was listen to the stone and then you could tell it what you wanted it to do.
“Are you going to kill her?” my mom asked, her voice shaking.
I stopped moving.
“Are you confessing, woman?” the second man asked. I decided that I did not like him at all, even though I didn’t even know what he looked like yet. He was mean. Not like the other man, who was looking at Mom with sadness in his gaze...
“No,” my mom replied.
“Step aside,” the soldier said.
“No,” my mom replied.
This time, I prepared my fire. Mom did too, I could feel it. Her hand was becoming redder, and so did mine. She had taught me how to use the fire. I was not allowed to use it unless I was in danger. But my mom had said these soldiers were here to kill me. That had to be the danger she was talking about.
“That would be a mistake,” the man said. I could not see him, but my mom shrieked and her hand stopped swelling with fire. I leaned into the little hole inside the stone and touched the stone with my hand to enlarge it just enough to see what the man was doing.
The stone parted for me.
