Black Pearls Read Online Free Page B

The girl touched Tabby's arm as if she were settling a nervous horse. "Do not be peevish. 'Tis only for fun now and then." She hoisted her skirt to show her pretty foot. "Surely you do not mean me to hide the lovely frocks you buy me? Must no one see my finery?" She turned this way and that, jigging steps she could not have taught herself. "There are those in town who fancy my company, Mother, who wait for me to come."
    Tabby hid her eyes from her daughter's spinning dance, from the mischief in her smile. She felt little curiosity about her daughter's companions, only the need, savage and certain, to banish them from the girl's life. "You shall not cross me on this, my Rampion. I will make you safe until I find a refuge for us, a new home far from such friends as nail a goat head to your door."
    Rampion stopped her dance and bent to put a patient hand on Tabby's knee. "I know no one who would do such a thing, Mother. And a new home will be no refuge for me." She stood straight again, surveyed the dark forest outside the window. "I need to sing and dance. I need to see my friend."
    Tabby was certain the girl meant no harm. It seemed to her that Rampion must have snuck into town with the same careless innocence that sometimes made her bring home the wrong mushrooms, the ones that might have killed them both. She was young, after all, and could not know the deadly poisons stored in human hearts. So Tabby struck a bargain, made a promise she hoped would save them both: "I will show you, Rampion my own," she told the girl, "such freedom as you ne'er could dream. Give me until the open moon, and stay inside until the first night she turns her white face on us." It was not so much to ask, surely, of the child she had fed and raised and loved until she felt her heart might burst. "Then, when you have seen what I will share, if you do not want to come away with me, we will stay here." Once her daughter had felt the night sky against her face, Tabby knew, once she had sifted moonlight between her out-stretched fingers, she could never prefer the tame pleasures of flightless companions.
    "But when you come home, surely then I can go out?"
    "No, pet," Tabby told her. "We must take no chances until I have earned enough to give us a fresh start in a town with kinder folk." She held her daughter's hands, like two trapped birds, between her own. "But I will bring you dainties and games each night. 'Twill make the next day pass so quickly, you will swear the sun has mistaken its course."
    To Tabby's surprise, though she sighed a bit and pouted mightily, Rampion agreed. She did not weep or complain of being held captive but settled with a good will beside her mother, taking up her needle. "'Tis but two fortnights," she said, sounding almost cheerful. "I will sew some new sleeves for your gown to keep myself busy. And stir the pot till you come home."
    Though she should have been relieved, Tabby slept poorly that night. She dreamt of the goat she had found on the door—not just its head, but the whole goat, swelled to giant size. Its beard was as big as a tree and its hooves sparked lightning as it ran. It lowered its shaggy head and stormed toward the tower, snorting like a bull. Desperate to save Rampion, who she knew was inside, Tabby began to build a wall across the tower door. Just as she had fashioned the wall around her old garden, she laid stone on top of stone in her dream, building higher and higher. But as she put each stone in place, she saw the goat-bull coming closer, felt the earth shudder under its flashing hooves. Just as she was tapping the last stone into place, she heard a hideous roar and woke from the nightmare, her pallet tumbled off its platform and her nightshirt soaked with sweat.
    The dream stayed with her all the next day, so that instead of going into town to work, Tabby went back to the cottage where she had raised Rampion. She was glad the girl was not with her to see what had become of their little home.