Wild Indigo Read Free Page A

hair curled. A slim crooked elbow filled his hand.
    â€œThere is one other,” he said, smiling with relief.
    Â 
    That night, Retha strained to hear the young wolf’s cry. In the dark, close heat of her attic dormitory, she held her breath and listened. Nothing yet. Around her, half a dozen girls rustled under light sheets as they settled down to sleep. Someone whispered, someone answered, but she couldn’t make out their words. Gossip, no doubt. It used to be about her. Someone shushed them, and the attic door shut softly.
    Pale moonlight shafted through a deep-set dormer window, but Retha needed little light. She rolled out of bed and crawled to the door, the hem of her simple gown bunched in one hand. The door opened quietly, and she praised her own foresight. Bear grease on hinges had done the trick.
    Two flights of steep stairs led to the kitchen inthe basement. On the first-floor landing, she paused. Only the sound of someone snoring drifted down the stairs. Old Sarah Holder, already asleep. How many times had Sister Sarah failed to stop her from excursions in the night?
    This time, Retha thought, she had good reason to go. She listened again for the wolf. No sound, but she felt its call.
    Downstairs, the kitchen’s clay tiles cooled her feet. She could smell supper’s cabbage and burnt ashes from spent fires. Moonlight seeped through high windows, lighting neat rows of tables set for morning. But the great hearth’s black maw revealed nothing. The larder’s door was black too. She knew its contents well. She opened it and took a little bear grease, a knob of forcemeat, a small marrow bone.
    She hadn’t taken a thing in years, she thought, justifying herself. And tonight her cause was a good one. Half-healed, her young wolf was far from independent. Its wild golden eyes, trusting and wary all at once, stirred her soul. One day on a woodland search for dyes, she had seen a flash in the corner of her vision. A gray shape had dived into the dark recesses of a nearby cave. She had followed, coaxing it to her with a small piece of salt bacon she had brought for a meal.
    Tonight she wrapped its food in a length of muslin, knotted the cloth around her wrist, and left the house. The air was hot, heavy with rain that would not fall. She slipped across the Square, crouching along the fence line, one eye out for watchman Samuel Ernst. Sure enough, he turnedthe corner, a great conch shell in one hand. Off and on all spring, soldiers being everywhere, he would sound it to alert the town. But never because he sighted her. Unafraid, she knelt behind a newly planted linden tree.
    She watched Brother Ernst peer down a narrow alley between two half-timbered homes before looking straight at the little tree that hid her. Or at her. She stilled herself. For the longest time, he stared, then started toward her. She gripped her package tighter. A raucous burst of voices stopped him in midstride. He hurried toward the Tavern.
    Safe again. Her fingers eased their grip, and she scooted across the dusty street, flattening herself against the rough brick-and-timber wall of one of the homes.
    Brother Blum’s home, she thought, with unaccustomed pleasure. He had been odd today, a great golden bear rushing to her rescue when she needed none. How his square-jawed handsome face had flushed when she pointed to his hand holding her arm fast.
    Samuel Ernst disappeared into the Tavern. She slipped past Brother Blum’s house and onto the sloping field that led to Tanner’s Run, the creek that fed the Red Tannery. She passed the bark sheds, the scouring building, and the vats.
    Tonight at Singstunde , the evening song service, Brother Blum had made up for his earlier awkwardness. As his rich baritone lofted through the oak-beamed ceilings of the Saal , his gaze had riveted her to her bench. Why look at her now? she wondered. Always before, he gazed off into the air when hesang, rapt, enraptured. For years she had