Juliet looked at him, half fearfully, half hopefully. “But how could you do that?”
Raymond smiled. “Ah. My expertise is most extensive. I know how to look at paper and determine its age—how to examine ink and decode when it was applied. You think I don’t? There are ways, my girl, experiments that are very impressive when conducted before a credulous audience. But I can do more than that. I know how to make people confide in me. I know how to convince individuals to tell the truth. I know the questions to ask, the possibilities to consider, the frailties that people will or will not expose when they believe their souls are about to be judged. And I can tell when people are lying under oath. Always. A very valuable skill for a lawyer to have.”
“But—” Again, Juliet looked at me. “But why would you want to help me? You heard what I just told Kellen. I can’t pay you, especially if I don’t win.”
Again, Raymond made an airy gesture, this one even more expansive. “It is not your paltry fee that would make your case valuable to me,” he said. “I could not charge you enough to cover the time I would invest in proving your claim. No, no, what I want from you is your trust. What I want from you is the chance to win—one more time. One more case. To prove to myself that I am the man I remember I was.”
Risky on all levels! So much for everyone to lose! I could tell that Juliet was moved by Raymond’s story, enough so that she might be willing to grant him this opportunity on his own behalf, forgetting her own dire needs. I could tell that Raymond, despite his grand gestures and the exaggerated lightness of his voice, was so desperate for Juliet to accept his offer that he would almost be willing to perjure himself for a chance at redemption. So much to lose—so many places to go wrong.
Juliet appealed to me. “What should I do?”
We needed the input of someone much more clever than I could claim to be. “Let’s ask Gryffin,” I said.
When I motioned to him, Gryffin left his station behind the front desk and wheeled over to join us at Juliet’s table. I pulled up a chair and sat beside him. Sarah threw me a curious look but did not come to investigate. She just went to fetch one of the other workers from the kitchen to cover the cash box while Gryffin was involved in the consultation.
It did not take long for Gryffin to assimilate the facts. “What occurs to me first,” he said, “is the possibility of calling in a Truth-Teller. Can’t this matter be resolved in a few moments if one of them were to point to the proper document and say, ‘This is the one that’s valid’?”
Raymond snorted with laughter. “Yes, you’ve just put your finger on the weakness of the entire legal system,” he said. “For any lawyer, and any judge, and any plaintiff will take the word of a Truth-Teller! But it seems to be that once a matter gets tangled up with the law, Truth-Tellers lose the ability—or the desire—to straighten out the knots. Many’s the lawyer who advised a client to seek a Truth-Teller’s word before dragging a matter into court, but once a case has been dirtied by the law, well, only the law can clean it up again.”
“Then if that option is out, we must look at this another way,” said Gryffin. “We need to consider how much damage can be done if Raymond takes the case and is not successful. Is that Juliet’s last chance to prove the validity of her claim?”
“It might be,” Juliet said. “I am low on funds, and I’m growing so tired. I cannot spend the rest of my life pursuing this matter. I must either secure my parents’ property or go on with my life.”
Gryffin nodded and looked at Raymond. “And you,” he said gravely. “If you take this case and lose. What does it mean to you?”
“Everything, my dear boy,” Raymond said, still in that airy voice. “I will not again have the courage to approach someone and offer my services. I will continue on as you see me, except even less so. I shall shrivel and shrink and eventually disappear.”
Too much! Too much weight for either of them to bear if everything should go awry, as it so easily could. I could see both Juliet and Raymond realize that the stakes were too high. I could see the sparkle of hope flee from both their faces, turn them heavy and sad.
“What do you want to do?” Gryffin asked Juliet in a quiet voice. “Everything points to the likelihood that this is a terrible idea. But does your heart agree, or does your heart rebel?”
“I want to trust him,” she whispered. “I want him to try.”
Raymond straightened in his chair. Gryffin nodded.
“Then I think you should let him,” Gryffin said. “Give him the case.”
Chapter Thirteen
We knew, because Raymond warned us, that we might have some weeks to go before we learned the outcome of Juliet’s suit. But it was one of the topics all of us talked about—Gryffin, Betsy, Sarah, and me, as well as a few of our more familiar customers—whenever we had an idle moment. Whenever Raymond or Juliet passed through Thrush Hollow on the way to or from Merendon, we asked a dozen questions. I was so hopeful, and so afraid. And it was strange to me that I could care so much about the fates of virtual strangers.
But life went on unheeding as we awaited the verdict. The weather turned bitter as Wintermoon approached. I discovered, to my delight, that the Parmers planned to build a big bonfire behind the restaurant, and that Gryffin and I were welcome to join them as they burned the wreath. And what a wreath it was. For three weeks before the holiday, Sarah had set out a basket by Gryffin’s desk and invited customers to contribute any small items they’d like to see burned at the bonfire. I had not thought the basket would fill up very fast, but I was wrong. Apparently there were all sorts of folks who didn’t have the time or the place or the energy to weave their own greenery, but they liked the idea that their wishes could be tied to some big communal wreath and sent on their way with a burst of flame. Into the basket went ribbons and buttons and buckles and candle bits and quill pens and goose feathers and mismatched shoes and baby’s clothes and lace caps and smooth stones from the river and so many other items I almost could not count them all.
I was also surprised to find that a number of guests scrawled their wishes on scraps of paper, rolled them into scrolls, tied them with ribbon, and dropped them in the basket. Juliet had even come through one day, leaving a piece of paper on which she had boldly written LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT. You could hardly get less subtle than that, I thought.
“So you mean, you can just write down what you want and ask for it?” I demanded from Sarah. I had always thought the wish had to be bounded by metaphor.
Sarah laughed. “I have seen many people do so,” she replied. “I don’t know if the direct request is more likely to be answered.”
Josh and his sons took a day to weave the wreath. Gryffin and I spent the next day attaching all the customers’ contributions to its springy green branches. Now and then we would stop and hold something up—a carved wooden horse, a child’s broken flute—and wonder aloud what sort of wish it was supposed to represent. Sarah came by late in the day and wrapped a length of white tulle around the bottom curve of the wreath, tying it in a huge white bow.
“There,” she said, with a somewhat embarrassed smile. “That’s for a wedding.”
Betsy attached dried fruit for prosperity, and Josh added a handful of fake gold coins—minted for just this purpose—to represent enhanced income. Earlier in the week, Gryffin had taken a piece of paper, and folded it over and over so that it looked like a miniature book, and printed very small letters on the front of it: ACADEMY OF LAW. This he tied to the uppermost branch.
I had thought long and hard about my own wishes. Truthfully, at the moment, there was not much I felt I desired. My best friend was alive and safe. My own life was full of purpose and excitement. I was continuing to dress like a young lady, growing more at ease in my feminine identity, though at times it still felt assumed. I was well, I was happy. I had no worries. So what I asked for was more of the same. I had found a broken pocket watch left under one of the restaurant tables one day. No one had been able to repair it, not Gryff
in or Josh or Bo. So I took this and wrapped the cheap metal chain around the branches of the wreath, letting the watch itself dangle down like a fob.
“What’s that for?” Gryffin asked me.
“Time,” I said. “More days like the ones I have now.”
We burned the wreath at midnight, seventeen of us gathered around the blaze. In addition to the Parmers, Gryffin, and me, there were a few stable hands who had nowhere else to go, and a handful of guests who were staying overnight in the rooms above the dining hall. Despite the cold, there was no snow on the ground, and Gryffin’s chair was easily pushed through the dead leaves and fallen branches that littered the yard behind the restaurant. I had thrown a blanket over his legs so he had insisted I put on my boots. The two of us, therefore, were reasonably warm, but everyone else shivered despite the immense heat generated by the spectacular blaze.
“That’s a powerfully fine bonfire,” one of the guests observed.
“Needs to be,” said Josh Parmer, as he and one of his sons rolled the giant wreath closer. “It’s carrying a lot of wishes to the moon.”
And after a moment to collect their strength and coordinate their efforts, he and his son hoisted the greenery shoulder-high and tossed it into the fire. Sparks shot upward and spit outward, and all seventeen of us loosed exclamations of awe and delight. I could smell the spicy scents of the burning spruce and Betsy’s dried fruit; I thought I could see Sarah’s tulle run with a filigree of fire. There went the ribbons, the buttons, the parchments, the dolls, Juliet’s will, Gryffin’s book. Turned to smoke and ash. A breath of desire exhaled beneath the perfect moon.
The new year was cold, snowy, and full of incident. Sarah and her redheaded suitor got engaged. Josh bought another two wagons and expanded his freighting routes. There was a fire in town, and three houses burned down, but no lives were lost. A young woman who had worked at the Arms part-time told us that she was pregnant and would be quitting at the end of the week.
She made this announcement in the middle of the afternoon after we had been just about as busy as we could stand. A few guests were still lingering in the dining room, finishing their hot tea and pie. The kitchen was a welter of dirty dishes we hadn’t had time to wash up yet to prepare for the late stage and the evening dinner rush. Sarah stared at the young woman in some bemusement.
“But—you can’t quit,” Sarah said. “We need you. I was just about to ask if you’d like to expand your hours.”
The girl took off her red apron and laid it over the back of a chair. “No. I’m too tired. All I want to do is sleep. My husband wants me home—he says things go to rack and ruin when I’m gone all day. I’m sorry, Sarah. I hope you find someone else to take my place.”
And, just like that, she was gone.
Sarah and I were left gazing at each other. “Well,” Sarah said with a sigh, “I guess we’ll have Gryffin make up a sign and see if we can find someone who’s willing to work. Last time, you remember, only three people were interested.” There was so much commerce in Thrush Hollow these days that young men and women were too busy helping out their own folks in their small enterprises.
A teacup rattled in a saucer and a young woman sitting by herself stood up. “I’ll take a job, if you’re offering it,” she said.
Sarah and I turned to stare at her. I had not been the one to wait on her, but I had noticed her when she came in. She was perhaps in her early twenties and she was dressed like an upper servant, in well-made but unpretentious clothes. Her demeanor was also that of a servant in a wealthy household, for her expression was demure and her voice well modulated. But she was more beautiful than any servant I had ever seen, with luxuriant blonde hair piled up in a bun, creamy white skin, and dark hazel eyes with impossibly long lashes.
“You’d want to work as a serving maid at the Arms?” Sarah said finally, as if aware our long silence was rude.
The young woman nodded. “I’ll wait on customers. I’ll make up beds. I’ll work in the kitchen, though I haven’t done that as much.”
“You have experience? You have references?” Sarah asked.
The woman’s mouth twisted a little, but even that didn’t make her less beautiful. “I’ve been working since I was twelve. I can give you some references from a few years back, but—but not from my most recent employer.”
Sarah watched her steadily. “Why were you let go?”
“Not for stealing,” the woman said quickly. “Not for doing anything dishonest.” If we believed her, that still left an interesting range of possible reasons, from carelessness with the crockery to bad behavior with the butler. “I work hard,” she added. “I’m honest. And I need a job. I swear, you won’t be sorry if you hire me.”
“Do you need a place to stay, too?” Sarah asked quietly.
The girl’s shoulders sagged with relief. Not till then had I realized just how tense she was. “Yes,” she said. “I don’t know anyone in—” She looked around the room. “I don’t even know where I am. I just got off the stage and stayed because I was too tired to get back on.”
“Thrush Hollow,” said Sarah.
“Thrush Hollow,” the girl repeated. “You wouldn’t think anyone would be able to find me here.”
Her name was Emily, and everyone adored her within a week. True to her word, she was a hard worker who was not too squeamish to take on any task. She would even clear the mousetraps, something we had always made Sarah’s brothers do, and never grimaced at emptying the chamber pots, either. Customers loved her and soon began to ask for her by name. Sarah’s oldest brother began to hang around the dining hall more often, ostensibly to consult with his sister, but more often to flirt with Emily.
She and Gryffin were immediately fast friends, and she spent any free time she had during the day leaning up against his desk, talking to him. He reminded her of her little brother, she said, who had been born lame and died young. “I used to wonder what would have become of him if he’d lived,” she told Gryffin one day. “And now I look at you and I think he would have done very well.”
In fact, Emily spent so much time with Gryffin that I found myself not liking her quite as much as I should have. So what if she was beautiful and hardworking and kind? She must have some dreadful fault, or some dreadful secret, if she had been turned out without a reference. This fault was hard to see when she whispered something to Gryffin that made him laugh out loud, transforming his serious face. Or when she coaxed him to go walking with her outside on sunny days, exercising his battered legs as he rarely liked to do in cold weather. Or when she spent some of her first month’s paycheck to buy him a book brought in by a wandering peddler.
“She thinks of him as her brother,” Sarah murmured to me one day as I paused in the act of wiping down a table to frown over at Gryffin and Emily. “There’s no need for you to be jealous.”
Now I was frowning at Sarah. “I’m not jealous,” I sputtered. “I’m—what? I don’t care if they’re friends. Jealous. That never occurred to me.”
Sarah was smiling a little. “Oh. I’m sorry. Well, maybe you’re frowning because you have a headache or something.”
“I’m not frowning,” I said, giving her a fierce smile.
“Good. Well. I’ll get back to work,” she said.
It was even harder to dislike Emily when she came across me one day standing before the mirror and looking hopelessly at my hair. Between working and planning for the wedding, Sarah had been too busy lately to help me much with my own appearance, and I was beginning to look almost as raggedy as the young man I used to pretend to be. I was startled when Emily moved into view behind me, and even more startled when she smiled.
“I can help you style it,” she offered. “I used to be very good with hair. And cosmetics and accessories. I even know how to design a fashionable ball gown, though my stitches are too big, I’m afraid, for me to make a respectable seamstress.”
I laughed shortly. “I don’t have much use for a ball gown,” I said. “But I surely
would like to do something with my hair.”
“Tonight,” she promised. “Come home with me and I’ll give you a cut.”
She had taken a small room in the home of a widow who needed the rent money; it was a place Sarah had found for her when Emily first arrived. When my shift at the Arms ended, I followed Emily back, and she built up a good fire in the small grate. In it, she laid two sets of curling tongs, then she lit a host of candles and set them around the room.
“I need good light,” she said with a smile. “Usually I’m not so wasteful.”
She sat me in a chair in the middle of her room and carefully separated my hair into distinct locks, combing them this way and that, then snipping where she thought appropriate. Next, the curling tongs, which sent a peculiar burning scent into the air. Then she put a few pins in place, holding the hair just so. “Now,” she said. “Just a few touches of rouge. And a bit of paint on your eyes.”
“I don’t want to look ridiculous,” I said.
“You won’t,” she promised. “You’ll like this.” And she worked on my face for twenty minutes, putting cream on my skin and color on my cheeks. Finally she stepped back. “All right,” she said. “Now you can look.”
I stood before her tiny mirror and stared. Such a pretty girl stared back at me! Her grave face was framed by long black ringlets, which were lightened with a pale blue ribbon. Her dark eyes were huge above slanted cheekbones, and her wide mouth, open with astonishment, looked plump enough to kiss.
“That’s not me,” I said, though the mirror image mimicked every word I said.
“You could go to the queen’s ball, looking like that,” Emily said. “If you had the right dress. If you knew how to dance.”
I shook my head and my reflection did the same. “I don’t.”