She spread her loving gaze around his room, dipping her gaze to his bed, his slippers. She wiped her eyes, then closed them. She would see him again. Someday.
The boy openedhis eyes to his third day of being alone and tried to fight the emptiness inside him from spreading. But his grandmother had left him, and his mother had never returned to his dreams. He lay there in his large bed in a castle that housed over two hundred people and felt lonelier than a boy raised in the wilds of Wales. He realized—far too young—that his mother had left him long before she disappeared. She was never happy with him and his father. Gray had listened behind their bedroom door on nights when she fought with his father. He hadn’t wanted to, but he remembered some of the things she said.
If I had known my life would be like this, I would have rid my body of him when I had the chance. I hate all of you! I hate living here! I hate being your wife. I hate being a mother!
She hated being his mother.
Abigail, the large Graylag goose from the nearest village, had assured him that adults sometimes told terrible lies. Kitty, the head mouse of the castle, had also promised him that they’d heard his mother say other wonderful things about him on different occasions.
Gray usually believed them, and the things they’d told him helped him not feel so bad. But not this morning.
He kicked his blankets off and climbed out of bed. If his mother never returned to his life or his dreams, why should he care? If his beloved grandmother wanted to leave him the way his mother had, that was fine with him.
The bedroom door opened and Harper, one of the castle musicians, stepped inside and curtsied slightly. “Lord Dartmouth, I was just coming to wake you and help you dress for the day.”
He stopped on his way to his wardrobe and stared blankly at her. “Why are you here again instead of the kitchen?”
“I’m not the cook. Your grandmother asked me to serve as your nurse. We discussed this yesterday and the day before that. Don’t you remember?”
“Your speech is odd,” he noted.
“It’s how people speak where I come from.”
“It’s,” he repeated with a curious arch of his brow, then shook his head.
“That’s right. Mixing two words together. It’s called contractions.”
He picked up his steps and opened the door to his wardrobe. “I know what it is called. Do I look like a babe to you? But people in the castle do not use contractions.
She smiled at him. “My lord, you’re only nine summers old. Here, let me help you dress.”
“I am almost ten,” he corrected numbly. “I do not need a nurse. Please leave.” He didn’t speak to her again and began picking out what he would wear. He finished stepping into breeches, dyed red especially for him by Clara, one of the laundresses.
Gray! Gray help!
He stopped upon hearing the voice of the goose Abigail in his thoughts. He dropped his shirt and ran out of his bedchamber wearing his nightdress and breeches.
What is it? Abigail, what is it?!he begged as he raced down the stairs. She didn’t answer.
He ran from the castle without a word to anyone on the way. Barefoot, he sprinted toward the village, calling to her. She usually greeted him at the edge of the road, but she wasn’t there now.
“Abigail!” he shouted.
Gray.He heard her say his name weakly. He felt ill. Abigail was the first animal he’d ever spoken to. She was his first friend.
Where are you?He closed his eyes and thought about her as hard as he could. Then he saw her in his mind. Behind a barn. The Gable’s barn. She was laying in the grass, a small arrow protruding from her breast.
No! No! Abigail, I am coming!
He knew where the Gables lived and ran to the barn. When he reached Abigail, he fell to his knees beside her and cried, for she was almost gone.
“Who did this to you?” he wept as he gently scooped her up in his arms.
The boys.
Who? Tell me who.
She made a little sound that broke his heart and made him cry even harder.