Riverrun by Felicia Andrews Page A

nevertheless. Then she eased down her left foot. Immediately a throbbing began to climb toward her hip, but she forced herself to ignore it, concentrating intently on a discolored patch on the wall directly opposite her. Slowly, gnawing at her lower lip, she pushed until she was standing with only one hand on the bed for balance. The pain was … she nearly laughed aloud! She expected the knifelike stabbing to return, the fire within to topple her like a felled tree, but though there was predictably a great deal of discomfort, it was nothing at all as it had been when she had first awakened. And how many years ago was that? she wondered, realizing she was grinning so broadly that her cheeks ached. And, for that matter, who cares?
    She took a step, a timid one. Her arms were outstretched as though she were flying. A second step, and a third, before the injured knee buckled and she fell with a cry to the floor. Her hands caught her and she lay there waiting for the throbbing to subside.
    But she did not stop smiling.
    It was a healing pain that she felt now, and a welcome one. She had rolled onto her back, sat up, and reached out for the bed when Sara came in, yowled in surprised alarm and rushed to her side. There were several confused moments of laughing and weeping, then, until Cass finally got through to the old woman that yes, she was absolutely fine, she was only trying out her leg, and it was as much her idea as Eric’s. Sara, scowling doubtfully now that the shock had passed, leaned against the bedpost and shook her head.
    “Sara, come on,” Cass said, reaching out her hands. “Help me to the window, would you?”
    “But it’s dark out there, child!”
    “Still, I want to see the world again. And if not the world, then at least something of Riverrun. I don’t care if it is dark!”
    With a strong, thin arm about her waist, Sara shuffled while Cass hobbled until she could lean her weight against the broad sill and lean out. The moon was bright, and a vague glow from windows directly below her cast a faintly yellow haze over the ground. But she was not disappointed. The trees she could discern were tall and slender, thickly leaved and set as close together as fence posts as far as she could see. From the house itself to the edge of the darkness was a flower garden interlaced with a number of paths, which, from where she looked, seemed more a maze than a place for casual wandering.
    I will walk there tomorrow, she promised herself suddenly. In that garden. With or without anyone’s help.
    Her leg began to bother her then and she was about to call it a night and get herself some much-needed rest when a movement below caught her eye. At first she thought it merely a twist of a shadow in the night wind. She stared, rubbed at one eye, and realized that a man was standing down there and, though she could not see his features, she knew instantly it was not Eric.
    “Sara,” she whispered, grabbing at the woman’s arm, “look down there! Do you see what I see?”
    Sara moved to stand beside her, followed with her eyes the direction of Cass’s pointing finger, and immediately began a barrage of muttered curses, her hands tightly gripping the sill.
    “Sara, what is it? Do you know him?”
    The figure was indistinct, standing just to one side of a massive, storm-twisted oak. He wore dark clothes, but the occasional flash of his white shirt when he shifted marked him as clearly as if the sun had been shining. He apparently had no fear of being spotted.
    “Vern Lambert,” Sara said, the name as much a curse as anything Cass had ever heard. She stared at the black woman, nearly recoiling at the dark face that seemed to have turned to stone.
    “The overseer?”
    “He come by now and then,” Sara said. “First he try to get his job back. Mister Eric tell him to be gone. Now he jes’ come to look.”
    “But Sara, I don’t understand! You mean he just comes by and stands there, looking at the house? What does he want?