The Returning by Christine Hinwood Page A

breath until she reached the road, hot and sweaty, but with cold wet feet and her skirt slapping damp hands about her calves.
    â€œWhat do you do along the Highway, and on your own?”
    For the second time that morning, Pin yelped with fright.
    â€œDoes your mam know?” said Master Keystone. “No, I thought not. Here. Do you get in.”
    Pin had no choice. She climbed into his barrow, fitting herself around the blocks of stone, arms folded over her chest.
    â€œHeaded toward the Uplander camp, and none too happy to be herded up,” said Master Keystone to Mam.
    There were many thank-yous exchanged, then Mam closed the door. Pin bent her head, waiting for a slap, of hands or words.
    â€œYou do look a bit peaked.” Mam sat her on Da’s chair by the fire, put a rug over her. “I’ll make you a dandelion tea, that’ll restore you.” Mam always made dandelion tea when Pin was out of sorts, and she always said “That’ll restore you.”
    There was a bit more trouble when Da came in. “What were you thinking? The riffraff in that camp, ah!”
    How to explain? Pin did not know, so she spread her hands. “I don’t know.”
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    â€œI KNOW,” MAM SAID, a day or two later. She helped Pin to make a prayer paper, showing her how to fold it, and with each fold to seal her wish inside, by thinking hard of it.
    â€œSet it on the water and it’ll come to the sea,” said Mam. “Then your merrows will find it and grant your wish.”
    Da was cross and stomped outside. “She’s enough nonsense in her head, without you putting more there.”
    Still, it was he who took her down to the river by Millman’s Race and helped her cast the prayer paper on the water, holding her hand and helping her throw farther than she ever could have on her own.
    â€œDon’t you watch it,” he told her. “They might be shy, those sprites of yours.”
    Pin hadn’t watched her prayer paper, but the next day she came back and found it soggy and torn, wrapped about the reeds that edged the mouth of the mill race. “Rot.”
    She hadn’t got more than a few hundred paces down the road toward the sea when she heard wheels coming up behind her. It was Fenister’s fine painted dray. Pin just stopped and waited for it to draw up beside her. Master Fenister looked down at her; then, face very stern, he pointed to the seat beside him. Pin climbed up.
    â€œI’ve never been in a cart.”
    â€œSee,” said Master Fenister. “There’s good even in bad things.”
    It was not the sort of thing she’d expected Master Fenister to say.
    â€œYou fishing then?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œ No , she says. What then?”
    â€œI’m looking for merrows,” said Pin.
    â€œAnd what are they?”
    She told him.
    â€œI made my own wish come true,” said Master Fenister. “No merrows at all. You try that.”
    He dropped her short of the gate. “No need to worry your mam.”
    Pin felt her mind knot around itself. Everyone hated Master Fenister, and so she did, but . . . “There’s good even in bad things, like you do say. Everyone does say you’re mean, and that’s bad, but you did be good to me just now.” She beamed at him, pleased with her compliment.
    Fat Fenister just looked at her, looked on up the road, then he shook his head. “Come up,” he called to the horse and rattled off, leaving a spray of mud behind him.
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    SPRING FIRST MONTH was always brought in by Da’s parsnip wine. Da’s cooking was different from Mam’s. It was louder and more difficult (or so it seemed from Da’s face) and much, much messier. Pin loved it, and could not understand why Mam was always grumpy after.
    â€œParsnip Wine Day,” said Da. To start with, he opened a bottle of last year’s parsnip wine, and everyone had a small glass of it, even Pin.