The Returning by Christine Hinwood Page B

This year’s brew would not be drunk until next winter.
    Next, Da and Pin dug parsnips from the sheltered bed by the stable. This year, Pin was allowed to cut them. “Do not let your mam see,” said Da.
    Allowed, that is, until she cut herself and bled all over them.
    â€œMm-mm.” Da wiped Pin’s bleeding finger. “That will make it taste all the better.”
    The parsnips were put in the pot with Da’s secret ingredients, which he mixed with his back even to Pin. “Let me”—she pulled at his shirt—“do you let me see.” But he never would.
    Then they cleaned up, knife and utensils piled all anyhow to one side, scraps in the pig bucket.
    â€œDa?” said Pin. “What’s the sea, then?”
    â€œYou’ve asked me this so often, Pin-little, that I think you do know the answer in your sleep.”
    â€œDa!”
    â€œOh it’s a big bit of water, farther across than from here to Dorn-Lannet.”
    Pin was sure he must be shifting the truth to make things sound more exciting. The biggest bit of water she knew was the mill pond.
    â€œAnd it’s salt.”
    â€œIt’s never.”
    â€œAye, well, I can’t help it if you don’t like the truth.” Da laughed.
    â€œDa?”
    â€œAnother question? When will you run out of them?”
    â€œWhy is it the pig bucket, but we do not keep a pig?”
    â€œAh, that’s one of life’s little mysteries.”
    Mam came in then and shooed them out. “Let me clean up!” She and Da dickered over the mess, who should stir the pot.
    â€œStir each other’s pot,” said Hughar.
    At the end of the morning, the whole house smelled deliciously of parsnip wine.
    Â 
    THE CREEK HAD been empty, no merrows had answered her; the river. It does have to be the sea , Pin thought. She turned and looked back up at the holding, the cot round on its hill, then she put her back to it and kept on. She was almost at Castle Cross; then she was through it, past it, and on the East Road.
    Walking with Da was always fun, but walking alone was very different. There were people and carts, just as there were when she went to market with Da, but it was not a market day and the road was quieter. And there were the Uplanders. But they were so different, thought Pin, that it was like sharing the road with ghosts. They walked fast, on their long Uplander legs, and they did not walk with her, but before or behind her. She had her own patch of empty road that she dragged with her through the woods. The trees trapped a gloom in their branches, though they were bearing green nubs of leaves.
    Pin walked. She walked, and walked, and walked. She stopped to rest. Stopped again. It was still, yet the scrub soughed, and she wondered at a branch swaying in an absence of wind. The road was empty now. Pin jumped up and started plodding on again.
    Suddenly footsteps sounded behind her, right on her heels. Pin bolted, and was caught up and swung into the air.
    â€œBe still!” And she was set upon her feet. Acton Mansto held her steady. Pin knew now what it meant to jump out of your skin: She had jumped right out of hers and back into it again, and it didn’t fit quite right, was prickling all over.
    â€œRunning again?” said Acton.
    â€œI do not run away!”
    He only nodded. The nod became a toss of his head, indicating the road. “This will take you east and to the Port, not to Dorn-Lannet—that’s up north.” He pointed.
    â€œI do not go to Dorn-Lannet.”
    Acton nodded again. Pin stepped around him, but he blocked her.
    â€œDo you let me go, or I’ll tell my da.”
    â€œOh.” He stood, arms akimbo, right in her path. “And I’ll tell your da where I did find you. Heading to the sea?”
    Pin stamped. “I do try, but everyone makes me go back home!”
    â€œWhy do you want to go? It’s a long way, and it’s not safe,