Crossing Over Read Online Free

had looked for me . And she didn’t know where I’d been. So why had she looked for me? I couldn’t think of anything to say, and so stood there, wordless, like the oaf that I am.
    “Oh!” she cried suddenly. “What’s wrong with your hand?”
    The bruise where I had hit myself with the sharp stone. It had bled a little, the blood had crusted over, and around the angry wound my flesh was puffy and red, rapidly turning purple. Foolishly I covered it with my other hand, clasping both in front of me. Then I realized that the gesture was exactly what my aunt had done, and I scowled ferociously.
    The girl didn’t notice. She’d darted toward me, picked up my clasped hands, pulled them apart. She had removed the black lace mitts she’d worn in the morning, and the long white sleeves of her smock fell back over her arms.
    “Did you cut yourself on—oh!” Immediately she put her left hand behind her back. But I had seen.
    “Don’t tell,” she whispered softly, childishly, and the fear in her eyes loosened my tongue as nothing else could. I understood fear.
    “I won’t,” I said. “I won’t tell, I never would. But you should be more careful. Not that it signifies—I assure you, it doesn’t! Not to me! It means nothing! ”
    She nodded unhappily, tears in her eyes. The eyes were deep brown. Brown eyes, black hair—she should have looked drab, like a painting without color, but she did not. She burned bright in my gaze, a beautiful girl with one tiny flaw that signified nothing. Or, to some, everything.
    I babbled on, trying to find words that would reassure her. “Only the superstitious say it matters. Only the ignorant. Why, I’ve heard tell that Queen Caroline has the same thing! And she is the queen!”
    “The queen is a whore,” the girl said flatly, and I blinked. This girl spoke her mind freely. Spoke her mind, did not take enough trouble to hide the tiny sixth finger on her left hand, the same mark rumored of Queen Caroline. The mark of a witch.
    “Be more careful!” I blurted, and looked around to see who else had heard her call the queen a whore. No one was near. “Take better care, my lady!”
    “I am no lady,” she said, giving me the same smile as Mrs. Humphries when I’d called her a lady. Would all women, then, react with the same pleased amusement to my honoring them so? But I didn’t want to honor all women. Only this one, standing here with my injured hand still in her own small white one. She said, “My name is Catherine Starling. Cat.”
    “I’m Roger Kilbourne.”
    “My father farms at Garraghan.”
    I didn’t know what or where Garraghan was, and I had no information I wanted to offer about my aunt or Hartah. But I didn’t need to speak. With a toss of her black braids, Cat said, “I don’t believe in witches, anyway!”
    “You must be careful who you say that to.”
    “I know. I am careful. I can trust you, I knew that right off this morning. You don’t believe in witches either, do you, Roger? All that foolishness—putting curses on people and sickening cattle and talking to the dead! Faugh!”
    I said nothing.
    She brought her left hand from behind her back and joined it to her right, still holding mine. “I’ll tell you what I do believe in, Roger,” she said with that luscious smile. “I believe in stars and flowers and sweetmeats and my doll!”
    I saw it then. Her beauty had misled me, as had her pretty voice. She didn’t stumble over her words like the poor creature Hartah had kicked in the last town; her head was not too large nor her eyes blank. But her wits were not all present, and the mind in her head was younger than her near-woman’s body. It didn’t make me think less of her. It made me want to protect her, keep her safe from those who would make her childish tongue and sixth finger into excuses to hurt her. The warmth of her hands felt like the best thing that had come to me all summer.
    Before I could answer, another voice, high with fear,