raised an eager eyebrow.
“You have to wait until tomorrow,” Abby said, anticipating her next question.
Abby flashed her a smile, but Rye noticed her mother’s hesitation before closing the purple door carved with the shape of a dragonfly. Abby stared down the northernmost end of Mud Puddle Lane, towards the dense pine forest known only as Beyond the Shale. Rye had seen that look before.
“Something in the air?” Rye asked, reaching out to scratch Shady’s furry ears. His bushy tail swayed in appreciation.
“Something,” was all Abby said, and they went inside for bed.
Morning’s first fingers of light had barely cracked the windowsill before Rye and her sister Lottie rushed from their room in their nightdresses. The cottage was already warm with the smell of Abby’s brown-sugar-and-raisin porridge, but the girls ran straight past their bowls, jostling for position at the cottage door. Lottie had strength beyond her years when there were sweets to be had and Rye found herself knocked against the doorframe by the compact but determined three-year-old.
For centuries throughout the Shale, in towns large and villages small, residents would fill their shoes with coins and set them out on their doorsteps for Silvermas. Good Harper would then ride the Mud Sleigh through each village and collect the coins while the townspeople slept, to be distributed later to the needy and downtrodden. Good villagers received sweets in return. Bad villagers received a potato or, if they were really awful, mouse droppings. The more coins left, the better the fortunes of the family for the coming year. Woe betide the man, woman, or child who failed to leave at least one miserly bronze bit.
Rye crammed her hand deep into the toe of one oversized boot, then the other. The boots had belonged to Rye’s father when he was her age. They were ragged in the heels and probably contributed to her numerous stumbles, but Rye wore them every day. They came in particularly handy on Silvermas – more room for candies. And yet, that morning, they had done no good at all.
“Pigshanks,” Rye cursed.
Lottie had already emptied the bulging contents of her shoes and was busy stockpiling treats in her cheeks with the expertise of a chipmunk. She opened her chocolate-filled mouth. “You said a bad word,” she garbled.
“Then you’d better not repeat it,” Rye said, holding an empty boot to her eye to get a better look. She couldn’t believe that Lottie, of all children, had gotten a full shoe while she had nothing. Not even a potato.
“Wait …” Rye said, finally discovering something deep inside the toe.
She removed a hard, heavy object and examined it in her hand.
“You got coal!” Lottie cackled.
“It’s not coal,” Rye said, rolling the stone over in her palm. It was the size and shape of a somewhat flattened egg, flawless ebony in colour, and smoother than glass, as if polished by centuries of tides. It was also frigid. Instead of warming to her touch, it seemed to draw the heat from her fingers. She’d never seen a stone like it before.
“Rye got coal!” Lottie repeated when their mother appeared behind them. Abby pulled back Lottie’s thick red hair so it wouldn’t stick to the nougat on her cheeks.
“And she said a bad word,” Lottie added quickly. She pretended to share a chocolate with Mona Monster, her pink hobgoblin rag doll.
“Maybe that’s why she got the coal,” Abby said, shooting Rye a look of disapproval.
“It’s a rock,” Rye said glumly. Embarrassed, she tucked it out of sight in her pocket. “Why would Good Harper leave me a rock?” This was shaping up to be the worst Silvermas ever.
“Mistakes happen sometimes, Riley,” Abby said. She shifted her leg so that the hem of her dress concealed her own overflowing shoe. It was too late; Rye had already seen it. “One year the Quartermasts’ hound got loose and ate all the Silvermas shoes,” Abby volunteered. “If that makes you feel any better.”
Rye just frowned. It didn’t.
“Speaking of which—” Abby began.
“Rye! Lottie!” a voice called. A boy in red long johns hopped on one foot from the cottage three doors down, one boot on and the other in his hands. He was tall and reedy, the sleeves of his undershirt ending well short of his wrists.
“Quinn Quartermast,” Abby said, “where in the Shale are your britches? You’ll get icicles in your lungs … or somewhere worse.”
Quinn shrugged and his cheeks turned as red as his long johns. He balanced on one foot and held out a boot full of treats.
“Do you want to trade?” he asked eagerly.
“Rye got coal,” Lottie said, examining Quinn’s haul with a discerning eye.
“I got a stone,” Rye clarified. That had a nicer ring to it than rock.
“Oh,” Quinn said in disappointment, but he quickly put on a happy face for Rye’s benefit. “You can have some of mine. I’ve got plenty of green liquorice.”
“Thanks, Quinn,” Rye said half-heartedly. Lottie turned up her nose at the liquorice and pulled her own pile closer.
Rye saw Quinn’s eyes suddenly go wide. He blinked hard, as if clearing blurry vision. He pointed to the far end of Mud Puddle Lane. “Is that …” he stammered, awestruck.
Rye and Lottie both turned to look. There, at the furthest end of the frozen dirt lane, was an enormous, weatherworn coach pulled by four heavily muscled draft horses. At their reins was a hefty, grey-bearded man in a wide-brimmed hat the colour of a ripe plum. A matching woolly scarf enveloped his neck, its ends draped down to his boots.
Rye looked to her mother, mouth agape.
“You can’t say your father doesn’t have a flair for surprises,” Abby said. There was a tight smirk at the corner of her mouth that told Rye she remained both impressed and exasperated by her father’s special brand of flair. “You, my love, are going for a ride on the Mud Sleigh. Now let’s get you loaded up before Good Harper finds himself overrun by every child in Drowning.”
That was what he told Rye anyway as they left Drowning under a clear morning sky. She suspected that this was precisely the reason her father had arranged for her passage on the Mud Sleigh, and the only reason her mother had allowed it. Rye looked back,
