Read Online By These Ten Bones by Clare B. Dunkle - Free Book Online

unconscious boy home.
    â€œSo he thought one good blow was enough to set him free,” muttered the old woman. “It takes more than that.”
    â€œPlease, do you come,” urged Maddie. “Lachlan won’t wake up, and his mother’s anxious.”
    â€œI’ll not set foot in that house!” declared Lady Mary angrily. “Do you think I don’t know what Black Ewan says about me? Do you think I don’t know what they all say?” She turned from the window, her face fallen into seams and wrinkles, and her eyes were sick with despair. “You all think it, I know,” she challenged. “Every last one of you.”
    â€œI’m sorry,” said Maddie, and she meant it. There was something terribly pitiful about the lonely, rich old woman.
    â€œAh, you’re a good girl,” sighed Lady Mary, going back to her chair. She sat down and bowed her head. “Tell them to leave him quiet, and he’ll likely wake up in the end. There’s nothing I can do for a rapped skull.”
    Maddie delivered her message to the assembly of women and went to her own house. Carver was lying there staring up through the hazy smoke and picking dead grass stems from the wall.
    â€œWhat’s happened now?” he whispered. “Your mother left, and I can hear everyone coming and going.”
    Maddie sat down by him on her mother’s stool and began winding the abandoned yarn. “It’s your old Ned that’s done it this time,” she said. “He’s likely killed a boy.” She told him about the theft. He listened without speaking, his eyes bright with the fever and his fingers turning and fidgeting as if they held his carving tools.
    â€œMadeleine, go talk to Ned for me,” he said at last. “Go ask him what I’m supposed to do.”
    â€œThat criminal? Why do you need his advice? What do you mean, what you’re supposed to do?”
    â€œHe’ll know,” he whispered. “Promise me you’ll do it.” So Maddie sighed and went.
    She made her way out to the cow pasture to the two companions in chains. They were looking more and more like they belonged together. With his new black eye and the blood crusted in the stubbly growth of his beard, the Englishman looked simply ghastly.
    â€œYou’ve likely murdered Lachlan,” she informed him in answer to his cheerful greeting.
    â€œAh, he ain’t dead,” grunted the battered old man peaceably. “That brat needed learning.”
    â€œCarver sent me,” she explained. “He says you have to tell him what to do. He wants to leave, but his fever’s back, so I say you should tell him to rest for a while.”
    Ned swatted the midges away from his bruised face and gazed thoughtfully up at the sky. “You’re fond of him,” he considered. “In love of him. The lad’s caught your fancy.”
    â€œHe has,” admitted the forthright Maddie, who saw no reason to lie.
    â€œBut what sort are you?” he asked, fixing her with a surprisingly keen stare. “Some featherbrain chick with no guts? Faint and scream and run to her folks with every little trouble?”
    â€œI am not,” declared Maddie firmly. “I can face my share of trouble.”
    â€œMore than your share?” he demanded. “Can you keep your head in bad times? Can you keep a secret?”
    â€œHe’s in trouble, isn’t he?” breathed the girl. “I knew it! I’ll help, and I won’t ever tell.”
    â€œYou’d be just the one,” muttered the Traveler with a bloody, pink-toothed grin. “I can see that clear enough. You think you’re the one he needs—oh, yes, you’re better for him than I be. Swear on your soul you won’t give him over. Swear to stand by him if I tell.”
    â€œI swear,” said Maddie, and she made the sign of the cross. “May I lose heaven if I