pond and Zenna would talk about Jack. “He walks in daylight, he eats the food we eat,” she said one day, clearly perplexed. “I had thought they would be white as ghosts, like moon people, but he is dark like the trees.”
“Maybe that’s because he isn’t a vampire,” Ariel had to say.
Zenna tossed her an annoyed glance. “I don’t know why I bother telling you things. You just strip the magic out of everything, so the world will never be like that for you. How can you possibly think he’s just a normal boy? Look at him.”
Jack was stacking logs he had just chopped in the shadow of a shed attached to the house. Ariel could see nothing abnormal in his behavior or movements. “He’s a gypsy boy,” she said.
“But what does he want with us?” Zenna continued, ignoring that response. “He’s not spoken of his people or even questioned what he’s doing here. He simply is, part of our lives now, living here amongst us. I wonder if we’re foolish.”
“He’s fed well, he’s got new clothes, and probably has a better life,” Ariel said. “If he was thieving when he got shot, he’s not going to tell us about that, is he?”
“He could steal from us, but he hasn’t,” Zenna said. “He could take everything we own and run away and sell it. But he stays, and chops logs, and does what Ma asks him.”
“Then it’s because that’s what he wants. Perhaps he likes it here.”
“No, he’s just waiting,” Zenna said firmly.
“Then why don’t you just ask him what for?” Ariel asked, somewhat tartly, because she was feeling impatient with her cousin. She didn’t think Zenna would do any such thing because Jack had an air about him that turned questions to stones in your throat. Even if you wanted to speak to him, and imagined it vividly, actually doing so was another matter.
Zenna gave her cousin an arch glance and jumped to her feet. The geese were startled and bustled off, honking. Ariel watched Zenna walk to the shadow of the shed. She was a girl in a fairytale about to reach out to a wolf, about to prick herself on a deadly thorn, about to change the future. Ariel also got to her feet. She didn’t want to miss what might be said.
She was still some feet away from the shed when Zenna said to Jack, “What are you waiting for?”
Jack didn’t pause in his work; there wasn’t the slightest hesitation.
“Well?” Zenna persisted. “It’s not that you can’t speak, it’s that you won’t. But you’re living here in our house, eating our food, sleeping in our attic, and I demand that you answer me.”
Still there was no response. Zenna grabbed hold of Jack’s right arm and shook him. Ariel fully expected him to retaliate then, to bare his teeth in a snarl, to show a darker nature. All he did was cease working. He let Zenna shake him and when she had finished he turned to face her. He reached out with the arm she had grabbed and touched her, very lightly, with one finger just above the heart.
Zenna shot backwards a couple of feet as if he had punched her. She staggered a little then fell on her back.
Ariel couldn’t help uttering a cry. Jack looked at her for a moment, then carried on stacking the logs. “Tell her she cannot come,” he said.
“What?” Ariel had heard the words very clearly. She didn’t know why she queried them.
He walked away, round the side of the house.
Zenna had scrambled to her feet. She ran past Ariel in the direction Jack had taken, but presently returned. “He’s gone,” she said. “What did he say to you?”
“Are you all right, Zenna?” Ariel felt light-headed. The day no longer seemed quite so real.
“Never mind that. What did he say?” Zenna rubbed her chest in the place where Jack had touched her.
“He said to tell you that you cannot come. I don’t know what he meant.”
Zenna frowned and pulled down the neck of her dress. “Did he mark me?” she asked.
Ariel leaned forward. “Yes,” she said. There was a small mark on Zenna’s pale skin, in the shape of a crescent moon. He must have dug his fingernail into her, and yet the touch had appeared to be so light. “It’s just a scratch, I think. Not even that. What did it feel like?”
“I can’t remember. I simply found myself on the ground.” Zenna shook her head. She didn’t appear to