side of his face.
“Well, after all, Mrs. Lyman says I ought to mention it … I never wanted to bother you with such things. But she’s had a hand in raising you, too, so I reckon she’s got a right …” He fell silent for a moment, breathing in to help gather his scattered thoughts. When he spoke again, his words rang low and clear.
“I never told you why I left my gramp’s place in Kentucky, back in the forties. Why I come to California.”
“That was more than thirty years ago,” Emily said. “What does that—”
“I got run out, Emily.” Pap interrupted softly. “A group of godly folks, they despised me for being a Warlock. They burnt me almost to death. These scars … they weren’t from no barn fire.”
Emily blinked at him.
“There’s not time to tell the tale, and even if there was, I wouldn’t want to. I lived, and then I come to California, where I guessed a man could start out fresh.”
“And you’ve been practicing magic all this time, all out in the open, without a breath of difficulty.” Emily was furious with Mrs. Lyman for digging up trials and troubles that belonged in the past. Oh, she would give the old busybody a nice piece of her mind when she got back from San Francisco! “Witches and Warlocks are all over the place now, even in the big cities. Why, Mr. Stanton comes from a whole institute of them!”
Pap nodded. “I guess times is different now. And them books Mrs. Lyman reads me, the ones about Witches and Warlocks and all the grand adventures they have. They never have anything in them about when they put the wood around your feet, and the black smoke starts curling up …” Pap’s voice trailed off, and he stared at the ground, transfixed.
“Miss Edwards.” Stanton’s voice was impatient.
“Listen, never you mind what Mrs. Lyman says,” Emily said to Pap. “She just likes to think the world’s mixed up and complicated. It makes a better story. But these are modern times. I’ll be perfectly safe.”
“It was a long time ago. But please, Em. If you run into anyone who despises you for being a Witch, well …” His voice became a low, harsh whisper and he clutched her arm hard, milky eyes shining. “You run. That’s all, Em. You just run.”
“Miss Edwards!” Stanton repeated, louder.
“Just a minute!” she yelled back at him, before putting her lips next to Pap’s ear. “I won’t even let them burn Mr. Stanton, though it might take him down a peg or two.”
Pap nodded, as if finally satisfied.
“He’s a good sort,” Pap said. “Mostly.”
Then he turned away abruptly, vanishing into the cabin and closing the door behind himself. Pap never said good-byes.
So it was that Emily was left to stare at the huge black horse in front of her.
“His name is Romulus,” Stanton said, so formally that Emily expected the animal to lift a hoof and shake her hand. “He’s very valuable, so please handle him with care.”
“Me handle him with care?” Emily muttered, as Stanton gave her a leg up. “How exactly you reckon I’m going to damage your horse?”
Stanton did not favor her with a precise answer. And over the next several hours, it became clear that such precision would have been impossible, in that he felt there was a veritable galaxy of ways she could damage his horse. He spent the better part of the morning defending the poor tender lamb against her abominable ignorance.
“Look, you may have never ridden anything but a burro, but even a burro would plot homicide if you kept jerking his reins like that. Don’t touch the reins at all. Just sit there like a good girl. He knows what he’s doing.”
Emily let the reins fall slack. The horse tossed its huge head gaily and gave a little caper that made Emily hunch forward in terror. The ground seemed to be a million miles away, and the black beast kept dancing from side to side most unaccountably. With her good hand, she clutched the pommel for dear life. She found that doing so made her feel better. The pommel really was quite a handy thing.
“Why is this creature so all-fired lively?” she asked, aware of a quaver in her voice.
“Romulus and Remus are a carriage-matched pair of Morgans,” Stanton said. “I’d be most concerned if they weren’t quick and lively.”
“I can’t think why you brought horses like this out to California. Aren’t many carriages in Lost Pine.”
“No,