Free Columbine by MIRANDA JARRETT Page B

the ground and ice soon packed into Dianna’s shoes until her feet were numb from the cold. She had no idea how long or how far they trudged through the moonlit forest, and it seemed as if they had crisscrossed the same piece of ground over and over. She was close to weeping from cold and weariness when Asa stopped and pointed to a clearing ahead.
    “We’re here at last, Annie,” he said happily.
    “You’ll take to little Mercy, I know it. Ye both be cut from the’ same cloth.”
    Yet even by moonlight, the house in the clearing was not what Dianna had expected. It was small, very small, with a peaked roof that slanted lower over the back. The clap boarding was unpainted and worn dark, and the windows were tiny casements of oiled paper, not glass. There were no shutters or trimmings, no decoration at all beyond a crude border of nailheads hammered into the massive plank door.
    Eagerly Asa hurried to the house, and pulled open the rope latch.
    “Mercy, child, come and give yet old grandfer a kiss!” he called.
    “I’m happy ye not be abed yet, for I’ve someone for ye to meet, someone t’help ye wit’ the house.”
    “But I don’t need any help, Grandfer!” cried a small, anguished voice. The only light in the room came from the last embers of the hearth fire, and by it Dianna could finally make out Mercy herself. She had plump cheeks and a turned-up nose and dark hair that straggled from beneath her linen cap. A knitted woolen tippet was tied over her shoulders and around her narrow waist, and her hands, in finger less mitts, twisted nervously in her apron. She looked to be six, perhaps seven, and Dianna was shocked that a child so young had been left alone. No wonder she seemed frightened!
    “If you’d only let me stay at Plumstead—” “Nay, Mercy, an’ that’s an end to it!” said Asa sharply, and his granddaughter’s shoulders sagged unhappily. Huddled in the half-light, she looked as lonely and forlorn as Dianna had often felt herself, and her heart went out to the waifish child.
    “Mercy, my name is Dianna, Dianna Grey,” she said softly, holding her hand out in greeting.
    “I hope we might be friends, you and I—” But Mercy cut her off, shaking her head fiercely.
    “Nay, I want none of ye, mind?” Her words strangled on the sob in her throat.
    “None of ye at all!”
    With her head down, she bolted past them and out the door.
    Dianna called her name and began to follow, but Asa held her back and gently closed the door instead.
    “She’ll be back in her own time. She’ll be off to weep among the’ beasts in the’ barn, an’ she’ll come to no harm.” Sighing, he prodded fresh life into the dying fire and sat heavily on the three-legged stool Mercy had fled.
    “But where are her parents? Surely a girl her age–’ “Dead, the pair of’ them, not twelve months past, of a putrid quinsey,” said Asa.
    “My lad, Torn, an’ his wife, Lucy. Poor Mercy! She cannot accept it as God’s will that she be spared an’ her parents taken, an’ she grieves more than is right for a young one.
    Y’see now why she needs ye.”
    No wonder she had felt a bond to the girl, thought Dianna sadly.
    “And this place she spoke of, Plumstead… ?”
    “Ah, that be the colonel’s great fine house.” Asa’s voice hardened.
    “Like a lord he be in these parts, that man, an’ because my Torn called him friend, he strives to take Mercy from me. Claims he could do better by the girl. Well, that may be, but Mercy’s all the blood kin I’ve left in this world, an’ kin should stay wit’ kin, Tiny mind.”
    Dianna rubbed her arms and stared at the closed door.
    “Are you sure we shouldn’t go after her? It’s a cold night.”
    Asa shook his head.
    “Nay, it’s best to let her sort it out herself. She’ll come in when she be ready.”
    He rose stiffly from the stool.
    “Now I’ll show ye where you’re t’sleep, up here in the loft.”
    But fired as she was, Dianna did not sleep until