Free The Story Keeper by Lisa Wingate Page B

captive began to drag herself from the ground and Revi stepped away, lifting his hands higher.
    Jep’s laugh drifted upward into the night. “Ain’tcha a spookish thang, cousin? Think she gonna rise somethin’ from the dust that’ll git’cha? She can’t do nothin’ in irons. They can’t call up spirits when they’s bound in chains. And I got this’ere key, right’n my boot. She can’t git’cha. But she’d like to now, wouldn’ she? Don’ look in them eyes, boy. She’ll draw the life out’n ya.”
    Jep laughed again as the girl threw back her head, tossing the length of thick hair over her shoulder. A bruise had swollen one eye shut, and a mat of dried blood lay crusted and peeling near a split lip. But she was beautiful even so, Rand realized. Almost otherworldly, her uninjured eye a bright, silvery blue against dark lashes, her hair as black as the night shadows deep in the hollows.
    She seemed a piece of the mountains themselves, pressed into human form, her skin the smooth olive-brown of drying leaves. For a moment, he wondered if the things they’d said about her were true. Out of instinct, Rand’s fingers traveled to the gold cross in his pocket   —the one that had seen his father and grandfather through travels to many lands. He touched it through the fabric, cast off the heathenism of Jep and his men. This battered creature had been formed by God, not the forest. Though she knew nothing of the Almighty, the Almighty knew of her.
    Somehow you must stop this. The conviction was instant, all that he knew was right, and sane. This evening’s events could not reach their intended end. Quite simply, he could not live with it. Could not live with himself if he allowed it.
    Force was not a viable option. He was outnumbered and weaponless. He must think of something. Quickly.
    He slipped the holy cross free of his pocket as the men turned their attention temporarily to the question of pitching their horse picket. Opening his palm, Rand studied the treasure, this thing that had remained with his family, given from one generation to another since even before the first Champlains reached the New World byway of Charleston Harbor. The cross had ridden heavy in his pocket, mile upon mile, these past weeks, reminding him that he had not been entirely honest about his reasons for this trip.
    “That thang ain’t gonna protect ya. Don’t go gittin’ no fool ideas,” Ira hissed under his breath. The sound caught the notice of Jep, and Rand closed his fingers over the cross again.
    Jep returned to the area near the lantern, his gaze traveling to the girl and back to Rand. “She lookin’ at’cha, young sap. She lookin’ at’cha like she know who you be . You a friend a this gal’s people?”
    Rand hazarded a glance at her. She was watching him, true, and clutching some form of pendant   —a small, rectangular locket, shaped from bone or ivory. The bauble hung with several carved beads and shiny bits of wampum shell on a leather cord around her neck. A bit of something misty and blue dangled over her thumb, and though he could not identify it for certain, it looked much like the salt glass occasionally found along the shores near Charleston.
    “I do not know the girl.” Inside, cold fear chilled the heat of indignation, threatened to abort the plan forming in his mind.
    “She lookin’ like she knowed ’im!” one of the other men called from beyond the lantern arc. “She look to be waitin’ on ’im fer somethin’.”
    “I do not know the girl,” Rand insisted.
    Jep squinted at him, then moved to his captive, grabbed her hair, and pulled back her head so that she glared at him with the one good eye. “He one a yer people, is he?”
    “I have never seen the girl.” Rand’s words came rushed, a bit desperate now, but he forced himself not to move, not to rise.
    Somewhere in the trees, an owl called. Rand thought of Peter denying the Christ three times.
    Jep released the girl, propelled her