Free Here Comes a Candle by Jane Aiken Hodge Page A

casually, without turning around, and was answered by a stir of movement behind her. Turning, she saw Sarah emerge from her hideaway behind the altar. Her face and gingham dress were filthy and her thin arms bore red marks to show how desperately she had squeezed herself into the cramped space. She stood there for a moment; silent, gazing, as she had done before, at a point somewhere behind Kate ’ s head. Instinctively, Kate too said nothing, but smiled and held out a reassuring hand. Sarah moved sideways, as if to edge around her and escape. It was, somehow, a crucial moment. What was the right thing to say, to do?
    Very gently, very smoothly, as if this was a small wild animal that must not be startled, Kate rose to her feet and moved one step backward so as to give the child free passage, if she wanted it. At the same time, she still held out that encouraging hand. “ Come with me, Sarah? ” she asked.
    The girl stood, poised for flight, huge eyes asking a question. What a graceful little creature she was, Kate thought, for all her strangeness. But the next move was hers.
    “ To the river, perhaps? ” she said. “ I love running water. Do you? ” And she made the slightest possible movement away from the house. “ We ’ ll wait, shall we, till the carriage has gone? ”
    A sudden sparkle in the wide gray eyes told her that Sarah had understood. She moved forward, seized Kate ’ s hand, and pulled her hard toward a path that led away behind the temple.

 
    FIVE
     
    That was the beginning of a fantastic day. Sarah never spoke, and though Kate had established that she could, in fact, understand what was said to her, she often seemed simply not to hear it. She lived, as her father had said, in a world of her own. Of course, Kate told herself, all children must do so to a certain extent. Perhaps this was merely an extreme case. Following instinct, she submitted, that mo rning , to the child ’ s whim. Surely, back at the house, they must have connected her own disappearance with Sarah ’ s? She hoped that they were not worrying, but felt deeply certain that the contact she had achieved with Sarah was too important to be risked. Today, at least, she would follow where she was led.
    They went first to a small waterfall among the trees a little above the house. A rough pile of rocks by the wall just above it provided a convenient perch from which to watch the plunging water, and Sarah climbed it, surefooted, evidently taking it for granted that her companion would follow. The stones hurt Kate ’ s feet through her soft slippers, but she hitched up her skirts and climbed just the same, to settle on cold and slimy stone with a silent prayer for her worn gray worsted. Sarah, watching the swift rush and fall of the water, seemed to have forgotten everything else. Presently, she began very quietly, almost in a whisper, to sing. Kate remembered something Jonathan had said to her. Casually, she too began to sing, her own favorite song, Greensleeves :
    “ Alas, my love, you do me wrong
    To cast me off discourteously — ”
    Instinctively, she made as little as possible of the words. For the moment, she was sure, the tune was the thing. The child had stopped her own singing and was looking at her cautiously, sideways, out of those big, strange gray eyes. Kate sang the first verse over again, but humming it this time, without words. Then she stopped. Water rushed and gurgled beside them. Sarah ’ s voice picked up the first phrase of the song and hummed it in perfect tune. It seemed to Kate a tiny miracle, and she turned, smiling, to the child. For a moment, their eyes met directly, for a moment it seemed that Sarah was going to smile back. Then, once again, her eyes slid away.
    Impatiently, she scrambled down from the rock, and Kate, following more slowly, wondered if she had spoiled everything. But Sarah was waiting for her, was holding out a small brown hand. Kate took it and followed along a woodland path that led