Free Cloud and Ashes: Three Winter's Tales by Greer Gilman Page B

leapt the wall, already chiding at their heels. The shepherd called after, “Thou ask at Imp Jinny."
    Down along an outcrop, rising into drystone wall; crook left, and down a stony track between two walls, out of wind; past the shepherd's pony, like a dejected chimney brush, beside his sledge of hay. The black bitch saw them through the gate.
    Trees, low and windbent, lapped and laden with the ghosts of leaves; a lantern at the door, that turned their branching to bright webs.
    "Hallows,” called Kit, and beat muffled hands against the door.
    "Will Shanklin?” called a woman's voice. “Owt wrong?” The door opened. A small-faced strapping woman, knitting furiously. Sharp and brown as a beechnut, with a beech's frazzled foliage, an old tree's knotted hands. Blue as speedwell, her eyes. She looked them up and down. “If it's guising, yer a bit few. And late."
    "Have you a barn?” said Kit.
    "I's a fire,” said Imp Jinny. “Come in and keep wind out. I can see lass is dowly."
    They stamped and dripped and stared. A low room, bronzy with peat smoke, heaped with apples. Sweet and poignant with their scent. And not low after all, but racked and raftered, hung with anything to hand. Bunches of potherbs, besoms and birdsnares, shears and riddles and a swift of yarn. Swags of old washing—smocks and aprons—kippered in the air, as stiff as stockfish. Lanterns and pruning-hooks, ladles and rushlights. Strings of eggshells. Legs of mutton. Riddlecakes hung out to dry. A ball of thorn twigs, trailing ribands and old holly. Jinny ducked beneath. “Mind urchin,” she called. A tiggy drank snuffling at a dish of milk. “Been at wort and gets to singing. Now then, thou rantipole. Mend tongue. Or I'll peg thee out i't apple trees, as a souling for t'birds.” She nipped down a sallowed petticoat from under the thack, took a jacket from a kist, and bundled them at Thea. “Get thee doffed.” She measured Kit with a glance. “Crouch up to't fire. Y'd look a right mawkin in my petticoats."
    "Thanks,” said Kit.
    "Not at all. Thowt it were foxes at my ewes in lamb. Dropped a stitch, I doubt. Tea. Y've tea i’ Lune?” Jinny swung the kettle over the fire; she scrabbled out leaves from a bright tin, painted gaudily with wrens and garlands. “Stockings and all, that's right. Peg ‘em up. Lad can tek blanket. Now then, there's cock broth. And a tansy after."
    Deep bowls of it, fork-thick with leeks and barley, fowl and carrots; Jinny broke them shards of oatcake for to sop the rich broth.
    They ate. The snow pummeled at the windows; their clothes dripped and reeked. Imp Jinny walked to and fro, knitting and muttering and squinting at her heel, in a fury of pins: as thrawn as if her yarn were nettles and all her kindred swans. Born half a sleeve behind and not caught up. You'd think she knit them at the stake. “Purl and plain. Meks three. And—craws eat it!” She knit badly, Kit saw; the yarn snagged on her roughened hands, the stocking bunched and spiralled.
    "Mistress Imp?"
    Jinny turned, twanging with laughter. “And thy name's Kit Catgut. Imp's what I do. Graff apples to crabs. Hast etten Nonesuch? That were mine. And Sheepsnose, out o Seek-No-Further. And I's no Mistress, neither. Langthorn Joan's Jinny. Jane Owlet. Awd keeping pear's what I is. Warden. I'd eat dryly.” The old hands crooked and looped and darted. “So yer out Lune? How came yer by Cloud?"
    Kit, muffled in her patchwork quilt and downheeled slippers, tried for manly. “Seeking work."
    "Can you do owt?"
    "Undo,” said Thea.
    "What I can,” said Kit.
    Jinny pursed her lips. “Work. Well, there's threshing to Swang Farm. A rough gang for lasses; but there's straw and stirabout, and happen a few coppers. Got a knife?” She hefted it and tried the edge. “Aye, that's good.” She gave it back to him. “Ye could try yer hand at binding besoms. Up moor.” She was setting the heel now, storklegged with aggravation. “Come March, ye could clap eggs for