7.28 The Witchling Shama
I’d already emptied the small basin and placed it in the shed. The basin might come in handy for other things. When Frey had drunk his fill, he started one of his favorite sports — muzzle splashing. That was something he loved to do. If he could splash me with water, that seemed to be a special bonus for him. Of course, before I could back away fast enough, my dress got water splotched. That made the boys roar with laughter. Only Mrs. Penn kept them from rushing forward to get into the fun. I’m sure Frey would have enjoyed that, too. I figured that my horse probably wasn’t overly hungry, having grazed all day on weeds, but I brought out a flake of hay to give him, so he’d stay in one spot, and I could let Carlo and Frances groom his coat. It needed it badly, and the boys had asked if they could brush him. With Frances, I demonstrated how to use the currycomb on a horse’s lower parts, the ones that he could reach, like Frey’s lower shoulder, chest, and belly. Then I showed Carlo how to brush a horse’s legs, always moving downward in the direction that his hair grew. I thought about getting the step stool from the basement. That would be helpful for the boys if they wanted to brush Frey often. But Carlo was finished with his task in a couple of minutes, already bored with it. Frances lasted a bit longer, but both boys apparently decided that grooming a horse wasn’t as much fun as it had sounded. Mrs. Penn had headed inside after the boys stopped their horse grooming. She’d said she was going to start cooking. I think that was part of what I was supposed to be doing, and I felt guilty for basically “playing” with Frey instead of helping her prepare a meal, but I was still watching the boys, so I didn’t argue over it. As long as Mrs. Penn was offering, it was a good deal for everyone.
7.27 The Witchling Shama
When we reached the house, the feed store cart was just pulling up. I could hear Frey making a huge commotion. Everyone in the whole neighborhood could probably hear him blasting warnings at the poor cart horse. Luckily the delivery man’s sway-backed gelding wasn’t reacting at all. I wondered if the old fellow was half deaf, or just far beyond such foolishness. I ran forward to get the gate for the driver. He tipped his hat at me, then started backing into the yard. “Wait,” I called out. “I should go quiet my horse. He’s pretty excited by all this.” The man nodded, then halted the cart, as I ran into the backyard. “Frey,” I cried out as the stallion practically climbed into my lap. I secured his neck, like I’d often done before, then led him out of the way. While I was holding onto Frey, the man was able to deliver a tub for Frey’s water and two big bags of food. The latter went into the shed. I thanked Mr. Beanie and watched as he headed out through the gate, his horse pulling the cart forward slowly, completely ignoring Frey who was still bugling and pawing the ground. I released my stallion and started to lock the gate, but the boys and presumably, Mrs. Penn, wanted to come into the yard as well. “Mrs. Penn said you got carrots. Can we feed Frey some? Please?” Frances pleaded. After the carrot feeding, I filled the new tub with water and told Frey to drink. I know that a horse will drink if he’s thirsty and hold back if he’s not, but Frey wasn’t just any horse. As if he’d been waiting for my permission, he immediately dropped his head into the tub and started swallowing. I always found it intriguing how with a horse, you can actually see the gulps of water being channeled down into their stomach. A horse’s neck displays that, if you look carefully. The others crowded around Frey, watching the lumps traveling up his neck and down into his belly. Even Mrs. Penn found that riveting.
7.26 The Witchling Shama
Someone had given the boys a ball to play with, and Officer Krugle was part of the disorder, tossing it to Frances and telling him to run to the other desk. Frances handed the ball to Carlo, who dropped it, but Frances didn’t scold. He just picked it up and handed it back to Carlo. “Boys, calm down,” Mrs. Penn said again, more briskly. They all turned to look at us, then the two small ones ran over to hug me. “We thought you were never coming back,” Frances said. “Yeah,” Carlo said, wiping a tear. “You were gone a long, long time.” “I’m sorry,” I said, stooping down into a crouch position so I could give them both a big hug. “We were shopping, just like you did. Then we went to the feed store, and I got a couple of brushes for Frey. Do you know anyone who’d be willing to help me brush him?” “Me. Me!” the boys yelled. “My goodness, one would think you were an experienced school teacher. How did you learn so much about dealing with children?” I smiled up at her, but I didn’t say anything. “I bet you did a lot of babysitting, right?” Mrs. Penn continued to probe. I nodded, not wanting to continue that conversation. Mrs. Penn and the officer had already gotten too much information out of me to make me feel safely invisible. “Are you ready to go, boys?” I asked. “You better give the ball back to Officer Krugle, so we can . . .” “He gave it to us,” Carlo said. “We get to keep it.” Frances was nodding energetically. His eyes were lit up, and he was smiling a grasshopper smile, as Granny Bestle used to call it. Why that name, I had no idea. I’d never seen a smiling grasshopper. Officer Krugel tore his eyes away from what the three of us were doing and glanced over at Mrs. Penn. “I counted the money, wrote down the amount, and placed the box in the vault for safe keeping,” he said. “We can share the total amount with the town council when we meet next.” “Perfect. Thanks for watching the boys, Frank.” “Anytime. You need me to escort you all back to the house?” I kept my eyes down on the boys. No sense getting another scorch of a glare. I’m sure the man could find something to visually scold me for if offered half a chance.
7.25 The Witchling Shama
As we were walking back to the station, Mrs. Penn asked me why I bristled up whenever the officer was around. ”Don’t you like him?” she asked. “He’s single and well-thought of. No vices that I know of. And he’s taken with you.” I put on my brakes and stopped. “What?” I practically shouted. “He hates me. He glares at me and growls at me if I move too quickly. He makes me feel like I’m guilty of something, even though I can’t think of a single thing I’ve ever done that would make a policeman think I committed a crime, unless he treats me like that just because I’m a stranger.” Mrs. Penn laughed. “You are completely oblivious, aren’t you? That man is eyeing you like you’re a chocolate sundae with nuts. He certainly doesn’t hate you.” She took my arm and led me forward. “I gather that you haven’t had much experience with men, have you?” I shook my head. “Only with the village mayor. He was married, but he kept trying to get me alone so he could . . .” I stopped. There I was blabbing again. I needed to burn the edge of my tongue quiet. “He propositioned you?” Mrs. Penn said quietly in case anyone was close enough to hear our conversation. I nodded, embarrassed. “I tried never to be anywhere near him, especially when no one else was around, but he kept slipping up behind me, and then he’d say things he shouldn’t. That’s why I left. Well, part of the reason. It was time, anyway. I needed to see the world and find someplace new.” Mrs. Penn nodded. “Very wise,” she said. “Perhaps Tinkle Town might have been your destination all along, and you just didn’t know it.” That was a strange thing to say, but we’d reached the police station, and she was already opening the door, so I couldn’t ask her to explain. The moment we walked in, we saw that the boys were rough housing with the belly laughing Officer Krugle — right inside the station’s main room. They’d pushed back the chairs and desks and were playing some kind of touch football. “Boys, calm down,” Mrs. Penn said briskly, and I think she was including the man she called Frank in that forceful command.
7.24 The Witchling Shama
The officer finally went on his way, leaving us to go into shops by ourselves. It was a relief not to feel his eyes watching me as if he thought I’d suddenly turn into a bad person who made scenes in the street and cursed like a drunkard. Or something worse, although I really couldn’t figure out what he thought I might do. Mrs. Penn picked out a week’s worth of clothing for the boys, including socks and the under clothes, even jackets and sweaters. No secondhand stuff, either. The boys were in high plateaus with all their new clothes. They each got two pairs of shoes, in addition. One pair was for dress up, as Mrs. Penn called it, and the other pair was for playing in. After they were suitably attired in a new outfit, we dropped them off at the police station for Officer Krugle to watch, and I got to go shopping with Mrs. Penn for me. I had to try on a lot of dresses. That wasn’t the bad part. It was kind of fun, in fact, but then she chose, with my approval, five stylish and new dresses! I was thrilled, of course, and yet I didn’t like feeling beholden again. I really, really wanted to earn some money, despite what Mrs. Penn had said before. I’d spent my whole life being a beggar, and I didn’t want to do it again. But she accepted no pleas about spending too much on my clothing. She bought me undergarments, too. I’d planned just to wear the contents of my bedroom drawer, but Mrs. Penn said those had belonged to the old lady, Mrs. Smith, and she wanted me to have pretty things that matched my age. Wow. It felt like Mrs. Penn was adopting me. (I wish.) I also got a jacket and a sweater for when the air cooled, as Mrs. Penn put it. We left the lady’s wear shop and went to another store where they had heavy pants and shirts that I could ride in. There, I got a second jacket for riding Fray in. And also, there were shoes and boots to pick out. Another pile of cash got laid down for me there. It would take me the rest of my life to pay off all the stuff that Mrs. Penn said I needed. Everywhere, the clerks were super nice to me, treating me as if I were an honored customer. I knew that was actually more for Mrs. Penn, who was obviously well liked by everyone, but it was still a treat not being treated like the village trash. We even stopped later at the feed shop where Fray’s hay had come from. Once the owner saw me, I was handed a package with a curry comb, a brush, and some fly spray. He told us that the other things: the tub, grain and carrots would be delivered later that day. It was like I’d wished on a rainbow and gotten a whole pot of wants.
7.23 The Witchling Shama
“I found this in the rags box,” I told them, my eyes on Mrs. Penn. I unwrapped the box again and opened it up. The boys, who a minute ago had backed away, were once more crowded around the table, staring down at the box, their eyes round with excitement. “That’s a lot of money!” Frances said. “More than anyone else in the whole world has.” “Yeah, that’s a lot,” Carlo echoed. “A big lot.” Mrs. Penn looked at me, her eyes almost as wide as the boys’. “Thank you for bringing this to us, but you could have taken this money, Shama, and we’d never have known about it. Why didn’t you?” I was stunned by her words. “But it wasn’t mine,” I said. What was she implying? Had she thought I might do something like that? Mrs. Penn smiled at me, touched her hand to my face, then glared at the officer. “I told you, so,” she said. I looked from Mrs. Penn to the Officer Krugel. Was it true that they thought I might be a thief? Was that the explanation they’d come up with for why I’d left my former village? For the first time, I wondered if I should tell them the truth, explain what had happened. Was being a witch less evil in their eyes than being a criminal? Mrs. Penn carefully rewrapped the box and pushed it over to the officer. “Frank, would you take this money, count it, and then put it in the vault at the station, please? We’ll have to discuss with the Council exactly what we should do with it. Maybe house maintenance or orphanage salaries? Or savings for a rainy day? Are we sure that Mrs. Smith had no heirs? Officer Krugel looked completely stunned, his jaw firmed into tightness as if cast in iron. What had caused such rigidity? Was he afraid someone would steal the money before he could put it in the station’s safe? He glanced at me, then looked away, but in that moment, his eyes seemed softer, as if he was no longer bound to glare at me in constant disapproval mode. Had I earned some breathing space from his constant inquisitions? Turning her head to look my way again, Mrs. Penn gave me a fond smile. “Thank you, Shama. Thank you for your honesty. It bodes well for your upbringing.” I wasn’t sure exactly what that meant. Had one or more of my house parents instilled morals in my childhood? It was hard to recall any such teachings, but maybe there had been. Old Mother was the only one I remembered having such talks with. But it was nice to think that the village had given me positive scruples. I really didn’t want to think that everything there had been a vile negative. Perhaps there’d been some good spots along the way, I mean, before they decided to kill me.
7.22 The Witchling Shama
I didn’t argue. Despite having a police officer always around, I considered Mrs. Penn the main boss. I headed for the basement, determined to get a couple of rags, not only for cleaning my boots, but also for making a fly mask, using a strip to lengthen Frey’s tail, and making some kind of rag doll he could entertain himself with. When I reached the wooden box I’d seen before, I decided just to take the whole thing upstairs to my room. I wouldn’t use all of rags, but I could return what I didn’t need later. The boys crowded around as I climbed up the stairs. “What’s in there?” they wanted to know, but when I told them, they quickly lost interest. Boot cleaning didn’t sound nearly as exciting as getting ready for a shopping trip. They didn’t follow me to my room, but, instead, obediently went to clean their teeth and wash up from the stickiness of pancake syrup. I heard them running down the stairs a minute later. I took my boots into the bathroom and began my labors. I didn’t do a very good job. I was too worried about getting my new dress dirty, but I managed to make the boots look cleaner than before. Mrs. Penn had taken the socks I’d been wearing, and I had no replacements. I used a rag in each shoe to make up for it. That seemed to work well, but it wasn’t very comfortable. But as I was taking a quick look at the rags, I discovered that Mrs. Smith had hidden a package at the bottom. Curious, even though I knew everyone was waiting for me, I unwrapped the heavy object and found a box full of coins. The secret stash made me so nervous, I almost dropped it, because inside that box was more money than I’d ever seen. My hands were shaking when I covered the box back up inside its oil cloth wrapping. I didn’t bother to put the twine back on. Mrs. Penn and the others would probably want to see inside. I paused a moment to use the restroom, then made my way down the stairs, carrying the extraordinary find. All eyes turned toward me. The boys ran to my side. “What do you have there?” they wanted to know, tugging at my dress to make me pause to show them. “It’s something for Mrs. Penn,” I told them. That was enough to make the boys less curious. But then, Mrs. Penn and the officer suddenly looked as intrigued as the boys had been a minute before.
7.21 The Witchling Shama
“Right after breakfast, we’re going clothes shopping,” Mrs. Penn said. “I’m sorry, Shama, but you’ll have to wear those old boots of yours. You can’t walk into stores without any shoes on.” I was eating my pancakes with a fork, as was proper, but I wished I could take each pancake and roll it up. Since I never used butter or syrup, pancakes just tasted better like that. But I knew that in towns there was a certain decorum. I cut another piece of the cake and inserted it into my mouth. Then, I nodded to Mrs. Penn that I understood and would wear the boots. I praised both the pancakes and the coffee. Then the boys and Officer Krugle did as well. “What about your family?” I asked, realizing that I’d never once asked about her children or a husband. “Don’t you need to fix breakfast for them?” “My husband passed on a good five years ago. We had a flu epidemic that took out quite a few of the people in town. I only raised one daughter. Sheila lives in Tamehold, which is a small town about five miles away. She visits with her two children now and then. So if you’re feeling guilty about my spending time with you, don’t. I usually occupy my days at the orphanage or socialize with the other old biddies like myself.” “What’s a biddy?” Carlo asked before I had the chance to assure Mrs. Penn that she wasn’t old. I knew that a biddy was a hen, but some people used it as a derogatory word for a silly old woman. I wasn’t about to define the word for the boys. I handed it over to the officer. He was finished with his breakfast. Let him rush to the rescue. He gave me another of his famous foul looks, sipped the last dregs of his coffee, then started telling the boys it was a word that meant someone’s aunt. I raised my eyebrows at that, but I said nothing. I’d finished my pancakes and coffee, so I collected the plates and placed them in the sink. Mrs. Penn had already filled it with soapy water, so I rolled up my sleeves and started to wash up. “Just leave those to me, Shama. If you need to wipe off your boots now would be a good time. When the boys finish their milk and brush their teeth, we can all leave. I bought new teeth cleaners for all three of you,” she said, giving the boys a stern look that made them both pick up their glasses and empty them.
7.20 The Witchling Shama
Leaving Frey, happily munching on what looked like very good hay, full of grain and green goodness, and a basin newly filled with water, I headed back inside. The boys had gotten up and were already sitting at the table eating mounds of pancakes. Had I been gone that long? Whoops. Soon, I’d be fixing their breakfasts. I’d have to get up earlier so I could deal with Frey’s needs before theirs. Mrs. Penn handed me a plate of the cakes. Yummy. I sat down to eat, unfortunately right next to the officer, who was just finishing his batch. “You smell like horse,” he said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t go for a ride,” I apologized. The boys stopped cramming in their forkfuls of pancakes to give me a cheerful smile. “We don’t mind,” Frances said. “Yeah, horse smells good,” Carlo added. “We’ll have to get you some special riding clothes,” Mrs. Penn said. “I tossed your old ones. They were completely worn out.” The news that my clothes were gone panicked me. I had no money. I’d been in such a hurry to get away, I stupidly hadn’t even taken the time to dig up my jar with the coins I’d managed to save. What would I do without my old clothes? How could I get a job with nothing but what I was wearing, which now, apparently, smelled of horse? I nodded. What could I say? I’d planned to wash them today, but now . . . I’d be in debt more to whatever funds this was all coming from. I hated the feel of that. It was just like back in the village where I’d been saddled with debts that could never be completely paid off. How much did a person owe for being housed and fed for six months in twenty different houses? But at least that debt was ended with their rock throwing episode. If they’d managed to kill me, I wouldn’t have been able to work, so I figured I now owed them nothing. That seemed more than logical. Besides, that’s what the judge had said. He’d told me not to work for them anymore, or at least, not to work for them for free. Wasn’t it strange how everything good seemed to carry thorns?
7.19 The Witchling Shama
Mrs. Penn said she understood, that I’d just been awakened from a night with little sleep due to the boys. She was right about that, but still, I certainly had no reason to take it out on the woman who’d been so kind to me. And I told her that, too. Then I begged their pardon and fled out the back, eager to see how Frey had weathered the night alone. My stallion came running the moment I reached the door. Then when I opened it, he practically ran me over in his eagerness to greet me. My pampered pet was beside himself, and even though he was being careful around me, for the first time, I was really, really insecure about being barefoot near him since his rears and hoof ground-stabbings were so prominent. “Calm down, Big Guy,” I warned him. “You want me to turn around and go back inside? I don’t have my boots on, Frey. It would hurt even worse if you stepped on me right now.” His ears did their flipflop, and, except for his frantic nickerings, begging for reassurance, he subsided somewhat. I encircled his neck with my arms and gave him a big hug and a kiss right on his muzzle. He loved that. Together we walked to the shed. I unbolted the door and reached in for a flake of hay, only I found that I had to untwine it. Frey didn’t want to wait. He nuzzled my back and tried to push his way inside, eager for companionship, as much as for food. “Stop that, Frey. Give me a moment here.” It wasn’t easy dealing with a horse that could topple me over with a hard push, but I managed to break a single flake free, then I exited, refastened the door, and tossed the hay over on a grassy spot, slightly away from me. Frey froze. His head swung towards the hay, then back at me again. Then again more head swings. He pawed the ground. “Go ahead and eat it,” I said, which left him free to move away from me. He still remained uneasy, tearing a bite from the flake, then returning to my side with a worried nicker. I reassured him each time with a pat and a slight push away. He gave a snort, then, trotted back to the hay, where he diligently dug in. I chuckled, but I still had water to refill before I could go inside to get my mug of coffee!