She opened her eyes.
The first rays of dawn lightened the horizon, bringing a flush of pink to the silver-blue sky. The stars had already faded in the east and were winking out overhead, and somewhere off in the distance, a cock crowed and a chorus of birdcalls drifted across the hills.
There was nothing standing before her now. The Ghost was gone-but he had left something behind.
Where he had stood, where there had once been a heap of leaves, there was now a pile of shining silver coins. More than enough to pay for that second instrument, the lessons for it, and part of her keep while she mastered it.
As she stared at the money in utter disbelief, a whisper came from around her, like a breath of the cool dawn wind coming up off the hills.
"Go, child. Take your reward, and go. And do not look back." A laugh, a kindly one this time. "You deserved gold, but you would never have convinced anyone you came by it honestly."
Then, nothing, but the bird song.
She put her fiddle away first, with hands that shook with exhaustion, but were otherwise unmarred, by blisters or any other sign of the abuse she'd heaped on them.
Then, and only then, did she gather up the coins, one at a time, each one of them proving to be solid, and as real as her own hand. One handful; then two-so many she finally had to tear off the tail of her shift for a makeshift pouch. Coins so old and worn they had no writing left, and only a vague suggestion of a face. Coins from places she'd never heard of. Coins with non-human faces on them, and coins minted by the Sire's own treasury. More money than she had ever seen in her life.
And all of it hers.
She stopped at the stream at the foot of the hill, the place that traditionally marked the spot where the Ghost's power ended. She couldn't help but stop; she was exhausted and exhilarated, and her legs wouldn't hold her anymore. She sank down beside the stream and splashed cold water in her face, feeling as if she would laugh, cry, or both in the next instant.
The money in a makeshift pouch cut from the tail of her shift weighed heavily at her belt, and lightly in her heart.
Freedom. That was what the Ghost had given her-and from its final words, she knew that the spirit had been well aware of the gift it had granted.
Go and don't look back. . . .
It had given her freedom, but only if she chose to grasp it-if she did go, and didn't look back, leaving everything behind. Her mother, Jib, the tavern . . .
Could she do that? It had taken a certain kind of courage to dare the Ghost, but it would take another, colder kind of emotion to abandon everything and everyone she'd always known. No matter what they had done to her, could she leave them for the unknown?
Her elation faded, leaving the weariness. She picked herself up and started for home, at a slower pace, sure only of her uncertainty.
Go-or stay? Each step asked the same question. And none of the echoes brought back an answer. The road was empty this time of the morning, with no one sharing it but her and the occasional squirrel. A cool, damp breeze brought the scent of fresh earth, and growing things from the forest on either hand. It was a shame to reach the edge of the village, and see where the hand of man had fallen heavily.
The inn, with its worn wooden siding and faded sign, seemed shabby and much, much smaller than it had been when she left yesterday. Dust from the road coated everything, and there wasn't even a bench outside for a weary traveler to sit on, nor a pump for watering himself and his beast. These were courtesies, yes, but they cost nothing and their absence bespoke a certain niggardliness of hospitality. She found herself eyeing her home with disfavor, if not dislike, and approached it with reluctance.
Prompted by a caution she didn't understand, she left the road and came up to the inn from the side, where she wouldn't be seen from the open door. She walked softly, making no noise, when she heard the vague mumble of voices from inside the common room through the still-shuttered windows.
She paused just outside the open door and still hidden from view, as the voices drifted out through the cracks in the shutters.
". . . her bed wasn't slept in," Stara said, and Rune wondered why she had never noticed the nasal, petulant whine in her mother's voice before. "But the fiddle's gone. I think she ran away, Jeoff. She didn't have the guts to admit she couldn't take the dare, and she ran away." Stara sounded both aggrieved and triumphant, as if she felt Rune had done this purely to make her mother miserable, and as if she felt she had been vindicated in some way.
Maybe she's been telling tales to Jeoff herself, the way I figured.
"Oh aye, that I'm sure of," Kaylan drawled with righteous self-importance. "Young Jon said she been a-flirtin' wi' him day agone, and she took it badly when he gave her the pass."