The Ghosts of Heaven by Marcus Sedgwick

done rushed into her. If Robert Hamill decided to be vindictive, he could probably get his father to throw them off his land, and then, even this pitiful hovel and the few things they owned would be lost to them.
    She stared at Tom for a long time before she realized he was speaking to her.
    â€œWill we eat, Anna?” he said.
    Anna shook herself. Her hair hung damp on her forehead; there was heat in her chest. She looked at her young brother.
    â€œWill we eat?” he said again, and Anna could only think of the stupid thing she’d done.

 
    10 SIN
    So that’ll be him , thought Anna.
    She’d come out of the mill with a bundle to tie, to take up to the tentergrounds, and sensed something. Someone.
    There he was, and God, he was as thin as they’d said. Like Anna he was draped in a long black dress, but there the resemblance ended. The cassock hung off him like a shroud on a scarecrow. Where Anna’s skin was pale, his was sallow and gray, and what little hair he had left clung to his skull. But he was tall, and his eyes seemed to have found her the moment she left the mill.
    He was standing in the trees, at the edge of Callis Wood. He stood perfectly still and Anna didn’t know whether to acknowledge his presence or just go about her work. They’d been talking about him yesterday. Down at Gaining Water smithy. She’d gone there with the two pennies her mother had owed Jack Smith, since she’d managed to get Ma Birch to pay for the poultices she’d been having. Anna didn’t want Jack Smith to have anything over her, not even tuppence. At the smithy, she’d found Jack and Elizabeth talking to John Turner and Adam Dolen about the minister who’d arrived at the manor house.
    Anna kept her distance from Adam Dolen, but he was the one in the know. Since his Grace was living at the manor house now, he boasted, she knew everything that was going on there. She knew all about the Rural Dean, and why he’d come.
    So Anna had given Jack the two coins and hurried away.
    And now here he was. Standing in the sun pools that flittered down between the thick green leaves of Callis Wood. Watching her.
    Her heart pounded.
    But Father Escrove turned, walked away along the bank of Golden Beck, and was gone.

 
    11 RIGHT- AND LEFT-HANDED MEN
    Dusk in Welden Valley. Owls hooted in the half-light. The faintest of breezes twitched the tops of the trees. Golden Beck danced on as it had since water first curled its way through the cleft of rock that wound its way down to the place where Deepdale now sat.
    *   *   *
    Anna Tunstall sat in Tunstall Cottage. Tom was playing outside in the late evening warmth while she boiled herbs. Her mother had believed there was a cure for Tom’s fits, and had tried many varieties and mixtures of plants, but without success. Despite the heat of another fierce day of sun, Anna bent over a pot on the fire, stirring, watching the tea revolve at the end of her spoon, believing the answer lay in there, somewhere. The endless turning hypnotized her for a while; she gave up wondering if she’d ever cure Tom, and began to think about herself. She still knew she ought to find a way to give that heart back to Robert, but it felt lighter about her neck now. It was by far the most special thing that had ever entered her life and at the very least, she knew she couldn’t leave it lying around for Tom to find and start asking questions about. So for now it could sit as safely under her dress as anywhere, and she’d give it back as soon as ever she could find a way to make him take it.
    *   *   *
    Helen Fuller was putting food on the kitchen table at the mill house. She called to her husband, John, but he didn’t hear her. He sat by the now-silent hammers in the mill room, wondering how he could afford to renew the lease on the mill if Sir George put up the rent, as he’d said he