Rass stood in the kitchen, listening to the quiet creaking of the floorboards upstairs.
His breath expelled slowly. Mariah was in her room.
He went to the icebox and pulled out the leftover slab of sauerbraten. He sliced up the meat and fanned it on a speckled tin plate, placing a couple of potatoes and some cooked carrots around it. Then he tucked a bottle of cider under his arm.
Straightening, he cast a last anxious glance at the stairway. It was still empty.
Moving as quietly as possible, he went to the front door and eased it open. Cold evening air, redolent with the sweet scent of ripe apples, greeted him. The farm lay wreathed in darkening shadows; the fruit trees were jet black skeletons against the gray night sky.
He quietly pulled the door shut behind him. The latch clicked into place. Head down, hands curled tightly around the food, Rass hurried to the barn.
He stopped in front of the closed door. Anticipation quickened his tired old heartbeat, made him feel young again. There was a mystery inside his very own barn.
Hed known it the minute hed seen that young boy skulking . across the farm this afternoon. Someone hiding on the Throckmorton farm was a riddle too exciting to ignore.
He balanced the plate of food on his palm and gave the door a hard push. It shuddered away from him, scraping the hard-packed dirt floor in its arc to the back wall, where it hit with a thud that shook the wooden structure.
Up in the loft, something moved.
Rass ventured to the center of the barn and looked up. Pale, blue-gray moonlight seeped through the small second-story window, casting the barn in shades of onyx and steel blue. The loft was a looming black ceiling.
He went to the ladder and rested a boot on the bottom rung, peering up into the darkness. "Hello there. "
Nothing.
"Ive got some food for you. "
A board creaked overhead. Dust and bits of hay rained through the cracks, pattering Rasss upturned face. "I saw you today. " He paused, choosing his words carefully.
"I mean you no harm. I just thought you might be hungry. "
Silence answered him, yawning and endless. Rass was just about to try again when something—someone—inched across the loft toward the ladder. Slowly, slowly.
The old boards creaked.
Rass held his breath. Excitement pounded through his old mans heart. Hes coming, Greta. Hes coming. . . .
A small face peered over the edge of the loft. Rass couldnt make out the boys features amidst the shadows. But a tousled thatch of reddish gold hair caught and held the moonlight. "Whatcha got?"
"Sauerbraten, potatoes, cooked carrots. "
"Whats sauerbraten?"
"Does it matter?"
The boy shook his head. "Naw. I reckon Id eat dead spiders about now. "
Rass nodded and started to climb the ladder.
"Hold on—"
Rass looked up.
The kid flung a leg over the edge and stared down at Rass. "Youre . . . old. "
Rass blinked up at him in surprise. "Uh-huh?"
The kid shrugged. "I . . . think maybe I should come down to eat. "