"He must be somewhere close enough to hear the ringing," Fagan said, still contemplating the mountains.

"Maybe up there somewhere." He pointed toward the highest mountain to the west. "My father's always toldme to keep away from those mountains."

"Could be he lives up one of them hollows."

Glynnis shook her head. "Couldn't hear nothing if he did."

"Well, maybe someone tells him when someone's died. Who says he hears the bell?" Cullen said.

"Who'd it be?" I said.

"Gervase Odara maybe." He shrugged. "She's the one who'd know if someone was dying, her being the healer and all. Maybe she tells him."

I thought about that. Maybe I could talk with her when she was visiting with Elda Kendric. She was there every few days with a remedy to ease the old woman's swollen joints. "She used to come by our house and visit with Mama, but that was a long while ago."

51Y our mama don'tmake people welcomeno more,"

Glynnis said. "Mama said she's so deep in grieving over her dead that she ain't got time anymore for the living." They all looked at me. I wasn't comforted by their attention. I hadn't come for pity but to find outtheir attention. I hadn't come for pity but to find out anything I could about the sin eater. I t appeared to me they didn't know much more than I . Everything they'd said so far was guessing, and I could do that all by myself. I looked up at the mountains to the west and wondered if he was up there somewhere. "Seems a lonely place..."

"Maybe he ain't far away at all," Cullen said.

Fagan got up and washed his hands in the river "Cullen could be right. Who's to say, the sin eater stays up on a mountain. Maybe he comes down and watches people."

"He could be watching us right now." Glynnis shuddered and looked around, face paling. "I wish you hadn't said that, Fagan. I ain't going to sleep nights now wondering if he's peering in our windows."

"Maybe he knows when someone's going to die."

The thought clearly troubled Fagan. Cullen tossed his fish bones into the fire. Maybe he's like the wolves sensing when animal's sick. He can smell death coming and prowls around until he can feast on it."

52"He dinna come when Elen died," I said. Fagan sat down again. "There was no need. She wasna oldenough to have done anything wrong."

That was not the only reason, of course. But he was kind enough not to say it.

I blinked back tears. "Granny told me once that all of us are sinners. They taught her that back in Wales."

"I f he dinna come, it must mean she dinna have any sins big enough to need eating." Fagan's tone was soothing. "He knows when he's to come, Cadi. The night of your granny's funeral, Mama said the sin eater knows when he's needed."

Did he? Was he out there somewhere watching us?

Were his eyes fixed upon me? "Y ou going to eat that fish?" Cullen said to me. I handed him the stick with the halfeaten fish.

"Why don't we look for him?" Fagan said. Cullen's head came up. "I f he so much as looks at you with his evil eye, you're dead." "No you're not," I said before I thought better of it.

Three pairs of eyes turned on me, wide andquestioning. I blushed and put my head down on my knees.

"Y ou looked at him, dinna ye?" Fagan said.

53I 'd opened the door to more grief and disregard.

Would he tell my brother first chance he had?

Glynnis drew back slightly. "Dinna ye know you're not supposed to look at him, Cadi Forbes? Dinna anyone tell ye?"

"I cudna help myself! He sounded so sorrowful."

"He gave you the evil eye, didn't he? Cullen cringed back. Oh, you're in it now. Y ou're in it."

I jumped up, standing over them. "He dinna have red eyes. And his hands were fine and clean, not claws at all."

"And his teeth?" Cullen leaned forward. "What about his teeth?"

"I dinna see his teeth." My passion was spent and I looked away. "He was wearing a hood with eyeholes and a flap over his mouth.""He was probably hiding them," Cullen aid and sank his teeth into the rest of my fish.

"He must be a monster for all the sin he's eaten,"

Glynnis said.

"That must be why he covers his face," Fagan said.

"Whoever he is, he's been the sin eater since before I was born."

Glynnis shook her head. "Could we talk bout summat else?"

54"Now who's scared?" Cullen said smugly.

"So what if I am? Y ou ought to be, too." She looked at me warily. "Y ou shouldn't talk about him at all, Cadi Forbes. Summat terrible could happen to you."

"T alking about him ain't going to bring him down on her head," Fagan said. "Who's to say?" Glynnis looked at him. "Y ou don't know what could come of it!"

"And you do?"

"I know enough to know he's evil and no good can come of even thinking on him.""Why don't you run on back to Mama?" Cullen taunted.

"I f I do, I 'm going to tell her what you're talking about!"

"And I 'll tell her you're a liar!"

"And she'll take a switch to both of you," Fagan said.

I sat silent, feeling the prickles of fear rising. Why had I trusted them? I f Glynnis went home and told her mother we were talking about the sin eater, her mother would want to know how they dared. Cadi Forbes, that's who dared. And Cadi Forbes hadn't just dared talk about him. She had looked at him. Oh, I had sins aplenty on my head and here was another. I could not go through a day without committing another grievous error.

55Glynnis isright. I hoped I hadn'tdonethem harm.

"I 'm sorry I said anything about him. Just forget it." I t was my trouble and I would sort it out.

"Y ou'll have to pray," Glynnis said. Pray hard to almighty God that the evil don't take hold of you."

"I know." I had done a lot of praying over the pastyear, but I didn't think God was listening. I held more hope in Granny's prayers on my behalf than anything I had said on my own. And Granny was gone. There was no one to intercede for me now.

I didn't linger with them long after that, but made my excuses and headed back. Lilybet met me on the trail.

"They don't know any more than I do," I said to her.

"Are you going to give over looking for the sin eater?

I considered it as I headed home. Maybe it was a poor idea trying to find someone who was so much an outcast. Y et wasn't I? Not an outcast from the community but from my mother's heart. And maybe Papa's, too, for that matter, though he didn't make it as apparent. He could talk to me without that heart-split look in his eyes. Maybe men didn't feel as deeply as women.

Y et, feeling as I did, I could not leave it as itwas. I had to seek the man out, whatever56the cost. Lilybet seemed pleased thatI hadnot given up my quest. "Do ye know what ye'll ask him when ye meet?"

"I 've not thought that far ahead."

"Think it through then, Katrina Anice. I think ye'll come upon him sooner than ye think."

When I looked at her, hoping for an explanation, she just smiled at me, her eyes alight with promise.

57Three Gervase Odara came by the house a few days later.

When I came in from doing chores, she and Mama were sitting inside near the hearth, Mama staring at the flames. "Good day, child," the healer said as I stopped in the doorway, unsure of whether to enter or wait outside until her departure. I t seemed providence that she appeared, having been the one to warn me about looking into the sin eater's eyes.

She put her worn hands on her knees and pushed herself up. "I just come by to visit with your mama awhile. I 'd best be getting on to Elda Kendric, or she'll wonder what's become of me.""How's she doing these days, ma'am?" I remembered how much stock Granny took in the old woman. She always said they were good friends who had come through many a hardship together.

"She's in a lot of pain though she doesn't like to let on. Why don't you come along with me? I t would cheer her up to see Gorawen Forbes's granddaughter." She cast 58a look at Mama. "Unless you've thingsforCadi to do for you, Fia."

"She can go," she said dully, not looking up from the fire.

"Bring a shawl then, Cadi. I t's clouding over."

I was weary from my chores and would have preferred stretching out on Granny's bed, but what Lilybet had said came back to me. I f anyone would know anything about the sin eater, it was Elda Kendric.

Except for Granny, she had been around the longest. I f I went to visit her, I 'd soon learn where the sin eater lived. The hope of that enticed me into obedience.

The healer and I walked a ways in silence, shethinking and me not knowing what to say. Then she paused along the pathway. "Here's pennyroyal. I t's good for fevers." She picked leaves and put them into the basket she always carried. Granny used to say she was born with it dangling from her arm. "Over there's bleeding heart. Pull the smaller plant, dearie, and take it up gentle so as not to break the root. That's the best part."

I hastened to do her bidding, eager to please. I had a long liking of the healer, for she was kind and given over to the care of people. She had been one of Granny's

59.

Dearest friends and often came to pass time. They would talk about the mountain people and cures for their ailments. I liked sitting by and listening to their rememberings, though they sometimes seemed cautious in my hearing. Often it was in my mind to be a healer like Gervase Odara. She was held in high regard in our small community of families, nestled as we were in the mountain coves and hollows. And so I ran to do her bidding.My knees sank into the deep leaf fall. I t lay so thick on the ground it was like a newly stuffed mattress. I drew the bleeding heart carefully from its growing place, thankful and pleased it came up easily. Brushing away the dirt, I carried the prize back to Gervase Odara, hoping to earn her good pleasure.

"Thank ye, child." She smiled and tucked the plant into her basket, then brushed the hair back from my shoulder as we began walking again. "Y our mama says you have a new friend."

I clasped my hands behind my back and said nothing. My happiness was dampened knowing it was not my company she had sought after all. Mama had put her up to it.

"Lilybet, she says you call her."

I made a sound that could have been 60taken for yea or nay.

She stopped to cut some bark from a red oak tree.

"Why don't ye tell me about her?"

"Nothing much to tell, ma'am." "Where'd she comefrom?"

"Far away, she says, ma'am."

"Far away o'er the mountains? Or further away than that?"

"Across the sea, I reckon."

"That far? Maybe she comes from closer than you know, aye?"

I was not sure what she meant by that, but it had an ominous sound. We came out of the woods to the stretch of highland meadow. Y ellow daisies and purple lupine and white lace were growing. I didn't want to talk of Lilybet anymore and ran my hands along the flowers as we walked through them. They were damp from dew. The sky was clouding over, and thunder rumbled in the distance as we headed uphill toward the trees.

"I t'll rain before we reach Elda's," the healer said.

"Y es, ma'am, but only long enow for the earth to have a drink." Granny had always said that. I t pleased me to think about the things she used to say, and I knew that Granny had said it often enough that the healer wouldGranny had said it often enough that the healer would remember also.

61.

Aye, my dear." She laughed at my fair imitation. And true it is." Her smile turned wistful. "Y our granny was a wise woman, my dear, and we all sorely miss her. Y ou most of all." She looked at me intently. "Aye?"

"Papa, too, I 'm thinking," I said to be polite.

"As should he, her being his mother and all. But your papa ken what was coming, I reckon. I t's harder for the young to understand an end when they're just at the beginning with a long living stretching out ahead. That's the way of things, dearie. We're only allotted a certain number of years to walk this earth, and then our time comes. Y our granny passed on and another enters in.

Jillian 0'Shea had her baby two mornings before we laid your granny to rest."

"There was room aplenty for a new baby without Granny leaving."

"I know, child, and let there be no misunderstanding.

She dinna die so that the babe could come. I mean only that her passing isna the end of everything. Lifegoes on. And your granny will rise again on judgment Day. Most likely, she'll see Jesus coming down from heaven from where she's resting high on that hill. No, my dear. I t ain't her I mean. I t's the living concerns me most. Y our granny's resting easy now, sleeping 62until the end of time comes upon us all."

"Because of what the sin eater did for her."