I nodded reluctantly, unsure what any of this had to do with our deal.
“Why don’t I take a marker from you tonight? You can get the sugar now, but I won’t be left without anything.”
“That sounds…fair,” I allowed. “But what am I pledging to give you?”
He shrugged, wholly unconcerned. “We can work that out later—maybe a honey cake, once the bees have survived the winter.”
“The harvest won’t be ready till summer’s end,” I worried pragmatically.
Whitaker smiled. “I said ‘maybe.’ Nothing needs deciding tonight.”
“Then what should I give you for a marker?”
He cocked his head, thinking. “There’s a kind of oath. It’s what most gamblers use—the simplest of all pledges, but the most sincere.”
“What kind of oath?”
He took my hand in his, studying it. “Prick your finger and press it to a handkerchief. Say…three times? A drop of blood for every ten pounds of sugar.” He ran his pointer finger across my palm, following the arc of my heart line and sending ticklish tremors through my core.
“I…” I paused, trying to picture what Papa would do, but the image wouldn’t form. Papa would never have gotten into a situation where he’d have to borrow anything in the first place. When he needed something, he paid for it outright.
But wasn’t that all a marker was? A payment, of sorts?
I looked across the charred fields to the bee boxes. Even in the dark, their white sides could be seen, but just barely. They didn’t look like bustling hives of activity and work.
In truth, they looked like tombstones.
“Yes,” I agreed definitively, pushing the images of graves and Papa from my imagination. Papa wasn’t here, and Papa didn’t have a stupid brother who ruined everything he touched before running away like a coward. I was the one who had to take care of the messes Sam created, and this one was too big for me to handle on my own. I’d be a fool to not accept help where I could.
Whitaker pulled a knife from the back of his belt and before I even knew what was happening, he sliced the silver blade across the pad of my ring finger.
With a cry, I snatched my hand free. Blood welled from the wound, as dark as cursed rubies under the night sky.
He reached inside his coat even as I wore it. I jerked backward as he pulled free a handkerchief from the inner pocket.
“Blot it on that,” he said, tossing me the little bit of cotton. Something was embroidered on one corner, but it was too dark for me to make out the monogram.
“You stabbed me!” My voice squeaked too high with indignation. It hadn’t truly hurt, but the speed at which he’d done it had taken me by surprise.
“Not deeply,” he said, unconcerned. “But you’ll want to press the drops in before the blood stops. Otherwise we’ll just have to open it back up again.”
I blotted the cloth, once, twice, three times, then wrapped it around my finger, staunching the flow. After a moment, I threw the handkerchief at him.
“Thank you,” he said, folding it. “Now hold out your hand.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I swear your fingertips are safe from me.” He secreted the knife away as if to prove it.
And then, quite suddenly, there was a bag of sugar between us.
One second, his hand had been empty; the next, he’d held a paper sack, bulging and full. “Take it,” he said, offering it out. When I hesitated, he broke the wax seal, opening the top. It was chockful of sugar. In the moonlight, the white granules sparkled like quartz.
“How…how did you do that?” I whispered in awe, my indignation instantly forgotten.
“Doesn’t matter. It’s only about five pounds. I’ll make sure the rest is at your house before sunrise. You have my word.” He laughed at my bewilderment. “Take it; it’s yours. You paid in full. Well, nearly.” There was a flash of white and red as he pocketed the handkerchief.
My fingers itched to snatch the bag away, but I waited, uncertain of what was happening. Things didn’t appear just because you wanted them. Life was not like the fairy tales we girls had pored over. Magic wasn’t real.
Then I saw it.
“Your rucksack,” I said, remembering the worn bag, hidden in the shadows. “The sugar was in there all along. You just—” I pantomimed the reveal. I certainly couldn’t have pulled off such dexterous sleight of hand, but it didn’t mean it couldn’t be done. I’d read a book once about a boy who went to a circus and saw magicians do all sorts of impossible trickery. When he stayed after the show, one of the performers explained the tricks to him, showing how wholly pragmatic and logical they were.
Whitaker’s eyes twinkled as he studied me. “You caught me, Ellerie Downing.” He waggled his fingers playfully. “Magic.”
“But…I can have it? It’s mine?”
He sealed the bag before hefting it in my direction. It fell into my arms, heavy and solid and very, very real.
“All yours,” he swore, swiping an X across his heart. “Feeling better now?”
My fingers wrapped around the bag, still wary that I was about to wake up and find this had all been a strange and terrible dream. But I took a deep breath and could even smell the sugar. Light and altogether too sweet, it played through my nose like a coy spring breeze, there one moment and gone the next.
“I am,” I decided.
Whitaker broke into a smile. “Good. Why don’t you head back inside, then? It’s late, and I’m starting to wish I’d not been so gallant in loaning you my coat.” He rubbed his hands up and down his arms, warming himself.
I slipped out of his coat and returned it with already trembling limbs. The temperature must have dropped ten degrees while we’d sat outside. “Thank you….You saved everything.”
He pushed aside my words of praise. “Your caring saved those bees. All I did was provide the sugar.” He tapped me on the nose. “Get inside before you freeze. I’ll have the rest to you by morning.”
I wasn’t sure how to end the conversation, so I stuck my hand out, like Papa would after working a trade with the farmers in town. Whitaker shook it with an amused smile and nodded toward the house.
After scooping up my precious bag of sugar, I raced across the lawn. When I turned to wave good night, he was already gone.
The morning sun cast deep golden rays through the sitting room, catching a flurry of dust motes dancing through the air. As I turned the corner, going into the kitchen to start coffee, I fully expected the worktable to be as bare as it had been when I’d gone to bed with Merry and Sadie the night before.