Hidden by Donna Jo Napoli Read Free Book Online Page B

hand, saying I was more trouble than I was worth.
    I went cold at those words—he says them too often—but I looked around and it seemed no one else had heard them. I don’t want his attitude toward me to spread. They have to keep me until my family finds me. I rub the scar on my palm; they have to keep me and Øg both. In the meantime, I must make myself tolerable.
    Still, I won’t help kill the cow Ciaran. I won’t watch the slaughter. So I’ve volunteered to help Randolf gather the honey today, despite the fact that I don’t like her one bit. No one volunteers to gather honey because it’s a nasty job; it’seasy to get stung. When we get back, I’ll hand the brimming honey pot to Thora, and she’ll remember I’m a value to the farm and maybe even Thorkild will notice.
    I don’t want Øg to watch the killing either, so I’m bundling him along with us.
    The three of us are swathed head to foot in woolen strips, to keep out the bees. Øg rides on my shoulders—which is getting harder for me, because he’s growing fast. But when Randolf offered to carry him, I snatched him quick and swung him up. I have to hold on to his chubby legs with both hands so he doesn’t fall off backward.
    Randolf carries a pot of smoking pine needles in one hand and an empty pot in the other. A knife tucks into her belt on one side, and from the other side hangs the pouch I prepared with a toy for Øg.
    The bees live in hollowed-out logs way at the other end of the meadow. We march around the cabbage patch and through the grazing animals. I wonder if these ones know how lucky they are today. Will they miss their companions? Out in the meadows it must be easy for them to lose track of one another. Maybe they won’t even realize there are fewer of them.
    When we’re still a sensible distance away from the hives, I set Øg on the ground. Randolf puts down the pots and digs around in the pouch. She takes out a smoothcrescent of something white and brown that looks like horn but it’s solid, not hollow, and hands it to Øg, who immediately gums it.
    I didn’t put that crescent thing in the pouch. “Give him the doll,” I say.
    â€œHe likes this toy.”
    â€œHe has two hands—he can hold the doll in the other hand.”
    â€œDon’t be stubborn, Alfhild. He’ll be perfectly fine like he is.”
    â€œI take care of him more than you do.”
    Randolf looks away and purses her lips. But she takes the bone doll out and holds it toward Øg, who quickly tries to shove it in his mouth alongside the crescent.
    â€œSee?” I say. “He likes it.”
    â€œHe likes the other better.”
    â€œWhat have you got against little Gudrun’s doll?”
    â€œNothing. It’s just . . .” Randolf puts her hands on her hips. “The antler’s mine. It was my toy as a baby. I brought it with me.”
    That crescent is part of an antler? Deer in Eire don’t have antlers anywhere near that thick. I’ve seen deer here—they’re not enormous. One variety is tiny. But the deer that grew that antler must have been enormous. “Where did you come from, Randolf?”
    â€œIt doesn’t matter. It was a long time ago.” She rolls the wool swathing back from her hands, so she’s bare from above the wrist to her fingertips. “Let’s get to work.”
    â€œBut your hands will get stung.”
    â€œWith the cloth on, I’d be too clumsy. I’d upset the bees and get stung a lot worse. Move slowly.” She lifts a swath of cloth from around my neck to across my mouth. “Don’t let them sense your breath or they’ll sting you bad.” She covers her own mouth.
    For a moment I think of turning back. But this family loves honey nearly as much as Irish people do. And Irish people adore it. My brother Nuada tells a tale about King Lir long ago. His wicked