“Do you not think the stories are true, then? The old ones, I mean. About Mother and Father and Uncle Will and Much and the rest?”
Mary didn’t answer. She wanted to believe them, but she didn’t want to admit she did, which meant, really, she likely didn’t believe them at all. Except . . . except she had met the ghost. Even now, she glanced up, searching the shadows between boughs and branches for a tall man wearing a hood.
Up ahead, Eleanor had s
traightened and now stood rigid, looking at something hidden among the trees. Mary saw it immediately and grabbed John’s arm. She reached for her sister just as Eleanor backed into her grip.
Three, no four of them—men lurking within a dense copse. They might have been walking along just as innocently as the children, just as surprised by the appearance of anyone else in this corner of the forest. But they had bows and quivers on their shoulders, and swords at their belts.
“We should be getting home,” Mary said calmly, to no one in particular, and guided her siblings back the way they’d come. “We’ll be missed soon.”
If the men had been there for some innocent reason, they would have let the children go. Mary, John, and Eleanor should have been able to simply walk away. But the men had a purpose, and without a word they rushed forward.
“Go, run,” Mary said, pushing John and Eleanor behind her, putting herself between them and the attackers.
Three more men came out of the trees on either side of them, swords drawn. John tried to dodge, but one of them scooped him up and turned him upside down over his shoulder. John kicked and shouted but it did no good. Mary kept Eleanor behind her; her sister clung to her tunic. No matter which way she turned, there seemed to be more of them.
A cry came from above, a wolf-like howl that chilled her spine.
The ghost fell from a high oak, straight down on the first group of outlaws. His staff came down on one head, then another, then swept across the legs of the third. Shouting and panic followed. Mary took Eleanor’s hand and ran, pausing only long enough to kick at the knee of the one who held John. The man howled and swung out a fist; Mary didn’t duck fast enough and was sent sprawling. John cursed and raged; both he and his captor fell.
And then, the thunk of an arrow striking a target.
In terror, Mary looked for the sound, and saw the ghost fall to his knees, an arrow sticking in his right shoulder. His staff dropped; his arms hung loose. He looked at the wound as if he could not believe it, and chuckled.
She got her first real look at the Ghost of Sherwood. He was a tall, large man, incongruously large for the nimble way he climbed in and out of trees, for how silently he moved. He had shaggy hair, a grizzled beard, and his clothes were worn and patched.
Across the way, he met her gaze, and Mary saw such sadness there, her breath caught. His shoulders slumped, as if he resigned himself to his fate. The men he’d attacked got to their feet; one of them kicked the ghost in the gut. His back arched in pain, and he cried out.
Another of the outlaws, a broad man with a ruddy beard, stalked to the ghost and grabbed his hair. “Who are you?”
“No one,” he murmured.
Eleanor was kneeling by Mary, her eyes wide and filling with tears, her teeth gritted like she wanted very much to scream but couldn’t.
Mary told her, “Run, run and get help!”
Her sister shook her head, quick and scared like a bird, and kept her grip on Mary’s tunic. Before Mary could think of what else to do, one of the other men put an arm around Eleanor’s middle and hauled her back. Another did the same to Mary, and she screamed, all fury now.
“Let go of her, keep your bloody hands off her, if you hurt her, I’ll murder you, I’ll murder you all!” She kicked and flailed—John was still doing likewise—until her captor put an arm across her throat and locked her head back until she could hardly breathe. Pinned now, she couldn’t move.
The ruddy-bearded man turned to her. “And who are you? Some farmer’s brats? Or something else?”
“She looks like Locksley’s bitch,” one of the others said.
John yelled, “How dare you! She doesn’t kill you first, I will, we’ll rip all your heads off—” Then he was cut off with a hand over his mouth, and they were all firmly caught.
“Do you belong to Locksley, then?” the broad man said, sounding pleased. He studied them and seemed to make some calculation. “What are the baron’s children doing wandering off alone, hm? Outlawry runs in the blood, I think.”
“We were supposed to take the woman,” one of the others said. “The baron’s lady.”
“This is better.”
“Locksley will murder us if we take his kids.”
“On the contrary. We hold a knife to their throats, he’ll do whatever we want. Our master can hold them hostage for years. Keep Locksley tame.”
Their master—she thought of all the people who had a grudge against Father, all the names that came up when talk turned to politics. It could have been anyone. A name wasn’t going to help her.