Isabel: Taking Wing

A Voice in the Dark

Isabel yells for help until her voice grows hoarse. But nobody comes to her aid. When it starts to get dark, Isabel realizes she’ll never find her way out on her own in the dark. She remembers the brave heroines from Master Hart’s stories, and tries to think of what they’d do.

Isabel comes to the conclusion they’d climb a tree for the night. Isabel walks a little bit until she finds a big oak with large branches and footholds. She carefully climbs to the first branch, and settles in for the night.

As it gets dark, she notices some firelight a little ways away. She shrugs it away—of course she’s seeing things, after all, she watched a person die today! But then she hears singing. In fact, it’s one of Meg’s favorite songs.

She scrambles down the tree, and finds her way to the source of the fire and noise. There she sees a boy alone rustling in a cart. The boy turns, and Isabel notices it’s Meg’s brother, Kit!

He recognizes Isabel, and helps her to the fire and pours her some stew. Isabel eats greedily, as she hasn’t really eaten all day. She explains what happened to her horse and John, and asks if he knows how to get her to Northamptonshire.

Kit ponders. At last, he says that he can’t leave his Master Pink, but they do plan to do a performance in Northampton in three weeks. If they can convince the troupe to let Isabel come, then Kit should be able to deliver Isabel to her aunt safely.

The only catch is: the troupe won’t let Isabel come along since she’s a girl. Isabel agrees to dress and act as a boy. After all, she doesn’t have much choice in the matter. And besides, she’ll never get the chance to travel with a theater troupe like this ever again.

When the other men come back, they find Isabel dressed in boys clothes, going by the name of Isabel’s brother, Robert. Kit explains the situation to his Master Pink, and only embellishes a little by saying Isabel’s aunt will offer a handsome reward for the return of Isabel, a.k.a. Robert.

Convinced by Isabel’s small performance as a boy, and encouraged by the promise of a reward, Master Pink agrees.