by Abi Maxwell
In truth, Claire had spent years furious at her sister. All those years Elspeth had in the new country with new babies while at home Claire had to watch her father struggle to keep them warm and fed. Once during the first bad stretch he came home to announce that he would leave weaving for a job at the foundry, but her mother wouldn’t have it. Instead, Claire and her mother had gone to the city and solicited more accounts for more work. After that had come the period of years when day after day it seemed the work would never end, and then once again a period—worse this time—when it seemed every minute like all of it would end, and they would be left with nothing. Now it felt things had evened out. No worry about hunger, and a steady enough stream of orders, and besides all that, it wasn’t that she didn’t like her life—just that she hadn’t necessarily ever thought of it in those terms until Elspeth’s letters had encouraged her to do so. Elspeth’s letters, Elspeth’s life, it had all seemed so rich and full.
In her last letter, Elspeth had written with a bit of information from an astronomical journal her neighbor subscribed to: on January 7, 1852, there would be a total lunar eclipse. Claire told the whole town. They were to all gather at shore. She made biscuits and she kept herself half awake the whole night, just to be sure she wouldn’t miss the eclipse in the early hours of morning. When the time finally came she got up, roused her parents, fed the fire, made the tea, and she folded a blanket and gathered her coat and hat. So excited she could hardly put her feet properly into her boots. They all set out together, and as they approached the water they could hear voices before them. At that point in the night, the moon still looked just as it always did, yet somehow it seemed also to hang at once more dimly yet more brilliantly. Claire handed the basket to her father and told her parents to go along without her, that she had forgotten something at home, and then, once they were out of sight, she ran toward the fields at the opposite side of town. She meant to watch the eclipse alone. She knew that on the other side of the ocean, just as night began, Elspeth would be watching it, too. In the most foolish thought she had ever allowed herself to have, she believed that so long as she was alone, as she watched the eclipse Elspeth would be at her side, watching it with her.
And she was, in a way. That night Claire believed, for the length of time it took the Earth to spin into its perfect line between the sun and moon, that it was possible to reach across all space and time, or to dissolve into it, and return to her sister, uncontained. When the moon was totally covered she left it there. She went to bed with her body humming with the life of her sister from all its edges.
In the morning though, no sister. She got up, started the fire, put the water on, put the oats on, returned to the ground.
* * *
—
“I don’t know what to do,” Claire confided to her mother.
“Wait,” her mother said gently.
“I can’t.” And then, “It won’t do any good.”
“I know.”
“I would like to go there.”
“You can’t.”
“I can.”
“We can’t afford it.”
“I have looked into it. We can.”
“We can’t possibly.”
“We can afford one way.”
“And then what?”
“And then I will send a letter.”
“I won’t lose two daughters,” her mother said.
* * *
—
Claire was nothing if not resolute, though. As a child she made up her mind to care for her parents, and since then she had never wavered. She had made up her mind to keep the cleanest house she had ever seen, and she had done that. To learn to make bread as well as the baker, to fix her family’s clothing with the very strongest and neatest of patches, to keep them all in newly knitted socks, to read at least three hundred pages a week. Now she had decided to find her sister, and she would. While her father was working and her mother was helping the neighbor she went to Jacob, the son of Alistair. He was handsome and he was said to be trouble, though no one ever said exactly how much or even just why. She had, however, always suspected it. Impossible to look that good and to be that proud and not to be trouble, she had felt. Now she went to him for that very purpose. She found him in his shop—his father’s shop, for he, too, had never married and never left home. As a teenager he had diagnosed the problem with the new railcar that none of the men could fix, and after that he had quickly become known for the mechanical skill that his mother had always claimed he held. Just now he was once again repairing an engine. She called from the open shop door. So nervous she thought she would be sick. She said, “I need to go to America and back and I only have money for one way.”
His head was tucked into the engine and he didn’t look up at her. Only called out, “Well.”
The truth was she actually did know precisely why he was trouble. She had been told. It had been after church service. Mary, the only friend she ever confided in after Elspeth left, had told her. They had stood outside in the sun, looking over at him, and Claire had suddenly been overcome with the sort of bravery—if you could call it that—that Elspeth had always had, and she had said, “He sure is handsome.”
It had been a shock to all of them that he should show up. His parents weren’t there, never attended anymore, and he had dropped out of school and church ages ago, and not been quiet about it, either. Supposedly he had joked about all of them, of what fools they were. Now Mary guessed at why he was there: “Atoning, I should say.”
“What for?”
Mary’s mother had heard it from Jacob’s own. Jacob had gone off for an entire week, and while he was gone he’d spent his father’s whole jar of savings besides. When his red-faced father told him that if he wanted to get drunk he might as well have done it at home where it wouldn’t cost all the damn money, Jacob had looked right into his father’s eyes and told him that it hadn’t been liquor he’d been after. His father had understood and left it at that. “Do something,” his mother had begged, but what could be done? “He’s a man,” Alistair had told his wife, chuckling.
It took Claire a while to understand. Actually, she didn’t, not standing there at the church looking at him, but later, thinking about it, she realized what he had been after, what he had spent his money on. She wasn’t sure what she thought about it. That kind of need he must have felt. She wasn’t sure at all what to think about it.
Now, in his shop, she said his name. “Jacob,” she said. She knew Mary had run off and told her own mother that Claire thought Jacob handsome. She knew Jacob might have heard the gossip by now. Rather than humiliate her, it gave her a little courage. She felt as bold as Elspeth. She said, “Look at me.”
He stood up behind the workbench. Light gleamed off the metal before him. “What?” he said, not moving closer. Not really interested at all. Just bothered, she thought, and only a little.
She said, “I am willing. For a fee.”
“Sorry?” he said.
Her face was red, she was trembling. It was possible he didn’t want her. That she wasn’t good enough. Which would be worse? Whatever tool he had held now clanged against the table. At first she thought he had dropped it, but then his hand was still upon it, so he must have set it down harshly. He let go and crossed the room to her. Oh, no, what had she done? She had been warned. Her mother had told her that once a man starts he cannot stop. That’s how I feel, Elspeth had whispered to her later, and Claire had pretended to be appalled.
“Claire,” he said. Really, so kind, the way he said it. “Claire,” he said again. She looked away from him, turned around slowly, walked out of the shop, and as soon as she was out of sight she ran, her tears blinding her. He never said a word about it, and for the rest of her life she believed he was one of the gentlest people she had ever known.
* * *
—
“Mot
her,” she said now and then, as the weeks dragged on. She kept the days without Elspeth marked on the calendar. Nearly Christmas now; nearly one whole year. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Add the oats,” her mother said.
* * *
—
“Mother,” she said as the new year began. “I don’t know how to find her.”
“I know.”
* * *
—
“I can’t live like this,” she said as winter deepened.
“You can.”
* * *
—
And then one day in March: “I promised myself I would find her. I have to know. How can you not know?”
“Okay, then.”
“What?”
“Here,” her mother said, and went to the cupboard and returned with a tin. She had to pry the top off with a butter knife to see what was inside. “It’s enough,” her mother said, as Claire counted. “There and back. Your father knows. You might as well pack.”
12 March 1853
Dear Sir,
Writing to you just before my passage. Coming for news of my sister. Will be at your door within four weeks’ time from this day 12 March, 1853. Pray that you will have me.
In hopes,
Claire Mitchell, sister to Elspeth Ross
* * *
—
The passage over was nothing like she expected. There were kind people on board, hopeful people and sad, but for the most part there were just people, packed so tightly she could scarcely make sense of where her own skin ended and the next person’s began. She had understood that people were leaving for America in droves, but she hadn’t exactly pictured what that meant. The ache and stench of it, the horror. When waves came she clung to her narrow, hard berth and watched her midsection rise and fall in the air. She vomited—she and the rest of them—day after day after day. Thank heavens her mother had sent her with cans of water (and her own hardtack and boiled eggs besides), though when the fear of dying of seasickness or ship fever subsided she thought she would die of shame at the fact that she sipped her own clean water while others waited for it to be pumped from barrels, praying there would be enough and that it would not spill.
But a few days in she discovered something new on board. At night, when all ship noise had quieted, she would sneak up on deck to be filled with the most untamed feeling she had ever known. Those stars bent around her in all directions, as though she were flying through the very sky. What a thought! She let it overtake her, so that she slipped into a sort of trance, wishing away hours of day only to be greeted by night and stars and that endless firmament. It occupied her entire being, and in memory her passage over became nothing but a blur of sea salt, uneven footsteps, and starlight.
* * *
—
The ship docked in Boston. She had some trouble setting foot on land because the officers refused to believe she would be going back, so finally she withdrew her fold of money and bought her return passage right there. She had given herself two weeks. She stepped outside into the light, but she did not waste a moment. Her luggage was not heavy. She carried it herself. She had done her research. The train would take her directly to her sister’s town in less than four hours. All she had to do from there was walk onto the main road, pass the mills, and then cross the bridge and continue up the hill. Her sister had described it in her letters, though Claire hadn’t understood just how well. Mr. Bartlett’s barn, for example. She had thought her sister must be exaggerating.
At his door, she said her sister’s name by way of introduction, but she didn’t need to. He knew it right away, the two of them so clearly cut from the same cloth: top lips so deeply curved, eyes set just wider than other people’s, just enough to give their faces an unfamiliar, slightly wild look. He looked up and down the street as he ushered her in. My god, what was she doing here? As he pulled her through the door it occurred to him that he oughtn’t to have looked up and down in that way, that had someone been watching, then they’d surely become suspicious. Suspicions coursed through this town like a plague these days.
“Tea?” he said calmly, carefully locking the door after her. “Take your boots off. Here,” he said, and he hurried to the closet and found her a pair of slippers. April and still so cold.
“Sit,” he said, and then, “My goodness, you look as she looks.”
“Sir,” she said.
“You must be hungry. I’ve got nothing planned. I’ll just run to the cellar and see what we have. I suspect you won’t find the food so very different.”
“Sir, tell me now. I don’t mean to stay. I have come a great distance and not for your meals, if you’ll excuse me. Please tell me now.”
“I lost my wife years ago. Wife and child, childbirth. I’m sorry, I don’t know why I just told you that. Your sister was a great friend to me, you see. A daughter. I received your letter. I have been up nights wondering whether or not to believe it. And here you are.”
When she didn’t respond he kept on. He said, “Also your earlier letters. Asking for response. I thought and thought. In the end I decided it was not wise. What if someone should find my response? Your sister could end up in a great deal of trouble. But now you have come all this way. I’m afraid I don’t know what I’ve done. Or how I could have done otherwise.”
“You mean she could have.”
“Sorry?”
“You said she could end up in trouble. You mean she still can? Or that she could have and can no longer?”
“I’m sorry, I still don’t know your meaning.”
“Sir, tell me if my sister is dead.”
“Oh, heavens, Claire,” he said. He was sweating and at the same time adding another log to the fire. Once it was on he took up the poker and began to stir the red coals. Finally he said, “Your sister had a terrible time.” Something about the way he said it, the way he stopped moving and looked past her, couldn’t meet her eyes while he said it, made Claire sure she understood.
She said, “She was always getting herself into trouble with men,” and then immediately she regretted it. What did she think she meant by that? She said, “Was she badly hurt?”
“Her body was still healthy, if that’s what you mean. There was no serious harm to her body.”
“And now?”
“It’s been over a year, hasn’t it,” he said.
“Where is she? A boy sent word,” she said, and she recited those words she had memorized. Disappeared due to an unfortunate event. This new land is wild. “What am I to make of this?” she asked.
“Oh, Claire,” he said. He had lit the candles. In a moment he would leave her alone in that candlelit room and go out to the barn to tend the animals. Now he told her that she had to watch to not be seen in town. How much she looked like her sister, like her sister’s children—people might suspect something. He went to his desk and withdrew a stack of papers. He said, “I am writing the history of Middlewood. You’ll be interested to see this part.”
“You’ll forgive me,” she said. “Elspeth, if you will.”
He put the book down and looked straight past her, toward the window. He said, “Her Evan was a good boy.”
“I’m sure.”
“The mill owner,” he said. “I never knew the details. The boy said it was a mistake and I am inclined to believe him.”
“I have come a great distance,” Claire said again. “Tell me plainly.”
Mr. Bartlett pursed his lips and breathed carefully, in and out, in and out. He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them back up and looked into the fire as he said quietly, “It was the mill owner did that to your sister. Next her Evan killed the mill owner.” He looked quickly around the room after he said that, as though to make sure no one could hear, and then he added in a whisper, “Pushed him over the dam. I gave her a good
deal of my savings and I sent her family to my sister’s parish in the West.” Once more he took up the manuscript and pushed it toward Claire, but she held up her hands and urged him to continue with his story. He set the pages down again, rubbed his hands briskly together just as her own father always did, then rubbed his eyes deeply. Finally he said, “I have not heard from her.”
“And your sister? What does she say?”
“I can tell you where she lives. But she has not seen her.”
“Her husband? Her children?”
“None. Claire, I am so sorry.”
“I don’t know what that means, sir.”
“If there’s anything I can do.”
“You can help me find my sister,” she said.
“You understand this town thinks her dead. You understand there’s been a report of her death.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“Claire,” he said. Again he picked up the manuscript. “Just this one page,” he said. “It has my name on it, but it’s not true, I didn’t write it. It was your sister’s doing.”
“Sir,” she said, a bit harshly. “Sir, my eyes are tired. Read it aloud, if you will.”
Mr. Bartlett straightened the pages and his back. He cleared his throat. “January 19, 1852,” he began. “Cold Friday.” He stopped then, put the pages down, and said, “You understand I don’t know the truth. I deposited your sister at the station, you see. She had already written these pages, but I did not know it.”
“Mr. Bartlett,” Claire said gently.
“Forgive me,” he said. Once again he sat up straighter in his chair and took a deep breath, and then at last he began: