by Rita Woods
He turned to her and cocked his head. “You mockin’ me, Abigail?”
Another harsh burst of laughter. Mother Abigail could feel hysteria bubbling up in her chest and struggled to restrain it. “Wi, old man,” she said. “Wi, I am mocking you. You speak foolishness, what you expect, then? It’s bad in the world. Psssh, you can’t do better than that? Then I might as well go up pasture and talk to the sheep.”
The old man grinned.
“You need to stand it now,” said Josiah, his face serious again. “Remembrance wasn’t never the war. It was just a long, pretty well done battle.”
Mother Abigail moaned.
“The girl’s alive but she scared … confused,” he said.
The old woman inhaled sharply, nearly collapsing again in her relief. “But she lives?”
The old man nodded.
“And Louisa?”
Josiah sighed and shrugged. “You know I got no way of knowing that. She walks a different road than we.”
“But if they’re together … if Winter’s with her…?”
“Abigail!”
She struggled to stand and there was a trembling in her arm she couldn’t control. “Take me to the clearing.”
“What? Why?”
“I need to go there. Josiah, I need to see.”
He was silent for a long moment. “Alright. But you must speak to the people first. Let them see you.”
She moaned. “What good will that do? I have nothing for them.”
He said nothing, merely held out an arm. With a sigh, she took it, and slowly they began to make their way down the trail to the Central Fire, stopping every few yards for the priestess to catch her breath.
“The Edge, it was a good trick,” he said.
“No trick,” she snapped, interrupting.
He smiled grimly. “No. No trick,” he agreed. “You Babalawa. But the Edge ain’t all you ever was. Ain’t all Remembrance was.”
“Babalawa,” she whispered.
He nodded. “Remembrance done lasted, what, forty-some-odd years? More? But don’t nothin’ last forever.” His face crumpled, his expression pure sorrow. “Not even this.”
They walked together arm and arm, in silence, each lost in their own thoughts
“These your folks,” Josiah said finally. “Ain’t nothin’ over ’til it’s over. Got pieces to pick up, so best be gettin’ on with it.”
“You soft in the head, Josiah,” she growled.
He grimaced. “Soft head make a hard behind. Useful in bad times, I ’spect.”
“But what about my girl? What about Louisa? We need to go after them.”
He fixed her with his opaque eyes for a long moment. He stood straighter, the gray strands in his hair fewer now. She felt power so much greater than her own, so much older.
“She one of us,” he said, his voice low. “Can’t go after her, but if she strong enough, she will find her way back. If not…”
He let the thought hang in the air between them.
The priestess bowed her head, trembling slightly. She had lost so much, and after all this time, she had thought she’d had nothing left to lose.
Moun sot! Fool!
In her mind’s eye, she saw her heart, a hard, black, shriveled thing, nothing left to break because there was no longer anything inside. Her mouth stretched wide, a caricature of a smile. Perhaps she was dead after all.
35
Margot
Margot walked unsteadily from the priestess’s porch. From the moment her fingers had touched the old woman’s face, things had gone badly awry. She was not a healer. Not like Louisa, like Grandmere. She was a miroir, a mirror. She could find but not fix. And sometimes in those reflections, as she felt the vibrations of another’s pain and sickness in her own body, she also glimpsed their memories. Fragments, bits and pieces, the things that resonated the most strongly for the other person.
She’d felt the sickness in Mother Abigail to be sure, the broken blood vessel in her head, the pool of blood that was squeezing the old woman’s brain inside her skull. She’d felt that eerie slide into the other woman’s mind, into Mother Abigail’s memories.
But almost immediately she’d felt everything snatched from her control. There hadn’t just been fragments. There’d been an infinite space, black and hot, and she’d felt a surge of overwhelming despair. She’d tasted death before and this was much, much worse. When she’d tried to pull away, to sever the bond, it was as if somehow the old woman had reached out and into her mind and was clinging to her with everything she had. She had been trapped, a fly stuck in pitch.
Now she was in Mother Abigail’s front yard with no memory of leaving the cabin.
Margot staggered, fell to her knees. Her hands were shaking badly. A memory tickled the edge of her consciousness. Something about Julian Rousse and his mother. About Natchez. She moaned and dug her fingers into the damp earth.
Ajani!
The name came into her mind. She was sure it was a name, and the thought of it touched some deep, sad place in her.
Images flashed in front of her. Tall mountains of emerald green rising from impossibly blue water. A handsome man, the color of milk chocolate, a ring of fire at his feet. Two round-faced boys, chasing each other around an old woman who sat smoking a homemade pipe and ignoring them.
Pain.
So much pain.
She had no idea how much time passed before she tried to stand.
She managed to get to her feet, felt her knees buckle. She would have pitched onto her face if strong hands hadn’t caught her from behind.
“Steady there, girl! You okay?” David Henry wrapped a firm arm around her waist. “Sweet Jesus, you cold as death. Let’s get you to a fire.”
He guided her down the short hill to the Central Fire and settled her on one of the sitting logs.
“You hold up right here and don’t move. I’m-a get you somethin’ hot to drink,” he said kindly. “You look like you could stand some fortifyin’.”
He was gone and back before Margot could open her mouth to protest. He placed a cup in her hand, then propped himself on the opposite end of the log. Margot inhaled the steam from the cup. She took a sip and sighed. The sweetness worked its way into her head, clearing her thoughts.
David Henry chuckled. “Apple tea. Good, ain’t it?” he said. “One of Remembrance’s specialties.”
“Remembrance appears to have quite a few more than one,” she said dryly.
“Mm-hm,” he said. “That’s surely so.” He flashed her a quick smile. He had a nice smile.
“This tea is wonderful,” she said after a moment. “It is what you … fortify with as well?”
David Henry nodded. “It’s good enough for me. I might have me a shot at New Year’s but I ain’t much of a drinkin’ man. Need to keep the little wits I got about me.”
She studied him over the rim of her cup. He had a wide face, smooth, the color of a molasses cookie. He wore his hair short, much shorter than the other men in the settlement. He had a tiny dimple in his chin. She decided that she liked the look of him: clean and compact, strong looking.
“You have been in Remembrance long?” she asked.
“Nearly three years,” he said. As he spoke, his eyes darted around the settlement, studying the shadows, the trees, the trails that ringed Remembrance. His rifle rested lightly in the crook of his arm.
“When I first got here, I thought folks were havin’ a laugh at my expense,” he said smiling. “All this talk about some Edge and different worlds and all such.”
He shrugged and shifted his gun. “Even after I saw it for myself I thought it was the craziest thing I ever heard of.”
“And now?” she asked.
“It’s still the craziest thing I ever heard of.” He laughed. “But what the heck, beggin’ your pardon. I can live with crazy long as I’m a free man, can’t I?”
“I suppose.” Margot dropped her head in her hands and leaned closer to the fire. A headache
was starting to build behind her eyes. She thought about returning to her lean-to but she didn’t want to leave the fire just yet, didn’t want to leave David Henry’s company.
“I like the way you talk,” said David Henry.
Margot raised her head and laughed, surprising herself. “You do not think I talk funny?”
He frowned.
“Les enfants, the little girls,” she said quickly. “Esther and Hannah, oui? They say I speak funny.”
He smiled. “Ah. Them. Different as day and night. Hannah the little quiet one.”
“Yes,” said Margot. “She has declared you her beau.”
David Henry blinked, then roared with laughter. “So I guess we best be careful, lest we make Little Miss jealous. And that Esther. She liable to say most anything. Ain’t scared a’ nothin’ in this world.”
A cloud passed over his face. “Least she wasn’t before,” he added quietly.
“Oui.”
They sat in comfortable silence. The heat from the fire and the fragrant tea lulled her, and Margot found herself sliding toward that in-between place, between awake and asleep. It was eerily quiet. Except for the two of them, no one was around.
“You look tired. I’ll walk you to your place.”
His voice roused her and she turned her head to find him gazing at her, studying her. She found she didn’t mind.
“Your men are guarding Remembrance?” she asked after a moment.
David Henry raised an eyebrow. “They not my men but … yes. They watchin’ out. Best they can. They not fightin’ men but they will fight if need be.”
“Most likely they will not come back here, you know. Those slavers,” she said. Her headache had found its footing, and the pounding behind her eyes was making her nauseous. She needed to lie down.
He made a noise in the back of his throat, skeptical.
“You made them pay too dearly,” she said. “They will move back south. For more … pliable prey.”
“They paid not dearly enough. And in the meantime they took what don’t belong to ’em.” His voice was quiet, measured, belying the ferocity of the words.
Margot examined his face closely. His every movement was deliberate, nothing wasted. Once again, she found herself drawn to him, felt that fluttering behind her breastbone she’d first noticed at the cemetery. “And you will go after them, yes?”
“There ain’t agreement. Most feel we need to stay put and be at the ready should the pattyrollers come back.” He pulled a sliver of wood from his shirt pocket and stuck it between his teeth. “Just in case.”
“But you will go after them?” she pressed. “Winter and Louisa?”
He chewed on his sliver and shrugged. “Might’n not be no call for me to stick around here waitin’.” He grinned. “Some folks around Remembrance think there ain’t no danger of the ’rollers comin’ back.”
Margot laughed softly. It felt good to laugh. “And do you believe this?”
He gazed at her evenly, one eyebrow raised. “Could be. Never know.”
She yawned. “Oh, pardonnez-moi.”
“Come on, now,” said David Henry quietly. “It’s late and you ’bout wore to nothin’.”
He helped her to her feet and she staggered as a wave of dizziness overtook her. He tightened his grip and gently led her toward the trail that curved behind the bakehouse.
“You saw her?” he asked as they walked.
Margot nodded. He was talking about Mother Abigail.
“And she is…?”
“She is alive.” The relief on his face pained her.
“She is very old,” she said gently.
“She old,” he said hotly, “but she the heart of this place.”
Margot shook her head. “Let us hope not,” she murmured. She pretended not to see the sharp look he gave her. Once again, she stumbled, and for a moment, Remembrance seemed to pitch beneath her feet.
“I am quite fine,” she said in answer to his question, but she gripped his arm firmly as he led her toward her lean-to.
At the entrance to the shelter she held fast to him and met his eyes. He was shorter than she was by half a head. “I fear the Edge has fallen. And your Mother Abigail is too weak to defend Remembrance.”
He tucked a heated brick he’d brought back from the Central Fire just behind the lean-to’s covering and turned to face her. “You think it matters a whit to me whether I be in the world or out? Remembrance in here.” He patted his chest with the palm of his hand. “Mother Abigail done for us; now the time done come for us to do for her … and us. We’ll defend ourselves. Ain’t no point of freedom if you not ready to fight for it, is there?”
He indicated the unseen men hidden in the trees surrounding the settlement. She nodded at hearing the echo of Petal’s words.
She placed her hand over his heart. He started but did not pull away. Closing her eyes, she felt his life thrum against her palm, sure and steady. He was a solid man and strong. She forced her own heart to his rhythm, felt his surprise as he sensed the change in himself. And still she held to him.
Unlike the old priestess who clung to her life through force of will, David Henry was vital, and his energy filled her up, soothed the ache she felt from somewhere deep inside.
This was the future of Remembrance, she thought.
He touched her wrist and she jerked, startled. When she opened her eyes, she found him staring at her, an expression of bemused bewilderment written on his face.
“You are going after Winter and Louisa, oui?” she asked for the second time that night.
He glanced at his own hand holding her wrist. Almost as if by accident, he rubbed his thumb over the soft skin there, then released her. He took a step back. “I swore, once I got my freedom, that as long as I drew breath, wouldn’t nobody take what belonged to me ever again. Remembrance belongs to me, and those girls belong to Remembrance.”
Margot nodded. “Yes,” she said quietly.
David Henry touched his brow in a half salute, then turned away as she bent to the lean-to.
“Miss Margot?”
She straightened to find David Henry returned, standing just behind her. He pressed something into her hand.
“In case the talk be wrong … about the pattyrollers comin’ back.”
He grinned, then turned and strode between the lean-tos before seeming to vanish into the woods. Opening her hand, she gazed down at what he had given her. In her palm lay a small knife, its wooden shaft intricately carved, the blade very sharp, and very deadly.
36
Winter
A crack of thunder jolted her awake. She had no idea how long she’d slept but her neck felt broken in two. Winter pulled herself upright, hissing in pain. She squinted toward where Louisa lay. In the dimness, she could only just make out a motionless lump.
Dragging herself to her feet, she limped back and forth, trying to force circulation back into her screaming muscles. She tugged the remnants of her cloak around her shoulders, surprised that she still had it. She was cold, and her skin itched from the bites of whatever was living in the damp straw.
“Louisa,” she whispered. There was no answer. “Louisa?”
A terrible thought came to her. What if Louisa had died while she slept? Then she really would be all alone. Panicked tears pricked her eyes.
Before she could work up the courage to move closer to the silent figure, the barn door creaked open and in walked Dix, carrying a tray. He placed it on the floor, careful to stay just beyond her reach, then without a word, turned to leave.
“Wait!” She saw him start and forced herself to speak calmly. “It’s freezing in here. Without extra blankets … or something to build a fire, we’re not going to last long enough to get to … wherever it is you’re taking us.”
The boy stood in front of the half-open door, his back to her. In the dancing shadows of his lantern, she could see that he, too, was suffering from the cold. His breath formed a cloud above his head, and beneath his wet,
threadbare overcoat, he was shivering. He turned slowly and faced her.
“I brung supper,” he said.
Winter glanced at the tray.
“Ain’t much,” he went on. “Some boiled ’taters and biscuits. Got a bit a’ mushroom catsup for taste and some hot coffee. Nothin’ fancy but it’s edible.” He tried to smile. “Just barely.”
Winter nodded and pulled the tray toward her. Steam from the potatoes warmed her face. Her stomach growled and her resolve to never eat again disappeared.
“Should be enough for her, too,” said Dix, indicating Louisa. He stepped closer and frowned. “She seems to be doin’ poorly.”
Winter rolled her eyes and bit back a retort. Anger burned like an ember in her gut, but she tamped it down. She was caught, and there was no point in getting the boy stirred up again the way she had earlier. It would do her no good. She needed to stay calm, to think. And she needed to stay clear of the two slaver brothers.
“The cold’s not helping much,” she said evenly.
“No, don’t suppose so,” replied Dix. “Colm and Frank’s already riled. Things going the way they been. Don’t ’spect her dyin’ll improve their disposition none. I’ll see about gettin’ something to help warm y’all a bit in here. She gonna be needin’ anything else to put her right?”
Winter shrugged. How should she know? Louisa was the healer. Shooting him a look, her eyes widened when she saw that there was more new bruising starting to form around his neck, just above the collar. He saw her staring and looked away. Still, he lingered.
“You not gonna eat your supper?”
Winter looked down. There were two wooden bowls, each containing three small potatoes not much bigger than her thumb, covered in a lumpy brown sauce. The two flat hardtack biscuits were like iron. It was a meager meal for one, let alone two, but it was warm and would patch, if not fill, the hole in her belly. She picked up one of the biscuits and pushed it into the catsup. While she waited for it to soften, she self-consciously ate a potato and drank the weak coffee.
The warm food steadied her, and the muscles in her arms and legs began to unknot. A gust of wind shook the barn violently, and both Dix and Winter froze, listening as the storm outside built in intensity.