by Anne Groß
On a positive note, the experience had given him an opportunity to meet the army surgeon, the young Mr. George Russell, who had offered him a position as his aide. He’d still have to fight, a soldier is always a soldier, but it balanced things out a bit. He felt confident Mrs. Postlethwaite would approve. She never did like him fighting.
How he missed the Quiet Woman’s old cook. He’d never realized how much Mrs. Postlethwaite looked after him and now, without her in his corner, he felt unmoored. He missed her cooking, the large kitchen, the stool near the fireplace, a nice porter, aged and tapped just at the right time. He wondered if he’d ever have any of those comforts again. Mrs. Gillihan had a nice touch with her stews, but even she couldn’t hold a candle to Mrs. P., and anyway, she fed her husband first and Thomas was tired of crumbs and hand-outs. Old Mrs. P. never gave him what was left over. She gave him full thought. That was all a man needed: full thought. His chest felt squeezed with homesickness.
Up and down the beach, campfires were being lit, sending up the comforting smell of wood smoke and inviting companionship. Strains of a popular song could be heard at most of the camps: “For the guns they shall rattle, and the bullets they shall fly, afore they’ll drink little England dry. . .”
“Aye dry, aye dry me boys, aye dry,” his baritone rumbled softly. It was impossible not to join in the refrain, even if just singing for himself.
“Hey! How’s your head?”
Thomas looked up quickly. He was too surprised to think of anything to say. Elise had come seemingly out of nowhere, from the ocean itself perhaps. Her hair was damp, cheeks rosy and scrubbed. “You’ve bathed.”
“Uh, yeah, Thomas. I did.” His observation seemed to have amused her for some reason.
He looked behind her for the trail of her footprints, just to make sure she hadn’t come to him through a mystical pathway, and was almost disappointed to see her large feet had made craters in the sand along the edge of the surf all the way back to where their company was gathered.
“They may come, the frogs of France, but we’ll teach them a new-fashioned dance. . .”
There was something strangely grounding about being near the ocean, despite the shifting sands, rolling waves, and the agonizing days of illness they’d just spent on the ship. The ocean was eternal. Its vast space made him feel as though everything was lengthened and stretched; it made this moment with Elise feel suspended. She turned to look at the last glow of the setting sun and her damp hair was lifted in a sudden breeze to veil her face. Overhead, the evening stars were just beginning to emerge. The moon, a slivered crescent ascending, rested on her shoulder. Soon it would be a new moon—a night without light. Something about that thought made him tremble.
“Then drink, my boys, and ne’er give o’er, drink until you can’t drink no more. . .”
“Not a bad idea,” Elise said. She took a long drink from her canteen. “You sure your head’s okay?”
“I’ve got a right knot on my head, but it’s nothing time will not heal.” He took the canteen she offered and tipped it back. “It’s water!” Thomas spat, surprised. Then felt embarrassed when she laughed.
“No, it’s okay. I boiled it first. I never thought I’d say this, but I’m so glad to be able to drink water.”
The woman never made any sense. Why did he care if the water was boiled? She reached a hand to the bandage that wrapped around his head, but then dropped it, thinking better of touching him. “It’s strange to see you without all that hair hanging in your face.”
“Aye, now you can see I’m a monster.”
“I can see your eyes.” Her own green eyes were glittering like fresh leaves.
“Aye dry, aye dry me boys, aye dry,” they sang the refrain softly together, unable to resist the pull of the music, happy for the distraction.
“Why aren’t you with the others?” Elise asked. “Everyone loves your voice.”
“I’ve just come from seeing Mr. Russell. And anyway, no one likes my songs.”
“Your songs are all sad.”
“Everyone will be wanting to hear the sad ones soon enough, after the killing’s done.”
Elise’s smiling face turned somber at the reminder of the coming battles. “So, you going to help the doc? He asked me about you this afternoon.”
“I don’t know. Possibly, as long as I can still fight.” Thomas rolled his sore shoulders back and then quickly pulled his red jacket closed over his dingy shirt in embarrassment. He hadn’t enough money for laundry after paying to replenish his smoking habit. The thought of a fresh bag of tobacco made him pull his new clay pipe from his breast pocket. “Shall we walk back?”
Thomas had expected to share the smoke with her. She looked sorely tempted as he pressed a pinch of the leaf into the bowl. Instead, she turned her gaze further down the beach. “I kind of wanted to be by myself a little,” she said. “I think I’ll walk a bit longer. Listen to my own voice for a bit.”
“That’s all you listen to these days.” He was surprised at how disappointed he was at her rejection, and instantly regretted the bitterness of his words.
“You never hear a thing I say, so if I don’t listen, no one else will.”
“That’s unfair. I hear everything you say. That doesn’t mean I believe everything.” He started to push his hand through his hair and stopped just short of ripping off his bandage. He didn’t want to discuss her strange story. He didn’t want to even think about it. Not now. Not with the moon on her shoulder and the sunset in her hair.
“Why not? Why wouldn’t you believe me? You saw my running shoe. You said yourself it was the strangest thing you’d ever seen.”
“How am I to believe you’ve traveled through time on the basis of one shoe?”
“What about my accent? Everyone says I have a funny accent. Everyone’s always laughing at me.”
“You’re American! Of course you sound ridiculous.”
She stepped backwards. Her face clouded.
“Elise, wait. I did not mean—”
“No, forget it. Forget everything.”
“Come back to camp with me.” Thomas felt as though he was scrambling to catch a falling knife. “I’ll pack my pipe for you. You can hold onto it as long as you’d like. Just, don’t wander away. You need to stay close to the others, close to me. If Richard was. . .” he paused and looked towards the camp, as though Richard would be right there, which, of course, he wasn’t. “What I mean is, if Richard were looking after you the way he should, it would be different. I cannot protect you if you wander away.”
“I told you I could take care of myself.”
“Oh, aye. That’s why you’re walking straight south towards the French encampment.”
“Stop right there. You told me you wouldn’t be watching out for me anymore. Let’s keep it that way. I’m not sure I can handle your kind of protection—you’ve got a mean right hook.”
Her words nearly knocked the breath out of him. “Hitting you was the only thing I could think of to convince you stay in London. I’m sorry it came to that.” There were only three steps between them, but the distance felt immeasurable.
“Real convincing, Thomas. Your fist is full of logic. You going to hit me again? Maybe that’ll get me back in line.”
“No,” he whispered. “I’ll not hit you.”
She turned and ran. It shocked him how fast her legs could take her. He expected her to run herself out quickly, but instead she dropped her speed to a lope and kept going with her skirts hitched high above her knees. She looked comfortable, like she’d been running her entire life, like she was naturally made for long distances. He watched her until she became just a dot on the beach. And then he kept staring into the distance, hoping she’d come back.
CALÓ FLAMENCO
It felt good to run. Elise quickly fell into a rhythm, forgetting the reason for it. Letting her legs move in total freedom, she filled her lungs to capacity and gloried in her own strength. Unhindered, she ran until her tears
disappeared. When she finally slowed, she felt new again. She walked in circles to cool down, her annoying skirts lifted above her waist and tossed over her shoulder. How she missed wicking synthetic fabrics cut into small, skin tight garments.
Her awareness moved from the sound of her breath as it slowed, to the sounds surrounding her. Now a mile down the beach, the cacophony of the English Army had faded to a low hum, masked by the ever present sound of the surf—a steady beat to match her pounding heart. A chorus of insects added a whirring vibrato in a high soprano, shrill and even. Underlying all of it was a single melodic line that rolled like a mournful dirge in the distance. Elise dropped her skirt. Suddenly the stars seemed too bright. The slivered moon was a spotlight. She was not as alone as she’d thought.
Thirty feet or so from the edge of the beach, where the sand hardened over the tough, matted roots of marram grass, came the glow of campfire. She stepped closer. This music was different from the English ballads Elise was accustomed to, with clear periods at the ends of the sentences rather than lilting question marks. This music was declarative, argumentative. It invited a stomped foot and a tossed head.
Staying low under the cover of the arching grass, Elise crept closer to listen while silhouettes passed in front of a great bonfire that burned in the middle of a clearing. A violin—you could never call an instrument that called forth such defiant music a fiddle—shot chills down her back. A guitar rolled chords with all the masculine posturing of a twirled moustache. As quiet as a breeze, she flitted past the horses penned in their corral and crouched in the shadow of a colorfully painted caravan.
The same man who had earlier sold her a straw hat was standing with his arms raised to the sky while a long undulating syllable of pain escaped a mouth so far open that it obscured the rest of his sharp features. He doubled over as he ran out of breath, as though kicked in the stomach. The guitar ran through a scale while he recovered. The small crowd surrounding him murmured encouragements. A log fell on the fire, sending sparks into the sky. Slowly, the man straightened again and the guitarist paused. He squeezed his eyes shut and the silence became as poignant as the music.
The people around the fire took a collective, sympathetic breath. Then one person began an irregular rhythm of clapping that everyone seemed to recognize. It was taken up by four others, each with a new pattern of claps that blended into a heartbeat you could feel in your neck. A single chord rolled from the guitar, producing a sound so saturated in anxiety that when the singer jerked his arms back in the air, Elise gasped. The clapping swelled over the song. The guitarist played a roving scale that tested boundaries. Elise crossed her legs on the dusty ground, leaned against the wheel of the caravan, and made herself comfortable. She wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon, she decided.
Like a call to prayer, the man’s song soared into the sky. His offered words weren’t caught by any god, however, and anguished and angered by the rejection, he stamped his foot and covered his face with his hands.
A disturbance rippled through the audience. People stood from their chairs, stepped aside, made way to clear a path. The violin and guitar were silenced, even as the rhythmic clapping carried on. A woman, hunched and leaning heavily on a cane, was encouraged to rise and advance towards the fire. She moved slowly but deliberately, helped along by extended hands. She shuffled into the center of the clearing and the clapping suddenly stopped.
The old woman drew up to the man and slowly raised her arms above her head, elbows first, while rotating her arthritic wrists in circles. Her shoulders pulled back, her chin lifted, her golden eyes sparked. She opened like a colorful paper fan. When the castanets clacked and fluttered against each of her palms, the guitar started again. “Calma, Avó. Cuidado,” the man said. “Gently, Nana. Be careful.”
The woman’s arms pushed powerfully back down at the earth, in defiance of her grandson’s admonishments. Then she stretched her arms out to embrace the world as her feet began to thrum a duet with her clicking castanets. Her tapping feet slowly carried her in a circle as she flicked her golden eyes over the audience. Elise wouldn’t have been surprised if they were all her children. She seemed to have captivated their attention. They called out encouragements, laughed, raised their clapping hands. Then the old woman snapped her head around and looked behind her, directly into Elise’s eyes.
If Elise could have made herself any smaller, she would have. She felt every spoke in the wheel of the caravan against her spine as she shrunk away from the woman’s powerful gaze. Her breath was sucked straight from her lungs. Her vision narrowed, edged black. Her body was unresponsive, frozen against her strong desire to run and hide. Elise breathed a sigh of relief when the man stepped between them, blocking the woman’s view.
The guitar sounded a trilling sequence of chords. The violin scraped an ascending scale. The woman returned to her dance as though the moment that had locked her to Elise had never happened. She moved as though the strength of her spirit usurped the sapping strength of an extended lifetime, but when the song ended, time was once again a valid force and the woman transformed back into a person sapped of strength, crumpling into her mortal body. The man seemed to anticipate his grandmother’s sudden frailty, and put a supportive hand to her humped back. “Calma, Avó,” he said again, as the small audience surged forward to surround the woman and draw her back into their midst.
Elise leaned her head back against the wheel and closed her eyes. The world swam behind her lids, an echoed sensation from weeks aboard the Valiant, and for once the feeling was comforting, like being rocked in a cradle. The music continued, but now it combined in her consciousness with the sound of the surf, just steps away. She felt her shoulders fall and was surprised that she had been holding them tightly near her ears. Briefly, she considered running back to camp to grab her blanket to spread on the beach somewhere closer to the caravan circle, halfway between where she ought to be and where she wanted to listen, but exhaustion kept her from moving. It had been such a long day.
In the warm light of the campfire, a beetle crawled towards her, threading its way through the grass. Its long legs seemed to struggle with the sand that rolled under its horned feet. It wildly waved navigating antennae, as though using them for balance. If you could call a fat green beetle beautiful, then it was beautiful. Its back reflected the starlight in a metallic sheen. Its wings, shooting out from under their casings every time its legs slipped in the sand, were rainbow-hued like a puddle on an oil soaked driveway. Elise’s heart raced. In London, the beetle had been black. She wasn’t sure if this was the same one, but hated to think there were now multiple bugs haunting her dreams. “You!” She pointed an accusatory finger at the lumbering beetle. “Send me home right this minute.”
Elise nervously pinched her lips between her teeth and waited as it continued towards her. It didn’t speak; it didn’t transform into the black-haired woman. It behaved like a bug, determinedly crawling over or under any obstacle. Elise scooted sideways out of its path. “Go away,” she hissed, suddenly wanting nothing to do with it. “Either send me back or leave me alone.”
Infuriatingly, the six legs kept rolling the wide insect forward, undeterred. When it was within arm’s reach, Elise leaned forward and flicked it with her thumb and middle finger. The contact made a surprisingly loud cracking noise. Briefly, a pang of guilt passed through Elise as it sailed through the air. It opened its wing casings at the last moment, like a doomed parachutist, and hit the ground heavily, four feet away.
Elise jerked awake with a sharp gasp and painfully hit the back of her head on the wagon wheel. Her entire field of view was taken up by the man who had been singing only moments before. He was leaning over her, his face fixed in a sly smile. “I remember you,” he said in Spanish. “You’re the woman who tried to give me a button for a hat.”
“English?” She was too tired to think in a foreign language.
He motioned for her to get up. “I don’t speak English. Why are you here?”
&nb
sp; “I just wanted to listen to the music, but I’ll go if I’m not welcome.”
The man hesitated, eyeing Elise with suspicion. In the light of the fire, the long dark curls that fell to his waist took on an auburn hue. He was thin and wiry, but there was no doubt he could do some damage if provoked. She hadn’t liked trying to stiff him, but a girl’s got to protect her complexion. “You got a good deal,” she reminded him. “Silk rope and a silver needle for a hat. It was a fair trade.”
“Thread,” he corrected her Spanish. “I took your thread. It was a fair trade, yes.” He smiled at her with the same unsettling golden eyes as his grandmother. “My avó sent me to bring you to her.”
Elise used the caravan to pull herself to her feet and ignored the helping hand he offered. As he led her across the center of the clearing, she knew everyone was looking at her. Conversation stopped. The music faded away, leaving an unpleasant tritone hanging in the air. A tight community was weighing the significance of her presence.
On the other side of the fire, away from the eye-stinging smoke, he gestured for her to draw closer to him. “Please, allow me to present my grandmother, Senhora Ineriqué.” The old woman gave a nearly imperceptable nod, just enough acknowledgement for Elise to feel sized up and shaken out. “And, I am Quidico Laetitia de Laroque. However, Quidico is sufficient.” The man swooped deeply in a formal bow, one foot forward, his right arm twirling as his long hair swept the ground.
Elise bobbed at Quidico in a quick curtsy, hoping it was enough. “I’m Elise Dubois. . .I mean. . .Ferrington.” Then she turned and curtsied at the old woman, too.
“Avó,” croaked the woman, pointing to herself. She was so curled forward with age that it looked as though only one single vertebra touched the wall of the caravan she was leaning against. It was hard to believe this was the same woman who had strutted out such a gracefully postured dance.