Once in a Blue Moon

by Kathryn Kelly

  Augustus turned, noticing first that the clock was silent.

  Then he saw Arabella, her face smeared with blood.

  Chapter 28

  Arabella had never been so glad to see someone as she was to see Augustus coming toward her.

  After a cursory examination of her face, he pulled her to him in a hug. Tucking her head beneath his chin, he cupped the back of her head, holding her close as she trembled in his arms. “This is too real,” she murmured.

  “Much too real.” His voice was soft against her ear.

  “It’s not a reenactment.”

  There was more gunfire in the distance. A dog barked somewhere outside. “No.” He shifted to study her face again. “You’re hurt.”

  She shook her head. “It’s just a scratch.”

  “It’s bleeding. Let me clean you up.”

  “The boy.” She turned her gaze toward the stairway. “Help him.”

  “You’ll stay here for a few minutes?”

  She nodded.

  “I’ll come back for you.”

  After he left her to tend the boy, Arabella took stock of her injuries. He’d been right. She was bleeding. Fortunately, the sight of her own blood no longer bothered her. She lifted the hem of her skirt to wipe the blood from her cheek, then wiped the blood from her hands.

  She could no longer hear the gunfire and the people in the house were moving about now, cleaning up.

  Arabella walked around to the front of the clock that had saved her life, her boots crunching on bits of glass on the floor. The glass came from the shattered front door of the clock. She pressed her fingers against the clock’s face.

  Against the jagged rip between the numerals six and seven.

  The rip that had not been there earlier in the day.

  The rip that had been there when she first saw the clock.

  She gripped the edge of the clock, then slid her hand down the cool wood as she dropped to the floor.

  This was no reenactment. No Folie a deux.

  This was real. Much too real.

  Chapter 29

  Augustus checked the boy’s leg. He was going to be all right. The bullet had merely grazed him and lodged itself in the wall. He would bandage the boy up, insist he get bed rest, and get back to Arabella.

  He found her sitting in a chair talking with Granger. He held back, listening. He’d expected Granger to be comforting her, but instead, he found the opposite.

  “Please tell me you’re joking.” Arabella’s expression was a mixture of shock and skepticism. “I’ve never heard of anyone having sixteen siblings.”

  Granger laughed. “Yes ma’am. There are seventeen of us.”

  “Surely you must have different mothers.”

  “Nope.” Granger appeared to be enjoying the attention a little too much. “My mother gave birth to all seventeen of us right there in her bedroom. We all have the same father, too.”

  Arabella hid a smile behind her hand. “Where do you all sleep?”

  “Us boys, we sleep in the barn. There’s nine of us. The eight girls, well… they sleep in the attic.”

  “My goodness. Your parents have a lot of mouths to feed.”

  “We grow our own food.” Granger’s face sobered. “But since the war, I fear for the women-folk.”

  “I can only imagine it must be difficult to be so far away from your loved ones.”

  Granger wiped at his nose and turned his head away. “I’m worried about my little sisters and my mother.”

  “You feel helpless being so far away from them.”

  Granger’s shoulders shook.

  Granger was crying? It was a rare thing to see a soldier cry. He’d seen soldiers have bullet wounds removed – with no chloroform – and never make a whimper. His soldiers needed to be strong and to show no signs of weakness.

  He chose the moment of silence to step forward, clearing his throat. “Miss Arabella. I should tend to your wound now.”

  “Oh.” She wiped at her cheek. “I’d forgotten about it.”

  Granger swiped his face on his sleeve and lifted his head, shifting to sit up straight. Other than a bit of redness around his eyes, any sign of weakness was gone.

  “How’s the ankle?”

  “Good, Sir. I’m ready for duty whenever you say.”

  “Stay off of it.” Augustus knelt next to Arabella and ran a thumb over her cheek. “Does it hurt?”

  She shook her head.

  Augustus stopped a young black woman on her way by. “Would you get a basin with some hot water? And a cloth?”

  “Of course, Sir.” The girl dashed off.

  “You were very lucky.”

  “I don’t feel very lucky right now.”

  “Did you fall?” Augustus took her hands and turned them palms up, examined them. “When the bullet hit?”

  “No. It felt more like a bee sting than anything else.”

  The girl returned with a basin of water. Augustus squeezed the water from the cloth and gently wiped away the already dried blood on her cheek.

  “I must look a sight,” Arabella commented, seeing the water turn red when he cleansed the cloth and started over.

  “You look beautiful.”

  Arabella smiled. Charming, chivalrous men of the… south.

  Chapter 30

  For a woman who denied any propensity for swooning, Arabella fainted more than any woman he’d ever met. And that included all his sisters’ silly friends, who swooned whenever a handsome man came near them.

  Arabella did not seem like that swooning type and surely she didn’t find him so handsome as to feign swooning for his attention. No. She wasn’t that type either.

  Yet she’d passed out in his arms.

  Again.

  Granger was on his feet and at their side less than a second after it happened. “Can I help?”

  “No.” Augustus snapped. “But I need your couch.”

  “Of course.” Granger limped aside and made room for Augustus to pass, his arms full of woman and skirts.

  He settled her on the sofa and gently patted her cheeks. “Arabella. Arabella. Wake up.” He untied the ribbon from beneath her chin and removed her hat. She blinked and looked around, confused.

  “What happened?”

  “You fainted.” He tossed the hat onto the nearest chair.

  She put her hands over her face, glanced at Granger, who was hovering at her feet, then turned her green eyes to his. “It’s the heat.”

  Augustus didn’t doubt that the heat had been the cause of her fainting. “You’re wearing too many clothes.”

  “I know.” She readily agreed.

  Augustus had expected her to disagree. To point out the impropriety of the remark. Instead, she leaned toward him. “Can I talk to you in private?”

  “Of course.” Without looking at him, Augustus told Granger to go outside.

  “But, Sir. You told me to stay off my feet.”

  “Yes, well.” He looked at the soldier who couldn’t take his eyes off Arabella. “Go outside and put your feet up.”

  “Yes sir.” Granger stood up and limped toward the front door.

  “We could have moved.” Arabella suggested.

  Augustus shrugged. “It’s easier if he goes.”

  “He needs a bath.”

  Augustus waited a beat, then when her words sank in, he burst into laughter. “I agree. We all need a bath.”

  “He’s worse.”

  Augustus wasn’t sure if that was a way of her telling him that he, too, needed a bath, but if it was, he couldn’t disagree. “Is that why you wanted to speak to me privately? To tell me that we all need baths?”

  She smiled then.

  She smiled and his heart went into a dangerously fast pace. He’d already thought her beautiful, but when she smiled, her face lit up and her already unsurpassed beauty increased tenfold.

  “I need you to speak truthfully to me.”

  “I’ve never spoken anything other than the truth to you
.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him, but continued. “I need you to take away all the reenactments or… unusual believes and speak frankly with me. As truthfully as you would if we met on the street in New York.”

  Augustus didn’t see what New York had to do with anything, but he would have told Arabella anything. “You have my word.”

  “And your word is good?”

  “Of course. May I?” He indicated the edge of the couch.

  She moved aside and allowed him to perch on the edge of the couch next to her.

  “You mustn’t tell anyone about our conversation.”

  “Again. You have my word.”

  She nodded then glanced around. The room had emptied but she kept her voice at a whisper nonetheless. “What year is this?”

  “1863.”

  She nodded slowly. “And you’d tell me that even if we weren’t here. If we were somewhere else? Someplace normal?”

  He shrugged. What did she mean by normal? “I don’t think the year would change no matter where we found ourselves.”

  She took a deep breath. She told him earlier that it was 2018. Was she still harboring that belief?

  “For me, the year has changed.”

  Augustus braced himself.

  Chapter 31

  Arabella knew in her heart that she had somehow stepped into another time.

  Everything was different. The air felt different. It was quiet. She hadn’t heard an airplane or a vehicle or anything even remotely tied to her life since since she’d awoke on this couch.

  She was in 1863.

  Right in the middle of the Civil War.

  Her first impulse had been to tell Augustus. To convince him that she was from the future.

  But as she looked at him, his expression one of innocent expectation, she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t shatter his belief that she was simply a southerner just like him trying to make it through to the end of the war. The war that was destined to go on for another two long years. A war that would be fought for naught. A war that would be all but forgotten in one hundred fifty years.

  “It’s nothing.” She smiled. “A mere flight of fancy.”

  “You don’t seem prone.”

  He was unexpectedly perceptive. And he was right. She wasn’t prone. “It’s the heat.”

  He seemed to consider the possibility. “It could be. And…” He nodded toward her voluminous skirts. “You’re wearing a lot more clothes than you were this morning.”

  Picturing her jeans and tee-shirt, she felt her skin flushing. I won’t faint again. I will not faint again in front of this man.

  “I’m not sure which outfit I like better.” There was a teasing tone to his voice. “Although this one is more feminine, the other revealed more feminine curves.”

  She chuckled. “I don’t think you’re supposed to say that.”

  “I know I’m not. But you know it’s true.”

  She shrugged. “What are you going to do now?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Now that your men have run off the Yankees.” She said the words as matter of factly as she could even though they sounded strange to her own ears.

  “We’ll regroup.” He didn’t seem to find anything strange about their conversation. “Then we’ll continue on as we had planned.”

  “And what is it that you had planned?”

  “We’ll proceed to Vicksburg.”

  Vicksburg. 1863. “No,” she uttered.

  “We must. General Pemberton has requested our help.”

  She put a hand on his. “Augustus.” She looked deep into his blue eyes. “Don’t do it. Don’t go to Vicksburg.”

  “Why not?”

  Chapter 32

  “Sir. A messenger brought you a letter.”

  Augustus was forced to turn his attention from Arabella. Another messenger. This couldn’t be a good sign.

  A young black man he didn’t recall seeing before stepped forward when Augustus stood and turned toward him. “Is he still here?”

  “No sir. He was on his way to the post in Vicksburg.” The man peeked around Augustus at Arabella.

  Augustus shifted to block his view as he held out his hand. The boy stepped forward and placed the letter in his hand.

  “Thank you.”

  “My pleasure, Sir.”

  Augustus took the letter and sat in the chair that Granger had vacated. Arabella silently watched him.

  Augustus opened the letter with great trepidation in his heart.

  Dear Augustus,

  It is with a heavy heart that I write this letter to you as I know that you were stout friends during the Battle of Manassas. Thomas Jackson was mistakenly shot by his own men on May 2, 1863 and subsequently died eight days later on May 10, 1863.

  Augustus stopped reading and let his hand clutching the paper, drop to his side.

  “Have you received bad news?” Arabella’s voice jarred him out of his shock.

  “Yes.”

  “Your family?”

  “No.” Augustus shook his head. “A dear friend.” He looked into her eyes. “Another good man lost in battle.”

  “Too many.”

  “Yes. Too many.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No.” Augustus leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. “He was one of the best.”

  “What was his name?”

  “Jackson.”

  He heard her quiet gasp. “Stonewall Jackson.”

  He opened his eyes and looked at her. “Yes. How did you know?”

  She hesitated. “Everyone knows him.”

  Chapter 33

  Arabella took a deep breath. She knew too much. And none of it was good. Still. It would do no good to panic.

  History was unfolding before her eyes, but there was nothing she could do to change it. It flowed like a river. Taking its course where it would. Any influence she might attempt would merely be washed away like grains of sand and carried along with the flow.

  “You knew him?” She stepped into her role as psychologist like stepping into her favorite pair of sweatpants after a long day at work. It came naturally without thought.

  Yet he was talking about Stonewall Jackson. One of the most famous men in American history. She wouldn’t have been an all-American southern girl if she hadn’t had a hitch in her reaction.

  “Yes. We fought together at Manassas.”

  “The Battle of Bull Run.” She was stalling, trying to get her bearings. “That was a couple of years ago, right?”

  “That’s correct.”

  He rubbed at his eyes and she felt a need to go to him. To comfort him. How many people had she walked through a crisis?

  Unable to sort out why this felt different, she sat and quietly waited for him to say more.

  “He always managed to have fresh fruit with him.”

  “Fruit?” It would normally be an odd thing to remember about someone, but maybe not so much in the 1800’s.

  “Yes. His favorite was lemons.”

  She nodded. Allowed him time to process. Lemons. Not something that was in the history books. “Can I help?”

  He turned and looked into her eyes. “Yes.”

  Chapter 34

  Augustus almost laughed out loud as he watched Arabella’s eyes widen. He wondered what thoughts were going on in her head.

  Other than her eyes, she showed little expression.

  He held out the letter to her. “Would you read this letter out loud to me?” He told himself that it was too painful to read himself, but he knew that he really just wanted to hear her voice.

  She took the letter and studied it.

  “You can read? I assumed.” He felt a surge of panic. If she couldn’t read, then he’d just put her in an awkward position.

  Glancing up at him beneath thick black lashes, she smiled. “The handwriting is difficult.”

  “If you can’t r
ead, I can read it myself. He held out a hand for the letter, but she ignored him. Instead, she started to read aloud.

  Dear Augustus,

  It is with a heavy heart that I write this letter to you as I know that you were stout friends during the Battle of Manassas. Thomas Jackson was mistakenly shot by his own men on May 2, 1863 and subsequently died eight days later on May 10, 1863.

  A bullet shattered his left arm and it had to be amputated. Pneumonia soon set in and he began to fade. I regret that you weren’t there. Perhaps he would have fared better. Though he lost his right arm, I lost my right hand.

  We must expect reverses, even defeats. They are sent to teach us wisdom and prudence, to call forth greater energies, and to prevent our falling into great disasters.

  Be wary my friend. And be safe.

  I thought you might want to know his last words. He said “Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees.”

  With great sadness.

  Yours truly,

  --Robert E. Lee

  Arabella’s voice faded as she read the signature. She spoke Robert E. Lee’s name reverently. When she raised her eyes, they were filled with unshed tears.

  Augustus allowed the pain of the loss of his friend to wash over him. It somehow seemed bearable with Arabella at his side.

  She had a calming presence unlike any he had ever encountered in a female.

  “You know Robert E. Lee?”

  He nodded. “Our families have been friends for years. We only encountered each other a couple of times socially due to distance, but we spoke at length a few months ago.”

  She carefully refolded the letter and handed it back to him. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

  The thickness in his throat returned and he looked away. He would grieve for his friend. Later. In his own way.

  Right now he needed to track down his soldiers.

  Chapter 35

  As Arabella watched Augustus walk away from her, she absorbed his sadness, put it in the little compartment that she reserved for patients, and squared her shoulders.