I thought sure and certain Mr. Lenox would find Frank and make him pay for what he did to his daughter, but Mr. Lenox never did a thing. Lu must’ve been too ashamed to tell him. I never mentioned it either, but Lu still hates me even though it wasn’t my fault. Frank is mean as spit. He thinks the people of Roubidoux are too soft on Mr. Lenox for treating his black daughters the same as if they were white.
I think Mr. Lenox is right to demand his daughters be treated with respect, but my trouble with him is that he’s determined to pull God into every conversation. Maybe God took it personally when Mr. Lenox quit the missionary business after his wife died, and now Mr. Lenox is afraid the Almighty will feel snubbed if he doesn’t dote on Him. God and I have never been on friendly terms, so it’s probably best if I stay out of it.
I scoop a handful of pebbles into my pocket and throw some at Effie’s window on the second floor, but nothing happens. I come closer and stand on my toes to look through the first floor windows, which are large and high just like the mirrors inside—Mr. Lenox put in a special order to St. Louis for them and they were brought in on the train to Rolla, where he has a general store. I remember the day Mr. Lenox brought the mirrors home on his wagon. As Henry helped him carry them inside, the glass reflected the blue heavens and white clouds above, so it looked like they were bringing great pieces of sky into the Lenox house. Everything they own is store-bought, even the soap. I shade my eyes against the glare and squint into the dark parlor.
I jump when I catch sight of a young woman with wild hair and large eyes staring at me through the opposite window across the parlor. She looks like a roving mad girl from a book … But then, sucking in my breath, I realize it’s just my own self, reflected in the hanging mirror.
“People say you’re witchy.” The voice behind me is creamy-sweet.
I whirl around so fast, I almost lose my balance.
Lu’s laughter sounds flat, like a broken little bell.
“Did Effie tell you I’m witchy?” My face turns warm. I don’t want Lu to see how much that would hurt me. I remember the wild-eyed mad girl reflected in the mirror. Is that how people see me?
She rolls her eyes. “Effie never tells me anything.” Lu glances at Stonefield’s pebble necklace around my neck and his feather in my button before gazing past my shoulder to her own reflection in the window. She smooths her black wavy hair that she’s put up in a bun like a grown-up woman, even though she’s only fifteen. “But Dora Hoss is full of interesting information.”
I snort. “Dora Hoss is full of bullshit.”
Lu blinks at me like she’s testing her eyelids to see if they work right. “Catrina Dickinson!” She says my name like Effie does, but with a cup less honey and a pinch more salt. “What an awful thing to say about the girl who’s going to be your sister-in-law. I’m astonished.”
My arms shake from wanting to slap her. “Does Effie know?”
“How could she? It just happened—I’ve only had time to tell a handful of people on my walk home. Your brother arrived at the Hoss place as I was leaving from a visit with Dora, and I heard the whole thing through the window of the front porch. Goodness, Catrina, you don’t need to scowl at me that way—it’s not like I was eavesdropping. Anyone would have heard what was going on. I’m not deaf, you know.”
“Where’s Effie?”
Lu sighs. “Effie, Effie, Effie. Heavens. How dull conversations can be when people keep harping on the same topic.” But as soon as she says it, she smiles, and I’m struck by the beauty of her perfect teeth and smooth dark skin. If her smile were real, she’d be as pretty as Effie. Lu’s voice turns thick with sweetness. “Catrina, I’ve been dying to hear about your mysterious Devil man. Do tell, before the curiosity kills me.”
“I didn’t come to rescue you from your curiosity, I came to see Effie.”
“You could tell me about him, and I’ll tell you all about the handsome preacher my papa picked up from the train depot in Rolla this morning. They’ve already put up signs over there for his tent meetings here in Roubidoux. The first one’s tomorrow. He sure is a powerful speaker. He talks so familiar-like about Hell, you’d think he was born and raised there.”
My hands tighten into fists. “Tell me where Effie is or I’ll—”
“Goodness gracious!” Her smile vanishes. “No need to be rude.” She fingers the locket at her neck.
Maybe her dead mother’s tintype is in there. The thought twists my heart and makes my fists loosen up. “I’m sorry,” I mumble. “But I need to see her about something important.”
“Oh!” Lu’s face brightens with interest. She glances up at the attic window. “I believe my sister’s locked herself in her lair, reading her horrid books. She’s been dull as dishwater since—”
“Thanks.” I turn and run to the back door of their house.
“Well!” she calls after me. “Why don’t you just go right in and make yourself at home!”
It’s been ages since I stepped inside the Lenox place. I’d forgotten how it smells of furniture polish and fresh-washed linens. Mirrors hang on all the walls, so as I run through the rooms, it looks like I’m racing a wild girl through the house. I run up the stairs to the little door leading to the attic steps, but my hand stops, frozen in the air above the doorknob. I want to rush right up and demand that Effie explain why she didn’t come when she said she would and ask what happened with Henry, but I know I shouldn’t because people always think it’s rude when I say things straight and plain.
I knock.
“Come in.”
I walk slowly up the steps and look around at the exposed rafters and the newsprint pasted on the walls for insulation. It’s warm up here and has the comforting smell of wood and dust. The light shining through the attic window falls on Effie, who’s sitting on a pile of pillows in a corner. She doesn’t turn to look at me, but keeps staring out the window at the sky.
I step closer. A thick book lies open on her lap, but it’s slipped to the side as if she’s forgotten all about it. Both pages show a diagram of a heart that’s been cut open, one half on each page, so the reader can see how it works inside. Every part is neatly labeled to explain its function.
“Effie.” I wish she’d look at me. “Why didn’t you come?” I didn’t mean to ask her that. I was going to wait and let her talk first, but I can’t help it—if I don’t speak, my heart might crack open like the diagram in Effie’s book, and all the little parts will stop working. “What’s wrong with Henry? Effie, why didn’t you come?”
She finally turns to me. She slides the book to the floor. “I couldn’t come over. It would have been unkind to Henry.”
“But he’s the one being an ass. He’s the one—”
“Henry asked me to marry him and I said no.”
“Oh, Effie.” My knees turn tired and I drop down next to her. “Why? You like Henry better than anybody. And when you’re around, he forgets to look at the clock or open the newspaper. After you leave, he always whistles the same song.”
Effie stares at the floorboards. Her voice turns so quiet, I can hardly hear her.
“What song?”
“‘Her Bright Smile Haunts Me Still.’”
Effie stands up and walks to the window so I can’t see her face when she talks. “I want to practice medicine, Catrina.”
“Like a doctor? But how? I thought doctor schools won’t allow you—”
“In the Congo, in my mother’s village. Father’s missionary friends say they can use my help and they’ve offered to take me with them next year. I’ll be finished tutoring Lu by then. This is my chance.”
I can’t imagine life without Effie. “I don’t want you to leave.”
“Catrina—”
“And what about Henry?” I’m grasping for a hold, but pebbles keep slipping through my fingers. “What if he joins the Union Army and goes off and gets himself killed? If you marry him, you could make him stay. He wouldn’t leave if you asked him not to—I just know it. You c
an’t go, Effie.”
She takes a deep breath and turns to me. “I love Henry,” she whispers. “More than I can say.”
My heart beats faster. “You do?” I never heard Effie talk about love. The thought that she could feel the same way about Henry as I feel about Stonefield makes something inside me flip over: my desire for her to stay here flips to the bottom of my heart and the desire for her to be happy and with the person she loves flips to the top.
She shakes her head. “But I don’t think I should marry him.”
“Why? Because your skin’s black and his isn’t?” I pick at a piece of brown newsprint curling off the wall. “Nobody gave your father much trouble for marrying your mother. Of course, he was in the Congo where they didn’t care so much as here. Well, I mean, certain, there was some damned fool talk here, Papa said, when they heard about it, but it always came to nothing.” I don’t say it always came to nothing because Mr. Lenox was so rich and a missionary to boot. No one dared cross a servant of the Lord who’d inherited his family’s money along with the mill and the general store off in Rolla. “You and Henry can just stay right here, safe in Roubidoux, and you’ll be fine.”
Not only had people in Roubidoux never even seen a person with black skin until Effie and Lu came back with Mr. Lenox from the mission field, we never saw much of anybody from anywhere. Still don’t, unless a person goes to Rolla, and the railroad line only stretched out that far last year. Papa said that when Mr. Lenox came back with his two motherless babies to collect his inheritance and build a fine house here in the hills and turn Roubidoux into a real town, everyone fell all over themselves to pretend they weren’t shocked at the color of his babies’ skin.
But sometimes people talk. Frank Louis is the loudest. His kin come from down south in Kentucky where he says Mr. Lenox would have been tarred and feathered for such a thing.
I rip the shred of newsprint off the wall and crumple it in my fist. “Well, who cares what people think anyway. If they say it’s not proper, they can all go to H—”
“We can’t get married here, Catrina. It’s impossible. You just don’t realize. You don’t even notice how people wrinkle up their noses when Henry talks so kindly to me or how they spit in the dirt at my feet when he turns to open the door for me. And if you heard about Frank Louis’s efforts to raise a boycott of my father’s store among the folks in Rolla last week, you’ve never said a word to me about it.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know—”
“You hide over in your woods and never see. You don’t care and you don’t pay attention to what’s going on all around you. There’s a war brewing about such things—the fate of people with skin like mine—ripping the country apart, for Heaven’s sake. And Lu and I are the lucky ones. Others have it so much worse. Sometimes I think you live in another world altogether. But Henry knows. He says we can take a trip somewhere to get married—out of the country if we have to, like my papa and mama were married. But if we came back to the States, there are plenty of people who would make it hard on us. Henry says he doesn’t care, but it would be dangerous.”
“Well, I’m with Henry.”
“But that’s not even the reason, Catrina.” Effie traces the veins of the heart in her book. “I think marrying Henry would be unfair to him. I’d always be longing for that part of me I gave away.”
“Effie, if he really loves you, he’ll go with you to the Congo—you won’t have to give anything away.”
“No, I’d never ask him to do that. He loves the farm and the life he’s worked so hard to make here. And I won’t stand in the way of him joining the Union Army. He told me he plans to enlist as soon as he solidifies arrangements for you and your father’s security.”
It’s true, then. My heart sinks.
“And, Cat, you must know how passionate he feels about the slavery problem and how he wants to be involved in the changes he hopes will come about because of this war. How could I stop him from fighting for the things he cares about and believes in? I—I love him for that. It would be as difficult for Henry to give any of that up as it would be for me to give up my own dream.”
Effie lays her hand over the picture of the heart and looks at me. “And, Catrina, I can’t give it up—it’s what makes me feel alive. Have you ever had something that burns inside you like a fire, or calls to you like a voice you can’t ignore or you’ll lose one of the most important parts of yourself?”
Her words take hold of me tight and shake me. I swallow hard. “Yes.” It comes out in a whisper. “I know what that feels like.”
She kneels down beside me. “Truly?” She takes my hand like she did at the supper table when she stood up for me and Stonefield.
It makes my whole body feel warm. I nod, wondering if I should say more. She’d never laugh or repeat what I say to anyone—I know it in my bones. I squeeze her hand. “Effie, I feel that way about being with Stonefield. Like my soul and his are twins. He helps me see who I am because he and I are like the same person. When we’re apart, it’s as if a piece of me is lost—just like you said.”
She tilts her head to one side. “What do you mean? You’ve only just met him.”
“But it’s as if we’ve known each other for ages. We’re the same, him and me. There’s something drawing us together. I can feel him pulling at me right now like I’m a compass needle being tugged north.”
“But, Catrina—”
“When we’re together, I sometimes hear his voice in my head, talking to me. And he can hear mine.”
Effie’s eyebrows wrinkle up. She bites her lip.
Oh Lord. My face turns hot and I yank my hand away. “I thought you’d understand. I shouldn’t have told you.”
“Catrina, it’s just that—”
A floorboard creaks on the steps.
Effie and I freeze and hold our breath.
Lu steps into the attic. She’s beaming like she just struck gold.
10
Effie and I stand at the same time. Effie picks up the book with the drawings of the open heart and carefully closes it. “How long have you been listening on the steps, Lu?”
“Listening?” Her eyes widen and her voice rises. “I just came up to tell you about the dance at the Hoss place, that’s all.”
“Damn.” I cross my arms and stare bullets into Lu.
Lu gasps at the word damn.
I wish I could climb out the attic window and fly away with Effie so she won’t have to hear what Lu’s about to say.
Effie hugs the book to her chest. “What dance?”
“Father says everyone’s invited to the Hoss place tonight. Preacher Preston’s already there, visiting. I’d say he’s probably the handsomest man in Missouri, wouldn’t you, Effie?”
Effie isn’t following Lu’s chatter and just stares at her with a blank face like she’s speaking another language.
Lu teeters up and down on her toes as she talks and clasps her hands together like she might burst apart. “There’ll be music and dancing!” She glances at me. “You can ride over with us, Catrina.”
“I’m not going. I want to go home.” To Stonefield. I think of our little round house of rocks with the floor of petals.
“You have to come to the dance, Catrina. Your papa and Henry will meet us there. Maybe they’ll bring your Devil man, too! You all have to attend on account of your family being the guests of honor.”
Effie looks up, puzzled. “Why are the Dickinsons the guests of honor at the Hosses’ dance?”
“Oh, didn’t Catrina tell you?” Lu does the blinking thing again. “Henry just got engaged to Dora Hoss!”
Effie keeps staring straight ahead, but her eyes stop focusing. It’s like she’s looking at something that we can’t see. “Oh.” Her voice sounds far away. She frowns at the floor. “Lu, go on and get ready. We’ll be along in a minute.”
“But what about Catrina?” Lu stares at my shirt and my pants. “Shouldn’t I find her one of your dresses to wear?”
E
ffie doesn’t even glance up.
I wave Lu away. “Leave us alone.”
Lu wrinkles her nose. “You can’t wear a shirt and pants to a dance! And certainly not men’s boots.”
“I guess I’ll go naked, then. And barefoot.” I pull off a boot and fling it at her.
Lu yelps as it grazes her skirts.
I take off the other boot and rear back, ready to throw it, but Lu squeaks, turns, and clops down the steps.
I drop the boot and look at Effie. I want to wrap my arms around her and push away Lu’s words. I reach for her, but she walks quietly to the window and sets her book on the sill.
“Henry and Dora.” She says it firm, like she’s certain it must be the correct answer to a question. Effie likes there to be a right answer for everything. I imagine her trying to make it true in her mind that Henry and Dora belong together.
She stands up straighter. “It’s good that Henry has someone by his side.” She nods to herself. “He needs a helpmate, a partner, and he deserves to be happy.”
“How can you say that, Effie? You’re the one he loves, and you love him.”
But Effie just crosses her arms over her chest. I wish she’d swear or throw something, but she just stands there quiet and still.
I push my boot away with my foot. “Effie, you don’t have to go to that stupid dance, you know. Just stay here in the attic where it’s nice and quiet and read your book. That’s what I’d do.”
“No.” She shakes her head. “I’m going.”
“Well, you can leave the Hoss place whenever you want. No one can tell you what to do. You’re a strong person. You don’t need those people, Effie.”
She lifts her chin, and I can tell she’s going to say that I’m wrong and she’s right. “Of course I need them. We all need each other. Even you, Catrina. You may ignore people and run away when it suits you, but I won’t.” She stares at me steady. “I’m no coward.”
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