Uncharted Hope

by Keely Brooke Keith

  “Did you get everything?” he asked.

  A smiled tugged at her lips, surprising her considering she’d just committed her first felony. “I got everything I wanted.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Sophia stood on the cottage’s threshold and waved as the family left the property in the Colburns’ wagon. John drove with Lydia sitting beside him on the bench seat. Connor was perched on a crate in the open wagon bed, holding little Andrew on his lap. Andrew waved to Sophia, and she blew the baby a kiss. Connor showed him how to pretend to catch it and rub it on his cheek.

  Little Andrew’s sweetness kept Sophia smiling as she went back inside the medical office and closed the door. He had as big of a place in her heart as her niece and nephew. She had offered to babysit him while the others went to visit Levi and Mandy, but Lydia said it was time Andrew met his new cousin.

  Levi and Mandy had named their baby William Samuel Colburn. William after Levi’s middle name and Samuel after Mandy’s late father. The birth had been the first Sophia attended as Lydia’s assistant, and it had stirred her maternal desire, though not so strongly as to rush her into a phase of life she wasn’t ready for.

  After Nicholas’s promise of a slow courtship, she had the assurance he wouldn’t rush her either. His confidence in her had bolstered her own. Her heart once bled with doubt. Now the delight of anticipation took its place.

  Their first date—a picnic on the bluffs this coming Tuesday—was only three nights away. When had she become a woman who counted down? She chuckled. “Since Nicholas Vestal captured my heart with his kindness and strength—that’s when!”

  She struck a match and lit the lamp on Lydia’s desk as the sun began to set. Her open journal and a mind full of ideas about the gray leaf’s airborne substance beckoned her to write. In the days since capturing the shimmering particles, she and Lydia had filled six vials with the mysterious vapor. Lydia had successfully corked a full syringe, saying that would help them control its release when it came time to experiment. They were also working on streamlining the collection process and had set up a simpler contraption on the worktable.

  Finally, she had the time to write about the incredible discovery. There was so little they knew about the substance. Her discovery felt more like an opening than an ending to her research. She yearned for more answers. Would the vapor be medicinally beneficial? Might it be poisonous to humans? How did it refract the light, hiding objects directly beneath it?

  Even Connor hadn’t been able to answer that one.

  There was still much research to be done. Lydia had said Sophia’s quest for answers proved she was training for the right profession. God’s plan for you, she’d called it. Sophia could accept that, but she still felt unsuited to the medical portion of her position. Lydia said that too would work itself out.

  Though there were still a few more days before her scheduled evaluation, she was gaining confidence that her work with the gray leaf would solidify her position as Lydia’s assistant. The relief of knowing the upstairs rooms would likely be her home for as long as she wanted had compelled her to finally unpack.

  As Sophia pulled the chair from under the desk to sit, the roar of approaching hoofbeats and wagon wheels rumbled onto the property. Hopefully, it was the Colburns simply returning for something they had forgotten. Sophia needed this time to process her notes on the gray leaf vapor, but she was still on duty. She peeled back the gauzy curtain and looked out the window.

  Her brother-in-law, Hubert, was parking his wagon near the house. His flushed cheeks and widened eyes worried Sophia. She rushed outside to meet him. He was bent down, reaching in the wagon bed.

  “Hubert? Why are you here?” she asked before seeing what he was doing. He lifted Alice’s limp body from the wagon.

  Sophia’s heart surged into her throat. She sprang toward the wagon. “Alice!” Her sister’s arms dangled and her head lulled away from Hubert’s chest. Everything seemed to move and stand still all at once as the shock coursed through Sophia’s veins. “What happened?”

  “Get back!” Hubert ordered as he awkwardly carried Alice down from the wagon. “Alert the doctor! Quickly!”

  Sophia stayed a step ahead of Hubert and pushed the cottage door open wide. “Dr. Bradshaw isn’t here. She left with her family a few minutes ago.”

  Hubert panted. “Then go after her.”

  “I can’t.”

  He laid Alice on the patient cot. A swollen purple lump darkened the skin across her forehead. Her mouth dropped open, revealing blood stained gums.

  Sophia’s stunted breath slowed her ability to think clearly. She tried to force her shoulders to relax. This was her sister lying injured and inert, but she was under the training of Dr. Lydia Bradshaw and should know what to do. She reached her shaking fingers to Alice’s neck to check her pulse.

  “Did you hear me, girl?” Hubert yelled. “Go after the doctor!”

  “That is not what’s done.”

  “This is no time to backtalk.”

  She raised her voice over his ignorance. “You will find Dr. Bradshaw at Levi Colburn’s house across the road from the Foster farm on the south end of the village.” The pulse at her sister’s neck came in weak, irregular beats.

  Sophia’s vocal cords tightened as she swallowed her desire to scream, to yell for their mother, to shake her sister awake. “Go quickly! There isn’t much time.”

  “I’m not leaving my wife here with you. You don’t know anything.”

  She ignored her brother-in-law’s insult and turned Alice’s head, checking one side then the other. “She has blood in her ears.”

  “That’s how she was when I came home from work.”

  “Did she fall? Had she been ill? Did she hit her head earlier in the day?”

  “I don’t know.” The agitation in Hubert’s tone increased. “I found her like that, passed out on the kitchen floor.”

  “Where are the twins?”

  “I hollered for Mrs. Vestal to watch them while I was hitching up the wagon.”

  Sophia pressed her ear near Alice’s sternum to listen for respiration. The faint swish of air vibrated inside her lungs. “She’s barely breathing.”

  “Then get the doctor!”

  “I will tend to Alice while you fetch the doctor.”

  Hubert pointed at the door. “You’d better do what I say, if you know what’s good for you.”

  Heat throbbed in Sophia’s temples. She glowered at him. “I’m not an errant child! I am Dr. Lydia Bradshaw’s assistant. You have come to my employer’s home needing help, and it’s my job to stay with the patient while you get the doctor.” She took Alice’s limp hand. “This is my sister, and I will take care of her as best I can. Tell Dr. Bradshaw that Alice appears to have head trauma and possible apoplexy.”

  “What is that?”

  “A hemorrhagic stroke.”

  Hubert’s shoulders slumped, his voice weakened. “Do something for her. Please. Give her gray leaf tea or something?”

  “She is unconscious.”

  “Don’t you have smelling salts?”

  “That won’t revive her. She hasn’t simply fainted. Her brain might be bleeding.”

  “Maybe it would rouse her long enough to drink a few sips of gray leaf tea.” Hubert dropped to his knees by the cot. “Please try.”

  She found his desperate gesture annoying. He was the harsh husband of her cruel sister. The bile of bitterness simmered beneath the panic of possibly losing a family member. Wicked Alice’s mocking stares and venomous words were shuttered within a bruised face, but if she were conscious, she would be spewing her hatred as usual. Sophia gazed down at her dying sister.

  If Alice died, Sophia would be free.

  Before the thought could take hold, a deluge of guilt poured through her heart, dousing the sparks of resentment. How could she think such things?

  Of course, she didn’t want this for her sister. She wanted Alice to be healed, both physically and mentally. Withou
t healing, they had no chance at a loving relationship. The desire for vindication sank like a rejected imp into the shadows of Sophia’s heart, leaving room for the hope of healing.

  Hubert looked up at Sophia with the pleading eyes of a desperate man. “Please try the smelling salts. If she stirs at all, I’ll make gray leaf tea and give it to her myself.”

  It sounded like a reasonable idea, but Lydia had yet to mention the use of smelling salts. Sophia searched her memory for a more medically sound solution. Nothing came to mind. She despised taking Hubert’s suggestion, but she couldn’t think of anything else.

  “Very well.” She dashed to the supply cabinet. “I will try it while you go for Dr. Bradshaw.”

  Hubert gave a quick nod and stood.

  Sophia opened the cabinet above the worktable and pushed bottles around, searching for smelling salts. As she leaned over the contraption she had constructed to collect the condensed gray leaf substance, her elbow knocked over a beaker. She looked up at the vials of gray leaf vapor on the cabinet shelf. “There is something else… something that might work, but it hasn’t been tested yet.”

  Hubert stopped at the door and spun back. “What is it?”

  Sophia drew the full syringe from the shelf. Its sparkling contents swirled inside the glass. “A condensed vapor made from the gray leaf.”

  Hubert twisted his hat in his hands as he inched closer. “What do you do with it?”

  “I’m not sure exactly.”

  “Either you know how to use it or you don’t.”

  The syringe felt like molten lead in Sophia’s hands. “I have to get her to inhale it.”

  “Then do it!”

  “We don’t know if it’s safe. It might be too strong. It might kill her.”

  He slapped his thigh with his hat. “She is already dying, isn’t she?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know anything, girl!” He reached for the vial. “Give it to me. I’m not scared to try.”

  “No,” she said, pulling it away. “We shouldn’t do this without Dr. Bradshaw. I promised her I wouldn’t.”

  The pleading sadness returned to his gaze. “What do you have to lose?”

  “My sister.” She leaned over Alice and felt her pulse once more. When she counted two full seconds between heartbeats, she touched the cork in the narrow end of the syringe. “Hubert, if you aren’t going to get the doctor like I asked you to, and you insist I administer the gray leaf vapor, then you must help me.”

  Hubert pushed up his stained sleeves. “What do I do?”

  “When I tell you, pinch her nose to close her nostrils.”

  Sophia slid one hand under the back of Alice’s neck to raise her chin and open her airway. “Alice, can you hear me?”

  No response.

  Sophia kept talking to her. “Alice, I need you to breathe. If you can hear me, breathe as deeply as you can.”

  Nothing changed in Alice’s respiration.

  “I’m going to put medicine in your mouth. It’s made from the gray leaf, and I think it will help heal you, but you have to breathe it in.” She glanced at her brother-in-law. “Hubert will hold your nose shut, so the medicine doesn’t leak out before you have a chance to inhale it.”

  She opened Alice’s mouth and nodded once at Hubert. He did as he’d been instructed. She pulled the cork from the syringe and gently placed the nozzle at the back of Alice’s mouth.

  What was she doing? She shouldn’t administer medicine without Lydia. It might hurt Alice rather than help. It might kill her only sister.

  Even as the doubt flooded her mind, her hands held steady, waiting for Alice’s chest to rise. The instant the next breath came, she pushed the plunger, forcing the gray leaf vapor into Alice’s throat. She withdrew the empty syringe. “Breathe, Alice. Breathe deeply. Please, breathe it in.”

  Sophia held her own breath as she prayed the gray leaf vapor would fill Alice’s lungs, be absorbed by her blood, and get carried throughout her body, healing her. The air in the room stiffened, and the only movement came from the slight flicker of the oil lamp’s flame.

  Sophia’s childhood memories of Alice flashed through her mind: standing behind Alice, hiding in her calico skirt while their parents fought, gripping Alice’s hand in terror. They had cared for each other then. But something changed once Sophia reached school age. She’d met other children and kind teachers and knew her family was different, unhealthy, embarrassing. Alice was older and had hardened under the direction of their mother. Sophia spent the next few years hiding from Alice when it was time to walk home from school.

  Now they lived in the same village, a little over a mile apart in measurable length but in different worlds emotionally. She couldn’t change that. She had tried. She had prayed. She had fought. There was nothing to be done to make Alice her friend, and now there was nothing to be done to keep Alice alive.

  Sophia checked Alice’s pulse again. Nothing. She flattened her ear against Alice’s chest but didn’t hear a sound. She stood erect and backed away from the cot. When Hubert gazed up at her, she shook her head. “I’m sorry.”

  Hubert pressed his lips together and trudged to the door. “I’ll get Dr. Bradshaw.” The harshness had left his voice and now only a raw sadness remained. “She’s at the house across from the Foster farm, you say?”

  “Yes.” Sophia caught a stream of tears as they dripped from her jaw. “Levi Colburn’s house.”

  She didn’t look back as the door closed but only crouched by the edge of the cot. “I’m so sorry, Alice. I tried. I really did. I guess you were right: I’m not good at this. Never will be.” She traced Alice’s disheveled hair off her face. “You were wretched to me, but I suppose you came by it honest. You did everything Mother told you to do. She taught you to be that way. I didn’t listen. But I don’t care about any of that now. I want you in my life.” A sob escaped her throat, and she dropped her head to her hands.

  Alice sucked in a whoosh of breath, jarring Sophia. She reached to Alice’s neck to feel her pulse. Alice exhaled, filling the room with the potent scent of the condensed gray leaf. The air around them crackled as Alice stirred slightly.

  “Alice!” Sophia took one of her sister’s limp hands in both of hers. “Can you hear me? Say something!”

  Alice didn’t respond. The familiar lines of her rigid face remained unmoving.

  “Please,” she squeezed Alice’s hand, “let me know you can hear me… that you’re still with me… that you will be all right.”

  Alice stayed still. Sophia listened again to her sister’s chest. The low thud of her heart came in slow but regular beats. “Please wake up, Alice.”

  She held her sister’s hand and watched her face, hoping for movement. Several minutes passed with no change.

  A cold ache widened the hollow of Sophia’s gut. She wanted away from her sister but not through death. Their mother was gone. Their father was as good as gone. If she lost Alice she would have no one.

  She jumped when the door burst open.

  Lydia hurried to the cot and pressed in between Sophia and Alice. She didn’t look at Sophia as she began assessing Alice’s condition. “Hubert said you gave her the gray leaf vapor.”

  “I did.”

  Lydia was fast at work, listening, feeling. She didn’t make eye contact with Sophia. “I specifically told you not to experiment with it. It could have killed her. Still might.”

  Sophia backed away. “I’m sorry.”

  “I trusted you.”

  Her lips tingled as the worthless words passed over them. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Sorry doesn’t fix this, Sophia.”

  The weight of her error filled the aching abyss of her soul. A sob swelled her throat. She darted for the door, brushing past Hubert, fleeing into the darkened yard.

  Tears hazed her vision as she scurried to the road, desperate to get off the Colburn property. The cloudy sky hung low over her head, suffocating the night.

  When sh
e reached the road, she turned right and ran into the village, not caring where her panicking feet were taking her. The sandy gravel crunched under her boots, turning her ankles unevenly. Heavy breath replaced her sobs, and soon her eyes cleared.

  The chapel’s steeple rose into the dark sky, lifting it somehow like a tent pole. She slowed as she neared the building, but her foot caught on a cobblestone. She collapsed on the church’s stone stairs.

  No more tears came. Only the anguish of failure remained. Once she caught her breath, she pushed her weary body away from the cold steps.

  The picturesque village stretched somberly in both directions. If she followed the road south, it led to Woodland. She had no place there. If she followed it north, it passed the Ashton house, once her noble grandfather’s home and medical office and now Alice’s house.

  Neither was an option.

  She walked to the side of the chapel, remembering when she had decorated the arch with Nicholas. Their project had started with frustration but ended with the hope of possibilities. Now she had none.

  No hope. No possibilities.

  Dew wet her stockings as she strode through the grass. She kept walking across the churchyard until her feet found the gravel tracks of the side road. A gibbous moon peeked between the clouds as she passed the graveyard. She wrapped her clammy hands around her body. It wasn’t cold, but her body quaked as she trudged up the incline.

  Her feet continued carrying her though she didn’t know why she was walking in that direction. Then, beyond a clearing, shadows tucked Nicholas’s recently inherited cabin into an overgrown yard. Lamplight illuminated one window.

  Sophia climbed the sturdy steps of Nicholas’s porch and knocked before giving herself time to think. Since his renovations were underway, the sharp aroma of freshly hewn gray leaf lumber surrounded the doorway. She never wanted to smell the gray leaf again, but there was no escaping it in Good Springs.

  Nicholas opened the door with his suspenders hanging at the sides of his trousers, his shirt unbuttoned halfway, and sawdust in his hair. When he saw her, he briskly brushed wood shavings from his sleeves then buttoned his shirt. “Sophia! Come in.” He began cleaning off a sheet-covered divan. “Excuse the mess. I wasn’t expecting company.”