by Sara Donati
“What is it?” the girls cried out. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s a flood!” Nathan shouted back, putting all his strength into the last word so that it seemed to echo. “The whole village—”
Jennet stepped in front of him and then they were moving again, faster now. Lily told herself she wouldn’t look when she came to that open spot in the trees, but it was no use. The village of Paradise had been her whole world for most of her life, and she could no more turn away from it than she could from Ma or Da.
There was enough light to make out the trading post, the school-house, the smokehouse, a half dozen cabins—houses, Lily told herself. These were proper two-story houses with glass windows and curtains. But there was something odd, something that made no sense.
Then she had it: Some of the buildings seemed to have moved around, like pieces on a chessboard. The trading post had been on this side of the Sacandaga when she was last home, but now it stood on the far shore.
Annie seemed to read her thoughts because she offered up the explanation.
“The whole village is afloat,” she said. “The hundred-year water Throws-Far told us about.”
“But it’s—” and Lily stopped, because now it was all too obvious. The river had become a lake. All the buildings at the heart of the village stood in at least five feet of water, maybe more.
There was some movement. A canoe, paddling toward the school-house.
“Did they get everyone out?” Lily asked the question though her companions knew as little about what was happening in the village as she did.
Annie said, “The river will drop. It will seek its own level fast, unless there’s more rain.”
Martha gave a hiccupping laugh that was so odd, Lily had to turn to look at her.
“What are you laughing about?”
Martha lifted a shoulder. “Quite a lot. Just the other day Mrs. Peyton—who was to be my mother-in-law? Mrs. Peyton said to me—” Martha stopped.
“What?” Lily said. “What did she tell you?”
“Oh, a great many things,” Martha said. “She told me I was unworthy of her son, that I had been found out for the deceitful wretch I was. This was just after Jemima paid her a call, you understand. And she said—”
That odd and disturbing smile, once more.
“She said that sooner or later, water must seek its own level.”
Martha turned back to the path and picked up her pace.
10
When the sky outside the kitchen door began to shift color, Birdie resigned herself to the fact that she would not see the rest of her family today. Usually such an admission would have put her in a very sour mood, but she really had to be thankful that her people were far away from the flood.
She was helping Hannah put a splint on Maria Oxley’s arm, and she had to concentrate very hard with all the noise and confusion in the kitchen.
Maria’s oldest was telling their story again, in a hoarse and whispery voice. There was no stopping him. Nor should they even try, Hannah said.
“It started up the very same minute we heard the fire bell,” he was saying. “There was a noise like a tree falling. Like a hundred trees ripping themselves out of the ground, and Mama stood up so sudden the bowl in her lap fell and broke. Then she was shouting and pushing us to the door, saying that we had to run, we had to run right now and we ran, I carried Joseph but it was hard, the ground was muddy and it was raining so. And when we stopped to catch our breath I turned and saw it, a—a—fist of water. A giant’s fist punching, pushing trees out of the way. It flipped the Low Bridge like a pancake, and snatched up Miz Yarnell’s milk cow; I saw it, it’s true. That fist lifted our roof like I would pick up a wood chip from the ground. It was like standing on the brim of a bucket filling up fast.” He blinked. “It was like the hand of God.”
Birdie wanted him to stop. She wanted to go away and hide. But she could do neither; she must hold the basin of water for Hannah.
She glanced up and caught sight of Curiosity holding a cup of strong tea to Jimmy Crispin’s mouth. Jimmy was fourteen but he was so good at numbers that his folks didn’t make him quit school like most boys would at his age, to help on the farm. Sometimes Daniel took Jimmy and Birdie and Jamie McCandless aside for a math lesson, just the three of them. Jimmy was Quaker but he was friendly, with a wicked sense of humor and a quick smile.
Curiosity had swaddled Jimmy like a baby and settled him close to the hearth, and he still shivered. Almost everyone was shivering, even the people who hadn’t got caught in the flood waters directly. The continual coming and going robbed the room of its heat, though Curiosity’s grandsons laid on wood almost as fast as they could carry it in. Birdie was wrapped in shawls but she shivered too, so that it took all her effort to concentrate on what Hannah needed her to do.
On the far side of the kitchen a woman began weeping as though her heart would break. Mrs. Oxley kept trying to lift her head to see who it was.
Hannah spoke to her in a low voice. She said, “Still now, while I’m working.”
Mrs. Oxley seemed not to hear her. “Is that Friend Molly? Where is her daughter? Where are her grandchildren?”
Hannah turned to Maria’s oldest boy. “Joshua, please go over and speak kindly to Mrs. Noble. Find out if there’s anything we can do for her.”
For the first time a faint smile showed itself on Mrs. Oxley’s face. “Yes,” she whispered. “Joshua, thou must go and see to Friend Molly. And please see if there’s any tea to be had.”
The boy looked at his brothers and sisters. They were wrapped in a variety of blankets and sheets and every one of them looked dazed. Mrs. Oxley saw her son’s hesitation and understood it.
“The little ones are safe. Go to Friend Molly.”
Joshua looked as though he might be sick right where he stood, but he did as he was bid. He wound his way through the crowded kitchen to crouch down beside the elderly Molly Noble and speak to her. Joshua was just Birdie’s age—they sat near each other at school—but she rarely saw him outside the classroom.
“Such a good child,” Mrs. Oxley said. “Sweet-tempered and biddable. He’s been in charge of the sheep for three years now, and he’s done very well with them.” She paused. “I fear we lost the whole herd.”
“Maria,” Hannah said. “You must brace yourself now. I’m going to set the bone. It will hurt, but it will be over quickly.”
“May all our conflicts and trials be sanctified,” Mrs. Oxley said, her eyes on her children. “May the merciful God in heaven keep and protect us all.”
The travelers came in Curiosity’s front door and found themselves in the middle of what looked like a hospital ward. The hall was filled with refugees from the flood, many of them in an exhausted sleep and others who barely took note of yet more people arriving. Lily didn’t see a single familiar face and for a moment she couldn’t remember where she was, exactly.
“Friend Elizabeth,” said an older woman, holding out a hand. “Is there any news? Is the river still rising? If I might ask of thee, is there word of my sister and her family?”
Lily’s mother crouched down and spoke a few words. Her tone was so soft and gentle that while it was impossible to make out what she was saying, there was still comfort to be had.
Raised voices could be heard in the kitchen, and one of them was Curiosity’s. Lily went ahead, her muddy traveling cloak trailing behind her, her boots squelching with every step.
“You’ll want to get out of them clothes right quick,” said a man with a bandaged head and a mouthful of bloody teeth. “Or you’ll take a chill.” Then she recognized him: Jim Bookman, who had been a militia officer in the last war, and now was sheriff and possibly even a magistrate—something she might have been able to remember if not for the crusted blood on his face.
“Yes,” she said. “Of course. Thank you. Has my sister seen to your wounds?”
He had eyes the color of periwinkle, as blue as her own, but the expression there was sharper, as if he saw more
and better than anyone should.
“There’s others hurt worse than me,” he said. “I can wait.”
The kitchen door swung open and she stepped through.
“I won’t have it,” Curiosity was saying. “Not in my kitchen.”
The young girl in front of her was weeping, though her expression was mutinous. The cause of Curiosity’s displeasure was the basket in the girl’s arms, and what looked to be a half dozen raccoon kits.
“But their mama left them,” the girl wailed. “They’ll drown.”
“Better them than you,” Curiosity said, but she huffed a little. “Take that basket out to Miz Hannah’s laboratory and give it over to Emmanuel if you must. He’s got a fire going and they’ll perk up quick enough. But if they leave their droppings all over that clean floor it’ll be your hide Miz Hannah will be looking to tan.”
The girl was gone before the last word was spoken.
“You are as soft-hearted as ever you were,” Lily said.
Heads came up all over the kitchen: those who had nearly drowned, others who had broken bones or torn flesh in their struggle to reach dry land, children separated from their parents. And a girl who looked so much like the face Lily saw in her looking glass that it could only be Birdie.
Curiosity broke into a broad smile. “Look who the cat drug in, and soaking wet too. Birdie, child. Don’t stand there. Your big sister standing right there in front of you. Go and give her a hug.”
It was eight o’clock and full dark when the Bonner men came back from the village, Nathaniel bringing up the rear with his long, loose-jointed stride. Every one of them was worn down to a nub; the smiles they gave her were sincere but strained.
Elizabeth shifted the baby sleeping on her shoulder and quickly stepped out of the way lest her grandchildren bowl her over in their eagerness to reach their fathers.
“Are you whole?” Elizabeth asked her husband.
“We are,” he said. He cupped her head in one hand and kissed her on the temple. “And hungry, and wet.” He pulled back a little to examine the sleeping baby’s face, and then he brushed a lock of dark hair off a brow the color of faded roses. Young Simon had helped himself to the best features each parent had to offer. He could be taken for Kahnyen’kehàka or Seminole or North African. Nathaniel saw nothing of himself in the boy’s looks, but it didn’t concern him. His grandsons would never have any doubt where they came from.
“Ballentyne,” he called. “Come, man. Let me introduce you to your namesake.”
Simon studied Hannah and Ben’s youngest for a long moment. “Aye,” he said. “The resemblance is uncanny.”
They were still laughing when Lily came out on the porch and stood there with a hand pressed to her mouth, as if she feared the things she might say.
“Sister,” Daniel called to her. “You’ve traveled so far, stay there and I’ll come this last little distance to you.”
Elizabeth found herself blinking away tears. Beside her Nathaniel cleared his throat and then he put an arm around her.
“That’s a fine sight,” he said.
It was a fine sight indeed to see the twins reunited. Elizabeth would have said so, if it had been within her power.
In Curiosity’s kitchen the men were poked and prodded until the women convinced themselves that no one was making light of a serious injury. The worst they had among them was Ben’s broken toe. And there was good news: The river had stopped rising.
That simple sentence ran through the house, rousing the injured and the exhausted alike to cheers and renewed conversation on how long it would take to clean up and rebuild, whether they might still be able to get the crops in the ground on time, what steps could be taken to replace the lost livestock, how much cash all these steps would require.
It was just at that point that Curiosity had said they needed to get home, and showed them the door. The only reason Ma and the rest agreed to go was by that time Curiosity’s daughter Daisy and her two grown daughters had come to help, and the kitchen really was too crowded to get anything done.
The talk about the work that would need to start in the village followed them as they walked the short distance from Downhill House to their own. The mud made tough going of it, but Birdie could have skipped, she was so delighted. Lily and Simon were home, and everyone was safe, and soon they’d be sitting together around the table.
She knew it was wrong to be so cheerful when so many people had lost so much, but it was hard. For days she had been so worried, but they were all home now—including Gabriel, who was married. That idea made her stop just where she was.
She hung back a little to take stock. Ma and Da were at the front of the line, then Jennet and Luke with their children, Hannah and Ben with theirs, Gabriel and Annie, who stopped more than once to whisper to each other, Daniel, Ethan, and best of all, Lily and Simon. It was a wonderful sight, but something was missing.
Martha.
“Ma!” she called. “We forgot Martha!”
“Go fetch her, then,” her mother called. “And don’t take no for an answer.”
That was easier said than done. Martha didn’t want to interrupt or interfere, and said she would sleep on the settle in Curiosity’s kitchen rather than get in the way.
“Ma said I was to fetch you,” Birdie told her again. “Do you want me to get in trouble? And anyway, my da’s your guardian, and how can he guard you if you’re all the way over here?”
She held out Martha’s boots, and after a moment’s hesitation, the older girl took them.
By the time they got to the house the fire in the hearth had been fed and the kettle was boiling, but there were no women in sight.
“Gone to put the little people to bed,” Ethan told them. “They’ll be back soon.”
Birdie tried not to show her disappointment. “Did Lily have to go too? And Annie?”
“Your nieces seemed to think so,” said Birdie’s father. “You could go up and join them, if you wanted. Both of you.”
What Martha thought of that idea they never found out, because the door swung open and everybody came back. Or everybody except Hannah and Jennet, who would still be busy answering questions and tucking in.
Birdie’s ma said, “Daniel, I’ve waited all day to hear your account of the flood. Are you too tired to tell it all again?”
They were all tired, but not one of them was willing to wait and so they talked in turns. Daniel and Ben had been right in the middle of things from the beginning, Daniel on one end of the village and Ben on the other. In the middle of their stories Jennet and Hannah came back to the kitchen and Hannah joined in.
“Birdie was a great help to me,” she said. “She was calm and she did exactly as I asked her. She has the makings of an excellent assistant. It’s true, Birdie. Why are you making such a face?”
It came bursting out of her then. “We can talk about the flood tomorrow,” she said. “We’ll be talking about it all summer. But I want to hear from Lily and Simon. I want to hear about their trip, and what took you so long to get back home, and what they brought in their trunks. Where are the trunks, anyway?”
Lily sat up straighter. “That’s a very good question. The last I saw of them was when we abandoned the wagons to walk up here.” Then she slumped back against the settle. “Not that I’d have the energy to go after them.”
“No need,” Ben told her. “We got them sorted through. They’re sitting in the kitchen in the house Ethan offered you, drying out in front of the hearth.”
And that was the first Birdie heard about Lily and Simon going to live in the house next to Ethan’s, the one folks called Ivy House. It struck her as a very bad idea, and she was about to say so when Lily smiled at her.
“I hope you will come and visit with me every day,” she said.
“After school,” Daniel prompted.
“And chores,” said her da.
“Yes, after school and chores,” Lily agreed. “But then you and I will have a lot to talk about, j
ust the two of us.”
Birdie paused and rethought her arguments. It might not be so very bad to have Lily and Simon in a house of their own. There was a great deal to be said for privacy, and there would be precious little of it here over the next months.
“She likes the idea,” Jennet said. “Clever lass.”
Daniel was sitting beside Lily, leaning into her with the warm familiarity of a twin. He turned to her. “Now you,” he said. “Birdie there is about ready to bust, wondering what held you up so long. What’s this I hear about a hanging?”
Tea was poured and the biscuit tin appeared on the table, followed by cheese and bread and pickles, and more tea, and more talk. Elizabeth, as tired as she was, found it impossible to stay seated. She roamed back and forth, passing dishes, pausing to touch a shoulder or lay her hand on a head. This was not the way she had imagined Lily’s homecoming, but the most important thing was to have them all here, whole and healthy. This one summer they would have together, all of them. In the fall Luke and Jennet would go back to the city and maybe Lily and Simon would move on too. She must not let herself hope for anything more.
It was silly to borrow trouble; she knew that. She stood to fill the teapot, and Nathaniel caught her by the wrist and made her sit again.
“You’re as nervous as a cat,” Nathaniel said to her. His eyes moved over her face. He understood; he always did, when it came to the children. She wondered if today he had thought of the others, the sons they had lost as infants. Sometimes they talked of those boys, how old they would be now, and who they might favor. It was a comfort, that freedom to talk of children thirty years in their graves. To know that they were not completely forgotten.
“Ethan, you must have some more soup,” she said, starting to rise. “You are too thin.”
“No you don’t,” Nathaniel said, pulling her back down again.
“Ma,” Birdie said in mock irritation. “You’d scold me if I kept jumping up from the table.”
“Leave her be.” Luke winked at his stepmother. “It’s her best broody hen imitation.”