The Endless Forest

by Sara Donati

  “I am not mad,” Martha said with all the polite nonchalance she could muster. “Thank you kindly for your help.”

  “Mad,” Daniel said. “As a wet hen.”

  It took a great deal of effort to calm down, but Martha managed. She drew in a deep breath. “If I was being short with you, I apologize.”

  Daniel nodded. “Well, that’s to be expected. You come back here after all those years in the big city, your manners ain’t what they used to be.”

  “My manners?” Martha heard herself squeak. “My manners! What about your manners?”

  He raised an eyebrow in what was clearly mock surprise. “And here I thought I was lending a hand.”

  “You did. You are. But—”

  “—one road or another I managed to make you mad.”

  Her color was rising; she could feel it. “You you you—watched me. And my skirts—I’m not—You watch me.”

  “What’s wrong with me watching you?”

  “It’s unseemly.”

  “It don’t seem to me anything out of the ordinary to look at a pretty girl all flushed from the heat. That’s not what you’re mad about. Not really.”

  “You are being—” Martha stopped. “I see. You are winding me up.”

  He laughed outright. “Why would I do that?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, giving him her most severe look. “Why would you?”

  The very hardest part, once she turned away, was banishing anything that might be taken for a smile from her own face.

  16

  At supper Jennet kept them all amused with her day’s adventures. She had spent part of it with Lily, part of it with the children, and the third and more difficult part in the village, sweeping mud.

  “I’ve never been so dirty,” she declared. “Not even that spring we spent on Nut Island. Do you remember, Hannah? We even had mud in—” she paused and looked around the table. “Places where mud isnae welcome.”

  Martha had been wondering how to raise this very subject, and now she took the opportunity. “Would that be the time when—” Everyone was looking at her, but not in an unkind way. It was Hannah who first understood.

  “Yes,” she said. “It was then that your father came into the garrison gaol. He died a few days later, of his wounds.”

  Elizabeth was surprised. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you about this?” She looked around the table. “Three of you were there. Jennet, Hannah, and Daniel.”

  “And Blue-Jay,” Daniel said.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “You can’t remember very much of those days,” she said to her son, as if her command might keep away things best forgot.

  “I remember,” he said.

  Martha felt his gaze on her. His tone was unremarkable, easy.

  “We talked, Liam and me, more than once. He asked me about you, Martha.”

  This afternoon she had sworn to herself that she would avoid Daniel Bonner at all costs, and now she was eager to ask him a dozen questions.

  “We all have stories about Liam,” Nathaniel said. “Maybe it was thoughtless of us to think you knew them too.”

  “Yes, it was thoughtless,” said his wife. “But it’s a mistake that can be rectified. He really was the sweetest, friendliest boy, but he had a talent for getting himself in trouble. Wouldn’t you agree, Nathaniel?”

  “I can still see him peeking in the schoolhouse window,” he said.

  “Oooh,” said Birdie. “Is this the story about the ink bottle and a winkle?”

  Daniel watched Martha’s face as she took in the stories, one after the other. He had a story of his own about Liam and Jemima both, but he would not share it at this table, and maybe not ever. Lily was the only one who knew the whole of it, and she wasn’t here. He wondered if his sister thought of that summer’s day, and if her memories were as clear as his own.

  It had been some years later that it had occurred to him that what they had stumbled upon that day at Eagle Rock was the act that resulted in Martha’s presence in the world. When he brought this up to Lily, she had looked surprised.

  “All you have to do is count the months,” she said. “Or easier still, look at Martha. From the day she was born she looked like Liam.”

  They had been children themselves, hardly nine years old. Not ignorant of the ways of men and women—they had grown up on the frontier, with every kind of animal around and unconcerned about a child’s curiosity. What a strange, disturbing day that had been, but if it had not happened at all, Martha would not be sitting at this table; she would not exist in this world.

  His father was saying, “I don’t know that we should talk about Billy, at least not now.”

  But Martha insisted that she wanted to know everything about her father and her uncle both, good and bad.

  And then of course she was shocked. As the story was told, her expression went still and the color drained from her face. She clenched her hands together and held them on her lap as if she were afraid of what she might do with them.

  “I don’t understand,” she said at one point. “You sound as if you liked Liam—”

  “Oh, we did,” said Nathaniel.

  “But he caused you such harm.” She looked as if she might cry, she was blinking so furiously. “I thought that at the least—”

  She couldn’t say it, but they knew, everyone knew what she was thinking: My mother was so very bad, so cruel and destructive, I was sure my father must have been a good man. And if he was not, what will I turn into?

  “No one here subscribes to a theory of inherited evil.” Hannah’s tone was almost sharp, and certainly uncompromising. “You stand on your own feet and make your way as best you can.”

  Daniel said, “What Hannah is trying to say is, the sins of the fathers got nothing to do with the children. You don’t have to apologize for the mistakes Liam made. He wouldn’t want you to, that much I know. Because Liam was a good man, down deep, and he did a lot more good in this world than he did bad.”

  Martha’s expression relaxed, but not by much. When she finally drew in a deep breath and let it out with a sigh, Daniel wondered if she was giving in, or just hiding what she couldn’t bear.

  She closed her eyes for the merest moment, and then got up to help clear the table.

  Daniel felt a hand on his arm and he turned. “Lilac has got a sore foot,” his father said. “Would you come out to the barn with me and have a look?”

  17

  “So what is it you wanted to talk to me about, Da?”

  Nathaniel looked around himself, surprised. “Didn’t I say? Lilac has got a sore foot.”

  Daniel wasn’t convinced but he kept his thoughts to himself. If his father had something to say, he would say it in his own good time.

  With the lantern held high, they went into the stable. It was like calling out a greeting; all the animals—the cow and her calf, the mule, all the horses, and the oxen—stuck their heads out of their stalls. Lilac gave a loud and insistent nicker.

  “She was waiting,” Daniel said.

  “Must be worse off than I thought.”

  Daniel gave his father a sharp look. “You’re up to something, I can smell it.”

  “First things first. Let’s have a look at that hoof.”

  A few minutes later Daniel said, “I think you need to have Joshua Hench look at this, or Hannah.”

  “I fear you’re right.”

  “You knew that full well yourself,” Daniel said. “Why did you really want me out here?”

  “Hold on a minute. Let me herd my thoughts together.”

  Daniel leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. The familiar smells would cling to his clothes for a day. Cow and hay and ointment, leather and dung. Comfortable smells.

  “Your ma and me, we’re glad to see you spending more time down here in the village.”

  Daniel opened his eyes and saw a rat the size of a small dog digging at something in the corner.

  “Now my position—” />
  The movement came to him so easily that his father didn’t even register what was happening until the knife struck its target. Nathaniel glanced over his shoulder and then back again, unwilling to be distracted.

  “What I was saying was, I’m guessing you want to spend time with Lily, and that’s what keeps you from going back up to your own place.”

  “I’ve been back,” Daniel said, going to retrieve his knife. He wiped the blade on a bit of burlap sack. “I went up yesterday.”

  “And you came right back down with clothes and books. Now I hate to admit this, but you just about proved your ma’s right about what you got on your mind.”

  A flutter of alarm deep in the gut, but Daniel knew better than to let his anxiety show. “And that would be?”

  “You’re glad to have Lily home, but it’s mostly Martha you’re hanging around for.”

  The surprise struck him dumb for a minute. “Ma thinks I’m interested in Martha Kirby?”

  “You spend a lot of time looking at her.”

  “I look at a lot of people.”

  “So you’re saying your ma’s got it wrong?”

  Daniel walked away in his irritation. Everything he might say could be taken and turned around.

  He said, “If she is right—I’m not saying she is or isn’t—why would she be worried?”

  His father rubbed the bridge of his nose with a knuckle. “I never said she was worried, did I? Not about you, at least.”

  “She think I’m out to ruin Martha once and for all?”

  His father shot him a look that let him know he had gone too far. “The girl’s tender and still hurting, that’s the point.”

  The best option in this situation was to say nothing at all. The habit of silence was one he had courted for years, and could draw on as easily as any Quaker.

  Finally Daniel said, “I’m off to the Red Dog with Ethan.”

  His father nodded his acknowledgment, and Daniel walked out of the stable, uneasy with the way he was leaving things.

  “Daniel?”

  He turned around.

  “You ain’t asked, but I’ll tell you anyway. She’s grown into a fine young woman, never mind who her ma is. That’s all I’ll say for now.”

  There were questions he might have asked, but Daniel realized that he wasn’t ready for the answers.

  18

  Birdie, stuck in the house with her younger nieces and nephews, fretted. She wanted to go down to Lily, but her mother had decided that given the cold rain, it would be best to stay indoors this day.

  “Martha went down to the village.” Birdie was careful to keep her tone even and respectful, as if she were opening a discussion. If you could hold on to your temper and sound like you were talking about this year’s crop of onions, you could say almost anything to Ma. “Is there some other reason I shouldn’t go sit with Lily?”

  Her mother was looking at her with that thoughtful expression that did not bode well. She put down the book she had been reading.

  “You have spent a great deal of time with Lily, and I’m glad of it. You are a good companion and a great help to her. She has told me these things, plainly spoken. The decision to keep you here for the day has to do with the weather and the fact that the little people need distraction, and they love no one so much as you when it comes to games. Curiosity and Jennet are with Lily this morning, so you needn’t worry that she’s alone or in need of help.”

  The hot rush of tears to her eyes was something Birdie could not hide, but Ma was too clever and kind to say anything. It was up to Birdie to counter the arguments Ma had made. But there was nothing to counter; it was all logical and true.

  “Ma,” she said, “Don’t you think that maybe, just sometimes it’s right to let feelings get the upper hand and leave reason fend for itself?”

  A great smile broke over her mother’s face and she held her arms open so Birdie could come and put her nose to the soft spot between shoulder and breast where her mother’s scent was strongest.

  “That is the most concise description of falling in love I have ever heard,” she said against Birdie’s hair.

  Birdie sniffed a little, and Ma rocked her. And that was good, almost as good as being allowed to go down to Lily.

  “The worst kind of weather,” Curiosity said, her brow furrowed. “The very worst. Every kind of wet there is, and cold? And a mean wind coming down off the mountain.” She looked up from her knitting to Jennet and Lily, who were winding yarn, Lily from her chaise longue and Jennet beside her in a chair.

  If Lily closed her eyes she could imagine herself at eighteen or sixteen or ten, just like this. Talking to Curiosity about the weather, yawning in the warmth of the hearth and tending to knitting or sewing. How uncomplicated her life had been, and she had never noticed. And perhaps that was the very definition of childhood.

  “Put some more wood on the fire, would you, Jennet?”

  Lily almost jumped in her surprise. “Isn’t it warm enough in here? I could do without some of these.” Lily pushed a quilt away.

  Curiosity reached over and put it right back. “Those covers staying right where they are.”

  “But I am sweating like a … like a—”

  “Pig?” Jennet suggested amiably. “Did you forget the art of plain speaking while you were away?”

  “I can speak plain,” Lily said, her temper rising.

  Curiosity was unmoved. “Sweating is good for you, get all the dark humors out. Good for the little one too.”

  That was the one argument that Lily could not counter. She was some four months with child, and as of this day, she had seen no sign of bleeding. Hope was a luxury she wanted to deny herself, but oh, it was hard. Her body wanted her to hope; it gave her every reason, not least the swelling of her belly. Just a gentle curve for now, but she focused all her energy on it, willing the child to speak to her with that first quickening.

  In the evenings Simon sat with her in the parlor and then when they both were yawning, he carried her to bed. To their chaste bed. When she raised the topic, he had shushed her.

  “I can do without,” he said. “I won’t have you worrying about that.”

  She loved that hour before they fell asleep, when they talked about everything and nothing at all. Simon made her laugh with his stories, and she brought him up to date with the gossip brought to her by Birdie and Mrs. Thicke.

  They rarely talked about the thing they thought about most, but sometimes Lily found the words rising up, wanting to be spoken. She said, “Curiosity thinks the summer will be very hot this year. I’ll melt into a puddle.”

  “Nonsense.” He turned on his side to look at her, and put his hand low on her belly. “By fall you’ll be as round and plump as a blueberry.”

  She had laughed as he meant her to, but the image stuck in her mind like a burr and wouldn’t be shook off until she took up paper and began to draw. She drew blueberry bushes and a foraging bear, blueberries spilling over a bucket into the grass, single berries in excruciating detail. All in pencil, because she had got the idea that the sharp smells of her paints might be unhealthy for the child she had already started thinking of as Blueberry.

  Maybe it was superstition to think that smells might make the difference, but it made Lily feel better, and wasn’t that the whole idea behind such beliefs? She would take whatever help she could find. Because once she had taken childbearing for granted, foolish girl she had been.

  She glanced at Jennet’s rounded belly and caught her eye, as well.

  Jennet said, “I’ve been waiting for ye to ask, Lily. Midsummer, by Curiosity’s reckoning. So you’ll have some practice with newborns before your own comes along.”

  “Unless the cold rain get the better of all of us,” Curiosity sniffed.

  Lily caught Jennet’s half smile. Curiosity often got into a temper about the weather. She held long lectures that seemed to be directed to a minor god directly responsible for the trouble that came along with a cold wind.
r />   Jennet said, “Martha picked an unpleasant day tae go intae the village for the first time.”

  Lily drew her knees up and turned toward Curiosity. “The first time? But it’s been weeks—”

  Curiosity thumped the table piled high with baskets of thread and yarn so that they leaped. “Leave Martha be. She got enough on her shoulders; she don’t need you talking mean behind her back.”

  That brought them up short. Jennet was the first one to find her voice. “But Curiosity, we like the girl. If we talk about her it’s no different from talking among ourselves about Mariah’s cough or Eliza’s nightmares—”

  “Now see,” Curiosity interrupted her. “That’s the problem, right there. You think about Martha like she was a child. Maybe you ain’t noticed,” she said directly to Lily. “But some see her for what she is, a woman grown. Some have taken note, yes, Lord.”

  Jennet looked intrigued, but the idea that was churning in Lily’s gut was not pleasant.

  “Who are you talking about?” And, after a pause: “Ethan? Is Ethan seeing Martha in a—a new light?”

  Curiosity shook her head and turned back to her knitting. “I’ma hold my tongue. Said too much already.”

  “Too much about what?”

  Jennet caught her eye and gave a small shake of the head, but Lily knew she had misspoken before she saw the expression on Curiosity’s face.

  “I got nothing more to say.”

  For the rest of the visit Lily’s thoughts circled back again and again to Martha Kirby. If it was true that Ethan was really interested in Jemima Kuick’s daughter, then that was Lily’s business. He was her cousin, after all. And so good-hearted that he would be willing to put aside all the things he knew of Jemima. And maybe that was right and good, because she knew nothing but good of Martha.

  She knew more about Martha than anyone in the whole village except her twin. She could close her eyes and remember a hot summer afternoon when she had learned firsthand what Jemima could do.

  She would have liked to talk about this, but Curiosity had declared the subject closed, and she would not change her mind. It wasn’t until much later that it occurred to Lily that Ethan might not be the one they were talking about. There were others who could have taken an interest in Martha Kirby.