Ella Wood Novellas: Boxed Set

by Michelle Isenhoff

  Julia knocked a hand on her ample hip. “An’ jus’ when was you gunna tell us?”

  “When they got stronger.” At Julia’s frown of disapproval, she added, “I didn’t want Isaac to worry. And then we had breakfast to serve and the baking to do.”

  Julia turned to Malachi. “Go fetch Doc Ferguson.”

  “Julia, it’s much too early for that.”

  “We’ll let Doc decide dat. Go!”

  Malachi grabbed a coat and dodged out the back door.

  “Really, Julia, that was unnecessary. I’ve got several hours.”

  “After de trouble you had wid Emily Rose, we ain’t takin’ no chances.”

  “The baby was turned wrong.” But Shannon gave up at the stubborn look on Julia’s face. “At least keep me busy until he gets here.”

  Shannon and Lizzie continued working the dough. Lizzie snickered when Shannon gave an especially forceful pound and squeezed her fingers deep into the bowl. “Dat gunna be de fluffiest loaf o’ bread we ever ate,” she commented when the contraction eased.

  The quip made Julia chuckle.

  Shannon pretended to pout. “It’s easy for the two of you to laugh.”

  By the time the doctor arrived an hour later, Shannon had lost some of her obstinacy and retired to her bed at his insistence. So Lizzie fed Larkin, set him in his basket, and helped Julia finish the baking and serve lunch. In between, Lizzie kept an eye on the two children and Julia managed the front desk. That afternoon, after cleaning the two vacated rooms, the women sat down for a well-deserved cup of tea.

  “What a day.” Julia shook her head and chuckled. “When you leave, I’m gunna have to press Malachi into service fo’ a time.”

  The doctor came to fetch Julia before she finished her tea. “I’m sorry to take you away from your chores, Mrs. Watson, but I could use your help.”

  Julia glanced at Lizzie. “You know what to do fo’ supper?”

  Lizzie nodded. “I got it. Go help Shannon.”

  “I’ll have Malachi watch de little ones.” Julia pushed herself up from the table. “Lawd, I’m gettin’ too old fo’ dis job.”

  “Just be glad you ain’t de one havin’ dis baby,” Lizzie quipped as the older woman followed the doctor from the room. She heard Julia guffaw in the dining room.

  After feeding Larkin again, Lizzie laid him down for an afternoon nap. She had an hour and a half until dinner. Fortunately, the pot roasts were already in the oven along with the potatoes. She needed only to take them out, pop in three apple pies, boil up the peas and carrots, cut the bread, and get it all to the table. She’d set out the cutlery now so she needn’t do it later.

  As she worked, Julia came and went, fetching rags and boiling water, checking up on Lizzie’s work, and giving her updates on Shannon’s progress. Throughout the whole afternoon, Lizzie only heard Shannon cry out once. The guests probably had no idea a new little life was coming into the world right under their feet.

  Ketch and Isaac returned at dinnertime. Ketch swung through the kitchen door and caught up Lizzie in an enthusiastic embrace. “I foun’ us a place,” he announced. “It’s small, but we can move in tomorrow. An’ it’s jus’ fo’ now. I’d like to be in our own place in time to plant a crop dis summer.”

  Lizzie hesitated, turning to move the roast to a cooler part of the stove. “Cash, I ain’t sure I should leave yet.”

  He drew back in confusion. “Dis be what we came fo’. Why not?”

  Julia entered then with the new baby girl cradled gently in her arms. She beamed at Isaac. “Mr. Isaac, meet yo’ new daughter, Kaitlyn Faith Milford.”

  Isaac stared at her, stunned. “Shannon had the baby while I was gone?”

  Julia laughed. “Apparently she did, as I be holdin’ her.” She transferred the infant into Isaac’s arms, and Lizzie smiled at the love and wonder that filled his face. She glanced up at Ketch. “Dat be why. I’ll jus’ stay a few days, till Shannon back on her feet.”

  “Elsbeth, I don’ like to leave you here alone wid him here.” He jerked his head toward the dining room.

  Lizzie drew his head down and kissed him. “Today wasn’ so bad. Mr. Isaac be right. Mr. Burrows went out dis mornin’ and I didn’ see him all day.”

  “Jus’ de thought o’ dat man.” His scowl turned fierce.

  “I know. But after everythin’ Isaac an’ Shannon have done fo’ us, it ain’t right to leave ’em jus’ when dey be needin’ de mos’ help.”

  His hands tightened at her waist. “I won’ leave you here in danger.”

  Isaac came over to show them the baby. Lizzie couldn’t help but smile as she took the tiny bundle. As she rocked and cooed to her, Isaac put a hand on Ketch’s arm. “I couldn’t help but catch part of your conversation, Cash. I won’t interfere with your decision, and you don’t owe me and Shannon anything, but if Elsbeth were to stay, you could go on ahead to keep looking and I could deliver your family in a few days. And I promise I’ll stick close to the hotel while Jarrod remains in the city.”

  Lizzie could see the indecision in her husband’s eyes, but after a moment of reflection, he relented. “Five days,” he insisted. “I’m comin’ back fo’ you myself in five days.”

  She smiled and kissed little Kaitlyn’s fingertips. “Five days.”

  ***

  They were the longest, busiest five days Lizzie could have imagined. She missed Ketch tremendously. During the lonely darkness of night, she reminded herself that the arrangement was temporary. And in the daytime, she enjoyed the satisfaction of knowing she was doing the right thing, even if it was an exhausting pleasure.

  True to his word, Isaac never left the hotel. He was far too enthralled with his new daughter. Whatever his reasons, Lizzie felt safer just knowing he was nearby, but his assumption about the length of Mr. Burrows’ stay proved incorrect. After four days, the slave catcher and his man Collins had given no indication that they would be leaving anytime soon. Each morning they took themselves off directly after breakfast and stayed away till late afternoon. It made supper a tense affair, but the rest of the day Lizzie gave them little thought.

  The last evening of Lizzie’s stay, Shannon rejoined them at the supper table. She had, in fact, been making forays into the kitchen and doing light office work for several days, against Julia’s vehement protests, but by afternoon she was usually ready to retire to her room with a light meal. Her presence at the table was the final indication that a normal routine was reestablishing itself within the hotel.

  Lizzie’s obligations had reached their end.

  After putting the boys to bed that evening, Lizzie quietly packed their few belongings. Ketch would return and take them to Canada in the morning. It was a bittersweet thought. She had come to love the Watsons and the Milfords just as she had Uncle Timothy and the Phillipses. But this time her friends would only be a wagon ride away. She smiled to herself. Their journey was nearly over.

  Tomorrow, she and Ketch and the boys would be truly free.

  The thought drove sleep from her brain, and she rose to make herself a cup of tea.

  It was dark in the kitchen. And quiet. The stove still gave off a pleasing warmth. After sliding the kettle over the heat, she opened the firebox door and let the coals cast a weak orange glow across the kitchen floor. Then she set a chair within its radius to wait.

  A squeak sounded behind her, the barely audible grate of the kitchen door swinging open. She cast a glance backward…and leaped from her seat.

  Mr. Burrows raised his hands with a calming smile. “Don’t be alarmed, Mrs. Lewis. I couldn’t sleep either. I saw you come in here and thought perhaps I could beg a cup of tea.”

  She backed away as he advanced, hitting the edge of the stove and skirting around behind it.

  He stopped before the open firebox and held his fingers to the coals. “I assure you, I want only tea.”

  The minutes until the kettle boiled felt interminable. Mr. Burrows didn’t say another word, only waited for her to prepar
e the beverage. She did so with jerky, mechanical motions. After straining out the leaves, she poured the tea into two cups. Hers, she decided, would be taken to her own room.

  She handed Mr. Burrows his cup with a sense of relief, anticipating a hasty exit. But as he reached for it with one hand, he grabbed her wrist with the other. “Where is he?” he snarled.

  Lizzie pulled back as a torrent of memories rushed from their closet and filled her with blinding terror.

  “Where is he?” Burrows asked again, twisting her arm cruelly even as he set his tea aside.

  She gasped at the pain, but it cleared her head. “Who?”

  “Your husband.”

  “I—I don’ know what you mean.”

  He jerked her arm again, sending her to her knees. “It’s not a difficult question. He disappeared the day after I checked in and hasn’t been seen since. Highly suspicious behavior, I would say. Especially as the trail I’ve been following has dried up completely.”

  “My husband from Virginia. He ain’t de man you lookin’ fo’,” she ground out.

  “I’ll be the judge of that. One of the descriptions I have fits him to a tee. I just want to know where I can find him.”

  “He…he been away.”

  “Where?” he ground out. His patience was clearly nearing its end.

  What could Lizzie say? The truth would only incriminate him. “He—he on an errand fo’ Mr. Milford.”

  “Doing what?”

  Her hesitation cost her dearly. With another twist and a pop, white hot pain tore through her shoulder. She gasped and sank to her knees, completely at his mercy.

  He grabbed her by the throat and squeezed. “I’ll ask you one last time, Mrs. Lewis. Where. Is. Your. Husband?”

  She clenched her jaw against the pain, refusing to say. Refusing to cry out. Her shoulder screamed. Her lungs burned for air. Slowly her vision closed and the room faded to black.

  Suddenly, she landed hard on the floor, blind with agony and unable to draw breath. She writhed to her good shoulder, fighting to fill her lungs with air, and blinked open her eyes. There above her stood Ketch holding Mr. Burrows up by the neck. One giant fist drew back and smashed into the side of his head.

  There was no blood. No cry. Only the sound of the toppling chair. The slave catcher lay crumpled and still on the floor.

  Ketch gently caught Lizzie up in his arms. She cried out as her body seared again with pain. “Lizzie, what is it? What did he do?”

  “My shoulder,” she gasped. “I think he dislocated it.”

  Julia poked her head out of the tiny room she occupied at the back of the kitchen and assessed the situation in a twinkling. Clad in her nightgown, she stepped forward and felt for Mr. Burrows’ pulse. Her eyes widened. “You broke his neck.”

  Returning to her room, she reemerged seconds later with a bulky quilt that she draped over the body. “Malachi can tend Lizzie,” she murmured. “Cash, you know where Mr. Isaac keep de wagon. Get dis man to de river an’ don’ come back till mornin’. You was never here tonight.” She set the chair upright at the table and headed for the swinging door, where she paused with one last admonition.

  “An’ don’ be seen or you a dead man.”

  ***

  Lizzie carried a mixture of sadness, anxiety, and eagerness across the Detroit River with her the next afternoon. This eased into a keen sense of relief as the ferry nudged the Canada shore. After four months, they had made it.

  When Mr. Burrows failed to show up for breakfast that morning, his partner Collins raised an alarm. A single police officer was dispatched to look into the matter, but it was a halfhearted affair. A few questions were asked, a few notes jotted down. But with no evidence to the contrary, it was assumed Mr. Burrows had simply wandered off and would reappear in his own good time.

  Ketch didn’t appear until long after the excitement died down.

  Within the next half hour, Isaac’s wagon had been loaded with the single trunk, an excited puppy and equally excited boy, and the household and farm items Isaac had been able to procure for them. Malachi and Isaac took turns shaking Ketch and Lizzie’s hands, and the women exchanged embraces. “Thank you so much for your help this week, Lizzie,” Shannon said, using her real name for the first time.

  “It only right after what you done fo’ us,” Lizzie returned.

  “Now don’ you two go gettin’ all tearful. Dey only movin’ a hour away. We’ll seem ’em plenty,” Julia scolded, but her eyes were unnaturally bright.

  As Ketch flicked the horses into motion, Isaac waved a hand. “I’ll meet you on the far side of the ferry tomorrow morning to reclaim my team.”

  Now the emerald plain of Canada lay open before them. Lizzie sighed and tucked herself up against Ketch’s side. “Be ’bout another half hour,” Ketch told her. “Everyone all right back dere?”

  Robin shrilled an affirmative, and the wagon rolled toward Sandwich Town, Ontario.

  Anticipation rose within Lizzie as a scattering of buildings came into sight. Ketch said their temporary quarters were small, but she didn’t care. They didn’t own much. She was simply looking forward to living on their own as a family for the first time since their marriage.

  But the town came and the town went. Ketch drove right through it.

  “I thought you said de house in Sandwich,” she protested.

  Ketch just smiled mysteriously.

  Fifteen minutes later, he turned the team into a long drive with a snug little house at the end of it. A huge maple guarded the front yard and a weathered barn watched the back. It was surrounded by fallow fields.

  Lizzie gasped, standing to her feet as the wagon still moved. “Ketch, dis be ours?”

  He laughed with pleasure at the expression on her face. “All ours. A widow woman sold it to me reasonable. She tired o’ farmin’ and wanted to move to town. It come wid eighty acres, a house, a barn, an’ a mule. A few good years an’ we can pay back de aid society in full.”

  Robin shouted with joy and threw himself over the side of the wagon. Daisy followed. As Lizzie watched them run ahead, bounding across the yard to explore the little house they would call their own, tears streamed down her face and fell on Larkin asleep in her arms.

  Ketch pulled the team to a stop and climbed down. Then he scooped Lizzie up, baby and all. His eyes burned bright with love. With hope. With promise.

  “Welcome home, Mrs. Lewis.”

  Don’t miss the second Ella Wood novella…

  Keeping secrets is a lonely business when they’re as dangerous as Jack’s.

  Available for preorder.

  Thanks for reading!

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  Historical Notes

  Even a historical novella takes a surprising amount of research. I’ve found Pinterest to be an invaluable tool for recording information I uncover, as well as for tracking some of the source materials I draw from. As always, I’ve made Lizzie’s Pinterest page available for my interested readers. In addition, I’d like to share a few tidbits here.

  Pneumonia, or “lung fever” such as Ketch contracted aboard ship, was often deadly in the nineteenth century. Sir William Osler, considered by many to be the father of modern medicine, described pneumonia as “the most fatal of all acute diseases.” During the Civil War, the illness had a mortality rate of 24 percent, making “inflammation of the lungs and pleura” the third most common cause of death from disease during the conflict.

  After slavery was abolished in the British Empire in 1833, slave refugees from America began seeking asylum in Canada, giving rise to the Underground Railroad. Sandwich Town, Ontario, ju
st over the river from Detroit, became one of several important Canadian settlements for these runaways.

  Detroit’s Anti-Slavery Society was founded in 1837, the same year that Michigan became a state, and though it did not last, it set a precedent for several area groups that helped fugitives. The Colored Vigilance Committee of Detroit was formed in 1842 by several of the city’s most prominent black residents, including George DeBaptiste and William Lambert (both of whom appear in my Ella Wood prequel, The Candle Star). This committee helped over 1,500 slaves get to Canada. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, a compromise between slave and free states to avert war, allowed for the recapture of runaways in free states and made it illegal for residents to hamper those efforts. The law forced aid societies to employ more secretive means of assistance. In 1851, the Refugee Home Society was founded jointly by abolitionists on both sides of the border and worked undercover to provide refugees with goods, clothing, and opportunities to own land.

  “The 'Nsasak Bird and the Odudu Bird” is a real Nigerian folktale.

  And finally, it really was a fine, spring-like Christmas Day in Philadelphia in 1861. Many soldiers in Washington, away from home for the first holiday of the war, recorded the unusual weather in their letters and journals.

  Jack

  1

  Manassas Junction, Virginia

  July 21, 1861

  “Get down!”

  The shell screamed overhead and exploded behind the Confederate line as Jack Preston hunkered in the muddy trench with his comrades. He peeked his head above the rim of earth but could see nothing except the stone bridge spanning Blackburn’s Ford and a skim of trees lining the far bank of Bull Run Creek. For seven hours, he had listened to the thunder of battle rolling from the army’s left flank, far away to the west and north. Then the Union artillery in the fields beyond the creek had turned their muzzles in the direction of the 2nd South Carolina infantry.