Northern Light

by Jennifer Donnelly

  Now I see why Grace sounded so worried in all her letters. There were other girls. She wasn't the only one. There were girls that maybe he wanted to be with more than he wanted to be with her. Lord, what a mess of trouble she was in. Chester had put her in the family way and she needed him to marry her, but he didn't seem to want to. Not if she had to plead with him to come for her, not if he barely wrote to her, and when he did, told her about other girls he was taking around.

  Not if he fought with her at dinner about trying to find a chapel.

  I can't imagine how frightened Grace must have been, alone with her terrible secret, waiting and waiting for Chester to come. I remember all Pas warnings about men and the one thing they want, and I shudder to think what would happen to me if I ever found myself a baby before I found myself a husband. But then I comfort myself with the knowledge that Chester did do right by her in the end. He came and got her and brought her to the North Woods to elope, didn't he? Even if they did fight about the chapel. Why else would he have brought her here if it wasn't to elope?

  I am so confused. I don't know what to think. I feel like the little feather shuttlecock in the badminton games the guests play, batted about from one side to the other.

  There is one more Chester letter. It is our of order in the stack, dated earlier than the previous one. Maybe it will tell me what I want to know.

  June 25, 1906

  Dear Grace—

  ...Three of us fellows went up to the lake and camped in a small house that one of the boys owns. We had a dandy time even though there were no girls. We went in swimming in the afternoon, and the water was great. I went out in the canoe in the evening and wished you had been there...

  I stop reading. All of Chester's good and dandy times, I realize, took place on a lake. In a canoe.

  Earlier that day, when the men had brought Grace's body in, we all thought that her companion, Carl Grahm, had drowned, too, and that it would only be a matter of time until his body was found.

  But there was no Carl Grahm. I couldn't find him anywhere. There was only Chester Gillette. And Chester Gillette could handle a boat. Chester Gillette could swim.

  You have your answer now, don't you? I say to myself. That's what you get for prying.

  But myself is not listening. She refuses to listen. She's picking up another letter and another and another, frantically looking for a different answer.

  She feels sick, so sick she could vomit.

  Because she thinks she knows why Chester brought Grace here.

  And it wasn't to elope.

  ico • sa • he • dron

  "And don't you ever go in a room by yourself with a strange man..."

  "Yes, Pa."

  "...no matter what the reason. Even if he says you're just to bring him a towel. Or a cup of tea."

  "I won't, Pa."

  "And you watch yourself around the help, too. Workmen and barkeeps and such."

  "I'll be all right, Pa. The Morrisons run a respectable place."

  "That may be, but any low-down jack with a few dollars in his pocket can take a room at a fancy hotel. Things ain't always what they seem, Mattie. You remember that. Just because a cat has her kittens in the oven, it don't make 'em biscuits."

  Things are never what they seem, Pa, I thought. I used to think they were, but I was" wrong or stupid or blind or something. Old folks are forever complaining about their failing eyesight, but I think your vision gets better as you get older. Mine surely was.

  I'd seen Miss Wilcox as a spinster teacher with a fondness for the mountains. She wasn't. She was Emily Baxter, a lady poet who'd run away from her husband. I'd seen Mr. Loomis as someone who was just being kind whenever he brought Emmie Hubbard eggs or milk. He wasn't. He was most likely the reason her three younger kids all had blond hair. I'd seen Royal Loomis as too fine to ever notice the likes of me, but now we were out driving together every night and he was going to buy me a ring. I'd seen my chances of working at one of the hotels as zero, but there I was, just two weeks before Decoration Day and the official start of the summer season, sitting next to my father in the buckboard on my way to the Glenmore. My mamma's old carpetbag—packed with my dictionary, a few other books from Miss Wilcox, my nightclothes, and two of Mamma's better skirts and waists that Abby had taken in for me—was on the floor between us, heavy as a hod of bricks.

  Two days before, I'd gone into the barn to fetch Pleasant out and found him stiff and cold in his stall. No one knew why. He wasn't ailing. Pa said it was old age. He was upset when I told him. He couldn't be without a mule. He needed one to harrow the crops and deliver milk and pull stumps, but a good one cost about twenty dollars and he didn't have it. He was far too stubborn to borrow it, but old Ezra Rombaugh in Inlet, whose son and new daughter-in-law were working his land with their oxen, said he'd sell Pa his six-year-old for fourteen dollars and let him pay off the cost so much every week. That's when he decided I would go to the Glenmore. He didn't like the idea any more in May than he had in March, but he had no choice.

  I should have been excited. I should have been beside myself. I'd wanted to go to the Glenmore for months, ever since Weaver and I first cooked up the idea over the winter. And I was finally going. But it felt bittersweet. I wasn't working to get myself to Barnard. I was working because Pa needed help to pay for the new mule.

  My mamma once had a beautiful glass basket that my aunt Josie gave her. It was a deep indigo blue, with a braided handle and ruffled edges, and it had SOUVENIR OF CAPE MAY written on it. Mamma loved it. She'd kept it on a shelf in the parlor, but Lou took it down one day to play with it and dropped it on the floor. It smashed into a million pieces. Lawton thought maybe he could glue it back together. He tried, but it was too badly damaged. Mamma didn't throw the shards out, though. She put them into an old cigar box and kept them in the bureau in her bedroom. She would look at them every once in a while. She would hold a piece up to the window and watch the light come through it, then put the box away again. When I was younger, I never understood why she kept the broken pieces around, why she didn't just throw them out. Riding up the Big Moose Road with my pa that day, waiting for the Glenmore to come into view, I finally did.

  After talking to Ezra Rombaugh, Pa had inquired at the hotel to see if they still had any positions vacant, and they did. I was sorry I couldn't work for Miss Wilcox anymore, but the Glenmore paid more and she was happy for me to go. She said my wages would more than cover the price of a train ticket to New York City. I hadn't the heart to tell her that I'd written Dean Gill to say I wasn't coming.

  I was to receive four dollars a week. Pa said I could keep back a dollar for myself. I told him I would keep back two or I would not go. "You know I'm keeping company with Royal Loomis," I said. "I'll have need of a few dollars myself soon." I had three dollars from Miss Wilcox, plus the nickel left over from my fiddlehead money, but I'd need more. Setting up house was an expensive proposition. Pa blinked at me, but I didn't blink back. I'd counted on him still feeling bad enough about hitting me to let me have my way on this, and I was right. There is an advantage to be found in most everything that happens to you, even if it is not immediately apparent.

  Pa went right to Inlet after I found Pleasant, and left word at O'Hara's for Bert Brown to come get him. It was only the end of May, but the days could get warm. Bert collected dead livestock and rendered them down. He didn't pay anything for them, but he saved you digging a hole. I was sure that any soap made from Pleasant would be harsh enough to take the skin off your hands, and any glue made from him would be stronger than nails. Icosahedron, my word of the day, means twenty-sided. It is an almost entirely useless word, unless, of course, you want to describe something with twenty sides. Then it is perfect. It was a fitting word for Pleasant, who mostly dug his heels in and bit and kicked, but who got me to the Glenmore when I couldn't get myself there.

  Pa turned right off the Big Moose Road, and then right again, into the Glenmore's drive. I could see the hotel now, looming ta
ll. A trio of beautifully dressed women strolled toward the dock, parasols over their slender shoulders. A family alighted from a surrey at the front of the hotel and walked leisurely across the lawn. Their maid stayed behind, counting the pieces of luggage as they were unloaded. Suddenly I wanted to tell my father to turn around. I didn't know the first thing about fine people, or how to behave around them. What if I dropped soup in someone's lap? Or spoke before I was spoken to? Or poured wine into the water glasses? Pa needed that new mule badly, though—I knew he did—so I didn't word.

  "Abby know how to deal with that stove?" he asked me as Licorice, the new mule, pulled the buckboard up to the Glenmore's back entrance.

  "Yes, Pa. Better than I do." Abby was going to be in charge of everyone, and she would get the meals, too.

  "I talked with Mr. Sperry. You're to serve in the dining room and help in the kitchen and clean the rooms, but I don't want you nowhere near the bar, you hear? You stay away from the dancing pavilion, too."

  "Yes, Pa." What did he think I was going to do? Knock back a few shots every now and again and show off my fancy quickstep?

  "Anything happens and you want to come home, you just send word. Don't walk all the way by yourself with that bag. I'll come and get you. Or Royal. One of us will."

  "I'll be fine, Pa. Really I will."

  I got out. My father did, too. He lifted my bag down, walked me to the kitchen door, and peered inside. I waited for him to hand me the carpetbag, but he didn't. He held it hard against him. "Well, you going in or not?" he asked me.

  "I need my bag, Pa."

  As he handed it to me, I saw he'd gripped it so tightly his knuckles had turned white. We were not the kissing kind, me and Pa, but I wished that maybe he would at least hug me good-bye. He just toed the ground and spat, though, told me to mind myself, and took off in the buckboard without once looking back.

  ob • strep • er • ous

  I was cleaning the table when I saw it. A dime. Lying next to the sugar bowl. I picked it up and ran after the woman who'd left it.

  "Ma'am? Pardon me, ma'am!" I called.

  She stopped in the doorway.

  "You left this, ma'am," I said, holding the coin out to her.

  She smiled and shook her head. "Yes, I did. For you." And then she turned and walked out of the dining room and I did not know what to do. Cook warned us nine ways to Sunday to turn in anything that we find—money, jewelry, buttons, anything. But how could I turn it in if its owner didn't want it back?

  "Put it in your pocket, you fool," a voice behind me said. It was Weaver. He was busing a huge tray of dirty dishes. "It's called a tip. They leave it for good service. You get to keep it."

  "For real?"

  "Yup. But if you don't get your table cleared and your rear end back in the kitchen, it'll be the only one you ever get." He started walking away, then turned and said, "Boisterous."

  "Unruly," I replied, hurrying back to clear my table.

  On the way into the kitchen, I had to pause outside the doors for a second, trying to remember which was in and which was out. I'd already been yelled at for going out the in one. As I pushed open the right door, struggling to balance the heavy tray on my shoulder, Cook bawled at me for being slower than a snail on crutches. "Table ten needs water, butter, and rolls! Look alive, Mattie!" she yelled.

  "I'm sorry," I said.

  I rushed past the other girls, past the smoke and steam pouring from the massive black stove, and slammed my tray down by the sink. "Don't slam it!" Bill the dishwasher yelled. "Aw, look at that, will you? You're supposed to scrape the dishes, then stack them. Just look at that mess!"

  "I'm sorry," I mumbled.

  I ran to the warming oven, skidded on a slice of tomato, and just managed to right myself before I smashed into Henry, the new underchef, who had arrived at the Glenmore the day before, same as me, and was carrying a basket of lobsters. Henry, Mrs. Morrison had informed us, had apprenticed in the finest kitchens of Europe, and the Glenmore was fortunate to have him.

  "Mein Gott! Vatch out!" he yelled.

  "I'm sorry," I whispered.

  "You sure are," Weaver said, whizzing past me.

  "Weaver, Ada, Fran, pick up! Pick up!" Cook hollered.

  I grabbed a clean tray, a dish of butter from the cold station, and a jug of water.

  "Uncontrollable," Weaver shot at me, on his way back to the dining room.

  "Clamorous," I shot back. We had a word duel going for my word of the day—obstreperous. I saw that it was going to be tough to play my word games here. I'd barely had time to wash my face and braid my hair that morning, never mind look in my dictionary.

  I had challenged Weaver to a duel out of spite after I learned that he was making a whole dollar more a week than I was. I'd asked him how he did it, and he'd said, "Never take what's offered, Matt. Always ask for more." And then he took off his cap and held it in his hands. "Please, sir, I want some more," he said, mimicking Oliver Twist.

  "Just look where that got Oliver," I'd grumbled, put out at how Weaver always seemed to be able to bend the world, just a little, to his will. Just because he dared to.

  I rushed to the warming oven, got a basket down off the top of it, and lined it with a clean napkin. I burned my fingers getting the hot rolls. My eyes reared, but I didn't dare let on.

  "Henry! Heat these up, will you?" Cook shouted. And then three metal cans went sailing over my head, one after another.

  "Vas is?" Henry yelled.

  "Sweet milk. For a caramel sauce," she shouted back.

  "Obnoxious," Weaver said, suddenly beside me and scooping rolls into a basket. He stuffed a corn dodger into his mouth, then yowled, as Cook, passing us on a return trip to the oven from the icebox, cuffed his head.

  "Bumptious," I said, giggling.

  Weaver had a reply, but he couldn't get it out because his mouth was full. "To the death, Mr. Smith," I said. I blew on my finger like it was a pistol stock, hoisted my tray, and headed for the dining room.

  It was my first full day at the Glenmore, and though it was only about six miles from my house, it was a whole different country to me, a whole new world—the world of tourists. Tourists are a race of people who have money enough to go on vacation for a week or two, sometimes a month or even the whole summer. I couldn't imagine it—not working for a whole summer. Some of them were quite nice, some were not. Mrs. Morrison was bossy and Cook was a bear, but I didn't mind any of it. It all seemed like a grand adventure to me. I wasn't quite as nervous as I'd thought I'd be. Fran, who was head waitress, had explained things to me.

  I placed the rolls and butter down on table ten. A family was dining there. A father, mother, and three young children. They talked and laughed. The father rubbed noses with his little girl. I stared at them until the mother noticed me and I had to look away.

  Table nine was a party of four burly sporting gentlemen up from New York City. They'd gone fishing with a guide in the morning and planned to go back out at dusk. I thought they would empty the entire kitchen. I brought them cream of green pea soup. Three baskets of rolls. A plate of sweet gherkins, radishes, olives, and chowchow. The trout they'd caught, fried and served with Sarah Bernhardt potatoes. Chicken livers sautéed with bacon. Entrecôtes of beef. Dishes of spinach, stewed tomatoes, beets, and creamed cauliflower. And for dessert, coconut layer cake sandwiched together with custard and covered with pillows of boiled icing.

  Table eight was a single woman. She was sitting quietly, sipping lemonade and reading. I couldn't take my eyes off her. "I'd kill for a dress like that," Fran said as she passed by me. But it wasn't her dress I wanted, it was her freedom. She could sit by a window and read, with nobody to say, "Are the chickens fed? What's for supper? Have the pigs been slopped? The garden hoed? The cows milked? The stove blacked?" I thought she was the luckiest woman on the face of the earth. She had a small appetite and ordered no starters, only the trout. But she wanted it poached, not fried.

  Cook grumbled, but she poa
ched the fish. When I brought it out, the woman wrinkled her nose. "It smells off," she said. "Would you please tell your cook that I like my fish fresh?"

  I returned to the kitchen and went up to Cook with the plate in my hands, thinking that my life would surely end right then and there, but she just grumbled, took the lettuce and tomato garnish off, flipped the fish over, put on a new garnish of spinach leaves and carrot coins, then told me to wait five minutes and take it back out again. I did. The woman pronounced it perfect.

  Table seven was two young married couples. They had maps with them and were planning a buckboard tour of the area. The men wore light wool suits and had smooth, clean hands and all their fingers. The women wore cycling skirts and striped waists with silk bow ties at the collar.

  "Say, Maude, maybe our little waitress here will know!" one of the gentlemen said as I prepared to take their orders.

  "Do you know where I can find Indians?" the woman named Maude asked me. "I'm here in the Ho De Ron Dah and I want to see Indians."

  "Beg your pardon, ma'am," I said uncertainly, "but this is the Glenmore."

  The entire table burst into laughter. I felt stupid and I didn't even know why.

  "Ho De Ron Dah is an Indian word, dear. It's Iroquois. It means 'bark eaters.' It's what the Iroquois called their enemies, the Montagnais. The Montagnais hunted here in the mountains, but if they couldn't catch anything, they ate roots and twigs. The Iroquois found that terribly gauche. White people, however, pronounce the word Ad-i-ron-dack. You know, the Adirondacks? Where you live!"

  I live in the North Woods, I said silently. The Adirondacks was a name the travel brochures used to lure summer people. It was pretty and clever, like the tricked-out fishing flies Charlie Eckler sold to the tourists. The ones no guide would be caught dead using.

  "So, tell me," the woman said, "where can I find some Indians?"

  I cleared my throat nervously. I didn't want to say something else stupid and have them laugh at me again. "Well, ma'am, there's the Traversys. And the Dennises. They're Abenakis, I'm told. They weave sweet-grass baskets and sell them in Eagle Bay. At the railroad station..."