The Quill Pen

by Michelle Isenhoff

  He stopped short, remembering yet another incident. Next to the fire pit. On the beach outside the attic window. He’d used the pen there also. What had he written?

  He’d been weary. He wanted to go home. And he had scrawled that hope across a burned scrap of paper.

  The memory came tumbling back. Returning to the attic, he found that Mrs. Parsons had taken ill. And she called off the remainder of the afternoon.

  She had sent him home!

  There could be no mistake now. No second-guessing, no arguing. Every single thing he’d written with the pen had come true!

  Micah sank to a chair and let the discovery soak into his mind. As it did, a little bubble of doubt wiggled its way to the top. If his father died, it would be all his fault.

  But a heady rush of power swept the bubble away. It gushed over him, filling with heat and laughter. In his hand he held the power to turn history! He could have whatever he wanted, do whatever he wished, and no one could stop him. Not even his father!

  Not even his father.

  A smile as slow and lazy as the sunset spread across his face. The Fremantle Boys’ Academy, it seemed, would be starting without him after all.

  ***

  “Gabby,” he called as loudly as he dared. The mosquito netting tacked to the open window wafted in the night breeze. “Gabby!”

  Muffled movement reached him from inside.

  “Gabby, I know you’re in there. If you won’t talk to me, at least listen. Please.”

  Silence.

  He plowed ahead. “Gabby, I’m sorry about what I said tonight. You know it’s not true. I only said it because I was trapped, and I’m such a coward around my father. But that’s going to be different now. You know you’re the best friend I have.”

  He paused and listened, but the bedroom remained quiet and dark. “Gabby, I have to tell you what happened tonight. I wrote you an apology. I was going to have Nancy deliver it for me. But my father made me so mad that I wrote out some choice words about him too. I said I wished someone would knock some sense into his head. I wrote it with the pen, Gabby, and within minutes someone burst into our house to say he’d been kicked in the head by a horse.”

  He pulled himself up to the window, his voice pitched higher with excitement. “Read it for yourself, Gabby,” he said, holding up his journal. He had tucked the letter inside. “Read all the red entries. But don’t tell me it’s another coincidence. It can’t be, not this many times.”

  He held up the journal, but she stubbornly refused to show herself at the window.

  “Gabby, don’t you know what this means?”

  The room was absolutely still.

  “We’re set for life! We can have money, land, food, whatever we want. And everyone has to do what we say. We can order around Judge Ruby! Heck, we can run the whole town. The whole world! We have supernatural power at our command!”

  He paused, his enthusiasm floundering like a mastless ship at her continued silence. “Okay then,” he wavered, “I’ll leave my journal in the hole in the sycamore tree so you can read it when you’re ready. I really am sorry for what I said tonight. I hope you’ll forgive me.”

  He hesitated another moment then walked across the moonlit clearing and stopped beside the giant tree. After he placed the journal inside, he glanced back over his shoulder. Behind the mosquito netting, Gabby’s face was framed against the window watching him leave.

  ***

  The next morning, the sun had traveled well on its journey before Micah’s mother shook him awake. He blinked up at her in confusion.

  “Time to wake up, sleepyhead. I let you sleep late, but now I need you to mind the store. Dr. Buford won’t let your father out of bed.” She sat down beside him and answered the question she read in his eyes. “He’s fine. Just worn out.”

  Micah felt enormous relief, but whether for his father or for himself he couldn’t sort out too quickly.

  “We had a discussion this morning,” she continued. “The trip to the city must be delayed, of course. And with you leaving for the Academy, we’ve decided to hire some help for the store. It’s uncanny, really,” she smiled. “Only yesterday a fellow came in looking for work.”

  “Mother, I can’t work the store this morning. I promised the widow I’d help her.”

  She patted his hand. “That’s all arranged. You will manage the store until I return from my library board meeting. Then I will take over and you can run along to the old lady. Now get up. Lusa has breakfast waiting for you.”

  Despite its low stock, the store stayed extremely busy that morning. Most customers simply wanted to confirm the rumors that were blazing through town. Micah had to repeat the story of his father’s accident a score of times. When his mother finally arrived, he flew out the door like a ball shot from a cannon and escaped to Mrs. Parsons’ house.

  “You’re late,” the widow greeted him.

  “Sorry, my mother’s meeting ran long.”

  She set him to work immediately. It was heavy labor and strained his muscles, but he preferred it a thousand times to lingering in the darkness of the store. After several hours, a healthy, satisfying fatigue began to set in.

  At the widow’s bidding, he lifted a crate onto a stack against the wall, jostling an adjoining table. A few books slid to the floor and he stooped to pick them up.

  “Is your father as ill as they say?”

  Micah had wondered when she would ask. He mumbled a reply.

  “Speak up,” she snapped.

  He stood with the stack of books in his arms. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Horse?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “He’ll live. He’s a stubborn man. Hard as an ax head. Tell me, child, do you intend to follow in his footsteps? Can you stomach the work?”

  She had an uncanny ability to read into his private thoughts. “My father’s the best businessman in these parts,” he fumbled.

  She cocked one eyebrow at him. “I didn’t ask you that.”

  At his silence, she continued. “Axes are worthless for carving or shaping. They chop. They smash, splinter, and destroy.” She shot him a cunning glance. “But an ax can’t destroy flint. Oh, it will make the sparks fly, but flint is a rock, boy. It won’t be manipulated.”

  The force of her eyes cut into Micah like a knife.

  “You need to decide what you want out of life, boy. Take the ship by the wheel and steer your own course or you will live to regret it. Don’t wait until you’re old like me. Script it out now, just the way you hope to live it.”

  Micah looked up sharply at her choice of words.

  The woman moved to the window where she stood gazing out across the overgrown garden. Her rock-hard demeanor had softened, and she looked aged and vulnerable. Micah wondered what regrets she was mulling over. He worked up the courage to ask a question of his own. “Do you miss your daughter?”

  “’Course, I miss her,” she replied gruffly. “I haven’t heard from her in forty-seven years. I don’t know if she birthed me any grandchildren, or if she’s even alive. But she was the only one with any sense. She got out—away—before it seized her as it seized all the rest of us.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest and added darkly, “Or perhaps she took it with her.”

  Micah felt goose flesh rising on his arms. “Took what with her?”

  The widow gave a bitter laugh. “The curse! Maybe it’s the sea, or the house, or the family line. I don’t know. So many generations, and never a male heir. Only old women passing this infernal house on to a daughter. I’m the only one left, and soon there will be no one. Then perhaps it will die with me.”

  Micah fumbled the books and stooped to retrieve them again.

  She moved to the window that overlooked the bay. “Right there. That’s where it happened last, nearly fifty years ago. My son. He was only a boy, younger than you, out rowing with his friend. It was a hot day. They were playing rough, as b
oys do, and they tipped over.”

  She put her hand on the glass, reliving the memory. “He was a good swimmer, my boy was, and the water was shallow. But there was an accident. A tangled fishing net. His friend survived. My son did not.”

  She turned and pointed to the mouth of the cove. “When I was eleven, a ship foundered just off that point. The men of the town formed a rescue chain across the rocks. The storm was terrible and my father was swept off. His body was never recovered.

  “My grandfather sank off the coast of Massachusetts before I was born. My great-grandfather fell from a ship in the middle of the Atlantic.”

  She closed her eyes. “The list goes back further than my memory. Grieving mothers, grieving widows. My daughter was the only one with any sense.”

  She stayed pressed against the window a long time. Micah held the books uncertainly, casting anxious glances into the corners.

  When at last she turned around, her face was a haggard mask. “I think we’re finished today, Micah. I’ll get your pay.”

  When the door shut behind him, Micah didn’t go home. Instead, he walked down to the bay behind the house. He felt strangely insignificant, like one small thread in a tapestry of humanity that stretched endlessly into the past and would extend into the future as long as time lasted. So many lives, so many interlocking threads woven together to create a picture of history.

  And one whole line was flawed.

  Was it really a curse, or simply an old woman’s imagination? Perhaps it was just nature running its course in ordinary life and death.

  He stood for a long time, staring out at the point of the bay before rousing himself. His father would expect him to return to the store.

  Passing around the corner of the house, Micah caught a glimpse of someone on the porch. He jumped back. He didn’t want the widow thinking he’d trespassed on the site of her private memories.

  He waited for the woman to go back inside, but she passed down the garden path and turned onto the road toward town. When the figure came into full view, he saw it wasn’t the widow at all.

  It was Magnus McKinley.

  14

  _______

  The peal of church bells escorted Micah and his mother to Sunday worship. The morning promised mild weather, and the surf was silent, reverent. In front of Shelby’s Boardinghouse, a bed of yellow orchids nodded to them in the breeze, shaking their perfume into the street.

  Micah tugged open the heavy wooden door. In the very back row of the church, leaning his chair against the wall just as he did on the porch at the store, Hank nodded to him. Jeb sat nearby, his tattered uniform clean and pressed and his gray queue tied with a fresh ribbon. Micah smiled a greeting and escorted his mother to their accustomed pew.

  The old church was a hinge connecting the two sections of town. During the week, Water Street and Main Street went about their own separate business and the two seldom overlapped. But for one hour on Sunday, both sides forgot their differences. Handshakes bound one half to the other and reminded all that they were neighbors.

  Off to one side, Micah spotted Dr. Buford seated beside Buddy Lincoln. Across the aisle, Judge Ruby nodded to the blacksmith. And arriving slightly late, Mr. DeWitt smiled politely at Cooper Crenshaw and his wife and sat down beside them. Widow Parsons was in attendance, sporting her brand new burying suit. Even Magnus McKinley skulked in a back corner.

  The Ramesh family, however, was missing. Micah didn’t know whether to be pleased to put off meeting Gabby or not, but he didn’t have much time to wonder at her absence. Fanny Mae Riley sounded the organ—he recognized her bonnet—and Father Holcomb entered in his pastoral robes to begin the service.

  The sense of community that eased over the town on Sunday mornings felt to Micah like tea leaves on a mosquito bite. He wished he could catch the feeling in a bottle and sprinkle it in the streets on Monday morning. Because when the last prayer ended and the final hymn died away, people scattered to their own neighborhoods, their own ideas, their own ways of life until church bells called them together once again.

  Micah looked around the sanctuary. These were mostly good people; they simply forgot their connection. They let the things they didn’t hold in common blind them to things they all shared.

  They let their differences become walls.

  The priest concluded the service, but before dismissing the congregation, he gave an unexpected announcement. “I just want to let you all know that Dan and Maggie Barlow’s baby boy died about an hour before our meeting commenced. A memorial service will be held tomorrow evening. I trust that in the meantime you’ll wrap arms of comfort around these hurting members of our community.”

  After the parting blessing, the old church rang with lively conversation and the scuffle of many feet. Colorful swarms of churchgoers gathered under the shade tree out on the lawn, buzzing with gossip like so many overdressed honeybees.

  “It’s such a shame, one so young,” a woman ventured.

  “Just terrible,” another agreed. “And the Barlows are such a nice young couple. Why, her grandmother and my aunt were neighbors in Staffordshire.”

  Dr. Buford boomed across the churchyard, “This is what comes of midwifery. I warned Maggie of the hazards of abandoning real medicine for this witchcraft.”

  Magnus McKinley sidled up to the group. “I’ve seen that colored swamp girl delivering her enchantments to the Barlow place regular-like, ever since the birth.”

  “The Ramesh girl?” someone asked.

  “They’re a strange lot, those Rameshes,” another remarked. “Only figures their name would come up.”

  “I never have trusted that bunch. What do they do all day in that swamp anyway? Seems an honest man would come to town and get a job.”

  “Dern foreigners, all of ’em, holdin’ to their peculiar ways.”

  “Sanjay Ramesh and his family are no different than the rest of us. And they’re better than some.” Micah glared hard at Magnus. “Gabby has been bringing Maggie herbs at the midwife’s request. Even Dr. Buford knows their healing value.”

  The physician fell silent, but someone else pointed out, “There ain’t one of them Rameshes here this morning. You know where they are, boy?”

  Micah had to admit he was uncertain. And their absence unsettled him more than he dared let on. Maria Ramesh always insisted her family attend services.

  Magnus piped up again, “Seems suspicious to me.”

  Mrs. Parsons shoved herself into the gathering. “Listen to yourselves,” she scorned. “You’re talking utter foolishness, and just after our preacher’s good sermon. Get yourselves home and think about your words. Go on now. Get!”

  The old woman waved her hands as if she were shooing away insects, and the townsfolk reluctantly dispersed. But not before Magnus shot Micah a look as smug and crafty as an old fox.

  The memory of that glance wouldn’t go away. Neither would the churchyard conversations that replayed over and over like the endless splashing of waves. What could happen if good people let a little gossip color their thinking?

  While Micah wondered, his father threw a regular tantrum in the den. Foul insults followed the smashing of a dish, and Nancy fled the room in tears. Anna followed moments later, her hands fluttering about her throat like moths.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do with your father,” she fretted. “He’s growing so stubborn and impatient. I’m afraid he won’t comply with the doctor’s wishes for long. The only thing keeping him in bed now is a nasty headache.”

  Micah escaped to the beach at his first opportunity.

  Immediately, his agitation lessened. With every footstep, the sand uttered cheerful little chirps, and the breeze whispered sweet words in his ear. Some enchantment at the edge of the ocean always made the sun shine brighter and the colors glow more vibrantly than anywhere else.

  Micah stood with his toes pointed toward the horizon and breathed in deep drafts of briny air. Two miles o
ut, a schooner porpoised gently with the rocking of the waves. Great canvas sails, as white and silent as gulls’ wings, gathered the force of the wind and drove the vessel toward some unknown destination. He wondered briefly how Sanjay had felt the first time he placed his foot on the deck of such a ship.

  A footstep broke Micah’s solitude. Turning, he saw Gabby emerging from the trees. Her eyes were red, and she looked as if she hadn’t slept for days.

  He stepped toward her. “Gabby, what’s wrong?”

  “Mother and I were up with Maggie and her baby most of the night.” She sank heavily to the sand. “We didn’t get home till this afternoon.”

  Relief poured through him. He should have known. “Why didn’t you stay there and get some sleep?” he asked, sitting beside her.

  “I can’t,” she said. “Not yet. Micah, I’ve been thinking about what you said through my window.”

  He scrambled to face her. “I meant it. Every word. I’m really sorry—”

  “No, not that,” she interrupted. “About the pen.”

  He paused, trying to read her expression. “You do believe me, don’t you?”

  “I believe you are being honest, but I’m not sure I believe in enchantments.”

  “Gabby, how can you not see it? The things I wrote came true every time. It can only be magic!”

  She held up her hand to stop his protest. “I want to believe it. That’s why I’m here. I want to test the pen.”

  He grew guarded. “What do you have in mind?”

  “I want to write something with it.”

  Micah frowned, overtaken by an unexplainable jealousy. “What do you want to write?”

  Her face grew earnest. “Do you remember when you asked me what I’d wish for if you really did have a magic pen, back when I’d convinced you it wasn’t?”