The Revenant

by Sonia Gensler

  “Willemina!” Her face paled. “I didn’t hear you come in. Is your—Is Gabriel with you?”

  She’d been about to call Gabriel my father.

  “He’s taking my bag to the attic,” I said.

  She narrowed her eyes. “What on earth happened to your head?”

  My hand went to the bruise on my temple. In the mirror that morning, I’d noticed it darkening to purple. “It’s nothing.”

  She looked at me a long time, as though uncertain whether to launch into scolding or take me in her arms. She did neither, waving me toward the bassinet instead. “Well, come and meet your sister.”

  Sister? I hadn’t imagined sturdy old Toomey would sire anything so delicate as a girl. As I crossed the kitchen toward the bassinet, the twins frowned at me as though I were a stranger. I resisted the urge to stick my tongue out at them for staring.

  The baby was red-faced from crying but otherwise free of deformity. She had quite a thatch of dark Toomey hair on top of her head, but I decided not to hold that against her. She stopped fussing when she saw me, her eyes widening at the sight of a strange face.

  “When was she born?” I asked.

  “December twenty-sixth,” replied Mother. “We named her Christabel, what with her being born so soon after Christmas.”

  “Little Christabel,” I murmured, reaching down to her tiny hand. How could I not smile when she wrapped all five fingers around my own?

  “We’ve been worried about you, Willie.” Mother still looked down at the baby.

  “You needn’t have. I was fine. Toomey told me you were getting the money I sent.”

  “And it was appreciated, but we’d rather have had you with us, safe and sound.”

  “I suppose my labor was worth more to you than the money?”

  She sighed. “You’re here a few minutes and already spoiling for a fight, I see.” The baby began to cry again. Mother stroked her cheek and then lifted the blanket to check her diaper. “Well, it’s going to have to wait. We’ll not discuss this in front of the children.”

  So I helped set the table, my heart sinking as I took the plates out of the cupboard and arranged them along with cups and cutlery. It was odd to do such mundane work, and yet at the same time it felt as though I’d never left. How long would it take me to forget the person I had become at the seminary? How many settings of the table before Miss McClure’s triumphs and perils faded to a ghostly memory?

  I dreaded another supper eaten in deafening—and damning—silence, but my brothers made things lively. They practically wriggled with delight to see their father. After pelting him with questions, they told tales of the adventures he’d missed while away. They did not speak to me, still shy of my other-worldliness, but that didn’t stop them from staring.

  After supper was cleared away and Christabel was settled once more into her bassinet, Toomey took the boys to their bedroom and I dried the dishes that Mother washed.

  She didn’t turn to look at me. When I risked a glance out of the corner of my eye, I saw her stiff shoulders and tight mouth curved downward. I dried and dried, waiting for her to speak. Waiting for her to say the words that would stoke the flame of my anger.

  But Mother did not speak. And I wasn’t about to open my mouth first.

  So when I’d dried the last dish and placed it on the table, I threw the rag down next to it and went to my room.

  • • •

  The stalemate continued for days. I did my chores in silence and then retreated to the attic to avoid Toomey’s drooping face and Mother’s coldness.

  After supper I’d crawl into bed and dream of the river, my mind flashing with images of the doctor’s face, pale and streaming with water. In these dreams I had him by the throat, pushing him deeper and deeper into the river. Invariably, I woke up with a start, heart pounding and body soaked in sweat. For the rest of the night, I’d toss and turn, wondering how my dream self remembered what my waking mind couldn’t.

  The days crawled by. Rain drummed on the roof each night, making the attic air heavy and damp. But I refused to go downstairs unless absolutely necessary, for the twins paced the house like caged animals while Toomey stared out the window. The longer it rained, the more the house felt like an asylum for the mentally unfit.

  Finally, even the sun grew tired of the gloom and decided to blast the clouds and rain away. On the first dry morning, Toomey took the boys outside, and Mother perked up enough to actually speak to me.

  “Gabriel will be turning the earth for spring planting this morning. He’s already milked the cows, but you’ll need to feed and water all the animals.”

  Tempting as it was to throw a fit over such a blunt request, I actually was pleased to get out of the house. It had been years since I tended the livestock, and Papa never countenanced too much rough work for his girl. But I was so eager to breathe some fresh air that I tied on my bonnet and marched out to the barn without a word of protest.

  The cows were more curious than I remembered, nuzzling me with slimy noses and blowing their sour cud breath in my face. Their rolling eyes and long tongues were monstrous, and they nearly knocked me over when they mistook me for a scratching post. The chickens were small but raised a racket of clucks and squawks. My heart nearly rose to my throat when they descended upon me, for I feared they’d peck me to death as I spread the feed. By comparison, the pigs were downright gentle and merely grunted appreciatively as the slop splashed into their trough. Their muddy beds raised an unholy stench, however, and it nearly gagged me.

  At least none of the animals talked back or poked fun at my clothes.

  By the time every creature was fed, I was filthy and damp with perspiration. The flies were taking notice. So I washed the sweat away with trough water and climbed the ladder to the barn loft. The air was fresh and the hay smelled sweet—a perfect spot for a nap. I fluffed up some hay and settled down where I had a view out to the orchard.

  Just as my eyelids were growing heavy, I heard it.

  Purring.

  I sat up and began to root around in the hay. A few paces away in the corner of the loft, I found a skinny cat with six kittens pounding away at her belly as they nursed. The poor mama looked exhausted and didn’t even mew in protest when I stroked her handsome head. I leaned in to get a closer look at the kittens. Plump little bodies and wide-open eyes. They’d be weaned before long. When one detached for a moment, I reached in and gently lifted it to my chest. I swear the mama cat looked relieved.

  Before long I had three kittens in my lap. I took turns bringing each to my face and breathing in their smell of sweet hay and clean fur. Their deep, rumbling purrs brought a warm tingle to my belly. I leaned back and let them crawl all over me until they curled up together and fell asleep on my chest. Their warmth soaked into my very bones.

  In my drowsy contentment, I imagined Eli’s arms around me, his hands tangled in my hair. No one had touched me since that day at the river when he pulled my body from the water. It occurred to me that before the night we’d embraced under my window, no one had held me for years. Once Papa died, Mother’s arms were busy with Toomey, and soon thereafter, the twins.

  It was enough to make me wonder—how long could one live without the warmth of human touch?

  Chapter 28

  EVERY DAY THAT WEEK I spent my mornings in the loft. When I wasn’t dreaming of Eli, I sorted through my bottled-up frustrations—things I would have shared with Olivia if she’d been near and didn’t loathe me for being a liar.

  What would she make of my nightmares? The more I considered the matter from her point of view, the clearer it became. In those moments before I’d lost consciousness, when I was so close to death, I’d seen a dark-haired boy. Cale Hawkins. Somehow he’d reached out to me, and his spirit had guided what happened in the river. His rage—the violence unleashed on Fannie and Lucy, the very same rage that shattered my window—had somehow possessed my own body. But that rage had cooled when the river claimed the doctor, leaving me with n
othing but the blurry visions of my dreams.

  Once I’d imagined Olivia explaining it that way, my nightmares came less frequently, and when they did come, they weren’t quite so terrifying.

  I often thought of writing to her, though I doubted Crenshaw would pass my letter along. I could see her keeping it from Olivia lest it prove upsetting—she would consider it part of her duty to protect the staff after a harrowing incident. I couldn’t blame her, really.

  Even if the letter did reach Olivia, what would it say? How could I explain? If there’d been paper in the house, I would have written down my thoughts to see if they looked as pathetic as I feared. But Mother did not keep stores of paper for idle scribbling, so I tested the words aloud in the loft when the kittens were sleeping.

  “Dearest Olivia,” I always started. And then something would catch in my throat. But that day I was determined to get the jumbled thoughts out of my head. “Dearest Olivia, I hope you are well. I miss you.” I paused, grappling for the right words. “By now you probably know I am not Angeline McClure, and that I was only pretending to be a teacher. I lied because … well, because I had a terrible home life and lying was the only way to escape it.”

  I could see Olivia reading that letter, gasping at the thought of my parents beating me until my only choice was to lie, steal, and run away. That would not do. The last thing I wanted was to mislead her with yet another half-truth.

  “Olivia, I lied because my mother was forcing me to leave school and come home to work on the farm. The very idea of such drudgery was unbearable. My papa would have turned in his grave—”

  “Willemeeeeeena!”

  I jumped at the high-pitched voice. After catching my breath, I scrambled across to the wide loft window and peered over the edge. Freddy and Hal were looking up at me, stubby little figures with wide eyes and red cheeks.

  “What?”

  Hal tilted his head. “Who you talkin’ to?”

  “Nobody. What do you want?”

  “Has the kitties opened their eyes yet?” Freddy asked, bouncing with excitement. “We wanna play with ’em and Mama says we can’t till they open their eyes.”

  “The kittens are still too little. I’m afraid you’ll hurt them. Now go on back to the house.”

  Both boys hung their heads. Then Freddy bounced again. “Can we come up there and just look at ’em? We’ll be good, I promise.”

  “No, Freddy! I want to be alone right now.”

  “But why?”

  “Because you annoy me. Now go on home.”

  Freddy looked at Hal. “What’s annoy?”

  Hal shrugged and kicked at the dirt.

  I scrambled back to my spot in the hay, hoping they’d give up and return to the house. But after several false starts, I could not pick up the thread of my letter to Olivia. Nor could I settle into romantic thoughts of Eli again. The peace of the morning had been rudely interrupted, and I could sit still no longer.

  I decided to walk the property. It seemed the only way to stay ahead of the thoughts that haunted me.

  That night I stood once more at the sink with Mother, drying dishes as we did every night. My hands were busy, but my mind was far away.

  I’d fully intended not to be the first to speak. And I’d held to that. But that night I couldn’t keep the deep sigh of self-pity trapped inside any longer. When the mournful breath rushed out of my mouth, Mother finally looked at me.

  “Are you ready to tell me why you felt it necessary to run away, Willemina?”

  As if I could explain in a way she could understand! A year ago the thought of going home had made me physically ill. It broke my heart to be in the house without Papa, and I couldn’t bear to see Mama smile lovingly at Toomey or his boys.

  “You betrayed Father.” I kept my eyes on the plate in my hands.

  “By remarrying?”

  “You barely mourned him, Mother!” I stacked the dried plate on the table with the others and stared at her. “If you’d loved him, you’d have mourned at least a year, if not more. But, no, you were married again in a month and carrying the twins not long after that. It makes me wonder …”

  Her face was grim. “What?”

  The suspicion that had wedged itself into my heart years ago now ached to be pulled out and laid bare. I’d never voiced it, but I was a different person now. A stronger person, willing to face the darkness rather than run. Taking a deep breath, I looked her squarely in the eye. “It made me wonder if you and Toomey did not wait for Papa to die.”

  She pulled her hands from the water and wiped them on her apron, a gesture made almost violent by her anger. “Let me tell you something about your beloved papa, Willie.” Her voice was cutting. “He was a drunk and a spendthrift. He drank himself into an early grave and left me with a heavily mortgaged farm. I had nothing. No family to turn to. I thought we’d have to leave the farm and go beg on the streets of Columbia. But Gabriel Toomey, who’d always been a good neighbor, took pity on me. He helped with the harvest and shared his food. He was a good friend to us—an honest, steady man who knew how to save rather than spend.”

  “But Toomey is such a …”

  Her mouth tightened. “Such a what?”

  “He’s an oaf, Mother! Slow and uncouth. I couldn’t see why you’d befriend him, let alone marry him.”

  She laughed bitterly. “I was so taken in by your father’s dandy ways—a man of the theater who wished to retire to the country and play lord of the manor. I had no idea how little he knew about farming, and how little time it would take him to go through the money it’d taken my parents years to save. He missed the stage, you see. He didn’t find peace out here. Instead, he longed for the attention he received as a performer.”

  “How could you blame him?”

  “I didn’t blame him for missing the stage! I blamed him for taking advantage of me. And for making me suffer for his disappointment.”

  At those words I turned to walk away, out of that crypt of a house, but she grabbed my arm with her damp hand. Her fingers were strong as talons.

  “No!” she hissed. “You will stay and listen.”

  “Mother!”

  She held my gaze, waiting for me to be still. Then she took a deep breath. “Your father told me he wanted a quiet life in the country, and that is why I married him. The first few years were fine, especially after you were born, because you distracted me from seeing the truth about him. But by the time you were in school, I was begging for food on credit from the grocery. I was milking the cow and feeding the chickens and working in that garden where nothing ever grew because the birds would always get to it first. I was doing it all by myself. And do you know what your father was doing? Sitting in his study, drinking his whiskey and planning the first season of his Columbia Theater.”

  Her words were cruel blows, but my heart resisted them. Papa was a noble and loving man, and it burned me up with anger to hear him cast as the villain. My fondest memories were of sitting in his study while he talked to me about the theater. When he told stories from the past or shared his dreams for the future, it made me feel older, wiser—as though I mattered.

  “Your bitterness sucked the life out of Papa,” I finally replied, meeting Mother’s eyes directly. “You never could find it in your heart to believe in him or his dreams, and that drove him to ruin!”

  She stared at me, her face white with anger. When she finally eased her grip, I tore away and stumbled from the room, ignoring Toomey’s growl of exasperation as I pushed past him. A high-pitched wail sounded from the kitchen as baby Christabel began to cry. I barely managed to make it upstairs before my own tears came.

  Chapter 29

  MOTHER AVOIDED ME for the next few days, which was just fine. If Papa had been a drunk, she drove him to it—I was certain of that. Such a fretful, frowning woman would send any man straight to the bottle. Steering well clear of her, I did my chores as usual and spent the rest of my time in the hayloft.

  But one day when I was washin
g the sweat and filth from my arms after slopping the pigs, I turned to find two pairs of eyes staring at me. Freddy and Hal stood by the trough, their freckles prominent against their pale skin. Freddy twisted his hands together, opening and closing his mouth as though to speak, but no sound came out. His cheeks flushed with color, and he looked to Hal for help.

  Hal swallowed. “May we please see the kitties now, if it’s not too much trouble?” His voice was barely audible. Both boys were wide-eyed with hope, but Freddy flinched when I stepped toward them.

  My heart seemed to contract and soften at the same time.

  “I think the kittens are ready for you now. But you must be very gentle.”

  I helped them up the ladder, surprised by the agility of their stubby limbs.

  “Walk slowly, now,” I said when we’d reached the loft, “and don’t make too much noise.”

  “We know,” Hal said softly.

  The kittens had finished their morning meal and lay curled up together, their soft bodies curiously interwoven. I stroked the mama’s head while the boys knelt over the kitties, crooning in delight.

  “Be gentle,” whispered Freddy.

  “You be gentle,” replied Hal.

  They both managed better than I expected. When I saw how softly they handled the kittens, I allowed them each to take one into his lap. Already accustomed to being held, the kittens snuggled comfortably against the boys’ warm bellies. Freddy giggled as his kitten stretched on its back to reveal the white fluff of its tummy. Hal seemed more entranced by how wide his kitten could open its mouth when it yawned.

  Freddy glanced up at me. “Can we take them back to the house?”

  Hal frowned. “No, silly! They gotta stay with their mama.” He turned to me. “Right, Willie?”

  “That’s right, Hal,” I murmured.

  Freddy stroked his kitten’s ear. “But Christabel wants to see them.”

  “She’s just a baby!” Hal cried.

  I laughed. “Sharing the kittens with Christabel is a sweet idea, Freddy, but they’re still too young, and Christabel is barely able to sit up on her own. She’ll appreciate them more when she’s older.”