The Vanishing Point

by Mary Sharratt

  She was well aware that she was courting danger. The sun had gone down. One by one, the night creatures would emerge. She might meet a prowling bear. Snakes hunted in the dark. Still, she was not eager to go back to the house. What would Gabriel say when she returned with a wet head? She flinched at the thought of him appraising her. Lurching to her feet, she wound her dripping hair in a knot, then closed her chemise and laced her bodice. Her legs were deliciously cool and wet, but her skirt was bedraggled and marked with clay. Cold clay means death. Her body was a dead weight. When she looked into the future, she saw a great wall of pain. She could not imagine herself as a mother with a rosy babe in her arms. Mothers were good. She was not.

  Heading up the path, she passed near the Irishmen's shack, where she heard James's unmistakable laughter. Once she would have been bold enough to enter their circle and join the merriment. Hidden from sight, she hung back behind the sycamores and tiptoed toward the fork in the path that led to the house. She had to return before Nathan awoke in his chair to find her missing. Before he sent Gabriel out to look for her. Lost your wife again, eh? Gabriel would think she had been with a man, as if any of them would care to look at her now that she had grown so huge.

  She followed the left fork to Adele's shack. She thought she could go on enduring her lot only if Adele would give her a few kind words. The full moon allowed her to pick her way along. She hoped that Adele had not already gone to sleep.

  A few yards from the shack, May froze at the sound of a blade scraping wood. A tall shadowy form loomed in front of Adele's door. Trapped in her terror like a fly in a web, her palms dripped sweat. Beyond the curtain of trees, the Irishmen laughed as though this were a night like any other.

  Taking a breath, May charged forward. She told herself that she had little to lose. One act of courage for Adele's sake. One act of courage was all she had to give. At the sound of her footsteps, the thing in front of the door cried out, then fell to the ground. Just as quickly, it scrambled to its feet. Moonlight glinted on the knife blade pointing at May. Adele's once familiar face was a horrible mask.

  The girl stifled a cry, then lowered the knife. "You should not creep in the dark like that." Before May had the chance to exhale, Adele's voice hardened. "Why are you about so late? Did you come now from the men's quarters?"

  "You begin to sound like my husband. Pray, Adele, put away that knife. You gave me such a fright." She looked at the doorway, where she could just make out the stool on which Adele had been standing. The moonlight revealed Adele's handiwork—a carving of a heart with three lines passing through it.

  "What is this? Do you work witchcraft?" The thrice-pierced heart disturbed her even more than the knife had. "Is this a curse, Adele?"

  The girl grabbed her hand and pulled her away from the lintel. "Do not touch it." Her voice was tight with alarm. "Why do you come here in the dark? Your husband he will be looking for you. Let me walk you back."

  May refused to budge. "Tell me the meaning of this carving, Adele."

  "I did it for you. For to protect you."

  "Protect me?" The sense of unease did not lift. "Protect me from what, Adele?" May's throat was so constricted, she found it hard to breathe. "From peril in childbirth?" When Adele remained silent, May fought the urge to shake her. "Have mercy on me, would you? Just spit it out."

  The girl lifted her face to the moonlight. "I have terrible dreams." She paused. "In your condition, I do not want to say things that will make you sad."

  May tried to keep from snapping at her. "Adele, I am as lost as a soul can be. Hearing of your dreams and portents cannot make things worse. If you are my friend, please speak."

  "You are in danger." She spoke very softly, her voice nearly swallowed by the noise of the cicadas. "You must take better care. You ruin yourself going out in the night. You push the young master too far. In time, you might ruin us all."

  "So if there is ruin, I am to blame. Do you condemn me, Adele? Have you grown to hate me, just like the rest of them?"

  "You did make them hate you. It was your doing. You never loved no one. It was only a game to you, no? You made them burn for you. But you are cold. They say you have no heart."

  Cold? Sweat dripped off May's face like tears. Was her need to be cherished so hateful? After James and Gabriel had begun to hate her, she had sought comfort from those who still cared. Did she not deserve a scrap of joy? But now she was a huge cow, her beauty vanished. She stank, nothing but a piece of rank flesh. She felt herself cracking, breaking, a raw egg smashed on a stone. How hot this night was. She recalled the cool English air, her sister begging her not to board the ship. What if he is a beast? For all she knew, Father and Joan might be dead. Her sister was probably the only soul alive who truly loved her. She wondered if she would ever see her again.

  May no longer had the strength to stand. When her legs gave way, she found herself on her hands and knees in the dirt. She had to laugh at what a ridiculous creature she had become—a pregnant woman on all fours. Adele reached to help her, but May grabbed the doorframe and hauled herself up. Everything went dark as the blood rushed out of her head. Was it like this when Hannah had her fits? she wondered. Gulping for air, she prayed for the dizziness to pass. In the distance, James kept laughing. Maybe he was telling the others about her. She thought of the song that boys at home used to sing, following close behind her as she walked through the village on some errand. Cherry-red like a slut's own bed.

  Still clinging to the doorframe, she looked again at the carving on the lintel. "The heart. Was that the purpose of your magic? To give me a new heart?" A noise came out of May's throat. She never cried, never let herself cry. Yet she was sobbing.

  "You asked me to speak the truth." Adele held her the way Hannah used to, and May felt herself treasured once more. She was made human again, no longer a soulless, used-up whore. Sweetness, she thought, remembering a passage from the Bible. The balm of Gilead. If Adele still cared for her, then redemption might be within reach, even for someone as wretched as she was. But that hope vanished when the foreboding descended again.

  "So you have the premonition, too." May spoke in a strangled voice, her mouth to Adele's ear. "I have seen it coming. Master Gabriel does not seem very frightful, and yet I fear him. I know I am to leave this world soon, if not in childbed, then in some other fashion."

  "No." Adele clasped her hands. "I will not allow it." Her voice rose loud and ardent. "I will curse him. I will strike him dead."

  Her words hung in the air as the lantern shone on their faces. He had crept up so quietly. Blinded, May covered her eyes. Why did he need a lantern when he saw too much already? The shy innocent boy she had married had grown into such a bitter man.

  "What do you speak of, Adele?" When he shone the light in her face, the girl bent her head and squeezed her eyes shut. Then he held the lantern to May's skirt, filthy with dirt and clay. To him it must look as though she had been rolling in the muck with a lover. His lantern picked out the knife lying on the ground and the carving on the lintel. "This is witchcraft." His voice was stark with accusation. "You both have been working witchcraft."

  May thought fast. If Nathan found out, he would whip the girl.

  "What nonsense, Gabriel!" Still faint, she needed his arm to make it back to the house, but she was afraid to touch him. She closed her eyes as he held the lantern in her face.

  "Were you weeping, May?" he asked, a bit surprised, but without pity.

  Adele took May's arm. "She misses her sister. She misses her home."

  Ignoring her, Gabriel took hold of May's other arm. "Have you lost your tongue? Why do you not speak for yourself? Why are you out so late, if not to work mischief?"

  "Madame came to me for medicine," Adele said. "A spider did bite her." She spoke so earnestly, striving to make Gabriel believe her, that May burst into tears again.

  "Is that so?" Gabriel asked. "Show me where the spider bit you, May."

  She could only hang her head and cry.
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  "It must be a painful bite."

  "Let me be." She shrieked the words in his face. Abruptly the laughter from the men's shack died. They were listening to her bawl at her husband like a madwoman. "In my condition, I may weep if it pleases me. I know not if I will even have a midwife when my time comes."

  Her outburst left her so weak that she would have collapsed had Adele and Gabriel not been holding her arms.

  "I will sleep in the house from this night on," said Adele, "in case her time does come early."

  Gabriel was about to say something when his father appeared. "By whose leave?" The light of his lantern illuminated his stern, tired face. "What makes you think you can simply decree—"

  "By my leave, sir," said May. "When my time comes, I will need her there."

  "Your time," said Nathan, "won't come until October."

  "Mayhap I counted wrong, sir. Would you look at me, Mr. Washbrook? Can you not see how big I am?" Having never wept in his presence before, she had his full attention. "This night I felt pains in my belly, which is why I sought out Adele, sir." If Nathan believed her story, then it didn't matter what Gabriel believed. "You want your heir, do you not? You want me and the baby to live."

  "May, you do pity yourself," said Gabriel.

  "Please, Nathan." May dared to address him by his Christian name. She looked into his eyes.

  "Very well," he said at last. "But anon I will have everyone abed so I might bolt the door. This ruckus has carried on far too late."

  Before Nathan could turn to leave, Gabriel spoke up. "Father, there is something you must know."

  When May saw the intent on his face, she thought she would fall to her knees. What she dreaded most would come crashing down. Adele pressed her face against her shoulder. Gabriel only had to shine his light on the carving and tell Nathan that Adele had threatened to curse him.

  "Well?" his father asked. "What is it?"

  Gabriel clenched his jaw. Releasing May's arm, he held up the lantern, then lowered it again. The light bounced off May's skirt, his father's boots.

  "Out with it, boy!"

  Gabriel shook his head. "It is nothing, Father. Nothing." Turning his back on them all, he headed for the house.

  29. If I Could be Faithful

  Hannah

  1694

  THE TIME HAD COME to put May's demise behind her. Living in peace with Gabriel was more important than mourning the past. Indeed she had little leisure for fretting. Daniel claimed all her attention, all her time. His crying shattered her sleep. She dragged herself from bed at dawn, which came earlier as winter lost its grip. She nursed the baby and boiled corn mush for breakfast. When Gabriel left to do his chores, she did hers, the same as before, except it took her at least twice as long, for Daniel had colic and she kept interrupting her sweeping and cooking to tend to his cramps. She lay chamomile compresses on his belly and gave him peppermint gripe water.

  Gabriel shared her bed again. They kissed and held each other, but she had persuaded him to wait until Daniel was a year old before she risked another pregnancy.

  After the snow had melted and the river and creek began to flow again, free of ice, Hannah hoed the garden for the first time that spring. She pictured the procession of the year: first the crocuses, then the violets and wood anemones, the first tender shoots of lettuce, the apple and cherry blossoms. This season she could watch her son develop alongside the ripening corn and baby goats.

  The fuzz on Daniel's head grew into ringlets, and the harsh red mellowed into a pleasing chestnut. His eyes remained dark blue. Even with his colic, he kept growing. It made no sense to clothe him in anything but swaddling, otherwise she would be forever sewing new gowns for him. When the boy could sit up by himself, Gabriel lost his awkwardness around him. He loved to carry him on his shoulders and swing him in the air.

  "Which one of us does he take after?" he asked one night, lying on the furs and holding Daniel aloft. "He has your hair and my eyes."

  Hannah held her tongue. It was so plain to the eye—how could Gabriel not see it? Daniel was the image of his aunt May, robust and bonny, with her blue eyes and chestnut hair, her glowing skin, her appetite and willfulness. He would grow to be a handful, she thought wistfully. He would be tall and strong, as handsome as her lost sister. If he had been a girlchild, the illusion would be complete. However, she was grateful that he was a boy, grateful that he would never suffer what her sister had suffered.

  ***

  One day when planting seeds in the garden, she sang a ballad that her sister used to sing. If I could be faithful, then I would be true. May's singing voice had been as lovely as the rest of her, but Hannah could hardly keep the tune. Still, she sang while Daniel watched from the willow-withy enclosure she had built him on the grass outside the garden. In his pudgy hand, he clutched a wooden rabbit Gabriel had carved. Ruby lay at his side, gnawing on a deer bone. If Daniel cried, she dropped her bone and licked him.

  If I could be faithful. Joan used to say that if an unquiet spirit troubled a person, then singing a song could put the spirit to rest. It was like soothing a fractious child. Then I would be true. Moist dirt stuck under her fingernails and embedded itself in the grooves of her palms. To spare her good cotton dress, she wore her oldest clothes while planting pumpkin and Indian squash, potatoes and maize, beans, lettuce, cabbage, and turnips, sweet basil and thyme, heartsease and foxglove, with the seeds she had saved from the previous year. The smell of rain in the air made her cheerful, for the garden wanted watering. Pressing the last pumpkin seed into the soil, she sang a new song.

  Three maidens a-milking did go,

  Three maidens a-milking did go,

  The wind it did blow high, and the wind it did blow low.

  It tossed their petticoats to and fro.

  It was a bawdy song, one of Joan's favorites. May would have laughed to hear Hannah sing it.

  They met with some young men they know'd

  They met with some young men they know'd

  They were only asking them if they had any skill

  To catch them a small bird or two.

  Here's a health to the bird in the bush,

  Here's a health to the bird in the bush,

  We'll drink down the sun, we'll drink down the moon,

  Let the people say little or much.

  Ruby's barking interrupted her song. Hannah sprang to her feet to see the rider leap off his glossy bay mare. He bent over the withy wall of the enclosure and held out his hand to Daniel. "What a bonny boy you are."

  "Keep your hands off my son." Before Richard Banham could doff his hat, she swept up Daniel in her arms. Ruby raced a circle around her and barked.

  "Good day to you, Mistress Powers. I beg your pardon if I have caused you alarm."

  Hannah's eyes raked past him to see if he had brought any men with shovels, but this time he had come alone. "What brings you here?"

  He held his hat in front of his doublet. "I wanted to see if you were well. I would have come earlier had there not been so much snow." His clear brown eyes rested on her face. The wind stirred his blond hair. His voice was like silver. "You look to be in good health. The child has grown into a robust young fellow. And you, I think, were in good cheer before your dog announced my arrival. I did hear you singing."

  Hannah flushed. "I did not think my voice could be heard above the wind."

  "I came this day to ask your pardon," he said. "Master Washbrook told me that I caused you much dismay on the occasion of my visit last autumn."

  Hannah dipped her face, remembering how she had thrown her body on her sister's grave.

  "Indeed," he continued, "I remember the instance with shame. I should have shown more respect for your condition."

  She told herself that she believed Gabriel, she trusted him; he had sworn his innocence. But this young man seemed so good-willed, it was hard to take Gabriel's word against him. Even his father, Paul Banham, had shown her kindness. His father was a rake, it was true, but Mrs. Gard
iner, it seemed, had been a willing party. He had never troubled Hannah with unwanted attentions.

  Her son stretched out his hand to Richard Banham, showing him his wooden rabbit.

  "What is the child's name?"

  "Daniel."

  When Banham smiled, Daniel smiled back, jiggling his legs excitedly against her hips. First he had charmed her dog, now he charmed her son.

  "I do believe," he said, sobering again, "that Tabitha, our midwife, might have spoken to you indelicately. She is skilled at her work, but sharp-tongued. I wanted to inquire about your welfare before I left last time, but it seemed immodest to visit a woman in childbed."

  "You are kind to think of me." Hannah hugged Daniel tighter and smoothed his curls.

  "If Mr. Washbrook is here, I will pay my respects to him, too."

  Hannah shook her head. "He has gone into the forest to gather his traps."

  "A pity," he said after a moment's silence. "My family sent a gift to you." He went to his horse, opened the saddlebag, and returned with a stoppered clay jar. "This is a pot of honey from our bees. My stepmother tells me it is the best thing for soothing a child's raw throat."

  "I thank you." After setting Daniel on the grass, she took the pot from his hands. "I haven't tasted honey since I left my father's house." She thought of the two hives Joan had kept at the bottom of the garden.

  Daniel looked up at Richard Banham with wondering eyes. She supposed this must be a fabulous event to him, considering that the only two people he was used to seeing were his parents.

  "He is a beautiful infant," Banham said. "Indeed, there is something of your sister in him. Forgive me," he added hastily as Hannah turned away and set the honey pot on the grass. "I did not wish to make you fret."

  So he saw it, too. He saw the resemblance that Gabriel refused to recognize. "You must have met my sister." Hannah spoke cautiously.

  "Five years ago, I believe it was," he said. "The Washbrooks had brought their tobacco to our landing. Your sister was a new bride then, I think. Everyone said how handsome she was. Her bearing was very proud, yet her face was soft and kind. I remember she delivered a letter to the ship. It must have been addressed to you, Mistress Powers. She told me she had a younger sister back in England whom she loved and dearly missed."