by Hester Fox
She presses her lips, studying me with naked disdain and a hint of curiosity. “Well, I hope you’ll be very happy,” she says tightly.
The edges of the room are fuzzy, my eyes heavy. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“I don’t want you to say anything. I just want...” Catherine moves toward the door, her hand at her eyes, her voice shaky. “I want what you have.”
By the time I register what she means she’s already out the door, and I’m too tired to call out after her.
* * *
When I awaken again John is there, sitting beside the bed, his head leaned back, dozing. His eyes flutter open, a slow smile spreading over his face. “Good morning.”
“John.” It’s the most delicious word, warming my mouth and running through my body like a flame.
“Catherine told me you were awake and talking last night, but I didn’t want to keep you from your rest.”
My conversation with Catherine is fuzzy and dark, and I almost wonder if I imagined it. It feels unfinished between us. I look around the room, taking in the chrysanthemum wallpaper bathed in late morning light, the snow sparkling on the sill outside.
“How...how long have I been here?”
“A day. No, don’t try to get up,” he says as I struggle to my elbows.
Pain sears through my shoulder and I wince, falling back into my pillows. Fragments of memories surface again. The barrel of Cyrus’s pistol aiming straight for John’s heart through the swirling snow. A sickening bang cutting the air like thunder. The red, the heat, the vibration, the light. Cyrus’s arm jerking to the side as he cried out in surprise. Almost simultaneously a pain like I never felt before shredding into my shoulder. And then the darkness.
“Has anyone told my mother? She’ll be worrying. You have to tell her that I’m all right.”
“Would you like to tell her for yourself?”
I part my lips to tell him that if I can’t sit up yet, then I certainly won’t be able to make my way to Mother’s room. But before I can say anything, he turns in his seat, and smiles over his shoulder. I follow his line of sight and give a little gasp.
Wrapped in a shawl and very pale, Mother hovers in the doorway. It’s just like that day after the pond when her disappointment was etched on her face. But now she breaks into a slow, glowing smile.
John gets up and offers her his arm, which she leans on heavily as he guides her to the bed.
“My dear, dear girl.” She perches herself on the edge of the bed, the roles reversed from just days ago when I feared she would never rise again. John melts into the background as Mother puts a warm hand against my cheek. “How do you feel?”
“I’ll be fine,” I tell her, barely able to feel the pain in my shoulder anymore now that joy and relief are warming me from the inside. “Truly. But what about you?”
“Tired,” she says. “But much, much better. Better than I’ve felt in a long time.” And she looks it. Her dark eyes are sparkling, and the heaviness, the weariness, that she has worn like a shroud not just these past months, but these past years, has lifted. “No sooner had I been granted a second chance at life than it looked as if I might lose you.” Her voice quivers as she adds, “But here you are. Didn’t I say you were strong?”
We sit in silence as she strokes my cheek; we both know that there are years of secrets and questions that will need addressing, but that now is not the time. Not with her still so weak, and me injured. Not with John standing right there.
“I’ll leave you to rest now, and I’d better do the same or your father will wear me out with worrying.” She looks over her shoulder to where John is waiting by the door, trying not to intrude upon our reunion. “I suppose you’ll want some time,” she says, turning back to me with a raised brow. “But leave the door open.”
I open my mouth to assure her that nothing untoward will happen between John and me, that nothing untoward could happen, not while I’m barely capable of sitting up. But then I see the glimmer of amusement in her eyes, and I smile. “You don’t have to worry about me.”
“But I do worry about you. It’s a mother’s job.” She brushes my temple with a kiss, and gestures to John to let him know that she’s ready. With his assistance she stands, and offers me one more warm smile.
After he’s brought her back to her room, John hesitantly comes to stand by the bed. “I should probably let you rest now too.”
“No!” The force of my voice startles me, and John stops. “I mean, not yet. You’ll stay with me?”
John sits back down and takes my hand. “I won’t leave you, not if you don’t want me to.”
I never want him to leave, so I just press a grateful kiss onto his hand before letting go.
“Oh,” he says, reaching into his pocket. “I almost forgot. The doctor gave you something to keep you asleep while he removed this.” John holds up a black metal ball. “Said if it had been even a hair to the left it would have shattered your shoulder completely.”
I reach out and take the bullet, marveling at the tiny thing that was almost the instrument of John’s death, and shudder. “And Cyrus?”
“Gone packing back to Boston to lick his wounds. He’ll stay there this time,” John says with finality.
“How do you know?”
“I told him if he ever tried to interfere again I would tell everyone he shot you, and I would press charges. Besides,” he adds with grim humor, “I think he was more than a little unnerved by what happened.”
We fall into silence as I process this and what it means for the future. No more Cyrus, no more threats, no more looking over my shoulder. If John is unnerved himself by what happened, he doesn’t say so.
“You never told me that he loved you,” John says quietly.
“I didn’t think it mattered. Besides,” I add, hesitant, “I’m not sure I would call it love.”
“He called it that. Last night, he resorted to pleading, claiming that he loved you and wouldn’t let me steal you away.” John takes the bullet back, rolling it between his fingers. “A man driven by greed and money is one thing. A man driven by love is another. He’s willing to risk anything.”
For a moment I wonder if he’s talking about Cyrus or himself. “Either way, it was a stupid thing to do. Do you really think I care about honor and justice so much that I would see you maimed or even killed? What happened after you left the other day?”
“It was stupid,” John agrees. He rubs his jaw, which is bristled with golden stubble, not meeting my eye. “I met Cyrus at his inn, convinced that I could reason with him. He made outlandish claims about you and your family, and told me that unless I agreed to break it off with you he would publish them.”
I suck in my breath, not even daring to ask what details Cyrus might have divulged.
“It became clear that he wasn’t going to listen to reason, or even to accept money, and that’s when he proclaimed his love for you and suggested a duel.” John gives a humorless laugh. “Never in my dreams did I imagine that I would agree to a duel, but in that moment I thought that if I gave him that much, he might be satisfied. I just... I suppose the more I saw of him, spoke to him, the more I hated him and my reason abandoned me. He spoke as if you had shared some special bond. Whether it was true or not, I was jealous.”
Stunned, I search for words. “John, all I want is you.”
“I want you too,” he says quietly. “But I know what you would do to protect your family, and it made me sick that a man like Cyrus could hold that against you, bending you to his will.”
“You thought I would marry him after all that? I promised you that I wouldn’t do anything without you.”
“I suppose you wouldn’t believe me if I told you I was still scared of losing you.” He slants a sidelong glance at me from behind shy lashes, and I curse my shoulder that I can’t get up and throw my arms aro
und him, burying my head in his neck.
He clears his throat, as if determined to change the subject. “I brought you something.” He reaches into his waistcoat pocket and produces a book. “I saw you reading the second volume, and thought you might like the next one.”
He watches me with apprehensive eyes as I take the book. “Ivanhoe!”
“You don’t have it, do you? I can send it back and exchange it for something else if you—”
“I don’t have the third volume, and I’ve been dying to read it.” I lean over, ignoring the pain, and kiss his cheek. Now I can finally learn Rebecca’s fate, and if she is spared the stake, absolved of the charges of witchcraft. “Thank you.”
We slip into silence again, me hungrily flipping through the crisp pages, John watching me and rubbing at his jaw. “Lydia,” he finally says, “what happened yesterday?”
My fingers freeze on the page. I swallow back the urge to lightly ask him what he’s talking about. I have to tell him at some point, it might as well be now. Putting aside the book, I sit up as straight as I can against the pillows. “There’s...there’s something I have to tell you.”
He casually leans back, lacing his hands across his stomach, but the intensity of his gaze is anything but casual.
I swallow again, looking everywhere around the room but at his expectant eyes. “I... I should have told you along with everything else the night you came over, but I was scared. Scared that you’d change your mind.”
“Maybe you don’t know me so well if you think there’s anything that could make me change my mind.”
I don’t point out that only moments ago he confessed his fear that I would change my mind. It goes both ways, the misgivings, the fear that what we each feel isn’t shared by the other. That our story might not have a happy ending.
I look down at the book in my hands, studying the pattern embossed in gold on the cover. “Yes, well, the thing is I can hardly accept it myself.”
“Maybe I can help you.”
“I don’t think so. You see... Well, you know those stories you read, the ones about the early days in Salem and all the women who were hanged? I always thought they were lore, myths. But it turns out they’re real.”
John looks surprised. “The witch trials? Of course those happened. I don’t understand.”
I shake my head, impatient. “No, I mean the reasons for the hangings.”
I can tell from his expression that I’m not making any sense. I take a deep breath but there’s no way to say it without sounding insane, so I just come out with it. “I’m a witch.”
I shyly raise my eyes to gauge the effect of my words. John doesn’t move a muscle, just continues watching me with unnerving blankness.
“A witch,” he repeats tonelessly. “I see.”
“But I never use my...my powers,” I hurry to explain. “Well, except for when they seem to take over on their own. The other day, the duel, that was the first time I had any control over what I was doing. My mother gave me a book that explained what I’m capable of. It made certain...episodes in my life make sense. But there’s something about this place that brings them out too, I think. Though, there was that time with Cyrus too in Boston and...” I’m running my tongue in circles, losing him again with each revelation. I swallow, nervously tracing my fingers along the edge of the book. “It doesn’t matter. I wish you would say something.”
John rakes his hand through his hair, leans forward like he wants to say something and then leans back again. “That evening at the pond, when you screamed it was almost as if the water...?”
I nod, relieved that he’s at least asking questions and not bolting for the door. “That was me. I didn’t know what was happening at the time, and I still don’t know exactly what I did, but yes.”
Silence, and then, “I didn’t realize that witches existed outside of nursery rhymes and history books.”
“I didn’t either.”
He considers this. “Sometimes it feels as if you put some kind of spell on me. It was so sudden. One day you weren’t in my life, and the next you were all that I could think about.”
My fingers grip so tight around the book that they turn white. “I would never!” My voice hitches. “John, you have to believe me, I—”
But then I see the faint smile tugging at his lips, and I let out a little breath of relief.
“Do you still want me?” I ask in a small voice, my body bracing for the truth. “I wouldn’t blame you if—”
He stands up and the air goes out of me as I wait for him to take up his hat and leave. But instead of turning toward the door, John gingerly perches on the bed beside me.
Careful not to graze my shoulder, he cups my face in his lean, strong hands. “Lydia Montrose,” he says, his sea-storm eyes dancing with light, “you are an exquisite little mystery and I have never wanted anything or anyone so badly in my life.”
He leans down and claims my lips in a long, hot kiss that scatters the last of my doubts and fears to the four winds.
* * *
The wedding was a small, simple affair with only Mother, Father, Ada and Joe standing as witnesses. We waited until spring, so that my shoulder would have a chance to heal, and the snow melted to make our upcoming journey to our new home in Vermont easier. Catherine had said she didn’t feel well and wanted to stay in bed, but just as I was leaving she caught me by the door. “You aren’t really going to wear that old rag on your wedding day, are you?” she asked, perhaps thinking of her own wedding gown holding her dark secret at the bottom of the pond. My dress was the most beautiful frock I’d ever seen, all creamy lace, nipped waist and embroidered leaves around the neck. I chose the same frothy pink silk that I’d chosen for my imagined wedding that day I went shopping with Catherine for her gown. John had looked so handsome in his black cutaway coat, standing at the altar in the dappled light of the stained glass, smiling with hand outstretched to greet me. When we left the church, I looked down to see little flowers springing up in our wake, just as my mother had said they did when I was little.
The next morning, we found a note from Catherine informing us that she’d left for New York. What she means to do there, or how she plans to survive, I have no idea. Perhaps she couldn’t bear the thought of staying in New Oldbury, a spinster in her own eyes. Or maybe, belatedly, she thought it was for the best after all the pain she caused Mother—though she had to know that Mother would forgive her and would want her in her life. Knowing Catherine, whatever her reasons are, she has more than enough charm and ingenuity to make a success of it. I wish her luck.
Now as I stand next to my husband by the waiting carriage in the mellow April air, it’s hard to see Willow Hall as anything other than a stately country home. Only the vacant corners of my heart stand as a reminder of all that I have lost in the brief chapter of my life spent in this house.
Ada puts a tentative hand on my arm, bringing me out of my thoughts. “Do you have everything you need, miss? There’s the sandwiches I made, and if you get thirsty there’s—”
“We’ll be fine.” I smile. “Thank you, Ada.”
“I know you will. But...it just won’t be the same without you.” Ada dips her head, trying to hide the tears rimming her big brown eyes.
My heart tugs. Ada has been with us every step of the way since Boston, weathering the worst alongside of us. On an impulse, I take her by the hands. “Come with us. Come to Vermont. It’s only twenty miles away.” As soon as John had showed me the little farm nestled at the foothill of the mountains, I knew it was home. Mother and Father will move into Barrett House, and Willow Hall will be torn down. Whatever ghosts still call that unhappy place home will have to do so without the stark reminder of a house that has borne witness to so much tragedy.
“Oh, miss, I couldn’t possibly. Your parents need me and—”
“I need you. Mother and Father will h
ave Joe, and any number of servants if they so choose.”
Ada glances uncomfortably at the waiting carriage. “I don’t know...”
“Come as my sister.”
Her gaze swings back to me, eyes widening. “What?”
“You’re like a sister to me. I don’t want to lose you. Please, Ada. Will you come?”
Ada bites her lip and looks up at me from under her mousy lashes. “Do you really mean that?”
“I do.”
Her smile broadens and she throws her knobby arms around me. “I’ll have to pack. I’ll have to let your father know. Will you wait for me?”
“I’ll tell Father. And of course we’ll wait while you pack.”
She scampers off back into the house. Father is clasping John by the shoulder, making a valiant attempt to blink back tears. Mother stands beside him, diminutive as ever, but rosy and smiling.
“It’s a hard blow to lose one’s daughter and business partner in one fell swoop,” he says.
I come up to them, slipping my arm around Father’s waist. “You’re not losing us. We’ll be a few hours away, and you can visit us anytime.” I already promised Mother that we will visit her as often as we are able; after all that we have lost, our bond and our shared memories of Emeline are too precious to let slip away. And I have a lifetime’s worth of questions to ask her about our family.
“I never thought I’d see my daughter choose to live the life of a farmer, but I suppose if that’s what you want...” He trails off, looking behind us at Willow Hall. “I thought this house would be my legacy, a place for my children and grandchildren to build a life.”
“I know, Father.” I squeeze his shoulder. “But John and I have talked about it, and a quiet farm is just what we want.” John won’t have to work in mills anymore, and I’ll have a home among nature, a place to raise my herbs. A place far away from society and all its ugly gossip and clucking tongues. I’ll study the book Mother left me, learn who I am and how to handle my powers. And if we are blessed with a child—a daughter, perhaps—I’ll teach her what I know, make sure that she grows up understanding and unashamed of what she is.