Lineage

by Juniper Black

  Lineage

  Juniper Black

  Published by Juniper Black, 2018.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  LINEAGE

  First edition. October 27, 2018.

  Copyright © 2018 Juniper Black.

  ISBN: 978-1386764694

  Written by Juniper Black.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Lineage

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  About the Author

  For Mom Mom

  Chapter: Lonely

  The Girl was lonely. Her little friends had disappeared, and she could not find them in the forest no matter where she searched. The Gandayah were skilled at games, and at first she thought they hid from her as a lark. As the days passed into years, she had come to believe that she was all alone in the woods as she had been when she first came here. So long ago now she could barely remember her homeland.

  Sometimes in her mind, she glanced an image of green rolling hills and sunlight on waters that had no end. She could not remember when in time she had called those hills her home. She knew only that many seasons had changed in this land of tall trees and greens that were darker than those of that old place. The place from which she had been driven. Stripped of the precious stones that had wound around her wrists. The embroidered covering of her body rent from her.

  She had run as far as she could. She had run to the edge of the cliffs where there was no more land, and then she had done what no one of her kind had ever dared to do in all their long years. She dove for the waters; she dove for freedom. Whether it was towards death or towards life she did not know until she was enveloped by the cold and the salt.

  She saw in her mind the image of a fish, and then she was one. She swam until she grew tired, and then she searched her fish mind for a creature that was more powerful. She saw an image of a whale, and then she was one. Her whale mind saw a road in the waters, the path it traveled every year. She found other whales around her, and they pretended she was one of them. She stayed with them for many days until they neared land. She became the Girl again to climb out of the waters while they sang her goodbye, and she emerged onto a shore under strange stars.

  Under the moonlight, she curled into a hollow trunk. Her mind was too tired to be scared in this new place. Her eyes didn’t try to make sense of the new stars. Her breathing slipped into a steady rhythm of sleep. There she stayed for a day and another night. On the second morning, her eyes blinked slowly open to see little faces peering at her from the hollow trunk’s opening. The People of the Woods, she later knew to call them. The Gandayah. They had coaxed her out of her shelter with sweet berries. They had braided her hair and stroked her hands. They taught her the words they used and over time she had learned all of their songs.

  And now they were truly gone.

  She sat in her nest in her favorite tall tree, and she wondered what would come next.

  ________

  Chapter: Ever

  When James Ever set down his pack on the top of a lush, green hill, the year was 1772. No one knows if it was the view of the mighty Susquehanna or if the sunlight that dappled through the trees struck him with its beauty. Once his pack was set down, it made roots in the ground. He built the cabin himself; there was no one for miles. No one for years. James Ever had the river that fed him, the forest that gave him shelter, and the game that provided endless meat, leather and furs.

  The Girl had watched him from the trees that first day he had stepped foot on the land at the base of her hill. She had felt the tremor of his presence while she was in the meadow. She had caught his scent drifting on the same breeze that caused the coneflower heads to sway around the place where she stood. By the time she scaled the closest tree, her ears could discern the melody he hummed. She reached her perch and had to make a hasty decision. She could leave her veils in place, and he would simply skirt the edges of her lands without even knowing he passed them. This was what she had done time after time. But her Gandayah had been long gone, and even the little creatures of the forest who were some consolation to her were not enough to make her feel she was not all alone here.

  She peered at the man through the trees. From miles away, she looked into his eyes. She saw kindness and a loneliness of his own, and she made her choice.

  James heard the snap of a small branch that made him turn his head. No animal could be seen, but a stand of four imposing Ash stood to his left. An impressive hill rose beyond them, and the sunlight came through the trees onto a path that seemed inviting in a strange way. “Beautiful land here,” James murmured out loud and turned his route up through the trees.

  A decade later, the nights were still his alone. He would sit on the little porch he had built, look at the stars that came through his small patch of clearing, and take deep breaths of quiet, nighttime air. Sometimes, but not too often, he would wonder that no one else had found his paradise.

  If he had rambled farther out than his routine 10 mile hunting radius or been able to see his little home from the sky above, the image of a perfect ring of dense habitation would have astonished him. Clusters of log cabins alternated with fields in a circular swath as thick as briar patches. The land around him seemed to sense his longing to be alone and peaceful, and it made it so for him as long as it could.

  One night, Ever fell ill. A small feeling of unease during the day had become a fever that wracked his body with waves of chill. He stoked a fire as best he could, and he drank the herbs as his mother had shown him as a child. Little by little, the fever sapped his strength until he collapsed in front of the hearth wrapped in furs. His mind drifted in and out of memories. His dreams mixed with his memories until he wasn’t sure which were true. Had he fled with his mother when he was a small boy? There was an angry sound behind them as they ran through a forest. Was that only in the dream? Or had it happened?

  Three days into his fever, he thought he hallucinated a small voice and its tiny inquiry of "hello?" A small child was there in the open doorway. At least she seemed a child to him at the time. Maybe it was the fever that blurred his eyes.

  Not until he saw her at the door did he recall that he had seen her before, more than once. He had seen her at the stream. She had scurried into the brush when she noticed him. He had spied her in the meadow: arms wide, her hands brushing over the flowers as she passed through them. He had even seen her near the cabin peeking down at him from a high tree limb.

  How could he have forgotten a small girl in the woods all alone?

  She came inside and put a hand to his brow. She made him a broth from the wild crafted herbs she carried with her in a basket of cedar bark. For days and weeks she nursed him. When he opened his eyes for brief times, she mostly appeared as a young, pale girl. Swaths of freckles spanned across the bridge of her nose and fanned out to her cheekbones. Bright green eyes blinked at him, and pale orange hair flickered with gold in the light of the fire she had made. Once, though, he woke in the night and turned onto his side. Facing the hearth, he saw a woman there. Long, dark hair hid most of her face. Her body was curled down around her long legs as she stirred something in the pot over the flames. The more he tried to see her, the more his tired eyelids drooped across his vision. As she stood and began to turn, he fell into dreams again. After that, he only ever saw the girl.

  Finally a day came when he woke feeling strong. He was sitting upright when she came into the cabin as if it were her own. She halted two steps inside, then smiled brightly at him. "Hello, James!"

  "Hello," his voice sounded thin and s
haky to him. "How do you know me?"

  Resuming her journey to the hearthside, she answered, "You talk in your sleep." She emptied the water she had brought with her. "Now that you are better, you will be able to take care of yourself again."

  He blinked slowly. "Where did you come from?"

  "From the woods," she busied herself with packing up her herbs. She portioned out some of each and put them in a smaller basket similar to her own. She brought him water, clear and cold from the spring.

  The water tasted like one of her herbs. "You are out there with your family?" he asked and thought of the woman with the mass of dark hair.

  She smiled as he drank. "I am always with my family." She took the cup as his eyes became drowsy again. "You are now my family, too, James Ever." His heavy eyes saw her smile before he drifted off again.

  The next time he woke, the sky was dark. A fire was still burning in the hearth, and when he rose he found that food waited for him in large leaves wrapped with nettle cord. Lamb's-quarters and ramps along with other herbs he did not know were left in bundles in the basket she had left. There was enough for him to steep in hot water for 10 more days.

  Ever had made himself believe that he was alone in the world. After the Girl came, though, he started venturing out farther past his hunting grounds. He was looking for her, of course, and curious about where her people could be found. With this as his purpose, he began to meet new walkers in the woods. He soon counted as friends the Jameson twins from a place they called "Double Fork Crick," Thomas Boone from Haverford Village, and the Miltons who had a farm on the west of him. Their youngest girl liked to trade him chicken eggs for little presents he might find on his forest travels. A brightly colored leaf or a perfectly rounded stone from the stream, she called these her treasures and always asked if he had one for her. Once he brought her an especially extravagant spider's web preserved between two small branches, and for that treasure he had received two chicken eggs and a shiny button she had been saving. The years rolled by and brought more neighbors with them, but Ever never found the girl who had saved him in his fever. In the beginning, he had tried asking his new found friends about the girl and sometimes about the older woman he saw the one night, but the men mostly ribbed him that he had misplaced his wife. Their women tended to look at him oddly with their heads tilted to one side. After that had happened a few times, he mostly just kept his eyes open and sought her on his own. He never saw the Girl who had tended to him again. At least, he could never remember if he had.

  James Ever passed this life in June of 1797, surrounded by the forest that was his home and the friends of his lifetime. One of Boone's sons had brought out a lounger made from willow branches and propped him with pillows so Ever could watch the birds and deer one more time. He sighed and went peaceful. Most of those looking on nodded their heads and felt at peace themselves that his end had been without pain. Janie Milton stood sobbing, though, and tucked a chicken egg into the crook of Ever's arm. No one understood, but it was Janie so they let her do as she pleased. She stood behind the wicker chair and looked out at the forest with him long after she had stopped crying. Her brother tugged on her sleeve and told her soft that it was "time to go." She shook her head at him and refused to leave.

  "It's Ever's land, and I'll live here. I'll make my own town. You all go home. I'm staying in Ever's burg."

  ________

  Chapter: The Girl

  The Girl had known that day, that first moment she saw James, that the decision she made would cause ripples for years to come. Let one man in and others will always follow. She had made a mistake with the world of men once before, and her punishment had led her here. But what further punishment could there be for her? She had already been stripped of jewels and title. She had already been driven from her home. There was no one left to tell her what was right and what was wrong. In that moment, she had felt a fierce freedom. She had only her own desires to consider.

  She kept James to herself for a time. She trapped him in her little bubble, and he seemed happy enough. She had seen in his eyes that first day that he also had been pushed from a place he had thought had belonged to him. He was lonely, like her, yet satisfied with his own company. It was easier that way; it was safer.

  Days had always passed in a quick stream for her until James came. Now she watched every detail of his day. When he first came to the hilltop, she had slept in the mossy bank near his place on the ground so she could watch his face as he dreamed. Then when his cabin was finished, she took to sleeping in the trees above so she could see him after the sun rose. She had helped him as she could. She nudged him towards the best parts of the stream for fish. She made sure he noticed where the honey bees lived. She did so with stealth, but even so James managed to catch a glimpse of her now and then. A simple herb that grew in these woods made it easy enough to make him forget. Plucked then dried; ground into a powder; a simple handful and a puff of breath so that the herb found his eyes.

  So when a day passed and then two with no sightings of him, the Girl crept along the outside of the cabin to the window. She peered inside. The fire in the hearth had gone low, and a pile of furs clumped onto the floor in front of it. At first, she could not understand how James had left. She had not seen him leave his home. Her brow was furrowing in frustration when the pile of furs moved. A hand trembled out to add a log to the dying flames.

  She turned from the house and sat underneath the window for a time. What to do, what to do? “Let the man die and be done with your pet,” that is what they would have said to her if she still lived among her People. Perhaps she did what she did because she didn’t want to feel alone again. Or perhaps the reason was because she wanted to defy what her People would have advised her to do. The People she didn’t belong to anymore. The People who had cast her out.

  She spent another day gathering the plants she would need to make James Ever whole again. When she slipped into his cabin at dusk, he hardly noticed her. The fever had taken over his dreams. He had thrown off his furs and the fire had burned low again. She set her gatherings on the cutting block and then went to stand over her charge.

  “How thin and weak you look,” she thought as she bent to pick him up. She folded his knees up to his chest and then curled his arms around his knees. She tucked his head downwards so he looked like a new bird in the nest. She wrapped her tiny arms around his curled frame and carried him easily to the bed he had made for himself.

  She gave him broth spiced with herbs several times a day. He looked at her with glassy eyes and called her “Mother” once and another time said, “Marie?” When his fever broke after a couple more days, he slept long stretches at a time as if he would not wake. She sat by the fire and watched the flames. Her mind toyed with the idea of staying here with James. Not like this, of course. Not as a child. She remembered the glamours of her People. She turned to stoke the fire, and she pondered the form she could take. She saw an image in her mind, a woman she had seen when the Gandayah were still her playmates. They had spied on the woman who had been at the stream. Long black hair had hung over her shoulders like a waterfall. Her limbs had stretched long and graceful from her body. A necklace of bird bones had stretched prettily across her strong chest.

  The Girl closed her eyes to hold the image closer to her. She felt her orange curls straighten. She sensed her pale skin darken, and when she opened her eyes she saw the arms and legs of another.

  “I could stay with him like this,” she thought. “There would be a cost,” she knew well enough.

  Her new woman’s mouth turned mournful. She stretched her new limbs until she stood. A decision had to be made again, just like that day in the woods when she first saw him.

  ________

  Chapter: Janie

  Janie Swavely Milton had never wanted much else but a quiet life that was hers alone. To her, Ever's cabin surrounded by forest had been like heaven. Tall pines that held the moon in their boughs as it waxed and waned across the nighttime sky
. Bird song to wake you by dawn's light and buzzing of the katydids to lull you back to sleep at day's end. Bunnies that hopped right inside the cabin doors - she always thought that spoke well of James Ever.

  Her parents' farm had birds, but their songs were few. They lacked the sheer numbers and enthusiasm of Ever's forest. The moon always seemed smaller outside her parents' house, and the livestock they kept always made her sad. Everything spoke of duty there. She and the goats alike started their day with a sigh.

  The best days she had were when her mother asked her to take a basket up to James. The climb up the hill was tiresome when she was little, but once she reached the top, Ever would be there waiting to show her a new treasure. She learned how to make the hummingbirds drink out of your cupped hands, how to strip the outer bark from the cedar to make a basket, and the process of making cordage from nettles to bind the basket together. The skills he showed her were different than the things her mother taught her. Somehow, that fact made them more interesting, and she was always eager for the next visit.

  Every week, her legs grew stronger. Month by month, the climb got easier. Year after year, she had learned so much from Ever that she thought her head and heart could hold no more. The lessons were surely worth the strange hue of light the forest seemed to turn at times. There were hardly that many instances when she felt as if eyes watched her progress as she climbed. What forest didn’t have large, black birds that swoop from tree limb to tree limb as they shadowed your path?

  When Ever became sick again, Janie was the one who nursed him. She pulled the water with strong arms that had turned brown from the sun many years ago. She knelt with long, lean legs tucked under her to gather the herbs that her mother had taught her to find and steep for a fever. She did all she could think of to keep him here, but it was not enough. Near the end, she felt that staying beside him was a better comfort than any of the teas she made him drink.