Blood Moon (Ella Wood, 2)

by Michelle Isenhoff

  “Mr. Fink,” she demanded, freeing herself with a firm jerk. “I am certain you must be mistaken.”

  “There’s no mistaking a date engraved on the inside of the band. Take it off. See if it reads 1800, the year my grandparents married.”

  She lifted her chin in defiance of the icy lump forming in her stomach. “I’m sorry if your poor choices have lost you something dear. But this garnet belonged to Lucinda Black of Savannah, Georgia.”

  And she left the ward without removing the ring.

  15

  That was the last time Emily ever saw Private Tom Fink. By afternoon, the fatigue that always clung to her at the end of a shift had strengthened into a debilitating lethargy, with a dull achiness that spread along her spine and limbs. Dr. Malone dropped her off, looking her over with a critical eye. “It could simply be overwork. Take tomorrow off and rest.”

  Emily went straight to bed, forfeiting her supper, and almost immediately felt the familiar chills of summer sickness overtake her. Despite huddling beneath every blanket she could drag from the bottom of the wardrobe, her body convulsed with cold and her teeth nearly chattered from her head.

  She awakened around midnight, flung off the bedclothes, and vomited into the bedpan. She was soaked through, her flesh searing. Grasping the bell on her bedside table, which she had never before used, she rang it with both hands before dropping to the floor unconscious.

  The next few days passed in snatches of heat and cold, darkness and wakefulness, often with the bitter taste of quinine on her tongue. Faces washed in and out of her dreams—Aunt Margaret, Abigail, Thad, the maids. She roused once to find Dr. Malone hovering above her. His form blurred and blinked then appeared again. The room was dark, with a halo of light around him. “Emily, can you hear me? If you can understand me, squeeze my hand.”

  She felt the hot coal that was her hand engulfed by his cool touch. She poured all her strength into her fingers, her body shook with the effort, but she wasn’t sure they moved. Then the ring of light closed, and all was darkness.

  Other times she awoke completely lucid. She recalled a three-hour period in which she took a little food and water then played checkers with Abigail until the chills returned and her shaking hand upset the board. Abigail packed her into bed with hot, cloth-covered water bottles, and she sank back into sleep.

  Her world continued to warp between reality and delirium until she doubted what was real and what was imagined. She couldn’t hope to guess how much time had passed before the pain and nausea finally departed her system.

  “How long have I been ill?” she croaked when Abigail came to spoon-feed her a bowl of broth. The window was closed against a smattering of rain, and the air in the room felt stifling. She flung away the sheet that had twisted around her legs.

  “Almost two weeks.”

  Nearly everyone contracted fever and ague at some point; some caught it regularly. The ranks outside Charleston were decimated with it. Emily hadn’t suffered from the disease in three years, but the last time she did, it left her debilitated for a month.

  “You must have caught it from some tatty soldier in the hospital,” her aunt surmised, entering the room and overhearing their conversation. “What will your mother think when she hears I gave you permission to work in such a filthy place?”

  “I didn’t ask your permission, Auntie.”

  “Nevertheless, I shouldn’t have let you go.”

  Emily finished the soup and lay back, closing her eyes against the heavy fatigue that draped her.

  “Do you think you’ll be able to attend school?” Abigail fretted. “I would hate to see you miss the start of term, but I don’t see how you can be ready in just four weeks.”

  “I’m going,” Emily insisted.

  “Wait and see, dear,” Aunt Margaret advised. “I don’t want you to set yourself up for disappointment. You could always start after Christmas.”

  “I’m going,” she repeated and promptly fell asleep.

  Her recovery hastened the summer’s passing. Each morning brought a new goal to master. At Dr. Malone’s urging, Emily ate every morsel of food brought to her and rose from her bed to walk a little farther every day. Within a week, she was strolling around the block with Paxton at her side—Aunt Margaret’s orders—though she paused frequently to rest. There was no way she was going to let orientation slip past her.

  Aunt Margaret hadn’t mentioned England since the Union army had withdrawn from James Island and departed the harbor following the skirmish at Secessionville. So as her strength returned and her departure drew near, Emily asked if her aunt might wish to travel to Baltimore with her and leave for England from the Northern port.

  “I’ve decided to postpone my visit,” the woman answered. “The harbor’s quiet. And now that Thad has his own shipping line, I’m sure I can book passage any time I’m ready to leave.”

  “Aunt Margaret!” Emily objected. “You cannot leave on a blockade runner. It’s far too dangerous.”

  “Never you mind. You’ve discounted every word of advice I’ve ever given to you. I certainly won’t be dictated to by a seventeen-year-old child.”

  “But you’d be leaving to avoid the possibility of invasion only to sail straight into navy guns. It’s ludicrous!”

  “Oh, pish posh. The Union wouldn’t fire on us. They’d want our ship and our cargo for themselves. On the off chance that we were boarded, they’d find a harmless old woman on her way to visit her daughter. Even if they brought me into custody, they’d soon send me on my way.”

  “Come with me to Baltimore,” Emily insisted. “We can travel together and you can board a ship there in safety.”

  “Four days on the railroad?” she scoffed. “My rheumatism will never abide it. No, thank you. I’ll leave from my own port or I won’t go at all.”

  Nothing Emily said would dissuade her. Emily suspected rheumatism had far more to do with her change of plan than the stillness of the Charleston harbor. Her lips pressed into a thin line of displeasure. She’d ask Dr. Malone to look in on the old woman while she was away.

  As Emily’s departure drew nearer, the house soon became a beehive of activity. Trunks were fetched from the attic, clothing was washed, and a hundred miscellaneous items were located and secured. Emily made three separate trips to her father’s house while Zeke looked the other way. The parlor filled with luggage.

  Thad showed up four days before her departure. Emily was sitting in the shade of the courtyard, taking a much-needed rest and viewing images through Aunt Margaret’s stereoscope, when he whisked through the gate grinning from ear to ear. “We, my dear, are going to be rich.” He pulled her into his arms, kissing her soundly, and spun her in the cramped space. Emily held her sun hat in place, her laughter rivaling the toll of St. Michael’s bells.

  “You look like you’re feeling better,” he observed as he set her back in her chair. “You had us worried there for a few days. I hated to leave again.”

  “If you delivered medicine like this every afternoon, I’d be running races by the end of the week,” she said breathlessly.

  “I might be able to arrange that.” He grinned, dropping into a seat beside her.

  “You’re in a good mood. Your meeting went well?”

  “Very well.” He stretched languidly, looking quite pleased with himself. “By this time next year, you and I could make an offer on Rhode Island.”

  “That wouldn’t land me any nearer to Baltimore,” she reminded him.

  “Then we’ll buy Maryland! And serve it up to President Davis on a platter.”

  She grinned and grasped his hand across the intervening space. “I miss you when you’re away.”

  “I’m not the one leaving for eleven months.”

  “You’ll visit me?”

  He tugged at her hand, pulling her out of her chair and onto his lap. “You couldn’t keep me away,” he said, angling her nearer. This kiss was far more solicitous than his last. “Next week?” he asked.
/>   “Maybe you should give me time to get acclimated.” Even through layers of crinoline, she could feel the pressure of his hand against her hip.

  “I’m still hoping I can talk you into marrying me before you go.”

  She just smiled and shook her head.

  “I’ll come the last weekend of October then.”

  “Agreed,” Emily said against his lips.

  ***

  “I sure hope you don’t intend to store these in here all year.”

  Emily turned to find a tall, bony woman a few years her senior kicking one of several trunks that littered the bedroom floor. “Oh, no. Of course not. I’ve already arranged with Mrs. Calkins to have them moved to the attic.”

  “I’m Missouri Mulroney,” the woman said, extending her hand like a man. “It looks like we’re going to be roommates.”

  “How do you do?” Emily grasped the appendage uncertainly. It was gaunt and calloused and as strong as a man’s.

  “I reckon I do quite nicely, all things considered.”

  Emily smiled and tried to extract her hand, but the woman held tightly.

  “Aren’t you wondering what constitutes ‘all things’?”

  “I—I wasn’t.”

  “If we’ll be bunking together, I figure we should get some things straight right off. It makes for fewer surprises later.”

  “All right.” Emily was still trying to be polite, but she was beginning to wonder just what sort of character she was destined to share the next year with.

  “Well then,” Missouri said, finally letting loose Emily’s hand. “I was born and raised in Ohio. My parents died when I was thirteen. I raised up my three younger brothers. When the last one lit out two years ago, I got hitched to Liam Mulroney, who’d been swooning over me since we was kids. Last year he done me the discourtesy of dying at Bull Run, so I sold the farm, moved east, took a job cleaning a rich man’s house, and here I am.”

  Emily blinked. “I—I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. Like I said, I’m doing quite nicely, all things considered. So, what’s your story?”

  Emily paused, not quite certain how to respond. She decided on blunt and abbreviated. “I’m from Charleston, South Carolina, where my father owns a rice plantation. Since I was very young, I’ve wanted to become an artist, but my father refused to pay for my tuition. So I found work, and here I am.”

  Missouri narrowed her eyes. They looked like slashes in her thin face. “You’re one of them pampered Southern belles the newspapers talk about so much?”

  “I suppose I am.” By Southern standards, Emily had considered herself seasoned and resolute—hardened even—until she’d heard Missouri’s story.

  “And you’re here to go to school?”

  “Yes.” It sounded so soft.

  The woman whistled. “You’ve got some gumption, girl.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Gumption,” she repeated.

  “Yes, I’m familiar with the terminology. I fail to understand what you mean by it.”

  “I mean you’ve got gumption. If my daddy had that kind of money, I don’t know if I would have had the courage to ruffle his feathers.”

  Emily’s eyebrows lifted. “You’re calling me courageous? You, who kept a farm going with three orphaned boys?”

  Missouri knocked a fist on one bony hip. “You say that like I had some kind of choice.”

  Emily shook her head in bewilderment. “Missouri, how old are you?”

  “Twenty-one next month.”

  Emily appraised her new roommate. She was pretty in a wild sort of way, with high cheekbones and a mane of curly black hair that barely submitted to hairpins. It looked like it would be far more natural loosened around her shoulders and blowing in a frontier wind. She had experienced and survived far more hardship in her lifetime than Emily could even imagine.

  “The admiration is mutual,” Emily said, holding out her hand to initiate a second handshake.

  ***

  Mrs. Calkins was just as gracious as Emily remembered. “Miss Preston,” she beamed as Emily and Missouri entered the dining room promptly at seven. “Won’t you please sit down?” She unloaded a platter of pork chops from the tray she carried and set them in the center of the table. “You barely arrived in time for tomorrow’s orientation. I expected you three days ago.”

  “I’m afraid travel in the South is becoming dreadfully inefficient. It took me twice as long to make the trip as it did last December.” Mechanical failure had stranded her in North Carolina until a replacement engine arrived. The wait had been frustrating and tedious. “And then I had trouble crossing into Union territory without a pass. I had to sketch the officer’s portrait before he was convinced that I was on my way to enroll in the Institute.”

  “Well, you still made it with an entire evening to spare. This is Grace Crandall,” the landlady said, gesturing to a dark-haired woman who had already taken her seat. “She teaches at one of the city’s grammar schools.”

  “How do you do?” Emily said.

  Grace smiled. “It’s very nice to meet you.”

  “The other girls should be down momentarily. If you’ll excuse me, I’ve a few more dishes to fetch from the kitchen.”

  Missouri sat down and Emily chose the chair next to her. She unfolded her napkin and draped it across her lap. “Is this your first year teaching, Miss Crandall?” Emily asked.

  “It’s my fourth, actually.”

  “And do you enjoy it?”

  Missouri rolled her eyes. “She’s married to it. She retires directly after dinner and leaves me to fend for myself in the parlor each evening.”

  Grace laughed. “I do enjoy it, but it requires a good deal of preparation.”

  Emily noticed that the woman spoke in strains far gentler than Missouri’s rough accent. “Are you from the South, Miss Crandall?”

  “That depends how far south you mean. I grew up in Maryland, on the west side of the Chesapeake.”

  At that moment, three more young women clambered down the stairs. The first, a pretty blonde, carried herself with a regal air that belied her petite stature. She was followed closely by a woman who compensated for her plainness with heavy jewelry and fashionable clothing. The third followed a few steps behind. She was younger and unassumingly beautiful, though she appeared ill at ease with her extra height. Grace made introductions. “Emily, these are Lucy Manning, Angela Miles, and Anna Van Doort. They’ll be attending the Institute with you. Lucy and Angela roomed together last year; Anna will be starting her first year.”

  Emily smiled a greeting, but Mrs. Calkins returned with the rest of their meal before she could address them.

  “Oh, good. You’re all here.” The landlady set the tray on the table and took a seat at its head. “Let’s say grace and eat.”

  She didn’t prove long-winded, for which Emily was grateful. A quick peek revealed mashed potatoes, turnip greens, and fresh bread to accompany the pork chops. After the irregular meals of railroad travel, she planned to tuck away her fair share.

  An “amen” ushered in the muted click of utensils scraping bowls as platters were passed and food dished up. The meal passed quietly, with only a few polite exchanges. Emily wondered if Mrs. Calkins had some rule against talking that she didn’t know about or if the others were simply as hungry as she was. She decided it didn’t much matter as another bite of potatoes melted in her mouth.

  Grace was the first one to excuse herself, retiring to her room just as Missouri had predicted, and Mrs. Calkins shooed the rest of them into the parlor. Emily wanted nothing more than a bath and a bed, but she decided to join the other women briefly and make their acquaintance.

  “Do you play whist, Miss Preston?” Lucy asked, dealing out a deck of cards. “We need a fourth, and Missouri won’t play.”

  Emily glanced over to see that her roommate had picked up a basket of knitting and settled on the sofa. “I’d need two more hands, now, wouldn’t I?” Missouri snapped, wasting no court
esy.

  Unruffled, Lucy kept dealing. “You do play, don’t you, Miss Preston?”

  “Yes, of course.” Emily sat down across from Anna.

  The women picked up their cards, and Lucy peered at Emily boldly over hers. “What will you be studying at the Institute?”

  “I’m not sure.” Emily rearranged her hand. “Painting, I suppose, but there are some other options I’d like to try.”

  “I’m in my final year of photography. My father owns a studio in New Haven, Connecticut, and he’s sent me here to learn everything I can from Mr. Woodward. He’s the best in the field, you know. And he’s invited me to display several of my photographs in the school’s Exhibition. He says I have an excellent chance of winning a premium,” she added smugly.

  “And when you graduate, you’ll work for your father?”

  Lucy lifted her chin haughtily. “He’s going to make me a full partner.”

  Anna laid a two of hearts and play began. Angela set down a six. Emily had only a seven and added it to the pile. Lucy snapped down a nine and took the trick.

  “Angela is in textile design, though she fancies herself a Parisian fashion designer.” Lucy started a new round, and her smile grew sly. “I daresay she could do something about that offensive rag you’re wearing.”

  Angela broke into peals of laughter.

  Emily cast an irritated glance in their direction. The dress was one she had worn to work during the spring. “Yes, well I just got off the train, didn’t I?”

  “Oh, don’t get defensive. You either wore that dress because you couldn’t afford a more suitable one, or you wanted others to think you couldn’t afford a more suitable one.” Lucy’s gaze sharpened. “So which is it?”

  Emily laid a card on the pile then regarded her coolly. “You don’t know anything about me.”

  “Which would be why I’m asking.”

  Emily held her eye longer than necessary. “Perhaps I like the color.” She turned away and addressed the third woman, who had displayed no emotion throughout the encounter. She was even younger than Emily first thought. Hardly more than a girl. “Miss Van Doort, correct?”