On the ground just outside the tree were the torn remains of a dress or gown that might have been rent by an animal. Or had the child herself ripped away the dress and discarded it, the way she had left behind her other clothes?
Kiku knelt before the girl and half covered her own face with the blanket to feel the warmth of her own breath. The wind picked up, and the girl’s hair moved again; through the strands, Kiku could see that her eyes were tightly shut, her lips a shocking blue line in her delicate face. She was so thin that her arm seemed that it might break if Kiku touched it.
She knew she should do something. Find someone. But she could only stare. Was the child’s ghost still nearby? Kiku felt no presence but the cold’s. She touched the girl’s hair, calming it. In her belly, her own child kicked.
They are brother and sister. My child knows this child.
That grief should touch her child even before he was born seemed a horrible omen. But it was done. She couldn’t protect him from what had already happened.
Where was the mother, that her child should be discovered, dead, by a stranger? No, not a stranger. Kiku knew it had surely been the child in her belly that led her here.
The girl was not even as heavy as the basket of wood seemed on Kiku’s weariest days. The most difficult part was getting her up the cottage stairs because her legs and arms were still stiff and awkwardly bent. Once inside, Kiku knelt to lay her on the rug in front of the dying fire. When the fire was warmer, surely she would unbend.
No mother should have to see her daughter frozen inside a tree like a cast-off doll.
Outside, the day was even brighter, and when Kiku went back out for the wood basket, she saw two red cardinals watching her from a rhododendron. She had brought the dead squirrel back to the cottage, too, but left it on the ground near the steps. It must have been important to Tamora if she had been carrying it with her.
Her own hands were still stiff as she rebuilt the fire with the cold logs, but she was intent. Searching around, she found two small sticks of fatwood that she had earlier missed. Carefully, she used the poker to bury the leather cover of the book farther back in the piled logs.
When the fire was blazing, she stayed close to it for a few moments so that its heat drew the blood back into her face and hands. The baby rolled, no doubt hungry. She was hungry, too, but she felt the presence of the dead child too strongly and knew it would be wrong to eat with her nearby. She touched her belly, urging the child to be patient, and got up to get another blanket from the bed.
Moving the girl had become more difficult. Either Kiku was wearier or the warmth of the cottage had increased the girl’s heaviness. As she worked, she hummed a quiet song about a pair of quarrelsome birds that her sister, Hanako, had particularly liked. As she placed the girl onto the blanket, she looked more closely at her chalk-white face with its circles of blue around the eyes and blue mouth. Like the rest of her body, it was so thin that the bones might have been trying to escape from her taut skin. Had the child’s face changed? Was the mouth different in some way?
Kiku’s heart jumped to think that Tamora might not be dead after all. “Tamora?”
There was no movement, no answering breath. The cottage was silent except for the cracking of the fire. But in the distance, she heard raised voices like the ones she had sometimes heard before the house was finished and Randolph’s wife had come.
She wrapped Tamora in the second blanket, thinking that she should have also gathered the clothes from the woods. Now she was only wearing her bloomers (which, Kiku gathered, were probably soiled, as there was a smell of feces about them that was getting stronger) and undergarments, including a clean, soft chemise without lace or any sort of decoration, as a baby might have worn. The child had removed her clothes as she wandered to her death. Had she wanted to return to the earth as she had been born—naked and innocent?
Warmer now herself, Kiku hurried to her bedroom and returned with the hairbrush. Kneeling again, she saw that the girl’s face was still chalk-white. So the fire did not warm the faces of the dead. Picking up Hanako’s song again, she began to brush the child’s hair. Hanako had disliked having her hair brushed or arranged, but of course this girl did not complain.
How is my Hanako? So much older now. You will be doing all my chores. Complaining, no doubt.
She was still brushing the girl’s wind-knotted hair when she heard pounding footsteps on the cottage porch. Men’s footsteps.
Chapter 31
KIKU
January 1879
Kiku gripped the hairbrush tightly as Aaron knelt over Tamora’s body. He was dressed for the cold in a great, rough coat, but had taken off his hat and heavy leather gloves and laid them on the floor beside the girl. Crystals of ice and snow melted from his boots onto the rug.
He looked up at Kiku.
“When did she come to you? How long has she been dead?” His voice was calm but concerned. “They’ve been searching for her these last two hours.”
“I found her when I went outside to get wood. She was in a tree. Like an animal. Without her clothes.”
He hesitated before pulling back the edge of the blanket from Tamora’s shoulder. His eyes did not linger on the girl, and he soon covered her again. The girl’s jaw suddenly slackened and her mouth emitted a gassy sigh. Aaron recoiled, and looked up at Kiku, who spoke quietly.
“Her ghost is free now.” Inside her, the baby gave a violent kick that made her flinch.
“Please don’t say that to Amelia, Kiku.”
“I shall not see Amelia.”
“Well, you may, at that. The sheriff is sure to investigate. There will be questions. I’m sorry.”
“What do you mean?” The policemen who came to Madame Jewel’s house were always friendly because, Emerald had told her, Madame Jewel gave them envelopes of money and sometimes reduced rates with the less expensive girls. She hadn’t thought about police here in Virginia.
Aaron stood up and went to her. “Ah, my poor darling. I didn’t even think of you. Are you all right?”
Kiku let him embrace her, and she suddenly felt very tired. He stroked her hair. “Were you frightened?”
“She was a very sad girl. She was never quiet. Now she is quiet.”
“Yes. She was very sad.”
They stayed like that for a few moments. Behind him, the fire burned, unable to warm the poor girl in the blanket.
“We must open the door.” Without waiting for Aaron to respond, Kiku opened the front door again, and the icy breeze rushed inside, sweeping into the fireplace, bending the flames. On the porch, it played at the set of bells on a chain that Mason had made for her, and she knew that the girl’s soul was free. Kiku waited, standing a bit behind the door in her blanket to stay warm. When the breeze calmed, she closed the door again.
“Kiku, that’s just an old wives’ tale. Her soul is with God.”
“If you don’t believe, then what harm can it cause? She will not be colder.”
Aaron sighed and looked down at Tamora.
“Randolph needs to know she’s been found. I don’t want him to know that you found her. I’m afraid of what he’ll do—or more what Amelia will want to do. She’s away but she’ll return soon.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “God, this might kill her.”
“How could they lose her in a house full of servants?”
“Sometimes it’s easier for a person to be lost when there are a lot of people around. Everyone thinks someone else is watching.”
“Should I gather her clothes?” The thought of going back into the cold now that she had warmed some was unappealing, but she wanted to do the things that were right. Now that Tamora’s ghost had left her body, it was nearly over.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Why not?”
“Kiku, you need to stay inside. Think of your own child. I can get the clothes. Or Mason will.”
She knelt beside Tamora and touched her hair.
Aaron got
down on one knee. “Tell me. I need to know. Why did you bring her in here?”
Anger rose up inside Kiku like some ugly living thing. “You would have left her out there to be eaten by some wild animal, some night creature? She tore her clothes off in the cold and hid in the tree. Can you not see that? She must have been afraid!”
“They’re not going to understand. You have to be prepared. You don’t understand the way things work.”
“I understand the truth, and I did my best for her. We shouldn’t be arguing like this. Not with her here. Go and find Randolph.” She didn’t like being angry, and especially not with Aaron. “Please. She can’t stay here.”
Aaron took her hand and helped her to her feet again.
“My dearest, I’ll have to bring them back with me.” He looked down into her face. “Don’t be angry. I’m only trying to protect you. I’m sure they’ll be kind.”
She gave a grim laugh. “Randolph? Do you think Randolph will be kind to me when he learns that his daughter is dead on my cottage floor? Maybe you are correct that I should have left her in the tree.” But as she said it, the words turned to ash in her mouth. She was not cruel.
“I’m sorry.” Aaron stood in the doorway, his face full of regret. He pulled her close to him, kissing her hard on the mouth. Then he was gone, hurrying down the front steps and into the woods.
Kiku watched him go, touching her fingers to her lips, which still pulsed with the feel of him. He would return with Randolph, and Randolph would see her with Aaron, and he would know. Now neither she nor Aaron nor her child would be safe. Shaking with cold and fear, she closed the door and went to stand over the girl.
“Tamora. Why have you brought this on us? What shall happen now?”
Chapter 32
KIKU
January 1879
The three men stood around the body. Now there were three pairs of boots melting onto the rug.
“Amelia mustn’t know she was found here.” Randolph didn’t look at Kiku, but she knew that his admonition was because of her. He had looked right through her as he had come in the house, and she knew better than to try to speak to him. Was her own life in danger? It was possible that they would find her in some way responsible for the child’s death.
The doctor, who had introduced himself as Cyrus Beard, had moved Tamora’s body to the sofa. Kiku had thought it a small sofa until she saw how tiny and lost the girl’s body looked on the coral velvet. The doctor bent over her and carefully forced her jaw open and lifted the lids of her closed eyes. When he did this, Kiku looked away, saddened by the violation of the girl’s delicate body.
He looked closely at her hands and her ears as well. Then he turned to Kiku.
“You said you found her in a tree?”
Kiku glanced at Randolph before speaking. “In a little house in the tree. A walnut tree.” She pointed vaguely to the west.
The doctor knitted his brows. Surely he thought her crazy.
“Not really a house. Just a little place where animals or spirits can hide.”
Now Aaron spoke. “A hollow. It’s called a hollow.”
Kiku nodded. “She was hiding there. Without her clothes.”
Randolph seemed to study her.
“They are still outside. Like a trail of breadcrumbs for birds.” She spoke more boldly. “I found her boot first. And the other, and the sweater. And the squirrel.”
“Stop!” Randolph put up his hand. “My ward obviously has some strange ideas, Cyrus. Why is my daughter dead?”
The doctor took off his eyeglasses to wipe them clean with his handkerchief. They had steamed on entry to the now-warm parlor of the cottage and wouldn’t stay clear.
“Removing her clothes has been one of the girl’s frequent afflictions, yes? You’ve told me this.”
Randolph cleared his throat, but it was the doctor who continued.
“The child has frozen to death. Not long ago by the look of her skin and her eyes.”
“Should we be talking about this, Doctor? With a young lady present?” Aaron indicated Kiku with a nod of his head.
The doctor looked at Randolph.
“I don’t see that she should not hear what we say.” Randolph sighed. “It appears that she brought the child in here on her own. She’s obviously not afraid of the dead.”
“It would be helpful if I knew when she’d been found. How long has she been in front of this fire?”
“I went out soon after I woke.”
“Was anyone else here to see you?” The doctor left the other part of his question unspoken. Was the child here with you?
Kiku shook her head. Why were they asking such foolish questions? Odette had told her that Tamora acted like she had demons in her head, and Kiku herself had heard the girl’s frequent screams. But she had done nothing to her, and had only seen her the one time, when the girl had banged on her door. She had no reason to harm her.
Perhaps Aaron had been right. Randolph was not going to believe her. Not going to protect her. Even though the room was warm, she again pulled the blanket close around her.
“Kiku, did Tamora come to the house? Was she alive when you first saw her?” Randolph’s voice was just the slightest bit cajoling, but held a warning. It was the voice he used when he was about to accuse her of something. Of moving his things in the cottage, or taking money from his wallet, or, as he had that fall, accusing her of seducing the workmen, enticing them to the cottage to have sex with them. That was one of his theories about how she became pregnant, when, of course, she had already been pregnant when they first arrived.
“She was not. I have already told you.”
“Where is the clothing?” The doctor had put on his glasses again and was peering at her. Behind him, the dead girl still lay, as though forgotten.
“Her clothes are outside. I have done nothing!” Frustrated, angry about the accusations that Aaron had told her to expect, angry that he had been correct, she started away from the group of men. But Randolph grabbed a handful of the blanket, and when she moved, it fell away.
Without the blanket, the rise of her pregnant belly was obvious. The doctor stared, but Aaron’s eyes shifted to the fire. Kiku put a protective hand on her stomach, not very much caring what the doctor thought. With a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, Randolph gathered the blanket and replaced it on her shoulders.
“You’re no longer needed, Kiku. Go into your bedroom and rest. Odette will come over to tend to your needs today.”
The doctor had finally looked away, but now Kiku could feel Aaron’s eyes on her back.
Please don’t watch me. Don’t let Randolph see you watching me.
She closed the bedroom door behind her. It was cold in the room. The fire was spent.
Please let them leave soon.
She was hungry, and the baby was hungry. It felt like hours had passed since she had gotten up and gone outside. Climbing onto the bed, she hugged her knees as close as she could to her belly.
The voices outside the room continued at a murmur, but she did not try to make them out. Would she be taken away? Would she be killed quickly, or would they wait to hang her until after the child was born? In New York, Emerald had read a story out of the newspaper to her about a pregnant woman who had killed a man, but her execution had been postponed until the birth of her daughter. If they were to do that to her, what would happen to her child?
The answer was Randolph.
Randolph’s only other child was lying dead just outside her bedroom door. Of course he would want another.
Still chilled, but suddenly overcome with weariness, she lay down on her side and fell asleep within minutes.
Her sleep was deep and fretful, and in her colorful dreams, she felt herself trying to reach the bedroom’s door to open it. Her body felt so heavy that she had a difficult time even leaving the bed, but she was certain that she must get to the door. When she was finally sure she was free of the bed, she still couldn’t feel the floor beneath her
feet. The door loomed and bent in front of her, as though alive, but as she reached for the knob, it moved farther away.
What is this madness? Am I no longer in my home? Have I been tricked?
Even in her sleep, she was certain that she hadn’t left her house, and this was some other house within her house. Outside the door she couldn’t touch, she heard a woman’s angry cry, then a high, tortured wail. Kiku drew her hand back. The door was solid again. Someone was shaking it, and the sound was like thunder, filling the room, shaking the floor and ceiling. The iron feet of the bed clattered as they danced on the floor.
Kiku shrank away. There was some monster on the other side of the door, and it was a monster that was not Randolph. This monster was female, and it meant her harm. She knew she must hide. She tried to slide under the jostling bed, but her belly had become as enormous as a great glass globe she had once seen in the window of a shop while walking in the city. Its ungainly shape made her unsteady as she tried to rise to her feet, and she had to hold onto the foot of the bed. Tottering for the window, she managed to stay upright, but knew at any time she might fall. She pushed back the curtains. While the room was still daytime-bright, the window itself had disappeared; bricks filled the frame where the glass had once been. Alarmed, she pounded on the brick until she was sure her hands were raw, but her fists made no sound on the coarse brick. The bed had stopped moving and now there were no other sounds except the woman’s plaintive wailing and Kiku’s own sobs.
Exhausted, and unable to form even a single word in response to the woman’s cries, she sank onto the bed and lay down, spent. The thick feather mattress collapsed and folded around her so that she could not turn one way or the other. The effect was suffocating, and her belly grew and grew, cutting off the air to her lungs. Her own child was killing her.
Unable to breathe in the dream, Kiku forced herself awake and opened her eyes. The light in the room had changed little, but the air was as thick and as oppressive as the silence. The blanket and robe had entangled each other, and she struggled to free herself. Her flannel gown was soaked with sweat, and her hair lay plastered against her forehead and neck. She threw the blanket and robe aside and jumped from the bed as though it were on fire.
The Abandoned Heart Page 27