The Treasure Box

by Penelope Stokes

  Then Cathleen’s voice came through the computer speakers again, screaming, and Vita opened her eyes.

  “Bring all the candles over here,” Grace ordered, taking command of the situation. “We’ll need as much light as we can get. And in that crate next to my bed you’ll find some clean towels and a pair of scissors.”

  At Rachel’s questioning look, she gave a little shrug and a grin. “I found them in Angelo’s bathroom. I knew we’d need them eventually.”

  Rachel ran for the crate and came back with the towels.

  “Just take it easy, deary,” Grace was saying. “Breathe—that’s it, deep, relaxing breaths. First babies sometimes take a while in getting here. You’re going to be fine.”

  Grace had dragged Cathleen’s pallet over next to the fire, and Cathleen lay with a rolled-up blanket under her head. Another contraction came, and another shriek.

  Rachel stifled down a rush of panic. “Shouldn’t we—call someone?”

  “Go outside and see if anyone’s about. A policeman, maybe.”

  Pulling on her coat and boots, Rachel limped down the long dark hall. She fumbled with the latch and finally managed to get the door open and the crate pushed aside. At last she stepped out into the alley.

  The city was silent as a tomb.

  Snow was falling thick and fast. The drifts came almost to her knees. Even the rats were gone, taking cover from the storm.

  Clutching the red coat around her, Rachel waded through the snow down the alley, around the corner, and out into the street. It was still dark, but the reflection of the snow provided enough illumination for her to see a little. The abandoned streetcar was now only a huge gray lump in the center of the intersection. Beyond that, half a block in either direction, all was a blur of bluish white.

  “Help!” she called, her voice dissipating on the wind.

  “Someone please, help!”

  No answer. No movement.

  “Help!” Rachel screamed again, but only a muffled echo came back to her. Tears stung her eyes and froze on her cheeks before they fell. And then, like a miracle, she saw something: a faint, dusky figure, immensely large. She ran, limping, in its direction.

  “Help! Please, help!”

  At last it materialized out of the dark and the storm—a horse and rider, both covered with a thick layer of wet snow. A man in a dark blue coat and cap, with some kind of medallion on his chest. A mounted policeman.

  “You ought not to be out in this weather, ma’am,” he said, looking down on her from a great height. The horse snorted and stamped, and Rachel backed up a step or two. “Are you lost?”

  Rachel shook her head. “No, I—” She gasped for breath. “We need help. Come on, Constable, please!”

  She retreated into the alley, and the man followed. When she got to the back door of Benedetti’s restaurant, opened it, and indicated he should enter, he just sat there astride his mount, scratching his head. “Well, I never—”

  “This way! Hurry!” Rachel practically dragged him down from the horse and pushed him through the doorway. Once inside, she took his gloved hand and led him forward until they stood in the back room, illuminated by fire and candlelight, where Grace knelt between Cathleen’s legs.

  The policeman took one quick look around the room. He shook off the snow, shed his coat and gloves, and knelt beside Grace.

  “You know anything about midwifing?” she asked curtly.

  “A little.” He shook his head and grinned up at Rachel.

  “Delivered a few calves, at least, back on the farm when I was a lad.”

  Rachel could see him more clearly now—a young man, not more than a year or two older than herself. He was clean-shaven, with a ruddy Irish complexion and sandy red hair. She wondered what good he’d be in a situation like this, but she kept quiet.

  “I’m Michael,” he said, hunkering down to get a better view of what was transpiring with Cathleen. “Michael McCall.”

  Grace grunted. “I’m Grace. The mother here is Cathleen, and the one who brought you in is her sister Rachel.”

  “And you’re all living here? But that’s against the—”

  Cathleen let out a moan, and Grace lifted her head and stared at him as if he were the stupidest boy on the face of the earth. “I reckon arresting us will have to wait. We’ve got more important business on our hands right now.”

  An hour passed. Then two. Then three. Rachel lost all track of time as her sister’s labor continued, stretching through the night and on toward dawn. She paced around the room, bathed Cathleen’s face with a cold compress, fed her sips of water from a spoon.

  Then, finally, when it seemed Cathleen could bear no more, the contractions quickened.

  “Looks like this wee one has decided to come into the world after all,” Michael said. He focused his attention on Cathleen.

  “It’s all right, lass. You’ll be just fine. The most natural thing in the—” He stopped suddenly, and his rosy face went white.

  “What’s wrong?” Rachel stepped closer.

  “She’s bleeding. I’ll need an extra pair of hands.”

  “She won’t die—promise me she won’t die.” Rachel heard her voice jump an octave, and she fought for control. “I can’t lose her, not now—”

  “Come down here,” Michael said. “I need help.”

  Rachel’s stomach shifted. “No, I can’t, I—”

  “Yes you can, deary.” Grace’s voice was gentle, entreating.

  “Come on, now.”

  Rachel took a deep breath and awkwardly lowered herself to the floor beside Michael. Grace moved up to Cathleen’s head and held onto her hand.

  “Cathleen, try not to push until I tell you,” Michael said.

  In place between Cathleen’s knees, Rachel took in a deep breath, but the stench filled her lungs and nearly made her gag.

  Whoever had come up with this method of reproduction clearly hadn’t thought the matter through very carefully. She had often heard women talk about the miracle of childbirth, and wondered briefly how anyone could claim this barbarism as a miracle. It was a nasty, bloody, horrible mess.

  Then her heart began to pound, and she forgot all about the mess. “I can see it! It’s coming! I see its head!”

  Michael leaned over her. “Let me look. Yes! Push, now,” he coaxed Cathleen. “When the next contraction comes, push hard!”

  Cathleen pushed. A cry emanated from the depths of her soul, a horrible, agonizing, primal scream. The next moment, something small and slippery slid out into Rachel’s hands.

  “Hand me a towel.” Michael’s voice was terse, clipped. He took the baby from Rachel, wiped its face and cleared out its mouth, then upended it and smacked its bottom soundly. There was a hiccup, followed by a hearty, indignant wail—the loveliest music Rachel had ever heard in her entire life. This was a miracle.

  A bloody, barbaric miracle, but a miracle nevertheless.

  “A girl.” Michael wrapped the baby in a clean towel and laid the wrinkled, purplish infant, still attached by the umbilical cord, on Cathleen’s chest.

  In an instant Rachel was at her sister’s side, pushing the matted hair away from her eyes, stroking her face, feeling the long puckered scar underneath her fingertips. “She’s beautiful, Cathleen.” Rachel battled against the rising tide of tears. “Beautiful. Just like you.”

  Cathleen opened her eyes and tried to speak, but her mouth twisted in a grimace instead. “It hurts—”

  “Of course it hurts, deary,” Grace soothed. “But it’ll soon be better, you’ll see. And this little one here will all be worth it.”

  The policeman still knelt at Cathleen’s feet. “Please, God, no,” he whispered.

  Rachel jumped up, forgetting about her injured ankle, and nearly fell. She hobbled over to Michael, and when she saw it, her legs turned to jelly and her head began to reel.

  Blood. There was so much blood. Soaking the blanket, seeping everywhere.

  “Should it be like that?” she wh
ispered.

  Michael shook his head. “She’s hemorrhaging. I can’t seem to stop it, but if I don’t—”

  “Rachel.”

  Rachel turned. Cathleen had raised her head, and her face was as gray as the ashes in the grate. “Rachel . . . come here.”

  Rachel returned to the head of the pallet and took Cathleen’s hand.

  “Remember what you told me about Sophie? How she heard the song of the willow-woman?”

  “Cathleen, no—”

  “Listen to me,” Cathleen grated. “The child—my baby.

  Name her—” She closed her eyes, and Rachel could see she was summoning every ounce of strength she had just to speak.

  “Name her Sophia. Sophia Rose.” A tear slid down her scarred cheek, and Rachel gently wiped it away.

  “Yes.” Rachel forced a smile. “Sophia for Sophie, and Rose for Mam. I understand.”

  “I want you to—to take care of her. Raise her to be . . . good.

  Like you. Like Sophie.”

  Rachel bit back a sob. “Cathleen, stop this. You will raise her yourself. You will get through this. You will recover. And you and Sophia Rose will come to live with me, and—”

  “Promise!” she interrupted. “Promise you’ll take care of her.

  Treat her as . . . your daughter.”

  Rachel did not answer, and Cathleen grabbed her hand with a fierce grip. “Promise! I owe you everything. But she’s all I have to give you.”

  “You don’t—you don’t owe me anything.”

  Peace filled Cathleen’s expression as she laid the baby in Rachel’s arms. “And you’ve . . . forgiven . . . me?”

  “Yes,” Rachel whispered. “Yes, I’ve—”

  Tears choked off the words before she could finish. But it didn’t matter. Her sister couldn’t hear her anymore. The last breath had gone out of Cathleen’s ravaged body. Rachel still bent over her, trying in vain to formulate a prayer, but all she could manage was a silent inner scream: Why?

  When Rachel finally gave up praying and raised her eyes, she could see the blurred, watery image of Michael McCall wiping a tear from his eye.

  And in her arms, Sophia Rose Woodlea reached out with a tiny fist, grabbed her Aunt Rachel’s finger, and held on.

  19

  WHAT CHILD IS THIS ?

  The screen went dark. Vita turned off her computer and sat staring into the distance.

  Human existence was such an inexplicable, chaotic, disordered business. One dies while another lives, with no apparent reason for the choices Fate makes. A deal of the cards, a spin of the wheel. Just another game of chance. Sophie or Rachel, Cathleen or her baby. Which one lives, and which dies? And does the outcome really matter in the long run?

  But while Vita’s mind shifted into its old mode of conjuring up all the cynical arguments and pessimistic logic that had kept her safe behind her fortress walls for most of her adult life, her heart seemed to be taking a first tentative step through a small, unobtrusive, unlocked door. Maybe there was a reason.

  Through Sophie’s sacrifice, Rachel had lived. She had endured great heartache, but her pain had led her to America to find her sister and her infant niece, to find herself—even, Vita thought, to begin the process of forgiveness. Perhaps the struggle had a reason. A purpose.

  Vita could hardly believe she was even considering such a radical idea.

  For one thing, entertaining the premise that there was a purpose to these events meant Vita must inevitably wrap her mind around the concept of a Purposer. Some sentient Being, some Creator who, if not manipulating the marionette strings from afar, certainly exercised a measure of involvement in the lives of those it had created.

  For Vita, this was a rocky, difficult path to negotiate. If she looked into the lives of Sophie and Rachel and Cathleen and discerned even the possibility of some larger design, she might have to concede—eventually, if not immediately—that her life, too, was subject to some meaning or mission outside the realm of her comprehension. She would have to give up the idea of being in control.

  It was too much to contemplate—especially now, when she had been up all night and wasn’t thinking clearly. At the moment she had enough to deal with just sorting out her emotional responses to witnessing Cathleen’s death and the birth of Baby Sophia.

  Later. She’d think about it later. Right now, all she wanted to do was drag herself upstairs, crawl into bed, and sleep.

  It was her garden, and not her garden. The willow tree was there, in the back corner, draping its branches over the limestone wall, and the lilies of the valley crowded against the bleeding hearts in the bed on the west side. But everything had a surrealistic radiance, a depth of color and dimension unknown in the everyday world. As if the filmy coating of human experience had been stripped away to reveal the pristine, unpolluted beauty beneath.

  The space was bigger. The walls were higher. And the garden had no gate.

  Vita sat on the ground inside, happily tending to the flower beds. She felt the dark loam between her fingers. Her nostrils filled with the rich brown odor of the dirt, the floating fragrance of the blossoms, the scent of living things. She was safe here, in the garden. No one could touch her.

  And then she heard it—an animal noise, a low insistent whine. Not a cry of pain, but a little moan of despair. Vita tried to ignore it, but it persisted, calling up from within her some ancient sadness, a weary, world-deep sorrow. She abandoned the flower beds and began walking the perimeter of the garden, trying to locate where it was coming from.

  The whining intensified, stopped, and began again. Finally Vita dragged a garden bench over to one side, stepped up onto it, and looked over the wall into the world beyond.

  It was a dog. A beautiful dog, with long silken hair in a dark sable color, and a snowy white ruff and paws. Like a collie, only smaller. It possessed an intelligent face and haunting dark eyes.

  Vita’s mind dredged up an identification: Shetland sheepdog.

  The breed people called a Sheltie.

  Vita had never owned such a dog—indeed, had never owned any pet at all. But as soon as she laid eyes on the animal, she knew he was her dog, and she loved him. Loved him with an unquestioned and unqualified devotion.

  Apparently the dog felt the same way about Vita. The instant he saw her, he stopped whining and began wagging his tail, jumping and barking and dancing about in an attitude of pure joy. He pawed at the ground, dug at the base of the stones, even tried to leap to the top of the wall. But to no avail. Somehow Vita had left him outside. She had come into the garden without bringing the dog, and now there was no way to get to him. No gate.

  How could she have forgotten him? She loved him; she wanted him with her, and yet she had left him behind without a second thought. Guilt pressed its invisible fingers against her throat and squeezed. A painful lump lodged there, cutting off her breathing. She sank down to the grass and began to cry.

  The scene shifted, and, in the manner of dreams, Vita found herself suddenly and without explanation in a different place. In her office, at the computer. The sun had set and night was coming on; her eyes were tired and her back ached. She had the sense that she had been here all day, working.

  She left the office, meandering aimlessly through the dim-lit rooms and down the hall until she came to a doorway she didn’t recognize. There she paused and looked to the right.

  Inside the room, in the half-light of dusk, was a baby’s crib.

  And in the crib a young child, not more than a year old, standing behind the bars, peering out at her.

  Vita didn’t know who the baby was, or who it belonged to.

  Yet by some instinct she knew that caring for the child had been her responsibility. She had promised; and yet she had spent all day in her office working, completely oblivious to the baby’s needs. She hadn’t fed it or given it water or changed its diaper, had not even checked to see if it was still alive.

  The baby was not crying. It made no sound, did not even raise its arm
s to be picked up. It just stood there, staring at her with dull, vacant eyes. But Vita read reproach in its gaze, and suddenly she felt ashamed, panicked lest anyone should discover her irresponsibility. She had to do something, anything—quickly, before anyone found out.

  But she had not the faintest idea what to do.

  Vita awoke to a roaring noise, an insistent vroom, like the idling of a motorcycle without a muffler. A filtered afternoon sunlight reflecting across the bed. For a second or two she couldn’t quite identify where she was. And then she remembered: she had been up all night and had gone back to bed shortly after dawn.

  But what on earth was that infernal noise?

  She went to the window and looked down. Eddy, the workman who mowed her lawn, was out in the yard with a chain saw, cutting up the huge limb that had fallen from the oak tree the night of the storm. The mower stood beside him on the grass.

  Vita returned to her bed and sat on the edge, pressing her fingers to her throbbing temples. There was something—just before she awakened. Something important. A dream.

  Then it came to her: not one dream, but two. The dog and the baby. One she had abandoned, and the other she had neglected.

  Ordinarily Vita didn’t put much stock in the interpretation of dreams. That kind of nonsense was better left to quacks and shrinks and hypochondriacs. And yet she was overcome with the unshakable sensation that these particular dreams were trying to tell her something. Some kind of message from her subconscious.

  Something she needed to know.

  The images had to be connected to what she had just seen in the Treasure Box program. Rachel finding Cathleen. The birth of the infant Sophia Rose. Cathleen’s death.

  But what did any of that have to do with Vita? And why a dog shut outside a gateless garden and a baby left alone in a darkened room?

  She thought first of the dog—his joyous bark, his dancing delight when he first caught sight of her. This was something that belonged to her, something she loved. And yet she had closed herself off from it—whatever it was—in favor of the safety of a place surrounded by high walls.