by Alyssa Cole
After the hurried meal, Marlie sat beside Hattie and checked on the progress of her thumbs.
“They look better already. You’ll be back to giving the Home Guard hell in no time,” she said with a smile so bright it coaxed one out of stern Hattie. Ewan didn’t realize he was staring until the girl beside him cleared her throat.
“Do you have a hammer and nails, or any other tools?” he asked, tearing his gaze away from Marlie.
Penny got up obediently and ran behind a curtained-off area of the house, returning a moment later with a small box.
“Papa’s tool kit. The Home Guard took the things we couldn’t hide.”
Ewan nodded and got to work. An hour later, the table and chairs were as level and sturdy as was possible, the cabinet doors were rehung, and the shelves put into some semblance of order. Ewan then headed out behind the house and took up the axe, breaking down the large pieces of trees into firewood.
When he came back in, sweaty but clearheaded, he saw Marlie with her arm wrapped around Hattie’s shoulders. “So it’s the root, ya say?” Hattie asked quietly. Her mouth was tight.
Marlie’s expression was somber as she nodded. “Yes. If your courses don’t come, you take the root of the young cotton plant and boil it up, then drink that tea every day for three days. That’ll . . . take care of things.”
Hattie nodded sharply, then glanced at Ewan. “Time for y’all to get moving.”
When they left, Penny was holding a bundle that she handed off to Marlie. “We ain’t got much. Here are more of the corn cakes.” She glanced at Ewan and her cheeks went rosy.
“Thank you for your kindness,” Marlie said as she tucked the food into her bag. She pulled something out and handed it to Hattie, and Ewan realized it was money. Greenbacks, not the devalued Confederate money floating around.
“It’s dangerous out there, girl. You got a good heart, but I don’t think you know from danger.” Her gaze skated to Ewan. “You though? I think you know a thing or two. You best keep her safe.”
Marlie looked confused, but Ewan nodded. “I’ll do that.”
“Head on back into the woods past the outhouse. Once you get into them woods, you likely to meet some men who can let you know if you’re headed the right way. Penny, get that ribbon.”
Penny came forward with a strip of red ribbon in her hands. She tugged it taut between the index finger and thumb of each hand, and from the way she started blushing again, Ewan knew he should stick his arm out. She tied the string about his wrist.
“That’s one of the signs the resisters use to show they’re on the same side,” Marlie explained. “In the Bible, Rahab hid spies sent by the Israelites within Jericho, and helped them escape by lowering a red rope over the city walls.”
“Yep,” Hattie said. “Those men laid out in the hills for three days to escape capture. It’s been a sight longer than three days for our boys, but they’ll help bring this infernal war to an end.”
There was nothing left to say. Marlie and Ewan headed out into the night, the playful spring breeze at odds with the solemn journey they were setting out on. Ewan looked about as they walked, the still-bright moon illuminating the clearing around the house more than he would like. The woods were full of the usual night sounds—insects, birds, and the scuttling of small animals—but then the sound of footsteps stomping through the pine needles and fallen leaves that blanketed the undergrowth caught Ewan’s attention. A person couldn’t be that loud unless they wanted to signal they were coming, but that by no means meant they were friendly.
“Miss Hattie?” a male voice called out. The tone was neutral—it could have been a Hero of America looking for food as surely as it might have been a Reb unsatisfied by the previous interrogations. They were too far from the forest to make a run for it, and could not make it back to the house and into the root cellar in time.
“Come,” he said, and pulled Marlie into the small wooden receptacle that was their closest source of shelter. It seemed Fortune was laughing at him again: In the course of twenty-four hours he’d gone from an attic, to a cellar, and now an outhouse.
The smell of the enclosed place assaulted his nostrils.
Marlie made a low sound of distress, so he cupped the back of her head and pulled her close. “I’m sure I don’t smell much better, but . . .”
She followed his lead, settling her head into the crook of his neck and inhaling.
He felt her lips curve into a smile against his collarbone and the tickle of her warm breath as she exhaled. “You smell fine,” she whispered, and inhaled again. “Comparatively.”
Her lips brushed against his collarbone as she spoke, and Ewan tried to ignore how the sensation rippled pleasantly through him.
“This rancid air beats the smell of prison. Or sulfur, if it comes down to a fight and I lose. We’ll wait here until whoever it is passes.”
Unless Hattie has need of us.
Ewan allowed himself to lower his head so that his chin rested against Marlie’s head and his nose hovered close to her hair. If he had to be inundated with scent, he wanted it to be wisteria and woman. He told himself that it was simply common sense, but despite the fact that they were in great danger and crammed into as disgusting a place as Ewan could think of, his body stirred.
“Sulfur?” she whispered. “Do you assume that you’ll go to hell?”
“Assumptions are for men who lack facts.”
“Ewan,” she whispered. Her head pulled away from him.
He looked down at her. Moonlight crept in through the warped slats, and a band across her face illuminated the censure in her eyes.
“Don’t worry for me,” he said. “I’ve a taste of heaven right now, and a taste is more than one man should ever ask for.”
Ewan didn’t know where the words came from. He didn’t know why his arms tightened around her, or why he wanted nothing more than to kiss her in the reeking enclosure they were stuck in. It was utterly illogical. He did know that her pupils grew wide, overwhelming the brown and green of her eyes so that they looked like a matched pair. He did know that her body pressed against his instead of away.
There was a sound outside the outhouse then, and Ewan dropped his arms from around Marlie and picked up the rifle Tobias had given them. He held it by the muzzle, ready to jab out the butt into nose or throat or some other vulnerable body part of anyone who dared intrude.
There was a creak as the door was tugged and the warped edges resisted. Marlie’s breath was audible now, a side effect of her distress.
He would let no harm come to her.
The door opened completely and a man stood with his hand at the fastening of his trousers, gaze toward the ground. His garb was Confederate gray, or something close enough; it was obvious that the fabric was roughly hewn and hastily assembled, like many of the poorer recruits’ uniforms were.
Ewan wasn’t panicked, though he could feel Marlie’s heart fluttering against his torso like a bird beating against a window. He would have to fight this man, was the simple fact. The man looked up and stumbled back as he caught sight of them. He stared at them for a long moment, and Ewan could see the resemblance to Hattie in his widow’s peak and thin lips.
The man stepped forward and Ewan positioned his hand against Marlie, ready to push her behind him. Then the man reached for the door and slammed it shut.
His voice came through the warped wood, altogether too friendly for a Rebel. “Apologies for the disturbance. Should have knocked.”
His footsteps moved away, and then stomped onto the boards of Hattie’s back steps. The door closed loudly. He was making it clear that he was turning his back, just as he had announced his arrival.
Marlie was shaking against him, “Maybe wishing isn’t for fools after all. Let us go now before he comes back.”
They eased out of the outhouse and dashed into the woods. When no one showed up in pursuit after several miles, they slowed their pace and continued on toward Tennessee.
CHAPTER
19
Marlie was exhausted. They had stopped to eat the corn cakes hours ago and then continued walking through the night. It had rained, cold and hard, and they passed through mud that went up to her shins and threatened to suck her boots right off her feet. Both of them had fallen into rain-filled ditches, leaving their clothes soaked through and coated in a layer of grime. The moon gave them some light, but even the brightest patches of forest left them prey to gnarled roots that caught at their feet and threatened to snag their ankles and branches that seemed designed to poke out their eyes and scratch at their faces. Her feet ached, her body was exhausted, and she was facing the possibility that they were utterly lost.
“I think we should have passed into Guilford County by now, or maybe Forsyth if we’re heading west like we were supposed to,” she said as she lifted her skirt for the thousandth time that night. It snagged onto a bramble despite her attempt, and she found herself suddenly on the ground. She was so exhausted that the resistance of the skirt had dragged her down. She tried to pull the skirt away, but her hands were clumsy and ineffective with fatigue.
Helplessness enveloped her. Had she always been this weak, or had her life of luxury with Sarah reduced her to this? She had always felt strong when she was with her maman, but her strength in the Lynch household had been based in a sedentary life of reading and experimenting. She pressed her knuckles to her eyes, and did not remove them even when she felt Ewan gently pulling her skirts away from the bushes. Tears squeezed through spaces between her fingers, their salty warmth stinging at her healing wounds.
“It will be day soon and we haven’t seen anyone who can pilot us or provide some other assistance,” Ewan said. “Perhaps there’s a house nearby, or a barn we can hide in. At worst, we’ll have to find cover in a pinery and hope no one happens upon us, but I’d prefer to get you somewhere safer than that.”
Marlie wiped at her eyes and looked about. She had seen nothing but trees for miles. She wondered if perhaps she was stuck in some kind of purgatory, where she’d walk endlessly through the Carolina woods. She stood and felt the jostling of something against her bosom. Her John the Conqueror root. She placed her hand over it, closed her eyes, and wished like a child who still believed in such things.
Please help us to find shelter soon.
When she opened her eyes, Ewan was staring at her again. She wondered what he was thinking. He’d be judging her for her tiresome behavior if he knew what she had been asking of an inanimate object, but that no longer mattered. In any case, she’d often felt his gaze on her as they moved through the forest. One might have imagined that he was reluctant to look away from her, if one wanted to think dangerously.
She tried not to think of how she’d awoken in the root cellar, with her hand in his, or how he’d pulled her close in the outhouse. She hated that she still felt this strange pull toward him, and she hated that when he looked at her now she wondered if Stephen had looked at her mother the same way. Vivienne was so much stronger than Marlie. If she could be taken advantage of, how could Marlie trust herself?
“Can you manage?” he asked, rubbing his hands against his trousers.
“I’ll have to,” Marlie said. She pushed ahead through the bushes, not waiting for him. They walked on in monotonous silence, searching for shelter as Marlie tried to hide her ever-growing panic. They passed into a heavily wooded area that required every ounce of concentration to avoid falling, and only her fatigue delayed her realizing that her feet were on solid ground one moment and then weren’t the next. The ground had given way and Marlie was sure she was falling to her death, but instead she landed a short distance below, unharmed.
“Marlie? Marlie!”
“The ground gave way!” she called out, surprised at the fear in Ewan’s voice. “I’m all right.”
“Where are you?” he demanded.
“Can you follow the sound of my voice? I didn’t fall very far.” A moment later Ewan clambered into the dark space and lit a match, revealing what Marlie had suspected.
“It’s a skulker’s cave,” she said as he lit a candle that had been left behind. He picked it up, illuminating more of the small space. It certainly couldn’t be called roomy, but there was enough space for them to sleep and a small fire pit to warm the coolness retained by the earthen walls, if they kept it low and smokeless.
“I’ll head up and repair the foliage that you fell through,” Ewan said, and then he sprang into action doing what he did best: being of service. The man couldn’t sit still knowing that there was work to be done, and when there was no physical work . . .
Well, then there’s you.
Marlie sighed. She was a pastime, something to keep his mind occupied when there was no wood to be chopped or plants to be organized. Reminding herself of that was the only way she’d survive their journey with her heart intact. She couldn’t repeat her mother’s mistake.
The knowledge that that’s what she was, essentially, a mistake born of trickery, hit Marlie with a fresh wave of sadness. Had her mother thought of Stephen every time she saw her strange eyes? Had she regretted that Marlie had ever been born? She thought of the day Vivienne had sent her away, and how rarely she had seen her after. Marlie had convinced herself that her mother had sent her away out of love, but that was before she had known the truth.
The pain of the thought started her tears anew. Marlie sank to the ground, wrapped her arms around her knees, and wept. She had escaped Lynchwood, but Melody had truly won. She’d taken her home, her sense of self, and now—most unforgivably—Melody had taken away her mother. Marlie had nothing at all, and she realized that she never had. Like her time with Ewan in her rooms, it had all been an illusion that couldn’t survive the light of the truth.
* * *
Marlie awoke to the smell of peaty smoke. She stretched, and found that her bare toes dug into the earth. When had she removed her shoes? Something shifted and she glanced up to find Ewan staring down at her. His face was expressionless, his gaze piercing. Marlie wondered what she must look like: caked in mud, hair snarled from being caught on low branches.
“I started a fire to dry our things.” Wood popped and crackled out of her line of sight, as if verifying his claim. “There’s warm water if you want to clean up. And maybe . . . I dried my clothes and our shoes. I wasn’t sure if you wanted . . . your dress is still rather damp from your tumble into the ditch.”
A flush spread across his sharp cheekbones, erasing the years so she could imagine what he’d looked like as a boy. Not childlike—she was certain he’d always been quite serious—but softer, less hard-set. She wanted to trace the rosy path with her fingertips up into that auburn hair of his, but she pulled herself to her feet instead.
She walked over to the fire, where he’d set up a few sticks in the ground at an angle from which to hang their clothes.
“I’ll turn away,” he said, and when she looked over her shoulder he was facing the wall. Her bag was beside him, and atop it, the ledger in which she kept her mother’s papers.
Her fingers froze on her buttons. “You went into my bag?”
“I wanted to keep watch for a bit, in case we were encroaching on someone’s daytime hideaway.” She saw his shoulders rise and fall.
“And you thought that my private papers would serve as entertainment while you waited?” The anger and despair that she’d felt before crying herself to sleep returned twofold. Marlie had never been quick to anger, but she felt an evisceration on the tip of her tongue waiting to fly forth.
“I was ensuring they hadn’t gotten wet during our journey,” he said in a dry tone that spoke to how offended he was. “And as I looked the papers over, I realized that you’ve been given an emotional shock without even the benefit of hearing it from your mother herself. I thought perhaps it might comfort you to read for yourself, and to know something more than the invective Melody threw at you. Because this is now more than your mother’s story. It’s yours. You deserve to know.”
Marlie su
cked in a breath. She thought about Ewan’s penetrating gaze and how it sometimes saw into her thoughts. Perhaps he had the gift others often credited her with? She resumed unbuttoning the heavy dress.
“What if I don’t wish to know?” she asked quietly. “What if I don’t wish to find out that my mother didn’t want me at all?”
Ewan laughed, and the sound raised her pique again.
“Perhaps I’ve failed in my job as a translator. As I’ve said, my French is subpar. But if we’ve been reading the same thing, the only logical deduction is that it was written by someone who loved you very much.”
Marlie didn’t say anything as she tugged her sleeves down. She stared at Ewan’s back, watched the movement of his elbow as he scribbled down a few words.
“My mother was attacked before we came to the US.” He was still writing. “During the Clearances, when they forced us off our land. She had never been on a boat before the weeks-long voyage and thought her sickness was caused by the tempestuous sea. It was only after she arrived that she realized she was pregnant. My sister Donella looks like no one in my family. She was the product of the most horrific moment of my mother’s life. And damned if she’s not Mum’s favorite child, exasperating as she is.”
Marlie struggled to get her sleeves over her hands, to free them so she could wipe away the hot tears coursing down her face, but she was hopelessly immobilized by the bunched wet cloth at her wrists. She let out a sob and Ewan turned.
“I’m in need of assistance,” she managed before gasping another sob.
Ewan placed the papers carefully back into the ledger and came to her. He pulled her sleeves back up to her shoulders, then pulled them down again from the cuffs, carefully, methodically, avoiding the mess she had made of things. He pulled one hand through, then the other.
“I don’t know the circumstances of your conception,” he said as he turned her. There was a tug at the string of the apron she had tied over her skirts, then another at the dress itself. Both pooled at her feet, leaving her in her chemise. “The only thing I know is you. No matter how you came to be here, you are beautiful, intelligent, and brave, and I’m sure your mother saw that, too.”