by Mari Labbee
“And…you didn’t really want to see this dress again, did you? On me, I mean.”
He nodded, looking a bit like a lost child. She felt a strange power over him suddenly. The dress was giving her that power. She walked over to him and reached around his neck to pull him toward her. She began kissing him slowly, passionately. But tonight he wouldn’t give in to her; his kiss was mechanical, unfeeling—he was not there.
He pushed her away, a chasm of space between them. In an instant, she knew.
“She is not in this dress,” Indigo said.
“No,” he said softly before turning away to leave her in the dark with only the buzz of cicadas to keep her company. He would go to her now—the smell of death on her, stinking and dying, how could he bear it? Was it really possible to love another like that?
“No,” Indigo whispered after him. “She will never wear this dress again. I am the one who will wear it from now on.”
Indigo walked out into the dark fields, and from out there she looked at the plantation house, all dark except for a light in an upstairs room in the far wing that burned like a star. He was in there with her, with Camille. She seethed, the night doing nothing to put out the fire inside.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
The heat was from hell itself. The animals had gone quiet, birds and bugs burrowed into their dark spaces, and an eerie stillness hung over Fig Field. Since that awful night seven days past, Indigo wanted nothing more than to escape the confines of Fig Field, and on one morning she walked into the fields, headed for the jungle behind the plantation that she had been warned not to venture into. It was dense and dark, easy to disappear in its vastness.
Some of the workers looked at her as she walked past them, but most paid no attention. At the boundary of Fig Field, she looked back over her shoulder. The house seemed so far away. She lingered there at the brink of that dark unknown before stepping inside.
The wet moss that covered the ground felt good against her bare feet. She followed what looked like a path through the thick jungle, thinking all the while that one could indeed become very lost in there.
How long and far had she walked before she heard it—the sound of water? There was a stream or maybe a river, and it didn’t sound far off. She followed the sound until she found it—a mountain stream with crystalline water flowing over and under boulders polished smooth from the constantly rushing water. Indigo stared at it, and she thought about her overheated body.
She guessed the width of the river to be about fifty feet across. She stood at a point in the river where it slowed to become a pool with gently flowing water. The edge was shallow enough to see the rocks on the bottom. She pulled her skirt up and walked into the cool water. Without another thought, she stripped off her clothes, flinging them onto a nearby rock, and jumped into the river.
From under the wild fig tree by the stream, a pair of golden eyes watched Indigo as she whooped and hollered and dived underwater over and over. The golden eyes followed her every move and wondered how anyone could have skin so white. None of the other ones had skin as white as this one, not even Camille.
Indigo turned on her back and began a backstroke, turning her head from side to side, making sure no rocks were in her way when she noticed the stranger. Surprised, she stopped swimming and began treading water.
“Who are you?” she shouted at the slight girl sitting by the tree.
The girl slowly brought a roughly carved pipe up to her lips and pulled on it deeply, but she didn’t answer.
Indigo frowned. “Did you not hear me? Who are you? What are you doing here?” she demanded angrily.
A stream of smoke escaped the girl’s nose and mouth, and she smiled wide.
“He tro you out?”
“What?” Indigo asked.
“He tro you out. You not dat girl. He tro everybody dat not her out. You no her.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“Dat Guadeloupe girl.”
“Who?”
“You no hear?”
Indigo was breathless from treading water.
“Of course I can hear. Who are you talking about?”
The girl stretched the name out slowly as if she was talking to a child.
“Caaa-mille.”
Then nodding and smiling, she took another slow pull from the pipe. The girl blew out another impressive puff of smoke and went on.
“Him crazy. Take down dem paintings. He no want to see how dat girl was wit beautiful face and beautiful hair dat make him cry.”
As the girl spoke, she traced her face and head with one hand.
“He no doctor. Dey call dat doctor, he know notin. I doctor.” The girl tapped a finger on her chest. “She no leave dat house if don’t want. She get up when I say.”
Indigo didn’t know what to make of this girl. Maybe she lived out here in the jungle, crazy and alone. Yet she got the feeling that wasn’t it. It didn’t seem to her that the girl was crazy, but there also was no sense in what she was saying.
“What are you talking about?”
“Dat my house. He love me. He still love me, not her, my tings, my tings.” She tapped at her chest again. “He see. I keep dat girl mash up in dat house. She no leave. No leave until I let her go.”
The girl stood up. She was taller than Indigo had guessed and very pretty in a rough sort of way. She was talking about Camille and Alexander. Did she know them? It sounded as if she knew Fig Field.
“You come back here wit da moon tonight.” The girl smiled. And before Indigo could ask why, the girl disappeared into the shadows. Indigo was alone again.
Camille had been a delicate beauty, petite with buttery blond hair, creamy skin, and spellbinding turquoise eyes. When her family first arrived in New Quay, from Guadeloupe, it was only to wait out the stormy season before continuing their journey on to France.
Within a day, every man in New Quay knew of Camille’s arrival. If he was a single man, then he dreamed of winning her, and if he was a married man, then he merely suffered in silence. Alexander was instantly smitten, and it was mutual. But Camille’s parents would never approve of any man in New Quay. They had much loftier goals for their beautiful daughter, and those all lay in France. The discovery of her secret courtship with Alexander rocked the little island, and there was talk of nothing else for some time after it got out. Camille would not leave, and her parents all but disowned her, leaving her to marry Alexander as they set sail for France, her mother mourning over the fate of her only daughter.
Before Camille, Alexander had no permanent attachments. The relaxed standards of New Quay allowed him several relationships that would have been unseemly anywhere else. Several remembered a servant girl, who had become so close to Alexander that she was practically the mistress of Fig Field. But after Camille, she simply disappeared, not to be seen again.
Minkah stepped out of the steaming jungle and into the scorching midday sun. Her hut sat at the edge of the jungle just behind the plantation, hidden from view, and no one other than Malik knew it was there. It had been her refuge since Camille snatched away the life she had been living, but she had gotten even. Yes, she had gotten even.
For some time she had been watching this new woman who had arrived at Fig Field, and she finally decided that in Indigo she had an ally. Tonight there would be a full moon, time to repeat the spell. This time Indigo would be there too-and dark appetites would be set free.
They buried Camille in the dead of winter of that year, but in New Quay, it was winter only because the calendar declared it so.
Within six months of the funeral, Indigo had taken charge of Fig Field, as Alexander was no longer able to run it. He had come down with a mysterious ailment after a dinner given for the officers of the Sparrow, a merchant ship anchored in port. It was a few days after that dinner that he had lost the ability to walk, and soon after, he lost his speech too. No longer able to communicate with anything other than a grunt, he remained in his room cared for by Malik,
who carried the man around, withered legs dangling akimbo.
Dr. Burrows was beside himself. It was happening again, and he was baffled. Was there something in the water or soil around the plantation? He wondered. And just like before, no one else had become sick. Indigo was the picture of health, and so were all the field hands and servants. But the doctor was rarely summoned and had been turned away the last few times by the ever-present Malik. When Camille had become sick, he had come to see her often and examined her at every stage of her illness. But he had barely seen Alexander. He decided to visit Fig Field unannounced to ensure that someone was at least caring for the man. He hadn’t been to the plantation in several months.
Once there, Malik barred his way, and as he argued with the man, Indigo walked in from outside pulling off her riding gloves as she approached. The doctor was astonished at how she looked. She had been partaking of heavy meals these recent months, and she was weathered from being outdoors. Her hair was wild, and though her beauty was still intact, she had changed dramatically.
“Dr. Burrows! I…I had no idea you were here.”
She shot a look at Malik, who stood by the door. Dr. Burrows’s brows were knit together so tight they’d become one. His lack of knowledge had finished off Camille, but he would not let the same fate befall Alexander.
“I wanted to look in on Alexander,” he stated.
“But you were just here,” Indigo said, trying not to sound surprised. “Perhaps fewer visits would make him less upset,” she suggested.
“It has been months,” Dr. Burrows said, pausing, “and he was not upset when I saw him last. He was alert.”
The doctor looked at Indigo. “He was trying to speak. I know it.”
Indigo smiled patiently. “Yes, he tries, but he cannot make words much anymore. Though there are fleeting moments here and there where he has success, they pass quickly.”
The doctor let out a tired sigh as if he carried the burden of the world on his shoulders.
“I want to set up a lab here. I want to be able to study Alexander. Perhaps find the cause of this…”
Indigo quickly interrupted him.
“No, Doctor. I do not think it a good idea. What would Mrs. Burrows and everyone else in town do without you?” she paused. “Would they be able to manage a half day’s ride up here to have an ankle set? And how quickly could you get to them should the need arise?”
His brows grew tighter. “You are keeping me from seeing Alexander. I demand to see him right now.”
“He is being cared for. I assure you. You already examined him, several times, and you haven’t been able to reverse the course of this…this…malady, have you? Now that the poor man is resting, I do not think it a good idea to wake him to poke at him some more with no idea of what causes this condition.”
Indigo smiled sweetly at him, took his arm, and began leading him to the door.
“It is another mystery.” She paused and looked at the doctor. “Like Camille.”
She knew he felt guilty about Camille and that bringing her up would bring his insecurities to the surface.
He became indignant. “How is it that you are running Fig Field? Surely the investors have been notified. A new manager should have been assigned.”
Indigo kept cool. “When he began feeling sick, Alexander had me help him with the daily operation of the plantation and saw to it that I was ready to take over should his illness become worse. Unfortunately, that is what happened. It is how he wanted it. I am just carrying out his wishes. He wrote the investors about it while he could still write, and they are fine with the arrangement—their profits are unchanged. This is the least I could do after the kindness shown to me by both him and Camille, God rest her soul.”
This incensed the doctor, and his neck and face bloomed an angry scarlet.
“In fact,” Indigo continued, “during those brief moments when he is lucid, we discuss the running of the plantation; I really could not do it without him.”
From another room came humming, and the doctor turned to look. A pretty girl, a small pipe hanging from one corner of her mouth, arranged flowers in a vase in the next room. She looked vaguely familiar, but the doctor couldn’t place her, and he didn’t have time to ask who she was, as Indigo quickly ushered him out the door.
“Alexander is in good hands, Doctor. You may rest easy, and if the need for you arises, I will call on you immediately.”
She walked him outside, and he got on his horse. He looked at her, his mouth was pulled back tight, and spittle sprayed her as he spoke.
“I will be writing to the investors to enlighten them of Alexander’s condition. And the governor will assist me in seeing him soon enough.”
With that, the doctor snapped the reins and goosed his horse. At the edge of the plantation, Dr. Burrows turned around. Indigo—flanked by the girl and the big man—waved to him. He was sure that they had a hand in whatever was going on here, and he aimed to prove it.
Several days later, the sad news that Dr. Burrows had perished reached Fig Field. He’d been thrown from his horse, breaking his neck the moment he hit the ground. He died instantly.
A seasonless year passed, and little had changed except that no one on the island had seen Alexander at all, and Fig Field tobacco seemed to be suffering as well. The last harvest was lost to an insect invasion. Indigo was rarely seen, only sending servants into town for needed supplied. They were the only evidence that people still lived at Fig Field.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Elias bolted upright; something had startled him awake, but what? Maybe it was the insane birds that flew through the house screeching night and day. He listened for them, but it was quiet. It had been something else.
He looked down at the bed, sheets on the floor, evidence of another fitful night, one he could never remember. He was naked and soaked top to bottom with sweat again. His head felt as if it weighed fifty pounds. How long had he been here? He wasn’t sure; he had lost track of time. But it felt like a long time. His first thought upon waking was always the same—where am I? Then slowly the answer would come. He was on the island, in this house, on the plantation. But he couldn’t remember how long he’d been here.
Mornings were best; it’s when he was most lucid and could make sense of his thoughts. By the day’s end, he would become foggy again. His mind wandered as if he were walking through a dream, remembering little of the day or the days that came before it.
The nights were no better, filled with visions that his fragmented mind tried to make sense of but couldn’t. Too often they were of the woman Indigo. She came to him in the night. He saw her face over him, laughing. She reminded him of something, of someone—he could never remember what or who. Her face was ever changing, shifting into different shapes. Why was he so confused?
The Sparrow’s officers had received an invitation to dinner at Fig Field plantation the day after their arrival, but how long ago had that been? Though just a small port town, New Quay had a social class of sorts, and it was customary to invite the officers of visiting ships to dinner or tea. No doubt, any ship was seen as an opportunity for future business, but both parties also enjoyed the respite from their normal routine. The officers enjoyed time away from the ship, and the locals got the chance to hear stories about what might be happening in the rest of the world.
He remembered the first part of the evening as quite enjoyable, but then he remembered Indigo’s extreme curiosity when he began talking about home and his wife. She asked so many questions, and foolishly, he had been flattered by her attention. He thought nothing of it then but wondered now if any of that had to do with why he was still here.
They had all returned to the ship that night, but several days later, he and Lieutenant Loggins returned to Fig Field. He tried to remember why they had returned, but he could not remember the reason for it, and that was where his memory stopped and where he began walking through the dreamworld.
A stray memory surfaced. Had he dreamed of hi
s beloved last night? Her memory brought forth a rush of tears. He had not forgotten her. He could not allow himself to forget her. She was the only thing holding him together. Would he ever see her again? Her handkerchief and the small portrait of her that he carried in his waistcoat pocket had gone missing. They were the only possessions he had of hers; he had never misplaced them, not in all the time he’d had them, but now they were lost. He could not remember if he removed them or even when he first discovered they were lost, but they had been lost since he’d arrived in Fig Field. He was sure of that.
“I am sorry, my beloved. I am sorry, Rosabel,” he whispered, sitting at the edge of the bed, crying. But then a scream pierced the silence, sending a shiver up his spine. He knew who that was. It was Alexander. He had seen the man bent, with shrunken legs, an invalid. He was being carried by the huge man they called Malik. Alexander’s head bobbed uncontrollably, and from where Elias had been standing, behind one of the columns just outside the dining hall, he saw that Alexander’s eyes were cloudy and milky white. He could not possibly see, and he could not speak, from the looks of it. Alexander was as sick as a man could be without being dead.
The day he saw Alexander had been his first and only escape attempt. He had made his way downstairs. The house was nothing like it was when he first saw it. Leaves littered the entryway, no one bothering to sweep them away or pick them up, and birds flew inside freely, screeching bloody murder. He had managed to make his way just beyond the threshold before he saw Malik carrying Alexander in his arms as Indigo walked directly behind, cooing to Alexander as one would to a baby—a strange sight to behold. Who was he to her? She to him? Somehow Elias understood that this was not a loving relationship—at least not in any normal sense.
They were coming toward him. Acting quickly, he hid behind the column and pressed his back flat against the wall, willing himself invisible. She must not see me, he thought; it would be a disaster, and he would pay for it if he were discovered. That much he knew.