“Looks good.” Shadrach kept his eyes on Finella, his heart clanging in his chest like a pair of brick and comb hammers.
He set Molly’s brick down to dry.
“Your turn.” He held another one for Finella who slipped her hand under his. Did she steady it against his shaking or her own?
She smelled like lemon balm and earth. A mixture of who she was and who she’d slowly become. He wanted to let the brick go and scoop her up.
“There.” Finella let the nail drop onto the bench. “All done. Now let me hold one for you.”
Shadrach scribbled his name, etching out the letters with deeper scratches than Finella’s.
Three bricks, one for each of them. Next week he’d build a clamp to fire the lot. Some wouldn’t make it. He already knew he’d have cracked losses to count. He hoped these three would not be amongst them.
“Your name’s on the brick now, Miss Finella. Means you have to stay here, forever. It’s like signing a pledge,” he teased.
“I might have to see where you lay that brick first, Shadrach Jones. You might choose to put yours and Molly’s where they’ll be admired by all, and brick mine in at the back. Right at the bottom. Facing inward.” She pressed dirty fists to her hips but her brown eyes sparked.
“No chance.” Now it was his turn to convince her. “Once these bricks go through the fire, they’ll sit in a row. Side by side. Feel free to choose the order and position. I don’t care much where they sit. As long as your name is there, beside mine.” He dared voice the words he hoped she needed to hear.
A blush along her cheekbones told him she did.
“Let me see.” Molly shoved Shadrach aside and rested her chin on the trestle. Crouching, she peered at the bricks. “What happens now?”
What did happen now? Shadrach would have liked to carry on the conversation he’d started with Finella. But Molly had other ideas.
“Well, when they’re dry, I’m going to lay every brick on a bed of coal and slap the whole thing over with more mud.” He winked at Finella. “Finella can help, seeing she’s so good at throwing it around.”
Finella puckered her lips and nodded. “I am good at that, aren’t I?”
“And then?” Molly continued.
“Then, we’ll light a fire and bake these bricks for a whole week. When they’re cool, and make a lovely chinking sound when we take them out, we’ll have bricks to sell and some left over for Finella’s oven.”
Molly frowned. “In the fire? Even the one with my name?”
“They all go in the fire. That’s how they become strong enough to hold together. No use making a cottage or kiln out of bricks which haven’t been fired. It would crumble at your feet in no time.”
Molly didn’t seem convinced. “I don’t want mine to go in the fire.”
“If it makes you feel better, Shadrach and I will be in there too. Well, our bricks will. Right beside yours. One on each side.”
Molly turned and faced them. “Promise?”
“We promise.” It pained Shadrach to see her blink against a long forgotten fear. A seared childhood memory of fire, smoke, and temper rose in his nostrils. “Best way I know to make oven bricks, Miss Molly is to cook them in the fire. It’s the only way Finella can ever make you a pie.” Shadrach nudged her and Molly ran her arm through the crook of his.
“Promise nothing bad will happen.”
Shadrach pulled her close. He was getting good at making all kinds of promises. To George. His mother. Mrs. Lawson. Now Molly asked him for something he had no real control over.
Chances were, any one of these bricks would not make it. But he had to hold onto his faith. Faith that the three named bricks would come out stronger than they went in. Faith that God would hear his prayer for courage. And faith to believe Aunt Sarah wouldn’t ruin it all.
Two sets of eyes waited on his answer. One wide-eyed and blue as his own. The other, deep brown and sweeter than any pie he craved.
“I promise. Nothing will happen to our three bricks. They’re going to stand together on our oven front for many years to come.”
34
December 12
Molly and I soak our fingers in lemon juice every afternoon. We scrape our nails and knuckles free of mud and wake each day to play in it once more.
No longer the threat under my feet, it is now the source of everything I have come to love. The shaping of what Shadrach and I have fought to hold onto. For so long we remained where we’d slipped, crippled by fear and blindness. Now, we pull the earth from its foundation and lay new hope for the days ahead.
Aunt Sarah forges on. Each night, I pray the journey would be sweet, knowing her arrival will not only bring the unlacing of her dreams, but some of mine.
No doubt the vessel plows deep and I feel her approach in my bones.
She’s in the gale that lashes the bay. The shadow in every dark cloud.
But Shadrach is all else. And I am no longer afraid.
*
Shadrach couldn’t smell any worse had he fallen into a festering cesspit. Smoke drenched and sweat filled, his clothes already carried more filth than he cared for. But the last two hours of carting and shoveling manure over his crops, sealed his fate. He wore the essence of his farm on his sleeve, in his hair and in a thick glob at the bottom of his shoe.
He scraped the last dredges of manure from his cart. The sun still hung high enough for a quick poke around the brick clamp. By tomorrow, it would be ready to crack open. He pushed the empty barrow along the last row in his chicory field and headed back.
He thought of the mulberry sapling he’d bought and hidden in the barn for Finella. A Christmas gift, hidden alongside Molly’s rabbit blanket. He needed to water it. But he didn’t mind being extra busy, if it meant being extra happy.
“He won’t agree.” Shadrach heard Finella’s voice before he saw her. She and Molly sat on a wooden bench under a quince tree, with newspapers in their lap and scissors in hand.
“But what if we smile?” Molly snipped at a long strip of newspaper. Her tongue poked out whenever she wasn’t talking.
Finella lay her scissors down and unfolded the sheet to reveal a pattern of Vs. “He’s the boss and he’ll do it when the time’s right.”
“Do what?” Shadrach stepped closer, but not too close.
“Brother.” Molly dumped her papers on the seat and jumped over to where he stood. “Open the bricks. There’s not much smoke today.”
“And how would you know that?”
Molly stood still. “Um…” She picked at a sliver of paper from her skirt. “I, ah..”
“Your sister decided to take a wander without me this evening.” Finella weighed the papers down with her scissors. “I found her by the brick clamp, stick in hand. She’s eager to get it open and I figured she’d be better employed making a Christmas decoration for the mantel.” Finella smiled.
Molly scrunched up her nose. “What’s that I’m smelling?” She pinched her nose with two fingers.
“Sorry Sunshine, that’s me. Been playing with manure. Not as much fun as making bricks with you two.”
Molly pulled at his hand. “Then let’s open the bricks. I want to see my name.”
Shadrach held her warm fingers in his. He was already dirty. And it wouldn’t take too long to crack them open. “I was planning on doing it tomorrow. But if you can stand the smell of the chicory field—”
Molly ran off without the risk of being called back.
“You’ve been gone all day.” Finella came close and stepped back with equal speed. “And I can smell why from here.”
“So it wouldn’t be a good time to tug at one of those brown curls?”
“Not unless you want me to pick up my skirt and run like Molly.”
“Maybe, I’ll risk it.” He reached for her apron strings.
Finella smacked his hand but her eyes shone. “Mud farm I’m learning to live with. Manure is not so endearing, Mr. Jones.”
With a chuckle he
let her go. She wasn’t going far. He would make sure of that.
*
Even through oversized gloves, the bricks shared the glow of the fire straight into Finella’s palms. Shadrach tossed them her way and in turn, she caught them and passed them on to Molly. Eager to find the brick with her name, the young girl blew on each one with care then stacked it in a row.
“Well, well. What have we here?” In the fading light, mischief played in Shadrach’s blue eyes, and Finella’s stomach dipped at his smile.
He held the brick high, away from Molly’s flapping hands. “Now, now, Miss Molly. Remember your manners.”
“Is it mine?” She swiped at the air. “Give it to me, Brother.”
He lowered his arm and Finella stepped closer.
“It is mine.”
Molly cradled the red brick in her hand like a chick and Finella rested her chin on Molly’s shoulder.
“No cracks. No bumps. One perfect brick.”
Molly moved away, still holding the brick to her heart. “It’s beautiful. And warm.” She sat on the ground, crossed her legs and rocked like a mama with her baby.
“I’m not sure you’re getting that brick back, tonight.” Finella nudged Shadrach. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it replaced her dolly.”
He laughed and slipped off his gloves. “If she wraps it in a blanket, it’ll be safer than out here.”
“Do you think our bricks are nearby?”
He squatted and pulled two from a pile at his feet. “I found them first. But I wanted to keep looking until I had Molly’s.” He held one in each hand and blew where the groove of their names held the most soot. “Perfect.”
Finella’s heart tripped and tumbled. She ran her fingers over the bricks.
Finella and Shadrach. Shadrach and Finella. They’d survived the fire.
“You’ve a spot on your face.”
“I do?” She looked up at him. “Where?”
“Under your eye.” He rubbed at her skin. “No. My mistake. Must have been the shadows. Oh wait.” He tilted her chin so he could see her other cheek. “I thought I saw something here, but no. It’s nothing.”
Finella giggled. She knew what he was up to and her face tingled where he wiped his dirty fingers and left a deliberate smudge. She remembered their kisses in the clay pit as well as he might. “You’re one to talk. You’ve more soot and manure on you than anything else on this island.”
“And for my troubles, I now have well covered rows of chicory, a market garden about to explode with summer vegetables, and right before Christmas, it seems I will have me a newly built oven right on my doorstep. What else could a man want?”
“Probably pie, or cake.”
“Pie.” He added their bricks to the others. Straightened and licked his lips. “And cake.” He swallowed. Hard. “Finella, the other day, when we wrote our names on the bricks. Well, … you know you have to stay with us now, don’t you?” He teased, but his words wavered a little.
“You’re not going to tie me up, are you?” Finella whispered.
“If it means keeping you here with us. With me.” He reached for her hand and winked at Molly. “There’s not much miss over here isn’t a part of. And you know she and I are a special pair. But we don’t want to stay at two. I don’t.”
Finella’s cheeks flamed under the breath of his words. “I want us to be like these bricks. Molly in the thick of trouble, you and me on either side. Me looking over her shoulder at you. You, looking back. What do you say, Finella?” He squeezed her hand.
A bubble built in her chest and she wasn’t sure she could say anything. But her deep fondness cracked and widened, and she squeezed his hand in return. “I know for certain you’ll like my baking, Shadrach Jones. Question is, can you love it enough to live with it forever?”
He gathered her other hand. “Finella Mayfield, I like your cooking enough to want nothing else on my plate ever again. But I love you. If I had to live on Sharpie’s cold fish stew for the rest of my life, I would still love you and want you for my wife. Will you say yes?”
The trembling in her shoulders raced along her arms and into her palms. There was no use hiding it from the one who held her hands. He’d already captured her heart.
He’d dug the beach for her shells, dug the earth to make her bricks but now, now it was her turn to answer with a gesture she hoped would mean as much to him as his had to her.
She pulled her hands away and cupped his dirty, unshaven cheeks. “I don’t just want my name beside yours and Molly’s. I want to take your name for my own and become your wife. I love you Shadrach Jones, and there’s no other place I’d rather stand and tell you that, than right here where I want to plant my roots, on the blessed mud under our feet.”
Shadrach grinned and held her by the waist. “There is no mud under our feet, anymore.”
“Not right here, but I know a mud pit just a short walk away. Past your fine smelling chicory fields, if you care for mud colored kisses. But I’ll take ash covered today, if you don’t mind.”
His eyes spoke first with a sparkle even the dusk could not hide. “That would be my pleasure.” His mouth dipped closer and would have delivered a kiss had the sound of a horse and buggy not found its way to their yard of dry mud and sweet promises.
“Do you hear something?” Shadrach held his hand up.
Someone jumped out at the end of the lane and swung the gate open before returning to drive in. Dusk and fading light shadowed their visitors, and Finella followed Shadrach for a better look.
“Evening, Shadrach.” Goliah Ashe secured the brake and hopped out. “Thought I’d surprise you good people with something I found on the steamer from Melbourne today.” He helped his wife from the buggy.
“Someone,” she whispered.
Agatha rolled her eyes at Finella, but didn’t come any closer. Instead, she stepped aside to make room for Goliah to reach into the buggy, once more. Warmth from Molly’s body pressed Finella from behind, but it could not match the gust of cold, when Aunt Sarah stepped from the shadows and set her polished boots on their shell path.
35
“Now?” Shadrach helped Goliah with the buggy. “You couldn’t wait until morning?”
Goliah’s shoulders slumped. “Morning? As in tomorrow? Do you know what kind of day I’ve had? First, I sit beside her all the way from Queen’s Wharf. I listen politely to her dislike of ship travel, of oceans and even the inconsiderate nature of the wind which brought her here earlier than expected.”
He stopped to calm his agitated voice. “Then,” he cocked a thumb in the direction of the house and the womenfolk in it, “she sits in my parlor while my good wife pours tea and listens to the same stories I’ve already heard.” He came so close for a moment Shadrach thought he might poke him in the chest.
“You stink, brother. Sorry to say it.” He brushed at the tip of his nose. “But here’s something worse. Did you know we’ve set up house all wrong?” He nodded as if he agreed with the revelation, but his wide eyes told Shadrach he was not impressed. “Oh yes, a respectable preacher’s hallway should have a mahogany hat rack with brass hangers tipped in white china? Did you know that Shad? White china.”
Shadrach twisted the reins tighter. The preacher didn’t stop for an answer. “And did you know Finella has one such hat rail in her possession, and if tragedy had not robbed her of the position she’d been groomed for, it would now hang in my house? Right where Miss Sarah Mayfield pointed out I did not have such a hat rack?” Goliah swallowed.
“You must be parched.” Shadrach didn’t know whether to laugh or worry. The pitch in his stomach told him worry would arrive sooner than any laughs might.
The preacher continued. “And here’s something you might like to know for when you go laying carpets.” He nodded again and leaned back with his arms folded over his chest. “Apparently, Dutch carpets wear out. The one a preacher should have, for parishioners to traipse in and over, should be Venetian.” He leaned closer. “Ve
netian.” He hissed into Shadrach’s ear.
“You’re babbling.” Shadrach tried to shove all Goliah had whispered aside for the real story. “Did the aunt arrive on your doorstep thinking Finella would be there?”
“Ha.” Goliah roared. “You’re not listening. I made her acquaintance on the steamer from Melbourne this afternoon, after a meeting with the Diaconate. Seems her ship came in early but she’s not afraid of much, Shad. She found her way aboard and asked me if I was on my way to Phillip Island and did I know her niece, Miss Finella Mayfield.”
“And she’s been with you all afternoon?”
“All afternoon. And evening, so far. Started with afternoon tea. Agatha tried to convince her to stay the night, but she insisted we bring her over. I sent one of the young lads over with a note to tell you while we dawdled as much as we could. Didn’t he get here?”
Shadrach shook his head. “Never saw him. Unless he came while we were cracking open the brick clamp.”
That detail hardly mattered now. What mattered was whatever was happening around his table. He chewed on the inside of his mouth. He’d hardly savored his moment with Finella. He wondered if she waited for him to join her before telling her aunt their news.
“I guess we’d better get inside.” He secured the horses and tried to ignore the shift in his gut. But that only made him feel worse. “If the aunt wasn’t happy with your carpets and hat rack, imagine what she’s saying about my place?”
*
“Marry him? The farmer? And live here, in this hut? It’s out of the question.” Aunt Sarah rose and collected her gloves. Closed to further discussion, she’d kept her voice low and in full control. And no matter how Finella tried to explain there was more to this place than what Aunt Sarah couldn’t see, her aunt refused to listen.
“No niece of mine will live covered in soot, when I have poured years of work into making you something more. Now, get up.”
Finella stood. “Aunt Sarah, please. Won’t you reconsider?” Her head thumped and stiffness crept into her shoulders she hadn’t felt in months.
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