by Everly Frost
Sam’s hand suddenly gripped my arm.
I jumped, as he said, “I’m going to kill that dog, Caroline. Don’t worry, I know where it’s hiding and I’m going to shoot it dead.” He stared up at me with a fire in his eyes.
“Sam, I don’t—”
“Samuel.” It was Edith. “Come here.”
He went, the fire replaced by sullenness. She shook him. “Stop this nonsense.”
“But I know where it is.”
“You do not know where it is. Even if you did, you are not to say such dangerous things.”
He wrenched out of her arms and strode down the path.
“Samuel. Come back this instant.”
“I’m going down to the men where I belong.”
“No, you are not. Samuel!”
Someone emerged up the path, blocking Sam’s way. Dad took a stern look at him from under his hat. “You coming down to the cattle yards, son?”
Sam pulled himself upright. “Yes, sir.”
Dad studied him for another moment and finally inclined his head. “Well. Go on, then.”
Edith looked like she was about to scream. Dad strode up to her with a puppy wriggling at his chest and dropped it into her startled arms. “This one’s making a nuisance of itself. Keep it out of the way, would you? I don’t want another one running off.”
Her face turned darker. “In all the time I’ve been looking after them, we’ve only lost one to the wild. And yet, you remind me about it every chance you get.”
A twisted smile marred his face. “You hate to fail, don’t you, Edith?”
I held my breath. Dad turned his back on her. But Edith’s hand shot out and grabbed his arm. In another swift movement, she shoved the puppy back at him and the poor thing yelped as my father grappled to catch it. “It’s your mess, too!”
He juggled the dog up against his torso, holding it tight. It licked his chin before settling into the crook of his arm. His expression didn’t change. “Where would you go, Edith?”
He waited for her to answer, but she just stood there, her chest heaving and her hands clenched white.
He said, “I know you won’t leave.”
“You can’t keep me here forever.”
He snorted. “I’m not the reason you stay.”
Her lips moved—biting and quivering—as though she had too much to say and all the words swelled up in her mouth. She cast a fist over her forehead, easing out her response. “I won’t go on like this.”
She shook her head at him and the strangest look passed over her face. “You know I won’t.”
For the first time, the dispassionate expression on my father’s face disappeared. “As long as I’m alive, you will abide by my rules.”
A bubble of laughter escaped her tight lips. “Yes. But you won’t live forever. Will you?”
He turned on his heel and strode back down the path. He shot me a dangerous look as he passed by, as though he expected me to get in his way. I didn’t move a muscle. When he was gone, I glanced back to Edith.
She caught me watching, and her mouth formed a line. “Don’t you have anything better to do?”
I turned my back on her, framing my view with the edge of my hat, as my father and younger brother disappeared into the dust and chaos.
Chapter 20
THE BRAYING CONTINUED long into the night. Many of the cows were now separated from their calves and bereft mothers bellowed until dawn. I shoved the pillow over my head and pressed it against my ears. There was a silence in my head, a strange kind of calm. I couldn’t say how long it had been there. When did I become numb to the cold?
As the darkness outside mellowed, a sneaky wind slid beneath the bottom of my window and lifted the curtains. There was movement in the corner of the room where the rocking chair swayed.
In an instant I was on my feet, but the chair was empty and my door was closed.
I grabbed up a blanket and went to the window, determined to plug the draft, but I stopped at the sight of Timothy, heading out across the garden. Where was he going?
I hesitated. Indecision almost got the better of me. The Lodge was full of men now—rough men. After what happened with Kenneth Buckland…
But I needed to know what was going on with my brother. He was going somewhere, just like he had on other mornings, and I needed to know where and why. I set my mind and hurried to dress.
Tiptoeing through the hall, I crept down the stairs and through the back door. Without a torch, I had to rely on memory to follow the path without tripping or falling. I crept along the footpath to the Lodge and beside it, holding my breath, sensing the sleeping bodies of fifteen men.
The cool breeze billowed the sheets on the washing line out and in, puffing like an old ghost, and I shrank away from them. I kept my eyes on my brother’s disappearing back: up over the ridge and down toward the dam. When he stopped there at the water, I halted on the edge of the decline and crouched low to watch.
Timothy dipped his hand into the dark water and droplets trickled from his fingers. He leaned over the edge—so close that his face almost touched the surface. For a moment, I thought he was going to slide beneath the surface and I almost shouted out to stop him. I didn’t want him to drown like Samuel nearly did.
At the last moment, he straightened and turned to the old shed. He spoke to someone before he moved closer to it and disappeared from view.
I crept through the grass, edging toward the back wall of the shed. Breathing out the foggy morning air, blowing steam, I vaguely registered the dew on my face. I didn’t feel the cold anymore. The other me was part of me and she kept me numb. Ever since Rebecca died, she’d become a welcome companion, shielding me against the pain of losing my sister.
I didn’t think I would feel the cold ever again.
I shoved my hands into the pockets of my coat and stopped at the shed, stepping gingerly on the pebbled ground, balancing and hoping for silence.
Crouching, doused in the first weak rays of sun, I pressed my face against a crack in the wall.
I closed my eyes.
No wonder Victoria’s hands were so cold in the morning.
I balanced there and wished I’d stayed in my room. I had no business being here.
Worse, Victoria was crying, and suddenly I remembered the day Timothy charged down the steps and smashed Kenneth Buckland’s nose. I remembered the day Victoria’s hands were warm but her face had been so pale. The day she must have stayed in the house because…
I’ll kill you for touching her… That’s what my brother had shouted. And the look on his face. It hadn’t been about me at all. My stomach tilted. My cheeks were suddenly wet. Kenneth had hurt Victoria.
I clenched my hand over my mouth and backed away, lifting my feet with as much care as I could manage while my thoughts roiled.
I stepped back into something that shouldn’t have been there.
“Shh.”
I whirled.
My boots churned the earth and pebbles clanked against the shed wall.
Dad heaved a sigh at me. His faded eyes moved past me even as his commanding hands turned me and put me out of the way.
There was a clang. I backed away as the shed door opened.
“Timothy.” Dad inclined his head, while the rest of him remained very still.
Timothy coiled, fingers twitching, shoulders bunched, his eyes flashing from me to Dad. I stepped even further away.
“I’m not here to fight you, son.”
My brother hesitated. His hand clenched. Then he moved into the light. There were dark rings around his eyes, and his stance was prepared.
He said, “I did what you asked me to do. I stayed away from her. But it was already too late.”
Dad closed the gap, straight and tall, and took Timothy’s shoulders, meeting his son’s eyes. “Are you sure it’s yours?”
Timothy swung at him, but Dad caught the fist and held it. He pulled his son close. “Son! I’m not being disrespectful. If I’d even
suspected, I would have thrown that mongrel Kenneth out, but I have to ask you.” His jaw ticked. “Is it my grandchild?”
Timothy tensed. “He didn’t… He tried… but she fought him and he ran before Mrs. Drew found them. She was already sick before then. He found her vomiting and threatened to tell. If I’d known, I would have told her…” There was a desperate look on his face. “I would have told her she was safe. That she didn’t have to be afraid. It’s mine, sir.”
Dad’s shoulders relaxed. His head dropped and the gray streaks in his hair glinted in the growing sun. “Then, I’m sending her away.”
The sound of fist on jaw cracked across the dam, just as the birds began to trill.
Dad fell, stunned, while Timothy swung at him again, shouting. “You’re not sending her away. She’s staying with me.”
Dirt and dust kicked up—and then mud—but Dad recovered enough to haul Timothy off and dodge the blows, as I pressed against the shed.
Victoria walked into the open, her face pale as pale, the corners of her mouth turned down. I wondered if she was still ill. She wore the woolen cardigan I gave her, but even so, she had her arms wrapped around her chest. Her face was stained and streaked with tears and her hair was loose.
“Timothy. Stop.”
She hardly raised her voice, but he heard her like she was connected to him. He stumbled backward, standing like a shield in front of her. “You aren’t sending her away. You aren’t sending my child away.”
“Son, I’m not trying to punish you.” Dad struggled to his feet and held up his big, weathered hands.
Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth and it reminded me of something I wanted to forget: blue eyes and a scream.
“I’m doing this to help you.”
“Help me? Why? Because you think I should marry some rich girl, instead?”
“No, son. This isn’t about money. Look around you. You think I care about money? You think I cared about money all those years, raising you to know what really matters—”
“What really matters?” Timothy’s face twisted. “Like our mother really mattered, you mean?”
Dad’s face turned to shadows. “You know nothing about her.”
“Yes, I know nothing about her. Because she died when I was six years old. Because you killed her.”
As soon as the words were out of Timothy’s mouth, he took a step back, watching the darkness build on our father’s face. The air charged. For a moment I thought Dad would hit back.
“You will not speak another word, son.” Dad glared past Timothy and spoke to Victoria. “You, girl. Pack your things. You’re leaving today.”
She looked sick and scared, but as Timothy grabbed her arm and pulled her close, she whispered, “Yes, sir.”
“No!”
But Timothy’s shout was drowned in a fiery crack.
Not a fist this time, but a gun.
Down the slope, we raced toward the origin of the gunshot. Dad, me, Timothy, and Victoria, all running. Fifteen cattlemen charged down the slope behind us, ridiculous in their pajamas, but deadly with their guns.
The mound in the grass was so small that it could have been part of the land, instead of a body, all curled up.
The air from our puffing lungs steamed white as we neared. My eyes took it in while my mind floated somewhere else—not here on the flat land, where the morning fog stayed thick, and my dead brother’s back curved.
The other me stopped still in that moment of quiet, in that moment of stillness and recognition, and her thoughts became my own.
He is what he should be.
But there was no hatred this time. No savage need for revenge, no anger. Only a sad kind of silence, stretching forward and backward, all the way back to a little boy drowning in muddy water, and then even further back, to a blue-eyed woman who tried to do the same. In my memory I saw their bodies as if they were one. My mother and my little brother, both slipping under the surface, both coming back up—except that was where the two images split apart—the woman wrestled against the hands that pulled her to safety, screaming against them, while my brother was silent as the grave.
And now…
Timothy skidded to a stop, yanking on Victoria’s arm, shouting something at her. She whirled like a shadow on spinning water and ran back toward the house. One of the men made to grab her, but she dodged, fleeing into the fog.
Dad knelt down, an impassive look on his face like he was studying a dead calf. Shock. He touched Samuel’s neck, feeling for a pulse.
His cheeks turned hollow.
He took Samuel’s torso in his hands and rolled him onto his side. My brother uncurled like a caterpillar when the threat is gone. The gun that was wrapped up beside him dropped and would have fired again, but Dad snatched it to safety. Jack appeared and seized it in his strong hands, emptying the bullets out one by one.
“Samuel. My boy.” The façade cracked. My father rocked on his heels with his head in his hands.
There was blood now, spreading across the back of Samuel’s coat, dripping down under the hem.
Jack was close to Dad, talking in a low voice, rolling the bullets in his fingers. “Shot clean through his heart, looks like. Killed him instantly. He didn’t know how to carry this safely. Edith wouldn’t let us teach him. And now he’s gone and shot himself…”
“I wasn’t quick enough.” Dad’s hands dropped to the earth and scrunched the grass. “I could have saved him. Alice wanted to save him. But I dragged my heels.”
Jack murmured something to my father. They glanced at me. I dropped to the grass, the wet dew seeping through to my skin, to see that my little brother’s eyes were glassy. Just gone.
Finally gone.
“He came to kill the dog,” I said. And suddenly they all looked at me. “He said he knew where it was and he was going to kill it.”
Someone pulled on my shoulder and at last Nathan was there with darkness in his eyes. He tugged me to my feet and my father raked a hand across his face.
He said, “Take her back.”
Then Dad said to Timothy. “Son, help me with your brother.”
Timothy continued to stare, his hands shaking and clenching.
“Son!”
Timothy’s head whipped up.
“Help me carry your brother.”
Timothy took a step toward Dad as Nathan pulled me away. Up over the hilly ground, down past the sparkling dam, up past the Lodge to the dark, open door.
Aunt Alice waited there with Mrs. Drew and Collette, living ghosts in their white nightgowns, swirling in the doorway.
“Victoria came back and she was crying and babbling. I couldn’t understand her.” Aunt Alice caught my arm, but her eyes were on Nathan. “She said it was Samuel, she said something terrible had… Oh, no.”
We turned. Behind us, Timothy walked, bearing the body. One of Samuel’s arms dangled, leaving a trail of dark spots on the winding footpath. His head was cradled against Timothy’s chest. I remembered a summer, long ago, when we’d all stayed out counting stars and Samuel fell asleep on the old picnic rug. Timothy had carried him inside so gently that Samuel never woke up.
“Oh, no. Please, no.” Edith pushed past us.
I was thrown against the side of the door, but Nathan grabbed me and pulled me straight, releasing me as I steadied myself.
Her hair was a dark cascade as she ran toward Samuel. She was cloaked in swirling black, her hands held out in front of her, shaking and silent. The breath drew into her lungs as her fingers fluttered over the body in Timothy’s arms, and for a moment, there was nothing. Just silence.
Then Edith wailed, and it was a sound like nothing I had ever heard before. As she screamed, her fingers plucked the air above him, never touching, but swilling, going from his body to her face and back again.
Dad advanced on us, moving past Edith and pointing behind me. “Get her out of here. I want her out of here. Packed and out of my house. Now!”
I didn’t understand who h
e was shouting at until I turned to see inside the hallway. Victoria cried and dropped to her knees while Mrs. Drew and Collette grabbed her and tried to pull her down the hall. “No, please,” she begged.
Dad gestured at Victoria. “Get her out. Now!”
Victoria went, sobbing, dragging her heels, and crying.
My father grabbed Aunt Alice’s shoulder, making her wince.
He threw his face into hers with more malice than I’d ever seen. “Alice, you’d better make sure that girl is gone. This morning. No delay. I don’t want to lay eyes on her again, do you understand?” There was something terrible in his face, something scared and desperate. I didn’t understand how he could still hate Victoria right then. But he stared at Aunt Alice with that same frantic look.
Aunt Alice turned a horrible shade of white. She yanked herself out of Dad’s hands and sped off behind the maids. “Collette, pack Victoria’s things. Mrs. Drew, tell Jack to get the car ready. Now. Quickly, quickly.”
Timothy struggled to go after Victoria, but Samuel was in his arms and Edith screamed, and he had nowhere to go.
I caught the doorframe before I fell over. Nathan reached out to comfort me, but there were too many people. The look on his face said he wanted to hold me and take me away, but instead, he glued his hands to his sides and inclined his head. “Miss Caroline, are you okay?”
I shook my head no, but said, “Yes.”
I closed my eyes, leaned on the wall, and tried to block out the sound of the men, and my father, and Timothy shouting, and Edith wailing.
I imagined I was flying somewhere in the blue sky or maybe lying in a blue room on a blue bedspread with sunlight slanting across me and beetles crawling over my skin with their shiny, iridescent, prickly legs, and a scream in my head that went on and on.
Collette came in to dress me. The black dress was expected now, my only clothing.
She helped me into the woolen stockings, zipped up my dress, and tied my hair into an intricate series of knots and whorls, leaving a thick black lock lying against my left shoulder.