The Stills

by Jess Montgomery

  Fiona ventures a glance at Elias. Is that all he has told them? He gives a small nod. Even knowing she hadn’t warned him about his death, that’s all he’d revealed. Relief rushes through her—then puzzlement. Why not tell George everything?

  The sorrow on Elias’s face says it all. He believes he deserves this—any—betrayal. And he wants to die.

  “Get out of the way and give me the keys to your automobile!” Colter barks.

  “Oh, that’s not going to happen,” George says.

  Fiona feels Colter shaking in the cold, and she shivers, too. She’s afraid he’ll lose control of the gun, shoot her accidentally. No. No, she wants to live, wants to see her son, Leon, again, wants this child, even though it’s George’s—and wants control of all George has.

  It’s not hard to make herself cry, sound pitiable, in this cold. “I’m sorry, I just found him and felt sorry for him and—”

  “Is this how you’re going to be, with other men?” George barks.

  What? He’s jealous? Fine. Let him discount any other motives or intelligence on her part. She can work with that. “No, I’m sorry, but let me go with him; he’ll let me go later, I’m sure—”

  Another automobile races to the yard. Two men jump out—the handsome one who’d been with Lily, and another man. Both have guns drawn. As a second automobile comes racing up, the man intones through the bullhorn, “George Vogel, you are under arrest for—”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Fiona sees Abe coming around to the side, pulling his gun—

  “No!” Fiona screams, too late, as Abe shoots Colter in the side. Colter falls backward.

  George grabs Fiona, shoves her toward the automobile.

  “No!”

  Another scream, but it’s from a distance, down the gravel road, traveling over the bare ground, carried on the icy air.

  Lily. Screaming, “No, no, no!”

  George shoves Fiona again, as the men behind them holler for them to stop. Another shot rings out. Colter writhes on the ground. Abe stands over him, about to take the kill shot.

  But Elias—who has been as still as a frozen statue in the middle of this pandemonium—suddenly conjures strength and energy, and lunges forward, grabs a piece of wood, knocks Abe to the ground. Abe’s gun goes off into the air, as Elias runs in the direction of Lily’s screams.

  More shouting, another shot, George shoves Fiona into the automobile, Abe makes it around to the driver’s side, but he’s been hit in the right arm, at close range, is bleeding badly, dropping the keys, fumbling, gasping for air, as George curses at him to drive.

  LILY, DECEMBER 1, 1:40 P.M.

  “No!” Lily screams.

  Zebediah has run up the new gravel road and grabbed the end of something and is trying to light it.

  Oh God. It’s the dynamite.

  Fiona has gotten Marvena’s dynamite after all and strung it across the road—and sent Zebediah to light it. But when he drops the fuse end, in the ice and snow it goes out.

  Still, though shaking, he’s trying again.

  “No!”

  Lily runs across the road, grabs the boy.

  He tries to fight her, to get back to the dynamite.

  “It’s the only way I can get home! See Mama! And Ruth! That’s what the lady told me!”

  Lily tightens her arms around him, pulls him back into the woods, pulls him down to the ground, holds him still as best she can though he sobs and thrashes. “Sheriff Lily, please, I gotta get home. Mama—”

  Oh God, forgive me. She must let Zebediah believe he will see his mama again. “You gotta trust me, boy! Do you trust me? Ruth trusts me!”

  He settles a little, though he’s still crying.

  She hears Elias, gasping for breath. He’s right over her.

  For a moment, their eyes lock.

  For a moment, just a moment, she sees past all that he’s done, all the terrible things, all the wonderful things, all the mundane, boring things, into his soul, and sees his sorrow and desperation.

  “Forgive me.”

  Elias whispers the words so softly that for a moment, just a moment, Lily thinks she’s hearing simply the echo of her own prayer in the icy cold.

  Then, as she realizes Elias has spoken out loud, he grabs the fuse of the dynamite and runs to the middle of the gravel road.

  She hears an automobile speeding toward him.

  While still clenching Zebediah, Lily jumps up, sees that the automobile is driven by Abe, carrying George and Fiona.

  Lily looks back at Elias.

  The fuse is already lit.

  But instead of dropping it and running, Elias holds the stick of dynamite in his hand, staring straight ahead at the automobile, now careening, sliding on the road, too much snow and ice for the gravel to offer traction so it can stop in time.

  “No!” Lily screams.

  Elias does not look her way.

  “Elias, you don’t have to do this!”

  He is frozen. Resolute.

  Holding the dynamite with the sparking, burning fuse up, like a candle. He is perfectly …

  Still.

  Somewhere, deep in his soul, he’s found the strength and will for this last act.

  Lily staggers backward with Zebediah, holds him tightly with one arm, covers his eyes as the dynamite explodes.

  EPILOGUE

  LILY, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1927, 8:40 P.M.

  At the pastor’s cue, the elders rise and lower the wicks of the coal-oil lamps near the altar. Shadows dance around the Kinship Presbyterian Church sanctuary, making the church seem colder than it really is.

  Micah snuggles in close to Lily, as Caleb Jr. does to Mama. Lily puts her arm around Micah to still his wriggling.

  “Look,” she whispers. “Jolene’s going to bring the light from the Christ candle, and then Frankie’s going to sing!”

  “Do we get presents tonight?” Micah asks. There will be another service tomorrow morning, but the church is celebrating the lighting of the full Advent wreath tonight.

  Lily can’t help but smile. She nuzzles the top of his head with her nose and whispers, “One each—but only if you’re good. And hold your candle upright, lest I need to take it away!”

  He immediately stops wriggling, sits up straight with his candle, and Lily’s smile widens. Benjamin, who is seated next to her, chuckles softly. Just in time for Christmas, the church council, three-to-two, had voted that men and women could sit together, after all.

  And so Benjamin sits next to her, and in the pew in front of them Jurgis and Marvena sit together, as do Hildy and Tom. They’d all come over to share in Christmas at Lily’s house and even agreed to attend service—at Nana’s insistence—with Lily’s family. Jurgis and Marvena have fallen away from the Holiness gospel church. Mama had arranged for Frankie to sing for this service; the pastor had been reluctant at first, but Mama is such a stalwart of the church that he’d finally given in.

  Now Lily focuses on Jolene and four other children standing around the Advent wreath in front of the pulpit.

  A child takes a lit taper from the pastor and lights the first candle of the Advent wreath, Hope, as Jolene had the first Sunday after Thanksgiving.

  Benjamin glances at her and gives Lily’s hand a quick squeeze.

  Lily ventures a glance at him and finds herself noting, in the dim light, the silhouette of his sharp features. Heat flushes up her neck and face, and she is grateful for the darkness to hide her romantic inclinations—in church, for pity’s sake!

  Is it too much—having work she loves and perhaps another person to love as well? A calling that fulfills her during the day, and comfort and love on cold, hard nights—is that too much to hope for?

  Only time will tell.

  The child passes the lit taper on to the next child.

  Faith.

  Lily glances over at Marvena and Jurgis, happy to see them at ease with each other.

  Last week, Mama asked Lily to take her to visit them, and when Lily picked he
r up all Mama would say on the way home was that she and Nana gave Marvena and Jurgis a talking-to. At that, Lily had bitten back a smile—she wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of that.

  Before they left, Marvena had drawn Lily aside, asked if she could, after all, borrow money for Frankie’s asthma treatments, and Lily had not been able to resist teasing, So long as you wait to pay it back with honestly earned dollars—no moonshining! Jurgis is still in the mines, and Marvena’s lost her job with the United Mine Workers.

  I’ll find a way, Marvena grumbled.

  Lily grinned. How about you become a part-time paid deputy in this part of the county? I’d need the county commissioners’ approval, but—

  I can’t take a charity job.

  Not offering you one. I’m also asking for another part-time deputy in the western part of the county.

  Oh, well then. Yes. So long as it helps you out. Marvena hadn’t been able to suppress a pleased grin—but then she’d looked worried again. Oh, Lily, thank you, but how will I get Frankie to her appointments each month?

  Lily had smiled. Have faith in your friends. Between me, and Hildy, and Benjamin, and others, we’ll make it happen. After all, I needed each of you to help me take down George Vogel.

  Thank God for friends. It would be so hard, in this life, this world, to be friendless.

  The image of Fiona crosses Lily’s mind, in those last jumbled moments back at the Murphy farm.

  After the explosion, George’s automobile crashed. With the help of everyone else at the site, Lily had gotten George, Abe, and Fiona out of the automobile. All had sustained injuries, but all had survived. Fiona is now back at her Cincinnati home, as far as Lily knows—they’d talked only enough for Lily to gain the information that Fiona had happened upon Colter DeHaven, hiding in the woodshop, and she’d helped him because she was furious that Elias had poisoned her uncle Henry at George’s behest. Colter had corroborated the story and asserted that Luther had shot him—apparently trying to play both George and the bureau for money so he and Elias could run from George’s grasp and start over.

  Lily suspects that there’s a lot that Fiona is leaving out about her part in how everything had panned out over those chaotic, challenging days between Thanksgiving and December 1—and that she’ll never know.

  George and Abe are now in the state penitentiary, awaiting trial on violations of the Volstead Act and, in George’s case, tax evasion. It’s been reported in various newspapers that all of George’s properties are in Fiona’s name. And Lily has to wonder, Did Fiona get what she wanted all along? Is she happy now?

  FIONA, DECEMBER 24, 1927, 8:45 P.M.

  “Ma’am?”

  Fiona slaps her hand against the top of George’s desk—now her desk in the study of the Cincinnati mansion—which makes the stack of mail, still untouched from earlier today, slide over top of her ledger. God, how she hates being interrupted.

  She looks up at the source of the interruption. It’s Klara, hovering, as she so often does, in the shadows.

  Maybe Fiona should have fired her when she replaced all the other employees.

  “What?” Fiona snaps.

  Klara hesitates.

  “For pity’s sake, come in, I can’t hear you, mumbling from the doorway.”

  As Klara enters the expansive study, Fiona rubs her eyes, looks up and around. Even with plentiful gas-powered wall sconce lights and a massive chandelier hanging above the desk, the room is always dim. And somehow dusty. Fiona blames the shelves of George’s lawbooks that Fiona will never read, even though the bookcases are outfitted with glass-fronted doors that remain shut. The bookcases look nice, though. Official. Professional. Just like the leather-upholstered chairs in front of the desk—those are new. They don’t quite work with the tapestry-covered sofas or the dark rug.

  Fiona makes a mental note to replace the sofas with leather ones that match the chairs. And the rug with something exotic. Perhaps red. From Persia.

  Klara stands in front of the desk between the two leather chairs. The scents of ginger and cinnamon waft off her dress. Fiona supposes she’s been baking all day. The old woman certainly looks like it. A dusting of flour smudges her forehead.

  How cozy—but Klara’s dark eyes glint cold and hard in the light of the gas lamps.

  Ah yes—that is why Fiona hasn’t fired Klara.

  Wasn’t there an old saying? Keep your friends close—and your enemies closer.

  Well, these days, Fiona doesn’t have to worry about friends. But she needs to keep an eye on the likes of Klara.

  “Leon is, ah, eager to see you,” Klara says.

  Fiona glances at the grandfather clock in the corner. Oh. Time had flown as she’d pored over the accounts. Next week, she’d be going to court to get most of George’s remaining assets in her name. It was stunning, how quickly the attorneys and businessmen flocked to her side to help her, now that George and Abe were disposed of, likely for a good decade or more.

  She isn’t pressing for divorce—not yet. She’ll have better luck as his wife getting the rest of the assets legally switched over to her in order to, her attorneys will argue, tend to her baby. Oh, and her other son. Leon.

  She’s stopped all of George’s illegal work, cooperating with the Bureau of Prohibition. She’s not, after all, greedy like him, she tells herself. She’ll do just fine—making money through running the very legal Vogel’s Tonic.

  Oh, she’ll have to make a show for him—telling him it’s the only way to salvage what she can. Put it in her name. For their child. Visiting him every so often.

  The thought repulses her.

  But she’ll have control, not just of property, but of bank and cash assets.

  Then she can file for divorce.

  And maybe, just maybe, eventually, when legal eyes are no longer staring at her, she can execute the plan George had put together for her aunt’s old farm, after all. She’d meant it when she told him it was brilliant.

  Meanwhile, she wants to keep an eye on Klara. Not have her running free to go visit George in prison.

  “Tell Leon I need another half hour or so.”

  “Ma’am, if I may, he got in on the train more than four hours ago.” Yes, Klara had interrupted her then, telling her of Leon’s arrival. The new chauffeur had gone to the station, picked him up, brought him here. Fiona had dismissed Klara, ordering her to tell the boy to get settled in for his holiday break from that expensive school in Philadelphia. “He’s unpacked,” Klara says, allowing just a bit too much judgment in her tone.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Fiona says.

  “You dislike being interrupted when you’re working,” Klara says. She gives a small, hard smile. “Even more so than Mr. Vogel did.”

  For a long moment, the two women glare at each other. I’m nothing like George! Fiona wants to snap. But then—she’d just asked to put off seeing Leon, though it’s been months since she last saw him. “Send Leon up right away.”

  Klara leaves. Fiona looks down, spots the mail on the ledger. Picks up the stack of Christmas cards and postcards from well-wishers, starts thumbing through. They all are from people whose names she barely recognizes or doesn’t at all. George’s associates—but all addressed to her. One is from Mrs. Eugenia Chantelle. Sycophants.

  She tosses it aside, unopened. Sees that next in the stack is a postcard that isn’t Christmas themed. Picturing a beach, in Florida.

  Fiona turns it over. It’s from Aunt Nell, and there’s just a quick dashed note: Fiona—I am well. I hope, at last, you have found happiness. And peace. Love, Aunt Nell. P.S. Don’t forget the last thing I told you at your uncle Henry’s grave, before we walked back down.

  Fiona shakes her head impatiently. How in the world was she supposed to remember whatever that was, after all that happened? Something about not becoming—something. What you fear? What you hate?

  She chuckles as she tosses the mail back on the desk. She’s won. She no longer has to fear anything. Wonder what Aunt
Nell would think if she knew Fiona already has sold the piece of land that held the old cabin—after she’d had the cabin burned to the ground?

  Fiona stands, stretches. She’s past morning sickness but not the weariness of being pregnant. So much more to do—but first she needs a break.

  The bar across the room—topped with a decanter of whiskey, quite legal as it is from barrels purchased before Prohibition and stored in the basement—catches Fiona’s eye.

  She shouldn’t—the baby—but it’s Christmas Eve. She crosses to the bar, pours herself a neat, stiff drink from the decanter. Next to it is her old chipped glass candy dish. A reminder, of where she’d come from—not Kinship. That cabin. And that she will never go back. Now, though, the dish overflows with peppermints.

  But she doesn’t want candy. That’s for children. Fiona takes a sip of the whiskey. It burns, going down, a fire that feels good.

  As Fiona stares at the desk, she notes how big, dark, heavy it is. Such a George desk.

  Her eyes prickle as it hits her—no one will have purchased a present for her this year. Well, maybe Leon had brought something he’d made at school, but that hardly counts.

  That handsome man who accompanied Lily crosses her mind. Were they an item? Had he bought Lily a gift?

  Fiona shakes her head to clear it, takes another deliciously burning sip. Never mind Lily.

  Oh sure. She’s thankful Lily pulled her from the automobile. But after that, she’d done no more than ask her a few curt, necessary questions.

  She studies the desk, takes another sip.

  Why stop at ordering a new sofa and rug? Fiona doesn’t need anyone to get her gifts. She’ll get one for herself—a new desk.

  The door opens again, and this time, Leon walks in, Klara just behind him.

  Fiona lights up, about to eagerly rush to him. Her heart softens toward her son—oh, this is why she’s done all she’s done, worked so hard, not just for herself, or new desks. For Leon. For the new baby.

  But Fiona stops mid-stride, catching Klara’s cruelly amused expression. She must know, even without seeing his face, that Leon stares at his mother with a mix of fright and confusion, as if she’s become a stranger to him.