Miserere

by Caren J. Werlinger

  He looked down at her, a kindly expression on his face. “I don’t know what happened, an’ I don’t wanna know. From what I can see, he deserved whatever he got. But,” he glanced around to make sure they were alone, “I don’t think it’s safe for you to stay here. If anyone pokes around and starts askin’ questions…”

  He laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. “You’ve worked here eight years now. I think eight years’ worth of wages an’ a horse to travel with ain’t askin’ too much.”

  Caitríona stared up at him, stunned. As much as she had chafed at being bound to this plantation, the thought of being turned loose after all this time was terrifying.

  “You think on it,” Burley said, leaving her.

  Caitríona had to wait until evening to tell Ruth, Henry and Hannah about that conversation. “I don’t know what to do,” she confessed as she finished. She looked up at them, but had to quickly avert her eyes from the expression on Hannah’s face. “I’m thinking about West Virginia. It’s the closest state to where we are. I think Deirdre and I could get there in a few weeks.”

  “Just you and that baby, travelin’ alone?” Ruth asked indignantly. She looked over at Henry who was looking back with a questioning expression. Ruth nodded.

  Henry turned to Caitríona. “How would you feel if we came with you?” he asked.

  “And why would you want to be doing that?” she asked incredulously.

  “Because I want my baby to be born free,” he said with quiet conviction.

  Hannah’s mouth fell open. “You’re going to have a baby?”

  Ruth’s face reflected her happiness only for a moment. “Do you think we can do this?” she asked worriedly.

  Henry came to her and placed his hands on her shoulders. “We can do anything as long as we’re together.” He turned to Caitríona. “And you’ll have a better chance of making it safe with us helping you.”

  Hannah stepped forward. “You’re not going without me,” she said, glaring at Caitríona as if daring her to contradict her.

  Caitríona’s face was radiant as she looked at them. With a sudden rush of affection, she realized that, besides Deirdre, these three were the people she loved most in the world.

  “So,” she said, more bravely than she felt, “we’re off to make a new life for ourselves.”

  §§§

  Conn lay in bed, listening to the soft rain falling outside, mourning doves calling to each other from the trees. “Why do they always call each other in the morning?” she wondered. For three days, she had been waiting impatiently for the next dream. When none had come, she’d begun to wonder if she and her mother had angered Caitríona somehow.

  Finally, she knew why they had come to West Virginia. And, remembering Hannah’s last journal entry, she knew when they had left – August 1863.

  Kicking off her covers, Conn went to her mirror and stared at her reflection. Even in the dim early light, she could still see the bruises and healing cuts on her face and neck. Like the welts on her back, she’d known that these marks would appear soon after her dream of Caitríona’s beating at Batterston’s hands, faintly, like an echo of the original injuries.

  In alarm, Elizabeth had taken Conn over to Molly Peregorn’s when they appeared. “Why is this happening?” she demanded, glancing back out to Will, who had opted to stay in the car.

  Fascinated, Molly held Conn’s face, turning it this way and that as she studied the bruises. She also inspected the welts on her back, still faintly visible, like scars. “I don’t understand exactly why this is happening,” she mused, “but there is some connection between them that we cannot comprehend. Caitríona and other spirits have appeared to me over the years, but I’ve never seen a situation this… this entangled.”

  “Well, I want it to stop,” Elizabeth said.

  Molly and Conn both looked up at her in surprise.

  “Mom,” Conn said, “if it stops now, the curse continues. Will –”

  “I can protect Will,” Elizabeth said determinedly. “But you’re being hurt.”

  Molly pulled another chair out. “Sit down,” she said. Elizabeth sat. “First of all, you can’t protect Will – not from everything. You couldn’t protect him from polio,” she said gently. “Second of all, even though we don’t understand what’s happening between Connemara and Caitríona, the only way to end it is to let it play out to the finish.”

  “But what will the finish be?” Elizabeth asked, her voice and eyes troubled.

  “I don’t know,” said Molly, “but we can see what the beginning was.”

  She went to a sideboard where she retrieved a stack of papers and leather-bound books. “I’ve not looked through these in decades. They’re my predecessors’ journals and letters. Let’s see what we can discover.”

  Spreading the documents out on the table, they began reading and sorting, trying to figure out who wrote when and put things in chronological order. For several minutes, they read in silence, then Elizabeth said, “Listen to this.”

  Holding a very battered, very old journal, she said, “This belonged to Lucy Peregorn. Her entries began…” she flipped through the early pages, “in the 1820’s. But here…” she flipped back to a page she had marked with her finger, and read, squinting to decipher the cramped handwriting, “in January of 1863, she wrote,

  ‘Last night I had a most peculiar dream. I was led to Jacob Smith’s abandoned cabin and there, a family of doves be living. Two white doves there be, and three black. There, they built a nest. And as I watched, rocks were thrown, and one black dove was sorely injured. She lay as one who was dead, but she was not dead. One of the white doves flew at the attacker and led him away from the others, but she did not return.

  A most strange dream.’”

  She turned several pages. “And here… in September of that same year,

  ‘People have come to the cabin. A white woman and girl, and three colored people. I think they be the doves of my dream.’”

  Elizabeth slid the journal across the table to Conn. “I think this is the one you need,” she said quietly.

  Conn took the journal as if holding a treasure. “Lucy Peregorn,” she murmured. She looked up at Molly. “May I borrow this? I’ll take good care of it.”

  Molly nodded. “There may be things in there that will help you.”

  ***

  Conn got dressed and went downstairs, carrying the fragile journal. No one else was up yet. She made herself a piece of toast, slathering it with peanut butter and jelly, and went out onto the front porch to eat, sitting on the porch swing, and leafing through the journal. Most of Lucy’s entries were brief descriptions of where she had found certain plants or roots she was searching for, or who had been sick or what new baby she had delivered. There were a few Pancakes mentioned, as well as a reference to a William Greene, who had been ill with some kind of fever that Lucy had treated. Conn wondered if this was one of Abraham’s ancestors.

  She found the entries her mother had read aloud, and then there were more entries concerning Caitríona and her family.

  10th November 1863

  I was called to help Ruth deliver her baby. A boy, named Moses. Henry be proud to have a free son.

  and

  30th April 1864

  Today I came upon Caitríona, crying in the woods. She told me it be her mother’s birthday. Such sadness for one so young. I did not remind her there be more sadness to come.

  Conn closed the journal as her mother came out and joined her with a cup of coffee. She had been unusually quiet the past few days, and Conn knew she was struggling to accept all that she had learned the night Caitríona came to them and in the days since. Conn was glad she hadn’t revealed everything – the tunnels, Caitríona and Hannah. She wasn’t sure how much her mother could deal with. Grown-ups were funny that way.

  “So,” Elizabeth said, a forced casualness to her voice, “what are you learning?”

  “Oh, nothing else big,” Conn replied. “Ruth’s baby was a
boy, Moses. I haven’t gotten to these parts in my dreams yet.”

  “Did you –?”

  Conn nodded. “I had one last night. People were starting to ask questions about where Batterston disappeared to, so they decided to leave the plantation.”

  They sat silently, swinging for a few minutes.

  “Have you thought about writing these down?” Elizabeth asked.

  Conn glanced up at her. “I have been. In the journal you gave me. I didn’t want to forget anything.”

  Elizabeth shook her head. “Who would believe all this?”

  “No one,” said Conn pragmatically. “Which is why it’s probably a good idea not to tell anyone else.”

  CHAPTER 28

  Conn and Will lay on their stomachs in the dark hallway at the top of the stairs, listening to the voices coming from the sitting room.

  “Elizabeth, it isn’t right for you and the children to be here all alone when you could be with us.”

  Elizabeth’s voice was clipped as she replied, not for the first time, “I’ve told you, Mother, we aren’t alone. We have friends here. This is my home.”

  Earlier that afternoon, Conn and Will had been mowing the grass and Elizabeth weeding the flower beds when a car had pulled up the drive. Looking up curiously, Elizabeth’s face had turned a peculiar blotchy red as her in-laws got out of their Cadillac convertible.

  “Uh oh,” Conn murmured, pausing the mower.

  “Well, aren’t you glad to see us?” said Grandma Mitchell, wearing a luridly floral dress with enormous sunglasses and a scarf to keep her hair from flying away.

  “Doesn’t she look just like Grace Kelly?” Grandpa Mitchell asked loudly.

  Will ran to them.

  “Hey, Willy-boy,” Grandpa said, giving Will a rough shake of the shoulders.

  “Come on,” Elizabeth said to Conn in an undertone as she pulled off her gardening gloves, “I’m not doing this alone.” To the Mitchells, she said as she forced a smile, “What are you doing here?”

  “You all sounded so lonely when we talked on Connemara’s birthday,” said Grandma Mitchell. “We said we should come for a visit.”

  “I told you we were fine,” Elizabeth reminded them. “Why didn’t you call?”

  “Oh well, you know how it is on these hick roads,” Grandma Mitchell said. “You never know where you’re going to find a sign of civilization. I said to Harold, ‘Harold, aren’t you going to stop so we can call?’, but he said we didn’t need gas, so we didn’t need to stop.” She smiled, and kissed Elizabeth on the cheek, then held her at arms’ length. “Why, Elizabeth, whatever are you wearing?” she asked, looking disapprovingly at Elizabeth’s slacks, marked with grass stains at the knees, her worn canvas sneakers covered with dried mud.

  “That’s right,” said Harold, hoisting up the waist of his Bermuda shorts over his ample belly, revealing white knees above black socks and deck shoes. “Gets twelve miles to the gallon. I told Clara we’re not stopping till we have to.” He gave the hood a pat. “There’s my Connie,” he said in an overly jovial tone, holding his arms out to Conn.

  Conn just stood there, looking at him.

  “What’s the matter with her?” Clara asked.

  “There’s nothing the matter with her,” said Elizabeth, hiding a smile, “but don’t call her Connie if you expect a response. She hates being called Connie.”

  “Well, I never,” said Clara, but Harold covered the moment with a gruff cough and said, “C’mon, Willy, you can help me carry in the suitcases.”

  “Um, how long are you planning on staying?” Elizabeth asked as Harold retrieved two enormous suitcases and several smaller bags from the Cadillac’s cavernous trunk. Conn could detect the note of panic in her mother’s voice, though the Mitchells seemed not to have noticed.

  “Why, Elizabeth, someone might think you weren’t glad to see us,” Harold said with a guffaw.

  “Don’t be silly,” Elizabeth replied weakly as Will began dragging the smaller of the suitcases through the grass toward the house.

  “We have nowhere we have to be,” Clara said, “so we can stay as long as you need us.”

  “Where are they sleeping?” Conn asked, laden with the straps of two cases hanging from her shoulders and her hands filled with the handles of two more small bags.

  “In your room, I suppose,” said Elizabeth, taking the suitcase from Will and carrying it with some difficulty up the porch steps. “You can sleep with me.”

  Dinner was somewhat haphazard. Elizabeth had not planned for two extra people and while she, Will and Conn shuffled things in the bedrooms to accommodate their unexpected visitors, Harold played with the controls on the oven, declaring he had never seen such an antique, with the result that the roast that had been slow-cooking all afternoon burnt.

  “I don’t know how you put up with the heat of that monster,” Clara said, fanning herself with the latest issue of Look magazine. “Why don’t you get something modern?”

  “It was my grandmother’s and her mother’s before her,” Elizabeth said, trying to control herself as she pulled the charred meat from the woodstove and set it outside.

  Conn could see the tension in her mother’s jaw, and said, “Let’s just have BLTs, Mom. We’ve got fresh tomatoes, and we’ll only have to fry up the bacon. And we have more potato salad in the frig.”

  “Sandwiches? For dinner?” Clara sounded scandalized. “Do you and the children always eat like this?” she asked disapprovingly.

  “Only when someone ruins the dinner,” Elizabeth replied snappishly. Forcing herself to smile, she said, “You’ve both had a tiring drive. Why don’t you go sit and we’ll call you when everything’s ready.”

  Will made a pile of toast and Conn sliced the tomatoes while Elizabeth fried the bacon. When everything was done, Will went to call his grandparents.

  Seated around the table, Harold said loudly, “Well, it’s the funniest dinner I’ve had in a month of Sundays, but I guess beggars can’t be choosers.”

  Conn saw her mother bite her lip to avoid a retort. She reached for the bowl of mayonnaise and….

  §§§

  “We’ve got to stop and rest,” Hannah said. “Ruth can’t go any farther.”

  Though Caitríona wouldn’t have asked to stop, she was grateful for the excuse to rest.

  For nearly two weeks, they had pushed west, guided by a map Caitríona had taken from Lord Playfair’s study.

  “Here,” Burley had said, counting out money from the strongbox and pushing it into her hands. “This is a fair wage for your years here, plus some for Orla.”

  Caitríona blinked up at him. “I don’t know what to say. From the day we met you, you’ve been so kind.”

  “Don’t be silly,” he blustered, though he looked pleased. “Now, I think it’s best if we don’t tell anyone you’re goin’. If we tell ‘em, they’ll be askin’ all kinds of questions.”

  “But what will they say about Henry and Ruth and Hannah?” Caitríona asked worriedly.

  “Well,” he frowned, rubbing the stubble on his chin. “There’ll be a fuss, for sure. Might even be a search party. If there is, I’ll try to head ‘em to the river.”

  “God keep you, Burley Pratt,” Caitríona said, standing on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek.

  “You’d best be keepin’ those prayers for yourself,” he said with feigned gruffness. “You’ll be needin’ ‘em.”

  And so the small party had slipped away in the night, taking one of the draft horses from a far pasture. Deirdre rode or was carried, and the horse was laden with their pathetically small bags of possessions and the provisions Burley could spare.

  Caitríona, who had arrived in America with so little, had no difficulty leaving with nothing more than her journal and a change of clothes for herself and Deirdre, but Henry had stood in his shop, agonizing over what few tools he could afford to take with them.

  “You’ll make new ones,” Ruth said, patting his arm. She herself had packed only a
few jars of medicines and herbs she thought they might need.

  At first, the going wasn’t too bad, but the terrain became wilder and more mountainous the farther west they pushed. Though they tried to avoid towns and settlements, they occasionally ran into other travelers or bands of soldiers.

  “My husband was killed in the war,” Caitríona would say if she was pressed for an explanation as to why a white woman was traveling with a baby and three Negroes. “He wanted us to go to his people if anything happened to him.”

  Which side her fictional husband had fought on changed depending on who was asking. One trader had been particularly irksome, asking uncomfortably probing questions about where they came from and where they were headed.

  “We’re going to Charleston,” Caitríona lied. They had no intention of going that far west, but if Burley was right about a possible search party hunting for them, she wanted no chance of laying a trail they could follow.

  When they did run into fellow travelers, she tried to glean some information as to their whereabouts. Her map pre-dated West Virginia’s split from Virginia, and they weren’t sure where the new boundary was. One farmer driving a small herd of swine pointed to a distant depression in the mountains.

  “That’s Rucker’s Gap,” he said. “If you get across there, you’re in West Virginia.”

  The paths leading them to Rucker’s Gap were little more than deer trails through the woods. While in the forest, it was impossible to accurately head toward a specific landmark, and they often had to crash through undergrowth in an attempt to correct their direction, using axes and knives to hack paths wide enough for the horse. They crossed innumerable streams, some shallow enough to ford with no difficulty, but others running swiftly through steep canyons that forced them to detour up or downstream, sometimes for miles before finding safe places to cross. Where they found grassy clearings, they were forced to stop to allow the horse to graze.

  “Are you sure we’re doing the right thing?” Caitríona asked Henry in a low voice one night as they pored over their map yet again after a lengthy detour to cross a stream.