Lake in the Clouds

by Sara Donati

  He makes a new light.

  “It was the boy who mentioned Red Rock to you?”

  “To Many-Doves,” said Squirrel. “But long before we ever saw him, we knew there must be others with her. When Splitting-Moon brought us her medicines to trade, she asked for things in return … things you wouldn’t think she’d have any need for.”

  Nathaniel let this news settle for a moment, and Squirrel thought that he was looking for more information.

  “That’s all I know. Many-Doves wouldn’t ever let me ask her any questions in the fear she wouldn’t come back again. You know her better than I do, Da.”

  “Not anymore, I don’t. I haven’t seen the woman since the summer before the twins were born.”

  Splitting-Moon had left Good Pasture to go live the life of a hermit deep in the bush a year later. She was rarely seen, but stories of the Mohawk medicine woman who roamed the endless forests were told as far away as Montreal.

  Now there were only two things Nathaniel could say of her for certain: she had a talent for hiding herself away, and she spent some of the winter in the caves near the lake some called Little Lost, in a corner of the bush few white men knew about. Over the years when she had come to mind, Nathaniel had wondered about her, and why she had chosen such a lonely life for herself. Now it seemed she hadn’t been alone, after all.

  He had been quiet a long time, and Squirrel looked uncomfortable. She said, “Maybe I should have told you.”

  “No,” he said. “You did the right thing. Go look after our visitor now, and then get some sleep.” He turned on his heel to look into the shadows of the sleeping loft.

  “The three of you had better go to sleep too, do you hear? Chores in the morning and then school, and I don’t care to hear any complaints about sleepiness.”

  There was a hushed scampering, and then silence.

  Elizabeth was sitting on the edge of the bed with the hairbrush in her lap when Nathaniel closed the chamber door behind himself. Even by candlelight her exhaustion was plain to see in the rounded curve of her back and the way she lifted her arm. But she smiled at him and shook her head so that her hair fell in a dark veil over her shoulders, most of the way to the floor.

  “Are they settled?”

  “Now they are. But I expect they heard every word.”

  “Of course they did. Tomorrow we will have to have a conversation with them about all of this. Most especially with Ethan.”

  “You don’t need to worry about Ethan. That boy lives and breathes to please Galileo, and he’d put his hand in fire before he’d do anything to cause him harm.”

  “I do need to worry about Ethan,” Elizabeth said. “But not because he might say something inopportune. Did you talk to Hannah?”

  “I did.” Nathaniel crouched down before the hearth to bank the fire, pausing there for a moment to feel the pulse of heat on his face and chest. He did not especially want to open up the subject of Splitting-Moon; Elizabeth might just decide that she needed to go to find Many-Doves and hear the whole story for herself right now.

  He said, “I’ll walk her down to the schoolhouse at first light.”

  Elizabeth exhaled, impatient and trying not to show it. “Do you think that it’s truly necessary? Hannah is not afraid of Liam.”

  Nathaniel thought about this while he stripped to his breechclout. It was hard to think of Liam Kirby as a man at all, much less one who could be a danger, but it was also true that he wouldn’t rest easy until he saw the boy with his own eyes.

  He sat down next to Elizabeth to begin brushing her hair. It was something he did every night, and every night he was struck by the white skin at the nape of her neck. How strange it was that a woman of such strong will should seem outwardly fragile. Nathaniel’s Mahican grandfather had given her the name Bone-in-Her-Back, and it suited her well.

  But his eldest daughter was another matter. Clever and quick, yes; she had a mind as sharp as any Nathaniel had ever come across, one that never seemed to rest. Walks-Ahead was the woman-name her grandmother had given her, and while Nathaniel found it hard to use that name, it did suit her: a young woman always looking forward. She exchanged letters with doctors in England and India, letters she gladly read aloud to them but that nobody else really understood, not even Elizabeth. Her reputation as a healer had already spread well beyond the frontier. But she had always been so gentle, inclined more to trust than doubt. Maybe now she stood before an experience that would temper her into something harder; maybe he wouldn’t be able to help her.

  To the back of Elizabeth’s neck, Nathaniel said, “I’m not sure she shouldn’t be afraid of him, but you’re right. She needs to go on her own.”

  Elizabeth’s shoulders tightened. “It’s not in your nature to judge so quickly.”

  “But it is in my nature to protect my children. And I’ve been reminded today more than once about how old she is, you don’t have to tell me again.” He put down the brush and began to plait her hair, finally tying it with the ribbon she offered him.

  “What do you say you and me go spend the night under the falls tomorrow? It’s about that time.”

  She cast a frown over her shoulder. “You are changing the subject, Nathaniel Bonner.”

  “Nothing slips by you, Boots. Is that a no you’re giving me?”

  Elizabeth pulled up the covers and wiggled underneath, so that the mattress crackled and whispered in response. “You know perfectly well that I’ve been looking forward to … sleeping under the falls for weeks. If Hannah isn’t so preoccupied with Miss Voyager that she can’t keep an eye on the children, then yes, of course.”

  “For weeks, is it?” He leaned over her to smooth the curls that had already escaped the plait. “It pleases me no end to hear that you’re so eager.”

  She swatted his hand away, but there was nothing she could do to hide her blush. “You are incorrigible.”

  “And you like me that way.”

  Elizabeth pursed her mouth at him. He kissed it soundly, but her leery expression softened only a little.

  “You are so transparent at times, Nathaniel. Simply ask, and I will stop talking about this Red Rock—for the time being, at least. You needn’t work so hard to distract me.”

  He climbed into bed next to her. “Providing you with a little distraction ain’t exactly unpleasant, you realize, even if I have to put some effort into it once in a while. I like a challenge, you know that.”

  She grinned, but pinched him nonetheless. “My point is that seduction is really not the only way to end a conversation.”

  “Can you think of a better one?”

  There was a long pause. “If you put it that way,” she said slowly.

  He laughed and leaned over to kiss her again.

  “Go to sleep, Boots. You’re too tired, and I don’t especially want to talk about Red Rock and the rest of it any more tonight.”

  She gave him a long and very thoughtful look. “Yes, all right. Perhaps you’re right, the conversation should wait until tomorrow. That’s best.” She sat up, blew out the candle, and then curled toward him and put her face next to his. There was enough moonlight to show him her eyes, and the expression in them.

  “You’re a terrible liar, Boots. Go on and say it or you’ll lie awake for hours.”

  With the tip of her finger she traced the line of his jaw. “I’ve been thinking about Splitting-Moon.”

  Chapter 5

  Just before dawn Hannah woke to the sound of her grandfather moving through the common room. She rose from the pallet she had made for herself near Selah Voyager, checked her patient’s breathing and temperature, and slipped away without waking her.

  It fell to the twins to stoke the fire and carry water, but this morning Hawkeye had done both, whether to please Lily and Daniel or himself Hannah could not really say. He was gone again now, and she knew that if she went to look she would find him swimming under the falls.

  She sat down in Elizabeth’s rocker to put on her moccasins. With
her cheek pressed against her knee she could not overlook how worn the leather of her leggings had become. For a moment she considered changing: her good linen gown hung on the wall of the sleeping loft, right next to the doeskin overblouse and leggings with bead- and quillwork that she had worn to the mid-winter ceremony at Good Pasture. She imagined herself in one and then the other, and decided finally that she would meet Liam Kirby in her workday clothes.

  A stirring and murmuring of voices from her parents’ room brought Hannah up out of her thoughts. She stood and the bear tooth she wore on a chain around her neck slid cold and hard between her breasts; she touched it with one finger, checked the contents of the pouch that hung from her belt, and went out onto the porch where her grandfather stood looking out over the morning, lake water running down over his shoulders and his skin flushed with cold.

  He spoke without turning to her. “How is she?”

  “Sleeping. Her fever is less, but not by much. I’ll be back before she wakes.”

  “You sure of that?”

  “Very sure,” Hannah said firmly.

  In Mahican her grandfather said, “I’m proud of you, granddaughter. Stand tall.”

  Hawkeye rarely used the language of his childhood; it was a gift he gave her, something that bound them together because there were so few left who spoke it. She was thinking about this, about the power of a rare language, when she crossed into the woods and heard Lily, running light and sure.

  Her sister fell into step beside her.

  “I won’t go back,” she said. “I want to see Liam Kirby for myself.”

  She was barefoot and her hair was unplaited, but Lily had taken the time to load her pocket with small rocks and her slingshot was tucked into the waistband of her overskirt. She was as good a shot as Blue-Jay, but he had far better control of his temper. Hannah said, “There will be no warfare today, little sister. Except maybe when you get back home again and have to make amends with Elizabeth for running off without permission.”

  “She won’t be mad at me, not if I’m with you,” Lily said. “And I won’t throw the first stone.”

  And Hannah must be content with that promise, and with the fact of Lily, who could never pause in her examination of the world around her. In short order she had found the tracks of the old bear they called Two-Claws, out of her winter sleep and walking the mountain, a squirrel’s skull, and evidence of a ground-bee hive that had been dug up by skunks. For every step Hannah took Lily took four.

  Overhead the maple and beech branches were heavy with buds on the point of opening; underfoot crocuses spread out in patches of pale yellow and purple. Hannah thought of all the reasons she needed to be in the forest: to harvest the first buds of the white pine, flag lily root, and a hundred other useful things that the spring brought forth. Suddenly she had the urge to take her sister and go off into the forests to explore for the rest of the day. As if she had spoken this idea out loud, Lily came to a stop at the point where the woods gave way to the strawberry fields.

  In a hollow beneath a fallen birch, the ground was covered with hoofprints in a scattering of tiny heart shapes. A doe had dropped a fawn here not an hour ago, and was almost certainly hiding very close by.

  “We don’t have time,” said Hannah, but her sister was already gone. She did not appear again until Hannah was halfway through the field.

  “Twins,” she said, with great satisfaction.

  “How did you get away without your twin?” Hannah asked. “Did he lose the straw pull, or did you have to trade him something?”

  Lily pursed her mouth. Instead of answering she said, “Ain’t you worried about Liam Kirby?”

  “You are changing the subject.”

  “And you’re not answering my question.”

  “I am a little anxious.” She knew how unconvincing her tone must be. The truth was that she felt too many things at once and couldn’t put a name to any of it, but Lily would not be satisfied with silence.

  “Daniel says he came back to marry you and you’ll go away from us to live in the city.”

  Hannah laughed out loud. “Daniel’s imagination has run away with him. Liam is not here to marry me.”

  Lily gave her a very indignant look. “Of course he wants to marry you. All the men do, or at least all the ones who don’t have wives. Even some of the ones who do. They watch you.”

  “You are being silly.” Hannah increased her pace, and Lily began to trot beside her.

  “They do watch you.” Lily’s tone sharpened as she settled in to prove her point.

  “That doesn’t mean anybody wants to marry anybody. The owl watches the mouse.”

  “No,” Lily said shortly. “Not like the owl and the mouse, not that kind of watching.” She thought for a minute. “Don’t you want to get married? Do you want to stay with us forever?”

  “If I get married someday it won’t be to anybody in the village.”

  “But why not?”

  Because it was clear that Lily would not give up until she had all her questions answered, Hannah stopped where she was. “Who would you have me marry then, Lily? Do you have a husband picked out?”

  Lily wrinkled her nose, annoyed. “I can’t pick out a husband for you.”

  “I’m very glad to hear it.”

  “But if I wanted to get married I think Claes Wilde would do very well.”

  Hannah’s jaw dropped. “Nicholas Wilde?”

  Lily nodded. “Claes. He’s smarter than the rest of them. And he’s nice looking—”

  “Yes, he is. Clever and handsome both. But he doesn’t interest me, and I don’t interest him. And here’s the reason.” She took her sister’s hand to hold against her own: white and copper. Lily studied the sight and when she looked up again there was the beginning of understanding in her expression.

  “Because your mother was Kahnyen’kehàka?”

  “Yes, because of that.”

  “But I’m going to marry Blue-Jay someday, and he’s Kahnyen’kehàka. And Da married your mother.”

  Hannah sighed. “I didn’t say it wasn’t possible, it’s just unlikely. There’s nobody in Paradise—Claes Wilde included—who would want a Kahnyen’kehàka wife. They might look at me—”

  She paused. They did look; she could not deny the fact that Obediah Cameron blushed when she walked by, or that Isaiah Kuick stared at her as he would never dare stare at a white woman. Michael Kaes made excuses to talk to her when she brought tisanes for his mother’s headaches; even Mr. Gathercole, married and a minister, examined his own shoes as if he had never seen them before when he spoke to her, as if the sight of her face was more temptation than he could handle. Claes Wilde studied her too, but without ever saying a word. Men looking too long; looking away too fast.

  Hannah shook herself. “They look at me, yes. But that’s as far as it will ever go.”

  “I don’t think they stay away because your mother was Kahnyen’kehàka. I think they’re afraid of Da and Grandfather.”

  “No doubt you’re right,” Hannah said shortly, so irritated with the conversation that she would have agreed to anything to end it.

  “Now what about Liam Kirby?”

  “Liam is an old friend, nothing more,” said Hannah. “And he is just as white as any of the men in the village. Whatever happens, I’m not going away with him, and you can tell Daniel I said that.”

  “Good,” said Lily shortly. “He’ll be relieved.”

  They had come in sight of the small cabin that served as Elizabeth’s schoolhouse. She had taken it over for her students when she first came to Paradise, and she used it still: in the mornings she taught children from the village; in the afternoon she gave lessons all over again, this time for Many-Doves’ two oldest and Curiosity’s grandchildren, along with her own twins.

  Later today Lily would come only reluctantly to her schoolwork and wriggle impatiently until she was allowed to go again, but right now she disappeared behind the cabin on some errand she did not explain to her si
ster.

  Hannah hesitated and then went ahead without her, angling down the mountain and cutting through the woods toward the lake. It was the quicker route, and it meant that she would not have to pass under Lucy Kuick’s window. Widow Kuick seemed interested in whatever Hannah did, and she did not hesitate to share her opinion on matters as diverse as Hannah’s footwear, her complexion, her family, and what the widow saw as Hannah’s unnatural interest in medical matters where she had no role and should never be allowed one.

  It was cool in the woods, but at the first sight of the lake glinting through the trees Hannah broke into a sweat. A strange tingling flowed from her hands up into her arms and over her back, so that the hair at the nape of her neck rippled softly.

  There.

  On the spot where his brother Billy had once put a torch to a schoolhouse, Liam Kirby sat among the tumbled hearthstones. A long rifle rested within arm’s reach. Down at the lakeshore his dogs were knee-deep in water, their attention on a single merganser winding its way through the reeds.

  Liam was watching a heron pace through the marsh. It seemed to Hannah that she could hear the water parting and coming together again with every step the bird took. She might have stood there looking for a long time, but the wind gave her away. One of the dogs turned in her direction and let out a soft bark of warning. Liam stilled the dogs with a word as he rose and turned toward her.

  Hannah did not have to look very hard to see that this was Liam: there was the same jawline, rough now with beard stubble, the wide mouth, and a nose that had been broken more than once. He had grown into his full height and there were new scars: one on his chin and another cutting through his left eyebrow so that it twisted up into an arch and added an angle to a face that was already sharp with bone. But most disturbing was the guarded expression in his eyes, a new wariness that made him into more stranger than friend.