by Sara Donati
Jemima was thinking about how to sneak into the house so that no one would hear her when she remembered that it didn’t matter. She could do as she pleased; she would be the mistress soon enough.
It wasn’t until she had dropped her clothes and crawled naked and stinking of barn and man into her bed that two things occurred to her. The first, the most surprising thing, was that she liked the act of fornication. She liked everything about it, but most of all she liked the power it gave her, the way it turned a man twice her size into a child. She liked the act, but she would have to do without it because she could make Isaiah Kuick marry her, but he would never come to her bed. The kind of power she had over him had nothing to do with what was between her legs.
The second thought was not so much of a surprise but it rankled. She had rutted all night with a man who had never called her by name. He had used every opening she offered him and turned his face away when she tried to kiss him. When he emptied himself into her, once, twice, three times, there was nothing in his face of joy or even release, nothing beyond a wordless fury and loathing, for himself, for her.
Pretend I’m someone else, she had told him, but he couldn’t forget who she was. Who she wasn’t.
For a moment Jemima lay very still, and then she rolled over onto her side, pulled her knees up to her chin to hold all she needed of Liam Kirby deep inside her, and went to sleep.
PART II
Voyagers
THE ENDLESS FORESTS
Chapter 12
In all the rushed preparation for the journey into the endless forests, Elizabeth had never let herself think too hard about what it would mean to walk away from her children and not know when she would see them again. In the course of comforting Lily and Daniel she had managed somehow to convince herself that this journey would require no more than a fortnight. A fortnight, she had explained more than once, would go by very quickly; such a short separation was neither sufficient nor rational grounds for despair.
For the first half-day the exhilaration carried her along. They walked in single file, following Nathaniel on a Kahnyen’kehàka path that he seemed to know very well, in spite of the fact that for very long periods of time Elizabeth could not make it out at all. And yet she was surprised at how easily it all came back to her, the rhythm of this kind of walking, unrestricted by skirts and the fuss of her everyday clothing. For the first time in a very long time she wore a Kahnyen’kehàka overdress and leggings. She had put her hair in simple plaits, and in spite of the pack she carried she felt completely unencumbered.
Mid-April was a good time in this part of the endless forests, most of the spring mud gone and the true heat of summer still a month or more in the future. It was true that the weather was unpredictable. Patches of snow sometimes many inches deep were easy to find, but night frosts were a small price to pay for freedom from the true scourge of the forests. Elizabeth preferred walking cold to the blackfly that came in clouds to invade ears and nose, cuffs and collars, and leave hundreds of painful welts behind. There was nothing to do about the black-fly beyond bear grease and pennyroyal ointment, cures almost as bad as the wrong they were meant to counter.
But the cold could be conquered. Each of them wore winter moccasins lined with fur and laced all the way up the lower leg. Across their packs they had strapped capes lined with marten and oiled buckskins.
Elizabeth had left her school and her students behind, but the habit of teaching she could not put down. She wanted to point things out to Selah, things that she could not know but must learn if she was to spend a season in the bush. The hardwood canopy had just begun to fill in with touches of the palest green; in a few weeks the trees would be in full leaf, and the forest would be lost in cool shadow. Much of what they could see now would be hidden.
Firebirds lined the branches of a white ash like a row of candle flames; overhead a logcock drummed for a meal in the trunk of a dead oak. Moles and mice were busy in drifts of decomposing leaves, but they saw little other wildlife, in part because the three of them—or two of the three of them, Elizabeth corrected herself—were not silent enough; in part because many of them were just rousing themselves out of the stupor of winter.
This bit of forest she knew quite well; it was close enough to home to be within the range of Hannah’s constant search for medicinal plants, and Elizabeth liked to go with her whenever she could spare the time. On those outings she had learned most of what she knew of the forest—she could name the trees and most of the plants and their uses—but it was also a rare opportunity to talk to her stepdaughter without interruption. Elizabeth had come to depend on Hannah not only for her help with the children and the house, but also for her conversation, much in the same way she looked to Curiosity and Many-Doves.
They had parted this morning in great haste, even before first light. Hannah had been on her way down the mountain to start the long journey to the city, nervous and ill at ease. There had been no opportunity to talk to her alone about what had happened when she left the kitchen with Liam beyond the simple facts that needed to be shared.
And still it was very clear that something had happened between them, something had been said or done that had marked Hannah. Elizabeth had the idea that if she should come face-to-face with Liam Kirby today she would see that same thing in his face. Exactly what it meant, Elizabeth could only guess, and none of the rational explanations provided any comfort at all.
By mid-morning they were out of territory she recognized, passing into a half-mile-long stretch of sugar maple, moccasins sinking deep into moldering leaves covered with winged seed keys that crunched underfoot. With every breeze more seed keys twirled down from the maples to bury themselves in the forest floor. Where an old tree had fallen and rotted, seedlings spread out in round islands, the tallest in the middle and the shortest around the edges, like an odd peaked cap.
Elizabeth took real joy in the spring forest, but she must keep all of it to herself, because it was dangerous to talk on the trail. Voices carried far in the woods and it could be that Liam Kirby or Ambrose Dye had already started out after them. Hannah’s news about the link between Dye and Selah had come as a shock, but there was nothing to be done about it except press on. At the last minute Nathaniel had slung an extra horn of powder around his neck and taken the sack of bullets that Hawkeye pressed on him.
He had every weapon he owned on his person, his rifle slung across his back, a knife at his side, his tomahawk tucked under his belt to lie flat against his back. To these he added a knowledge of the bush that neither Liam Kirby nor Ambrose Dye nor any other blackbirder could match. The journey would be long and bring its own dangers, but Selah Voyager was by far safer walking behind Nathaniel Bonner than she had been in Paradise.
And if the story Liam Kirby had told Hannah was true, Selah Voyager would defend herself and her child, if that should be necessary. Not that Elizabeth could ask. A man who killed to defend himself and his family might be eager to tell the tale, but women were different. A woman who killed in self-defense or anger did not share her story lightly. This Elizabeth knew from experience.
They paused at midday to eat, and because Selah Voyager’s condition required it. Not that she had asked, or even seemed to need to rest. The younger woman walked hard, spoke seldom, and never complained. Elizabeth imagined that she was as eager to get to the relative safety of Red Rock as they were eager to see her settled, most preferably before she brought her child into the world.
Now she squatted easily with the great thrust of her belly serving as resting place for a piece of cornbread while she finished her portion of dried venison. She ate quickly and neatly, concentrating on that task and no other.
Then the surface of her belly contorted and the bread leapt away like a live thing, as if her child had known exactly what it was, and had rejected such a meal. It was a comical sight, and they all laughed out loud. At that moment Elizabeth remembered with complete clarity what it felt like to be so full with child toward the end
of her pregnancies, how the twins and then Robbie had governed her every movement, every waking and sleeping moment, every thought.
And she was taken by a sudden sense of loss so complete that it left her dazed. A slick panic filled her and she knew with certainty that if she turned around now and went home, ran as fast as she could, they would be gone, lost to her while she was somewhere else, tending to another woman’s needs.
Nathaniel reached over and put a hand on her knee. He had read her face and understood what he saw there. It was not the first time she was overcome by this panic for her children, nor would it be the last. But she did not have to explain herself to him and he would never shame her by saying out loud what she knew in her rational mind: Robbie was gone, yes, but Lily and Daniel were a full eight years of age, healthy and strong, in the care of people they trusted completely.
He would not say those things to her because he understood that the fear came from someplace deep inside her where logic and reason had no power. The twins had been taken from them as infants, for a short while but long enough to teach Elizabeth how fear could etch itself into the bone. Robbie’s death had reinforced that lesson.
Selah Voyager cleared her throat. “Thank you kindly for the food,” she said in her low, slightly hoarse voice.
Elizabeth blinked hard to put the thought of her children away from her. “You’re very welcome, Miss Voyager.”
The young woman had a smile that transformed her unremarkable but pleasing features, lending her for that moment a radiance that must be called beautiful. She said, “Please, won’t you call me Selah?” And then, more softly: “It ain’t my slave name, understand. Selah the name my mother give to me on my first birthday.”
There were so many things Elizabeth did not know about this young woman and would have liked to know, but she had never thought to ask about what she called herself. She understood without being told that all the runaways sent north by Almanzo Freeman took the name Voyager, at least to start with. Slaves, their owners believed, had no need for or right to a family name; one of a freed slave’s first acts was to name herself.
The young woman before them had led a life Elizabeth could hardly imagine, a life she did and did not want to know about. If she inquired, Selah would answer her questions, perhaps out of gratitude, but more likely simply because she had not yet been free long enough to know that she could turn aside a white woman’s questions. Elizabeth could not, would not take such advantage, no matter how curious she might be; she would wait, and accept what information Selah Voyager offered.
And she had offered. She had given them the image of a slave who had taken the rebellious step of naming her own child. Most probably her owner had never known of that small act; had it come to his attention he might have laughed at such a futile gesture, or punished her for impudence. Her mother had given her the name Selah; her master or masters had called her something else, Phyllis or Cookie or Beulah.
But all of that was behind her now. She was on her way to a place where she could use the name her mother had given her, where she could name her own child as she pleased. Elizabeth’s fears seemed suddenly very shallow and self-indulgent, and she flushed with gratitude for her own good fortune.
“You thinking about your children,” Selah said gently. “I expect you must be worrying about them.”
“Oh yes,” said Elizabeth with a small smile. “I am worried for them. I’m afraid it’s the first law of motherhood.”
Selah put a light hand on her belly, and nodded.
The first night on the trail Nathaniel led them to a protected spot under an outcropping of rock as tall as himself. It was overhung by balsam branches and it was dry and sweet-smelling, with a cushion of fallen needles underfoot. The trees wouldn’t protect them if it should rain or even snow in the night, but they had oiled buckskins to tent over themselves if it came to that, and for the moment the sky looked clear.
Nathaniel went off to see to fresh meat while the women started a fire and settled themselves. They would sleep as soon as they had eaten, so they could be up and on the move before sunrise. Elizabeth was tired enough to sleep on an empty stomach; she couldn’t remember the last time she had walked so far, or so long.
She sat down across from Selah, who was feeding the fire with bits of deadwood. “Did Curiosity or Joshua explain our plans to you?”
She nodded. “Three days to the lake you call Little Lost, and we wait there in the caves until the Mohawk woman come for me. Splitting-Moon. Have I got that right?”
Elizabeth took a slab of cornbread and broke it into even pieces. “Yes. We may have to wait three or four days for Splitting-Moon. There is no way to know exactly when she will come.”
They had this information from Joshua, whose job it had been to take the runaways to the meeting place. Sometimes Joshua’s brother Elijah came with Splitting-Moon, and they would spend a day together talking. Joshua had never asked either of them about the exact location of Red Rock, or even how far it was; what he did not know he could not tell.
Nathaniel and Hawkeye had listened without comment while Joshua related all of this. Later, in the privacy of their bed Nathaniel told Elizabeth what he suspected: that Red Rock was no place at all. It would be far safer for a colony of runaways hiding from the law and blackbirders to keep moving. A permanent settlement was too much of a risk; some trapper would come across it and eventually word would drift back, down the waterways to the city.
Elizabeth related all of this to Selah, who listened without interrupting, her arms wrapped around her belly. Her expression gave nothing away, neither curiosity nor fear.
She said, “There’s a blackbirder in the city, name of Cobb. Saw him a few times myself with a whole gang of men around him, slapping him on the back ‘cause he brought in a runaway called Big George everybody had been chasing after for a year.” She looked Elizabeth directly in the eye. “Folks say he routed out a whole lot of blacks living free in the forests down south. Brought back the leader’s head carrying it over his shoulder on a spike rammed clean through the ears. Put it on display outside the courthouse, to show the other slaves that they’d best not think of running. He look like any other person on the street, but the devil’s in the man who can find it in himself to do something like that.”
“I have heard of such things,” said Elizabeth.
Selah raised her shoulder. “There’s worse that goes on, things to turn your hair the color of salt. But what I meant to say is, for all his evil, that Cobb ain’t much different than any blackbirder. They got no understanding at all. The truth is, dying’s easy when living means going back where you run from in chains.”
“You are not going back, in chains or out of them. Cobb has no power here in the endless forests.”
“Don’t speak of the devil no more,” Selah said, holding up a palm. “He might just appear.”
“Superstition,” Elizabeth said firmly, even as unease sent a shiver slick as grease up her spine.
Selah rocked forward slightly, and when she raised her head her expression had cleared itself. “Tell me about the cold season.”
“The winters are hard,” Elizabeth said, more than willing to change the subject. “But I expect that by the fall you’ll be in Canada with Manny.”
Selah touched her belly, moved her hands out over its roundness with fingers spread. “In Canada, or in my grave.”
Elizabeth said nothing. It was true that the healthiest and strongest person might die without warning; her own mother had woken one day with a fever and died before sunset. Her cousin Will Spencer had lost a brother to a bee sting that caused his throat to swell shut. And of all people, a woman heavy with child knew very well that she might not survive the ordeal before her. If she did, and the child with her, she would have to keep it safe from too many threats to count: ague, putrid sore throat, dropsy, smallpox, lung fever, yellow fever. Quinsy. Blackbirders.
Selah Voyager was watching Elizabeth, and she had the sudden and uneasy feeli
ng that the younger woman had read her mind.
She said, “You know I killed a man.”
“Yes,” Elizabeth said, trying not to show her surprise. “I heard as much. So have I.”
Selah acknowledged this with a nod, and then she drew a deep breath.
“It was on the dock at Newburgh, two days out of the city. I was looking for a sloop called the Jefferson. Manny told me, just walk normal like any servant looking to deliver a message. Anybody stop you, say you’re looking for Captain Small. And that’s what I was doing when I come around a corner and there was old Vaark.”
She paused, her eyes fixed on some point far away. Elizabeth had been wrong; Selah Voyager needed to tell this story, whether or not she was ready to hear it.
“Mr. Vaark was your master?”
Selah nodded. “Bought me from the farm where I was raised up, the summer I turned twelve. Mama still there, I suppose.” Selah dropped her gaze from Elizabeth’s face to the fire.
“He was a good enough master, was old Vaark. Like to talk the bible, but he wan’t quick to raise a fist like some bible talkers. There was three of us house slaves and Josiah out in the stable, and we always had enough to eat and good clothes. Every six months a Sunday free, long as we come back before sunset.
“When I was fifteen the master got me with child, but it come into the world dead. Like that little one you buried the day I come to the mountain.”
“She was born too early,” Elizabeth said.
Selah nodded. “It happen that way sometime. But the next year my little girl come along, big and strong. She was the prettiest thing. I called her Violet.”
There was a fist in Elizabeth’s throat, the kind of anger that made it hard to swallow, but she must ask the question and so she forced herself to speak, striving to keep her tone even. “What happened to your little girl?”