Her Loving Husband's Curse

by Meredith Allard

  “I can’t say I knew him well. He was so shy he hardly said a word in company. If he said a complete sentence he was talkative that night.”

  “There’s so much I want to know about you. But tell me about Chandresh.”

  James stood near the window, looking at the mesh-like snowflakes fluttering down from the clouds. “He and his family were pushed off their land with the others.” His fingers tapped his legs as though he were typing out frustrated words. “It was more than losing their land. It was the unfairness of it all.”

  “Unfairness shouldn’t surprise you.” Sarah patted the sofa, and James sat beside her. He leaned his head against the cushion and closed his eyes. His gold hair fell away from his face, and Sarah remembered why she was so taken when she saw him the first time, the very first time, in 1691. Sitting across from her at the supper table, he looked so thoughtful, so kind. So beautiful. And it was true. He was all those things. She stroked his face from his temple, down his cheekbone, over his lips, to his chin. He opened his eyes and smiled.

  “What was I talking about again?” he asked.

  “Chandresh.”

  “Right.” He closed his eyes again. “You were here in the 1690s. You know what the Europeans thought of the natives.”

  “They thought the natives were inferior. Uncivilized.”

  “European society centered around owning land. The more you owned, the wealthier you were, the higher you were on the social ladder. But the native people didn’t believe in owning land. They believed land was meant to be shared. They worshipped nature, and they believed in a great spirit that created all life, and they believed all life was interconnected—the people, the rivers, the animals, the trees…”

  “They believe all life is interconnected. They’re still here.”

  “You’re right,” James said. “Then, the Europeans couldn’t understand the natives, their way of life, their way of thinking. The native people lived in the natural world, but the Europeans needed to separate themselves from nature. They built dams, cut down trees, built fences—this is mine, that’s yours over there. The native people’s creation stories emphasize having respect for all living things, not dominion over them. When the settlers realized the natives didn’t believe they owned the land, that made it easier to take it. It took years of wrangling, but finally the United States government got the land concessions it wanted from Cherokee leaders and pushed the people west to Oklahoma in the 1830s.”

  “Was Chandresh forced to walk?”

  “He was, along with his whole family. ‘Nunna daul Isunyi,’ the Cherokee called it. ‘The Trail Where They Cried.’ He didn’t know me when they began walking. He couldn’t see me then.”

  “He couldn’t see you?”

  “That part comes later.” James sniffed the air. “What is that? Not cookies?”

  “Oh no.”

  Sarah rushed into the kitchen, put on the heavy cooking mitts, and pulled the browned apple pies from the oven. She turned the burner off and moved the soup pot to the cool side. James stood behind her.

  “What is that?” he asked again.

  “When I was writing the menu for Christmas dinner I remembered making blood soup when we were first married. I made blood pudding then too, but that’s a sausage and I didn’t think you’d like that as much. I found a recipe online, and…”

  “And…?”

  “I used some blood from one of your bags and added some spices.” She opened the lid and dipped a ladle into the soup. “Can you eat it?”

  He leaned over the pot and inhaled deeply. “It smells good. I’m going to try some.”

  Sarah pulled a bowl from the cabinet and ladled in some soup. She grabbed a spoon from the drawer and set the bowl and the spoon in front of James as he sat at the table. He looked eager to try it, which pleased her. When he brought the spoon to his lips, she watched his face.

  James nodded. “It’s good, Sarah. The spices are different, but I like them.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. This is the first normal meal I’ve had in over three hundred years. Thank you.”

  When James offered her a bite, Sarah wrinkled her nose.

  “It’s all for you,” she said.

  “You used to eat blood soup.”

  “I used to eat a lot of things I find disgusting now.”

  He ate a few more spoonfuls, nodding at each taste. “It couldn’t have been too pleasant making this.”

  “I’ll do anything for you, James. I’ll even make you blood soup.”

  Suddenly, James sat still, his head to the side, listening. Sarah knew his preternatural mannerisms well enough by now to know he heard something she couldn’t.

  “What is it?”

  “A smug, self-satisfied shuffle about five miles down the road.” James shook his head. “Geoffrey.”

  “What about him?”

  “He’s here.”

  As if on cue, Geoffrey knocked an offbeat tune on the front door. When Sarah stepped away, James grabbed her arm. “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “To let Geoffrey in.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I like him and I’m not leaving him outside on Christmas Eve.”

  “You like him?”

  “He’s funny.”

  Geoffrey’s voice boomed through the door. “That’s right, James. I’m funny.”

  “You’re not that funny,” James said.

  “I’m funny enough.”

  Sarah opened the door, and Geoffrey bowed. “Good evening, little human person. How is the littlest human person tonight?”

  “Good evening, Geoffrey. She’s fine. She’s sleeping.”

  “Very good. One night I’ll come round while she’s still awake. I’d like to see her again.” He dropped onto the sofa and stared at the Christmas tree as though he had never seen one before. “Bringing the outdoors indoors. And it’s all sparkly like. Interesting.” Then he sniffed the air. “What’s that?” He skipped into the kitchen. “It’s… it’s…” He stood near the stove and sniffed the soup, closing his eyes while he savored the acrid aroma.

  James pulled the bowl toward him. “My wife made it for me.”

  “What is it? You must tell me.”

  “It’s blood soup,” Sarah said. “I made it for James for Christmas. Would you like some?”

  Geoffrey sat next to James at the table. “Let’s have a go.”

  Sarah pulled a bowl from the cupboard, ladled some soup into it, then set it in front of Geoffrey.

  “You can celebrate Christmas with us,” she said.

  “Did you really make this for James for Christmas?”

  “I did.”

  “That’s rather nice, actually. I forgot how pleasant it was to have a wife, someone soft and warm who thinks about things like Christmas and soups one might like to eat. My wife always went on about little things she could do for my comfort. She was quite the little homemaker she was.”

  “I didn’t know you were married,” Sarah said.

  “Oh yes. My Becky was plump and pretty, just the way I like them, but it was a very, very long time ago. Nothing to concern ourselves with now, though I seem to be thinking of her more and more these days, especially when I’m here. All the memories…” He looked at James and sighed.

  “Try your soup, Geoffrey,” Sarah said.

  He took a spoonful and nodded. “This is excellent, little human person.” He emptied the bowl in two bites and eyed the pot on the stove.

  “Would you like some more?” Sarah asked.

  “Please.”

  While Sarah filled his bowl, Geoffrey eyed James with an odd intensity. “When is your birthday, James?” he asked.

  “Why do you care about my birthday?”

  “I was just wondering when your birthday was, that’s all. You needn’t be so huffity-puffity over a simple question.”

  “His birthday is April 19,” Sarah said.

  “How old are you?” Geoffrey asked.

 
; “Three hundred and forty-nine,” James answered.

  “Three hundred and forty-nine? God you’re old.”

  “I’m younger than you.”

  “That’s true enough.” Geoffrey’s eyes narrowed. “How old am I?”

  “How do I know how old you are?”

  “When were you born?” Sarah asked.

  “I haven’t a clue. It was ages ago.”

  “Did anything special happen the year you were born?”

  “Don’t encourage him,” James said.

  Geoffrey tapped his temple as though he were trying to jolt open some long-gone memory. “I remember Mother saying she named me Geoffrey Charles because I was born the same day as the future King Charles the First. Then there was something about the East India Company being granted a royal charter the month after I was born. She said she thought of naming me Geoffrey Shakespeare since I was much ado about nothing.”

  James kept his mouth shut. He opened his laptop and searched the Internet. “1600,” he said. “King Charles the First was born on November 19, 1600.”

  “You’re four hundred and eleven,” Sarah said.

  Geoffrey grasped Sarah’s hands and danced with her around the great room, swinging her around, arm in arm like an elegant line dance. “I’m four hundred and eleven!”

  He stopped dancing and looked over James’s shoulder, his eyes squinting at the words through the glare of the flat computer screen. “What is that with the words on it?”

  “It’s a computer,” James said. “How can you be in the twenty-first century and not recognize a computer?”

  “I am in the twenty-first century, James, I am not of the twenty-first century. I came of age in the days when bookbinding was an art. I am appalled at the state of what you call literature these days. In my time, we didn’t have electronic doodahs like iPigs or Bumbleberries. I prefer hardcovers that weigh five pounds and hurt your back when you carry them. That is a book. Though I suppose reading on a Snook is better than not reading at all.”

  “On a Nook, Geoffrey,” said James.

  “Whatever. It’s all nonsense. I’m from a more courteous time when we had eloquent forms of communication.”

  “Town criers.”

  Geoffrey turned toward James, his hands on his hips, his eyes slits, his lips pursed in annoyance with his vampling. “Do not mock a perfectly acceptable form of communication. It’s a clean, simple way to get information, that. The town crier arrived, said his bit around town, and left us be to act on or ignore the news as we saw fit. You can’t pretend you don’t know things these days. Information is everywhere. When that story about vampires being real gets out it’ll be around the world in sixty seconds, let alone sixty days.”

  “Who’s putting out a story about vampires?” Sarah asked.

  James shook his head. “Don’t pay any attention to him.”

  Geoffrey looked at James, at Sarah, then James again. He shrugged and tapped the laptop keys like a little boy trying to play the piano. “So what else does your magic box say about London in the seventeenth century? What else happened when I was born?”

  James swatted Geoffrey’s hands away, typed seventeenth century London into the search engine, and scrolled through the results.

  “Well? What does it say?”

  “I don’t know,” James said. “I haven’t gotten there yet.”

  “Gotten? You haven’t gotten? When did you start speaking like an American with that ridiculous accent?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You’re British.”

  “I most certainly am not British.”

  “You were born in London.”

  “In 1662. A lot has happened since then, you know, a little something called the American Revolution.”

  “Oh that.”

  “Oh that?”

  “A little misunderstanding turned into a major blowout because you children couldn’t be bothered to pay your taxes.”

  James glared at Geoffrey. “I think it had something to do with taxation without representation,” he said.

  “Are you still blowing that old horn?” Geoffrey’s frustration showed as two pink spots on his white-blue cheeks. “You know perfectly well that whole taxation without representation shtick was a ruse. You had representation through the colonial legislature, yet you only paid one twenty-sixth of the taxes we paid in Britain. We were just trying to recoup some of our losses. You children were expensive to care for, needing protection from the natives over here and whoever else over there.”

  “There wasn’t enough representation. Our votes wouldn’t have counted for anything…”

  “Aha!” Geoffrey hopped from foot to foot, pointing at James, the glee everywhere in his bright eyes and wicked smile. “Finally, after more than two hundred years you admit you had representation. Taxation without representation my patooties.” Geoffrey paced the great room, propelled by his agitation. “You know the real problem? You didn’t care about the tax levied on tea. You cared that we undercut the price of tea from the smugglers. Surprise! Most of the colonial leaders were smugglers! And let’s not forget that the British agreed to stop stealing land from the Indians. That wasn’t good enough for you greedy, land-hungry colonists.”

  “Don’t you dare call me a land-hungry colonist,” James said. He stood to his full height, eye-to-eye with Geoffrey. “I did everything I could to help the people after their land was taken. I even slunk as low as you…” He stopped short, unable to continue. Sarah didn’t know.

  “I know what you did,” Geoffrey said. When Geoffrey saw the shocked expression on James’s face, the way James looked at Sarah to see if she noticed anything odd about the turn of their conversation, he backed away. He whispered so only James could hear. “She doesn’t know?” James nodded. “You keep a lot of secrets from your little human person.” James nodded again.

  In a voice loud enough for the neighbors to take part in the conversation, Geoffrey said, “I think you need to write an essay saying how you wayward American children had representation through the colonial legislature, there, Professor Doctor James Wentworth, and get it published in all those boring scholarly journals only academics read. It’s about time we get that story straight.”

  “I think you should go around Massachusetts as a town crier and shout it out at all the public buildings,” James said. “You can start at Faneuil Hall in Boston. You can leave right now.”

  “I think…”

  Sarah pushed her way between them, arms out, keeping them on separate sides of the room like a teacher breaking up a fight on the playground. “Boys,” she said, “please, let it go. It was a long time ago.”

  “Listen to your wife,” Geoffrey said. “She’s smarter than you.” He walked back to his corner by the kitchen. “What about you, Missy? When did you start speaking with that ridiculous American accent? Do you say gotten as well?”

  “I was born in Boston,” Sarah said.

  “She’s from Massachusetts,” James said.

  Geoffrey pointed at Sarah’s head. “You were born in Boston.” He pointed at her heart. “But you were born in England.” He looked toward the kitchen. “Can I have more soup?” he asked.

  James shrugged. “Help yourself,” he said.

  After Geoffrey left, James stood outside making sure he was gone. He looked so perturbed, James, like Geoffrey was an unfortunate relation you have to deal with maybe on Thanksgiving and Christmas or Easter, and then you don’t think about him the other three hundred and sixty-three days of the year. When James walked back into the house, Sarah took his hands.

  “I don’t understand why you invited him to our wedding if he annoys you so much,” she said. “He thinks you’re friends now so he stops by sometimes.”

  James shook his head. “I don’t understand it myself. I’m appalled and fascinated by him at the same time. I hate him for abandoning me after he turned me, yet I feel drawn to him, connected to him, like he has some answer I’ve been looking for.
Perhaps it was the note.”

  “What note?”

  “After he came here the first time he left me a note saying he hadn’t abandoned me the way I thought he had. He kept track of me, he knew everywhere I was, everything I did, but since I was doing all right he stayed away.”

  “Maybe he thought he was doing the right thing. Maybe he thinks creating vamplings is like being a mother bird who pushes her young from the nest—that’s how you help them fly.”

  James shook his head. “There are other ways to help vamplings learn to survive. You help them by being there. Teaching them. Letting them know they’re not alone in the world.”

  “Like being a parent.”

  James smiled. “Yes,” he said.

  Sarah brushed some stray strands away from his eyes. “Geoffrey’s a link to your past.”

  “I suppose he is.” James looked at the pot on the stove. “How about more of that soup?”

  “I can do that.” Sarah ladled more soup into his bowl and set it in front of him “Look how normal we are,” she said. “A husband and wife together on Christmas Eve, the husband eating soup, holiday music in the background, a fire in the hearth, our daughter asleep in her crib getting ready for her first Christmas. We’re just like other families.”

  “We were visited by Geoffrey and you think we’re like other families?”

  “All families have a crazy relative. It’s mandatory.”

  “Geoffrey a relative? God help us.”

  James finished the soup and licked the spoon. “That’s one thing Geoffrey was right about,” he said.

  “What’s that?”

  “You’re smarter than I am.”

  Sarah smiled. “I know,” she said.

  CHAPTER 11

  The daycare was two miles past SSU, down Lafayette Street into Marblehead sitting atop a short hill. It was a white Victorian-style home with triangle windows on top and colonial-blue trim. Primary Time Child Care and Preschool stayed open into the night to accommodate university employees like James and Sarah, who stood in front of the door, Sarah clutching Grace to her heart.

  “What’s wrong?” James asked.

  “Maybe this isn’t a good idea. She’s been doing so well with Olivia.”