by Sara Donati
“Over the years I've come to regret the part I played in what happened at Barktown. I would have told Strong-Words so had I ever had the chance.”
“I'm sure that would have meant a great deal to him,” Hannah said, her tone as bitter as the words themselves.
Richard sighed and ran a hand over the bristle on his chin. “I'm not asking your forgiveness, girl, but I'll give you my condolences. Your uncle was a brave man from what I've heard, and he died honorably.”
“Honorably,” Hannah echoed, the word like gall on her tongue. “He died in a battle that was lost before it even began. They brought me his body in a pile with ten others, two of them his sons. Do not presume to speak to me of women's sorrow, Richard Todd. Do not dare.”
For a long moment there was no sound but the birds: the chittering of the wrens, crows bickering, a solitary blue jay at odds with the world. Hannah's own heartbeat seemed as loud in her ears. Finally Richard got up with a sigh and started off again in the direction of the village.
Over his shoulder he said, “Come along then, woman. I don't have all day to listen to your tales of woe.”
It was then that Hannah saw that he had laid a trap, one that she had walked into without hesitation. No amount of questioning could have made her talk about the last few years, but he had turned her anger into a tool for his own use and got what he wanted anyway. He had opened the door, and now she would find it hard to close.
For a moment Hannah watched Richard Todd walk away and she was filled with reluctant admiration. She took note of his thinning frame, the way he stooped in pain, the set of his shoulders. That his death was not far off Hannah could not deny, but she knew something else just as unsettling: he would try to get her stories to take with him; he would work to dig them out of her one by one, using whatever tools necessary.
From the outside, Jennet could see nothing particularly interesting about the abandoned meetinghouse. A wood-frame building in a village of buildings built of square-hewed logs, all in the middle of a remarkable world crowded with trees. It sagged at the door and windows but the floor was solid underfoot and the door hinges had been recently oiled. When Lily opened the shutters, the emptied room filled with light.
“Holy Mary,” Jennet whispered reverently. “Lily, what have you done?”
She turned in a circle, trying to take it all in at once. Everywhere she looked, every inch of wall space was covered. Paper had been tacked up from floor to ceiling, and every paper was filled with Lily's work, drawing after drawing in lead or charcoal or ink. Her whole world was here: everyday items from buckets and shoes to chairs and doors, studies of trees and leaves and animals. A whole sea of human figures rolled across one wall, waves of hands and feet, eyes and noses and ears, floating aimlessly.
But it was the portraits that drew Jennet to them. Hundreds of portraits: Daniel running, holding a chicken under his arm, firing a musket, scowling, sleeping, laughing. Up the wall and down again Jennet could follow him through the years. They were all here, all the Bonners, and most of the villagers, a history drawn in quick and knowing strokes. Sometimes the drawing could not be contained by the paper and seeped out over the rough whitewashed walls: a forest in chalk, full of life and wind.
She stopped in front of a study of Luke, his hair tousled and his eyes half-cast, and she knew without a doubt that Lily had caught him as he got out of his bed, before he had had anything to eat. She reached out a finger to touch his chin, sure that she must feel the stubble there, and stopped herself. Instead she wrapped her arms around herself and turned.
In the very middle of the empty building was a single table with a chair beside it and a stool tucked beneath it. It was piled high with books and stacks of paper, cracked pottery cups filled with bits of charcoal, ink pots and quills, a small pile of stones, an empty bird's nest, a piece of broken glass. Jennet fell into the chair and spread out her arms.
“Cousin,” she said softly. “This work of yours will outlive us all.”
Lily opened her mouth as if to thank her and then shut it again, so sharply that Jennet heard the click of her teeth. When she had quieted herself she said, “Thank you, Jennet. That is the best compliment anyone has ever paid me.”
“And she had to come all the way from Scotland for you to hear it.”
Nathaniel Bonner was standing at the open door, his large frame filling the square of light. “I've had that thought many times, but I've never said it. For that I apologize, daughter.”
Lily's expression shifted from surprise to uneasiness to uneasy pleasure. “Da, what are you doing here?”
“It's too long since I came to visit.”
There was a small and tender silence. Jennet felt the warmth of it like the sunlight on her face.
Finally Lily said, “There's something wrong, isn't there.”
Nathaniel ducked his head to clear the low doorway and came into the middle of the empty meetinghouse. He hesitated, lifted his face into the light and then lowered it again to look at his daughter. This man called himself Bonner, but Jennet could not look at him without seeing Carryck in every bone. Just at this moment he reminded her so strongly of her own father that her eyes filled with warm tears.
In Nathaniel's expression she saw regret for pain about to be inflicted, and she knew what he had come to say.
Lily knew too. She had backed up until she was half sitting on the worktable, as if she must have this support to keep herself upright. Very calmly she said, “You're letting him go, aren't you? You're letting Daniel go to war.”
“At least you're consistent,” said Richard Todd, letting himself down into the straight chair beside the Widow Kuick's sickbed. “You'll neither pay me for my time nor will you follow my prescriptions.”
Richard's words hung in the air along with the hissing hitch and sigh of the old woman's breathing. The chamber was hardly big enough for the narrow bed and a chair; the shutters on the single window held in the early morning heat and the stench of old flesh gone soft, human waste, and sweat. Hannah knew that if she were to raise the woman on the bed she would find open sores the size of eggs on her back and buttocks and legs.
In the doorway stood Jemima Southern Kuick. She looked no different than she had when Hannah last saw her ten years ago. She was a sturdy woman, with plain, strong features and a mouth as curved and sharp as a sickle, and yet there was something different. She was angry; Hannah had never known Jemima to be anything but angry, but now weariness had the upper hand, or maybe—and this idea unsettled Hannah—it was not so much weariness as a resignation so complete that it went beyond despair.
Her daughter stood next to her and slightly behind, a slender girl who kept her eyes on the ground but even so hummed with curiosity.
Jemima said, “There's work in the kitchen, Martha.” Her tone was unmarked by affection or even concern; all her attention was on Hannah.
Martha Kuick's gaze flickered over the bed. The Widow—the woman she believed to be her grandmother—lay as peaceful and unmoving as a bundle of kindling loosely bound. The girl looked as if she meant to say something to the doctor, to ask a question or make a promise, but her courage failed her.
“The kitchen,” Jemima said again. “Now.”
When the girl was gone Richard said, “If you won't take proper care of this woman then hire somebody to do it.”
“I feed her,” Jemima said. “I wipe her shitty arse. I bathe her. Maybe not enough for your tastes, but then fine folks don't have to haul their own water, do they.”
She was talking to Richard and looking at Hannah. Her smile was meant to frighten, and still Hannah could find nothing inside herself but pity for the women in this house. It would make Jemima howl to know that, and so she kept her expression blank.
Richard said, “She's lost more weight.”
Jemima shrugged. “She eats as good as I do.”
For a moment Hannah thought the doctor might rouse himself into one of his old tempers, but then the tension in his face see
ped away.
“I'm going to examine her now,” he said wearily. “And then I'll relieve her.” For the last week the Widow had been unable to let down her own urine; once a day someone had to help her with it by means of a probe as thin as a reed. Sooner or later an infection would set in and finish off the old woman, and it would be a blessing. In spite of the nastiness and ill will the Widow had spewed over the years, Hannah thought she had suffered enough; her rest would be well earned.
“I suppose you're going to be coming in his place,” Jemima said to Hannah. The corner of her mouth jerked as if the idea of such an arrangement amused her.
“When necessary,” Hannah said.
“Unless you want to do this yourself.” Richard looked up from the instruments he was laying out.
“Oh no, I wouldn't rob anyone of the pleasure,” Jemima said, laughing. “Especially not her.” There was some satisfaction in her voice, a mealy pleasure that made Hannah's stomach lurch. Such a quiet hate was far more frightening than any threats screamed in passion.
All through the examination, while Richard palpated the slack abdomen and put his ear to the dirty camisole and counted respirations, Jemima watched. The Widow offered no resistance, but her eyes, filmy with cataracts, flicked from side to side like a deer under the gun.
“She's nervous,” Jemima said. “She probably thinks you're here to poison her.” She said this as if she might have offered tea or asked about the weather. “She still thinks you killed her Isaiah.”
Hannah met Jemima's expression. “And what do you think?”
Jemima's mouth contorted. “Your sins are many, Hannah Bonner, but that is one death you are not responsible for.”
Richard was swabbing an open sore on the Widow's shoulder, but he raised his head to look Jemima directly in the eye.
“If there's any poisoning to be done here, I'll keep that pleasure for myself,” he said. “I should poison her and put her out of the misery you've made of her sorry life.”
The woman in the bed made a whining sound, like air let out of a bladder.
Jemima's face blanched of all color. “She's laughing at you. You made her laugh.”
“Is she?” Richard said softly. “Is it me she's laughing at?”
Hannah left the sickroom before Richard, made her way through the dark hallway and the kitchen to find young Martha in the dooryard. She was scrubbing out a cooking pot with sand, singing softly to herself. She had a clear, true voice and in that moment Hannah remembered how much Jemima had loved to sing as a girl.
She had her mother's voice, yes. But in the bright summer morning the girl's skin was as translucent as parchment and her hair alive with light. Not Isaiah Kuick's daughter but Liam Kirby's, without a doubt; anyone who had known the two men could see that truth no matter what lies Jemima told.
Most probably Martha didn't know that Isaiah Kuick wasn't her father; Isaiah had died when Jemima was pregnant, and Liam Kirby had never laid eyes on this daughter he could not claim. How Jemima had managed to get Isaiah to marry her because she was pregnant by Kirby was a question that would probably never be answered.
No doubt the Widow Kuick knew, and she would have taken delight in disowning the child to her face, had she not lost the power of speech and the ability to hold a quill. A strange blessing on the girl, but it was not the only one. Along with the color of his hair, Liam had given his daughter a sweet temperament and a forgiving spirit.
Hannah did not know where Liam Kirby was or if he was even alive.
The girl caught sight of Hannah's shadow and looked up, the long plait moving like a quicksilver snake over the thin back. Her expression was guarded, but hopeful; she said nothing, because, Hannah knew, any child raised in this household would not speak unless spoken to.
“We saw your friend Callie earlier today.”
Martha smiled shyly, ducked her head in acknowledgment. “Are you going to heal her ma?”
“I will try to help her,” Hannah said.
The girl chewed her lip nervously, glanced at the kitchen door and back again. “Can you make her better? Do you have the right magic to do it?”
“Ah.” Hannah looked out over the neat garden: cabbage, kale, potatoes. The kind of garden where flowers were as unwelcome as weeds. She said, “I'm sure you've heard things about me, but the truth is, there is no magic in medicine. Faith, yes, and science. But no magic.”
“You can't fix her then.” The girl went back to her scrubbing, her movements slow and deliberate. “Callie will be sad.” After a moment she cast Hannah an uneasy glance.
“I don't mean to be rude, Miz Bonner—”
“Your mother doesn't want you to talk to me,” Hannah finished for her. “Will you tell the doctor that I've gone ahead, and I'll wait for him on the bridge? I'd much appreciate it.”
Chapter 4
Later, Curiosity wanted to hear every detail about both visits; she asked questions about the examinations and listened closely to the answers. When Hannah had finished the older woman sat down wearily in the rocker next to the hearth and shook her head.
“Poor Dolly's in a sad state and the Widow even worse, but it's that girl that worries me. Such a tender little thing being brought up by Jemima Southern. Jemima Kuick,” she corrected herself.
“She looks well fed,” Hannah said, offering that small comfort.
Curiosity snorted. “Don't talk to me about food,” she said. “The girl need a kind word now and then as much as she need food.” She paused and then said: “Tell me now, don't Martha remind you of her daddy? Not just the color of her hair, but the way she go at the world. He had an affectionate heart as a boy, a forgiving nature if there ever was one.”
She was talking about Liam Kirby, but neither of them said the name out loud. Hannah said, “Let's hope she got his stamina too, because she is going to need it.”
“He surely was tough as old leather, even as a boy.” Curiosity laughed softly. “Wouldn't have lived through the beatings Billy dished out otherwise. My, those was hard days.”
Now that the subject had been raised, Hannah decided she would not turn away from it. “Do you ever get news of Liam?”
Curiosity raised her apron to wipe her face. “Not a word in all the years.” She sent Hannah a probing look. “You relieved, or disappointed?”
Hannah sat down on a stool opposite Curiosity. “I hardly know. Numb, I suppose would be the right word. I hadn't thought of him in such a long time until I saw the girl. His daughter. If he is alive he should know about her.”
There was a longer silence while each of them sorted through memories too obvious or painful to share. Curiosity seemed to come to some conclusion because she straightened and looked Hannah directly in the eye.
“Did you notice anything unusual about Jemima?”
The question took Hannah by surprise. She considered carefully. “It seems to me that some of the fight has gone out of her.”
Curiosity snorted a soft laugh. “I suppose it might look that way, but truth be told, she got me worried. That girl has got something cooking, you wait and see.”
She set the rocker moving with a twitch of her foot.
“I hope you're wrong,” Hannah said. “But you could always smell trouble on the wind.”
“And there's more, while we're at it,” Curiosity said. “While you was out with the doctor your daddy came looking for Lily with some news she didn't like much.”
“Ah. About Daniel, and Blue-Jay. They're going with Luke.” Hannah stopped herself before she could say anything more; it would do no good, and the words couldn't be taken back.
“We all knew the day was coming, but Lily just didn't want to see it.” Curiosity spread out her hands on her lap. “You know they quarrel something awful, those two—”
“They always have,” Hannah agreed.
“That's most usually the case with twins when they get to a particular age. But Lily and Daniel ain't never been apart for long, not really. She don't know what to do wit
h the idea of him going off to war without her.”
“How angry is she?” Hannah asked. “Should I go find her?”
“Won't do no good,” Curiosity said. “She went up the mountain and hid herself. I expect we won't see her again for a good while.”
With more energy Curiosity said, “I'm going to make some cake to send along with those boys. It ain't much, but I got to do something.”
She pushed herself out of the rocker so hard that it thumped back and forth and sent the cat running for a safer corner.
“What is it?” Hannah asked, though she knew very well.
Curiosity gave her a grim smile. “I am mad enough to spit nails, and there ain't no use in pretending otherwise. What is the Almighty thinking, letting me live long enough to see more boys go off to war? I don't know as I can stand it, Hannah. The waiting and wondering and imagining. Sending off letters that never get where they supposed to be. Waiting for word that won't come no matter how hard I bargain with the Lord. I'm likely to turn into a bitter old woman if anything should happen to either of those boys, and that's one thing I promised myself I would never be. I'd rather die. Sometimes I'm just weary of it all.”
With her fury drained away Curiosity seemed almost to wilt and collapse inward. She sat down again, heavily.
Hannah let out the breath she had been holding. Now was the time to say things that were meant to be a comfort, to recite the facts they both knew to be true: Daniel and Blue-Jay would make the best of warriors; they were both excellent marksmen and woodsmen; they would look out for each other as no one else could. But truths like these were too fragile to bear the weight of fear.
Instead of talking, Hannah did something else, something harder for her. She knelt in front of Curiosity and put her arms around the woman's thin shoulders.
“We'll bear it because we have to,” she said.
Curiosity pulled away with a sigh and wiped her face with the back of her hand.