Ashes (9 page)

She did not wake.

  *  *  *  

Curzon entered the hovel at first light.

“Has she said anything?” he asked. “Opened her eyes?”

I shook my head.

“Are you crying?”

I sniffed back the tears. “Nay.”

He felt Ruth's forehead. “Can't tell if she's cooler or hotter.”

“She's as fevered as she was yesterday,” I said, “but no more. And her foot seems less swollen.”

“She's strong,” he said. “She's already survived much.”

I wiped my eyes on my sleeve. His kindhearted words could not cheer me or even offer hope. I felt sucked into the heavy mud of a pestilent swamp, trapped and unable to move. I had failed in the only thing that mattered: taking care of my sister, keeping her safe, free, and happy.

Curzon squatted. “If we had all of the King's riches at our disposal, what medicines would you want from the apothecary?”

“We don't have time for foolish games,” I muttered.

“'Tis neither a game nor foolish,” he said. “Is there anything that could help her?”

I tried to rub the crick out of my neck. “Peruvian bark is the best for fevers, but only those caused by miasma. If she would just rouse enough to swallow proper, I could get some willow tea into her. That would cut the fever much as any physician's decoctions or tinctures.”

I stroked Ruth's limp hand. Her fingers were longer than mine and thinner. More than anything, she needed food. “With the King's riches I'd order my cook to make a sweet pudding with cardamom and a pot of beef marrow broth with barley. I'd bake loaves of soft bread for her and churn the butter myself. And honey; I'd send a maid to market to fetch some honey for the bread.”

I stopped. The fantasy was painful.

“It's foolish to talk about impossible things. We have no riches at all, much less the King's. All we have is worry and pine needles.”

“And willow bark, and your fortitude and cleverness, and . . .”

Ruth's fingers curled a bit, holding on to mine. I held my breath. Ruth's chest continued to rise and fall, and then she uncurled her fingers. I raised her hand and rubbed it against my cheek.

“Isabel,” Curzon said softly. “I want to find a farm or market, use our money to buy the victuals she needs. She needs proper food to strengthen her.”

“All we've seen are forest and a few tobacco fields.”

“Fields mean farms. Farms mean food.”

“Farms mean trouble.” I rested her hand at her side. “You show up, they'll put you in chains, set you to work in that tobacco.”

“Think back on what Huntly told us in the pine barren.” He spoke slow, like he was explaining the matter to a befuddled child. “We're only three or four days from the sea, and I'm near certain we're in Virginia. It won't be hard to find a town, buy some food.”

I shook my head. “It's too dangerous.”

“There are more free blacks here than in Carolina, more room for justice. I'm a free man and I defy anyone who tries to prove me different. I have papers.”

He spoke with an uncommon tone of defiance. I lifted my head and met his gaze. He looked older. He was turning into someone I barely knew.

“You'll be caught,” I said. “They'll throw your papers in the fire.”

“Seems it's my choice,” he said. “Not yours.”

The only sound was the very faint noise of Ruth's breathing.

“Doesn't matter what I think,” I finally said. “You're leaving.”

“Aye.” He paused. “But it didn't seem right to go without saying good-bye.”

“Will you come back?” The question flew from my mouth before I had time to consider it.

He frowned. “What sort of fellow do you take me for? Of course I will. I've convinced Aberdeen to stay. He'll help keep watch and maybe have some luck with fishing.”

He stood in the doorway. The light shone in around his form, causing his face to disappear in shadow. “I'll be gone awhile. Five days, likely. If I'm not back in a week's time, you need to move on without me.”

He left without waiting for my response.

I
AM CONSCIOUS THAT
I
HAVE THE FACULTY OF
I
MAGINATION, THAT
I
CAN AT PLEASURE . . . REVIVE THE SCENES, DIVERSIONS, SPORTS OF CHILDHOOD, CAN RECALL MY YOUTHFUL RAMBLES, TO THE FARMS, FROLICKS, DALLIANCES, MY WALKS, LONELY WALKS, THROUGH THE GROVES, AND SWAMPS, AND FIELDS.

–D
IARY OF
J
OHN
A
DAMS

R
UTH SUFFERED ANOTHER SHAKING FIT
shortly after Curzon left. When it was over, I looked up to see Aberdeen watching close.

“Can you help me?” I asked. “She has to drink this tea to bring down the fever, and . . . well . . . the truth of the matter is that she's more fond of you than me.”

“You want me to try to rouse her?” Aberdeen asked.

“Please.”

It took a long time, but Aberdeen–by teasing, shouting, telling jokes, and pinching Ruth's ears–was able to get her to come to the surface of awakeness long enough to take a few sips of willow tea. Then the fever pulled her back into a deep sleep. It was a small improvement, but 'twas an improvement all the same.

I settled Nancy Chicken close to Ruth's side, then followed Aberdeen out to the fire.

“She looks worse,” he said, his face creased with worry.

“She drank some,” I said. “That's a good sign. Thank you for your help and for your kindness with her.”

He grunted and poked at the small fire with a stick. “How do you know she won't die?”

Because I cannot allow myself to think that
, I thought.

“If she dies, she can no longer torment me,” I said, trying to shove a false note of good cheer into my words. “She'll want to live for that reason alone.”

He did not smile. “The way she looks in there?” He pointed at the hovel with his stick. “That's what she looked like when she first come to Riverbend.”

I sat on a log. “You were there?”

“Aye. She came in a wagon from Charleston with a load of carpets from over the sea. Missus Serafina tried to get her to eat something, but Ruth just laid herself in front of the hearth and stared into the flames. Hardly ate a bite. Wouldn't move from the spot. Folks said she'd soon be measured for her grave. Did Fina tell you any of this?”

“We didn't have time for stories,” I said.

He took off his sling and slowly stretched his arm above his head, then to the side.

“One day,” he continued, “an old hound dog wandered in and lay down next to Ruth. She reached out and petted it. The dog stuck by her side after that. Then Ruth started to eat more, and she gained her strength. Mister Walter saw that she liked critters, so he put her to work helping with the horses, cows, and everything else in the barn. Some folks said Ruth had hexing ways, but they was wrong. Ruth was just patient; part patient and part stubborn. She'd wait out a horse or a duck till it calmed. Then she'd be its friend.”

He rubbed his collarbone, nearly mended now, and then his shoulder. Soon he'd be able to make his own way in the world too.

“She tried running away at first, though she'd never say where she was going or why. She'd just sneak off, cause all kinds of worry. That's why the old folks put the fear of ghosts in her. To keep her safe, Fina filled her head with scary stories about haunted woods and devilish ghosts. That stopped Ruth from running.”

He ended the story abruptly.

The expression on his face helped me realize something I'd not seen before. “Are you sweet on her?”

“No.” He poked at the fire, sending sparks into the air. “Yes. Mebbe. She's always been my friend, ever since . . .” His voice trailed off to nothing.

I picked up a willow branch, took out my knife, and started scraping the bark. “Ever since when?”

He gave me a hard look. We had never talked like this, the two of us. Never talked about things that mattered.

“It's just that I don't know her,” I explained. “I don't know my own sister. I don't even know how often she has fits or what makes her laugh. I can't tell if she remembers anything about me, or about her life before Riverbend. I don't mean to pry into your business, but if you can help me understand her, that would be another kindness.”

“Critters make her laugh, and silly songs.” He started breaking bits of a dead branch into small sticks for the fire. “She doesn't have as many fits as she used to.”

He stopped and stared into the fire again, like he was seeing young Ruth there. Mayhaps young Aberdeen, too. He stared so long, sat so silent, I was certain he'd forgotten I was there. I wanted to keep him talking so I could hear the stories of the years I'd missed with Ruth.

“Were you born at Riverbend?” I finally asked.

He shook his head, stood up, and walked to the pile of dead branches and brush. “Got sold to Riverbend the year afore Ruth turned up, at hog-butchering time. I was eight years old.” He brought his boot down hard as he pulled up on a branch, snapping it cleanly. “So when butchering time came round again, I was in mighty low spirits. I missed my parents and my brothers something terrible. Ruth found me crying in the loft. She sat down next to me and patted my back, gave me a cloth for my nose. I told her my whole story about where I'd come from and who my family was. Things I hadn't told anybody, because it just hurt too much to say their . . .”

His voice cracked and my heart went out to him. No wonder he was close to Ruth; they'd both been stolen away from everything they knew and loved.

He cleared his throat with a sharp cough. “It hurt too much to say their names, so I didn't talk much. Anyway, Ruth listened, sweet as could be. When I was done, I asked after her people.”

“What did she say?” I asked.

“That she didn't remember nothing.”

“Did you believe her?”

“No.” He fed another branch to the fire. “But I kept asking. Different days, different questions. She always said she didn't remember a thing in her whole life before that mangy dog lay down next to her by the kitchen fire.”

I looked down at my hands, one clutching a willow twig, the other the knife, and was again enveloped in sorrow.

“Mayhaps she hit her head,” I said quietly. “Mayhaps it destroyed her remembery.”

“In that case, I guess, she's lucky,” Aberdeen said. “She's got you here. You can tell her all the things she forgot.”

“She won't even look at me,” I said. “She doesn't want to hear anything I have to say.”

“Don't seem to me like she'd argue right now.” He tossed the branches on the fire and brushed off his hands. “Going fishing. I'll be back afore dark.”

I watched him disappear, then brewed up more willow tea and tried to get Ruth to drink it. She wouldn't wake, lost again in a place I could not reach. I rinsed her handkerchief and soaked it in the willow tea, then replaced the cold poultice on her foot with the warm one. She stirred a little but did not wake. Sweat had beaded on her brow, but I had no rag to wipe it.

My shift had reached the end of its ability to offer up cloth, so I opened my sister's haversack, a treasure that she had closely guarded during our journey. Inside I found the rough-hewn birds that Curzon had carved, a few pinecones (these would have made for great fire starters, but I did not filch them), colorful pebbles, and a small handful of buttons that had been fashioned out of seashell. The buttons had been wrapped in a handkerchief that held clumsy girl-stitches; Ruth's first sewing, I guessed.

At the bottom of the bag, wrapped in a pair of stockings that were too small to fit her, I found a soft doll made of scraps of faded cloth that smelled faintly of clove and nutmeg. I buried my face in it and pictured Missus Serafina and Mister Walter, filled with so much love that they could send Ruth away from them. I tried to imagine what Aberdeen had described, the Ruth of five years earlier, weeks after she'd been taken from me in New York. She'd arrived at Riverbend in the hottest part of the summer. Her first friend had been a dog; her second, a boy as scared and lonely as she.

I repacked her haversack, except for her half-embroidered kerchief, which I took outside to rinse in willow tea. When it had cooled, I took it into the hovel and sat next to Ruth's still form.

“I don't know if you can hear me,” I said, “and I feel like a right fool talking to you this way, but at least I know you can't cover your ears or storm away from me.” I wiped the sweat from her brow. “Let me tell you about the day you were born. . . .”

  *  *  *  

Every waking moment of the next two days and nights I told Ruth her stories. I told her about the colors of the quilt that Momma had wrapped her in and how happy Poppa had been when Ruth smiled at him for the first time. I reminded her of all the animals she had known in Rhode Island and the taste of Momma's cooking. I tried to conjure the smells of the farm: the dirt after a spring rain, bluebells blooming in the July sun, ripe apples on a cold October breeze, and the smoke from the chimney as snow piled deep around the house.