Poison to Purge Melancholy (35 page)

There came a sound like shoes kicking the clapboards to the front of the south window, and a scuffling like a large rat scaling that side of the shop. I knew the source at once. “Thomas! Are you there?”

“Yes, Mother,” came his voice through the wall, panting from the exertion. “I shall climb around to the door to help you.”

“No!” I cried. “Go back! The wood is rotting—it might not hold—”

My son gave a cry. I heard his hands slap against the clapboards, then a splash. “Thomas!” The tin box with its damning letters fell to the floor forgotten as I ran for the door. The latch was rusted and the wood swollen with the damp, but I threw my body against the panels to loosen both, calling my son all the while. At last the latch lifted and the door swung in, and I rushed out upon the stoop which had become like a pier, surrounded by water and tall, brown reeds.

Yet no sooner was I clear of the door than the stoop gave way beneath my weight. I plunged down into the icy water, splintering boards catching at my skirts, shortgown, and hair. My spine caught the sill of the doorway, then my chin hit hard upon one of the stoop posts, snapping my head backwards. Blackness seemed to enshroud me, blinding my eyes. Still, I called to Thomas—called for someone to save him—until the weight of my sodden clothes dragged me under.

“Whoa! Quit kicking me!”
Hugh’s voice, directed at me.

How could I tell with my eyes closed? I just knew. I
was
kicking, so it made sense. Kicking because I couldn’t move any other part of my body. I found, when I opened my eyes, that I was swaddled in a blanket while Hugh clutched me to his breast as he carried me out the kitchen door.

“Put her in my van,” Delia called from behind. “Wait, let me clean the kids’ junk out of the back seat.”

“What’s up?” I asked my bearer.

“You’re going to the hospital.”

“I am not!”

“Are, too,” answered Horse, who appeared beside Hugh’s shoulder. “You’ve got a concussion.”

“Do not. I feel fine!”

“Well,
something
made you lose consciousness,” Horse said. “A concussion may be the best-case scenario. Guess I should have had you checked for blood clots last night.” He turned, yelling, “Come on, Rich! You’ve got the hospital privileges.”

I needed a doctor to argue my case. “Where’s Acey?”

“Helping with Irene,” Hugh grunted, with a nod beyond the back gate.

“She didn’t get away?”

He shook his head. “Her car was blocked in by Delia’s van, so she tried running. Acey tackled her halfway up the hill and held on ’til Foot and Evelyn got there. They’re waiting for the police now. You really feel all right?”

“I’m fine.” I lowered my voice. “I was just—you know—Elizabeth this time.”

His eyebrows went up, but he didn’t comment because he’d arrived at Delia’s van. She’d opened the back sliding door and was tossing school backpacks, football equipment, and empty soda cans into the last row of seats. “Rich’ll take good care of you,” she assured me. “He’s a great doctor.” Implying that he was only a rat at home.

“Go get checked out,” Hugh said. “Find out what’s making your legs hurt.” Before I could protest further, he added, “I’ll pay anything your health insurance doesn’t cover.”

“You will not.”

“Will. I know that’s why you don’t want to go.”

“We’ll talk funding later,” Miss Maggie said, coming up behind us. She was all wrapped up in her coat, scarf, hat, and gloves, and Beth Ann, zipping up her own jacket, was at her side. “You
did
bump your head, Pat. You’re going.”

I couldn’t see more than her eyes, and in the dim light from the porch, not much of them, but I knew her desire to grill me about ghosts was at war with worry for my health. What made me give in, though, was seeing the same worry on Beth Ann’s face, however much she tried to hide it with boredom.

Hugh piled me into a middle row seat of the van with Horse in attendance and Rich riding shotgun up next to his wife. Hugh, Miss Maggie, and Beth Ann followed in my Neon.

At least half of the next six hours were spent waiting around, shivering in a hospital gown with a sheet around my legs for warmth. The rest of the time I was assailed by vampires (who had to stab me in four places to suck out a measly two tubes of blood), had my brain and lungs scanned (inhaling argon feels like slow suffocation), my chest X-rayed, and something called a venus doppler, in which an ultrasound microphone was rubbed up and down my legs. It hurt like the Dickens. Inflammation, Horse and Rich surmised. I could have told them that.

Add to all this my mortification at not having done a primo job when last I shaved my legs (wintertime is pants season, after all).

Not a Christmas I’ll ever forget.

* * *

“Now that you’ve seen the real eighteenth century, Pat, what do you think of this place?” Miss Maggie asked me the next morning after I had told her all about my session with Elizabeth.

We were sitting on a bench on Duke of Gloucester Street soaking up winter sunshine and enjoying a breakfast of hot cider and soft-pretzel-like rolls from the Raleigh Tavern Bake Shop. I was still sleepy—we hadn’t gotten in until after midnight—but I didn’t regret joining Miss Maggie for an early constitutional.

For one thing, though my legs still felt stiff and achy, it felt good to take a walk again. The upshot of my ER visit was no concussion—not even much of a bump, thanks to my thick Italian skull—and no clots. So the hospital kicked me out, saying they’d fax Rich the full blood and radiologic workups in a few days.

For another thing, I’d have been too antsy hanging around Glad’s house. I couldn’t sleep anyway, not after my vision the night before, and I couldn’t find out more until Beth Ann and Acey awoke and I could get into Polly’s room. Why Polly? Because I was certain Elizabeth had told me all she would. Or could. Why was I certain? Because I’d gone into the old part of the house alone this morning and—nothing. Not even under the mistletoe. I might add that, since my encounter last night, all electrical devices and connections had worked perfectly.

And, well, consider my answer to Miss Maggie. “Two days ago, when I tried to picture the colonial era here, something was missing. This morning, though, I felt it.” Of course, I thought, my imagination was being stimulated by the cold, damp fog hanging low over the ground, and by the stillness. Only a few tourists were out and the living history guides, as they opened up buildings for the day, seemed to move on tiptoe, as if afraid of breaking the spell. Yes, there
was
a spell. But I couldn’t explain it.

With Miss Maggie, I didn’t have to. She simply nodded. “After dark, I swear history seeps out of the cracks of this place and swirls around until the crowds arrive the next day. Must have been what the Reverend Goodwin felt that gave him his dream of restoring the town, and what Rockefeller felt when he bought into the idea. I’m not sure either of them would be pleased by the theme park Williamsburg’s become. Two-dimensional history, prettied up,
entertaining maybe, but to my mind, not as interesting.” She sipped her cider. “
There
’s the problem. The
human
side of history
isn’t
pretty, yet if we’re going to learn from it, so we can make better decisions in the future, that’s the side we shouldn’t forget.”

Case in point: the version of Elizabeth Carson that Glad presented to the world compared with what I now knew. Still, no one wanted to hear bad things about ancestors, so there was no way I was telling the Lee family about their black sheep. I said as much to Miss Maggie.

“Never underestimate a woman who’s kept hearth and home together all by herself.”

“You mean Elizabeth? Or Glad?”

“You decide.” Miss Maggie let out one of her throaty alto laughs. “Besides, Beth Ann’ll want to be in on your next contact. Acey might, too.”

And Hugh. I had to at least ask him.

* * *

The house was less crowded by noon. Delia had gone back to her parents and kids, with Rich right behind her in his Volvo, although he wore a cellular headset and was gabbing with someone at the hospital. Sachi had pointed her car for Richmond and a day of half-off-all-Christmas-items at her drugstore, but not before Glad had given her three big bags of leftovers and made her promise to return for Twelfth Night.

Evelyn left to spend the day at the Apothecary Shop. Glad, done up in her Betsy Ross outfit, had gone off to cover midday breaks at the Governor’s Palace. Foot was at the jail.

“Irene’s much more fascinating to Foot today,” Acey said as the rest of us lunched on pumpkin soup and turkey sandwiches around the kitchen table, “now that he thinks she’s psycho. He’ll pay more attention to her as a patient than he ever did as a wife.”

At the meal’s conclusion, as the womenfolk were clearing the table, Horse declared his intention of watching football on TV the rest of the day and disappeared up the back stairway. With a wistful glance after him, Hugh hung around to help. When the dishwasher was all loaded, he asked me if I wanted to tour the historic area.

Leading him into the privacy of the pantry, I said, “You can watch football, but—” I told him what I planned seance-wise.

His face fell. “Aw, Pat—”

“I need to finish this.” Though I didn’t tell him why—that is, what I knew about Elizabeth. “You in?”

He heaved a sigh of disapproval.

I stood on tiptoe to put my arms around his neck. “Come on. Polly likes you, remember? And I promise you won’t miss more than the pregame show. Maybe not even that.”

He planted a provocative kiss on my lips, then checked to see if his sheer sex appeal had dissuaded me. Seeing it hadn’t, he gave up. “I’m in.”

Acey approved the seance, but declined to participate. “I’ll keep Horse out of your hair for you and an eye out for Ma, in case she gets back early. Let me know what you find out.”

So we gathered in Polly’s room: me, Hugh and Beth Ann (who wouldn’t be left out, however much her dad grumped about her inclusion), and Miss Maggie.

The latter wouldn’t join our circle, maintaining, “You should always have an outside observer. I’ll guard the door.”

Father, daughter, and I settled on the bed, holding hands. A regular little family outing, I mused, then realized it was the first time I’d thought of us as a family, with me in the mom role. The notion must have spooked me, because when I closed my eyes, I was aware only of the ring on my finger and my blood vessels throbbing beneath it.

“Don’t hold my hand so tight, Hugh,” I said. His grip on my hand relaxed and the throbbing went away, but the ring seemed more of a presence than ever. I snapped my lids open.

“What’s wrong?” Miss Maggie asked.

“It’s not working. Wait.” Taking back both my hands, I tugged on the ring. It slid easily off my finger.
Too
easily. Weird. “This is temporary,” I assured Hugh, and asked Miss Maggie to hold the hardware for me, which she did.

We rejoined hands, I closed my eyes once more. Boom. I found myself entering the dining room. The sights and smells were all the same as when I’d been there with Elizabeth, including the food, still on the table.

This time, though, sunlight no longer came through the windows. Mr. Dunbar stood by the mantel, wearing a shirt that seemed too tight around his wide shoulders, tucked into white, much-stained long pants that flared out like bell-bottoms over his bare feet. The clothes he’d worn earlier were draped over the backs and seats of two chairs set close to the hearth.

The orange glow of the fire emphasized the sorrow on his face as he read the papers in his hands. Thomas Carson’s last letters.

“now 1787 is Ended,
it happy is if we are mended.
God grant if not we may be.”

—from the diary of Martha Ballard, December 31, 1787

December 25, 1783—The Last Course

Mr. Dunbar looked up
from his reading—yet I remembered his name could not be Dunbar. The man who stood before me, who’d so patiently taught me sweet music, was now a stranger. Tears welled in my eyes, but I blinked them away, willing anger to replace them. Yet that emotion would not come. I was too weary.

“How is your mother, mistress? And young Tom?”

“My brother is well. Dr. Riddick fed him a weak toddy of tea and whiskey, after which Tom fell asleep on a pallet I’d made up by the fire in mother’s chamber. He refuses to leave her, for he blames himself for her injury.”

“As do I, mistress. I heard the boards groan ’neath our feet as we talked. I should have guessed the danger and coaxed your mother out to solid ground.”

“And I should have kept my brother here, clearing the table, instead of following you. Sir, Mother should not be alive at all, were it not for you pulling her from the marsh and sending me a-run to the hospital to call for the doctor.”

Mr. Dunbar nodded, but spoke not of himself. “Never have I seen a man push water from lungs as he did. I thought sure Riddick would break your mother’s ribs, yet she breathed again.”

The speaking of his name seemed to conjure the man himself. Dr. Riddick, shirtsleeves rolled to his elbow, entered behind me.

My heart beat faster. “Doctor?”

“Do not distress yourself, mistress. I come in merely to steal a bite from the table, as I’ve had no sustenance all day.”

“You’ll find little meat,” Mr. Dunbar said. “Sam and Jim arrived together not a half hour ago, cleansing the table of pottage and squab before I sent them off to the Eagle.”

I told the doctor to help himself to what remained, and filled for him a bowl of mutton stew, still hot in its kettle on the fire. I would, I thought, need to provide him many meals ere he was paid for today’s service.