SelfSame

Selfsame

by Melissa Conway

This is a work of fiction. The Haudenosaunee village in this story is a made-up place, and the colonial village is based very loosely on Pine Plains, New York. All characters are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2012 by Melissa Conway

www.melissaconway.net

This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author, with the exception of brief quotations for use in articles and reviews.

Prologue

New York Colony, 1764

“Tell me the story, Grandmother.”

The old woman compressed her lips and sighed out her nose, but she placed the candlestick on the mantel and sat in the spindly wooden chair next to Enid’s bed. She settled the folds of her shawl around her and took a shallow breath that rattled a little in her throat. The story had been told so many times the words came easily, even without using her native Mahican tongue. She’d learned a smattering of German from the Moravian missionaries who’d come to her village when Enid’s mother was just a baby. They’d baptized the old woman with the name Elizabeth in 1743, and later she’d learned English from her son-in-law, an emigrant from Ulster, so her accent was an odd mixture of Mahican, German and Irish.

The tips of her grey braids brushed her knees as she leaned forward. The light from the fire dying in the grate sparkled in the little girl’s eyes as her grandmother began.

“When yer mother birthed ye, not a breath did ye take, and yer skin were the color o’ twilight.”

It was an exaggeration, of course. The limp and unresponsive infant’s color hadn’t been quite as dark a blue as the twilit sky, but the image was imprinted vividly in Elizabeth’s memory. She hadn’t seen a color quite like it in the natural world, not among the wildflowers or the deep, still ponds; not even in God’s great sky.

“The German midwife thought ye had gone to God, but yer mother begged yer father to send for Bear Talker, the Muheconneok medicine man on the outskirts of the village, who had never renounced the old ways. He came, and he said
m’chuch-cheek
– yer spirit – had departed, but mayhap could be called back. He sang the old songs, and rocked ye and rubbed ye. When ye began to cry, it seemed a miracle from the Creator. But the medicine man said no. He said ye came back, but left half yer spirit in another place and time, and that yer soul were now forever nesche – two – and ye would have both lives to live.”

Enid had snuck her thumb into her mouth, but spoke around it. “Sorcha.”

Elizabeth nodded solemnly and reached out to pull Enid’s hand down; the thumb came out of her mouth with a little pop.

“The selfsame,” Elizabeth said softly. “Give yer other grandmother me greetings when ye wake.”

“I will,” Enid said as her eyes began to droop.

Sorcha

The old oak tree had seen another summer, despite Grammy Fay’s dire predictions that it would fall over onto the house any day now. Sorcha Sloane cut across the lawn and stepped over the oak’s exposed roots. When she was younger, she would have made a game of it, jumping from root to gnarly root chanting, ‘High diddle diddle,’ but she’d long since outgrown children’s games. The unseasonably warm October days and cool nights had turned the oak’s leaves red, and they flickered in the light breeze like flames against the morning sky.

An old blue Honda Accord was idling beyond the picket fence. Sorcha could tell her ride to school hadn’t been waiting long; dust from the dirt lane hung in the air. She shifted her backpack and reached to open the passenger door, but there was someone in her seat. She ducked down and looked past the interloper to Paula, whose stiff smile and raised eyebrows told her this was none of her doing. Sorcha opened the back door and shoved books, clothes and fast food wrappings aside to make room.

“What’s up?” she asked after she shut the door.

Paula shifted into drive and said, “This is Luanne. Mom asked me to give her a ride today since her mom had to visit her uncle in the hospital.”

The dark-haired young woman in the passenger’s seat turned, revealing a slightly aquiline nose in a profile that hinted at a Native American ancestry. Sorcha, who’d been prepared to dislike her for no good reason, changed her opinion when Luanne said dryly, “He’s actually in jail.”

There were less than four hundred students at Sorcha’s high school and as far as she knew, Luanne wasn’t one of them. “You go to PFH?”

Luanne snorted. “Not any more. I’m twenty-two. I just need a ride to the bus station.” After a short pause: “I’m in college.”

“What’s your major?” Paula asked. They were on the main road now, a nearly treeless stretch of farmland a few miles from town.

“Anthropology. Native American studies.”

Sorcha leaned forward. “Are you Muheconneok? I mean, Mohican?”

“Iroquois.” Luanne twisted in her seat and looked at Sorcha intently. “You?”

The question surprised her a little. With her white skin and reddish-brown hair, Sorcha looked nothing like a Native American.

“Oh…um, not really,” she said. “We think my however-many-greats grandmother was half Mohican, though.”

She saw Paula’s blue eyes shift in the rearview mirror, but ignored the warning look. It wasn’t as if she was about to burst out with the truth.

“Ah,” Luanne said. “They say every American has a drop of native blood. Are you interested in genealogy and antiques? Or architecture? Because your house is awesome. How old is it?”

Paula was still staring at her in the rearview mirror, so Sorcha tapped her lightly on the shoulder and muttered, “Watch the road,” before looking back at Luanne’s avidly interested face. She knew Luanne was just curious and it couldn’t hurt to answer her questions, but she had become so adept at deflection the response came automatically. She shrugged and said, “I don’t know.”

It wasn’t true; she knew exactly how old the house was. The stone walls and floors of the main rooms had been built in 1757 in the modified Dutch Colonial style that was popular in the Hudson River Valley at the time. Over the course of the next two and a half centuries, the house had undergone many changes and additions. It had been drafty and creaky when it had been new, and it was drafty and creaky now.

Luanne’s face fell. She made a disappointed tsk sound and turned to face forward as if she’d lost interest in anything else Sorcha had to say.

Paula, apparently in an attempt to change a subject that had already expired, said, “Luanne is Ben Webster’s big sister.”

It took Sorcha a second to realize who Paula meant. Ben had been a year ahead of them in school, so she hadn’t ever really gotten to know him. She did know that two years ago he’d been busted for assault and sent away to juvie. She’d heard several versions of the story; that Ben was defending himself; that he was defending another kid; that he’d attacked unprovoked – but in each version the story had the same ending: he’d kicked the crap out of his opponent.

She hadn’t heard he was back, but he’d be a senior this year anyway and since she and Paula were juniors, they wouldn’t have any of the same classes with him.

She wasn’t sure how sensitive the subject was with Luanne, so she went with a noncommittal, “Oh, yeah?”

She needn’t have worried. Luanne scoffed and said, “Yeah, my delinquent little bro is back. At least that’s what everyone says. Juvenile Hall is supposed to set kids on the straight and narrow, but all it does is teach them how to be criminals just to survive the experience.”

Yeesh. Sorcha made a mental note to avoid Ben Webster.

Paula turned onto the Town Center exit. “I saw him on Friday. He looks normal.”

Luanne sighed. “He may not be covered in homemade tats, but he’s having a hard time reintegrating. He’s been…fine, I guess. But not the same. Angrier. The system let him down.”

Paula double-parked in front of the bus station and Luanne jumped out. She leaned her head in the open door to say quickly, “Thanks – and sorry about the rant,” before slamming it shut and walking away.

Sorcha climbed between the seats to sit up front. “That was awkward.”

Paula shrugged as she pulled back onto Main Street, but flashed a toothy grin and said, “Wait ‘til you see him. He’s a drop-dead hottie.”

Sorcha aimed a disbelieving look at her friend. “Are you serious? Didn’t you hear her? Even his own sister thinks he’s toxic.”

“I didn’t say I was gonna marry him! Just that he’s hot. Too hot to give me the time of day anyway.”

Sorcha frowned, wondering if Paula’s fluctuating self-esteem was headed for another low. She’d gotten a tan over the summer, which helped clear up the worst of her acne, but she’d also gained ten pounds and outgrown most of her clothes. Neither of the girls came from wealthy families and shopping for outfits at the local Salvation Army was only cool if you could afford not to. Paula’s parents were divorced and her mom worked from home as a medical transcriber, which is why Paula got to drive the Honda.

“Whatever,” Sorcha said. “He’s a loser. And your hair still looks great, by the way.”

Paula’s mom had taken her into the city to get her dishwater-blonde hair streaked and cut as a special surprise. The stylist had worked miracles on her formerly untamed mane and now it hung in a smooth and shining bob below her ears. The cut had gone a long way to starting the year off on a positive note for Sorcha’s best friend.

Paula flipped her hair back and batted her eyelashes. “It does, doesn’t it?”

She drove onto the field adjacent to the school and stopped next to a jacked-up black truck. They got out and wove their way through the cars whose drivers hadn’t gotten there early enough to secure one of the few spots designated for students in the paved lot.

Preston Field High, derisively referred to by the sound ‘pfh,’ was a sprawling brick complex built back in the 1960’s. Principal Kessler was a paranoid former inner-city teacher who used some unusual methods to keep his students motivated. While other schools had done away with lockers completely, Principal Kessler allowed students with a ‘B’ average or better to have them. It was supposed to be some kind of motivational tool, as if the higher achievers were less likely to abuse the privilege by storing guns or drugs in them.

Sorcha and Paula both earned a locker this year, but they shared Sorcha’s while Paula rented hers out to a kid with a B-minus average for ten bucks a month. Paula was always looking for ways to make extra cash, and was a very popular babysitter.

At their locker, Sorcha said, “So did Luanne give you gas money or anything?”

Paula shook her head. “They’re barely scraping by since their dad was killed in Afghanistan.”

“That’s terrible,” Sorcha murmured, but the bell put an end to the conversation.

At lunch, they met up in the cafeteria, which was also the auditorium and gymnasium. For the third year in a row, they’d claimed their usual spot sitting cross-legged on the narrow portion of the stage nearest the left-side stairs, affording them a great view of the room while giving them semi-privacy at the same time. Sorcha had barely sat down and begun rooting around in her sack lunch when Paula hissed, “There he is!”

Reflexively, Sorcha looked up. A tall young man with shoulder-length black hair was walking up the center aisle between tables, carrying a tray of food. He was dressed in jeans, tennis shoes and a plain blue t-shirt and didn’t look dangerous or unstable at all. She’d seen him a few times and wondered who he was, and had to agree with Paula’s assessment that he was good-looking. He had a less-feminine version of his sister’s nose and big brown eyes under rather heavy straight brows.

Sorcha watched surreptitiously as he scanned the room until an arm belonging to a boy at the table directly in front of them shot up and waved him over. He sat facing the boy, and coincidentally facing Sorcha as well. She looked away before any accidental eye contact occurred and then, for good measure, scooted her butt around until she was sitting sideways towards Paula.

Paula gave her an incredulous look and said quietly, “Afraid he’s gonna give you cooties all the way over here?”

Sorcha lifted her shoulders defensively. “Eat your lunch.”

She bit into her salami and lettuce sandwich and chewed self-consciously, telling herself that Ben Webster was not watching her.

“Um, I think he’s checking you out,” Paula whispered.

“Shut up!” Sorcha whispered back. Her stomach burned and the sandwich suddenly tasted like cardboard. She wrapped it up hastily and shoved it back in the bag, sitting there feeling like she was on display – just like she’d felt so recently and yet so long ago.

“Oh, crap,” Paula said, putting a hand on Sorcha’s knee. “I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

Sorcha swallowed bile, but nodded.

“Did anything happen that you want to tell me about?” Paula asked.

Sorcha closed her eyes for a brief moment, but saw the earnest, ugly face of Jedediah Johnson and opened them again. “We’re betrothed.”

“Gross,” Paula breathed. “What are you gonna do?”

Sorcha gave her best friend a grim smile and looked at her with brimming eyes. “Endure it.”

When she got home that afternoon, she dropped her backpack on the kitchen table and went out the back door. Grammy Fay was on her knees weeding a patch of winter squash. The old woman looked up from under her wide-brimmed hat and waved a gloved hand absently as Sorcha wandered to the wrought-iron gate set in the center of the big yard’s cinder-brick fence. Beyond the yard, on the northern slope of the thirty-two acres of land owned by her father, was the family cemetery. It was a familiar, comforting walk in the warm afternoon sun. There were sixty-four gravestones, the oldest dating back to 1784, but a few had no death date inscribed on them, so it was impossible to tell how old they were. The last person to be buried there was Sorcha’s great-great grandfather. After that, cremation became popular, so the cemetery went out of use.

Sorcha settled on the stone retaining wall and looked out over the sea of mottled grey stones. Most stood upright as they should, but some were askew or broken or knocked down altogether. The graveyard was well tended; her father kept the grass kept trim and wildflowers were encouraged to grow. She knew the name and history of almost every person buried there. She’d denied being interested in genealogy when Luanne asked, but that was another lie. Her ancestors were a very specific concern of hers and she’d been gathering information on them since she was old enough to read. She’d traced her line back as far as the beginning of the nineteenth century, but all the birth records in the village prior to that had been destroyed when the old church burned to the ground.

One person she was especially interested in was not buried here, nor had Sorcha ever been able to find a record of her death, no matter how desperately she’d searched.