SelfSame (5 page)

“Used to be holy ground for my people many moons ago.” He said it sarcastically, but she suspected he meant it. She looked around and something about the area seemed not just familiar, but that annoying déjà vu kind of familiar that had been plaguing her lately. Beyond the far outer trees, a huge rock loomed. She stared at it for several seconds. Could it be? With a hop in her step, she cut through the trees and worked her way around until she could see the other side of the rock face. The natural monument was invisible from the highway, which is why she’d never seen it in Sorcha’s world, but this was definitely the rock near the medicine man’s longhouse. It was a strange coincidence that she’d just been here, ‘yesterday,’ Enid’s time.

“Bear Talker. The longhouse.” She didn’t realize she’d said it out loud until her arm was grabbed from behind and Ben pulled her around to face him.

“What did you say?”

His vehemence startled her. “Nothing.”

“You said ‘Bear Talker.’ How did you know about this place?”

She lifted her shoulders defensively. “What’s the big deal? It’s not a secret, is it?”

His brows came together in a scowl that reminded her of Joseph. “As a matter of fact, it is.”

“You’re hurting my arm.” He wasn’t really; she said it to distract him.

He loosened his grip, but didn’t let go. His face was only inches from hers. She struggled to keep her eyes from dropping to his lips.

Quietly, almost menacingly, he asked, “What do you know about Bear Talker?”

She realized Enid knew almost nothing about the medicine man himself.

“I don’t know anything,” she said. “Why are you being so weird?”

That seemed to shake him from his determination to find out what she knew. He stepped back and let go of her arm. “I shouldn’t have brought you here.”

Her cell phone jingled from her backpack. She tossed Ben a wary look and began walking back to the trees as she dug for the phone.

As soon as she answered, Grammy Fay asked, “Where are you?”

“Walking,” Sorcha replied.

“In this rain?”

Ben brushed past her and she watched his back disappear under the branches.

“Yeah,” she said. “Can you come get me?”

Instead of following Ben and going back into the clearing where Bear Talker’s longhouse used to be, she walked around the trees.

“Where are you?” Fay asked.

“On the path along the highway, about halfway.” She’d almost reached the path and saw that Ben had gotten his bike and was waiting for her.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Sorcha glanced over at Ben’s stiff face and thought,
it can’t be soon enough
.

Enid

When she opened her eyes, the first thing Enid saw was Aggie sitting watch in the chair next to her father’s bed.

“Has she gone?” Enid asked.

“Yes, Miss,” Aggie replied softly. There was sympathy in the slave girl’s face, but also stoicism. It would be a long day, starting with preparing the body for burial. Aggie would have experience there with the passing of Jedediah’s wife, and for that Enid was grateful. She didn’t know how she would get through the day without help. Her father, as mean-spirited as he was, would have taken care of the necessary chores – but he was gone, and it was up to Enid to sew a shroud or procure a coffin, and obtain the headstone and gravediggers.

Enid dressed in a grey dress with black stockings. The dress was very worn and a bit too big since it was Elizabeth’s. It had once belonged to a fine lady, but had somehow come into her grandmother’s possession.

It was cowardly, perhaps, but she found herself unable to go in to look at Elizabeth’s body. She didn’t want to see her grandmother shriveled and cold; she wanted to remember her full of life and happiness.

The day passed in a blur. The village, normally bustling with activity, seemed deserted since every last man and youth old enough to fire a rifle had been recruited by the militia. The old stonecutter charged by the letter, which solved the mystery of Elizabeth’s headstone for her. After using most of the money she’d managed to squirrel away from her father to pay for the plain pine coffin and the gravediggers’ time, she had only enough left to purchase an unadorned headstone with a few carefully chosen words. She already knew what those words were, since Sorcha had pondered their meaning for years, wondering why there was no date of death. Enid wouldn’t dream of attempting to change the future just to satisfy Sorcha’s curiosity.

Enid had no money to purchase black gloves, which were traditionally delivered to the homes of people invited to a funeral. There was no funeral, although the pastor came and solemnly read from the Bible while Bess and Aggie sang. Their voices harmonized perfectly, rising and falling in tandem, echoing out over the field Enid had chosen – the same field that by Sorcha’s time would be full of her ancestors.

“And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away,” said the pastor.

Enid wondered what words Bear Talker had offered as her grandmother’s last rites, and prayed that she’d taken comfort from them.

The gravediggers lowered Elizabeth into the ground and covered the coffin with dirt. It would be a few weeks before the gravestone was ready, but the rest had been dealt with swiftly and efficiently.

Enid stayed by the graveside until the sun colored the western sky with streaks of orange and pink. She knelt to set a bouquet of goldenrod on the mound of earth and the tears she’d held in check all day burst forth.

Sorcha

Sorcha’s first thought upon waking was,
Why me
?

It was a selfish thought, but she couldn’t help it. Instead of getting up to take her shower and dress for the day, she lay in bed with the covers over her head as tears leaked out onto her pillow.

Grammy Fay poked her head in after a while and asked, “Are you still in bed? What’s the matter?”

When Sorcha pulled the covers down, revealing her tear-stained face, Fay let out a little cry of distress and rushed to sit on the bed to take Sorcha into her arms. They stayed like that for some time, Fay rocking her back and forth and murmuring soothing sounds.

“I’m here, Sweetling. I’m here,” Fay said.

“But for how long?” Sorcha cried.

Fay pulled away, grasped her chin and said firmly, “Death is hard. It comes for us all and doesn’t always give advance warning. You’ve known for some time that Elizabeth’s illness was terminal and you’ve had the luxury of preparing for it. She is no longer suffering. Now it’s time to reach down inside of you to find peace. She wouldn’t want you to mourn…not like this.”

Sorcha knew it was true. Elizabeth had said so herself. She sniffed, and Fay reached out to pull a few tissues from the box by her bed.

“I do, however,” Fay said, “think you should stay home today. We’ll tell the school you’re sick, okay?”

Sorcha nodded, glad she wouldn’t have to put on a brave face today of all days. While Fay called and made her excuses to the school secretary, Sorcha texted Paula to tell her she wouldn’t need a ride.

Almost immediately, her cell rang. Paula said, “I’m sorry I left you in the lurch yesterday. You don’t need to ride in with your grandmother – I’ll pick you up.”

“It’s not that,” Sorcha replied. “Elizabeth died and I’m not up to going to school today.”

“Oh, my God, I’m so sorry! Oh, Sorch…how awful. I know you haven’t wanted to talk about it, but I’m here for you whenever you do.”

“Thanks…same thing goes for you – you know, with Dalton.”

Paula let out a short laugh. “There is no Dalton and never has been. I’m over it, I swear.”

Sorcha secretly thought it was easier said than done, but responded, “Good. He doesn’t deserve you.”

“He’s irrelevant. What’s important are friendships that really exist. I wish I could do something to make you feel better.”

“Time heals all wounds.” Sorcha tried to say it with conviction. “And Elizabeth died two hundred and thirty-six years ago.”

“Too bad to you it feels like yesterday.”

It
was
yesterday
, Sorcha thought. Paula’s empathy was real, but the way she expressed it, the actual wording she used, hinted that no matter how often Paula assured her she believed Enid existed – she didn’t – at least not unequivocally. But that wasn’t fair to Paula and she knew it. Her friend had been nothing but loyal, and look what she’d done: blabbing to Ben yesterday about Paula’s crush on Dalton.

Paula said, “Hey, I gotta go, but you want me to come over after school?”

“No, that’s okay. I think Grammy Fay has plans for me today.”

They rang off, and Sorcha soon discovered that Fay did, indeed, have plans for her. The morning had dawned warm and mild, in stark contrast to the storm that had blown through the day before. After feeding Sorcha a hearty breakfast that Sorcha did her best to eat, Fay dragged her out to the garden greenhouse, a dainty cedar wood and glass structure built against the side of the house. She handed Sorcha a pair of gloves and some snippers and gestured to her prized container rose bushes.

“I think these would look better gracing Elizabeth’s headstone, don’t you?” she asked.

Enid

She put the grey dress and black hose on again and walked out to the lone mound of fresh earth as the sun made its appearance in the eastern sky. She felt encapsulated in a bubble of grief that kept the beauty of the sunrise from touching her, but there was too much to do today to dwell on her sadness.

Chores they’d fallen behind on needed attending to, particularly the harvesting of the last of the late apples from the seven trees in her father’s little orchard. Enid enlisted the aid of Sarah and Ezekiel, who picked up the fallen fruit and sorted the rotten ones out to give to the hogs, while she, Aggie and Bess plucked what remained from the branches. Once the apples were stored in the root cellar, they took their mid-day meal.

Enid ate in the kitchen with the children, again attempting to engage them in conversation and again failing to get much out of them.

“Do you know how to read and write?” she asked.

Ezekiel, with his hair a shade or two blonder than his sister after a summer in the sun, shook his head no.

“Do you know your alphabet?” she asked.

Sarah, the eldest by one year, dutifully recited the letters up to ‘J,’ but couldn’t recall the rest. Enid was not surprised. The poorer the household, the less likely the children could be spared from chores to attend school. Not that the village schoolhouse was any great shakes unless you wanted your catechism pounded into you. Enid had gone sporadically, but in the areas of reading, writing and arithmetic she’d relied solely on Sorcha’s education. Thus far, very few of the things Enid had learned to simply survive on a farm in the eighteenth century had been of use in Sorcha’s world.

One of those things was making tallow candles, another chore that had been neglected until the last candle in the house had burnt down to a stub, but one in which the children would be of no help. Enid went up to her room and rummaged through her chest until she found some of her old toys, which she gave to the children to play with in the main room. Sarah’s eyes went wide when she saw the baby doll Elizabeth had made out of scraps from her needlework.

“Go on, take it,” Enid urged. Ezekiel had no such compunctions taking the wooden top and blocks she handed him.

While the fat rendered in a big pot on the fire, Enid baked bread, and the sound of the children playing in the next room brought a smile to her lips for the first time in days.

The more distasteful and strenuous chores her father usually attended to fell to Bess and Aggie: she’d sent them to the west field to muck out the pigpen. The kitchen window was wide open in order to air out the overpowering smell of rendered fat. Enid looked outside, surprised to see a thick column of smoke rising from where the village was situated. It was no ordinary bonfire; that was clear from the size of it. A building must have caught fire. She rushed into the main room and hushed the children so she could listen. Faint pops and booms echoed through the chill afternoon air. Gunfire – and too much of it to attribute to someone out hunting in the area.

Frightened, she said, “Children, get your coat and shawl, quickly!”

She went back into the kitchen and taking the bucket of water from the corner, put out the fires in the hearth and the oven, filling the room with steam. She fanned the air with her apron until it cleared. After closing the window, she shoved the still warm loaves of bread into a sack and slipped a small knife into her pocket. Looking around, she hoped it wouldn’t be obvious to anyone who came into the house that the occupants had recently left. She picked Ezekiel up and set him against her hip; he obligingly clung to her, his thin body weighing nearly nothing. She shooed Sarah out the front door and then grabbed her hand and ran, practically dragging the little girl along with her, to the west field.

Aggie and Bess had finished with the pigpen, and were on their way back to the house. Enid didn’t have to say a word; they’d seen the smoke and heard the gunfire and knew what it probably meant. Bess lifted Sarah into her arms and they all hurried towards the woods.

When Enid was twelve years old, her father brought her out here to a stand of mature trees. It was not long after the village had gotten news of what would one day be called The Boston Massacre.

“See this tree?” he’d asked. It was a stout oak near the middle of the grove.

“Yes, father.”

“Here be a good place ta hide should anyone come round the house ye’d need ta get away from, ye ken?”

She looked up, thinking he meant her to climb it and hide among the branches, but he walked around to the far side of the trunk, revealing a deep black hollow.

“It smells like a skunk den,” Enid said.

“Aye, it were. But I kilt the critters and plan to fix a door here so’s no one can tell it’s not part o’ the tree.”

Her father may not have been tender and caring, but he loved her in his way, and his solution to the practical matter of where to go should the enemy come knocking was inspired.

Enid wrestled with the door her father had fashioned from an old log. The iron hinges had rusted from years of being out in the elements, but it finally opened on the cobwebby darkness within. She hustled the children and servants into the crevasse, but Bess’ bulk took too much space and there wasn’t enough room for Enid.

“No, Miss, I’s the one should stay outside,” Bess said, but Enid would have none of it.

“Don’t fret, I’ll be fine. Stay hidden until I come for you.” She handed Aggie the sack of bread. “With luck they won’t come past the house anyway.”

Once she’d shut the door on them, she knelt to brush her hand over the dirt to obliterate their footsteps. For good measure, she gathered an armful of fallen leaves and scattered it over the dirt.

She decided to head for the creek, which would take her past the back of the house. There were thick thorn bushes growing there, with enough room for her to hide within, but still be able to see the house and the tree where the children and servants were hiding.

A drumming sound, like rolling thunder, alerted her to approaching horsemen. She hiked up her skirts and bolted from the relative safety of the oak grove. If she were caught, she didn’t want to be anywhere near the others.

Moments before the house blocked her view, she glimpsed a band of about five or six men on horseback, galloping up the trail from the village. They were too far away for her to see them well and she prayed they hadn’t seen her at all. She doubted she would make it to the creek, but had no choice but to try. She’d just put on an extra burst of speed when a figure in her peripheral vision appeared out of nowhere and grabbed her. A hand muffled her startled scream as her accoster used her momentum to lift her bodily and swing her around. She struggled as he carried her several yards away. Before she knew it, she was lying prone in the grass underneath him.

Terrified, she fought him, trying to think of the moves Sorcha had learned in self-defense class, but he grunted, “Lie still!” and she recognized Joseph’s voice. She froze in surprise, only her chest moving up and down as she attempted to catch her breath, which wasn’t easy with his hand over her mouth. He stared into her eyes and must have been satisfied that she would no longer fight him because he slowly lowered his hand and pulled his arm out from under her.

She ignored her first impulse to ask him why he was here. His actions had already demonstrated he was there to protect her, although she couldn’t fathom why. “Who are they?” she whispered.

“Mohawk,” he replied.

“War party?”

“No. They travel to New York to escort their chief north.”

She didn’t ask what happened in the village. Bear Talker’s words from two days ago came back to her: “Now the Mohawk encourage us to join the British crown in this fight against the colonials.” The horsemen would have considered it good fortune to happen upon an undefended patriot village where they could help themselves to anything they desired – all in the name of the crown.

He shifted himself off her, staying low to the ground. With his upper body resting on his elbows, he reached out and produced his musket. She rolled over and saw that he’d dragged her behind a slight crest in the field that offered natural cover. They watched the house through the tall grass; there was nothing to see, but plenty to hear. From the crashing and banging it was clear the Mohawk warriors were inside. There hadn’t been time for the pot of fat to cool. They would know the occupants had just left.

After a few minutes, two of them came out. One walked cautiously toward the creek and the other went in the direction of the west field.

“The children…” Enid whispered urgently. She started to crawl backward in the grass, but he stopped her.

“It will not help if you are caught.”

“What are they looking for?”

“I guess they already found it – shelter for the night.”

“No, I mean those two,” she said, nodding to the men slowly walking the perimeter.

He gave a slight shrug as if it were obvious. “You.”

She closed her eyes and shivered. Of course the Mohawk would want to make sure the occupants of the house they planned to squat in weren’t nearby – or a threat. The one who’d gone toward the west field circled back without finding the hollow tree. The other one looked inside the barn and the chicken coop and also came back around to the house. It was getting dark and the temperature had dropped. One of them went into the house, but to her dismay, the other sat in her father’s chair on the back porch and lit what was quite possibly her father’s pipe.

Joseph said, “We will wait until Grandmother Moon is high -”

“I cannot.”

He looked at her inquiringly.

“I will fall asleep by then. The spirit in this body cannot be woken while the spirit in my other body is awake.”

She’d confirmed that she had two lives, and he must have had no trouble believing it because her revelation didn’t faze him. “Must you sleep?”

“I’m afraid it cannot be helped.”

He frowned and squinted at the house. “Have you ale?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

The hours passed slowly. As Joseph predicted, the men in her house found her father’s ale, and if the noise and laughter echoing out over the field was any indication, drank a good quantity of it. Enid had begun to shake uncontrollably from the cold, so Joseph pulled her impersonally into his arms. He was dressed less warmly than she, but the heat emanating off his body astonished her. She threw modesty to the wind and snuggled up against him. He kept a close eye on the house, but every few minutes checked to make sure she was still awake.

The last thing she remembered was the feel of his rough shirt against her cheek and the sound of his slow, steady heartbeat.