The Endless Forest (8 page)

And maybe that house would be dark too, and empty.

Lily shook herself to dislodge the image. They would stop first at Curiosity’s kitchen, where the fire in the hearth would warm them, and the teakettle would be whistling, and where Hannah and her family would be waiting, and little sister Birdie and Curiosity herself. Lily’s heart was racing in her chest, and it had little to do with the steep uphill climb.

She was concentrating on her footing and so lost in her thoughts that
she bumped into Martha Kirby. They were stopped because at the front of the line Lily’s mother had stopped.

At first Lily wondered if her mother was trying to catch her breath, but then things shifted and she got a better view. Lily knew every one of her mother’s expressions; six years or sixty years apart from her made no difference. What Lily saw in her mother’s face was surprise and deep concern. Elizabeth Middleton Bonner, normally unflappable, was watching something happening in the village through a gap in the trees, and it frightened her.

The boys scrambled up to see for themselves.

“What is it?” the girls cried out. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s a flood!” Nathan shouted back, putting all his strength into the last word so that it seemed to echo. “The whole village—”

Jennet stepped in front of him and then they were moving again, faster now. Lily told herself she wouldn’t look when she came to that open spot in the trees, but it was no use. The village of Paradise had been her whole world for most of her life, and she could no more turn away from it than she could from Ma or Da.

There was enough light to make out the trading post, the school-house, the smokehouse, a half dozen cabins—houses, Lily told herself. These were proper two-story houses with glass windows and curtains. But there was something odd, something that made no sense.

Then she had it: Some of the buildings seemed to have moved around, like pieces on a chessboard. The trading post had been on this side of the Sacandaga when she was last home, but now it stood on the far shore.

Annie seemed to read her thoughts because she offered up the explanation.

“The whole village is afloat,” she said. “The hundred-year water Throws-Far told us about.”

“But it’s—” and Lily stopped, because now it was all too obvious. The river had become a lake. All the buildings at the heart of the village stood in at least five feet of water, maybe more.

There was some movement. A canoe, paddling toward the school-house.

“Did they get everyone out?” Lily asked the question though her companions knew as little about what was happening in the village as she did.

Annie said, “The river will drop. It will seek its own level fast, unless there’s more rain.”

Martha gave a hiccupping laugh that was so odd, Lily had to turn to look at her.

“What are you laughing about?”

Martha lifted a shoulder. “Quite a lot. Just the other day Mrs. Peyton—who was to be my mother-in-law? Mrs. Peyton said to me—” Martha stopped.

“What?” Lily said. “What did she tell you?”

“Oh, a great many things,” Martha said. “She told me I was unworthy of her son, that I had been found out for the deceitful wretch I was. This was just after Jemima paid her a call, you understand. And she said—”

That odd and disturbing smile, once more.

“She said that sooner or later, water must seek its own level.”

Martha turned back to the path and picked up her pace.

W
hen the sky outside the kitchen door began to shift color, Birdie resigned herself to the fact that she would not see the rest of her family today. Usually such an admission would have put her in a very sour mood, but she really had to be thankful that her people were far away from the flood.

She was helping Hannah put a splint on Maria Oxley’s arm, and she had to concentrate very hard with all the noise and confusion in the kitchen.

Maria’s oldest was telling their story again, in a hoarse and whispery voice. There was no stopping him. Nor should they even try, Hannah said.

“It started up the very same minute we heard the fire bell,” he was saying. “There was a noise like a tree falling. Like a hundred trees ripping themselves out of the ground, and Mama stood up so sudden the bowl in her lap fell and broke. Then she was shouting and pushing us to the door, saying that we had to run, we had to run right now and we ran, I carried Joseph but it was hard, the ground was muddy and it was raining
so. And when we stopped to catch our breath I turned and saw it, a—a—fist of water. A giant’s fist punching, pushing trees out of the way. It flipped the Low Bridge like a pancake, and snatched up Miz Yarnell’s milk cow; I saw it, it’s true. That fist lifted our roof like I would pick up a wood chip from the ground. It was like standing on the brim of a bucket filling up fast.” He blinked. “It was like the hand of God.”

Birdie wanted him to stop. She wanted to go away and hide. But she could do neither; she must hold the basin of water for Hannah.

She glanced up and caught sight of Curiosity holding a cup of strong tea to Jimmy Crispin’s mouth. Jimmy was fourteen but he was so good at numbers that his folks didn’t make him quit school like most boys would at his age, to help on the farm. Sometimes Daniel took Jimmy and Birdie and Jamie McCandless aside for a math lesson, just the three of them. Jimmy was Quaker but he was friendly, with a wicked sense of humor and a quick smile.

Curiosity had swaddled Jimmy like a baby and settled him close to the hearth, and he still shivered. Almost everyone was shivering, even the people who hadn’t got caught in the flood waters directly. The continual coming and going robbed the room of its heat, though Curiosity’s grandsons laid on wood almost as fast as they could carry it in. Birdie was wrapped in shawls but she shivered too, so that it took all her effort to concentrate on what Hannah needed her to do.

On the far side of the kitchen a woman began weeping as though her heart would break. Mrs. Oxley kept trying to lift her head to see who it was.

Hannah spoke to her in a low voice. She said, “Still now, while I’m working.”

Mrs. Oxley seemed not to hear her. “Is that Friend Molly? Where is her daughter? Where are her grandchildren?”

Hannah turned to Maria’s oldest boy. “Joshua, please go over and speak kindly to Mrs. Noble. Find out if there’s anything we can do for her.”

For the first time a faint smile showed itself on Mrs. Oxley’s face. “Yes,” she whispered. “Joshua, thou must go and see to Friend Molly. And please see if there’s any tea to be had.”

The boy looked at his brothers and sisters. They were wrapped in a variety of blankets and sheets and every one of them looked dazed. Mrs. Oxley saw her son’s hesitation and understood it.

“The little ones are safe. Go to Friend Molly.”

Joshua looked as though he might be sick right where he stood, but he did as he was bid. He wound his way through the crowded kitchen to crouch down beside the elderly Molly Noble and speak to her. Joshua was just Birdie’s age—they sat near each other at school—but she rarely saw him outside the classroom.

“Such a good child,” Mrs. Oxley said. “Sweet-tempered and biddable. He’s been in charge of the sheep for three years now, and he’s done very well with them.” She paused. “I fear we lost the whole herd.”

“Maria,” Hannah said. “You must brace yourself now. I’m going to set the bone. It will hurt, but it will be over quickly.”

“May all our conflicts and trials be sanctified,” Mrs. Oxley said, her eyes on her children. “May the merciful God in heaven keep and protect us all.”

The travelers came in Curiosity’s front door and found themselves in the middle of what looked like a hospital ward. The hall was filled with refugees from the flood, many of them in an exhausted sleep and others who barely took note of yet more people arriving. Lily didn’t see a single familiar face and for a moment she couldn’t remember where she was, exactly.

“Friend Elizabeth,” said an older woman, holding out a hand. “Is there any news? Is the river still rising? If I might ask of thee, is there word of my sister and her family?”

Lily’s mother crouched down and spoke a few words. Her tone was so soft and gentle that while it was impossible to make out what she was saying, there was still comfort to be had.

Raised voices could be heard in the kitchen, and one of them was Curiosity’s. Lily went ahead, her muddy traveling cloak trailing behind her, her boots squelching with every step.

“You’ll want to get out of them clothes right quick,” said a man with a bandaged head and a mouthful of bloody teeth. “Or you’ll take a chill.” Then she recognized him: Jim Bookman, who had been a militia officer in the last war, and now was sheriff and possibly even a magistrate—something she might have been able to remember if not for the crusted blood on his face.

“Yes,” she said. “Of course. Thank you. Has my sister seen to your wounds?”

He had eyes the color of periwinkle, as blue as her own, but the expression there was sharper, as if he saw more and better than anyone should.

“There’s others hurt worse than me,” he said. “I can wait.”

The kitchen door swung open and she stepped through.

“I won’t have it,” Curiosity was saying. “Not in my kitchen.”

The young girl in front of her was weeping, though her expression was mutinous. The cause of Curiosity’s displeasure was the basket in the girl’s arms, and what looked to be a half dozen raccoon kits.

“But their mama left them,” the girl wailed. “They’ll drown.”

“Better them than you,” Curiosity said, but she huffed a little. “Take that basket out to Miz Hannah’s laboratory and give it over to Emmanuel if you must. He’s got a fire going and they’ll perk up quick enough. But if they leave their droppings all over that clean floor it’ll be your hide Miz Hannah will be looking to tan.”

The girl was gone before the last word was spoken.

“You are as soft-hearted as ever you were,” Lily said.

Heads came up all over the kitchen: those who had nearly drowned, others who had broken bones or torn flesh in their struggle to reach dry land, children separated from their parents. And a girl who looked so much like the face Lily saw in her looking glass that it could only be Birdie.

Curiosity broke into a broad smile. “Look who the cat drug in, and soaking wet too. Birdie, child. Don’t stand there. Your big sister standing right there in front of you. Go and give her a hug.”

It was eight o’clock and full dark when the Bonner men came back from the village, Nathaniel bringing up the rear with his long, loose-jointed stride. Every one of them was worn down to a nub; the smiles they gave her were sincere but strained.

Elizabeth shifted the baby sleeping on her shoulder and quickly stepped out of the way lest her grandchildren bowl her over in their eagerness to reach their fathers.

“Are you whole?” Elizabeth asked her husband.

“We are,” he said. He cupped her head in one hand and kissed her on the temple. “And hungry, and wet.” He pulled back a little to examine the sleeping baby’s face, and then he brushed a lock of dark hair off a
brow the color of faded roses. Young Simon had helped himself to the best features each parent had to offer. He could be taken for Kahnyen’kehàka or Seminole or North African. Nathaniel saw nothing of himself in the boy’s looks, but it didn’t concern him. His grandsons would never have any doubt where they came from.

“Ballentyne,” he called. “Come, man. Let me introduce you to your namesake.”

Simon studied Hannah and Ben’s youngest for a long moment. “Aye,” he said. “The resemblance is uncanny.”

They were still laughing when Lily came out on the porch and stood there with a hand pressed to her mouth, as if she feared the things she might say.

“Sister,” Daniel called to her. “You’ve traveled so far, stay there and I’ll come this last little distance to you.”

Elizabeth found herself blinking away tears. Beside her Nathaniel cleared his throat and then he put an arm around her.

“That’s a fine sight,” he said.

It was a fine sight indeed to see the twins reunited. Elizabeth would have said so, if it had been within her power.

In Curiosity’s kitchen the men were poked and prodded until the women convinced themselves that no one was making light of a serious injury. The worst they had among them was Ben’s broken toe. And there was good news: The river had stopped rising.

That simple sentence ran through the house, rousing the injured and the exhausted alike to cheers and renewed conversation on how long it would take to clean up and rebuild, whether they might still be able to get the crops in the ground on time, what steps could be taken to replace the lost livestock, how much cash all these steps would require.

It was just at that point that Curiosity had said they needed to get home, and showed them the door. The only reason Ma and the rest agreed to go was by that time Curiosity’s daughter Daisy and her two grown daughters had come to help, and the kitchen really was too crowded to get anything done.

The talk about the work that would need to start in the village followed them as they walked the short distance from Downhill House to their own. The mud made tough going of it, but Birdie could have
skipped, she was so delighted. Lily and Simon were home, and everyone was safe, and soon they’d be sitting together around the table.