The Endless Forest (82 page)

Now that Daniel had gone through it himself he understood better what he had only sensed before. It could go wrong no matter how you approached it, and if you wanted it to go right, it took a lot of work.

For Daniel and Ethan things had moved too fast, and they had never had the chance to talk like this. In fact, they hadn’t talked for a long time, since before the flood. Daniel realized how much he had missed these discussions.

Ethan was saying, “We have to do something.”

“She’ll be dead in a week,” Blue-Jay said.

“The damage she could do in a week is substantial,” Ethan said.

Daniel wondered exactly what kind of damage Ethan was worried about, but he kept that question to himself.

Blue-Jay studied the floor. “Are you saying we should put a bullet in her?”

Ethan was as angry as Daniel had ever seen him. It might have to do solely with Callie and Nicholas, but then Ethan had his own history with Jemima.

He gave a quick shake of the head: not that. Not yet.

“We could take her up to Lake in the Clouds,” Blue-Jay said. “She’d be out of troublemaking range, and Susanna would nurse her.”

Daniel said, “That would stretch even Susanna’s goodwill to the breaking point.”

“For you and me, sure. But Jemima has no power over Susanna.”

“Jemima will fight the idea,” Ethan said, but his tone was hopeful.

“We’ll tell her we’re taking her to Daniel’s,” Blue-Jay said. “And then we’ll just keep on going. She can holler her head off. It won’t matter.”

Within a quarter hour they had sorted out the details: Blue-Jay would head home now so that Susanna had time to make a chamber ready, and Daniel would go home to Martha to put her mind to rest about Nicholas. When the village was quiet, Ethan would bring Jemima up the mountain to Lake in the Clouds.

“You think you can handle her on your own?” Daniel asked Ethan.

“I’ll ask your da to help me,” he said. “And Bears and maybe Gabriel. To keep me from putting that bullet in her head.”

“Well, sure,” Daniel said. “Just the men to take along if you want somebody to preach non-violence.”

Any other time it would have made Ethan smile, but he seemed not to hear at all. That silence caught Blue-Jay’s attention, and he lifted a brow in Daniel’s direction.

“Ethan,” Daniel said. “Is there something more going on here that we don’t know about? That we should know about?”

“No,” Ethan said. “Not a thing you should know about.”

Daniel had the sense that he had asked the wrong question. It followed him all the way home, while Hopper snored in his saddlebag.

C
harlie LeBlanc came to bed late, as he usually did, but he also came to bed sober, which was unusual. Especially on a holiday like this one, where ale ran so free. The oddness of it woke Becca, and she sat up.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Nathaniel and Ethan came by, and they had Callie with them.”

“Was there news about Jennet?”

“She’s still at it,” Charlie yawned. “They were here to take Jemima away.”

“What?”

He turned to look at her over his shoulder, the candlelight casting the planes of his face into stark relief.

“They told me she was likely to make a fuss, and I should stand by so she couldn’t say they handled her rough. Ethan settled her bill.”

“Did
she make a fuss?”

Charlie shook his head. “It was right odd, Becca. Nathaniel was helping her down the stairs and when she passed me she smiled and she said
sweet as pie, ‘If you find my body at the bottom of a cliff, this time you’ll know who’s responsible.’”

Becca drew in a sharp breath.

Charlie said, “I told her not to talk like that.”

“I’m sure she took it to heart,” Becca said dryly. “How did Callie react when she said that?”

“You know Callie’s temper. She lashed right out and said, ‘Old woman, if I wanted to kill you I wouldn’t go to the trouble of dragging you up Hidden Wolf first.’”

“I knew Jemima wanted to go to Martha’s,” Becca said. “But I didn’t think they’d let her. You’d think she’d be happy to get her way.”

Charlie lifted a shoulder and let it drop. “I don’t think anybody will ever understand that woman. Or how she came to have such a sweet boy.”

“I understand her,” Becca said, lying down again. “She’s as mean as a snake and twice as twisty, and thank the dear Lord that Nicholas takes after his da.”

“It’s not like you to be so uncharitable,” Charlie said. “The woman is dying.”

“Let her get on with it, then,” Becca said. “It cain’t come soon enough. Can you remember a time when she wasn’t causing trouble?”

“If you put it that way,” Charlie said, and blew out the candle.

Daniel came out on the porch and Martha said, “Did you really think I’d be able to sleep?”

He shook his head and put an arm around her shoulder. The night was warm and there was a breeze that stirred the grass and Martha’s loosened hair. She smelled of soap and salt, and if there had been any real light Daniel knew what he’d see: her face swollen with weeping.

“I didn’t think you’d want to wait and watch,” he said.

“I’m not sure I do, but I don’t seem to be able to stay away. Daniel?”

“Hmmm?”

“Have you thought much about having children?”

He knew she felt the jolt that ran through him, because she held up a hand. “I’m not.”

“Not yet,” he said.

She would be blushing, but her voice was calm. “Not yet. But I’ve been thinking about it. I don’t know if I can. That is, I’m fairly sure I’m capable—” Her voice trailed away.

Daniel drew in a deep breath and let it go. “You are physically capable—”

“I assume so.”

“—but in your mind you feel unprepared.”

“In my heart and mind, yes.”

“Who is ever prepared for a first child?”

“No,” she said. “It’s worse than that. For Lily it’s different than it is for me. Don’t you know what I mean?” A tinge of exasperation and unhappiness in her tone and she shifted uneasily on the bench.

“Yes, I think I do. You’re afraid that you’ll be a mother like your mother was.”

“I’m afraid that I will turn into that kind of mother.”

She seemed to be waiting for permission to go on. He said, “Martha, I’m listening.”

“I know. I know you are. When I was young, I had this odd idea that every mother was like mine, but some were just better at hiding it. Becca, for example. She’s gruff, but there’s no doubting how she feels about her children. Even when she yelled at them, you could feel it. But I was sure that it was all for show.”

“Maybe it was easier for you to live with that idea,” Daniel said.

“Maybe.”

“When did you figure out that some women do make good mothers?”

She was quiet for a moment. “I’m not sure I ever did. Sometimes when I see a woman who is loving and open with her children, I still feel some doubt. Even with Amanda, and she is the gentlest, kindest soul I know. Even there I wondered now and then what stories Peter might tell if I asked him the right way.”

“So. Are you saying you don’t want to have children at all?”

She turned to rub her cheek on his shoulder. “That’s the problem, Daniel. I do want to have them. Whenever we’re together some part of me hopes I’ll catch, but then afterward—the thought frightens me.”

After a long moment Daniel said, “Did you ever wonder what kind of mother Jemima would have been if Liam Kirby had loved her and married her? If he had been there to help raise you?”

She lifted her face to look at him. “I have to say that never occurred to me. I wonder why not, why I can’t imagine her happy, and that’s—I don’t know what it is. Sad, or tragic. She sometimes told me that if I hadn’t been born, things would have gone differently for her.”

“And I thought I couldn’t get any madder at her than I am already. She blamed you for her mistakes.” His voice had taken on an edge, but he couldn’t stop himself. “She’s a sorry excuse for a human being. You know that you weren’t responsible for her unhappiness, I hope.”

“In theory, yes.” She said it very quietly.

“I can tell you one thing for sure,” Daniel said. “There’s no simple explanation for why a person turns out the way they do. Good parents or bad, rich or poor. Your grandmother Southern was a good woman, but Jemima still turned out the way she did. And then there’s Becca; you said yourself that she’s a good mother, but her own mother was a drunk, and mean too. Maybe you haven’t heard those stories, but it’s true.”

“I’ve heard them. Curiosity told me some of that, and she said something I forgot about until just now. She said, the reason Becca works so hard and never allows herself a moment’s peace is because she’s running away from the idea of her mother. Trying to prove to herself that she’s not the same person.”

“Yes, that makes sense,” Daniel said. “I wonder she hasn’t dropped dead of exhaustion long ago.”

Martha laughed, a short tight sound.

He said, “All I know to do is to be here, Martha. You don’t have anything to prove to me. You may doubt that it’s in you to be a good mother, but I don’t, not for a second. Maybe if we hadn’t been rushed into marrying I could have had time to make you understand how I see you, and how fine you are to me. I should tell you more often, but words don’t always come easy.”

He felt her relaxing against him and it made him want to hold her tighter, to turn her to him and show her what he meant to say.

She said, “Listen.”

In the clear night air there was no mistaking the sound of horse and cart coming up the trail. Hopper roused himself and growled, the fur standing up on the back of his neck until Daniel spoke a word.

Martha was up and moving slowly toward the sound. It drew her forward as steadily and unrelenting as a rope. He could call her back, but he doubted she’d even hear him. Following her at the right distance, that
was the trick, but then she stood there in the dark, all the color leached away so that it seemed to him, for that moment, that he could see through her, see her bones and the flow of blood and the shapes of her muscles.

He took her hand. Her pulse was hammering high and fast, while his own heart seemed to be settling into a preternaturally slow rhythm. Daniel was aware of the knife at his hip, of the sweat trickling down his back, of the nightbirds in the woods and the stars overhead.

He wanted to take her back into the house, but she wouldn’t thank him for his interference. She had decided upon a course of action, and he would not try to stop her.

Martha drew in a short sharp breath when Nathaniel came out of the woods. He was carrying a lantern that swung in rhythm with his step, with Florida following.

It was true, then. It was happening. They would take Jemima to Lake in the Clouds, where Susanna would nurse her until she died.

The cart Florida pulled was just big enough for a couple lambs or barrels, but it would handle the mountain trail all the way up. They had lined it with something, quilts or blankets, and turned it into a makeshift chair. A throne, of sorts, where Martha’s mother sat wrapped in blankets despite the heat. The swinging lantern revealed a shoulder, a cheek, the jawline in turn.

Ethan followed with another lantern, and behind Ethan came Callie.

Martha’s breath caught in her throat.

Beside her Daniel said, “Callie’ll do what she must, and so will you.”

“I can’t leave her to handle it on her own,” Martha said.

“You can,” Daniel said.

Nathaniel and Ethan raised hands in greeting but their pace didn’t slacken. Callie’s gaze was fixed on the cart. Martha had the idea that Callie wasn’t even aware of where she was.

“I’ll regret it for the rest of my life if I leave her to do this alone.”

Daniel started to say something and then fell silent, because the figure in the cart shifted and a harsh voice was rising in question. It was Nathaniel who turned to answer, and in response Jemima’s voice rose another octave. Callie’s voice and then Jemima’s, both sharp as sticks.

“Martha!” Jemima yelled. “I can see you there. Martha! Will you send
me off to die among strangers?” She was struggling to free herself of the covers, shouting at Nathaniel to stop, to stop right here, to stop right here or by God she would put out his eyes.

The cart stopped, and Martha began to move forward with Daniel by her side.

Callie called out, “Go back. Go back. There’s no talking to her. She’s as mean and stubborn as she ever was.”

“Martha Kuick!” Jemima shouted, her voice cracking. “You get over here right now or I will box your ears, I promise you that, missy.”

Those words came out of the past and struck Martha with such force that she stopped, unsure of herself and the world around her. Everything folded in upon itself and narrowed to a small island of wavering lantern light on the border between open field and the dark of the woods, between herself and the woman who had borne her and raised her, the woman who demanded recognition, who would wring it from her like water from a rag, if Martha let her. Out of pity, out of guilt and a regret she could hardly explain to herself.

For that moment Martha met her mother’s gaze and a great stillness came over her, an understanding. Jemima was dying, and she was afraid. Fear and desperation had brought her back to Paradise, and to this spot on the mountain. In her rage she would strike out, as vicious as an animal caught in a trap, and she would strike first at those who were bound by blood to care for her. The mother Martha had wanted, the mother she had wanted to believe lived deep within the mother she knew, she would not show herself in these last days. There would be no gentle words or kindness, because that woman had never existed.