The Vanishing Point (20 page)

Arranging her face in a scowl, Adele stared with a ferocity that made the little bit of color vanish from his pasty skin. "I will put the chicken foot in your pottage this night," she muttered. "I will put bones in your bed." Though she only pretended, the men on the Washbrook Plantation, even Master Washbrook himself, feared deep down that she possessed dark powers. It had been Maman's gift, not hers, but she did nothing to correct their assumption. Let them be afraid of her.

Muttering
Jesus
under his breath, Patrick scuttled away, allowing her to catch a glimpse of his goose-pimpled white ass. She spat in his direction, then picked up the gold flowers and headed toward the creek. Despite her fierce face, her heart pounded and her hands shook. Would the fear and hate of men ever leave her? Maybe when the new mistress came and she wasn't the only female. But what if the mistress was cruel? She had heard that Mrs. Banham whipped her servants at will, even if they did nothing to provoke her. They said she was driven to madness, wed to such a libertine, that she took it out on her maids and garden boys.

A crow flying overhead touched her with its shadow. Shivering, she crossed herself.
The purple flowers,
she thought. She still had to pick the tall spiky blooms at the edge of the woods. When she reached the creek, she knelt on the bank and cupped her hands to drink. Then she lifted her face toward the towering trees that grew on the other side. If she weren't afraid of Master Gabriel's traps, she often thought she would run deep into the forest and never return. If she squinted and prayed, she could see her mother dancing beneath the oaks. Tall and graceful with her too proud eyes. If Maman were here, she would take Adele's hands, raise her to her feet, tell her to be strong.
Never forget you are a shadow catcher's daughter.
When Adele was six years old, Madame had given her a silver bangle with
Adele Desvarieux
engraved on the inside, so she would grow up knowing how to write her name. The bangle was too small for her now. She hid it in her pallet.

Leaping across the creek to the lush bank opposite, she picked the tall purple flowers until her arms were too full to hold any more. Then she headed back toward the house. On her way, she passed Finn. He was her age, a quiet boy. If she had no fear in her heart, she sometimes thought they might have become friends. He wasn't cruel like Patrick.

"Adele." He nodded to her in greeting. "Did you pick those flowers for the new mistress?"

Even with Finn, the old panic wouldn't let her go. Ducking her head, she just nodded and hurried up the path. He stepped aside to let her pass.

Once she had heard Master Washbrook telling the Irishmen to leave her alone, stay out of her way, for she was touched by God.
Touched by God.
She imagined a golden hand emanating from Master Washbrook's huge English Bible and resting on her, marking her as different.
Please, God, let the new mistress be kind.
Let there be one person here she could look at without the dread rising inside her. Perhaps the mistress would have the power to still her hate, take away her fear.

Before reaching the porch, she slowed her gait to avoid awakening the dogs. Stealing inside, she found a jug for the flowers. There was enough water in the bucket to spare her another trip to the creek. As she arranged the purple and gold blooms, she decided that even though they were weeds, they were pretty in their way, brightening the gloomy house. Maybe when the mistress saw them, she would smile, knowing someone had thought to pick her flowers. Plucking one of the purple spiky flowers from the bouquet, Adele laid it like an offering in the center of the brand-new bed.

She jumped and swallowed a scream when the dogs started barking. Edging to the window, she saw them leaping down the path to the river. Her heartbeat quickened. That meant Master Washbrook and his son had returned with the English lady. She took a deep breath, decided this was the moment to be bold. In truth, she couldn't stop herself from rushing out the door and creeping toward the river. She held back, peering from behind bushes. Through the autumn leaves, she caught glimpses of the Irishmen walking to the dock. Finn held his straw hat in his hands. Patrick was clothed again, but his wet hair gave him the look of a water rat.

She saw James helping the young woman out of the boat. When he stepped away, providing Adele with a clear view of her, she forgot to breathe. The lady wore a green gown embroidered with flowers. Though it was October, she came dressed like spring, as beautiful as her name. The sun shone on her hair, which was the same color as Madame Desvarieux's mahogany dressing table. She was so lovely, she seemed to give off light, like the fireflies Maman had called
les belles.
As the Irishmen gathered at the dock, the lady smiled at them, hands outstretched like the Madonna. Adele could find no arrogance in her face, only curiosity. Something caught in Adele's throat. Forgetting her fear, she walked forward to greet her new mistress.

T
HE DAYS SLID PAST
in a happy blur. The pile of skins in the attic grew so high, it touched the ceiling. Gabriel stitched her a cloak of fox fur that kept her warm even in bitter weather, when the wind blew straight in from the Atlantic and she had to break the ice on the creek with a hatchet to get water. With snowflakes nestled in her hair and fur cloak, she looked like the Snow Queen, or so Gabriel said when he teased her. Sometimes they danced across the bare wooden floor, even though they had no music except the wind howling down the chimney.

"How do you keep track of the days?" she asked him one morning when they walked hand in hand down the riverbank. "I don't know if it is already the New Year or still the old."

"The Indians mark the time by counting the full moons, the summers and winters," he said. "Time passes differently here."

"I feel it too." Their youth could stretch on forever, she decided, if they stopped counting the years. This was probably the closest a mere mortal could come to touching eternity. She squeezed his mittened hand. "Now I know why you don't want to go back there." She looked down the river. "Back to that world." The world of calendars, planters, tobacco, and money counters.

He kissed her. "What need have we to go back there? We want for nothing. Do we, Hannah?"

The only two things left to desire were a ring on her finger and a minister to sanctify their union. In the eyes of the world, they were living in sin. But she didn't tell him this—she couldn't. What power did the word
sin
have on this dazzling white morning when the snow glittered like a crop of diamonds?

"No," she told him softly. "We lack nothing." She could walk the forest in a fur cloak like some highborn lady. Meat on her table every night, the love of an adoring man. She wouldn't trade places with any woman alive. Banham's daughters would be married off to planters of their father's choosing. Mrs. Gardiner would continue bedding her husband's friends until her beauty was gone.
But you, Hannah Powers, are a free woman, your own mistress.

***

The days grew longer and the snow melted, leaving the earth springy and damp. Tiny white and yellow flowers carpeted the forest floor. The land claimed her and left its mark on her, as it had done with Gabriel. Soon all vestiges of her old life would be worn away. One morning she opened her trunk to take out her old Sunday dress of mustard-colored wool with the forest-green stomacher. Gabriel had never seen her in her good dress. But it was laced with moth holes. In a fit of disgust, she threw it in the midden heap. Soon she would have to dress in buckskin, as the Indian women did. An Englishwoman no longer, she would clothe herself in deerhide and let the sun burn her skin. When the weather grew warmer, she would go barefoot. Her foot soles would toughen into leather.

***

Hannah spread goat manure in the garden and hoed it into the soil. She planted the seeds Gabriel had saved in autumn. In a ring around the garden, pear and apple trees bloomed. Cherry trees blossomed in a pink cloud. Soon they were eating salads of dandelion and violet leaves. Not long after, the strawberries ripened. Hannah picked the first lettuce and tender peapods. The river filled with trout, which she fried in fresh butter.

"This feast never ends," she told Gabriel, thinking sadly of the plantation folk, who spent these lovely days working from dawn to sunset just to keep the tobacco alive. Gabriel had told her what a labor it had been. Each day during the growing season they had to strip off the beetles that could destroy the entire plant.

Summer came in waves of shimmering heat, far more ferocious than winter's cold. Mosquitoes rose in clouds on the riverbank, their bites peppering her skin like a rash. Gabriel taught her to rub bear grease on her skin to keep them off. They put the furs away for the warm months. Mosquitoes whined through the night while they slept with the window wide open.

Cherries ripened, redder than any apple. She developed a bottomless craving for them, devouring fistfuls of the sweet fruit even though she knew she should be making preserves for the coming winter. She gorged on cherries until she was half sick.

***

Cherry-red, cherry-red, like a slut's own bed.
May chanted the hateful words before slapping Hannah hard across her face. She grabbed her by the shoulders. "Will you
look
at me, you dolt?" May wore her wedding dress, but it was soiled and torn, hanging from her tall frame like a beggar's rags.

"Hannah!" Gabriel shook her awake. "Hannah, why do you weep? It was just a dream." He cradled her against him, stroking her hair, lulling her back to sleep.

In the morning, she awoke fuzzy-headed and faint. After getting dressed, she made the fire, cooked the corn mush. Gabriel brought in the goat's milk. When she took her first spoonful, the milk curdled on her tongue. Rushing out the door, she spewed over the porch railing.

"Hannah." Gabriel held her around the waist until she had stopped. "What is it?"

"Nothing." She wiped her mouth.

"Stay out of the sun today. Mayhap you will be better by nightfall."

When he left to go fishing, she sat on the porch with her head in her hands. She felt so weak, her stomach twisted in a knot. Was it the flux? she wondered. The flux that had killed Gabriel's father?

A while later, she felt well enough to brew a decoction of bruised mint leaves, which settled her stomach. As the day progressed, she found she could work again, as long as she stayed out of the sun during the hottest part of the day. The sickness visited her only in early morning. The taste of food, however, changed in her mouth. She grew ill at the sight and smell of raw meat. She could no longer stomach goat's milk.

With her one good dress eaten by moths, she wished she had wool to spin so that she could weave cloth for a new one. She had seen an old loom in the tobacco shed. One day, she sat at May's spinning wheel, gave it a turn. The whirling spokes sent her into a trance. May was the better spinster. She could spin as much in a day as Hannah could in three. May didn't cry as Hannah did now. She never had nightmares that left her weeping and wretched.

***

"You were troubled by your dreams again," Gabriel said in the morning, lying beside her. "Your body does change. You think I don't notice?" He pulled down the sheet, baring her flesh.

Hannah flushed. Her body had ripened like the harvest; her breasts were full and heavy. Gabriel traced her nipples, which had darkened from pale pink to brown. He stroked the faint line that ran from her navel to her quim. He kept touching her until she raised herself on her elbows and looked at her body, seeing it through his eyes. Though she had always been scrawny as a boy, she was turning into a woman at last, her body growing nearly as lush and abundant as her sister's had been. Rolling over on her belly, she cried.

"But why?" Gabriel stroked her back with a gentleness that undid her.

She wrapped her arms around his neck.

"You are not ill," he said. "You know that, Hannah." He looked into her eyes until she nodded. "You know what it is." Taking her hand, he unclenched her fingers one by one, then laid her flat palm on her belly.

Hannah shut her eyes. "I am afraid."

"Why? You are a physician's daughter, not some silly ignorant girl."

It killed my sister.
She held her tongue.

"You are healthy and strong. You thrive in this place. Our child will thrive, too. I promise." Gabriel rocked her in his arms while the weeping racked her body.

***

The weather grew crisp and the leaves turned color. It was time, Gabriel told her, that he went to trade his furs for supplies. The sugar was gone, and they were nearly out of salt to preserve meat for winter.

"The big ship will be coming in," he said, tying the furs in bundles with rope made from their own hemp. "The pelts, I think, will fetch a good price. Enough to bring home sugar, salt, and nails. And maybe a surprise or two." He kissed her forehead.

"How long will you be gone?" The inside of her mouth tasted like sour goat's milk.

"Not long. A few nights, a week at most."

"A week?" she echoed. "But you are only going to Banham's Landing, are you not?"

"No, Hannah. Not Banham's Landing. I will have nothing to do with them. I am going to Anne Arundel Town."

"Let me come with you."

"Hannah, there is no room in the canoe for you and all the furs. And you know it is not safe for you to make such a journey in your condition."

"You think I am safe left here alone?" Her heart raced.

"Safer here than anywhere else. The dogs guard the place. I will leave you with my father's musket. And my knife." He unbuckled his belt with the sheathed knife and handed it to her. "You know how to use a blade, Hannah. Woe betide the fool who crosses your path."

How could he make light of this? "I wish I could go with you." She touched his face. "In Anne Arundel Town we could finally be married."

"You forget the banns." Pulling her against him, he stroked her hair as he always did when he wanted to soothe her.