The Vanishing Point (41 page)

As winter dragged on, a transformation befell her, too. An enchantment of sorts. To pass the lonely hours, she read her father's books of anatomy. She opened the case of surgical instruments, polished them with a clean cloth.
In faith,
Gabriel had once told her,
I always suspected there was something uncommon about you. You have powers few possess.
Come spring, she would leave this house, but not to pass as a widow in the Quaker village. And she would be no man's servant.

The dead end of the year reached its darkest point before slowly turning back to light. As the days grew longer, Hannah took in the seams of Gabriel's clothes. She shortened his buckskin breeches and cut out a new pair of boots to match her feet. She took an inventory of the physick herbs in the pantry, then wrapped them in scraps of linen and tucked them in a leather pouch. The raspberry wine was now ready for drinking. It helped steady her nerves for what she would do next.

She took one of the deerskins off the bed and cut out the pattern for a great roomy satchel, with a strap that she could wear across her shoulder and breast. Working with scissors, needle, and thread, she altered the packsack so it would accommodate Daniel's growth.

"You have to be my brave boy," she told him. "Your father has gone far away. I think we shall not see him again."

Ruby was growing up, too, in her loneliness away from the other dogs. She slept at the foot of Hannah's bed.

The winter, though cold, was dry with little snow. When spring came, she was grateful that the drought made the ground firm for walking. She sharpened her scissors. Daniel and Ruby watched while she cut her hair, the long red locks falling in a pile
on the floor. She left them there. It hardly seemed worth the effort to keep the cabin tidy.

She had salt pork wrapped in cloth, a week's supply of corn-bread, a bag of walnuts. She had a tin bottle for carrying water, a sharp knife to carry in her belt. She had a cloak and a blanket to sleep in. She had the map, her pouch of herbs, her father's books and instruments, and she had two changes of clothing. She flattened her breasts with a winding cloth before stepping into Gabriel's buckskin breeches and shirt. Her shorn head made her neck feel bare. Daniel kept looking at her in amazement. She stroked his face and kissed him. May's voice echoed in her head.
If I were a boy, I would run away to sea. I wouldn't come home until Id seen the wide world.

D
URING THE LONG DRY SUMMER
, the Banham slaves spent hours dragging water from the river to the tobacco fields. In places, the creek ran dry, the bare rocks in its bed exposed to the sun like a crop of bones. The water smelled stagnant and foul. Mrs. Banham's little son fell ill with a raging fever and runny bowels. Within days, he was dead.

Weeks later, the black midday sky erupted. A jagged snake of lightning snapped down to strike a dead oak near the Washbrook Plantation. The parched forest burned, smoke billowing high as the wind blew the fire west. Orange flames licked the rotting timber of the manservants' shack, the tobacco barn, and finally the main house. The fire consumed the three crosses and the empty coffin on the riverbank.

When the wind changed direction, the fire spread east, heading toward the Banhams'. Every man, woman, and child was occupied digging fire ditches and passing buckets of water. Young Richard blindfolded the panicked horses. Smoke blackened the ivory faces of the Banham daughters as they watched their dowries go up in flames along with their home. The English spinet, the cherrywood tea table, and their gowns trimmed with Flemish lace all turned to ash.

T
HAT AUTUMN DAY
, the sky was blinding blue, trees shimmering with color, the leaves as red as her sister's hair. The bitter wind chilled her to the marrow, even though her forehead burned. She clutched her bundle of clothes against her breasts, hot and swollen with useless milk, as she staggered away from the house, his raised voice. She laughed under her breath so she wouldn't cry. Adele took her elbow, urging her on. The girl's spine drooped under the weight of her satchel stuffed with blankets, cooking gear, and provisions.

"I am now a thief," May confided. "I have stolen his father's sovereigns." She had snatched the pouch of heavy coins from their hiding place under the floorboard, then concealed them beneath her skirts. With each step, their cold weight slapped her belly, still distended from childbirth.

Adele just looked at her, no doubt wondering whether she spoke the truth. May had been raving, she knew she had, ever since the baby turned cold and blue in her arms and Gabriel took it away.

"Come." Adele tried to hurry her along. "We must find a boat for to go downriver."

May dug her heels into the ground and burst into tears. "Not the river, Adele. No."

He had ordered her to be gone or he would have her pun
ished for adultery, have her dragged behind his father's boat like the woman she had seen when she first stepped ashore in Anne Arundel Town. His eyes so full of hate, he had looked as though he could kill her with his own hands. Hold her head underwater until she drowned. The manservants said he had gone mad. After she had exploded at him, and he at her, the men had scattered and fled.

May tottered on her feet, but Adele caught her around the waist. Eyes wide with terror, the girl seemed determined to put as much distance as possible between them and Gabriel. They followed the path behind the servants' shacks.

"We will go to the creek," Adele said. "Walk along the creek until we come to the neighbors'."

"No. I will not go there and endure their pity. Never." For an awful moment, May imagined Paul Banham sending her back to her husband. "I have heard there is a track through the forest. We must flee north. Far away from here. To Philadelphia, if we can." She clung to Adele's arm. "If I perish along the way, you must go on without me. I will give you the sovereigns."

"You must not say such things."

The girl looked so frightened that May tried desperately to hold her torn body together and keep walking. Somehow they managed to cross the creek.
Escape evil by crossing water.
That was one of Joan's old superstitions.
Flowing water stops the devil in his tracks.

Adele helped her clamber up the steep bank on the other side and into the forest of massive trees on which Gabriel had carved his name. By the letter of the law, May knew that she was his property, just as the trees were. He had every legal right to punish her as he saw fit.
I was sold to him, just as you were sold to his father,
she wanted to tell Adele.
Parceled off to a stranger for a heap of tobacco.

"Watch yourself," Adele said as May stumbled blindly along. "We know not where his traps are."

Out of breath, May had to sit down. Adele gave her a piece of cornbread.

"You must eat to keep your strength."

"Why are you so good to me?" May asked. Only this girl had stayed with her through everything, after seeing her at her worst.

"Come. We must go on." Adele cast an anxious look back in the direction of the house.

They had covered another quarter-mile when Adele came to a halt, then pushed her body in front of May's.

"
Mon Dieu!
"

Adele tried to block her view, but it was already too late. The sight of the body in Gabriel's bear trap braced May like a dose of powerful physick. Her fever cooled and her vision cleared. She let her bundle of clothes drop to the ground, then crouched beside the dead girl and gingerly turned her over. Her gray face was frozen in a grotesque smile. Her fist clenched a knife. May reckoned that the girl had used the knife to try to free herself from the trap, but had lacked the strength to force the jaws apart. When had this happened? While she and Gabriel had been cursing each other? If it had been quiet at the house, might someone have heard the girl's screams and been able to save her? The smell was too much. May drew the edge of her cloak over her nose.

Adele sank down beside her. "Who is she?"

"Peter's girl." May let out her breath. "From the Banhams'. It looks like she did run away." She had seen the girl once, the previous autumn, when they had gone down to Banham's Landing with their tobacco barrels. Peter had confided about his sweetheart to Finn, then Finn had told May.

A shallow knife wound marked the girl's breast. Before she had fled, someone had stabbed her. Had she been ravaged by one of the men at the Banham Plantation? Or had Mrs. Banham, in a fit of jealousy, attacked the girl for catching her husband's eye? May had heard that Mrs. Banham was touched by madness. Perhaps the girl had stolen through the forest to beg asylum from the Washbrooks.

The decent thing would be to return and tell the news. But Peter had vanished along with the others. When May envisioned
facing Gabriel, her strength ebbed with the blood that still leaked from her womb. If she wanted to keep herself alive, she couldn't afford to expend an ounce of effort or sentiment on this dead girl.

"May the Lord preserve us," she said. "Turn her over, Adele." She could no longer bear the sight of that ghastly face.

When the body was lying face-down, May could breathe again, pretend the girl wasn't dead but only sleeping. Her thick chestnut hair shone in the sunlight.

"Her hair." Adele shivered. "It is like yours."

An ugly laugh erupted from May's throat as the awful inspiration visited her. It was the devil moving through her, her wicked need to punish him. And her fear of him. He could still come after her, bring her to justice. The law was on his side. She reminded herself that she had stolen from him, too.

"Let us make her more like me."

Wrenching off her wedding band, she tried to force it on the corpse's swollen finger. She had to use her spittle before she could ease the ring over the knuckle. Shutting her ears to Adele's protests, she took the knife and carved on the smooth beech trunk near the dead girl's head.
Murderer.
Then she returned the knife to the dead fist.

Adele grabbed her shoulders. "How can you do this?"

A noise came out of May, halfway between a laugh and a moan. "He wanted me dead. Well, I've given him his wish." Drained from the effort of carving the letters, she collapsed against the beech trunk. "Do you not understand, Adele? I am that boy's wife." She breathed fast, praying that she wouldn't faint. "I own nothing, not even my clothes."

Reaching for the bundle of dresses, she untied the sacking and dumped them beside the body. The sun glanced off her embroidered green wedding gown. "Let him have it all," she panted. "You know I am not able to walk very fast or very far. If he comes after me, I am finished. But this way, he never will." She burst out laughing, but that hurt her and she had to clutch her belly. She thought of the tiny wrinkled infant, whom she had named after the sister she would never see again. Unbaptized, the baby would wander forever in limbo, as doomed and hopeless as her mother. Like the weakest of women, she began to weep. "There is nothing left of me, Adele."

"We must keep walking." Adele wrapped May's arm around her shoulder and hoisted her to her feet. The forest, the sunlight, the dead girl, the pile of discarded clothes, and the pain blurred together as Adele led her away. High in the trees, birds sang. May's soul floated out ahead of her broken body.

***

Adele said an angel guided them through the forest. They were blessed with mild days and nights. Huddled together in Adele's blankets, they slept on piles of dead leaves. After their food ran out and snow began to fall, an Indian woman found them and took them to her village. May's memory of that time was a haze of the weight of deerskins over her fevered body and the bitter willow-bark brew the woman gave her. She dreamt of comets tracing brilliant paths across the heavens. Her lifelong dream had finally come true. Fatherless, husbandless, utterly masterless, she was her own woman. She was as free as the tinker she had kissed at the village dance all those years ago. She could wander the wilderness like an explorer, blazing her own trail. When she tried to raise herself from the deerskin, Adele and the Indian woman held her down and gave her more of the brew. Adele never seemed to leave her side. Sometimes she thought it was only that girl's devotion that rooted her to this world.

Something was rising in Adele. The Indian woman, whose language May could not speak, saw it, too—May could read the knowledge on her face. Adele wasn't a girl anymore. A light shone in her eyes. Her skin gave off a dark radiance. It was her mother's magic, May thought. Adele was coming into her powers.

When May could sit up without fainting, she made herself useful stitching buckskin with a bone needle and thread made from bear gut. The lifeblood flowed inside her once more. She
helped the Indian woman make corncakes, which they cooked on hot stones. In spring, before she and Adele continued on their way, May gave the woman her tortoiseshell hair clasp and a gold sovereign. Adele gave her the white cockerel feather from the pouch she wore around her neck. A white feather for blessing and protection. Then they set off through the forest, following the way Adele insisted was north, until they reached Philadelphia.

To Mrs. Hannah Powers

Hare Wood Green

Gloucestershire

England

June 1691

My dearest Hannah,

I pray to God that this Letter reach your Hands before you set sail to America. Sister, I must tell you the Impossible, namely that my Marriage to Gabriel Washbrook was the worst Match anyone could have made. In Faith, I own that I am to blame for my own Fate. My Wantonness did earn my Husband's Scorn and I have escaped his House like a Fugitive, allowing him to believe that I had perish'd in the Woods. My deepest Grief is that my Daughter, named Hannah after you, lived only Seven Days. I shall never cease mourning her.