by Julie Berry
Every shred of flesh in me trembles. They’re all staring at me.
The aldermen aren’t happy with Horace’s decision. Alderman Brown delays judgment, but his eyes never leave my face.
“Miss Finch,” he says, “why have you concealed your speech from us?”
Maria speaks up. “She hasn’t, sir,” she says. “I’ve only just been helping her practice her sounds. Until recently she couldn’t speak at all. Or rather, she didn’t know she could.”
Darrel gives Mother a hard look and speaks up. “Our mother forbade her,” he says, to shocked murmurs.
“Well, Miss Finch,” Alderman Brown says, “speak now, if you ever wish to.”
I feel you beside me, strengthening me.
I will speak, though my sounds are crude. I will use words long denied to me, with no apology for how corrupt they sound. My listeners will hear what they choose to hear.
XX.
Like the clanging of the bell, the truth crashes in upon me. At last I understand. He took away my voice to save me. And now, to save myself, I take it back. XXI.
You don’t touch me, but I feel your strength upholding me. “Lottie and I were friends,” I say.
I pause and look to see how they respond to my speech. “We would talk. When she vanishedh she was fifteen. I was fourteen.”
White-capped women nod their heads. They remember. “She told me she fanssied a boy. Wouldn’t say who. Talked of eloping.”
I wait for this scandalous news to settle. Eyes rove about, searching for suspects.
“First I thought she had elopedh. But no one else was missing. Maybe she’dh only run off.
“We used to meett by a willow tree near the river. So I snuck out and waited to see if she’dh come talk to me. I hid in the branches.
“She came. I wanted to ssurprise her. So I made no noise.
“She was closse. We both heardh footstepss. A man. I couldn’t see him well.
“The man attackedh Lottie. He chokedh her.”
I must stop. I feel light-headed. Pressed back by all those horrified eyes upon me, the pillory is a stay and a comfort.
Abijah Pratt is openly weeping now. To dig up the dead like this . . . I hesitate. Do I do right to continue?
XXII.
“I saw his hands. Not his face. He wore a hatt.
“He left her there and ran. I waitedh.
“I keptt thinking she might wake up.”
And I begin to cry. The memory is too vivid now. Goody Pruett waves a hanky in the air, and you bend down and retrieve it for me.
“I . . . climbedh down . . . and wentt to her. That’s when ssomeone . . .” I can feel the hands. “. . . attackedh me . . . and began to choke me, too.”
I feel my throat begin to close and my panic rise. I draw in a slow breath. And another. You press your hand on my shoulder.
“Ssomeone came and threw him down.
“My defender was Ezra Whiting.”
XXIII.
The square is buzzing. Only Goody Pruett’s eyes are surprised by nothing. They watch me steadily. She nods her head. Go on. Go on. I take a deep breath to race to the finish.
“Colonel Whiting pinned the man on the groundd. The man dared the colonel to kill him. Colonel Whiting wouldn’tt. He made the man sswear nott to harm me. Then the colonel said, he didn’t trusst him a lick. So he said, ‘I’m deadh. I’ll take the girl. Ssee you never come where I am.’ He said he’d take Lottie and make sure she was foundh in ssome other place.
“He picked up Lottie and dragged me away. We crossed the river and hiked to his cabin.
“The next day he took Lottie’s dress and gave it to me. He took Lottie’s body away that nightt and dropped it over the falls.”
X XIV.
Isn’t that the end? I see from their eyes they want more. They want to know what happened to me.
We were speaking of Lottie. Very well.
“For two years I livedh with him. I tried to esscape but he always caught me.”
I know what they’re thinking now.
But I have the platform. They will believe my voice. I look Alderman Brown in the eye.
“I sspoke truth when I said he never harmed my maiddenhoodh. He didn’t. He was tempted to, and he foughtt it. At last he couldn’t fightt, sso he cutt out my tongue and ssentt me back.”
Mothers clamp their hands over their mouths.
“He said he did it to protectt me. I thoughtt he was madd. But he knew the man who’d killed Lottie would remember me. I think he thoughtt by silencing me, he could save me.”
I swallow.
“He was rightt.”
X X V.
“But the arsenal!” Alderman Stevens calls out. “You knew of that—why didn’t you tell us?” “I didn’t,” I say. “Not until the homelanders came. One morning he hadd boxes and crates and barrels. He stowedd them in the cellar. I was . . . too sadd to notice much. But when I saw the village arm itsself, I understoodd. So I went to him and asked him to help at the battle. That is how he came there. Lucas didn’t know.”
Eunice Robinson looks visibly relieved. You are cleared from any taint. Never mind her or any of them noticing I saved the town.
“As for the other accusations,” I say, and I make no effort now to hide my anger, “they are falsse. I am a maidden sstill. I found Mr. Whiting, asleep and coldd and sick, in the forest. So I gott blankets to cover him, and I lay with him for warmth. As you ssaw, he didn’t know.”
“Indecent conduct,” Reverend Frye says. All eyes turn toward him, and he stops.
I point to Rupert Gillis. “How he ssaw us there, I don’t know,” I said, “but ssince I entered sschool, he has abusedd me with filthy words. He told me to come to his home at nightt. He says if I don’t, he’ll expel me from sschool.”
Gillis pretends indignation. I have never felt so powerful. “He says he likess a girl who can’t tell tales.”
Elizabeth Frye, the preacher’s red-haired daughter, raises her hand. “I will attest to that,” she says, in her spiderweb voice. “I have seen him embarrass Miss Finch, and I’ve received unwelcome attentions from him myself.”
Reverend Frye looks strangled himself, with surprise and then anger. Poor Elizabeth may face punishment tonight. But Rupert Gillis shrinks by about six inches, and the mothers of Roswell Station gather their schoolgirls close.
“But we still don’t know who killed Lottie Pratt,” Alderman Brown says, frowning. “You’re saying that someone among us is responsible for this?”
I step back. I feel so exposed, up here on this platform. Vulnerable to any attack. But I have come too far to crumble now.
“All I know,” I say, “is that the brown dress you held was not the dress Lottie Pratt wore when she diedd. That dress was dark blue with a triangle collar. I wore it for a year. When it . . .” I can censor my words here. “. . . tore, I ssewed it into a blankett, along with the dress I had on when I was taken, which was gray. Go look at the blankett you brought back, and you’ll see both colors of wool.
“That dress was never in Colonel Whiting’s housse, or I would have known,” I say. “It had no reason to be there. Unless . . .”
Oh . . .
Lord have mercy.
“Unless what?” Alderman Brown says.
I swallow once more. “Unless ssomeone from the ssearch party took it there. Ssomeone who hadd the dress all along.”
All eyes turn toward Abijah Pratt. His lower lip thrusts back and forth again.
“Ssomeone who has sstalkedd our house, since the battle at the gorge, when my protector diedd. Hasn’t he, Mother?”
My mother blanches with surprise, then nods her head. She paid attention at the trial, too.
“Lottie was afraidd of how her father would react if he knew she was ssweet on a boy,” I said. “I never knew how much reason she hadd.”
XXVI.
Abijah Pratt turns around suddenly, as if to run away, and collides with the human rock wall, Horace Bron, who lifts hi
m as easily as he would a child.Reverend Frye stands gripping Elizabeth’s arm, his mouth opening and closing like a catfish’s. Alderman Brown is watching me. I return his gaze. His eyes seem older now. His beard bends against his chest as he bows his head gravely, then looks up at me once more. He turns and fixes a sterner gaze upon Rupert Gillis, who swallows hard. Without a word, Alderman Brown turns and walks away, and the other aldermen follow. Horace Bron pushes Abijah Pratt after them, shackling his prisoner’s wrists with only his massive hand. Gillis watches them go, then retreats another way, and I wonder whether he’ll soon spend time in this pillory, or find a way to slip out of town tonight.
Goody Pruett’s dried-apple face beams at me. She raises her hands high and claps them in the air. Again and again, until a few other hands slowly pick up the applause. Leon Cartwright’s hands. Darrel’s.
Maria looks ready to burst with pride. I fear my knees will buckle beneath me and I’ll drop to the platform like a fallen dress.
My mother elbows her way forward. She looks up at me, then looks away.
Maria mounts the steps of the platform, holding the rail tight. “Come home with me, Judith,” she says. “Let me feed you and clean you up.”
Maria puts her arm through mine, and I remember the filth that’s caked all over my face and hands. I hesitate, and she grips my arm tight to her side.
“Reverend Frye.” Your voice startles me.
The preacher looks up at the platform as if dazed.
“Miss Finch and I will be at the church tomorrow morning, ready for you to marry us.”
Mother’s jaw drops. Darrel flings his hat into the air. Eunice Robinson pushes through the crowd toward her house, followed by her sisters. Maria’s dark eyes are full of laughter as she leads me down the stairs.
Now
I.
Maria insists I wear her china-blue wedding dress. She has trimmed and brushed and combed me, and braided plaits interwoven with dried flowers, just like she wore on her wedding day. She arranged a triangle of lace as my bridal cap and told me I look lovely.
For your sake I hope so.
Somehow I ate and bathed and slept and rose and dressed. I must have, for here I am now, ready to walk to my wedding.
II.
Maria goes inside for her shawl, and Leon speaks to me. It’s not easy for him. “Did Lottie suffer long, Miss Finch?”
“Oh,” I say. I look away.
He leans toward me, pleading with me to look at him. “I
swear to you, if I’d ever dreamed . . .”
Leon Cartwright. I feel awkward for Maria. Poor Lottie.
But to be her young beau, and then to have wondered what
happened, all these years, and grieve?
“Nott for very long, Mr. Cartwrightt.”
His eyes grow red. “I would have married her,” he says.
“We were both so young.”
I nod. Young love is not always forever. I know. Maria appears in the doorway, beaming at us. I watch
Leon gaze at his wife.
“Thank you for wishing me joy,” I tell Leon as Maria
draws near. He nods.
III.
We arrive at the church early. I don’t want to be led there by a parade of villagers, if any would care to come. I want to sit quietly and think. Maria holds my hands and chatters at me. The door opens. You come into the chapel, brushed and shaven and pressed.
Maria slips away, murmuring about something she forgot at home.
You sit beside me, gingerly, as though I might break if you touched me. You look at me. I look back into your beautiful bruised face, at the morning illuminating your green eyes. I can’t read them.
“What’ss the matter?” I ask, pulling back.
“Nothing,” you say. You take my hands and kiss my fingertips. Yet you look so serious that I begin to worry.
The empty church is silent and bright. There are only the two of us, breathing together. You trace your finger across my forehead, down my nose, and onto my lips. I watch your eyes as they follow your finger’s path along my skin.
Your words are a whisper. “Are you truly here? And truly mine?”
I hope my eyes are answer enough. Just in case, though, I catch your finger between my teeth, and bite.
Your laughter rings off the ceiling beams. Bruises can’t stop your eyes from flashing wickedly. “Run away west with me, Judith. Right now. Phantom’s outside. What do you say?” “All rightt,” I say. “We’re nott dressed for it, though.”
“True.” You pluck at your black coat, then finger my lace cap. “Since we’re here, we might as well get married.”
I shrug. “If you inssistt.”
You kiss my fingertips once more and return the bite. “I do insist.”
You offer me your arm and squeeze mine tight. We rise and walk up the same aisle that they dragged us down the day before.
Reverend Frye stumps his way up the aisle. Elizabeth follows, carrying his robes, and she smiles shyly at me. I hear a noise at the rear of the church. I turn to see the doors open. Darrel comes in, arm in arm with Goody Pruett. He waves his hat at me. Maria and Leon are back, too. They are all so dear to me now. This day swallows them up in love.
Reverend Frye keeps it brief.
And then you are mine.
IV.
Phantom pulls us home in the cart. Even she is braided and beribboned for the marriage. Fortunately she can drive us home without needing our help. Our attention is not on the reins. Will we stay here? Will we journey on? Today is not a day for answering such questions.
On the step of your home—our home—we find baskets of food and jars of preserves.
Trying to eat them is your mule.
And there is a box. A wooden trunk with finch branded on one side. It was my father’s.
Inside are sheets and towels and a quilt, all bearing my mother’s fine stitching. I caress the smooth, soft fabrics.
This box is full of words my mother can’t bring herself to say.
We drag the box inside, and lock the door.
Acknowledgments
A fount of blessings made All the Truth That’s In Me possible. I’m grateful to Vermont College of the Fine Arts for creating an atmosphere that fostered and demanded my best work. Sarah Aronson, Jill Santopolo, Gwenda Bond, and Rita Williams-Garcia’s early enthusiasm for this piece gave me much-needed hope. And Tim Wynne-Jones mentored the project from start to finish with his trademark generosity, wisdom and warmth. I love him.
Blessing spilled over beyond VCFA’s Montpelier campus. My agent, Alyssa Eisner Henkin, championed this project in all the right ways. My editor, Kendra Levin, took over where Tim left off, lovingly and astutely showing me what the novel yet lacked. She made our collaboration a delight. Her colleagues at Penguin Books for Young Readers linked arms and surrounded this project with support. Regina Hayes, Ken Wright, Janet Pascal, Vanessa Han, Eileen Savage, Kim Ryan, Jennifer Loja, Don Weisberg, the marketing team, and the sales force, thank you for your diligent efforts, and for your faith in Judith’s story.
Where public thanks are owed the most, I’m left unsure of how to offer them. There comes a time, when we write, if we’re lucky, when we recognize that grace involved itself in our work, and we are not entirely in charge of things. This was such a project, and I am such a debtor; I claim any faults as my own.
I try to write for the world, but in truth there’s just one reader I dearly hope to please. This book is for him. On some level every love story I write is my attempt to show the world what Phil means to me. Someday I pray I’ll get it right.
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