by Karen White
I retrieved Stuart’s gift from under my bed, then went searching for him, half expecting that he had already left without saying goodbye. I found him in the library, facing the window. He turned as I entered, looking handsome in his uniform. His face remained blank as he regarded me, but his eyes brightened.
I stepped toward him. “Merry Christmas.” I handed him the barely wrapped present.
He took it, but instead of opening it, he laid it on the desk. Reaching into his coat, he pulled out a tiny brown parcel and handed it to me. “You go first.”
I sat down on the sofa and pulled open the paper. A gold filigree chain lay inside. I held it up, the intricate work reflecting the light in the room. “It’s exquisite.” Slowly, I lowered the necklace down on the paper. “But I don’t know if I can accept it.”
“I apologize if it seems too forward, Laura, but I wanted you to have it—especially now, before I leave.”
I looked him in the eye. “Why?”
“You seem so reluctant to take anything of ours, or to make your mark on us. You want to vanish from our memories as soon as your back is turned. Perhaps this necklace will make you think of me when you are gone, and remember me.”
I fingered the chain, the metal cold to the touch. “I won’t need a necklace to remember you.” I swallowed, forcing myself to keep my voice steady. “I’ll never forget you.”
He turned suddenly to face the window, his back to me, and rubbed his hands through his hair, the static electricity making it wild. “You are speaking as if you are already gone.”
“No. I have a few months yet, I think. I just thought it was only fair to let everyone know that I won’t be here indefinitely.”
He walked to me and took the necklace from my fingers. Standing behind me, he placed the gold chain over my neck and fastened the clasp. I closed my eyes to better feel the nearness of him and the accidental touch of his fingers. My head turned toward him, my cheek brushing his hand. Slowly, his hands dropped to my shoulders, then deserted me completely.
Shaken, I stood and stepped away. “It’s your turn.” I indicated the package on the desk.
He untied the ribbon and held up the gray wool socks to examine them. “They are not even square,” he said, referring to my first few failed attempts at knitting socks.
“If you’re going to be ungrateful about it, you can just give them back.” I stepped forward to grab them out of his hands.
“No, Laura, they are perfect. And thank you. I shall definitely be needing these.” He rolled the socks into a ball, examining them as if they were a rare jewel. “I have been told that Sherman’s amassing troops in Chattanooga, making preparations for a huge campaign. Like striking south into Georgia.”
I focused on the buttons on his coat. “Just keep your family safe.”
He grabbed both of my shoulders in a tight grip. He clenched his jaw, and for the first time, I was aware of his sheer strength as his fingers dug into my flesh. “What about me, Laura? Do you care what happens to me?”
“Oh, Stuart.” I touched his cheek. “I care more than you know, more than I want to.”
His voice shook as he spoke. “I knew it the minute I saw you here, when you fainted on the front lawn. You belong here—with us. With me.” His kiss was hard, brutal, and I tasted blood in my mouth. It was as if by sealing his words, it would make them true.
I pulled away, my tongue running against my cut lip.
He released his grip, but his strength of will kept me standing. His voice was very low, coming from between clenched teeth. “When all this madness is over, I will come back for you. Wherever you are, I will find you, and you will tell me the truth.”
He grabbed his hat off the desk and walked out of the room, taking my heart with him and leaving the socks I had given him resting on a chair.
I walked out into the hall and almost ran into the black-clad Pamela. Her eyes blazed as she looked at me. I had no idea if she had overheard my conversation with Stuart, and I didn’t care. I walked past her without speaking to find Julia. I was desperately in need of companionship.
I found Julia in the dining room, a large basket resting in the middle of the table, its contents spilled out on the polished mahogany surface. She looked up as I entered.
“It was surely an act of Providence that my herb basket was not in the kitchen the night of the fire.” She picked up a jar to examine it and then put it back on the table. “I had wanted it nearby in case Willie or Robbie needed something in the night.” Her voice caught, but she averted her head, hiding her eyes.
“Stuart’s leaving now.”
“I know. He already said goodbye to the children and me. He does not like long goodbyes, preferring to ride off on his own. Stubborn man,” she said, almost as an afterthought.
I pulled out a chair and sat down next to her. “What are you doing—anything I can help you with?”
“There will be—there is so much to do. Stuart said he had mentioned it to you, that we are going to have to take refuge in Valdosta.”
“Yes. He mentioned it. For the record, I think it’s a very good idea.”
She went back to perusing the contents of her basket, continuing to arrange jars, bottles, and pieces of dried herbs back in the basket. “I cannot decide if you are a coward or just plain stubborn.”
“What do you mean?”
She placed her hands neatly in her lap and looked at me, her chin tucked slightly, as if preparing to give a scolding. “Laura, life is never easy—especially for us women. We are the ones left behind to pick up the pieces, to make the men whole again or to comfort our children when they ask for their fathers.” She lifted a stray piece of hair off her forehead and attempted to tuck it into her bun. “But when life gives us something and our heart tells us it is something good, we need to grab it with all our strength, regardless of what our head is telling us. What is a life without risk? If the seeds in my garden did not risk the cold winter snow, we would never see their glorious blooms in the spring. Stuart loves you, Laura, more than he has ever loved anyone before, I suspect. Open your heart to him. It could erase all those shadows in your eyes.”
I felt foolish as the tears started to flow. I wiped at them impatiently. “Julia, you’re the one who just lost a baby. I should be comforting you, not the other way around.”
She grabbed my hand as if to emphasize her point. “We have all lost something, Laura, and giving comfort is just as good as receiving it.” She squeezed my hand before letting go, the warmth in her eyes genuine.
Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out something I immediately recognized, something that made my heart lurch at the sight. I reached for the small stuffed giraffe, its one eye missing, its fur matted and rubbed off in spots. Annie’s giraffe.
I bent my head into its fur, sniffing the musty toy, any scent of the little girl it had once belonged to long gone.
Gently, she said, “I thought you would have guessed the truth. Did you not have any suspicions? She looks so much like you, you know.”
I shook my head. “No. I guess I believed that if you had known anything about my missing daughter, you would have told me. I trusted you like a sister, Julia. I would never have expected you to deceive me. I understand why—I do. And I know eventually I will forgive you. But there’s still a lot of hurt and anger.”
“I know,” she said softly. She put a hand on my forehead. “You are looking a bit pale. Are you feeling all right?”
I had been nursing a throbbing headache all day, and since my confrontation with Stuart, it had grown progressively worse. “I’ve just got this dreadful headache. I think I’ll go lie down.”
“Let me make you a soothing tea and I will send it up to you.”
“Thank you, Julia.” I stood to leave, clutching Annie’s giraffe.
Julia held me back. “Stuart’s no fool, Laura. And he can b
e a very determined man once he sets his eyes upon something he wants.”
“He didn’t get you—he let William take you away from him.”
She flushed slightly. “So you know the story. But, no, I do not think Stuart ever really wanted me. We would have had a happy marriage—a marriage between friends. But you and Stuart have something else. Something many of us live a lifetime without ever experiencing.”
I shook my head, feeling the blood rush through my skull. “I can’t think about it right now, Julia. All I really want to do is go home. And I can’t do that and have Stuart, too.”
She looked at me, her eyes wide. “Where is home, Laura?”
I gave her a wry grin. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. But it’s closer than you would think.” I rubbed my fingers on my temples to soothe the incessant pounding. “My head is just killing me,” I said, wishing desperately for some aspirin.
She nodded and let me go. “I will send that tea up in just a bit.”
I climbed the stairs and heard quiet voices as I passed Sarah and Willie’s room, but resisted the impulse to peek in.
I was sitting at the dressing table and pulling the pins out of my hair when someone tapped on the door. Sukie entered, holding the cup of tea.
“Miz Julia said for you to drink this.”
“Thank you, Sukie,” I said, warming my hands on the china cup and smelling deeply of the rich aroma.
She left, and I moved to the bed with my cup, sipping it and enjoying it in a rare moment of leisure. The throbbing at my temples soon began to dissipate and my eyelids grew heavy. I pulled back the covers and lay down.
Vivid dreams hurled themselves at me, full of color and overblown, with monsters in the dark lurking around every corner. I heard babies crying amid the overwhelming smell of gardenias. I felt the wetness on my cheeks but could not move my arms to wipe them away. Michael emerged from cold darkness and bent to kiss me goodbye, his brittle lips icy against mine. Great balls of smoke hovered around me, twisting their way around my body and between my limbs, obscuring my vision until Stuart emerged, holding his drawn saber. The wrenching pain in my gut as he stabbed me finally woke me. But the pain was still there. I rolled out of bed and reached my washbasin just in time to vomit. I collapsed on the floor, still retching and sure that I would die from the pain. I tried calling out for Sukie or Julia, but no one heard me. The last thing I remembered was calling feebly for Stuart as I finally succumbed to blissful unconsciousness.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Evil is unspectacular and always human,
And shares our bed and eats at our own table.
—W. H. AUDEN
I knew I was going to die. I lay on the floor, unable to move and urgently wishing for death. I stared at the dust balls under the bed and smelled the musty rug beneath my cheek and made more feeble attempts to call for help. I threw up again and barely had the energy to turn my head. Eventually, I slipped into unconsciousness once more.
A cool washcloth stroked my forehead, and I turned a bleary gaze to the figure hovering at the side of my bed. Tiny droplets of water tickled down my face as the washcloth was squeezed over my mouth. My cracked lips opened gratefully as I accepted the nourishment.
I tensed at Julia’s voice. “Laura? I am here. I will take care of you.”
I vaguely remembered the tea that she had sent up to me and her basket of secrets on the dining room table. Flinching from her touch and using what remaining strength I had left, I pushed at her hand. My arm fell boneless back to the bed.
“Go away,” I croaked through parched lips.
A dark form appeared next to Julia and I saw black hands take the washcloth and dip it in the washbasin. Julia disappeared from the side of the bed and I heard Sukie’s voice, speaking in a strange tongue I had never heard before. Guttural clacking, oddly soothing, reverberated throughout the room and in my head. She opened the pouch around her neck, extracted something from it, and made sprinkling motions over my head. I recalled, in my semiconscious state of delirium, that it had been Sukie who had brought the tea. I tried to move away and was startled to find myself paralyzed. I opened my mouth to scream, my lips moving with soundless words. I wanted Stuart, but my lips wouldn’t form his name.
“Here, drink this. This should help your stomach.” Pamela’s face hovered within my short field of vision. The wrenching pain in my abdomen had never ceased, the agony knifing through me constantly. I felt her cold fingers on the back of my neck as she held up my head and opened my mouth. I felt the tepid liquid slip through my lips and spill down my chin.
With as much care as one tending a newborn, she wiped up the spill with a clean cloth, shaking her head and murmuring, “There, there, do not worry. This will all be over soon.”
I remembered seeing Julia in her kitchen, making medicines and telling me she had learned everything she knew from her mother. I knew Pamela had the power to make me better, and I clung to the slim glimmer of hope and opened my mouth again for more of her healing tea.
She pulled up the sleeve of my nightgown, exposing the crescent-shaped birthmark. Her fingers tightened on my arm before she slid the sleeve down again. Her breath brushed my cheek, her face hovering only inches above my own. Her words came to me in an urgent whisper. “Who is Michael, Laura? You keep calling out his name, telling him you are a traveler. What does that mean?”
I tried again to speak, but only guttural noises came from my throat.
“Do not fret yourself, now. We can discuss this when you are better. Let me make you some more tea.”
I don’t know how long I lay in that bed, moving in and out of consciousness, unaware of what I was saying and to whom I was saying it. I was unable to keep anything down except for Pamela’s tea. But the pain never left me, and I knew that I was going to die.
A deep voice at the side of the bed brought me out of a deep slumber. “Stuart,” I croaked, but was dismayed when I recognized Dr. Watkins’s voice.
He lifted my wrist and held it gently. I felt almost disembodied in my complacency, and I lay limp as the doctor finished his examination.
“Laura, can you answer some questions for me?”
I could hear him quite clearly, but wasn’t sure if I could answer him. I nodded.
“Do you remember if you ate anything unusual—something that only you ate?”
I nodded. A dark shape stood beside the doctor, but I couldn’t see the face clearly.
“Can you tell me what it was?”
He bent his ear close to my mouth and I tried speaking, my voice raspy. “Tea. From Julia. Sukie . . . brought . . . it.”
The shape next to the doctor seemed to materialize closer to me, and I recognized Sukie’s voice as she spoke. “No, Doctor. Miz Pamela give me the tea and I brung it up like she ask.”
Slow trickles of realization eased their way down my spine.
The doctor straightened and turned to Sukie. “What was in that tea? And has she had any more of it?”
Sukie’s agitated voice replied, “I don’ make the tea so I don’ know. And Miz Pamela’s been fixin’ some of her healing teas to make her better. But nothin’s workin’.” She wrung her hands, the movement making my stomach roil. “I try to warn her, I did. I put my magic pouch in her room. There be an evil power here, an’ I can’t fight it.”
A fit of uncontrolled trembling possessed my limbs. With my last ounce of energy, I forced out the word, “Stuart.”
The doctor’s cool hand rested on my forehead. “Are you calling for Stuart?”
I nodded.
“I am going to get Zeke. He might be the only person who can help you.”
He disappeared from the side of my bed, his voice sounding dim. “Sukie, stay with her. Do not let anybody else near her.”
Sukie’s warm hands brushed my face, her rhythmic chantings once again soothing me into a de
ep, dark sleep. I don’t know how long I slept, hovering through life, watching the sun’s pattern glow and fade on the floral wallpaper. Sukie bathed me and changed my nightgown, and then I slept again.
I opened my eyes, the yellow flame from my bedside lamp creating a hole in the darkness. Voices and heavy footsteps sounded on the stairs outside my room and then my door was flung open.
“Laura?”
Stuart. I wanted to cry from sheer relief, but I was so dehydrated that nothing came out. With all my strength I lifted my hand to him. He grabbed it and squeezed it tightly, his warm breath burning my cheek as he leaned closer. “I will not let you die, Laura. I will not. We are bringing you to Zeke’s. Can you move at all?”
I struggled to move my limbs but succeeded only in breaking out in beads of sweat.
“I will carry you.”
He spoke to another person, but I couldn’t make out the face in the shadows.
Strong arms lifted me off the mattress while someone else tucked blankets around my body. I turned my head to see Sukie holding the lamp, its flame creating hollows of her eyes as she stared at me. My head collapsed onto the scratchy wool of Stuart’s jacket.
The flickering light from the lamp illuminated our way down the steps. I closed my eyes as dizziness assailed me, and I said a quick and fervent prayer that I wouldn’t throw up on Stuart.
Biting air hit me as the door opened but I breathed it in greedily, glad to be rid of the fetid smell of the sickroom. A soft whinnying forced my eyes open. “No,” I croaked.
Despite the grimness of his face, I saw his mouth soften slightly in a smile. “Laura, you and Endy are friends now, remember? He is going to take you to Zeke’s as fast as possible.”
I nodded, too weak to say any more.
He handed me over to another pair of arms, and I heard the quiet tones of Zeke’s voice.
“Is Pamela still here?”
Stuart answered, “Yes, Charles is with her, and we will decide what to do with her in the morning. Right now, I only want to get Laura away from here.”
