Midsummer Night

by Charlie N. Holmberg

  Saint-Jean’s Day—June 24th. So she’d blacked out only overnight. Had she been kidnapped? She remembered something about a horse ... Yves’s horse! It had reared at a peal of thunder, and Lucie had fallen ...

  “Into the bonfire,” she whispered. She examined the full skirts of her costume. They were a bit smudged, but there was nothing like soot or singe marks anywhere to be found.

  The man squatted down near the campfire across from her and began skinning the rabbit. By the looks of it, he’d done this a million times before. Way to embrace the ancient ways, thought Lucie.

  He set the skin aside, threw the gut sack into the bushes, and spitted the rabbit, holding it low over the coals until it started to sizzle. The aroma made Lucie’s mouth water and gut clench; wherever she was, she hadn’t eaten since Olivier’s poutine the night before. After propping up the carcass over the fire, Beaubien took another wooden box out of his pack and sprinkled some of the contents on the rabbit’s flesh. Sea salt, from the looks of it.

  Lucie looked at Nicolas for a long moment. “You’re not a docent?” she asked.

  “I am no Parisian professeur, I assure you. Before I came to New France, I was a farmer in Lorraine. Now I hunt and trade. I’ve bought a lot inside the settlement and am building a house as I can afford. But this life in the woods is mine for now.”

  New France. Settlement. Trapping and hunting for a living. Lucie’s mind was chasing itself in circles trying to figure out what was going on. “It sounds lonely,” she said lamely, trying to keep the conversation going.

  “It is, except for my men.” Nicolas indicated behind her. Lucie turned around and flinched. A tall First Nations man in full buckskins stood less than an arm’s length from her, and she hadn’t heard him at all. The man inclined his head slightly. Two others were coming down the hill just behind him.

  “Mebkis is my guide and translator. He speaks fluent French. He is teaching me Algonquian, but I confess it is easier to let him perform our negotiations for now. I’m lucky to have found him. There is my business partner, Jean-Claude Dufour.” Beaubien nodded at a heavy, slightly older man. “And that is Michel, my son.” A lanky teenager growing into his father’s image waved awkwardly. “Gentlemen, I present Madame Tremblay. And now you have the advantage of us, madame.” Steel glinted in the man’s gray eyes, and he raised his eyebrows.

  “I work ... I live ... in Québec City.” Lucie’s vision shimmered, and her knees went wobbly. She leaned her hands on the ground to steady herself. “I’m really struggling,” she said finally. “Can you give me a minute?”

  But Beaubien persisted. “How did you come to be here, well fed and without a scratch on you? Your slippers are not worn or dusty. Your frock is remarkably clean—and far too fine for everyday wear. You clearly come from money, yet your French is ... vulgar. It is as though you were dropped here from heaven.”

  Vulgar? Lucie fumed. She had a doctorate from McGill University. But the hunter was waiting for an answer.

  “I ... I can’t explain it.”

  This couldn’t be real. Had she been spirited away to the middle of the Laurentides forest? Had the museum contracted to film a reality television show—and somehow forgotten to inform her she was the star?

  Lucie stood, brushed past Mebkis, and climbed the small rise above the camp to get a better view. The foliage was too thick. Her ridiculous skirts were in the way; she wanted nothing more than to climb the pine tree next to her to get above the tree canopy. If she could only orient herself, she could find her way home.

  Failing that, she didn’t know what to do. She looked down at the men, who were conversing quietly next to the fire. Mebkis glanced at her and then shook his head. Dufour huffed a laugh and said something, of which “brazen” was the only word Lucie could make out. She stomped back down the hill. If they were talking about her, she had a right to know what they were saying.

  “Did you find what you were seeking?” Beaubien asked.

  “No, monsieur,” Lucie said. “I did not. Look. You claim you know these woods well. I will happily pay you to lead me to the city. I’m sure there are many people who are very worried about me.”

  That was a lie. No one at all would likely miss her until Monday, but she was confused and frustrated, and the sooner these men helped her home, the better. Despite what Beaubien had said about her cleanliness, her dress felt stale, and her mouth tasted like a rubbish heap. She wanted a bath and her toothbrush as soon as possible.

  “The city,” Beaubien repeated. “Québec settlement, you mean?”

  Lucie wanted to scream. Instead she took a deep breath. “Leave off with the jokes, okay? I’m tired of this.”

  Mebkis said something in Algonquian to Beaubien, who then looked at her and nodded slowly.

  “We shall escort you to the fort,” he said. “If you cannot admit how you came to be here, so be it. I will help you home. We will strike camp and then lead you where you want to go. But first we must eat.”

  Beaubien carved the rabbit and divided it five ways, which made for a meager meal. They rounded out breakfast with water and some flat biscuits Mebkis produced from his pack. The meat was tough and the biscuits were stale, but Lucie was glad to have both.

  After breaking camp, Beaubien was as good as his word. They followed a streambed, where the underbrush wasn’t quite as dense. A while later, a rushing sound grew in Lucie’s ears. They must be close to a river, which Lucie fervently hoped was the Saint-Laurent. Once they passed a last fringe of trees, she could suddenly see for miles—and got yet another shock.

  It looked like the entirety of Québec City had been photoshopped out of the otherwise familiar landscape. The Cap Diamant lay peaceful and pristine, surrounded by the mighty Saint-Laurent river. But almost everything indicating the presence of humans was gone. No office buildings, no highways, no Château Frontenac. Instead, a tiny log fort sat at the river’s edge. Smoke arose from several chimneys behind its wall.

  “What year is it?” Lucie gasped, looking at Beaubien.

  He frowned uneasily before replying, “Madame, to be sure, it is the year of our Lord 1640.”

  Lucie’s vision tunneled to black. She bent over and put her head between her knees to keep from hyperventilating. She couldn’t have gone back 380 years in time. She must be dreaming.

  But what a vivid dream it was. Gnats buzzed around her face, and the morning dew had wicked from the tall grass into the skirts of her dress, making them soggy and even heavier. Her feet were cold, and her leather slippers chafed at the heels. She could smell the wild bergamot that grew in clumps all around the edge of the hill on which they stood.

  “We don’t have time for this, Beaubien, not if we’re to meet our quota and finish the rest of our shipment before Le Moulin d’Or sets sail,” Dufour said. “Let’s take the damsel to the Ursulines and be done with her.”

  “That might be best,” Beaubien said. “My sister will know what to do. Perhaps the nuns have a remedy that can clear her addled mind.”

  “My mind isn’t addled,” Lucie protested. “I ...” How could she explain that she was from the future? “I need some privacy,” she finished lamely. Her cell phone was at the bottom of her bag of wool along with her wallet and car keys. “If you will excuse me.” She rolled her eyes at herself. She’d been with these men for less than an hour, and she was already starting to talk like them.

  She walked into the trees and leaned against a thick rhododendron bush. After making sure no one had followed her, she dug out her cell phone, which winked to life in her hands. No 4G, no Wi-Fi signal bars ... but she opened her email, anyway. Unavailable—as were the GPS and all her social media apps. She clicked on her photo reel; at least her pictures were all there. She had enough battery to last a while, but with no immediate sign of charging potential, it would be smart to power the phone down. She did so and shoved it deep into her bag.

  Sixteen forty. Impossible ... yet the things Beaubien had said suddenly made sense. Having a degree
in Canadian Studies and working at the New France Historical Museum, Lucie knew more than most about Québec’s history. This early, there would be almost no women in the colony other than a few nuns—the Ursulines, as Dufour had said. For these men to have come upon her must have been as great a shock as waking up to them had been for her. It was like a scene out of one of the fairy tales Lucie told to school groups.

  And none of the men had likely seen a woman in weeks, if not months. No wonder Michel’s and Dufour’s eyes had kept straying to her bodice.

  And something about Lucie’s attitude had already caused Dufour to label her “brazen.” Too direct and demanding; not deferential enough, probably.

  She had to be careful. While the French hadn’t matched the English Puritans’ zeal for witch hunting, there was no doubt that the fuchsia spandex bicycle shorts she wore under her petticoats, the zippers on her dress and bag, and especially her phone would raise serious questions. She had to muster her best acting skills and cultural knowledge and fit in until she could get to civilization and then—somehow—find a way back to the twenty-first century. And soon. She’d often daydreamed about living in a simpler time, but suddenly things like indoor plumbing and refrigeration seemed awfully attractive.

  “Be careful what you wish for,” she muttered as she returned to Beaubien and his men. “Thank you,” she said aloud to Beaubien. “I apologize for causing you delay. I would be forever grateful for your escort to the settlement, and I will find a way to repay you.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Dufour sneer, his eyes glued once again to her bodice. She suppressed a shudder. Getting away from these men became more urgent by the minute.

  Beaubien’s son stepped forward. “I would be honored to carry your luggage,” he offered.

  The dreamy look in his young eyes reminded Lucie of Olivier. Despite the fact that by seventeenth-century standards, she was old enough to be this teenager’s mother, it appeared Michel had a crush on her.

  Lucie considered giving him the spinning wheel case but remembered the zipper. She clutched it a little more tightly. “You are a true gentleman,” she said, and watched his cheeks flush at the compliment. “But, no, thank you. It isn’t heavy at all.”

  Hiking wasn’t Lucie’s favorite way to spend a day under the best of circumstances, but hiking through trail-free woods in a replica of a seventeenth-century gown was a special kind of torment. Her skirts, which kept snagging on bushes and weeds, were now covered with burrs. She’d swatted away hundreds of mosquitoes but had missed several others, judging by the bites on her arms and neck. Blisters had made their presence known on both feet, and a warm stickiness on the backs of her heels meant her shoes had chafed to bleeding. She’d given up being embarrassed at the sweat stains that were growing under her arms, hoping only that a thorough session at the dry cleaner’s would put her gown right again.

  She refused to complain and tried to keep her pace up, but it was obvious she was slowing down the band of experienced—and more lightly clad—trappers. All three of the Frenchmen glanced back at her frequently—Beaubien, concerned; Michel, lovestruck; and Dufour, either annoyed or lecherous, or somehow, both. Ever silent, Mebkis followed Lucie, frequently releasing her dress and bag from the undergrowth that seemed to clutch at her.

  At one point, Michel fell back to walk by her side. “You will like my Tante Anne,” he said. “She entered the order of the Ursulines when she was widowed. She is very wise, and I am sure she will find a way to help you.”

  “Tell me about her,” Lucie said. “When did you move to New France?”

  “We arrived last summer on Saint-Junian’s Day. Nine years ago, plague struck our village in Lorraine. Most everyone died, my mother and sisters and grandparents among them. My Tante Anne’s husband and children died as well. Of our family, only my father and aunt and I survived.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Lucie whispered, calculating. Yes, plague had decimated France in 1631. “What a tragedy.”

  Michel nodded. “We did our best to carry on with our lives, but when my aunt decided to take the veil, my father had the idea to come with her. We could build a new life for ourselves here, free of the memories that kept our grief fresh. We sold our land and bought passage last spring. And now we are here.”

  “Do you ever miss France?”

  The boy shrugged. “This is our life now. I am learning to call Québec settlement home.”

  “I understand. I’m very far from ho—”

  And then she tripped.

  Rump over teakettle, she tumbled. Flinging her arms out to stop her progress down the rocky hill, she slammed her elbow against a granite outcropping and fell on top of her spinning wheel. She lay there for a moment, conscious that the breeze on her thighs meant she was more exposed than was modest.

  Then the pain hit—a pounding roar from her left elbow and an answering wet throb across the arch of her right foot. She struggled to pull her petticoats down below her knees with her right hand. She ground her teeth and held back the sobs that threatened to burst out of her.

  Beaubien and Mebkis knelt at her side. “Michel, get a length of linen out of your bag, quickly,” Beaubien directed. Fabric in hand, he bound Lucie’s foot tightly. Despite her pain, Lucie was reassured by his quick, sure touch. “Thank you. I’m so sorry,” she breathed.

  Mebkis handed Beaubien a piece of deerskin, which he then tied around her linen bandage. Then he wrapped Lucie’s dancing slipper in another scrap of fabric and handed it to her. Lucie was glad the blood had obscured the stamp of the designer’s brand on the insole.

  Beaubien watched her fumble to put the shoe in her wool bag with one hand. “Your arm—it is hurt as well, yes?”

  Lucie ducked her head. “I’m sorry,” she repeated.

  Mebkis gently took Lucie’s left arm, and Lucie bit back a scream as he tried to straighten it. “Broken,” he said.

  Beaubien sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Dufour, find me two straight sticks, if you please? Michel, more linen. It is fortunate we did not trade away all our textiles this run.” He helped Lucie sit up, his hands at her waist and shoulder temporarily distracting her from the agony that was her elbow. “I apologize,” he said, taking a knife from his belt and slitting open her sleeve. “We will splint this, and you will need to be brave, because the pain will be considerable. If you can endure this and we can get you to the nuns, my sister will be able to give your injuries more thorough care. All right?”

  “That would be great,” Lucie said. “Could you ... ,” she trailed off, embarrassed.

  “Yes?”

  “If you could hold me while Mebkis does the splinting, I think I could bear it better.” Lucie’s face blazed as she forced herself to meet his eyes.

  Their once-stormy gray was calm. “Absolutely, madame,” he said.

  The pain was more than considerable. Lucie pressed her face against Beaubien’s chest so that his blouse would muffle her shrieks. She came close to passing out, but the comfort of strong arms around her kept her conscious. When the splinting was done, Lucie’s hair stuck to her sweaty forehead. She wiped her face with her sleeve and tried to force her lips into a smile. She was probably grimacing like a gargoyle. “Thank you,” she said, looking at each of the men in turn. “Thank you all. I don’t know how to express my gratitude for your kindness.”

  Dufour huffed a laugh as he shouldered his pack. A chill passed through Lucie, but as Beaubien and Mebkis helped her to her feet, she forced fear away. As long as she stayed close to these two, she would be safe.

  “Michel, carry madame’s baggage,” Beaubien said.

  “No, I’m fine,” insisted Lucie.

  Beaubien’s eyes turned to steel again. “Madame, whatever you are, you are most assuredly not fine. We must make haste to get across the river and to the fort before sundown. Allow me to determine what will best suit our needs, if you please.”

  Stung, Lucie started limping forward behind Dufour. “Yes, of course, monsieur,” she
said. “As you wish.”

  The next several hours were a blur of pain, hunger, and barely suppressed panic. Lucie felt as if she were outside her body, watching her poor, broken self stumble on and on through the wilderness. A persistent rattle made her suspect she’d broken her spinning wheel in her fall, but she didn’t have the time or the privacy to unzip her case and check it.

  Michel had passed some sliced dried apples around on a short water break, but the group did not stop for a more elaborate meal. As the midsummer sun set over the far hills, they came to the bank of the Saint-Laurent River. Mebkis produced two canoes from under cover of a deadfall, and the men slid them through the tall grass to the water’s edge.

  Beaubien helped Lucie into one of the canoes. “You’ll travel with Mebkis and Michel,” he informed her. “Dufour and I will man the other boat to keep the weight evenly distributed.”

  Lucie couldn’t help but shiver in the humid air. Beaubien noticed and removed two pelts from his pack. He draped them over her. Lucie wrinkled her nose at the smell of the half-cured fur but was grateful for their warmth. “Thank you very much,” she said through chattering teeth.

  The canoe was clearly made for two people, not three. The boat wallowed low once Mebkis pushed off the shore and jumped in. He and Michel paddled after Beaubien, fighting to keep the canoe workways to the strong current. To Lucie, the river she’d known all her life had never looked so vast, so dangerous. She ducked her chin under the stinky pelt, closed her eyes, and prayed they’d get across safely.

  Despite her fear and discomfort, she must have drowsed, because the next minute, Mebkis and Michel were dragging the boat to shore on the Cap Diamant. The fort that had looked so tiny earlier in the day now loomed overhead. Stiff with chill, Lucie tried to lever herself up and out of the boat. In a moment, Beaubien was at her side, lifting her up. “Not long now, madame,” he said softly. “You have proven yourself very brave today. If you can endure but a few moments longer, we will have you safely in my sister’s care.” He turned to his men. “Dufour, would you be so kind as to take Michel and our wares to our lodgings? I will meet you there shortly after I deposit Madame Tremblay with the Ursulines. Mebkis, with me, if you please.”