With Endless Sight

by Allison Pittman

  That left only Phoebe, little Anne, and me at the top of the cellar steps, and when Phoebe tried to maneuver the girl into her starting position, she was met with a swift kick in the shin.

  “I said I didn’t want to!” Anne stamped her foot and settled her face in a determined pout.

  “And I said you have to. Otherwise, you’ll be left up here all alone in the kitchen. Is that what you want? To be the only one in here when Uncle Robert comes down to see what all the ruckus is?”

  Phoebe’s uncle Robert was my father, and the thought of facing him in a dark kitchen in the middle of the night with a bevy of would-be witches tucked away in the cellar was not a soothing one. It was some kind of miracle that he hadn’t heard us at all—yet.

  “What if we let Anne go down face forward?” I said. “Just let her keep her candle lit, walk down the stairs holding on to the wall, and join everybody else at the bottom.”

  “Yeah. I don’t want no true love anyway. Boys stink.”

  Phoebe rolled her eyes at the grand concession. “Just go.”

  I watched Anne make her way down the stairs, feeling guilty for having brought her into this mess. I also knew there was no way that little girl would be able to keep this a secret for long, and I hoped I would be deep into the Great Plains before she cracked.

  “All right, Belinda.” Phoebe held out her candle to me. “Now it’s your turn.”

  “Ah, Phoebe, you know I don’t believe any of this. It’s … it’s evil; it’s witchcraft.”

  “It’s not witchcraft,” Phoebe said, her voice full of disdain. “It’s just, it’s—”

  “Wrong. It’s just wrong. It’s sinful.”

  “So you’re perfectly fine with letting the rest of us sin, but you’re too good?”

  “You’re welcome to do what you want, but I can’t.”

  “You promised.”

  “I didn’t know what it would be like. I thought it would just be like the apple peels.” That was another of Phoebe’s favorites, peeling off a strip of apple skin and seeing what letter it formed when dropped into a dish of sugar. Mine was always a J; hers a C.

  “This isn’t any different,” Phoebe said. “Besides, if you don’t believe, it won’t even work for you. It will just be a walk down some stairs.”

  Compliance seemed to be the only way to bring this wretched night to a close, so I tipped my wick into Phoebe’s flame and stood at the mouth of the cellar. “Idescendintothedarknesstoseethefaceofmytruelove.”

  I could have cheated, could have stumbled into the wall and used it to guide me down, could have cast my eyes down to follow my feet, but once I saw my reflection, illuminated by that small flame, I had an overwhelming desire to know if what the other girls experienced was real. The piece of glass I held was almost a perfect triangle, curved slightly along its longest side, and it afforded me a full view of just one eye obscured by a few strands of long, loose hair. I kept my focus on that eye, seeing not my soul but something completely detached. A tiny flame dancing in a deep, dark orb.

  The cellar steps were rough and cool beneath my bare feet—a marked change from the soft carpets of the house and the smooth finish of the kitchen floor. I put one foot gingerly down behind me, fought for balance, then brought down the other. I told myself I was just playing a game, appeasing my cousins, participating in a ritual as harmless as tossing spilled salt over my shoulder.

  The whispers petered into silence, and one final toe-reaching behind me confirmed that I was on solid ground. I took a deep breath and extinguished the flame.

  And, nothing. Nothing but the darkness wrapped close around me. I kept my eye trained on the shard of mirror until the glowing tip of my candle’s wick was swallowed by black.

  “Well?” The girls gathered around me, speaking as a chorus.

  “I told you this was a bunch of nonsense,” I said, not allowing a drop of disappointment to come through.

  “Or maybe you’re just never going to have a true love,” Phoebe said.

  “Or maybe God knows the plans He has for me, and He’s not going to reveal them through some childish, evil game.”

  “Aw, save your Scriptures for Sunday school.”

  Phoebe positioned herself at the top of the stairs and intoned the fateful phrase with more conviction than any of us had mustered. I felt Anne’s small hand slip into mine. My failure to see an image hadn’t shaken their faith; with the exception of the good-humored Rachel, they were believers.

  Phoebe came down the final step, and we took a collective step back. I heard her sharp intake of breath, then a puff into darkness. Nobody broke into the silence that followed, but Anne did squeeze my hand a little tighter.

  “Thank you, God,” Phoebe whispered.

  “You leave God out of this.” I dropped Anne’s hand and shook my finger in the direction of Phoebe’s voice. “There’s nothing of God in this. It’s just—”

  “You know who I saw, don’t you?”

  “You didn’t see anybody. None of us did.”

  “Who was it?” The eager voices of my cousins overrode my singular voice of reason.

  “Chester,” Phoebe said.

  “Cousin Chester?” Rachel said.

  “Not by blood,” Phoebe said, reminding all of us of her adopted status—the very factor that gave her such mysterious appeal and power. “Now all of you get back upstairs.”

  The girls shuffled their way back to the stairs, and excited whispers accompanied their ascent. I moved to join them, but was detained by a grip on my sleeve.

  “Now do you see?”

  “This doesn’t mean anything.”

  “It changes everything.” Phoebe jerked me hard against her and stood so close I could feel her lips moving against my ear. “Talk to your father again. Tell him I have to go with you.”

  2

  Nobody can agree about how Phoebe came into our family. Her mother is my mother’s older sister—my Aunt Nadine—a plump woman nowhere near matching Mother in beauty or stature. Aunt Nadine married Uncle Silas later in life, after seeing her younger sister happily paired off and producing children, which she, to her great sadness and shame, seemed unable to do.

  Then one day, according to Aunt Nadine, an angel simply dropped a beautiful baby girl on their doorstep. Some in our family say that angel was the seventeen-year-old daughter of Nadine and Silas’s neighbor who left in the middle of the night to attend a teacher’s college in Chicago. Others attribute the gift of Phoebe to a pregnant Norwegian immigrant who stayed in town only a few days before moving on—noticeably slimmer—with her husband and seven children.

  Aunt Nadine clings to the image of a child-bearing angel, even though Phoebe’s pale complexion and almost white blond hair pays testament to the Norwegian theory. This coloring sets Phoebe apart from the rest of us who tend to have dark hair and eyes and skin that turns deep brown with slightest exposure to the sun. Mother’s biggest fear in going out West is that we’ll be mistaken for Indians and either shot on sight or invited to some heathen feast.

  One morning a few days after the cellar game, when all of our out-of-town family had gone, taking the bulk of our household possessions with them, I awoke to hear Daddy whistling downstairs. It was a happy tune—a drinking song with forbidden lyrics. I climbed out of my bed and followed the sound until I came upon him in the kitchen.

  “Careful, Belinda,” he said before I’d even crossed the threshold. “There may still be some broken glass on the floor.”

  I went to my toes and picked a careful path toward him. The table was strewn with papers, but he took off his glasses, pushed his chair back, and held out his arms to hug me.

  “Good morning, Daddy.” I bent to give him a kiss on his cheek, still soft from shaving. He wore a mustache and whiskers on his chin, but the rest of his face was always clean and smooth. In the mornings it was actually cool to the touch and smelled faintly of peppermint. “What’s all of this?”

  “Just a bunch of boring old papers, sweetie.�
�� He quickly gathered them into a neat pile and dropped them into a leather satchel at his feet. “We’re going to the notary today to finalize the turnover to Uncle Silas.”

  “Mother must be thrilled.” I knew full well she wasn’t.

  Months after marrying my mother, Daddy inherited a small ironworks shop that produced many of the farming tools the emigrants strapped to their wagons as they headed out West. The inheritance came through a distant uncle, and father always joked that Mother must have had some premonition, because at the time he proposed he had only an accountant’s salary to offer her. She would smile demurely and say that she would count her life no less blessed if the two of them had lived out their entire life in the two-room flat above the workshop. When he was feeling feisty, Daddy would say he’d like to take her up on her offer, even though the rooms had long ago been turned into his plush office. Mother would laugh just as I imagine she did twenty years ago when he carried her over that threshold for the first time.

  Over the years, his three younger brothers were all given shares of the company, though none participated in the daily operations of it. All three had moved to Chicago where Uncle Dan and Uncle Frank were both lawyers. Uncle Edward—the baby of the family—was content to live off his share of the annual profits as what my mother called a listless political bohemian. None were interested in spending their days here in Belleville, Illinois, putting a familial stamp of approval on shovels and plows. So there was no choice but to turn the business over to Uncle Silas, who had been working closely with my father as the foundry manager for at least ten years.

  “You’re awake awfully early.” Daddy turned his full attention to me. “I suppose you weren’t up late with secret doings.” He cocked one eyebrow up and gave me the mischievous look that Mother said could turn a saint into a sinner.

  “Thank you for keeping our secret.” I smiled and reached for his coffee cup, took a sip, and grimaced at the bitter taste. “I like Mother’s coffee better.”

  “That’s because your mother’s coffee is little more than brown milk and sugar. She’ll have to get used to something a little stouter on the trail.”

  “Do you really think the trail is going to change all of us?”

  “I don’t want you to change.” Daddy gave my hand a squeeze. “I want us to grow. To see what we can do with a life without having everything just handed to us. A country doesn’t stay new for very long.”

  “But aren’t you going to miss all of this?”

  “We must remember—and I tell your mother this every day—that we would have nothing if not for the grace of God who gives it to us for this little while we live on earth. He could take it all away from us like that.” He snapped his fingers so close to my face I thought the stone in his signet ring might graze my nose.

  “I know, Daddy. I’m just worried about Mother.”

  “You leave her to me.”

  As if on cue, Mother chose that moment to walk into the kitchen.

  “Good morning my darling Ellen.” Daddy rose from his chair, sending me a conspiratorial wink. “May I pour you some coffee?”

  “I suppose you might as well, seeing we’ve dismissed the staff.” Mother crossed over to the kitchen window, pulled back the curtain, and looked out. “Have you seen Chester yet this morning?”

  “I can’t recall a time I’ve seen my son before noon.” Daddy took a chipped cup down from the cupboard. It was one we would leave behind.

  “He’s not in his room.” Mother let the curtain fall from her hand. “There are so many ruffians hanging about the streets these days—”

  “Those are noble boys come from their farms to register for the army. I think if we were going to accuse any of being ‘ruffians’ we would have to put our beloved Chester at the top of that list.” Father poured a generous amount of milk and sugar into Mother’s coffee—turning it into the sweet, lukewarm, tan concoction that she favored—set it on the table, and motioned for her to join us.

  “Well that is one thing I shall be glad to see behind me.” Mother took a sip and set down the cup without the least acknowledgment or thanks. “All this talk of war and regiments—”

  “It’s hardly talk anymore, Ellen,” Daddy said. “We’ve been at war for nearly two months now.”

  “Just so. And I will be glad to get away before Chester becomes a part of it.”

  “I’m sure you are no more grateful than the Union Army is, my dear.”

  I dared a small smile that was caught short by Mother’s disapproving glare, and the three of us sat quietly for a moment before I ventured into a new conversation.

  “Have you come to a decision about Phoebe?”

  The look they exchanged across the table told me they hadn’t.

  “I just don’t see the point of taking her with us,” Daddy said.

  “The point is,” Mother said, “she would be a great help to me.”

  “Help with what? We are boarding a train, then a steamboat, then a stagecoach. It’s not as though we’re joining up with a wagon train.”

  “She is my sister’s child.”

  “Her only child. Which is all the more reason for her to stay home with her parents.”

  “I’d like to take a little part of my family with me.”

  Mother’s words hit the air like a strong slap. Daddy and I looked at each other, then quickly down at the table.

  “I’d like to know that I have someone to talk with,” Mother continued.

  I studied the series of nicks in the table. “I think she’d be happier too,” I said. “Phoebe, I mean.”

  “Nonsense,” Daddy said. “She has loving parents right here.”

  “Boys don’t like her very much.” Until this conversation, I had no intention of arguing Phoebe’s case, but it occurred to me that I, too, could benefit from a companion.

  “Do you honestly think,” Daddy said, “that I would drag her along just so she could find a husband? The town’s crawling with men—”

  “Those are soldiers, dear, remember? Men set for la guerre often have no time for l’amour. From what I hear, the men are absolutely desperate for women out on the frontier.”

  “Desperate enough for Phoebe?”

  “Don’t be mean.” I swatted my father’s sleeve. “People are mean enough to her already. She isn’t very pretty, and she isn’t very smart.”

  “Mind how you speak about your cousin,” Mother said. “But Belinda does have a point, Robert. In fact, the only thing Phoebe has to offer a man is—the foundry.”

  A dark look came over Daddy’s face. “She’s not in line to inherit a bit of that,” he said.

  “Maybe not. But some man is going to see that her father’s in charge of it and assume he’ll be able to work his way in.”

  Even as Mother spoke, the full scenario played out in my mind. Poor, stupid Phoebe duped by some smooth-talking man—maybe one of the ironworkers—seducing her with slick words and empty promises, breaking into Uncle Silas’s office to get a look at the books. Or not breaking in at all, rather using the spare key Phoebe would wear on a thin chain around her neck …

  “Silas and Nadine would never let her go.” Daddy’s voice was taking on the edge of defeat.

  “Yes, Robert, they would.”

  “We don’t know that for sure.”

  “Yes we do, darling. I spoke with my sister.”

  Daddy took a long, measured sip of his coffee before setting the cup down and suggesting that I should leave the room.

  “You stay right here, Belinda,” Mother said.

  “Don’t undermine me in front of the children.”

  “She is hardly a child, Robert. And it would be good for her to have a companion on the journey.”

  “Companion? This isn’t a lake-house holiday!”

  “We are all aware of that,” Mother said, and the tension at the table made me wish I’d obeyed my father and gone back to my bed. “We know our lives are being uprooted and destroyed with little explanation—”
r />   “I’ve told you—”

  “Oh, yes, of course! The new frontier. New opportunities. Building something of your own without having it handed to you. And I’ve been the good, dutiful wife, not asking for a thing. But I want this, Robert. I want my niece to come with us, to have a part of one sister with me.”

  “I can’t imagine her parents would approve.”

  “They give her everything she wants,” I said, surprised at my petulance.

  “I don’t know that you’ve ever lacked for anything, young lady,” Daddy said. “And I can’t believe she would want to abandon such loving, generous parents.”

  “Well, she does,” Mother said. “She and Belinda are very close, you know.”

  “That much I know.” Daddy looked straight at me. “I’m a bit worried about the mischief the two of them might get into.”

  “Please don’t try to be charming, Robert. This is not the time. Now, I don’t know why Phoebe wants to come along. It never occurred to me to ask her, and I don’t know that she would be my first choice of traveling companion. But she’s a young woman whose mind is set, and frankly, mine is too.”

  “But there’s a matter of finances to consider, Ellen. It would be much less expensive to go by wagon, but I’m trying to make this as easy as—”

  “If we had a third child, would we leave it at home in an effort to economize?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Because if money is an issue, we might do well to let you go off on your own—”

  “Now, Ellen—”

  “Mother, you don’t mean that!”

  At that moment, all of my loyalty to Phoebe fell away. I wished I’d never participated in her stupid ceremony, wished I’d never agreed to speak to my father on her behalf, never brought up her name at our cozy little table. Despite mother’s claim to the contrary, I wasn’t keen on having my cousin as a companion, no matter how nice it might be to have her as a buffer between Mother and me. I hadn’t anticipated this level of disagreement between my parents over such a silly thing and cringed at the thought of how they would react if they found out that Phoebe’s sole motivation was a misguided fantasy involving my indolent brother.