“Hi, babe,” she said. “Still on for Christmas shopping next weekend?”
“Not sure. I gotta cold,” I croaked.
“Cass, you sound awful. Is she giving you something for it?”
“She doesn’t know about it yet. I came home from school and went straight to bed.”
“How are your ears?”
“Aching.”
“You always get an ear infection with a cold. I’m calling their phone.”
“No – wait. Dad will be home soon. I’ll tell him. Promise.”
She sighed. “I wasn’t going to yell at them, Cass. Okay. I’ll let it alone for now, but I’m calling later. If you haven’t told them you’re sick, I will.”
Aunt Blair is Mom’s fraternal twin. They didn’t look much alike, except they were both slim. Mom had pale floaty hair, kind of like her personality. Blair’s hair is shoulder-length, thick, and black, with strands of silver. But the lilt in her voice, the way she laughs, and a lot of her expressions are exactly the same as Mom’s. Hearing her speak is the only time I remember what Mom sounded like. And it always hurts.
I’d tried wearing Mom’s old faux fur coat, with its big amber buttons that looked like barley-sugar candies, but every time I put it on, I remembered. And I couldn’t let myself remember. There were things I just didn’t want to look closely at when it came to Mom – memories that made my head fill with darkness and shame. Knowing Blair was only fifteen miles away – and the only person completely on my side – made me feel protected. But could I reveal to her – to anyone – what happened on Mom’s last day?
After we hung up, I lay there unable to move, my mind ticking down into the silence. Soon I fell asleep.
“Get up! Dinner’s ready!” someone shouted in my ear.
“Go away!”
“No. Jonathan says you have to get up.”
I opened my eyes. Enormous smudged glasses leered down at me. “You’re red,” Daisy said. “You been holding your breath or something?”
“Get lost.”
She left muttering, no doubt working out some big fib to tell Jean.
In the darkening afternoon light, a new sleety wind moaned past my window, icy bits clicking on the panes. I dragged the comforter higher. I guess I drifted off again, for the next thing I knew, a cool hand touched my forehead. A dark-haired woman was leaning over me. Beatrice? I flung one arm out to ward her off.
“She’s got a temp, all right.” It was Jean. I blinked up at her.
Dad’s face hovered over her shoulder. “We should ask Peter to drop by.”
“Give her two Tylenol, and if her temperature doesn’t go down in an hour, I’ll call him. Or we could bundle her up, and you could take her to the emergency room in Selkirk.”
“I’m not driving her twenty miles in this weather, Jean. Peter’s our GP and just half a mile away. I’ll get her a hot drink. Here, take her temp.”
She fiddled with the thermometer, then thrust it at me. When it beeped, I took it out and read it.
“What’s it say?” Dad appeared behind Jean again, holding a steaming mug.
“Almost a hundred and two,” I said.
Dad handed me pills and a cup of chamomile tea with lemon honey – our family cold remedy. I took the pills and lay back, whispering, “I just wanna sleep.”
“Why did Daisy say Cass was too lazy to come down for dinner?” Dad said to Jean. “Anyone can tell she’s sick. And how come you didn’t notice earlier?”
“Because she came in from school as her usual obnoxious self, that’s why! I told you about the bus!”
“Who came in obnoxious?” he asked. “Cass? Or Daisy?”
“Oh, ha-ha, Jonathan!”
They hardly ever argued. And why was I too sick to enjoy it? Jean had blabbed to Dad about the bus. Typical. “Go away,” I croaked.
Dad’s voice softened. “I’m sorry, Jean. I’m just worried.”
“She’ll be fine. Don’t fuss.” She put her palm on my forehead. I rolled away from her. She stepped back. “See? It will never change, will it?”
“Jeez, she’s got a hundred and two temperature. Give her a break, okay?” Then he said to me, “About this incident in the school bus. Want to tell me about it?”
“I fell asleep. I woke up calling out something. I can’t even remember what it was. I guess I was dreaming. Gus stopped the bus kind of fast. One wheel got stuck in a snowbank. Kids pushed it out. We came home. He said to forget it. End of story.”
“Okay. We’ll let it go for now.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
“You’re not even going to phone Gus?” Jean asked him.
“If Gus wasn’t upset about it, we’ll let it go, Jean. And you can tell Daisy not to go on about it. Cass was obviously running a fever,” he said and left the room.
Jean walked out right behind him. I could hear them arguing down the hall. I sighed. I had a good dad – okay, a dad who’d say or do anything for peace and quiet, even ignore his daughter’s need for her own room back, but a pretty good dad all the same. As for Jean, not so good. And not getting any better.
The night after he and Jean announced their engagement, when she’d looked around our house with this flushed look of ownership and made a list of things to change, I knew trouble had just begun.
“This place is a pit! It really needs a woman’s touch,” she’d said.
Dad and I had done our best to keep things under control, but – I admit it – the house was pretty lived-in and the kitchen could have been cleaner. We also owned a miserable old cat named Tardy, who shed everywhere. Turned out Jean was allergic to cats. Of course. After a huge argument, I handed him over to Aunt Blair. It felt like I was handing her my old life with Mom at the same time.
Not long after, Jean started her “trimming-down” process, saying there was just too much junk in the house and that she needed room for her and Daisy’s things too.
“I want that dollhouse and these old Barbies,” Daisy had announced, holding one of my Barbie dolls to her chest and gazing greedily at my three-story dollhouse.
After crocodile tears from Daisy and pleading looks from Dad, I gave up my Barbies, which were stored in organized coded bags in my closet. But I dug my heels in on the dollhouse. “Mom and I made that together, and we collected or made all the stuff for it bit by bit. It’s mine. Mom said it’s a family heirloom.”
Jean looked at it doubtfully. “I don’t think it’s quite that caliber. You could at least let Daisy play with it. You don’t have to actually give it to her.”
“No. I don’t want it wrecked.”
“Don’t you think you’re being just a bit selfish? Daisy is a careful child.”
“She’s already ripped two of my best Barbie dresses by yanking them on the dolls.” I stared meaningfully at Dad, who was hovering around uselessly while my stuff was being ransacked.
Finally, he said, “The dollhouse is Cass’s. She can decide what happens to it.”
“I’ll pack it up, and Aunt Blair will store it for me.”
Jean pursed her lips and looked at me with a deep frown. Probably wondering why I couldn’t be stored away with the dollhouse.
That night, I asked Aunt Blair to take some of Mom’s stuff that I was afraid might get thrown out. When she agreed, I lined everything up on the floor to decide what to keep.
Jean walked in and laughed. “Goodness, Cassandra, you’re not taking all that old junk to Blair’s, are you? I doubt she would want it, even if she is an antique dealer.”
I looked her right in the eye. “She won’t sell it. She’ll keep it until this house is mine again. You’ve wanted rid of Mom’s stuff since you got here. Clearly, you don’t know good antiques when you see them. These are special … unique. Like Mom.”
Her cheeks went a dull red, but she turned on her heel and left. A few minutes later, I heard her playing a thundering piano piece in her music room. She did that a lot after I’d ticked her off. I grinned.
Daisy, who’d been watching everyt
hing from her bed, said, “You hate my mom, don’t you?”
“Well, she hates my mom.”
“But your mom is dead.”
I stared at her until she looked down at her hands, shrugged, got off the bed, and slid out of the room.
Now, as the late-afternoon light crept across my bed, the cold medicine finally kicked in, dulling the pain and relaxing me a bit. My nose felt less stuffed, although my head was still floating slightly above my pillow. I finally let it drift away into the night’s soft blackness.
Sometime later, I sat up wide-awake and clicked on my light. Daisy wasn’t in bed. It was only 6:30 P.M. As I lay back on my pillows, my light suddenly went out. When it flickered on again, I was no longer in my bedroom, but sitting on a wooden chair, looking at the back of a line of gray dresses and white apron straps, edged in a hazy glow. One of the dresses turned around. It belonged to a young girl with a round face and dark skin, her black hair held back with a blue ribbon. She whispered something to a girl behind her. I could tell they didn’t see me. There were more than a dozen girls in three rows. Facing them, wearing a long dress with full sleeves and a pleated bodice, was a tall young teacher. My star brooch rested in the center of her plain collar. It was definitely the young woman from math class – the same one we’d almost hit with the bus!
Where was I? Slowly everything came into focus. In front of each girl was a music stand. Small wooden tables ringed the space. A classroom. The young teacher was talking to the girls, but I heard only a soft, windlike sound. Her smooth hair was parted in the middle and pulled back into a braided knot. Her mouth was small and curved, her cheekbones sharp, and her black eyebrows tipped up at the ends like a blackbird’s wings above dark eyes. She had skin as smooth as caffe latte. Would she see me this time?
It was like looking at one of those scratchy old movies on TV, but in pale muted colors. Suddenly the teacher looked right into my eyes, then at the brooch pinned to my sweater. Her face went a chalky gray, and her hand flew up to her own pin. She looked like she was about to faint.
Dad stood over me with a tray. I closed my eyes and breathed slowly in and out to calm my racing heart. Struggling into a half-sitting position, I made sure the pin was covered by my comforter. I didn’t want any questions. On the tray was a bowl of chicken noodle soup, two red pills, and a glass of orange juice. I was so sticky, hot, and disoriented, I could hardly focus.
“Better get into your pajamas, honey,” he said. “How are you feeling?”
“Both ears hurt,” I mumbled around the first spoonful of soup. I wasn’t sure I could manage a second.
“You always get an ear infection with a cold. Peter Graham says he’ll drop by on his way to the hospital tomorrow.”
“You can head downstairs, Dad. I’ll take the pills and go back to sleep.”
“Daisy will stay in our room. We don’t want her getting sick with the holidays starting.”
“Oh, no, we wouldn’t want that.”
He gave me a look of weary sadness and left. The soup was salty and felt good on my throat, so I ate a few more mouthfuls. Why did I keep dreaming about a time so long ago – a time I knew nothing about? I wished the diary would appear again. In it, Beatrice said she was getting ready to teach at a nearby school, and clearly I’d just dreamed my own version of that very place. What was really going on in my head? Or in this house?
9
BEATRICE
I stepped inside fresh footsteps in the snow to find Minty, a buffalo cape over his shoulders, standing by our back door.
“What are you doing out here in the cold? Come into the house.”
“Waiting for the mister to take me home on his horse. Mine is sick.”
“Mr. Kilgour? Where is he?” The boy shrugged. “Come in and wait by the hearth,” I said. “At least you’ll be warm.”
He shook his head. “Mister’s mother don’t like me.”
“Doesn’t like you,” I corrected, then added quickly, “but she must like you. She’s been your mother for years.”
He looked away. “I am ininiw. Missus hates Indians. Even âpihtawikosisânak.”
Like me – I am a half-breed, too, I thought. But she doesn’t hate Papa. Not that I can see, in any case.
I looked at the lad, his fur hat topped with snow. How could any woman not feel affection for such a gentle boy? But this is Ivy, remember, my inner voice murmured.
Minty had received some schooling in St. Anthony’s, but he needed more now that the settlement’s society was changing so quickly.
Note to myself: Begin to tutor Minty right after Christmas. Ask Papa why he hasn’t done it before this, although I think I already know the answer.
I smiled at the boy huddling under his buffalo cape. “I won’t leave you alone with her until Mr. Kilgour arrives. Do come inside. I insist.”
He allowed himself to be pulled through the door. I prayed Ivy was busy elsewhere in the house. But she was there – scrabbling furtively in a wooden crate on the kitchen table. As she swung around, startled, Duncan Kilgour walked in behind us.
“There you are, Minty. What have you got there, Mother?”
Ivy glared at me and then at a box. “I thought it was for Gordon, so I opened it. And I don’t feel bad about doing that! I don’t!”
“Mother, it clearly says Miss BEATRICE ALEXANDER, OLD MAPLES, on the outside of the crate!” I was surprised Kilgour was chastising his mother in front of me, but then it struck me that Ivy had opened something addressed to me. How could she!
“What’s hers is her father’s,” she cried, “and what’s her father’s is mine!”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Kilgour growled. “You’ve even opened one of the gifts.”
I looked at him surprised. Why was he supporting me?
Inside the box were cloth-wrapped bundles of dried fruits, peels, raisins, and unshelled nuts, tagged with paper markers. A tin of tea, small glass vials filled with spices, a crock of Stilton cheese, and a box of sugared confections, whose wrapping was in tatters, lay alongside them.
I lifted up the broken lid. “I can’t see a note of any kind. Who is this from?”
Ivy threw a small white card on the table. On one side was a little deer, with a red ribbon around its neck. On the other was written To DEAR BEATRICE, FROM HER FRIEND PENELOPE. HAPPY CHRISTMAS!
“How lovely!” I said. “I didn’t think I’d ever be able to make a fruitcake again. But now I can!”
Dilly walked into the kitchen at that moment, mop and pail in hand. “What is fruitcake, Miss?” she asked.
“Never you mind! Get back to work!” Ivy snarled.
“It’s a special cake for Christmas, Dilly,” I said, ignoring my stepmother. “Come and see what my friend Penelope from the settlement has sent me from her father’s store.” I held open a bag of translucent glacé cherries for the girl to smell.
“Mmm,” she said, smiling nervously at Ivy. “Smells good.”
“Such an uncommon treat to look forward to, Miss Alexander,” Kilgour said. “Mother, I know you have eggs layered in salt. Give Miss Alexander as many as she needs. I’ll make it up to you.”
“No. Those eggs are mine. My kitchen. My eggs. And I don’t hold with rich foods for the Lord’s birth. I won’t allow it.”
“Mother, you will give Miss Alexander the eggs.”
I frowned. Why did he continue to argue? Surely not for my sake.
“I will not,” she said.
“It’s of no consequence,” I said. “My mother showed me how to use crystallized snow in place of eggs. It works quite well.”
“You will get eggs,” Kilgour said, giving his mother a stare of such intense disdain that it solidified my thought that this had nothing to do with me.
“I can give her only a few,” she muttered.
“That will do, thank you, Mother. Miss Alexander, you wouldn’t also consider making shortbread, would you?”
I hesitated, then decided to play my part.
“In
deed, I would! And there might be enough fruit for a small plum pudding. I’ve kept all my mother’s receipts.”
Ivy bristled, Dilly smiled, and Duncan Kilgour smacked his lips deep inside his beard. Minty, who still wore his buffalo cape, studied the box with interest.
“I’ve got a good-sized goose to kill,” Kilgour said, eyeing his mother. “That will be my contribution – and I will catch you a whitefish as well, Miss Alexander. Do you need anything else? A Yule log, perhaps?”
Ivy stood, arms crossed, face red with anger.
“We had a decorated balsam tree when I was a child,” I said in a subdued tone. “Mama took the idea from her friend in the settlement. Even Queen Victoria has one during the Yule season. Penelope’s gift brings back so many memories, and…”
“Why haven’t you continued with these traditions?” Kilgour asked. “Wouldn’t your mother have wanted that?”
I shrugged, not wanting to explain how painful our Christmases had become without Mama’s lively presence. Besides, I didn’t want this charade with Ivy to continue any longer.
“That first wife was a Church of England worshipper,” Ivy spat out. “Presbyterians like Gordon and me don’t care two pins for their papist ways. You’ll soon see a decent kirk built down the road. We’re forced to worship in the only one we have, but we don’t have to like it!”
The woman was her own worst enemy! I smiled bitterly. It was my father who had designed and built St. Cuthbert’s Church for the Missionary Society ten years ago, and he has worshipped in it faithfully every Sunday since.
Ivy snapped, “Don’t you snigger at me, missy! You didn’t have any Christmas nonsense after your mother died because your father could finally – gratefully – return to his true roots. You mother’s death freed him.”
I turned my back on her and lifted the wooden crate. I’d had enough of both of them! It was heavier than I thought, and I lurched to one side before finding my balance. “I will take this away and ask my grandmother to watch over it so nothing else goes missing. We’ll all share what is left of the bonbons on Christmas Eve.”
A sharp intake of breath from Ivy told me the barb had struck home.
Winter Shadows Page 6
