by Karen White
I exhaled, then stood and walked briskly to the back door. Charlie yelped with excitement when he saw Stuart and happily followed us, trotting at our heels.
Despite the tense moments earlier in the day, my step was lighter. This visit with Zeke could be the first move toward finding Annie and the way home.
The path through the woods was well worn, the damp earth compacted by passing feet and littered with fallen pine needles. A weak sun filtered through the high canopy of pines, sprinkling the ground below with pinpricks of light.
I had deliberately walked fast, knowing that Stuart’s limp would make him trail behind. But when I came to a fork in the path, I stopped, unsure of the direction. While I waited for Stuart to catch up, I lifted the hair off the back of my neck and wiped the sticky sweat with the palm of my hand. I unbuttoned the first two buttons on my dress, welcoming a cool breeze.
Feeling guilty at making a wounded man walk briskly through the woods, I slowed my pace to his and walked beside him, searching for a neutral topic of conversation.
“I’ve been wondering about something.”
He looked at me expectantly, probably curious at my civil tone.
“Where did Charlie get his name?”
A smile cracked his stern face. “So you have noticed the resemblance between Charlie and Dr. Watkins?” He stopped briefly to rub his leg. “So did Sarah. When she was four she called the dog Dr. Watkins. We made her change it but she insisted on Charlie. Luckily, Charles has not seemed to notice.”
I had suspected Sarah was a smart little girl and that confirmed it. I laughed, thinking about her astuteness. “It’s a good thing she didn’t think he looked like the rear end of a horse.”
Stuart made a strangling noise in his throat as if he were choking. When he recovered, he said, “Yes, our Sarah has a very active imagination. She is always making up stories.”
As we approached a clearing, I saw a small log cabin, a wide covered porch surrounding it on three sides. Zeke sat on the porch in a rocking chair, nodding at us in greeting. Charlie bounded off, running around Zeke and barking happily. The old man leaned over and stroked the dog’s back.
Thinking of Zeke’s last words to me and feeling suddenly shy, I allowed Stuart to approach first. He climbed the stairs of the porch slowly, nodding a greeting to his grandfather. They both turned to look expectantly at me.
I smiled and approached the porch. The rudimentary aspects of Zeke’s house didn’t surprise me. Despite his family status, I wouldn’t have expected him to live in anything grand.
Zeke broke the silence. “I see you two have made peace with each other.”
Stuart cleared his throat, and I looked down at the ground. Stuart spoke first. “We have called a truce, yes. No reason why we cannot be civil to each other.”
The old man looked over at Stuart and his lined face crinkled slightly into a smile. He picked up a large jug by the side of his chair and offered it to Stuart. After Stuart took a swig, Zeke offered it to me. “Drink some. It will help the pain in your hand.”
I realized that my hand was throbbing. Not wanting to appear rude, I walked up the steps and took the proffered jug.
Liquid fire best describes the contents that coursed down my throat. Stifling the reflex to gag, I swallowed it stoically. A small wince escaped me and I quickly took in three gulps of air. I felt the heat all the way from my throat to my stomach and my head suddenly felt light. The throbbing in my hand decreased to a dull ache.
My walk was unsteady as I climbed the remaining stairs to the porch to return the jug. Stuart wore a look of surprise but Zeke’s impassive face remained unchanged. To show them what a real woman I was, I took another swig, almost staggering this time with the effects of the contents on my muscle coordination.
“That is enough, Laura,” Stuart said with concern, and grabbed the jug and sat down.
I took a seat on the top step to steady myself. The rustic setting reminded me of camping, and I began to hum a favorite camp song. Nobody said anything or asked me to stop, and it wasn’t long before I was belting out “Rocky Top.” I felt two pairs of eyes on me and quieted.
Stuart stopped rocking. “So you sing, too. Where did you learn that?”
I avoided his eyes. “Oh, it’s just something I picked up along the way. My grandmother, mostly.”
“Julia would love you to teach music to the children. Especially Sarah—she seems to have a natural gift for it.”
I smiled. “That would be more than fine with me. I’ll talk to Julia when we return.”
I turned to Zeke. “Stuart tells me you know a lot about astronomy. I was hoping you could answer some questions for me.”
He nodded slightly, and then, without a word, stood and beckoned me to follow him into the one-room cabin. Stuart stood but made no move to enter. Sparse furnishings accented with brightly colored throw rugs and wall coverings added an unexpected coziness to the room. Despite the heat of the day, a cooling breeze blew through the open doorways. A heavy scent of wood ash clung to the log walls.
Bookshelves covered an entire wall of the cabin. Zeke approached the shelves reverently, letting his fingers glide over the bindings until they stopped. Pulling out a volume, he carried it over to me and gently placed it into my hands. I glanced down and read Astronomical and Commercial Discourses and the author’s name, Thomas Chalmers, on the binding. Opening its pages, my gaze picked out the words “. . . to shoot afar into those ulterior regions which are beyond the limits of our astronomy.”
I looked up at Zeke. “I want to go home. Do you know how to help me?”
He looked at me impassively and reached for my arm. Without any thought to stop him, I allowed him to roll the sleeve up to reveal the lower part of my left forearm and the crescent-shaped birthmark. “Ah,” he said, staring at it, as if something baffling had just been explained.
“What is it?” I asked, more intrigued than frightened.
“The sign of a Shadow Warrior,” he said, pulling the sleeve back over my arm. “A traveler.”
I pulled the sleeve back up and stared at the mark I had had since birth and never even noticed anymore. My Annie had the identical mark on her upper arm. “What does it mean?”
He looked at me with hooded eyes. “It is what will bring you home.”
“But how?” I shifted the heavy book in my arm impatiently, eager to hear the secret of finding my way home.
“You will learn—keep your ears and eyes open.” He paused to examine a lower shelf, then continued. “I will do what I can. But I do not think you will need my help. I see the strong light that surrounds you. I sense we have need of your strength now. Perhaps that is why you have been sent to us.”
He turned back to the bookshelves. “Stuart tells me he found you near Moon Mountain. That is a very sacred place to the Cherokee, you know. Stories of its magic have been passed down for generations. Stories of distant travelers sent here by the moon.”
His eyes turned toward my face and stared at me intently, but I didn’t flinch.
“Some of these travelers were bent on evil and destruction and had to be hunted down and then killed by other Shadow Warriors.” Chill bumps ran up my spine as I listened to his words and his eyes continued to bore into mine. “Most of them were.”
I swallowed thickly. “I don’t know why I’m here. It was purely accidental. If my daughter is here, I need to find her and bring her home.”
“Yes, Stuart told me about your Annie.” Turning back to the shelves, he plucked out several more books. “Then you will need to read these,” he said, and he piled three more heavy volumes into my arms. “These will tell you when the moon disappears and its powers are at its strongest. As for the rest, it is up to you.”
I could feel my anxiety rising. “I don’t know how I got here or why I’m here. I have no idea where Annie is. She could be here or anywh
ere. This was an accident. I don’t belong here and I’m certainly not needed or wanted. I just want to go home.”
Zeke touched my arm. “You have survived many hurts. But your life is not over. Perhaps that is why you are here.” Our gazes met. “I had dreams of you before you came. I saw you standing in front of Phoenix Hall, staring at a flying machine in the sky and watching it fall to pieces on the ground.”
My mind spun in circles. “No. That’s not possible. How could you know?”
He shook his head. “Just know that your secrets are safe with me.”
“Thank you,” I said, not sure what else I could say. I gathered the books tightly to my chest and stepped out on the porch to find Stuart. I spied the jug and took another long swig, needing to obliterate my thoughts for a while. I ignored Stuart’s raised eyebrow and stepped off the porch, Charlie yapping at my heels. My gait was not a little unsteady.
I attempted to walk a straight line when I spotted Julia on the back porch. I could not. Dr. Watkins and an unknown lady stood next to her. I felt the waves of disapproval from the doctor and his companion and detected an almost imperceptible head shaking from the woman.
“Laura? Are you all right?” Julia approached me, her skirts rustling.
“I’m fine.” I punctuated my words with a hiccup.
Her brow furrowed as she got close enough to smell the alcohol on my breath. “Let me take you inside and get you cleaned up and put to bed. You can meet Miss Eliza Smith another time.”
She sent Stuart a severe look and then gently took me by the shoulders and led me inside.
CHAPTER NINE
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
—T. S. ELIOT
I leaned my tired head against the railing as I sat on the back porch steps. I glanced at the almost-empty basket of peas at my feet with a sigh of accomplishment and stretched. Robbie gurgled happily in his cradle next to me, and I itched to pick him up and revel in his sweet babyness. My relief was short-lived, as Sukie approached with another full basket.
She plopped herself down next to me with a pile of the unshelled peas in the lap of her skirt, and we resumed our work.
Willie staggered out from the side of the house, a wooden yoke resting on his shoulders and a large bucket attached to each side.
I indicated the boy with my chin. “What’s Willie doing?”
Sukie rolled her shoulders back. “He be carrying out all the wood ash from the house. Makin’ lye soap tomorrow.” She glanced up at the distant moon on the horizon. “The moon has changed. I never boil my soap on the wane of the moon—it jus’ never thicken.”
I sighed. Another chore. I was glad that I could be useful, but I was quickly finding that the running of a nineteenth-century house and cotton plantation was a never-ending process. I struggled to find the time to read the astronomy books. In the three weeks since Zeke had given them to me, I had had the opportunity to open them once, and had promptly fallen asleep.
Not that it mattered. I couldn’t go home yet; I needed time to find Annie. I sometimes found myself wondering if I were deceiving myself, that I really didn’t believe she was here; that this whole experience was fabricated by my grief, a dream to give myself hope. But when I looked down at the peas in my hand or touched the rough wool of my skirt or heard Robbie’s cries, it seemed all too real. I had no choice but to continue to forge ahead, believing that Annie and I had traveled through time and were trying to find our way back home.
After relieving himself of his burden, Willie approached the porch. His face and hands were smeared with soot but he seemed oblivious to the fact as he reached for the door handle.
“No, sir! Don’ you be touchin’ nothin’! Go get yourself cleaned up first ’fore you go inside.” Willie rolled his eyes at Sukie and then stomped back down the porch.
“Oh, and, Willie,” I called after him. “When you’re done washing up, please find your sister, and the two of you go and practice your scales on the piano.”
“Yes’m,” he mumbled.
His shoulders slumped as he continued walking toward the springhouse, where the cool stream flowed around the property. His mother wanted them to learn music, and I was trying my best. Unfortunately, in the two weeks that I had been teaching them, Willie had shown a remarkable inability to get beyond even the rudiments of piano knowledge. He was very different from Sarah, who showed quite an aptitude for the instrument despite her young age.
I snapped more peas, my thumbs and forefingers slowly becoming stained green.
“Miz Eliza brought some dresses over for you yesterday.” Sukie’s head stayed bent over her task, from which bright popping sounds came from the breaking pea pods.
“Miss Eliza? Who’s that?”
“Miz Eliza Smith. She the lady was here with the doctor when you came back from Mr. Zeke’s. She lives with her mama and sisters at Mimosa Hall. Can’t say I care too much for her, but you have somethin’ respectable to wear now.”
I remembered the rather dour-faced young woman I had seen on the back porch with Julia. I could only imagine what stories the doctor had told her about me and why I needed clothes.
“She done need some music lessons herself. She play the organ at church—what a howling mess!”
I smiled. “She didn’t look the type to take kindly to my suggestions, Sukie.”
“I don’ think it matter much what you say to her. I don’ think she like you.”
I stopped shelling. “What? How would you know? She and I have never met.”
“True, but she sure is powerful sweet on Mr. Stuart.”
“Oh? And what does that have to do with me?”
For the first time, Sukie paused in her task and looked at me. “Jus’ look in the mirror, Miz Laura. An’ you and Mr. Stuart be about the same age. Make you a threat to her dream of walkin’ down the aisle with him.”
Blushing furiously, I kept my head bent toward my lap. “I couldn’t imagine why. Besides, I think she would be more threatened by Julia.”
Sukie surprised me with her sudden vehemence. “Don’ even think it. What was between Mr. Stuart and Miz Julia was over when she say ‘I do’ to Mr. William. She always been faithful to her husband and has suffered ’cause of him bein’ a Yankee. People talk ’bout who that sweet baby’s father is jus’ about kill her. She stay at Phoenix Hall for jus’ about a year—not even goin’ to church.” She shook her head.
I stared at her, dumbfounded. “You mean there’s some doubt?”
“No, ma’am. There no doubt. Just bad talk by mean people. Mr. William here last September. He kept quiet, on account of people ’round these parts not liking the color of his uniform. But when Miz Julia showed up in the family way, people started talking. Especially since Mr. Stuart was back home.”
Sukie fell silent as Willie approached us again, his face rubbed pink. He stomped past us and shouted Sarah’s name as the back door slammed. Feet clattered on the wooden stairs, and shortly thereafter the interminable piano scales began.
Sukie stood and brushed off her skirt. “I best go and see about making supper and gettin’ a fresh nappy for this little one.” She gave a wary glance at my lack of progress, picked up Robbie and his cradle, and went inside. Darkness was still a couple of hours away but the early-evening sounds had already started. The cicadas and crickets creaked duets, and at least one bullfrog bellowed from the nearby woods. I closed my eyes and leaned against the porch railing, inhaling deeply the rich aroma from the boxwoods that lined the side of the house. It reminded me so much of my own time that I was temporarily transported back. Approaching footsteps made me open my eyes. I was caught off guard by the sight of Stuart standing not two feet away from me, one booted foot resting on the bottom step.
“Well, if it isn’t my prison gu
ard.” I hadn’t been off the property since my arrival, and I blamed Stuart. I was aching to go with Sukie when she ran errands so I could ask about Annie, but I needed more time to build Stuart’s trust before he would allow it.
He ignored my comment. “Mind if I join you?” He smelled of sweat, horse, and leather—a combination I found peculiarly enticing.
“Help yourself,” I said, indicating the bottomless basket of peas.
He reached over and grabbed a handful. “Our hospitality must be lacking if you are finding your stay here comparable to a prison sentence.”
I shook my head. “That’s not what I meant. Everyone, with one exception, has been more than hospitable. But I’m never going to find Annie if I’m not allowed to go look for her.”
His long fingers efficiently broke open the pods and emptied their contents into the basket. “I have been asking around town myself. No one recalls a little girl being found up on the mountain.” He paused for a moment. “Nor has anybody ever heard of a Laura Truitt.” He threw a handful of peas into the basket with more force than was necessary.
Our eyes met, and all was quiet except for the monotonous drone of the insects. Finally, I spoke. “You may choose not to believe me, but I have told you the truth. If you would just give me the benefit of the doubt—”
He finished, “Then my family and this entire town could suffer the consequences.”
“Fine. Believe what you want—but when you realize you’re wrong and it’s time for your apology, I’m going to make you grovel.”
He bit his lip, as if trying to hide a smile. “I will be looking forward to that, ma’am.”
I gave him an exaggerated sigh and continued the never-ending job of shelling peas. I knew I would never look at the color green the same way again.
We worked in silence, listening to the serenade of the dusk creatures. To break the quiet, I asked, “Why are you fighting for the South while your brother fights for the North?”
He narrowed his eyes, as if trying to determine the motivation behind my question, continuing to pop peas out of their pods. “Georgia is my home. Protecting her is in my blood—almost as much a part of me as my own family.” He straightened his wounded leg to stretch it. “I am also a firm believer in states’ rights. It irks me no end when the federal government interferes in state government.” He put his foot down hard on the step and looked at me. “My brother is fighting for the North only because I am not.”
