Stillwater

by Nicole Helget

  Big Waters stopped. She motioned out the window. “Here she comes,” she said. Clement looked and saw the tall woman and the girl approaching, again.

  “Who?” asked Clement.

  “Trouble on the breeze,” said Big Waters. Then she left the schoolroom. Clement wondered if all mothers told as many story lessons as his did. He sometimes wished they’d talk straight. He sat at his seat and waited. He watched the girl. He pressed his feet into his boots to steady his nerves. This time, he promised himself, I will not run away. I will be brave.

  Though the other dozen children poured in noisily—boots sliding, chairs scraping, voices bickering, the door slamming, noses blowing, and slates dropping—Clement heard only a whooshing in his ears, an underwater sound. She was coming. Though he opened his mouth to breathe deeply, his lungs took in only shallow, quick breaths. He was about to stand and run out of the room when someone moved behind him and then sat beside him.

  It was her.

  The scent of mist off a roaring river filled him. A strange contradictory sensation fell upon his body, like being warm and cold at the same time, the type of feeling he got when he sat in a drafty but sunny window in winter. He was cold, but sweating. He pretended to be studying the woodgrain of the table in front of him.

  Then she spoke.

  “Hello,” she whispered.

  Her breath rushed over him, as scent metallic but fresh like the air after rain. He was frightened and excited. His ears burned. His fingers froze. He swallowed and used his tongue to push the back of a loose tooth.

  “Do you know me?” she whispered.

  Her voice, at once familiar and foreign, pierced him. Sharp and high, but pointed and serious and soothing too. He pressed his feet harder into his boots.

  He cleared his throat. “Yes,” he said, but he couldn’t even hear himself. He cleared his throat again. “Yes,” he said, louder this time. “I believe so.”

  “I saw you sitting under the tree that one day,” said the girl. “But you ran away.”

  “Yes,” he said. The pounding in his ears subsided. “You’re the girl who talks to me sometimes.”

  Then he turned his eyes upon her face. He kept his chin close to his chest, but he raised his eyes to meet hers. Hers were wood brown. She blinked quickly. He blinked slowly, to reveal the full effect of the anomaly. Now it was his turn to unnerve her, to show that she wasn’t the only child with strange ways.

  “They don’t match,” he said.

  She moved her gaze from one eye to the other. “No,” she said.

  He lowered his eyebrows. “How do you do it?” he asked. And then he spoke more quietly. “Are you a witch?”

  Her forehead furrowed. “No,” she said. “I don’t think so.” She lifted her shoulders and dropped them again. “I don’t know. I can only do it sometimes.” She raised a finger and pointed at his eyes but then lowered it again without asking what she had wanted to ask. She continued to stare, and he stared back in earnest. He thought she was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen.

  “I wish you did it more,” he said. “I like to hear you.” Then he breathed freely, having told the truth. “I’m glad you’ve come.”

  On that first day, Clement heard nothing of what the teacher said. He warmed in the light of the girl’s white-blue skin and cooled in the shadows of her black hair and dark eyes. He watched her violet mouth when she spoke, and he knew from the one mirror in the infirmary that his looked the same. He intuited a link, and he had already begun the speculations. The stories of Big Waters, which he had once endured in politeness, now blushed like moon glow and star splatter over where the pair sat together in the far back corner of the classroom, alone, away from the rest. She was the swan of the story. In her was Wind from the Sky Woman.

  “I’m Angel,” she whispered. “That’s my name.” She cleared her throat and then added, “Like in heaven.”

  He nodded. “Clement is mine.” He thought and then added, “Like good weather.”

  Already the two names seemed bound together. Angel and Clement. The pairing sounded perfect. He couldn’t have chosen more suitable names for the two of them. He wondered if he’d always be so delighted. He wanted to know everything about her, but he also wanted to keep her mysterious and discover pleasant details about her one day at a time. How long could he make it last? Forever? He wanted to take her and secure her to him.

  Already he looked with suspicion upon his classmates and friends, the children who’d been raised as his siblings. What if they too noticed how special she was? What if they too wanted to talk to her? What if they wanted to touch her? What if she decided to speak to them the way she spoke to him? Fear and anger rose in his chest like thunder and lightning in a storm. He had been raised to help, to share, to give everything. But he would not share her. He could not. She was his own.

  “Some of these children are mean and selfish,” he said. “I’ll protect you always.”

  She looked around, wide-eyed, curious.

  “I’m going to tell you a very important story about swans, which no one can tell you but me,” he began.

  She leaned in close to him to hear. While he whispered, the tendrils of hair loose from her braided bun moved with his words. He had her.

  32

  A School Visit

  WHILE HER MOTHER continued her private confinement, Nanny scuttled Angel to school each day. By the end of the week, Angel scarcely left Clement’s side. In his presence, the blood in her body seemed fortified. She felt heavier, more certain, rooted. Each day he cleaved her to him with tales and traditions and, when she hinted that she was bored, he told her to follow him. While the other children ate their lunches and played outside, Clement led Angel through the woods.

  “Where are we going?” Angel asked. The sleeves of her dress caught on the branches. Loosened leaves fell in her hair. “I’m afraid my mother will get mad.”

  “We’re almost there,” Clement said. He was careful now to hold the branches as he walked, so they wouldn’t snap back and hit Angel. Water gurgled. “Hear that?” he said.

  “Water?” she said.

  “A little farther,” he said. Then he stamped down the branches of buckthorn and dogwood so she could pass through and see the small shallow pond. “Come on,” he said. “Watch out for poop.”

  Hundreds of white swans with black-banded eyes weaved across the water. The pond was encircled by heavy green pines.

  “There’s so many birds!” Angel said. “How did they get here?”

  “They flew,” said Clement. “They come every year.”

  “They look like snow,” she said. “Like the snow and ice.”

  A pair descended from the pine tips.

  “Watch!” said Clement. He pointed to the two flying swans, who lilted to one side, then another. They clumsily bumped into each other and then hit the water with a splash. They shook their wings, stretched, and then cut across the surface in perfect grace.

  “Oh my,” said Angel. A rumbly laugh shook her chest. “They’re more graceful in the water than they are in the air.”

  “Yes,” he said. “They’re silly in the air.” He reached out his hand, and she took it. His heart quickened. All his life, he’d sought the kind of feeling he now had, as though he was really, truly bound to another human. Even among the other orphans, he felt alone. Most of them had a brother or a sister or both, a real relative, in the place, but he had no one. The brothers and sisters always shared, always protected each other, always had someone’s hand to hold, but Clement stood alone. Yet he always perceived that somewhere outside the orphanage his family was alive and searching for him. He didn’t have the sense that his real mother or his real family was dead. He always imagined that someday, someone who belonged to him would walk up to the front of the Home for Orphans and Infirmed and inquire, “Is a boy named Clement Piety here? I love him very much, and it was a terrible misunderstanding and mistake to leave him without anyone.”

  “I wish I co
uld have one,” said Angel, “to keep in my room.”

  Clement imagined the giant birds fluttering around a fine room, knocking things over and honking noisily. “I don’t think a swan would like to live in a house,” said Clement.

  “A stuffed one, I meant,” said Angel. “Mother’s got a peacock. With long purple and blue and green feathers. I wish you could see it.”

  He thought that he’d like to see the peacock too, to see the inside of the big house where she lived without him. He wanted to see if all those comforts he imagined were real. Did she have her own plush bed with smooth blankets and thick pillows? Her own cup and plate? Room to be alone? Books to read?

  “She made a hat with some of the feathers,” Angel said. “But she never wears it.” Angel let go of Clement’s hand and flapped it in the air. “Sweaty,” she explained.

  “I’ve got another place to show you,” he said. “Come on.”

  They walked back toward the orphanage in silence. Clement felt like he was flying, funny. He led her through the forest, and she followed like his shadow. He turned around again and again to look at her, to make sure she was real. He wished she’d always be there, near him. He thought of a thousand ways to keep her close. Maybe he could go to live with her. Or maybe she could stay with him. Surely everyone would understand that the two of them ought not to be separated. He wondered if people who saw them together could see the connection, the similarities. He wondered if Angel noticed it. He hoped to share all of his deepest thoughts and secrets with her. No hidden thing should remain between them. He led her behind the Home for Orphans and Infirmed. Tall, snarly bushes reached out mangles of branches and vines.

  He stretched out his hand again.

  She waved it away.

  He pulled it back and lifted a low branch. “Under here,” he said. He crouched and crawled behind a bush.

  She watched him. She looked around, as though wondering if anyone was watching. She smoothed her skirt.

  “Come on,” he said.

  “I can’t,” she said. She folded her arms over her chest. “I can’t get dirty.”

  He lowered his eyebrows. “It’ll wipe off,” he said. He picked up a clump of leaves and dropped them. “It’s just dirt and leaves.”

  “OK,” she sighed. She looked around again. She knelt and crawled after him. Behind the bushes, she stood up and clapped her hands together. “Yuck,” she said.

  Mosquitoes buzzed in their ears and attacked their exposed skin. Angel smacked one on her cheek.

  “My mother’s going to be mad,” she said.

  Clement wondered if Angel’s mother would ever get mad enough to make Angel stay at the orphanage. “Stand back,” said Clement.

  She did.

  He passed his hands over the wall until his fingertips felt the slightly raised slats of a door in the wall. He pried his fingers into it and pulled.

  “Do you know about slavery?” Clement asked her. He hoped not. He wanted to tell her everything.

  “Yes,” said Angel. “I do. My father is opposed to it. Me too.”

  “Me too. We’re the same.” His hands found her arms. He pulled her close to him, so close, they were nearly nose to nose. “You can’t tell anyone,” he whispered.

  “Ouch,” she said. “You’re hurting my arms.”

  He released her, and he tugged and pulled the door open. “Sometimes we hide them here,” he said.

  From outside, the room appeared to be nothing more than deep and dark emptiness. Clement disappeared into it as though walking into the mouth of a monster. He reached out his hand to Angel. “Come in here.” She put her palm in his. Clement held on tight. His fingernails cut into her hand.

  “Not so tight,” she said. “I’m coming. I’m scared.”

  “Look,” he said.

  Her eyes adjusted. The room remained dark but for the faint light the door let in. On the dirt floor stood a small bed and a simple table with a washbasin. A rag rug completed the scene. “People have to hide in here?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “It’s better than being with their evil masters.”

  “But it’s so dark,” she whispered. “And dirty. Why don’t you put them in the infirmary with you?”

  “Because it’s a secret,” Clement said. “No one can see them. No one can know. You can’t tell anyone.”

  Angel was silent. Her head spun. She found it difficult to breathe. She imagined hiding in here, alone in the dark.

  “Let’s go back outside,” she whispered.

  Clement sat on the bed. “I know you won’t tell anyone. You can’t,” he said. “Mother St. John and Big Waters aren’t supposed to be doing this. They could go to prison.”

  “Where are the Negroes now?” Angel whispered. She looked at the blackest of the black space between the bed and floor. Could someone be hiding there now?

  “We haven’t had any for a long time. Sometimes we get two in a month, but sometimes we don’t get any for a year. Have you ever seen a Negro? We have one who cleans the school sometimes. A boy. He’s very light, but he’s still a Negro.”

  She thought about the dirt floor. Her mother often talked of people who had dirt floors, but Angel had never seen one until now. “Yes,” she said. “I have. Our horse caretaker is black, but he’s his own man, my father says.” She wondered if moles or snakes ever popped up from the floor in here. She shuddered. “Let’s go,” she said.

  “I like to sit in here and hide from everyone sometimes,” said Clement. “It’s peaceful.” He stood and went to her. He grabbed her hand and led her to a corner. “You stand here,” he said.

  “What are you doing?” she asked. She smiled at him, but it was a small, tight smile.

  He walked to the door and closed it. The room went black as midnight.

  Angel gasped. “What—” she started to say, but then quieted.

  He shuffled to the far corner, opposite hers. “Are you afraid?” he whispered. The words moved unfettered in the dark.

  Tears came. “Yes,” she said. “Please—”

  He sat down with his back against the wall. “OK,” he said. “Now do it.”

  She heaved a cry. “Do what?” she said. “Let me out of here.”

  “Talk to me without talking,” he said. “In my head, like you do sometimes.”

  Silence. Then he heard a choked whimpering and boots slithering across the floor. Suddenly the door opened, and she stood silhouetted in the daylight. “I can’t. Don’t ask me ever again.” She heard branches snap and leaves crunch. She was gone.

  “Witch!” he yelled after her.

  33

  Nanny’s Fate

  ANGEL HICCUPPED ON THE WAY home. Her eyes hurt and felt swollen. Nanny walked with her arm around Angel’s shoulders. Sometimes she gave her a squeeze. Nanny didn’t ask questions but seemed to know what happened. She told Angel that boys sometimes were gruff with girls they liked, that they sometimes teased and insulted because they didn’t know how to compliment and coddle. “When they get older, they act better,” she assured Angel.

  Angel tried to imagine her own father as a boy. Had he been mean and scary to girls? She remembered how he sometimes lost his temper with her mother. “Are you sure?” Angel asked.

  “Oh ya,” said Nanny. “Before we were marriedt, my husband once called me a fat piggy and spankedt my bottom.”

  Angel laughed and cried at the same time.

  “He followedt me aroundt the school yardt, oinking at me too,” Nanny added. “One day I turned around and slappedt him in ta face. Ten he stoppedt.”

  Angel gasped. “I couldn’t do that!” She grinned. “Could I?”

  “Smack him,” Nanny said. “Or kick him in the boy parts. Or ignore him. Boys hate to be ignoredt most of all.”

  The door to her mother’s room remained closed, so Angel didn’t have to explain her dirty hands, face, or dress. She didn’t have to hide her puffy eyes or the mosquito bite on her cheek. At night she lay in bed, thinking about Clement. She cl
osed her eyes and concentrated. She stiffened her stomach muscles and panted. She tried to talk to him, to see if she could do it whenever she wanted.

  “I didn’t like that,” she said. “You were mean!”

  She waited. Nothing happened.

  She put her fingers into her mouth and jabbed at the back of her throat. She gagged. She tasted the familiar bile.

  “You scared me,” she said. She waited.

  Still nothing.

  She slept. Her dreams that night were filled with the white birds.

  Angel went back to school and tried to pretend as though she didn’t see Clement or hear him even as he scooted closer to her on the bench or said her name or tapped her hand. At lunchtime, Clement presented her with a small purse made from fawn skin and decorated with beads.

  “I made this for you,” he said.

  At first, Angel feigned reluctance. In the way she’d learned from her mother, she looked at the gift, rolled her eyes, and crossed her arms.

  Clement offered it again. “Take it.” He pressed it to her arm. “Please.”

  Angel turned her head. He stuffed the purse into the space between her arm and chest.

  “Take it,” he whined.

  She took it and ran her fingers over the pattern, a pair of swans with their necks entwined. “It’s beautiful,” she conceded.

  “I made it just for you,” said Clement. He moved his hair out of his eyes. “Well, I put it together, but Big Waters made the pattern.”

  “Thank you,” she said. She turned it over and over.

  “Do you like me again?” Clement’s chest tightened.

  She kept her eyes on the purse. “Yes,” she said.

  He exhaled. “Will you talk to me like you did before?”