SelfSame

by Conway, Melissa

  If she thought the unaccustomed exercise would take her mind off Elizabeth, she was mistaken. The wind blew the clouds across the sky, reminding her of one of Enid’s favorite childhood games. She and Elizabeth would sit in the grass, weaving baskets and watching the clouds, calling out when they saw a recognizable shape: “Look, there’s an eagle. A bunny! A mushroom!” Then Elizabeth would tell a story about all the shapes they’d seen, but said it was really the Cloud People who were telling it; they sent the shapes as a message to anyone below who could interpret it.

  Today she saw a whale, a hook-nosed man’s profile and a coffin.

  She made it out of town and had almost reached the dirt path that paralleled the highway when the driver of a truck ahead of her performed a screeching half-donut in the street, sending up stinking puffs of burnt rubber and leaving black tire marks on the road. She could see there were four occupants, but the truck shot past so fast she couldn’t make out any of their faces.

  “Wow, impressive,” she said to nobody, shaking her head. She’d seen the jacked-up truck before, parked at school. Whoever was driving was either in some kind of major hurry, was immaturely showing off for his friends, or both.

  She crossed the street and ducked through the tear in the chain-link fence that had been erected to keep pedestrians off the privately-owned land all along one side of the highway. The landowner had long ago stopped mending the fence, probably because it had become a losing battle. The popular path was several feet wide with well-packed dirt. Sorcha had walked it many times, but never alone.

  The first thing she saw was a bicycle lying on its side in a patch of wild grass. Right away she recognized it as Ben’s. She looked around for him, doubting he was just sitting somewhere taking a break. The ground showed multiple deep footprints, many with long streaks plowing through the mud, evidence of a violent scuffle. The driver of the truck hadn’t been showing off; he’d been beating a hasty retreat from the scene of a crime. Sure enough, she saw a prone body several yards off the path, almost hidden in the wild grass.

  She ran, slipping in the mud and falling to her knees next to him. Grasping his shoulder, she heaved him onto his side; terrified by what she would find when she saw his face. Ben groaned and tried to elbow her away, but she said, “Knock it off, I’m trying to help you.”

  He struggled to a sitting position and muttered, “I’m fine. Go away.”

  She ignored him, taking stock of his injuries. His left eye was swollen and he had a fat, bloody lip, but otherwise it seemed as if the worst of it was the knuckles on his right hand, which looked as if he’d pulverized them against a wall. She took his hand and he gasped and snatched it away.

  “You need to see a doctor,” she said.

  He scoffed. “Yeah, that’s gonna happen. What the hell are you doing here?”

  She ignored the question. “Were you unconscious at all? We should call the police.”

  His uninjured hand shot out and stopped her from reaching around to her backpack. “I was just taking a nap. No doctor, no cops, nothing – understand?”

  He got to his feet and staggered to his bike. Sorcha stood and watched as he straddled it and fit his foot to the pedal. A drop of rain hit her cheek.

  She fully expected him to ride off and leave her, but he said, “You shouldn’t be out here alone.”

  She walked over to him. He’d just gotten jumped and beat up and was worried about her.

  “Should I be watching out for your homeless relatives here, too?”

  He laughed and immediately winced. With his good hand, he gently probed his lip. “Do I look bad?”

  Her eyes dropped to his feet and back. “You mean the face or the mud?”

  He smiled, winced again and requested, “No jokes, okay?”

  She made a cross-your-heart motion as he got back off his bike and began pushing it.

  She walked next to him. “Where’s your backpack?”

  “Bastards took it.”

  “Was it Dalton’s buddies? And don’t lie, because I recognized the truck from school and it’d be easy to figure out who drives it.”

  “It wasn’t them,” was all he said. It was sprinkling now. “How far to your house?”

  “It’s a ways.”

  “I’ve never seen you walk before.”

  She sighed. “Paula’s never bailed on me before.”

  He glanced over. “She kinda went nuts this morning. She and that Dalton kid have history?”

  Sorcha had no idea why she said it, but the words, “Only in her fantasy world,” slipped off her tongue. She was instantly appalled that she’d given away her best friend’s deepest secret, and revealed it to a virtual stranger, no less. A young man who’d spent the last two years in juvenile hall – and quite possibly the last person she should trust.

  He didn’t respond; just gave her an inscrutable sidelong look. Stunned by her betrayal, she walked woodenly next to him as the occasional car whizzed by on the highway.

  The rain began in earnest and after about ten minutes of slogging through it, her pant legs were soaked. With no warning, Ben cut across her path and said, “Come on.”

  He led her away from the highway down a barely discernible path to a copse of pine trees planted in a rough circle. Someone had trimmed the lowest branches to several feet above her head. The afternoon clouds made the day dark and it was darker still under the trees, but they provided perfect cover from the downpour; only a stray drop or two reached them. Ben leaned his bike against one of the trees and kicked the thick layer of ground cover away from the base of another. When he’d cleared a good patch, he sat down, rested his forearms casually on his knees, and looked at her expectantly. Even with the black eye and fat lip; even covered head to toe in mud – he was gorgeous. His casual assumption that she would sit next to him made her heart skip a beat.

  Suddenly, there wasn’t enough air under the trees and her feet felt firmly planted to the spot. To stall, she fumbled with the ties of her hood and pushed it off her hair. Before he noticed her reluctance, she blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “How did you know about this place?”

  “Used to be holy ground for my people many moons ago.” He said it sarcastically, but she suspected he meant it. She looked around and something about the area seemed not just familiar, but that annoying déjà vu kind of familiar that had been plaguing her lately. Beyond the far outer trees, a huge rock loomed. She stared at it for several seconds. Could it be? With a hop in her step, she cut through the trees and worked her way around until she could see the other side of the rock face. The natural monument was invisible from the highway, which is why she’d never seen it in Sorcha’s world, but this was definitely the rock near the medicine man’s longhouse. It was a strange coincidence that she’d just been here, ‘yesterday,’ Enid’s time.

  “Bear Talker. The longhouse.” She didn’t realize she’d said it out loud until her arm was grabbed from behind and Ben pulled her around to face him.

  “What did you say?”

  His vehemence startled her. “Nothing.”

  “You said ‘Bear Talker.’ How did you know about this place?”

  She lifted her shoulders defensively. “What’s the big deal? It’s not a secret, is it?”

  His brows came together in a scowl that reminded her of Joseph. “As a matter of fact, it is.”

  “You’re hurting my arm.” He wasn’t really; she said it to distract him.

  He loosened his grip, but didn’t let go. His face was only inches from hers. She struggled to keep her eyes from dropping to his lips.

  Quietly, almost menacingly, he asked, “What do you know about Bear Talker?”

  She realized Enid knew almost nothing about the medicine man himself.

  “I don’t know anything,” she said. “Why are you being so weird?”

  That seemed to shake him from his determination to find out what she knew. He stepped back and let go of her arm. “I shouldn’t have brought you here.”

>   Her cell phone jingled from her backpack. She tossed Ben a wary look and began walking back to the trees as she dug for the phone.

  As soon as she answered, Grammy Fay asked, “Where are you?”

  “Walking,” Sorcha replied.

  “In this rain?”

  Ben brushed past her and she watched his back disappear under the branches.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Can you come get me?”

  Instead of following Ben and going back into the clearing where Bear Talker’s longhouse used to be, she walked around the trees.

  “Where are you?” Fay asked.

  “On the path along the highway, about halfway.” She’d almost reached the path and saw that Ben had gotten his bike and was waiting for her.

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  Sorcha glanced over at Ben’s stiff face and thought, it can’t be soon enough.

  Chapter Six

  Enid

  When she opened her eyes, the first thing Enid saw was Aggie sitting watch in the chair next to her father’s bed.

  “Has she gone?” Enid asked.

  “Yes, Miss,” Aggie replied softly. There was sympathy in the slave girl’s face, but also stoicism. It would be a long day, starting with preparing the body for burial. Aggie would have experience there with the passing of Jedediah’s wife, and for that Enid was grateful. She didn’t know how she would get through the day without help. Her father, as mean-spirited as he was, would have taken care of the necessary chores – but he was gone, and it was up to Enid to sew a shroud or procure a coffin, and obtain the headstone and gravediggers.

  Enid dressed in a grey dress with black stockings. The dress was very worn and a bit too big since it was Elizabeth’s. It had once belonged to a fine lady, but had somehow come into her grandmother’s possession.

  It was cowardly, perhaps, but she found herself unable to go in to look at Elizabeth’s body. She didn’t want to see her grandmother shriveled and cold; she wanted to remember her full of life and happiness.

  The day passed in a blur. The village, normally bustling with activity, seemed deserted since every last man and youth old enough to fire a rifle had been recruited by the militia. The old stonecutter charged by the letter, which solved the mystery of Elizabeth’s headstone for her. After using most of the money she’d managed to squirrel away from her father to pay for the plain pine coffin and the gravediggers’ time, she had only enough left to purchase an unadorned headstone with a few carefully chosen words. She already knew what those words were, since Sorcha had pondered their meaning for years, wondering why there was no date of death. Enid wouldn’t dream of attempting to change the future just to satisfy Sorcha’s curiosity.

  Enid had no money to purchase black gloves, which were traditionally delivered to the homes of people invited to a funeral. There was no funeral, although the pastor came and solemnly read from the Bible while Bess and Aggie sang. Their voices harmonized perfectly, rising and falling in tandem, echoing out over the field Enid had chosen – the same field that by Sorcha’s time would be full of her ancestors.

  “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away,” said the pastor.

  Enid wondered what words Bear Talker had offered as her grandmother’s last rites, and prayed that she’d taken comfort from them.

  The gravediggers lowered Elizabeth into the ground and covered the coffin with dirt. It would be a few weeks before the gravestone was ready, but the rest had been dealt with swiftly and efficiently.

  Enid stayed by the graveside until the sun colored the western sky with streaks of orange and pink. She knelt to set a bouquet of goldenrod on the mound of earth and the tears she’d held in check all day burst forth.

  Chapter Seven

  Sorcha

  Sorcha’s first thought upon waking was, Why me?

  It was a selfish thought, but she couldn’t help it. Instead of getting up to take her shower and dress for the day, she lay in bed with the covers over her head as tears leaked out onto her pillow.

  Grammy Fay poked her head in after a while and asked, “Are you still in bed? What’s the matter?”

  When Sorcha pulled the covers down, revealing her tear-stained face, Fay let out a little cry of distress and rushed to sit on the bed to take Sorcha into her arms. They stayed like that for some time, Fay rocking her back and forth and murmuring soothing sounds.

  “I’m here, Sweetling. I’m here,” Fay said.

  “But for how long?” Sorcha cried.

  Fay pulled away, grasped her chin and said firmly, “Death is hard. It comes for us all and doesn’t always give advance warning. You’ve known for some time that Elizabeth’s illness was terminal and you’ve had the luxury of preparing for it. She is no longer suffering. Now it’s time to reach down inside of you to find peace. She wouldn’t want you to mourn…not like this.”

  Sorcha knew it was true. Elizabeth had said so herself. She sniffed, and Fay reached out to pull a few tissues from the box by her bed.

  “I do, however,” Fay said, “think you should stay home today. We’ll tell the school you’re sick, okay?”

  Sorcha nodded, glad she wouldn’t have to put on a brave face today of all days. While Fay called and made her excuses to the school secretary, Sorcha texted Paula to tell her she wouldn’t need a ride.

  Almost immediately, her cell rang. Paula said, “I’m sorry I left you in the lurch yesterday. You don’t need to ride in with your grandmother – I’ll pick you up.”

  “It’s not that,” Sorcha replied. “Elizabeth died and I’m not up to going to school today.”

  “Oh, my God, I’m so sorry! Oh, Sorch…how awful. I know you haven’t wanted to talk about it, but I’m here for you whenever you do.”

  “Thanks…same thing goes for you – you know, with Dalton.”

  Paula let out a short laugh. “There is no Dalton and never has been. I’m over it, I swear.”

  Sorcha secretly thought it was easier said than done, but responded, “Good. He doesn’t deserve you.”

  “He’s irrelevant. What’s important are friendships that really exist. I wish I could do something to make you feel better.”

  “Time heals all wounds.” Sorcha tried to say it with conviction. “And Elizabeth died two hundred and thirty-six years ago.”

  “Too bad to you it feels like yesterday.”

  It was yesterday, Sorcha thought. Paula’s empathy was real, but the way she expressed it, the actual wording she used, hinted that no matter how often Paula assured her she believed Enid existed – she didn’t – at least not unequivocally. But that wasn’t fair to Paula and she knew it. Her friend had been nothing but loyal, and look what she’d done: blabbing to Ben yesterday about Paula’s crush on Dalton.

  Paula said, “Hey, I gotta go, but you want me to come over after school?”

  “No, that’s okay. I think Grammy Fay has plans for me today.”

  They rang off, and Sorcha soon discovered that Fay did, indeed, have plans for her. The morning had dawned warm and mild, in stark contrast to the storm that had blown through the day before. After feeding Sorcha a hearty breakfast that Sorcha did her best to eat, Fay dragged her out to the garden greenhouse, a dainty cedar wood and glass structure built against the side of the house. She handed Sorcha a pair of gloves and some snippers and gestured to her prized container rose bushes.

  “I think these would look better gracing Elizabeth’s headstone, don’t you?” she asked.

  Chapter Eight

  Enid

  She put the grey dress and black hose on again and walked out to the lone mound of fresh earth as the sun made its appearance in the eastern sky. She felt encapsulated in a bubble of grief that kept the beauty of the sunrise from touching her, but there was too much to do today to dwell on her sadness.

  Chores they’d fallen behind on needed attending to, pa
rticularly the harvesting of the last of the late apples from the seven trees in her father’s little orchard. Enid enlisted the aid of Sarah and Ezekiel, who picked up the fallen fruit and sorted the rotten ones out to give to the hogs, while she, Aggie and Bess plucked what remained from the branches. Once the apples were stored in the root cellar, they took their mid-day meal.

  Enid ate in the kitchen with the children, again attempting to engage them in conversation and again failing to get much out of them.

  “Do you know how to read and write?” she asked.

  Ezekiel, with his hair a shade or two blonder than his sister after a summer in the sun, shook his head no.

  “Do you know your alphabet?” she asked.

  Sarah, the eldest by one year, dutifully recited the letters up to ‘J,’ but couldn’t recall the rest. Enid was not surprised. The poorer the household, the less likely the children could be spared from chores to attend school. Not that the village schoolhouse was any great shakes unless you wanted your catechism pounded into you. Enid had gone sporadically, but in the areas of reading, writing and arithmetic she’d relied solely on Sorcha’s education. Thus far, very few of the things Enid had learned to simply survive on a farm in the eighteenth century had been of use in Sorcha’s world.

  One of those things was making tallow candles, another chore that had been neglected until the last candle in the house had burnt down to a stub, but one in which the children would be of no help. Enid went up to her room and rummaged through her chest until she found some of her old toys, which she gave to the children to play with in the main room. Sarah’s eyes went wide when she saw the baby doll Elizabeth had made out of scraps from her needlework.

  “Go on, take it,” Enid urged. Ezekiel had no such compunctions taking the wooden top and blocks she handed him.