SelfSame

by Conway, Melissa

  While the fat rendered in a big pot on the fire, Enid baked bread, and the sound of the children playing in the next room brought a smile to her lips for the first time in days.

  The more distasteful and strenuous chores her father usually attended to fell to Bess and Aggie: she’d sent them to the west field to muck out the pigpen. The kitchen window was wide open in order to air out the overpowering smell of rendered fat. Enid looked outside, surprised to see a thick column of smoke rising from where the village was situated. It was no ordinary bonfire; that was clear from the size of it. A building must have caught fire. She rushed into the main room and hushed the children so she could listen. Faint pops and booms echoed through the chill afternoon air. Gunfire – and too much of it to attribute to someone out hunting in the area.

  Frightened, she said, “Children, get your coat and shawl, quickly!”

  She went back into the kitchen and taking the bucket of water from the corner, put out the fires in the hearth and the oven, filling the room with steam. She fanned the air with her apron until it cleared. After closing the window, she shoved the still warm loaves of bread into a sack and slipped a small knife into her pocket. Looking around, she hoped it wouldn’t be obvious to anyone who came into the house that the occupants had recently left. She picked Ezekiel up and set him against her hip; he obligingly clung to her, his thin body weighing nearly nothing. She shooed Sarah out the front door and then grabbed her hand and ran, practically dragging the little girl along with her, to the west field.

  Aggie and Bess had finished with the pigpen, and were on their way back to the house. Enid didn’t have to say a word; they’d seen the smoke and heard the gunfire and knew what it probably meant. Bess lifted Sarah into her arms and they all hurried towards the woods.

  When Enid was twelve years old, her father brought her out here to a stand of mature trees. It was not long after the village had gotten news of what would one day be called The Boston Massacre.

  “See this tree?” he’d asked. It was a stout oak near the middle of the grove.

  “Yes, father.”

  “Here be a good place ta hide should anyone come round the house ye’d need ta get away from, ye ken?”

  She looked up, thinking he meant her to climb it and hide among the branches, but he walked around to the far side of the trunk, revealing a deep black hollow.

  “It smells like a skunk den,” Enid said.

  “Aye, it were. But I kilt the critters and plan to fix a door here so’s no one can tell it’s not part o’ the tree.”

  Her father may not have been tender and caring, but he loved her in his way, and his solution to the practical matter of where to go should the enemy come knocking was inspired.

  Enid wrestled with the door her father had fashioned from an old log. The iron hinges had rusted from years of being out in the elements, but it finally opened on the cobwebby darkness within. She hustled the children and servants into the crevasse, but Bess’ bulk took too much space and there wasn’t enough room for Enid.

  “No, Miss, I’s the one should stay outside,” Bess said, but Enid would have none of it.

  “Don’t fret, I’ll be fine. Stay hidden until I come for you.” She handed Aggie the sack of bread. “With luck they won’t come past the house anyway.”

  Once she’d shut the door on them, she knelt to brush her hand over the dirt to obliterate their footsteps. For good measure, she gathered an armful of fallen leaves and scattered it over the dirt.

  She decided to head for the creek, which would take her past the back of the house. There were thick thorn bushes growing there, with enough room for her to hide within, but still be able to see the house and the tree where the children and servants were hiding.

  A drumming sound, like rolling thunder, alerted her to approaching horsemen. She hiked up her skirts and bolted from the relative safety of the oak grove. If she were caught, she didn’t want to be anywhere near the others.

  Moments before the house blocked her view, she glimpsed a band of about five or six men on horseback, galloping up the trail from the village. They were too far away for her to see them well and she prayed they hadn’t seen her at all. She doubted she would make it to the creek, but had no choice but to try. She’d just put on an extra burst of speed when a figure in her peripheral vision appeared out of nowhere and grabbed her. A hand muffled her startled scream as her accoster used her momentum to lift her bodily and swing her around. She struggled as he carried her several yards away. Before she knew it, she was lying prone in the grass underneath him.

  Terrified, she fought him, trying to think of the moves Sorcha had learned in self-defense class, but he grunted, “Lie still!” and she recognized Joseph’s voice. She froze in surprise, only her chest moving up and down as she attempted to catch her breath, which wasn’t easy with his hand over her mouth. He stared into her eyes and must have been satisfied that she would no longer fight him because he slowly lowered his hand and pulled his arm out from under her.

  She ignored her first impulse to ask him why he was here. His actions had already demonstrated he was there to protect her, although she couldn’t fathom why. “Who are they?” she whispered.

  “Mohawk,” he replied.

  “War party?”

  “No. They travel to New York to escort their chief north.”

  She didn’t ask what happened in the village. Bear Talker’s words from two days ago came back to her: “Now the Mohawk encourage us to join the British crown in this fight against the colonials.” The horsemen would have considered it good fortune to happen upon an undefended patriot village where they could help themselves to anything they desired – all in the name of the crown.

  He shifted himself off her, staying low to the ground. With his upper body resting on his elbows, he reached out and produced his musket. She rolled over and saw that he’d dragged her behind a slight crest in the field that offered natural cover. They watched the house through the tall grass; there was nothing to see, but plenty to hear. From the crashing and banging it was clear the Mohawk warriors were inside. There hadn’t been time for the pot of fat to cool. They would know the occupants had just left.

  After a few minutes, two of them came out. One walked cautiously toward the creek and the other went in the direction of the west field.

  “The children…” Enid whispered urgently. She started to crawl backward in the grass, but he stopped her.

  “It will not help if you are caught.”

  “What are they looking for?”

  “I guess they already found it – shelter for the night.”

  “No, I mean those two,” she said, nodding to the men slowly walking the perimeter.

  He gave a slight shrug as if it were obvious. “You.”

  She closed her eyes and shivered. Of course the Mohawk would want to make sure the occupants of the house they planned to squat in weren’t nearby – or a threat. The one who’d gone toward the west field circled back without finding the hollow tree. The other one looked inside the barn and the chicken coop and also came back around to the house. It was getting dark and the temperature had dropped. One of them went into the house, but to her dismay, the other sat in her father’s chair on the back porch and lit what was quite possibly her father’s pipe.

  Joseph said, “We will wait until Grandmother Moon is high -”

  “I cannot.”

  He looked at her inquiringly.

  “I will fall asleep by then. The spirit in this body cannot be woken while the spirit in my other body is awake.”

  She’d confirmed that she had two lives, and he must have had no trouble believing it because her revelation didn’t faze him. “Must you sleep?”

  “I’m afraid it cannot be helped.”

  He frowned and squinted at the house. “Have you ale?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  The hours passed slowly. As Joseph predicted, the men in her house found her father’s ale, and if the nois
e and laughter echoing out over the field was any indication, drank a good quantity of it. Enid had begun to shake uncontrollably from the cold, so Joseph pulled her impersonally into his arms. He was dressed less warmly than she, but the heat emanating off his body astonished her. She threw modesty to the wind and snuggled up against him. He kept a close eye on the house, but every few minutes checked to make sure she was still awake.

  The last thing she remembered was the feel of his rough shirt against her cheek and the sound of his slow, steady heartbeat.

  Chapter Nine

  Sorcha

  She sat up abruptly in bed and cried, “No-no-no-no-no!” Enid couldn’t have fallen asleep at a worse time. Sorcha grabbed her pillow and buried her face in it, swearing profusely into its softness.

  Her door burst open and Grammy Fay rushed in. “Are you alright?”

  Sorcha dropped the pillow and responded in a plaintive whine, “I’m fine. Not so sure about Enid, though.” She filled Fay in on the events at the farm; her words pouring forth with her emotion.

  Fay sank down onto the side of the bed with a heavy sigh, patting Sorcha on the leg. “There’s nothing you can do about it, so I suggest you pull yourself together, Sweetling.”

  “I wish I could go back.” It was the first time Sorcha had ever uttered that sentiment. She gave Fay a hopeful look and said, “Maybe if I take a sleeping pill..?”

  Fay pursed her lips disapprovingly. “None of the medications your doctors gave you as a child made any difference,” she reminded her. “You said you thought Enid could trust this Joseph fellow, right?”

  Sorcha dropped her head in her hands and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes with her index fingers. She saw Joseph’s fierce face and kind eyes. “I suppose.”

  “And he said the Mohawk are just passing through, so I’ll bet when you go back it’ll all be over and everything will be fine.”

  Sorcha had her doubts, but as Fay had pointed out, there was nothing she could do. She got out of bed and into the shower, trying to downshift from the excitement of Enid’s world to her mundane existence in this one.

  The rest of the day started out just as ordinarily as any other, except the ride to school with Paula was like picking a scab off a fresh wound. Paula coaxed her into talking about Elizabeth, and as much as she’d rather push the painful feelings aside, at least she didn’t have to explain about Joseph and the Mohawk and Enid falling asleep in the midst of it all.

  After History class, Mr. Lee made her stay after to discuss the ‘D’ she’d gotten on her test.

  “The first month in class you were averaging an ‘A,’ Miss Sloane. What’s going on with you?” he asked.

  The first month of class they’d studied the Revolutionary War. She was briefly tempted to tell him her grandmother died, but squelched the urge. She couldn’t very well back it up if he were to contact her parents, and besides, it seemed disloyal to Elizabeth to use her sadness as an excuse, even though it was true.

  “I’ll try harder,” she said.

  Mr. Lee offered to give her extra credit to make up the ‘D’ and she took it, mostly to get him off her case. She wanted to care about her History grade, but in the big scheme of things, it just didn’t rate very highly.

  By noon, she was on edge to the point of being twitchy. She and Paula ate their respective lunches as the minute hand of the clock taunted her with its slowness. Ben was conspicuous by his absence from the lunch room. She wondered if he’d come to school at all the last two days. He’d taken quite a beating, but from the look of his knuckles, had given as good as he got. She studied the faces around the room, but didn’t see anyone who looked like they’d been at the other end of those knuckles.

  In place of fifth period, they had to sit through a pep rally for the football team. She and Paula had attended every game for the last three years so Paula could secretly cheer on Dalton, who was a rather indifferent linebacker. There was a rare Saturday game tomorrow.

  “Are we going?” Sorcha asked.

  Paula’s shoulders drooped. “Probably shouldn’t, huh?”

  “You still like him.”

  “Of course I do.”

  Sorcha patted her on the back. “Then we’re going.”

  After school, on the way to Paula’s car, she made a point of sauntering past the truck she’d seen peeling out just before she’d found Ben face-down in the grass. It was jacked up too high for her to see into the side window. Casually, she asked Paula, “Whose truck is this?”

  “Um, you know Terri Frazier’s ex-boyfriend? I forget his name, but he’s a senior.”

  “John Nelson, isn’t it? Wasn’t he the guy Ben beat up and got put in juvie for?” Things were starting to make sense now. Ben had gotten jumped as payback.

  They reached Paula’s car. “Yeah, but I heard it didn’t happen like that.” Paula was talking to Sorcha over the hood, but she stopped and her gaze shifted. Sorcha turned just as Ben rode up next to her on his bike.

  He said, “Can I talk to you?”

  “What happened to your face?” Paula asked.

  His jaw tightened and he lifted his eyebrows at Sorcha.

  “Sure,” she said, and followed him to a patch of trampled grass too far away for Paula to hear.

  “I’m sorry I was a jerk the other day.” He appeared to be inspecting the ground when he said it, but he sounded sincere.

  “It’s alright.”

  He looked at her then. “It’s not alright. You helped me when a lot people would have left ‘that scumbag juvenile delinquent’ to rot out there.”

  She tilted her head. “I think it’d take a lot more than John Nelson and his friends to keep you down.”

  She watched, fascinated, as he fought the smile that crept over his lips and lost. With a little laugh, he shook his head. “I got my black belt when I was twelve. John upped his game – he got some moves he didn’t have two years ago – but, yeah, it took all four of them to put me in the dirt.”

  “Mud.”

  He full-on grinned at that and she caught her breath. His teeth were straight and white and a dimple winked into existence in his left cheek. It occurred to her suddenly that he’d done a one-eighty from the surly young man she’d walked with in the rain. Was there a reason he seemed to be pouring on the charm?

  “What did you want to talk to me about?”

  His grin melted away. “It’s just…I gotta know…who’d you hear about Bear Talker from?”

  She’d had a feeling he was going to ask her that. He’d been so upset about it.

  “You tell me why it’s so important,” she said, “and I’ll tell you what I know.” She had no intention of telling him the truth, but was confident it wouldn’t come to that anyway. He’d already said it was a secret; he wasn’t going to tell her anything.

  But he surprised her with, “Deal. You go first.”

  “No. You.”

  His lips thinned in a quick flare of annoyance, but he kept his voice steady. As if he was talking to a three-year-old he said, “If I tell you, there’s a very good chance you won’t believe me.”

  That got her attention. Before she stopped to consider the potential ramifications, she heard herself say, “Ditto.”

  It must have dawned on him that they were at an impasse. “Fine.”

  “Fine.” She started to turn away.

  “Wait.” He put a hand on her arm and let out a little growl of reluctance. “Okay.” He pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers and said, “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” before looking intently into her face. “You can’t say anything – to anyone.”

  “I’m good at keeping secrets.”

  He glanced over at Paula, but she’d gotten into her car and appeared to be reading something. There was no danger of her overhearing, so he seemed to relax somewhat. His next words tumbled out. “I’m only telling you because it’s obvious you already know something. So, yeah, I’m part of a – secret society of sorts. We meet there twice a year. There. Now yo
u go. Who told you about Bear Talker?”

  A secret society? She almost laughed. It seemed like such a lame reason for him to get so riled up, but obviously he took it pretty seriously. Maybe he thought one of the other members had broken the sacred vow of silence or something and told her about this Bear Talker. She decided to tell a modified version of the truth after all, since she was a bad liar and he had no way of verifying it anyway.

  “Bear Talker is a medicine man. He came to help my grandmother Elizabeth cross over into the spirit world. She died yesterday.”

  He frowned. “Your grandmother’s name is Elizabeth? And you met Bear Talker. Are you messing with me?”

  “Yes, her name was Elizabeth, and I’m all torn up about it, thanks for asking. I can tell you one thing for sure: we’re not talking about the same Bear Talker.”

  “Oh, really? In the woods, you said, ‘Bear Talker’s longhouse.’ If we’re not talking about the same guy, what did you mean?”

  He had her there. “I – I was talking about someone from the past.”

  He looked absolutely aghast. In a dark voice, he demanded, “Who told you to say that?”

  “No one!” She was getting frustrated with the conversation, and Ben’s strangeness was freaking her out. “Why would someone tell me to say it?”

  His head went back and forth in almost undetectable little shakes. “No. It’s impossible.”

  She stared back at him, a jolt of panic running through her. He was looking at her as if he’d seen a ghost. This secret society business was serious to him, deadly serious apparently. She reviewed her exact words and couldn’t figure out what had him so spooked. He backed away, watching her the entire time, before getting on his bike and riding off.

  “What just happened?” she murmured.

  She was standing there feeling like something momentous and very, very bad had just occurred when a loud honk startled her. She looked over at Paula, who had her thumbs in the air and a happy, questioning look on her face.

  Back in the car, Paula let out a little squeal and said, “Oh, my God, he totally likes you.”