Oh God. He’ll think it’s the preacher’s baby.
Dora stops for a moment to catch her breath. “Oh, I hope Henry hurries and gets here soon! He needs to catch him before he does something terrible!”
Henry?
Effie’s eyebrows lift in surprise and she asks my question for me. “Henry’s coming home?”
“Yes.” Dora’s still huffing and puffing. “I mean—he will. When he gets my message. Shouldn’t take long—I gave it to your father just now at your house. I told him it was urgent and he said he’d take it to Henry at Fort Rolla first thing tomorrow morning. Surely Henry will get permission to come after him—Stonefield’s a violent resister wanted by the Union Army!”
Lord, he’ll kill him.
She stops to catch a breath, but she’s so agitated, she can’t stop talking. “In the letter I got from Henry in April, he said that the Creek Indians who were trying to make it to Fort Row, Kansas, have nearly all been killed by Confederates. Most of the ones who reached the fort didn’t live through the winter. So that’s probably why Stonefield headed back to Roubidoux—to secretly cadge supplies from poor Mr. Dickinson!”
Effie motions to Lu. “Help Dora and get her some water—she needs to settle down.”
Lu glances at me and runs off to fetch some water. I can see the fear in her eyes. She’s remembering the last time she saw Stonefield.
My head’s turned into a heavy ball of lead. The walls move, like they’ve come loose from the ceiling. I find my trousers and tunic and slip them on. The soft cool fabric feels good against my skin and I stand up taller. If Dora can travel between the farm and the parsonage, so can I. I’ll use the Lenoxes’ carriage out front. Maybe Effie will understand when she finds out later—I have to see Stonefield.
But Effie frowns at me, her forehead all knotty, as I walk slow across the room to the door. “What are you doing? Get back in bed, Catrina.”
She knows I can’t speak from the throat sickness. I grab a pencil and scrap paper from the end table. The front of the paper’s covered in Reverend Preston’s handwriting—notes for an old sermon called “Prepare to Meet Thy God.” I turn it over to the blank side and write to Effie, Is there a new law against folks using their own outhouses?
“The pan is clean. It’s under the bed—you can use that.”
Lord. She’s going to make God jealous if she keeps trying to boss the world. I write, I need fresh air. I stuff the paper and pencil into her hands and open the door before she can say anything else, but she puts them down and walks right out with me, closing the door behind us. The sweet smell of honeysuckle hangs in the spring air. Red columbines have grown up against the side of the parsonage. A hummingbird darts away as I reach down and pick a flower to slide behind my ear, waiting for Effie to go back inside.
“You’re sick, Catrina. You can’t go to your father’s house.”
Oh Hell. I place my palms on either side of her face and draw her toward me. I close my eyes, rest my forehead against hers, and think the words to her. I have to see Stonefield. I thought you of all people would know what it means to me. I might not have another chance, Effie! I press my head harder, as if I can push my thoughts into hers. Please try to understand.
Effie rests her hands over mine. “I do understand,” she whispers. “I understand why you need to go, but you don’t understand why you need to stay.”
Did she hear my thoughts? Why are you trying to stop me from being happy, Effie? I turn to go. I don’t need her damned carriage. I’ll walk to the farm, even if it takes all day and makes my ankles swell up like tree trunks.
“You need to stay because of your father.”
I stop and turn back to face her. Papa?
Her eyes look the same way they did when she told me about saying no to Henry’s proposal.
No, you’re wrong, Effie. It will be fine. I start walking again. Papa will understand.
“It’s not that your father wouldn’t understand…”
I stop, stunned at how well she can hear my thoughts. What is it, Effie? I still don’t turn to face her.
She doesn’t say anything.
I sigh and cross my arms over my chest, waiting, as I stare at the distant cliff above Roubidoux Spring. Up there somewhere is the cave opening—my secret place, but I can’t see it. I ache to be there now. Two hawks soar over the valley.
When Effie finally speaks, her voice is so soft I can barely hear her. “Catrina, your father’s heart has grown so weak this past year.” Her voice changes—like something inside her throat is cracking. “If he’s exposed to your rheumatic fever…”
I close my eyes tight, trying to shut out her arguments. Papa’s had it before. And he gets throat sickness all the time. I start walking, faster this time. I’ll try not to get too close to him. I just want to see Stonefield.
“… it will kill him, Catrina.”
I shake my head. That can’t be right. How can she be sure that my presence at the house will be dangerous to Papa? I look back over my shoulder at her.
“Is that a chance you’re willing to take, Catrina?”
Lord, Lord, Lord. I’m all torn up inside. I want so bad what I can’t ever seem to have. I scream at the sky before I can stop myself, and the force of it rips my throat like knife blades. I’m still walking, even though I know I can’t go any farther. My legs don’t belong to me. I can’t feel them. It seems like I’m stumbling over the edge of my secret place and plunging down the side of the cliff, but I’m only falling to the dirt on my hands and knees.
“Catrina!” Effie cries and runs toward me.
Lu joins her, breathing heavy. “Heavens, Catrina, are you all right?”
They try to hold me up.
My head’s swimming in the swirling waters of Roubidoux Spring.
I hear the parsonage door opening and Dora calling out.
My legs are wet. A dark spot spreads over my trousers. Water and blood trickle over my calves and ankles and darken the dirt. The fire in my throat and my head spreads through my whole body.
I can’t go to Stonefield, but his child is on its way to me.
34
My moans sound like a panther’s in the woods.
With every wave of pain, the noise scrapes my throat. I never knew pain like this existed—like someone’s twisting my insides up to wring every last drop of life out of me. The waves come more often now and last longer. I clutch Effie’s hand till each one passes. But she lets go soon as they’re over, because I’m bleeding. Every time my body clenches and shudders, the bedsheet gets wetter. Effie’s good at keeping her worry inside, but Lu and Dora aren’t. Each time they clear away the bloodied linen, their eyes look like they’ll pop out of their heads.
I keep my eyes on Effie. Just watching her calms me. She acts like she’s caught thousands of babies before and this one will be no different. I never saw her so determined as she is right now. She smooths the hair away from my face and gives me her middling smile. “The baby looks ready, Catrina. Do you feel like you need to push?”
I nod. My throat’s swollen shut.
Dora whimpers. “I feel foolish as a farmer at a quilting bee. What should Lu and I do, Effie?”
“Help her to the edge of the bed. Let her hold on to you for support.”
They help me into a squatting position, holding me on either side.
Effie kneels on the floor in front of me, waiting to catch the child. “Catrina, remember all our talks about what you’ll need to do and what will happen?”
I nod. We read a whole book about it together, but I never imagined it this way. And it’s too early. This wasn’t supposed to happen for a couple more months.
She reminds me as she squeezes my hand, “Rest between contractions so you’ll have the strength to push through the pain.”
As she speaks, the pain comes rumbling toward me and I push through it. I groan and squeeze Dora’s and Lu’s arms tight as a vise grip. Then the pain leaves me, and I go limp, gasping like a fish o
ut of water. So dizzy. But seems as soon as I get a rest, the pain comes rolling back in and I’m pushing again.
Finally, Dora cries in a wobbly voice, “Oh, Effie! The baby’s head!”
Lord-a-mercy.
“Goodness gracious!” Lu’s fingers dig into my arms. “Push that brat out, Catrina, then we can all take a rest!”
Sweat drips into my eyes, stinging. I push one more time, screaming like a screech owl, and, Lordy, Lordy, I’m finally free of it. Effie catches the baby. My body stops working. My hands release Dora and Lu. I’m crumpling onto the bed, folding up, finished.
Effie’s holding a red, wrinkled creature. “Catrina, you have a daughter.”
Lu squeals.
The room spins.
I’m slipping away.
The last thing I hear is a murmured “Well broom me out!”
35
The sun is dim outside the windows now. I swim in and out of sleep, but every time I open my eyes, Effie’s by my side. She says I have not been fully awake for a whole night and now it’s late the next day. I’ve lost too much blood and my fever’s too high, but Mr. Lenox left this morning for Rolla to get Henry, and will fetch a doctor, too. She says I am in grave danger. Effie always dishes out the truth. If she lied to me I would see it on her face.
Effie, does Stonefield know?
She nods. “Hold on, Catrina.” She squeezes my hand. “He’ll be here by evening. Just keep holding on.”
I don’t know if she means Stonefield or the doctor. She gives me a little morphine so I can tolerate the pain, but it makes me even sleepier. I see Mother standing over me, and then Stonefield outside my window watching me. I reach out my arms to him. Come to me. The next time I open my eyes, he’s gone.
My daughter lies beside me, quiet. She has no breath, no heartbeat. She never made a sound. Soon they will take her away and bury her in the dark womb of the earth near my mother. My eyes make tears for her, but they get lost inside my body somewhere and do not fall.
Before they take her, I name her in my mind. I name her after my best friend and my mother. I slip Lu’s name in there, too, to make it sound pretty. Effie Lu-Ann’s face is pale, but I imagine her eyes are dark and deep like her father’s. I want to keep looking at her, but I can’t make my eyes stay open.
I hear the front door of the parsonage burst open and Lu cries out. I struggle to wake, but the morphine pulls me back down into its deep sea. Oh God, oh Hell. Every time I almost break the surface, I go under again. I try to ask Effie what’s happening, but my throat feels like knives have shredded it and nothing will come out.
An angel of light stands in the bedroom doorway. He’s come for me. Lu tries to stop him, but he pushes her away and stands beside my bed. He reaches toward me and touches the spot on my neck where my seeing stone used to rest. I think he will fly me to Heaven, but his face turns dark as death.
Stonefield? I’m sinking again.
“Catrina,” the angel says to me. “They said you’re dying. Don’t do this. Don’t go.”
Stonefield. I push at the darkness and try to swim to the surface.
“Did you ever love me, Catrina?” he shouts. Tears turn his eyes wet.
Always.
Can he hear me or are we still deaf to each other? A shadow falls over me as he comes near. He has my seeing stone and is tying it around my neck where it belongs.
“Stay with me, Catrina!” he cries. “Don’t you dare leave me!” He takes my hair in his fingers the way he used to. To try to catch me.
I’m sinking.
* * *
The angel picks me up from my bed.
I can’t move. My body does nothing I tell it to. I’m not even all the way inside myself. I think I hear Lu sobbing. This dream feels so real. I never saw Effie cry before. She tells the angel to put me down and that it’s too late—that I’ve gone to a better place—but he doesn’t listen. As he carries me out the door, I slide deeper into my dream, like Ophelia slipping into the river. I’m floating away on the current with him.
The dream man, the angel, kisses me. It makes me think of the first time, when his kiss made my soul rise to the surface, trembling for release. His lips join mine, but I don’t feel them this time, because I’m hovering between my body and his. From here I think my soul and his are almost close enough to touch. He lays my body down gentle on a bed of hay in the back of Papa’s wagon, and climbs to the wagon seat. Faithful whinnies as Stonefield snaps the reins and takes us away.
It’s nearing twilight. The hills form a black rolling line against the sky. Bats swoop down between the trees, and frogs chirp along the creek bank. The smells of river water, black walnuts, and wet cedar fill the air. I think if I let go of myself, I will fill the air, too. I’ve slipped loose, but still I hold on.
Stonefield’s shoulders are shaking. His whole body heaves and shudders as he drives the wagon away. Soon, shouts rise up behind us, and the sound of galloping hoofbeats follows. Stonefield whips the reins harder, and Faithful quickens her speed.
The hoofbeats are beside us now.
“Stonefield!” It’s Henry. “Pull over! Where are you taking—”
“Leave me alone!” Stonefield kicks out at him to push him away, but Henry catches hold of him and lunges forward off his horse and into the wagon, pushing Stonefield down against the seat.
“Why are you doing this?” Henry shouts. His eyes are red. “It’s too late—we’ve lost her!”
Stonefield swings wild and hits him in the face.
Henry grabs him and they crash against the front of the wagon, startling Faithful, who bolts forward at an even faster pace. They get thrown backward, over the seat into the wagon bed beside me. Henry pins Stonefield to the floor. “I’m after my sister, not you. You have to stop.” Sweat drips from his forehead.
Stonefield’s chest heaves as he tries to breathe; he turns to look at me.
But Henry’s still staring at him, pressed against the wagon bed.
Look at me, look at me, look at me, I chant inside to Henry. I know that if Henry lets go of Stonefield and turns to me, he will finally see me.
And he does. Lordy. Henry turns his head. His fingers let go. His body softens. His eyes find me. The most important part of me, hovering here. And for the first time in so long, my brother finally sees me.
The wagon jolts as it hits a stone, and Henry gets thrown off balance. He struggles back up and climbs over the seat to find Faithful’s reins and guide the wagon to a halt. We’ve come to the edge of Stone Field. Henry sits still for a minute, catching his breath as he looks out at the rows of rotten brown sorghum stalks standing forgotten in the field. Sprinkled among them are snatches of green—little sprigs of tender new sweet sorghum grass that have sprung up from fallen seed of the old crop. He turns to Stonefield, who still lies beside me in the wagon, never taking his eyes from me.
“I know you came back and risked your life to help my father.” Henry climbs out of the wagon.
“I didn’t come back for him. I did it for her.” Stonefield doesn’t turn his eyes from me.
Henry says nothing.
The stillness of the night beckons me. I want to slip into the twilight where I belong. Up above us in the cliff is my secret place. A dark figure moves in the cave opening in the bluff, watching us, but Stonefield and Henry don’t see.
Henry glances around at the fireflies that have arrived in the hollow. “I remember once”—he swallows, like it’s hard to speak—“Cat went to the corn-husk dance wearing a muslin dress our mother made.” He gives a laugh that sounds more like a quiet sob. “Even when she was little, she didn’t like to be told what to wear. Cat wouldn’t wear the dress until she’d made it her own. So she caught fireflies and quilted them into the skirt.” He looks over at me; his eyes are wet. “When she stood still, the fireflies would fall asleep and it looked like a white dress with black polka dots, but when she moved or danced, they lit up like she was full of stars.”
Stonefield climbs in
to the front seat and picks up the reins. “I’m taking her with me.”
“I can’t let you do that,” Henry says. But Stonefield slaps the reins and Henry gets shoved to the ground. We bolt away, toward the center of the field. We’re almost near the black rock. I think of the song from that first day in this very field where it all started.
Come, live with me and be my love
And we will all the pleasures prove
And if these pleasures may thee move
Then live with me and be my love.
His song was an invitation. A promise. He’s keeping his promise.
There will I make thee beds of roses
With a thousand fragrant posies
A cap of flowers and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle.
As we reach the black rock, the dark figure up in the bluff crouches in the opening of my secret place. The preacher. He has a gun.
A belt of straw and ivy buds
With coral clasps and amber studs
With gray feather of the dove
Oh, live with me and be my love.
The air seems to quiver as if it holds the charge of an approaching storm. I feel it inside me. The gun fires from the cliff like a lightning bolt striking Stonefield near the heart. He falls to the floor of the wagon as Faithful races through the field, taking us toward the woods. There’s a dark red stain on the seat where Stonefield sat.
36
I’ve lost track of time. But time doesn’t matter anymore—nor does distance nor place.
I think I hear someone whispering my name, but now the noise sounds more like the gurgle of Roubidoux Creek and the wind rustling the walnut leaves. I almost think if I were to wake from this dream-sleep, I’d see that I’m really in Hudgens Hollow after all.
As I think it, I realize it’s true. I’m in our secret house in the woods.
Stone Field Page 22
