by Delia Parr
Orralynne huffed. “Guided by your faith, no doubt.”
“Yes,” Emma said, keeping her voice low and nonthreatening. “And since you’re so insistent on being truthful, perhaps you’ll admit that from the moment you both arrived, you’ve done your best to make it as difficult as possible for me to be happy that I had invited you here.”
When Orralynne’s blush deepened, Emma shook her head. “It’s almost as if you want people to . . . to dislike you or to turn on you.”
“Why should I expect anything else?”
“Because you can’t let the past dictate the present or control your future, that’s why. You had a difficult childhood. No one denies that, and if they do, they’re too foolish to consider. But you’re not a child any longer. You’re an adult. If your stay here today is any indication, you spend so much time being embittered you don’t even realize how you hurt people by what you say or what you do.”
Orralynne stiffened. “I suppose now we’re really getting to the heart of the matter. You didn’t really want to help me tonight when I had the nosebleed, any more than you wanted to sit and have something to eat with me now. You just wanted the opportunity to . . . to reprimand me, to make me feel badly for telling Judith Massey the truth.”
“That’s not true,” Emma argued. “I just wanted to talk with you about what you said to her, but I didn’t want you to feel badly. I wanted you to understand why what you said upset her, so you wouldn’t do it again.”
Orralynne shrugged. “I don’t see why it’s my fault she got so upset. Just because no one else told her the truth doesn’t mean I have to go along with them. Every word I said was true. She can have a stillborn babe, like Lucy Smith or her babe could only live a few days, like Elsie Taylor’s. Or the woman who died right here at Hill House giving birth to a stillborn babe.”
Emma pressed her hands tighter together. “That may be, but don’t you think Judith knows all that? As her time gets closer, don’t you think that she’s frightened and worried by all that could go wrong?”
“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been married. I’ve never had a child, and I never will.”
“Perhaps not,” Emma whispered. “But you know what it’s like to be afraid.” She let her words rest for a few moments in the silence that marked Orralynne’s only response. “What Judith needs now, more than anything else, is to know that she has people around her, good neighbors and friends, who care about her and who will support her now and after her babe is born. Wouldn’t you like to be a good neighbor for her, if not a good friend? Wouldn’t you have wanted that for yourself when you were a child? Or even now?”
Without meeting Emma’s gaze, Orralynne traced the rim of her empty plate with her fingertip. “I suppose you’re going to force me to apologize to her, regardless of what I think.”
“Only when you’re ready, but I wouldn’t wait too long. The longer a hurt brews and festers, the deeper it gets, and the harder it is to forgive,” Emma replied and decided she should follow her own advice. “Although you insisted otherwise earlier, I really need to apologize to you. I shouldn’t have spoken to you or your brother so harshly after the supper tray ended up on the floor.”
She paused to let out a long breath. “It’s up to you, Orralynne. If you and your brother prefer dining alone for the remainder of your stay here, then of course you may. But I hope you’ll continue to take your meals with us in the dining room.”
Emma rose and started to clear the table. “Except for the elderly Mr. Kirk, the rest of the Kirk family left after supper and the Wileys are leaving after breakfast in a few hours. We’ll be spending the better part of the day today cleaning their rooms. Judith and Solomon will be staying, of course, and so will the Ammond brothers. That means the two rooms at the front of the house will still be occupied, but you’re welcome to come upstairs with your brother later this afternoon and decide which of the other four rooms you’d like to have. I’ll tell Mr. Lewis to do the same after you’ve made your choice, and you can tell Lester that he can still keep the library for his own use, as well.”
As she set the mugs and plates into the sink, she pulled the winter curtains aside to look out the window and saw the first light of day, a hopeful omen that she and Orralynne might also be beginning anew. She heard footsteps overhead and smiled. “Mother Garrett will be coming downstairs soon to start breakfast, and I expect Liesel, Ditty, and Aunt Frances won’t be far behind her,” she said and turned around.
Emma caught but a glimpse of Orralynne’s dressing gown as the woman slipped from the kitchen. Sighing, she had no idea whether or not Orralynne would apologize to Judith or if her conversation with Orralynne would reach into the hurts buried deep within the woman’s heart.
She did know, however, that she had tried her best. She closed her eyes and placed the matter in His hands with a simple but earnest prayer. “Please shower us with your goodness and your healing grace, Father. Amen,” she whispered.
When she opened her eyes, she glanced around the kitchen and yawned. As much as she would like to collapse into a real bed and get a few hours of sleep, she had too much work ahead to give the idea more than a wishful thought. Instead, she washed and dried the dishes, stored them away again, and wiped the table clean so the kitchen would be in proper order when Mother Garrett came downstairs.
Since neither Liesel nor Ditty would be very happy about going outside to collect eggs for breakfast, despite Emma’s assurances the panther had been chased off, she donned her cape, grabbed the egg basket, and slipped out the kitchen door.
The moment she turned toward the chicken coop and saw the wire fencing sagging low to the ground, her heart filled with horror. She dropped the basket and ran to the coop, only to have her worst fears confirmed.
The panther had returned after all.
Every chicken was gone, save for one who lay frozen motionless on the ground, its neck apparently broken. The straw and bedding were a mess. And feathers—so many feathers! They were everywhere. Inside the coop. Outside on the ground, like colorful autumn leaves scattered by a savage wind. And trails of blood.
Blinking back tears, she dropped to her knees. “Poor Faith,” she whispered. “You must have fought so hard to protect your little flock of friends. Why didn’t I hear the hubbub? Why didn’t anyone hear it?”
She groaned. The panther must have struck during supper while everyone inside was talking and laughing and celebrating the good news that repairs on the Wiley and Kent homes had been completed. Burdened by guilt for not having had a stronger pen built sooner and by sadness at the loss of her little friends, she shook her head. “You were out here all alone, without a good strong fence to protect you. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
She got back to her feet and scanned the backyard. Although there were more feathers lying scattered about on the ground, she held tight to a slim spark of hope. Maybe one of the chickens managed to escape. Perhaps more than one, since it was difficult to imagine that the panther had gotten to all of them. If there were any survivors, Faith would be among them, just as she had been among the chickens who had escaped after the accident on Main Street last fall. Faith had found her way safely to Hill House then, and Emma firmly believed Faith could do it again—if she had survived.
Hoping against hope, Emma picked up the basket she had tossed to the ground and hurried back into the house, praying she would find that ornery chicken waiting for her in exactly the same place where she had found it the first time.
12
EMMA CHARGED THROUGH THE KITCHEN past Mother Garrett, who was slicing bread at the kitchen table. “The panther got to the chickens,” she explained and dropped the basket onto the end of the table.
Without losing a step, Emma hurried through the kitchen to the dining room. She opened one of the double doors and stepped out onto the patio and quickly glanced around. The summer furniture, which had been covered with canvas for the winter, hosted only a scattering of dead leaves. Autumn debris a
lso gathered in the corners of the patio at the base of the stone wall surrounding it and in the fireplace, but there was no sign of any of the chickens.
Acting on a hunch, she crossed the patio to get to the gate. She let her gaze travel down the terraced steps to the gazebo sitting at the bottom of the hill and the summer pen near the mulberry trees.
Again, there was no sign of the chickens.
The woods behind the gazebo were mostly barren now, and she could see clear through to the frozen canal in the far distance. The few pines in the woods, including candlewood trees, were still green with life but would offer little shelter for the chickens, especially now that the panther was roaming about.
She pulled her cape tight against the wind and shivered. Without protection, any of the chickens who might have escaped would not last long in this cold, assuming they could continue to hide from the panther. Disappointed and disheartened, she turned away from the gate and gasped.
Faith was just ahead, nesting alongside one of the other chickens, on top of one of the canvas-covered chairs that had been empty only moments ago.
Emma took measured steps to reach the two chickens that looked more than a bit bedraggled, since they had both lost a good number of feathers. She blinked back tears and stooped down. “You poor dears,” she whispered and got a few weak squawks in reply.
In a quandary as to how to help them, she looked around the patio. There wasn’t enough shelter from the cold here, and there was nothing she could do to prevent that panther from leaping right over the wall to get at them. Until the pen could be rebuilt and the fence strengthened, she could not move them back to the chicken coop behind the house, either.
With no other recourse, she slipped off her cape and laid it on the stone floor. “I guess you’ll just have to come inside,” she murmured. With the little chicken experience she had acquired over the past few months, she placed first one chicken and then the other on top of her cape.
Fortunately, the chickens were too frozen or too scared to offer much of a protest when she wrapped the cape around them, scooped them up, and carried them back to the house.
Unfortunately, Mother Garrett was waiting just inside the dining room, with her arms folded at her waist, her feet planted firmly on the floor, and a frown on her face.
With her teeth chattering, Emma nodded over her mother-in-law’s shoulder. “W-would you p-please sh-shut the door for me? I’ll drop one of them if I even try.”
Mother Garrett took a step back. “Tell me you’re not bringing those chickens inside the house,” she quipped as she stepped around Emma to shut the door.
“I can’t leave them outside! If they don’t freeze to death, the panther will get them for sure.”
Mother Garrett sighed but kept her gaze on the chickens when she returned to block Emma’s way. “And just where do you think you’re going to put them? You’ve seen what they do to their coop!”
Emma shifted her load and shivered from head to toe. “I’m not sure.”
“Frances should be downstairs soon. We could get her to help. Chicken soup sounds like a good idea for dinner to me, in which case you may as well leave them on the patio.”
Emma’s eyes widened. “I can’t eat Faith! She’s . . . she’s my friend!”
“Well, you can’t keep that friend in the house,” Mother Garrett argued. “In case you’ve forgotten, Reverend Glenn is coming back today with Butter, and that old dog will tear up this house in no time to get to those two chickens.”
“The root cellar! I’ll fix up a pen down there. It’ll only be for a few days, until Steven gets here Monday to redo the pen outside,” Emma countered.
When she started for the kitchen, Mother Garrett stepped aside but followed on Emma’s heels. “The root cellar? They’ll eat half our stores, and what they don’t eat they’ll ruin with their droppings!”
“I’ll fix it so they won’t,” Emma insisted. When she got to the kitchen, she stood at the door to the root cellar with the chickens squirming to get free. She could not open the door without putting them down, a sure invitation to disaster. She looked over her shoulder at Mother Garrett. “Would you open this door for me? Please?”
Mother Garrett tapped her foot. “I will, even though it’s against my better judgment, but only with two conditions.”
Emma gritted her teeth and struggled to keep the chickens in her grasp. “Go ahead. Name them.”
“First, I get to say, ‘I told you so,’ as many times as I like when this idea of yours turns into a nightmare.”
“Agreed,” Emma quipped as first Liesel, then Ditty, descended the back steps into the kitchen.
“Good. Second, I don’t want you—”
Suddenly Ditty slipped and knocked into Liesel, who fell into Emma. The chickens broke free and chaos erupted, forcing Mother Garrett to swallow her second condition. Emma dropped her cape and chased after the squawking chickens while Mother Garrett removed her apron, draped it over her head like a scarf, got down on hands and knees, crawled under the kitchen table to get out of harm’s way, and crouched there.
Liesel grabbed a broom as Ditty, grinning, opened the door to the root cellar. “Shoo them over here!”
Emma flapped her skirts and chased one chicken around and around the table while Faith perched on the hand pump at the sink. “Help me, Liesel,” she urged. “Don’t try to hit the chicken. Just block its way so it heads toward the cellar door.”
After the third go-around, the plan worked and Ditty shut the cellar door to keep the chicken from coming back into the kitchen.
Panting, Emma stopped to catch her breath.
“Can I come out now?” Mother Garrett cried.
“Not yet. Faith is still free.”
“She’s sitting on the pump,” Liesel added.
“What do you want to do now, Widow Garrett?” Ditty asked, joining both Emma and Liesel.
“We can’t wait until dusk until the chicken falls asleep like we did last fall when she showed up on the patio,” Emma admitted and looked toward the table. “Did you say Aunt Frances was coming down soon?”
Mother Garrett groaned. “Apparently not soon enough. Like I’ve tried to tell you before, I like chickens good and dead so I can cook them. I don’t like them alive, and I especially don’t like them flapping and squawking in my kitchen! And let me just say, ‘I told you so,’ before my heart gives out for good.”
“I could try swatting it just a little with my broom to scare her,” Liesel suggested.
“Then what? We play tag again?” Emma argued. “I’m not sure I’ll last through it a second go-around. Besides, we can’t open the door to the cellar because the other chicken might run back into the kitchen.”
Ditty shrugged. “I’ll go down to the root cellar to make sure the chicken stays there.”
“How?” Emma asked, half tempted to put both chickens back outside, panther or not.
Ditty picked up Emma’s cape from the floor. “I’ll use this to block its way while you and Liesel try to make the other one go downstairs.”
Emma sighed. “All right. I suppose that’s a good plan.”
“No,” Mother Garrett protested, “a good plan would be to open the back door and chase both of those critters outside where they belong.”
Ignoring her mother-in-law, Emma walked over to the door to the root cellar. “I’ll watch the door. Ditty, you go ahead downstairs, but be careful. It’s dark down there. Try to find those candles Mother Garrett keeps down there and light them. Liesel, hold off with that broom until I tell you we’re ready.”
Emma opened the cellar door for Ditty and quickly closed it behind the young woman. “Ready!”
With the broom in her hand like a shotgun, Liesel approached Faith. “Be a nice chicken. A nice, nice chicken,” she crooned. “Don’t you want to join your friend?”
Faith squawked, ruffled up her feathers, and scooted from the pump to the sink to the kitchen table, knocking all three loaves of bread to the floor in the
process. When Liesel chased after the chicken with the broom, it ducked away and scooted under the table.
Emma gasped, ran to the table, and dropped to her knees to look beneath it. Trembling, the chicken was nesting on Mother Garrett’s lap, with its head resting on one of the elderly woman’s knees.
Emma sat back on her haunches, locked her gaze with her mother-in-law’s, and tried not to laugh at the apron sitting askew on her mother-in-law’s head. “Don’t move. Just hold very still. I’ll think of something to get that chicken off of you.”
To her surprise, Mother Garrett slowly reached out and gently, very gently, began stroking the chicken’s back. “Poor thing. You’re shaking all over. You’re just as scared as I am, aren’t you?” she crooned as she tugged her apron from her head and laid it over the chicken. “Well, you needn’t worry. You’re not headed for the soup pot. Not just yet, but if you keep flapping around my kitchen and ruining my bread, you’re going to get there right quick.”
She looked up at Emma and nodded. “Go ahead. See if you can pick her up now. She’s not trembling so much anymore.”
Emma leaned forward, scooped up the chicken with both hands, and caught Mother Garrett’s gaze. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“I’m fine. I come from strong stock, just like that chicken of yours. Now get it downstairs and fix up some sort of pen for the two of them. No, wait. You haven’t agreed to my second condition yet.”
“I agree. Whatever it is, I agree,” Emma insisted as she struggled to get to her feet without tripping over her skirts or dropping the chicken.
Mother Garrett crawled out from under the table. With her face flushed, she pushed the hair back out of her face and rearranged her skirts. “You can’t tell one soul, living or dead, that I agreed to keep a pair of chickens in my root cellar. And that goes for you, as well, Liesel.”
“We won’t tell anyone,” Liesel promised as she opened the cellar door for Emma.
“No, we won’t,” Emma agreed and started down the stairs with Faith in her hands and faith in her heart that this day would get better—because it simply could not get any worse.
