The Endless Forest

by Sara Donati

  “I wish there was time to write a note,” Martha told Ethan.

  “And I wish I could paint like Lily,” Ethan said. “I’d paint the two of you standing on the porch against the sky with the mountains all around, and you’d see how you look when you’re happy. As it is I’ll just have to remind you when you forget. Now will you two get a move on?”

  They waited for a moment until Ethan reached the curve in the path and then they raised their hands in farewell.

  “Well, then,” Daniel said. She felt him looking at her. “If you’re sure.”

  Nothing seemed sure to Martha right at this moment. The world had tilted out of its orbit.

  Jiminy pawed the ground impatiently, and Florida followed suit.

  “Everything is going so fast,” Martha said.

  “Too fast, maybe.” He was standing away from her, too far to touch. And right now she wanted that, she needed that assurance. Maybe he saw it in her face because he reached out a hand, palm up. Martha took it and he bent his arm so that she came up against him. They stood there in the shade of the porch for a minute and then another, and little by little the tension drained away. Martha rested her head against his shoulder and shut out everything but the feel of his shirt against her cheek, the solid shape of him, and the smell of the sunshine hot on skin and leather and muslin, and the slow steady blossoming of something that could be, that just might be happiness.

  It was the last thing she could have imagined about this moment. Martha’s mother was come to claim her, as she had always feared might happen. Her mother was here, but so was Daniel. First and foremost, Daniel was with her.

  33

  They were on their way home when Elizabeth realized where Callie must have gone. To Nathaniel she said, “I want to go sit with her. She’ll be very agitated and she shouldn’t be alone.”

  And so they changed direction and found their way to Ivy House. There was a pot of violets on the front rail, velvety deep purple with touches of yellow that seemed to glow. There was beauty to be found even in the most difficult and sober of times, but Elizabeth doubted Callie would see it that way.

  Joseph Crispin went by leading a donkey cart laden with empty chicken crates. They paused to speak a few words with him, and in that time Elizabeth had the sense of somebody watching them from the window. She put her hand on Nathaniel’s arm.

  “I think it best if I go in alone,” she said.

  He thought about that for a moment and then nodded. “But I don’t want you walking home alone past dark, do you hear me?”

  Elizabeth’s first impulse was to shake off his caution, but then she thought again of Jemima and she nodded. “I don’t imagine I’ll be here that long, but come at dusk if I’m not home yet.”

  He leaned over and kissed her. “We can take the girl home with us if you don’t like the idea of her alone here. I’ll sleep in the hayloft if that’s what it takes.”

  Elizabeth caught his earlobe and brought him back down so that she could kiss him back, properly. They had come this far together and survived much worse than a spiteful and greedy Jemima Southern. And they had slept in the hayloft more than once. She would do it again, and gladly.

  “Not without me,” she said, and then she went in to Callie.

  The girl was sitting at the kitchen table with her hands folded before her. The little house was still and obviously empty.

  “Mrs. Thicke’s gone to help Curiosity,” Callie said. “I told her to stay there until somebody sends for her.”

  Elizabeth’s worry for the girl shifted and turned into unease.

  She said, “I’ll make tea and see what there is to eat.”

  If she moved slowly and with caution, Elizabeth thought that Callie might relax enough to start the conversation herself. She warmed the teapot, sought out the milk jug, set the table properly. It wasn’t until she put the tea and the plate of buttered bread down and sat herself that it happened.

  “Martha?”

  “She’s safe,” Elizabeth said.

  “On Hidden Wolf.”

  “Yes. For the moment.”

  Callie looked so stricken that Elizabeth reached out to touch her, but the girl jerked away. A scratching at the door, and her face was suddenly alive with hope.

  When Ethan came in, it all seeped away, like a candle flame stuttering out. Slowly, though, something new came into the girl’s face. Contented relief, perhaps. Resignation. Ethan was a friend she trusted who had come to help, and she was glad of it.

  Without explanation or introduction Ethan said, “Here’s what’s happened so far.”

  Elizabeth listened without interrupting as Ethan told Callie in great detail about what Jemima and her new husband had said and claimed, and how they had been received. He described the boy who was meant to be her half brother, and he described him carefully, noting the things that Elizabeth had seen: a sweet child, unafraid.

  “Does he look like my father?”

  “I think that’s for you to decide,” Ethan said.

  He told her about the meeting in the schoolhouse, and the plan they had put together on such short notice.

  And then, looking at Elizabeth as much as Callie, he told them about his ride up Hidden Wolf, and how he found Daniel and Martha, and the conversation they had had about the documents and the choices before them.

  In all of that Callie never said a word. Instead her breath came more slowly and the little bit of color in her face seeped away until Elizabeth feared that she might faint.

  Her voice rasped. “You are telling me that Martha is gone off with Daniel. Eloped with Daniel.”

  “That was the suggestion put to them,” Ethan said. “I believe that is what they are going to do, but we can’t know for sure.”

  Elizabeth said, “It is Martha’s choice, Callie. No one would try to force her.”

  “They’ll be married,” Callie said dully. “Because of Jemima.”

  Elizabeth caught Ethan’s gaze. He gave a small shake of the head.

  “What we’re worried about right now is you,” Ethan said.

  “I want to go to Johnstown,” Callie said.

  Elizabeth started, but Ethan seemed not at all surprised.

  “I want to go to Johnstown now,” Callie said. “Will you take me, Ethan? Or lend me a horse and I’ll ride by myself.”

  And just that simply, Ethan agreed. “Yes,” he said. “I’ll take you.”

  It seemed that Ethan saw nothing odd in this plan, but Elizabeth was not so fortunate.

  “Callie, what do you hope to accomplish?” Elizabeth asked, in as gentle a tone as she could manage.

  Callie looked puzzled, and so Elizabeth tried again. “Why is it you want to go after them?”

  “To be with her,” Callie said simply. “To be there. She’s all I have left.”

  Her tone was unremarkable. Elizabeth glanced at Ethan again and he shook his head at her, one sharp movement that asked her to leave this line of inquiry alone.

  “We have to go straight away,” Callie said. She stood and looked at Ethan. “There’s no time to lose.”

  Elizabeth said, “Callie, first we should talk about Jemima. I fear you are just as much at peril as Martha. Jemima will take what she can.”

  Suddenly the animation came back into Callie’s face, as quick as a strike of lightning.

  “Oh, no,” she said with a disconcerting calm. “No she won’t. I’ll kill her first. I’d go to the gallows happily for that pleasure.”

  “But right now we’re going to Johnstown,” Ethan said. “We can talk about Jemima later.”

  He was speaking to Callie but looking at Elizabeth, asking her for some understanding and latitude in a matter she could not fathom.

  The whole episode took less than twenty minutes and now they were gone, on their way to Johnstown. Like thieves in the night.

  And why did that phrase come to mind?

  Elizabeth felt vaguely nauseated, and so unsettled that her hands shook when she held them out i
n front of herself.

  When her children or grandchildren were undone by emotion, unable to act or react, she had tried to teach them to articulate their fears for themselves. Even as very young children they had found it useful. Now she must try to follow her own advice.

  What scared her about Callie?

  The girl was not herself. In fact, she had not been herself since the flood. Since the day they all came back from Manhattan, Lily and Simon and Martha. Something about the confluence of those two events: the flood that took everything, and the stepsister who came back unexpectedly. Then today Jemima came, and Martha, the only family Callie cared to claim, had gone.

  Long ago Elizabeth had convinced herself that Callie had no feelings for Daniel, but now she wondered if she had perhaps been wrong.

  It was Lily Elizabeth came across first, and Lily wanted to know everything. She lay on her daybed, propped up on pillows with one hand resting lightly on the curve of her belly. Her expression was difficult to read; just another indication that they had been too long separated and knew each other too little.

  Elizabeth made an effort to relate the details as thoroughly and objectively as possible. The differences ten years had wrought, the style and cut and expense of Jemima’s clothing. The changes to the way she spoke and held herself. The boy, what he had looked like and his demeanor. The things Jemima had claimed, or her husband had claimed for her. The implicit threat to Martha and Callie both.

  She said nothing about Ethan and Callie’s plans for fear of saying too much.

  Lily levered herself into a more comfortable position with the help of a bolster, but the whole time she watched her mother.

  “You observe me sometimes like a bug in a jar,” Elizabeth said when she was finished.

  That made Lily smile. “Do I? Really I was just thinking about the hundred questions I’ve got.”

  “I doubt I have so many answers, but I can try. What have I left out?”

  Lily pulled back in surprise. “Between you and Da, I think I’ve heard pretty much everything. And anyway, it’s not Jemima I want to hear about. In fact, the less said of her, the better. But you could tell me about Daniel. Da wasn’t very forthcoming.”

  “Whatever your father told you,” Elizabeth said, “I hope he remembered to thank you for supporting your brother’s wishes.”

  Lily’s expression turned thoughtful. Elizabeth held her breath, alarmed and unsure. For one uneasy moment she wondered if she had misunderstood Lily’s position on her brother’s choice of a bride.

  Just as suddenly as she had disappeared into her own thoughts, Lily turned back, her expression so open and full of light that Elizabeth knew what had happened even before she spoke.

  “Mama,” she said. “The baby is moving.” She caught Elizabeth’s hand and placed it on her belly.

  “Do you feel it? A fluttering.”

  Elizabeth nodded. “Yes,” she said. “I do.”

  She had always been prone to tears in happy situations, but now they came in a rush. She stood up, and then leaning over, pressed her lips to her daughter’s head. For that moment Lily rested against her mother’s breast and Elizabeth was too overcome to speak even a single word.

  It had been so long since she had held Lily like this.

  When she sat down again she accepted the handkerchief Lily offered and wiped her cheeks; a fruitless exercise, as the tears continued.

  “It started some days ago,” Lily said. “But I wanted to be sure before I said anything. I swore Simon to secrecy.”

  Elizabeth was smiling through her tears, and now Lily was weeping too.

  “What an awful harridan I’ve been,” Lily said. “I apologize, I really do. It was just that I couldn’t stop worrying—”

  “I understand,” Elizabeth said. “Of course I understand.”

  “And what’s all this, then?” Nathaniel was at the door, his expression wary.

  “Come in, Da,” Lily said. “There’s nothing wrong. Daniel’s run off to marry Martha and I couldn’t be happier.”

  Nathaniel came into the room and crouched beside Elizabeth’s chair. One side of his mouth curled. “I see Lily’s not alone in her unbridled happiness.” He used a thumb to wipe her cheek. “If we’re going to celebrate we should call the whole family in.”

  “Ethan,” Elizabeth said, catching Nathaniel’s hand. “You don’t know yet that Ethan and Callie have gone to Johnstown.”

  Nathaniel’s brows knit themselves together, and Lily went still.

  “Callie insisted. She wanted to follow Daniel and Martha,” Elizabeth said. “And Ethan agreed.”

  Lily said, “To attend Martha at the ceremony?”

  “Or to stop it,” said Nathaniel.

  “But why?” said Lily. And then: “Do you think she’s in love with Daniel?”

  They looked at each other for a long moment.

  “That’s one possibility,” Nathaniel said. “But we’ll have to leave it to them to sort out. Could we get back to the weeping for happiness?”

  “I’d like to hear more about the little boy,” Lily said. “Does he favor Nicholas Wilde?”

  “I couldn’t say.” Nathaniel put a hand on his daughter’s head. “I hardly remember what the man looked like to start with. Dark hair is all I recall. Did you think the boy favored Nicholas, Boots?”

  “I wish I knew,” she said. “It’s really a question that Callie has to answer.”

  Lily said, “It’s strange, but I am most worried about Ethan just at this moment. I can’t imagine what he hopes to accomplish, taking Callie to Johnstown.” She sought out her father’s gaze. “Da, do you have any idea?”

  Clever Lily, who could see below the surface. Now that Elizabeth looked, it was clear to her too. Nathaniel was not entirely uninvolved in whatever was going on, but neither was he willing to talk about it.

  She hoped he would change his mind before things got out of hand.

  34

  They arrived at Cady’s offices at three, spent an hour in conversation and the drawing up of papers, and at five they assembled in the parlor to be married by the hastily summoned justice of the peace and county clerk. Cady was a personable man but first and foremost he was a good lawyer, and knew how to tie a knot.

  Mrs. Cady had offered Martha a chamber where she could wash and change, a kind and thoughtful gesture that Daniel, at least, could have done without. He didn’t like having Martha out of his sight. For his own part, he needed no more than ten minutes to strip himself out of the rumpled clothes he had been wearing for three days and put on the things he had packed in such haste.

  At home he was most comfortable in a hunting shirt and leggings, though in the classroom he substituted breeches, a linen shirt, and a workday coat. Now neither of those options would do and so he had brought the clothes he wore on those rare occasions he had to go farther than Johnstown. He slipped on his best linen shirt, made for him by Curiosity’s daughter Daisy, a vest embroidered with leaves and twining vines Ethan had brought him from Manhattan, and his good dark blue broadcloth coat. Both the shirt and coat sleeves were cut unfashionably wide, which was the only way he could get them on. Daisy had also made his trousers, cut narrow from ankle to waist, with silver buttons to close the front fall. He hoped he wouldn’t be an embarrassment to Martha.

  Finally washed and dressed, he folded and tied a fresh square of linen into a sling, eased his arm into it, and went outside to deal with the pain in the relative seclusion of Mrs. Cady’s garden.

  The wind had picked up, and the sky was darkening fast. Daniel forced himself to breathe in and out at a normal pace and then he turned all his attention to his arm. The pain had come up full force on the ride from Paradise, and now it radiated down his arm and into his hand in jolts as resonant as a hammer striking an anvil. He had been pushing himself hard for days; the only real question was why it hadn’t happened sooner.

  With his eyes closed and his face raised to the wind Daniel went through the exercises he had learne
d from Many-Doves and the healers at Good Pasture, turning inward to address the pain itself. Speaking to it like the living thing it was, and asking for peace. On this of all days. He pushed it gently and watched it retreating, along the nerves that ran through wrist and forearm to pool, for one excruciating minute, in the angles of his elbow. Sweat rolled down his face even in the cooling wind.

  Another few minutes and it fell back into his bicep and finally it burrowed like a rat into the nest of nerves deep in his shoulder.

  Cady came to the door and called his name. He wiped his face with his handkerchief and went inside to his bride.

  She had washed and changed and put her hair up in a neat roll on the back of her head. A few damp strands lay against her nape and touched the lace collar of her gown. It was what his mother would call a morning dress, of some light fabric the color of rich cream, with lace along the layered hems of the skirt and sleeves. There was embroidery across the bodice, gleaming white on white, a pattern of small birds and flowers. Against the dress her coloring seemed almost flagrant, from the rich bronze of her hair, the deep pink of her mouth, to creamy skin that darkened to rose along her cheekbones and on her earlobes.

  Her smile was small and anxious, but there was courage there too. He took her hand and kissed her lightly, just a brushing of mouths but he felt the jolt of it move through her as it traveled the length of his own spine.

  Throughout the ceremony her hand trembled in his, though her voice was calm and strong when she spoke. His own caught a little and she glanced up at him. And then she squeezed his hand, and that made him smile. So they were both grinning like idiots when the final words were spoken.

  While the lawyers and the notary were busy with the documents Daniel leaned over and whispered into her ear.

  “Sorry you let me talk you into this?”

  “No,” she said. And then, with a grin that was meant to be cheeky: “Not yet.”