The Endless Forest

by Sara Donati

  She said, “Where is Birdie?”

  Lily scanned the scene. “Not here, Ma.”

  “She’ll be close by.” Elizabeth said this out loud for her own benefit.

  Curiosity made a harrumphing noise.

  “Do you have reason to believe otherwise?” Elizabeth asked.

  “No, but I know the girl,” Curiosity said. “And I gave up trying to keep track of her long ago. As you will too, someday.”

  “Never,” Elizabeth said easily, and they laughed at that, all three of them.

  “Oh,” Lily said. “Ma, the boys have got the bagattaway sticks out already.”

  Before Elizabeth could get to her feet to set things right Ethan was there in the middle of a crowd of children whose expressions ranged from guilty to insulted. In the end they went stomping off to put the long sticks away.

  It was a familiar scene and a very rewarding one, watching the children she had raised taking up the care of the children they had brought into the world. Elizabeth felt the familiar but unwelcome prick of tears behind her eyes.

  “Look at the family you made for yourself,” Curiosity said. “I can still close my eyes and see the day you got here. You were the brightest light, Elizabeth. You lit up the room and you still do. Lily, you just about the age your ma was when she come to Paradise.”

  Elizabeth managed a smile.

  “See how it is? Folks almost never change. Thirty years on and your mama still cain’t take a compliment. Look at her blush.”

  Lily said, “I see. But that’s because she’s happy, Curiosity. She’s so happy she’s going to start weeping any second.” This last bit came with a cheeky grin, and that was what Elizabeth needed. She sat up straighter.

  Curiosity said, “While I got you two alone, let me ask you what is happening with young Nicholas Wilde.”

  Elizabeth scanned the crowd and saw that the boy was coming around the far side of the house with his arms full of firewood. The other boys followed suit, with the littlest carrying one piece of tinder in each hand.

  “Callie and Ethan took him home,” Lily answered Curiosity when it was clear her mother would not.

  “That don’t sit right with you, Elizabeth?”

  She hesitated. “If they want to take the boy in, who am I to stop them?”

  This question was still hanging in the air when Daniel and Martha came into the clearing, the young dog they had brought home with them racing ahead. Just behind them came Birdie and Lorena.

  “They brought Lorena,” Elizabeth said. “We should have thought to invite her.”

  At the sound of voices raised in greeting the children looked up from the wood they were stacking. Nicholas shot across the clearing, strong legs pumping, to throw himself into Lorena’s arms with such joy that it made Elizabeth’s throat clench.

  Lorena bent her head down to listen as the boy talked, pointing to the tables, the other children, the firewood, the sky overhead. She listened as any mother would listen, with pride and joy.

  “She raised him,” Lily said. “She’s like his—” she broke off, because Callie had come into their circle.

  “She might have raised him,” Callie said calmly. “But she’s not his mother. She’s not any blood kin to him at all.”

  All the frantic activity came to a stop when they sat down to eat. Even Lily was allowed to sit up at the table, but Curiosity kept an eye on her.

  There was a leg of lamb stuffed with herbs, another of veal, and a ham, along with flour and cornbread, and the last of the squash, potatoes, and carrots from the root cellar. The Bonners liked their food, but the talk carried on, multiple conversations at once that ebbed and flowed together and then parted.

  With her plate untouched before her, Elizabeth took it all in. Most of it she had heard hundreds of times before, old jokes and gentle teasing, comments about the veal, questions about the chutney, when the first new greens might be ready for picking, and was Luke planning on hoarding the whole plate of Annie’s special cornbread or might he pass it down?

  It was no small feat to feed so many, but it was worth it. These Sunday dinners stayed with her through the short winter days.

  Nathaniel raised his head and looked at her. Reading her thoughts, again. Under the table he squeezed her hand.

  “We’ve done all right for ourselves, Boots.”

  Then he leaned over and neat as a kingfisher Nathaniel hooked a piece of lamb from Lily’s plate. She slapped his wrist, laughing and then held up her fork and waved it. “Do not,” she said with a halfhearted scowl, “do not make me use this.”

  From the children’s table came cries of encouragement, but Nathaniel held up his hands in surrender.

  Callie got up to help clear the tables, and sat down again when Curiosity gave her a pointed look. “Little girl, walk with me, will you? My Dolly and her Joshua coming by this afternoon and I got to get back home.”

  For a moment Elizabeth watched Callie walking alongside Curiosity, head bent down to hear what the old woman had to say.

  Lorena cleared her throat. She said, “Thank you kindly for dinner, but I should get back now.”

  Elizabeth turned to her in surprise. “I thought you might stay the afternoon. I hoped you would.”

  She looked around herself and saw that for the moment they were alone. Lily had been spirited away in Simon’s arms, Nathaniel was off with the little people, and Jennet and Hannah and the others were clearing the table to set out sweets.

  Lorena had a calm smile with nothing of artifice in it. “I don’t think Miss Callie would like that idea,” she said.

  It was true, and Elizabeth hardly knew what to say. To explain Callie’s behavior would require a long conversation and the breaking of more than one confidence. She could not take those things upon herself, no matter how sound the cause seemed.

  Instead she said, “He is a fine boy, Lorena. You have done an admirable job with him.”

  Lorena studied her folded hands, because, Elizabeth realized, she was in a similar situation. There were things she might explain, but not without breaking confidences.

  Finally she said, “The most important thing to me is that Nicholas is happy and busy and folks don’t take advantage.”

  “There we agree,” Elizabeth said. “And I can promise you I will do everything in my power to see to his welfare. You may not know that I had a brother, and that Ethan is his only child. I know that Ethan will never let the boy come to harm of any kind.”

  “Sometimes,” Lorena said, “sometimes the best intentions do the most harm. Don’t you think?” She stood. “Please, will you tell your husband I said good-bye, and thank you?”

  “Of course,” Elizabeth said. And then, quickly: “There’s really no need for you to sit alone on a Sunday afternoon. I wish you would stay.”

  Lorena smiled. “But I won’t be alone,” she said. “I’m going to go walking with Levi, and then we’re both invited to take tea with Daisy and her family.”

  “Oh,” Elizabeth said, trying not to show her surprise. “That sounds lovely. I’ll wish you a good afternoon, then. Will you come again?”

  Lorena inclined her head. “Thank you. I’d like that.”

  Callie came back from taking Curiosity home and found a spot alone under the big oak on the opposite side of the clearing. It was a good spot if she wanted to watch the game that was rushing back and forth, and it was even better if she needed to be left alone with her thoughts.

  She had feared the worst when Curiosity dragged her off, but then the talk had been easy enough. Mostly about Nicholas, what kind of boy he was, how he dealt with disappointment and sadness and the loss of his friend. It was clear that Curiosity liked the boy, and that pleased Callie, though she couldn’t have said why.

  What pleased her less was the way everybody was watching her. As if she couldn’t be trusted to look after a nine-year-old boy. As if she were a child playing house, and unaware of the challenges ahead.

  But they would see, soon enough, tha
t she could take care of a household, a husband, and a child. She intended to make sure every one of them realized how wrong they had been about her.

  Although Elizabeth had a strong urge to walk over and sit with Callie, she understood it would be a mistake. Callie did not like to be seen as weak and she would not thank Elizabeth for her interference, no matter how well meant. Instead Elizabeth went into the house, where the women were gathered in the kitchen. Voices and laughter came to her in the hall and she hesitated a moment before going in.

  Hannah was nursing her Simon with her feet propped up on a stool. She sat beside an open window that provided a view of the children and the bagattaway game. The sun fell over her hair and made her skin glow gold and copper. It stroked her breast and the child’s cheek, so that his lashes threw shadows as he suckled contentedly. It was a moment so clear that Elizabeth thought it would stay with her forever.

  “Come sit,” Hannah said.

  “I’ve done enough sitting,” Elizabeth said.

  “Well, there’s no room for another pair of hands over here,” Jennet said from the business end of the kitchen. “So you might as well keep Hannah company.”

  Elizabeth could have argued that Jennet was the one who should be off her feet, but she didn’t want to disturb the atmosphere in the kitchen any more than she had already. She sat.

  Susanna brought her a cup of tea. “Peppermint,” she said. “With a little honey.”

  “I wish you would come visit with us more often,” Elizabeth said. She caught Annie’s eye. “All of you.”

  “We’ve been in the cornfield every day,” Annie said. There was something of pride in her tone; she knew what she owed to her family, and the work came easy to hand. It occurred to Elizabeth, and not for the first time, that young women were as competitive as men, but in ways men were not likely to see or comprehend.

  For a few minutes they talked about the gardens and cornfields, who might have seed to share, and whether the early spring meant a longer or a shorter summer.

  “But I do mean to come visit more often,” Susanna said. “It’s just that the days go by so quickly.”

  “And the nights too, I’m sure.” Joan LeBlanc said under her breath. Elizabeth jerked around, but Joan had turned her back and was scrubbing the table.

  If Susanna had heard Joan’s comment, she was giving no sign of it.

  Elizabeth asked about Lily.

  “Upstairs,” said Jennet. She arched her back and stretched. “Taking a nap with the weeest of the wee people.”

  “You need a nap as much as Lily,” Elizabeth told her.

  Jennet waved this suggestion off as if she were shooing away flies.

  “When is the baby due?” Martha asked.

  “That’s a matter of some debate,” Jennet said. “By my reckoning, early August. Curiosity insists July, and Hannah here is keeping her opinion to herself. I think it’s odd they won’t take my word on it. I was there when it happened, after all. Och, Martha, I’ve embarrassed you. I apologize.”

  Martha smiled to herself, and Elizabeth imagined she was enjoying the company of these women who she could now claim as sisters. They were, and would always be, a powerful force in her life. They would help her bring her children into the world, and stand by her when illness and misfortune struck, as she would stand by them.

  She wondered, as she sometimes did since her last birthday, how many years were left to her, how long she would be able to watch Martha grow into her new life and family. Then she thought of Curiosity and took some comfort in that good example.

  She said, “Martha, do you feel yourself come home?”

  Everyone looked at her, as if she had said something out loud they never knew the words for. Martha’s smile softened.

  “Yes, I suppose that’s what I’m feeling. I’m—” And she broke off.

  “Pregnant!” said Joan LeBlanc. “I knew it!”

  Martha turned very quickly, color rising on her cheeks. “I am not,” she said, with great dignity. “And if I were, it would be none of your concern. I would like an apology.”

  Joan looked as though she had been slapped. Which she had, in a way. She mumbled something that might have been an apology and then something else about the parlor and slipped away, out of the kitchen.

  Anje was worrying her lip with her teeth, her eyes wide.

  “The lass is aye angry,” Jennet said.

  “At me?” Martha said, clearly upset. “Why should she be angry at me?”

  Elizabeth said, “She’s angry at everybody.”

  Anje said, “Don’t send her off, please. It would only make things worse.”

  “What things?” Annie said, her brow drawn down.

  Anje looked at the door as if she wished she could see through it, and then she lowered her voice.

  “She had hopes of one of the Sampson brothers. I think it’s hard for her to see all of you so—”

  “Settled. Happy,” Susanna suggested. “I’m sorry for her loss.”

  Elizabeth hadn’t thought very much about the Sampsons, and she felt a pang of guilt about that. But the three brothers had lived alone, and there had been no grieving family to look after.

  Hannah said, “Which one?”

  Anje looked confused.

  “Which brother?” Hannah said.

  “Oh,” Anje said. “I don’t know.”

  “She didn’t confide in you?”

  Anje lifted a shoulder. “She didn’t know herself. She would have taken any of them. She’s worried she’ll die an old maid.”

  They were all quiet for a moment, because there was little to say. Ethan and Daniel and Gabriel had all married very quickly; the Sampson brothers were lost in the flood, and most of the other single men were Quakers, who married among themselves or went to Baltimore or Philadelphia to find wives.

  There were no men for the younger women like Joan and her sisters to marry, which meant they must resign themselves to spinsterhood, or leave home to take up work in some bigger town. And that, in turn, meant that should one of them find a husband, she could never come back to Paradise, unless there was money to buy land.

  “Ethan planned so carefully,” Hannah said.

  “A few things did slip his notice,” Annie said. “And then of course one of the eligible men went and married a squaw.”

  Elizabeth heard herself draw in a sharp breath. “Annie.”

  The girl raised her brows. “I’m not making it up, Auntie. People say such things to me.”

  “Who?” Jennet asked. “Who would dare to talk you to like that?”

  Anje’s color drained away and she turned back to her work.

  “It’s not important and I don’t want to say. If word got back to Gabriel—”

  “Och aye,” Jennet said. “Better to avoid that.”

  Simon was sound asleep, and Elizabeth took him from Hannah so she could put herself to rights.

  Just at that moment the kitchen door swung open and Callie came in, a pulse fluttering in her neck and her eyes very large in her face. She said, “I can’t find Nicholas. I’ve looked everywhere.”

  It took a good five minutes to settle her down and get the story, which was very simple, in the end. Callie had dozed off in the shade of the trees watching the games, and when she woke there was no sign of Nicholas anywhere.

  “I checked the barn and stable and all the outbuildings,” she said. “I went over to your place, Hannah, and I checked there too.”

  “But think, Callie,” Jennet said. “The boy makes friends so easily, there’s no cause for panic. Our lads go off for days at a time playing in the fort at Lake in the Clouds or exploring—”

  “You’re thinking of Harper,” Martha said. “That’s what has you so worried.”

  Just that simply Callie dissolved into tears. “If something happens to him, I couldn’t bear it.”

  In her calmest voice, Jennet asked Callie an obvious question. “Did you see the other bairns? What did they have to say about Nicholas?”


  Callie’s mouth crimped with irritation. “I wasn’t looking for them,” she said. “I was looking for Nicholas.”

  There was a small silence in the room, and then Martha came forward and sat next to Callie.

  “Callie,” she said. “The boy will be with the other children.”

  With a studied slowness Callie raised her head and looked at Martha so coldly that Elizabeth’s throat closed for a moment.

  “His name is Nicholas,” she said. “Why can’t you say his name? He’s your half brother, whether you like it or not.”

  Martha closed her eyes and opened them again, and then she stood. “I’m going out to look for the children. When I find Nicholas, I’ll send him to you here.”

  “There they are,” Hannah said from her spot by the window. “Don’t you hear them laughing? And Nicholas is there too. Callie? Nicholas is there.”

  Callie got up and went to the door, where she hesitated for a moment. Then she turned and looked at each of them. She said, “I know what you’re thinking. You think I’m too attached to him. But he’s the only blood kin I have in the world. In my place you’d feel the same.”

  Jennet said, “Callie, lass. What will you do when his mither comes to claim him?”

  She heard the question, Elizabeth was sure of it, but Callie simply walked away, out of the kitchen and through the hall and front door, letting it close behind her with a sound as sharp as an axe meeting wood.

  —

  Despite the disconcerting episode in the kitchen, the rest of the afternoon went smoothly. Elizabeth returned to her spot under her apple tree and was glad when Martha and Susanna joined her. For a long time they spoke very little, half dozing in the shade while they listened to Jennet telling stories to the older children while Hannah and Annie finished in the kitchen. Over the next half hour they all drifted back together, sitting quietly in the shade to watch the game that ranged up and down from one goal to the other.

  With a flick of his bagattaway stick Blue-Jay sent the ball flying and Gabriel leaped into the air to intercept it, as graceful as a deer. Elizabeth watched Nathaniel running, his long hair flying around him.