The Vanishing Point

by Mary Sharratt

  One day Bessie disappeared. In a panic, Hannah searched for her everywhere. Hours later, Gabriel found her in the tobacco barn with a litter of red puppies. "One of them can be yours," he told Hannah as she stroked the squirming bodies.

  "I like this one." She lifted one of the females. The puppy licked her nose and playfully nipped her hand with sharp milk teeth.

  "What will you call her?"

  "I have to know her before I can name her. Maybe Ruby, since she's so red."

  ***

  While the first snow fell, Hannah cut the pattern for her new dress to her old measurements. This wasn't going to be a maternity robe but a gown for the slender girl she had once been and hoped to be again, if God spared her through the birth. She stitched each seam carefully, as if the dress were a talisman of luck, promising her a long life and happy future. It was as though she were viewing the time after her labor in a fortuneteller's crystal ball. How handsome the future Hannah looked in the patterned cotton Gabriel had procured at great expense. He had clothed her like a gentlewoman, given her a jeweled ring to wear on her finger. Hannah in the crystal ball was happy, laughing the way her sister used to, her face turned lovingly to Gabriel, who held their son in his arms, the proudest father alive. When the little boy was old enough, the three of them would dance together, their feet picking a merry pattern over the floorboards, the lovely gathered skirt flying out to reveal her ankles, shapely again, no longer swollen from pregnancy. She was a beautiful young mother, gentle but strong enough to protect her child from every evil.

  Keeping the vision in her head, she tried to banish her doubts and fears with each completed seam. After the dress was finished, she sewed baby clothes, tiny sheets, and pillowcases with the leftover fabric. When Gabriel praised her clever sewing, she held her tongue and didn't tell him she was a clumsy seamstress compared to May. Our May could stitch in her sleep.

  May's ghost was at her elbow, making her seams crooked. Night after night, she dreamt of her sister walking barefoot through a forest of dead trees. A piece of mildewed sacking covered her wasted body. May no longer wept or cried out to her. She was quiet as bones. Silence settled around her grave with the drifting snow. It was the silence that oppressed Hannah most, that sent her fears into a deafening cacophony. Her doubts grew and grew, just like her belly, swelling like a gourd until she thought she would burst and that the bursting would kill her. Something inside her was going to wrench her open, tear her flesh, force its way out. Something she couldn't conceal from Gabriel any longer.

  ***

  "A lonely life we lead," she said one evening as she filled Gabriel's trencher with slices of turkey she had roasted on the spit.

  "It will be less lonely when the child comes," he said contentedly.

  Hannah bit her lip before she spoke. "But will it not be strange and unwholesome for the child to grow up without playmates?"

  Gabriel laughed. "We'll have to give him a passel of brothers and sisters, then, won't we?" He winked at her.

  How could he speak so carelessly, talking about many births when she could not see beyond this one birth? She let her knife fall against the table with a loud clang. "I don't want to drop a baby every year like one of your goats."

  "Hannah, what is this? You are in a temper."

  "I am lonely," she confessed. "I miss the company of other females."

  "There isn't much to be done about it."

  She picked up her knife. "I wish there were neighbors we could call on."

  "The Gardiners?" he asked her pointedly. "Or do you prefer the Banhams?"

  "I wish we had other neighbors."

  He gave her a wistful look. "You used to be happy here." Laying his hand on hers, he fingered her ruby and pearl ring. "I cannot give you everything, but I give you everything I have."

  She nodded and tried to smile. "I know, Gabriel."

  "You will feel better," he promised, "when the baby is here."

  "What if I am not strong enough?"

  "What are you saying?"

  She gazed into his eyes, hoping to see what lay behind them. "It killed her. What makes you think it would not kill me?"

  "You said we would speak no more of it."

  "Gabriel, I do not." Her voice shook. "I do not speak of rumors but of my sister. You say she died of childbed fever."

  He was already turning away from her, one hand covering his eyes. "Why must you—"

  She cut him off. "It could be the death of me, too. Women die having babies. Ladies of wealth write their wills before they go into childbirth."

  "You are young and strong. We love each other. I will not let you die."

  "She was strong and yet she died."

  The breath seemed to leave his body. "You are not convinced of my innocence."

  "If you are innocent, then there's no harm in mentioning my own sister's name." Her voice was raw and cruel. She sounded like the worst sort of harpy, but now that she had started, she couldn't stop. "What do you know of midwifery? Will you let me have this child all alone like Bessie birthed her puppies?"

  "Hannah!" He slammed his hand against the table, causing the trenchers to skid. "I told you before." He spoke thinly, between clenched teeth. "When the time comes, I will fetch a midwife."

  "I am ignorant of the days. I know not when my time comes and neither do you." Her voice ripped out of her throat with a violence that astounded her. It was as though she were unleashing demons. "What in the devil's name happened to that cradle?"

  "What cradle?"

  "May's cradle. The one pushed under the bed." Not caring if she hurt him or not, she let the words fly. "There's a crack running down the headboard. How did it get there, Gabriel? Who would crack a cradle like that?"

  He struck the table again, this time with his fist. "What are you saying to me?"

  "You never told me how her baby died." She looked at him, waiting for what would come next. "Will you let me die just as she did?"

  He muttered something under his breath and walked out of the house.

  After a moment had passed, she found her shawl and stumbled out the door. Looking neither left nor right, she lurched down the path. There was more than one way to kill a woman. If he hadn't killed May with outright violence, then could he have done it with neglect? If he had loved and cherished May, she would have held on to life after losing the baby. Why hadn't he taken better care of her?

  Looking into her future, Hannah saw the green cotton dress folded in the drawer, not her body inside the dress. She had no reason to believe she would live when so many other women died. May the devil take you. May you fester in hell for what you have done. She didn't know whether it was Gabriel she was cursing or herself.

  When she reached her sister's grave, she knelt in the shallow snow and wailed as she had never wailed before. She shrieked and keened like a madwoman. The dogs rushed over and sniffed her. They whined softly and licked her before trotting away. The cold wind stung her wet face. Her voice grew hoarse as a crow's. Still, she didn't stop shrieking until a shadow marked the snow in front of her. Gabriel stepped between her and the cross with her sister's name on it. He held the fur cloak he had made for her last year in one hand and Ruby, the puppy, in the other. Kneeling in the snow, he pressed the puppy into her arms, then wrapped the cloak around her shoulders. He raised her to her feet. Hannah cradled the little dog, let it lick her.

  "Tomorrow I will go to the Banhams and ask them to send one of their women to stay with you until the baby is born." He spoke quietly, brushing her hair out of her face. "But please don't go on accusing me and giving me those looks. You know I can't bear it. If you think me guilty and wish yourself back, I'll sell everything I own and pay your passage to England. You can pass as a widow there and find another man who will make you happy."

  Hannah looked at him through her tears. Her vision of him was so blurred. She wondered if she would ever see him clearly.

  "Don't blame this entire misfortune on me. What can one man do? The woman'
s gone, and I can't bring her back." His voice broke. When he turned his face away from her, she knew he was crying. At last the moment had come. He was standing with her on her sister's grave, crying for May as she had cried. Setting the puppy on the ground, Hannah clasped his hands.

  "Come, love," she whispered. "It's so cold out here." The puppy tagging along behind, she led him back to the house. Once in the door, he dragged the old cradle from beneath the other bed and sat down to repair it. He nailed the loose side so that it was solid again. Working with his adze, he smoothed the crack in the headboard. Hannah held the puppy in her lap and ran her numb fingers over Ruby's fur while she watched him work. She longed to ask him, this time in a calm way, how such a sturdy birch cradle could have been broken. But one look at his wounded face silenced her.

  23. Made to Shine

  May and Gabriel

  November 1689

  ONE EVENING, MAY PULLED a bench close to the hearth and invited Adele to sit with her. The male servants had already retired to their shack. Gabriel had gone out for his ablutions. Nathan dozed in his chair. When he awoke, he would send everyone to his or her bed, then bolt the door for the night. But May was too excited for sleep. She felt like a dull neglected thing that had been polished and made to shine again. Not only had she regained the power and pleasure of her body, she thought she had also, in a way, regained her innocence. She could sit beside the fire with Adele, who smiled at her as Hannah once had. In Adele's eyes, May was every inch the virtuous young mistress. Above rubies.

  "You look pretty this night," Adele said shyly. "Belle" The girl sidled up and whispered in her ear, "You no longer need the love charm?"

  "No, Adele." She touched her hand fondly, then took the poker and drew random shapes in the ashes. A rose. A circle. A heart.

  "You are happy." Adele spoke with awe.

  "Yes." The flames leaping in the hearth reminded May of the fire in his eyes, the fire in his flesh when he took her. An idea sparked inside her. Running her sole lightly over the ashes, she rubbed out the shapes she had made. "If you like, I will teach you to read and write." She touched Adele's knee. "We can start with the alphabet."

  Adele pointed her thumb toward Nathan, whose snores shook the floorboards. "He would forbid it, no?"

  "I will persuade him," May promised. "He is a good Christian and would have his servants be good Christians as well. How can you read the Bible, Adele, if you do not know your letters?" Poker in hand, she went through the alphabet, having Adele trace each letter in the ashes beside her own. They kept passing the poker back and forth. In the meantime, Gabriel returned.

  "Are you coming to bed?" he asked her softly.

  The girl stood up, prepared to leave, but May caught her hand.

  "Soon," she said, smiling at him until he blushed and disappeared behind the bed curtains. She winked at Adele, who swallowed a giggle. Uncommonly clever, the girl mastered the letters in no time.

  "Tomorrow night, I will teach you to write your name."

  Adele reached down the front of her smock and pulled up a tarnished circle of silver that hung from a string around her neck. When she held it up in the firelight, May saw it was a slender bangle with Adele's name engraved on the inner rim. Taking the poker, the girl copied the letters, spelling Adele Desvarieux in the ashes.

  May fingered the bangle. "Who gave this to you?" Flashing the girl a conspiratorial smile, she imagined a secret sweetheart.

  Adele's eyes moistened. "My old mistress." She turned the bracelet round and round.

  May rested her hand on Adele's shoulder. "Your mistress from the island?"

  Adele nodded.

  "Do you miss her?"

  "She is dead."

  The girl's sadness pierced May. "I am sorry. Were you fond of her?"

  Nathan snorted in his sleep, but did not wake.

  Adele nodded, then looked forlornly at the bracelet. It was meant for a child to wear, May noted. Too small even for Adele's slender wrists.

  "It is spoiled," Adele mumbled. "The silver it does not shine."

  "I have a trick I will show you. Give me the bracelet, just for a moment."

  Adele passed it to her. Scooping up a handful of cold ash, May rubbed it against the silver.

  "No, no!" Adele tried to snatch it back.

  "Adele, just watch." May patiently rubbed ash against the bangle until the tarnish was gone. "Don't you see?" It shone in her hand, gleaming and pure. She pressed it into Adele's palm. "Just like new again."

  ***

  On a bright afternoon, Gabriel leapt across the creek. May had told him that she and Adele were going into the forest to gather pine boughs and pinecones to make the house pretty for Christmas. It would take a woman to think of such things, he thought fondly. Before her arrival, they had never bothered about decoration. Christmas was when he and the servants received their new set of clothes for the coming year. Father read a longer passage from the Bible than was his custom. Afterward they emptied a barrel of cider while Jack played his whistle, the manservants capering like drunken fools. But this Christmas would be different. May would civilize them.

  Her laughter drifted through the forest like a silver thread, drawing him toward her. He had a surprise for her—a pair of soft slippers made of doeskin instead of common pigskin. One night after she had gone to bed, he had secretly traced her shoe soles on the hide to take her measure. Proper shoe leather took six months to bark-tan, but these slippers would do until the shoes were ready. They were for indoors, being too light to wear in the mud and rain, but they would be perfect for dancing, supposing she wished to dance at Christmas. He was too eager to wait for Christmas, or even until they were alone together in bed, to give her the present. He wanted to see her face in the daylight when he showed them to her.

  It sounded as though she were singing. Her voice led him uphill, into the dense trees. This worried him. Hadn't he told her to stay near the creek and avoid the hills where his traps lay hidden? As long as he could hear her, he knew she was safe. But before he had walked another hundred paces, a cry stabbed the air. A yelp. He took off running, following the noise of her distress. Behind a stand of blood-red poison ivy, he came to a dead halt.

  James was hurting her, pinning her against a beech tree while he hammered away. Hand on his knife, Gabriel was about to charge forward when he saw how her fingers clutched James's flame-bright hair as she moved her body in unison with his. She cried out in pleasure. So that was why she had stopped looking at James. Not because she had ceased wanting him, but to conceal the fact that they had become lovers. And if she coupled with him, her lawful husband, nearly every night, it was to cover her tracks. If she went with child, she would pass it off as his.

  Gabriel backed away, his body gone cold. May was false, false. The promise of her had been so sweet, but she was like honey turned to snake venom on his tongue. Poison, he thought, remembering when his mother had been bitten in the neck by a copperhead in their own garden. Father tried to suck out the poison, but in vain. Poison had flooded her, made her face swell up until Gabriel could no longer recognize her. May was venomous as a snake and just as sly. He was tempted to drop the doeskin slippers in the creek as he crossed over again, but he held on to them. It had taken hours to tan the hide, cut the pieces, and stitch them together. He would not allow his labor to go to waste.

  24. Snake-Tongued

  Hannah

  1693–1694

  GABRIEL HAD GONE to fetch the midwife and everything froze. To draw water from the creek, she had to break the ice with a hatchet. Frost etched patterns on the window while the red bird sang. Inside the house, she sweated and shook. When she sat down to sew, her water broke in a warm gush. Hands crossed over her belly, she prayed. Let it not begin, not now. The first pains gripped her.

  It was so cold, she had taken Ruby inside with her. The puppy looked up at her with anxious eyes and drooping ears. Hannah clung to her. At first the contractions were far apart, giving her hope in between. She coul
d pretend all was well, but then they returned with a force that sent her panting.

  Did May see her now? Was May watching? At least you had Adele. You did not have to do this alone. Was this her punishment?

  ***

  The room went dark. He had been gone a day. How could he find his way in the night, through the ice and snow? There was no moon. She dragged herself across the floor. Shivering, she struggled to kindle a fire. There were only a few more logs in the house. If he stayed away much longer, she would have to go outside, stagger through the snow to the woodshed. Strangely, she was hungry, and what she craved most was bloody fresh meat, the thing that had sickened her throughout her pregnancy. In the pantry, she scooped salt pork from the barrel. The salt burned her tongue like sea brine. She was drowning. One of these waves would pull her under and she would never rise again. Cold, heat, hunger, salt, pain, fear, darkness blurred together. Ruby licked her hands as Hannah knelt on the floor and screamed.

  ***

  Sweat dripped from her hair. She was so hot, it must be summer again. A strange face loomed over her. Strange hands pressed a compress to her forehead. The damp cloth smelled of witch hazel. The face peering down was luminously black, like a pool of molasses bathed in torchlight. A yelp ripped through Hannah's parched throat as waves of pain ran together in one pulsing angry tide.

  The stranger spoke. "Aye, it hurt you like the devil. Shout and curse as loud as you like, my child."

  She whimpered Gabriel's name, but he wasn't there. He had forsaken her and she would die, just as May had died. You see, May, I got my comeuppance.

  The stranger's face faded. May shimmered in the distance. Sitting beside a foaming hawthorn tree, she embroidered green cloth. Cool and serene, no sweat drenched her brow. May, I am coming now, coming to join you, if I can just cross this big gray sea. Hannah shrieked with her last strength. Finally her sister heard. Looking up from her embroidery frame, she called Hannah's name. Her eyes were wide with forgiveness. Come to me, darling. Everything's all right. The image split and shattered.