The Springsweet

by Saundra Mitchell

  "Do you see that one there?" she asked, all breathless delight. "I think he's coming for us."

  I turned toward her nod and chilled.

  That he came for us was a certainty—or, at least, that he came for me. His overlong hair swept back in dark waves, Poe's Visitor from the burying grounds strode toward us. Befitting the surroundings, his coat was a better cut than the one I'd seen him in before—this one buttoned, dark velvet that suited his complexion.

  But either he owned just one shirt or he badly used all that he owned. When he offered his hand to Mattie, I couldn't help notice that these cuffs as well were freckled with ink.

  "I apologize for introducing myself," he said, taking Mattie's hand with a slight nod before turning to me. "I didn't want to leave it to chance."

  Disarmed before she could snap open her fan, Mattie used me to play shy. She turned toward me, casting a gaze at him over her shoulder. "You wicked, wicked creature."

  "I may be wicked, but please, call me by my name," he said. Bowing to her, he elaborated, "Theo de la Croix."

  "Matilda Corey," Mattie said, already giddy for him.

  I prayed in that moment, prayed with fervor, that he would be enchanted by her. He should have been; Mattie was a confection. Clear skin, clear eyes, lovely mouth—she danced beautifully and flirted cleverly. Please let her please him, I begged.

  But if she had, it didn't show.

  "Zora Stewart." Pressing a flat smile to my lips out of courtesy, I offered my hand, though I didn't want to.

  "A singular honor," Theo said. What a well-kept smile he had, measured in precise angles. His gaze lingered on me, but he turned his attention to Mattie. "May I write in your program, Miss Corey?"

  Delight lifted Mattie's brows as she relinquished her dance card. Subtly, she shifted, brushing against his arm as she leaned to see where he'd scrawl his name. Sugared as the air, Mattie produced her fan and clutched it. "Oh, the polka. I do hope I can keep up."

  He noted her charm long enough to be gracious, then turned dark eyes on me. "And your dance card, Miss Stewart?"

  "I haven't got one," I said.

  I tried not to be pleased with myself, truly I did. But when Mattie made a troubled sound, I had to fight back the urge to smile. To force me to dance, she'd have to relinquish her treat, and that—I knew quite plainly—would never happen.

  Gently, I folded my hands together; gently, I smiled at Theo. Mattie clung to his arm like ivy. "Kindly excuse me. I could use some air."

  And I did not turn back, ignoring two protests as easily as one. Instead, I glided through the crowd, through tall, arched doors to the brick portico in back. Lawns and rose gardens spread into the distance, and I gathered my shawl round my shoulders. I'd been warned all my life of the sicknesses carried by the night air, but I walked into the dark fearlessly.

  Music played on behind me, richer as it stretched into the night. I followed the terrace down, winding through the spindly attentions of new rose vines.

  Away from the ballroom, artifice and sugar faded and I found myself gazing into a pool of water stirred by an automatic fountain. It was a novelty to see water run without a pump or tap.

  I tucked my gloves away. Gingerly, I reached out to feel the stream cascade over my palm. How pure and clean and cold it ran! I marveled at the sudden ache in my bones.

  Get in, my thoughts urged—a perverse imp I hadn't heard in well over a year. I thought it had died entirely. And yet it sprang to life, daring me. I stole a look over my shoulder.

  Pretty shadows danced through the windows, framed in marble. None, not one of those figures, turned to regard me. I could have been the last to walk the earth, down in this garden. Surrounded so, by a black band of sky and the strains of a distant violin, I thought that I truly might be the last.

  Whim clicked in me, like the pin in a door finally catching. Raising my skirts, I stepped onto the fountain's wide, low wall and closed my eyes. The water sang now, breathing soft against my face.

  A thousand icy pinpoints touched my cheeks, the well-deep chill streaming over me in waves. To the strains of a waltz, I walked the edge of the fountain. No peeking, my imp insisted. My chest felt full of bees, all buzzing wildly as I covered my eyes with my hand.

  One step, and then a second. The little danger thrilled me and my senses turned keen. Intimately, I knew the water, the sureness of the stone—I wouldn't fall in, I couldn't—

  I did, when Theo de la Croix called out to me.

  Deceptively deep, the fountain swallowed me entirely. My beaded gown dragged me into the depths, and night, so appealing in the air, seemed a dark cap when filtered through icy water.

  And yet, I felt peace. The cold, so sudden, the loss of breath, so complete—I struggled just once against it, then sank in grace.

  Hard hands found me. They pulled me from the water that seemed not so much cold as tight around me. It was leaving it that racked me with a shuddering convulsion.

  Laid on the lawn, rolled on my side, I felt very much a rag doll and coughed helplessly when the water drained from my nose and mouth.

  "Miss Stewart!" Theo peered into my face. His breath felt of flame, touching my cheeks. "Are you hurt?"

  I jerked when he clapped a hand against my cheek. I had frozen so completely that any touch came as pain. Struggling to sit, I shook my head and searched for my tongue, for anything at all to say.

  But I suppose an unexpected dive into an unexpectedly deep fountain caused a commotion. How could it not, with the splashing and heroics. My end of the garden wasn't so distant from the party after all. Before I could find a thing to say, voices cried out and Theo and I turned toward them.

  A clutch of dancers, fresh in their whites and their suits, slowed to stop, their faces matching shades of shock. They stared, and shouldn't they stare, to see me lying beneath such a handsome boy, breathless and clinging?

  A fresh lightness spilled through my veins when I realized my escape. "Not hurt, only ruined," I said.

  "I haven't..."

  "I'm sorry," I said, and pulled him into a kiss.

  ***

  Stripped to my chemise, I perched by the stove. Clasping a cup of hot ginger tea and lemon, I warmed myself with sips of it. As pleasant heat filled me, it distracted me from the itch of the blanket draped over my shoulders.

  Mama worried the floorboards bare as she paced the kitchen. "I expected Mattie to watch you a bit better than this."

  "Mattie's not to blame," I said. I pulled my stool closer to the hot side of the stove, drinking up that warmth too. A disheveled mess, my hair clung to my face, some curls drying on my skin, most of the rest still heavy and damp from my swim.

  A tempest, Mama whirled through the kitchen and stopped at the door to listen to my father. I had embarrassed him terribly, for one of his partners had been at the dance. Though Mr. Clare hadn't personally witnessed my disgrace, he had seen fit to bring me home.

  "Out of deference to your father," Mr. Clare had told me sternly, urging the horses on. "For he's a good man who deserves better."

  I'd considered leaping from his gig. I hadn't, because it would've been unfair to make him deliver to my parents news of my untimely demise rather than notice of my unseemly social death.

  "In front of all Baltimore," Mama muttered, then spun round to face me again. "I've indulged you too often. Spoilt you. And what shall we do with you now?"

  I should have been ashamed, but I smiled instead. "Lock me in the attic. I should say you could easily convince people of my insensibility."

  Glowering, Mama plucked another stick up from the pile by the door and stuffed it in the stove. Though we had gas lighting through the rest of the house, Mama swore that nothing but wood and brick could cook a proper supper.

  The bright scent of burning pine filled the kitchen, the only pleasure I had left when Mama plucked my cup from my hands. "Look at you, preening over this."

  "Will Papa mind overmuch?" I asked disingenuously. I couldn't imagine he would�
��matters of comportment and decency he generally left to my mother's discretion.

  Mama finished my tea and put the cup aside. "I should think so, Zora Pauline. You've indebted him to Mr. Clare, embarrassed us all in front of him. That's our livelihood!"

  A sliver of doubt lodged in my chest. Could it matter? Even Theo, poor, sad dupe that he was, would only be embellished by the incident. I was the one ruined; he'd earned a conquest.

  But it pained me to think of Papa troubled by it, and I lowered my head. "If that's so, I'm sorry."

  Mama snapped, "Good. I expect no less." Then, perhaps regretting her sharpness, she came to put her hands on my shoulders. "Oh, duck. I wish I knew what to do with you."

  Sinking against her, I laid my cheek on her arm and murmured, "I did say it once—there's always the attic." When she pinched to punish my impertinence, I tipped my head to look at her. "I'll be quiet in daylight. Tell everyone you sent me west to stay with family."

  My mother stilled, and I had learned that my mother's stillness could never bode well for anyone. Twisting on my perch, I looked at her quite directly. "Mama?"

  I think she would have forgotten my suggestion entirely if a letter hadn't come for me the next day.

  Postmarked Kansas, the envelope contained a note and a photograph of a grizzled farmer and his weathered children. Lord above, I must have answered his advertisement for a bride—I hadn't considered how old a man with four sons might be.

  Sheepishly, I hid my face while she read from his letter. In the middle, she stopped and fished out a paper cigar ring. Slapping it on the table before me, she informed me, "That's in lieu of a gold band, should his farm ever break even."

  As a hot flush crawled my neck, I tried to find some valiant defense of myself. Instead, I only managed, "Well, he does need the help, doesn't he?"

  "Enough," Mama said, collecting my mail-order proposal. "I'm wiring Birdie. She can put you to work, and maybe then you'll come to your senses."

  What use my aunt might have for a slightly ruined, partly maddened eastern girl in Oklahoma Territory, I couldn't begin to imagine. But married or indentured, the result was the same.

  I would be yoked, and I didn't mind at all.

  Three

  Through the gentle rise of the Allegheny Mountains, then on through woodland that turned to amber plains, I made my way by locomotive to Birdie's homestead in Oklahoma Territory. The train itself was pleasant enough most days, though the constant snow of coal ash through the windows made it impossible to keep anything clean—perhaps a portent of things to come.

  From my window, I studied the villages blossoming along the rails, and considered my fate. I'd come to appreciate that Mama's way had advantages over mine. My methods—ruining myself, taking a husband-—each required an infidelity I didn't wish to commit, not in truth. As my aunt's helper, I'd need never betray Thomas' memory.

  Stepping from the train at Skeleton Ranch, I marveled at a sky that stretched boundlessly across the plains. The pure intensity of the blue stole my breath; at once, I was miniscule and infinite beneath it.

  Then a sudden blast of heat snatched at my bonnet. I'd never felt such a wind, scorching and dry. In fact, I doubted entirely it was wind, because it seared and clawed, pulling my hair loose in spite of its pins. Baltimore's winds weren't always sweet, but they were always cool; they carried ever a taste of the ocean in them. They pushed, but never pulled.

  Plucking a spray of tansy asters, I was glad to step into the black coach that would carry me to West Glory. Just a few more hours, and I'd be starting over. My new beginning had begun.

  After four hours in the airless cab, however, I wasn't quite so optimistic. The schoolteacher who sat beside me chirped in terror each time we hit a bump in the road. And without any sort of pavement to follow, we hit quite a few.

  But she wasn't as bad as the bachelors who sat on the seat across from us. Chaw stained their lips and their breath. What stank more than their gnawing mouths was the shared can into which they spat.

  Though I had a bundle of bread and cheese for my lunch, I couldn't bear to eat it, closed up as I was with chirping on one side and expectorating on the other.

  The coach shuddered to a stop. My travel mates murmured among themselves, and I brushed the curtain back to peer outside. I saw no town on the horizon—only saddle-bound men surrounding us. They pulled their reins hard, bits cutting into flesh. Their horses reared with agonized cries.

  "Oh no," the schoolteacher whimpered.

  She pulled a cross from her collar and started to pray. The coach jerked to one side, and she interrupted her devotions with a squeak. Sound swirled away for me; the dust outside fascinated my senses, leaving me numb to the realization that someone was crawling on the top of the coach.

  The dust had a strange quality to it, like none I'd ever seen. Delicate stars flickered when sunlight streaked through it. Puffing and swirling, it danced in eddies and brooks around hooves in motion. And then, when someone threw our luggage from the stage, it rose in plumes, a great, waterless spring.

  My trunk split when it hit the ground, revealing all I had in the world. Velvets and laces spilled out, trampled and kicked. Suddenly, I heard again; I saw more than the clouds of silken haze. I threw myself against the window.

  My stamps! My writing papers! My dance card from the Sons of Apollo Ball, half-filled, all crushed beneath iron shoes and wooden heels.

  Furious, I reached for the door. What I thought to say, I can't imagine, and I had the latch all but open when one of the bachelors shoved me back into my seat.

  "Just let 'em take it," he said.

  Offended, I strained forward again. Who was he to handle me like that? No gentleman, that was certain. Sharply, I informed him, "That's all I have!"

  The schoolteacher clutched my arm. "Don't give them cause to come in after us."

  It occurred to me that she was afraid—that the bachelors were too. And I thought that perhaps I should have been. But what I felt was not the quavering chill of terror. It was indignation that my few mementos, trinkets worth nothing but sentiment, had been ground into the dirt.

  "I'm sorry," I told them, and threw open the door.

  ***

  It was customary to help a lady from a coach. However, the shove from behind wasn't the usual method, nor was the slamming of the door. Nevertheless, I righted myself, lifting my chin when one of the highwaymen strode up to me.

  "Lady, you better get back in there," he said.

  A dirty rag covered most of his face, and a battered hat covered his head. There was nothing of him but a stripe of watery blue eyes beneath dark eyebrows. Long lashes caught the light, and his voice gave him away—younger rather than older, bravado instead of confidence.

  "If you want my valuables," I told him, emboldened, "take them. But I'm collecting my dance card."

  An unbearable hum started in my chest and rushed through me, fingertips to toes. Pushing past him, I hurried to my ruined trunk. Though my feet moved purposefully, I felt adrift—woozy on my own nerve. I snatched the dance card that still bore Thomas' handwriting, and my packet of stamps as well. I shoved both of them in my blouse for safekeeping.

  A hand dropped on my shoulder, and I whipped around. Slipping my fan from my sleeve, I brandished it, as if I'd met this boy at a ball and not a robbery. "Mind yourself, sir."

  Before he could answer, another bandit hopped down from the coach and started our way. His long brown coat flapped with each step, and he sounded like he might be amused. "Boy, what're you doing over there?"

  "She won't get back in," the other said.

  The answer came: "Make her!"

  Petulant, he waved a hand at me. "What do you want me to do? Shoot her?"

  In response, I heard the coach driver crack a whip. The stage groaned, then took off, speeding into the dust-laced distance. The older highwayman cursed, kicking at the luggage on the ground.

  The high, dusty heat of the plains deserted me. Chilled into my bones,
I found I couldn't quite take a breath. Until that moment, I had been submerged. Being abandoned pulled me to the surface-—back into light and sound and realization. I stood in the middle of nowhere, beyond the bounds of etiquette, protected only by my wit and my ivory fan.

  "You should be ashamed of yourselves," I said, manifesting a bit more of my madness. "Bad enough to make a career of thievery, but honestly. Look at the mess you've made."

  The highwaymen exchanged glances. As I could see only their eyes, I couldn't tell what passed between them. But the older of the two grabbed my arm. Then he lifted, setting me off balance as he marched me to the side of the road like an unruly child.

  "Sit down and shut up," he said, jerking me over ruts cut into the dirt.

  The hum within me rose to a pulsing howl. My head pounded with it; I felt it in my throat and my temple. I was alone—utterly alone in the wilderness, with two men of few scruples.

  At once, lightning cracked so near, my ears rang and I tasted its acrid remains. The heavens opened with a deluge. Without my bonnet, which sat on the coach seat I'd abandoned, unexpected rain soaked my hair and ran down my face unimpeded.

  Swallowing hard, I said, "I may shut up, but I will not sit on the ground in a corset and bustle."

  "We need to go," his companion said, already saddled. Rain darkened his hat, and his horse twitched anxiously. "They're gonna beat us to town."

  This bandit's eyes trailed my face, coming to rest just beneath my chin.

  Instinctively, I reached for my locket. "It's tin. It's not worth anything."

  "Then you won't miss it, will ya?"

  His gloved hand covered mine, and he yanked. The ribbon snapped, and I felt it slip from my neck. Though his face was covered, I knew he was smiling. His eyes crinkled at the corners, a satisfied kind of smugness in the curve of his brow.

  Then he mounted his horse and presented one more in sult. He pulled the reins hard, turning the beast in deliberate circles on the remains of our luggage. New mud mixed by the rain coated everything with filth. It wasn't enough to rob me; he had to try to break me as well.