Look Ahead, Look Back (The Snipesville Chronicles Book 3)

by Annette Laing

  There was a long silence before he replied. “You speak of the fairies?” he said slowly. His face was deeply serious.

  “No,” Hannah said awkwardly, aware that both he and Sukey were now staring at her. “Not fairies, no wings or anything, just . . . um . . . little, you know, people . . . Really small . . .” She leaned down and gestured with a hand about a foot off the floor.

  “Aye,” Mr. MacKenzie said slowly. “Where I am from, we call them na Sìthichean.”

  What he had said sounded like “na- shee-uh.” Hannah looked quizzically at him, and he explained. “The English, you call them fairies. Fairies are very powerful, and you should never, never cross them, or they will take revenge. Treat them always with respect.”

  Hannah looked hopefully for signs that he was joking. He wasn’t.

  She continued to pick at her mush without enthusiasm. Obviously, she silently told herself, all these people have lost their marbles.

  That evening, while Sukey sang quietly in a language Hannah didn’t understand, Mr. MacKenzie worked at his desk by candlelight, writing in a huge leather-bound book.

  Hannah peeked over his shoulder and saw that the pages were filled not with writing, but with tiny doodles and scratch marks. “What’s that mean?” she asked, pointing. “My accounts,” he said with a smile. “I can neither read nor write, so here is how I keep a note of what I have bought and sold.”

  Hannah looked closer, and saw little drawings of pots, pans, guns, furniture, and, most of all, animals, each representing a skin. Most were deer.

  “That’s cool,” said Hannah, although she wondered what it would be like not to know how to read. There was a silence, until she thought of another topic of conversation. “Why do you keep a horseshoe over your front door?”

  Mr. MacKenzie put down his quill, and looked sideways at her. “You don’t know? It protects my house from the evil eye, and brings good luck. All the evil that approaches the house is caught in the horseshoe. At least, I hope it is.”

  “So,” Hannah said, “You really believe that stuff about fairies, don’t you?”

  Mr. MacKenzie looked crossly at her. “Why would I not believe in that which is?”

  “I don’t know,” Hannah said with a shrug. “Have you ever seen them? The fairies, I mean?”

  “Here in America, no,” Mr. MacKenzie said. “But when I was a boy, I came upon them as they danced in their glen. I was not supposed to travel that road unless I left a gift for the fairies. But I had no gift to give. I was sore afraid to walk through the glen. It was a fair day, but the wind began to blow hard as I walked, and there was a ghostly wail in the wind. I walked faster.

  “And suddenly clouds appeared from nowhere, and I began to run, as fast as I could. There is a loch, what you English call a lake, in the glen, and that was where I saw them. Men, women and children were they, the little people, and they danced a merry tune in the pouring rain. I did not wait about, but climbed the side of the glen to get away. I fell as I climbed, and gashed open my legs on the rocks, but I did not stop. I stole away before they could see me and carry me off forever.”

  For once, Mr. MacKenzie didn’t laugh. Neither did Hannah. She shuddered.

  Looking over at Sukey, who was still singing with her eyes closed, Hannah wondered what it was like to be her: a slave, separated from the family and friends she had grown up with, and then from her own children and grandchildren. Sukey said so little, and she said almost nothing that wasn’t necessary. Hannah had wondered if she was shy, or if she was silent because she didn’t trust whites, or if there was something else; the huge gap between her life and Hannah’s. Whatever the reason, she was jealous that Alex had somehow developed a close relationship with this strange and quiet woman. Hannah felt frustrated that she had a hard time connecting with Sukey, or any of these people. Except for Jane.

  As Sukey and Hannah were making straw beds for themselves in the loft of Mr. MacKenzie’s shop, Alex had another unexpected visitor in the slave hut. Mr. Gordon arrived, carrying a brown leather satchel. The other slaves fell silent and jumped to their feet when they saw him, but he ignored them.

  Kneeling down by Alex’s bed, he opened his bag and began to pull out an odd assortment of items, including a small knife and what looked like a drinking glass, along with a metal box that rattled when he picked it up. Peering bleary-eyed at him, Alex croaked, “What are you doing, Mr. Gordon?”

  “I’ve come to administer physic to you,” he said matter-of-factly. “We must cure you of this ague.” Pulling out a bottle of water and a small stone block, he laid them on the tree stump that served as a table in the hut. He poured water on the stone and, to Alex’s alarm, began to sharpen the knife on it.

  Alex gulped, then said, “So, what’s the knife for?”

  “Never you mind,” growled Mr. Gordon.

  But Alex, looking over Mr. Gordon’s equipment, minded a lot. He was interested in the history of science, and he knew enough about the history of medicine to know he was right to be concerned. He realized that Mr. Gordon was preparing to “cup” him: to cut his arm, and then apply a vacuum seal to remove blood.

  Alex said desperately, “Sir, that won’t cure me. It’ll just make me sicker.” Mr. Gordon looked at him in astonishment. “How say you?” Alex took a deep breath. He knew that saying what he was about to say probably wasn’t a good idea, but the alternative was risking his health by allowing Mr. Gordon to slice him open with an unsterilized knife.

  He took a deep breath. “You think we get sick because of, um, an imbalance of humors, right? Blood, urine, no, wait, not urine, um, phlegm, and, hey, what was the other one?”

  “Bile,” Mr. Gordon said helpfully, astonished by his slave’s knowledge. “Good God, boy, how do you know this? Were you formerly the property of a physician?”

  Alex ignored him. He was struggling to think and speak, and the effort was wearing him out. “That theory, it’s not true. Diseases are caused by germs. They’re microscopic . . . . I mean, they’re too small to see without a special eyeglass.”

  “I know what microscopic means,” Mr. Gordon said officiously, rolling up Alex’s left sleeve, “but you’re talking nonsense.”

  “No, Mr. Gordon. It’s true.” Alex yanked back his arm with all the strength he could muster. “What you’re doing might give me blood poisoning. Fevers are caused by tiny, um, creatures that invade the body. The best thing you can do is bring me fresh water to drink and leave me alone.”

  For a moment, Mr. Gordon was dumbstruck. He looked at Alex with growing concern. “What is this? The fever has made you rebellious, and you have

  taken leave of your senses.”

  Now he roughly grabbed Alex’s arm. Alex struggled for a moment, but he was too weak to stop him. Seizing the knife, Mr. Gordon slashed Alex’s upper arm, and he yelled in pain.

  While Alex tearfully examined his wound, which bled profusely, Mr. Gordon quickly heated a small glass in the fire. Picking it up with a rag, he flipped

  over the glass, and applied the open end to Alex’s wound.

  The glass’s rim was boiling hot, and Alex howled miserably as he felt his skin burn. Blood soon flowed freely into the glass.

  Mrs. Osborn was having a difficult pregnancy, and now spent much of her time in bed. On Mr. Osborn’s orders, Brandon had taken over from her responsibility for the vegetable garden that the parishioners had planted in anticipation of the Osborns’ arrival. Today, Mr. Osborn was helping him to weed it, and, dressed in shirtsleeves, he energetically wielded a hoe.

  When Mr. Gordon came riding across the cow pasture toward them, Mr. Osborn self-consciously put down his hoe. “I wonder what the matter could be?” he muttered nervously. “Perhaps he comes to advise me that a gentleman ought not to labor in his field alongside his servant.”

  But Mr. Gordon had something else on his mind, and it was urgent. He didn’t even dismount to share his news. “My youngest slave, Cato, is suffering from ague and from sickness of the mind,”
he said breathlessly. “Sir, I wish you to conduct an examination of him.”

  “Certainly, I shall,” Mr. Osborn said happily, clearly flattered that his erstwhile enemy had come to him for help. “I will fetch my apparatus and come to your slave quarters forthwith.”

  Brandon was worried to hear that Alex needed medical attention. And he could not imagine how Mr. Osborn was qualified to administer it.

  Calmly, Mr. Osborn rode his horse at a leisurely pace. Riding on the saddle behind him, clutching the minister’s medical bag, Brandon asked him why on earth Mr. Gordon had asked a pastor to attend to “Cato.”

  “Like many clergymen, I have some medical training,” Mr. Osborn said selfimportantly. “We men of God are frequently expected to care for the bodies as well as the souls of our flocks, and so I studied medicine some two years in Edinburgh.”

  “In Scotland?” Brandon asked.

  “Indeed,” Mr. Osborn said. “Edinburgh University is the home of the finest medical school in the world. You know, it is good for you to accompany me on this visit, Brandon, for you may learn a great deal about medicine. Physic is a useful skill for any gentleman, but especially for a man of the cloth.”

  Brandon, unfortunately, already knew quite a bit about eighteenth century medicine, and he was desperately thinking how he might persuade Mr. Osborn and Mr. Gordon not to inflict it on poor Alex.

  As Brandon stepped into the slave hut, Alex greeted him with a wan smile. Brandon was encouraged to see that his friend didn’t look as though he was at death’s door. But he was seriously bothered by the sight of a bloody rag tied around Alex’s arm.

  Mr. Gordon was standing by Alex’s bed, and he politely welcomed Mr. Osborn. “Thank you for attending so promptly, sir. The boy resisted my treating him, and he blethered some nonsense about the cause of his sickness. I would like you to bleed him again, for I fear his humors are still imbalanced.”

  “What nonsense did he speak, may I ask?” said Mr. Osborn, as he kneeled on the dirt floor, and began to unpack his black bag.

  Alex groaned, and addressed Brandon: “He did bleeding on me, and I tried to tell him it won’t work . . .”

  “Quiet,” snapped Mr. Gordon, turning on him.

  But Brandon stepped forward, leaned down, and tapped Mr. Osborn on the shoulder. “Sir? I’m sorry, but he’s right. Bleeding doesn’t work.”

  Mr. Osborn looked up at him crossly. “And you are a doctor, are you?”

  “No,” Brandon reluctantly admitted. “But I do know that too much blood doesn’t cause diseases. They’re caused by germs. They’re too small for the eye to see.”

  Both men stared at him now. Mr. Gordon looked positively afraid. After a moment’s pause, he turned to Mr. Osborn. “That is exactly what the boy Cato said to me earlier.”

  “Where are they learning such foolishness?” Mr. Osborn asked.

  “I know not, sir,” Mr. Gordon muttered sourly, shaking his head slowly. “But it is superstition. Perhaps even witchcraft.”

  Mr. Osborn smiled condescendingly. “Surely an educated man such as yourself does not believe in witchcraft, sir? That is a superstition in itself.”

  Mr. Gordon glared at his adversary. “Of course I do not,” he sputtered. “But the slaves believe in it, and it carries great power with them.”

  “All the more reason,” Mr. Osborn said pointedly, “why we should attend to the slaves’ souls, and bring them to the Truth of the Church.”

  Mr. Gordon scowled furiously.

  Brandon raised a hand for permission to speak. “Sirs? Maybe the best thing would be to pray over Al . . . Cato. Prayer is the strongest thing we have, right? And, anyway, he seems to be on the mend.”

  On cue, Alex sat up on his elbows, trying to seem as healthy as possible.

  Mr. Osborn glanced at Mr. Gordon, who nodded, then he instructed everyone to bow their heads. He said a very long prayer, but Brandon wouldn’t have minded if it had lasted all day, so long as Alex wasn’t subjected to any more medical treatments.

  As the minister intoned “Amen,” Mr. Gordon asked to meet with him outside. The two men left Brandon and Alex.

  “Wow,” exclaimed Alex. “Thanks for saving me. I thought Mr. Gordon was going to insist.”

  “Me, too,” said Brandon with a relieved smile. “And hopefully God will answer us, and make you better soon. What do you think you’ve got? Is it malaria?”

  Alex shook his head. “Doubt it, ’cause of the pills. I think it’s the flu. I do feel better than I did yesterday, but I don’t think it was the bleeding that did it.”

  “I’m sure it wasn’t,” Brandon agreed. “Hey, have you washed that wound on your arm?”

  “Good idea,” Alex said. “I’ll do it as soon as he’s gone.”

  “Do it,” Brandon urged him. “And put a clean rag on it if you can find one. You have to keep everything super-clean.”

  Alex nodded, just as Brandon turned at the sound of Mr. Osborn calling his name.

  “Brandon,” Alex said quickly. “Have you ever heard of such a thing as tiny people? . . .”

  “Huh? Tiny people? Sorry, Alex, no,” Brandon said, giving him an odd look as he stepped through the doorway. “What makes you ask that? Look, just tell me later. I gotta go.”

  Hannah and Sukey were almost home in their canoe, which was piled high with deerskins. But even though they were still a quarter-mile shy of the river landing at Mr. Gordon’s property, Sukey steered the craft into the riverbank and leaped ashore, beckoning to Hannah to join her.

  Walking along a narrow trail through the thick woods, Hannah glimpsed shimmering water ahead. Finally, after climbing over a huge fallen tree, she reached the edge of a large, round pond. Jagged dead tree stumps thrust up from the water close to where it lapped the edge, and three sparse tupelo trees clung to the pond’s banks, which sloped gently into the murky depths. Hannah watched as a few tiny fish darted about in the shallows.

  “This is the sinkhole,” Sukey said quietly. “It has no end. If you drown, you sink forever.”

  “That’s so wrong,” Hannah muttered uncertainly. “Give me a break.”

  But now she felt the hairs stand up on the back of her neck. It did feel very creepy here. When neither she nor Sukey spoke, there was absolute silence, not even birdsong. Hannah stared into the depths of the water, but she could see nothing. The water was so black, the pond looked like a giant pot of ink.

  Suddenly Sukey said, “A young man was murdered, because he cheats another man out of money. His body is falling through the water.”

  Hannah wondered why Sukey was speaking in present tense. She normally spoke mostly in present tense because, Hannah assumed, English was not her first language. But this time was different.

  And then, staring out over the pond, Sukey said matter-of-factly in a voice that chilled Hannah to the bone, “His spirit is here with us. He is here.”

  She said it as though the dead man were standing next to them. Hannah felt adrenalin rising through her, and her breathing quickened. Her head involuntarily swiveled, as she looked around for a ghost. A gentle breeze played through the trees around the pond, rustling the leaves, and Sukey flinched.

  From her pocket, Sukey extracted a tiny bottle, and uncorked it. Extending her arm over the pond edge, she poured the liquid into the water.

  “What is that stuff?” Hannah asked.

  “Whisky from Mr. MacKenzie,” Sukey said. “My father tells me I should share liquor with the spirits of the dead. I bring whisky to the spirit of the bottomless pond after every journey, so he will rest content, and not trouble us.”

  Hannah wasn’t sure what was freaking her out the most: the strange, utterly still pond, or Sukey’s weird behavior. Either way, she wanted to escape as soon as she could.

  When they got back to the quarters, Sukey called Tony and Cuffee to unload the canoe and take the deerskins to Mr. Gordon’s house. Hannah said goodbye to her, but before returning to the Gordons’, she visited Alex. With relief, she saw
him greet her with clear eyes: His glassy stare had disappeared.

  “How was the trip?” he said weakly. “Wish I could have gone.”

  Excitedly, Hannah told him about the trading post, Mr. MacKenzie and his Gaelic-speaking slave, and the long journey by canoe. She didn’t mention the bottomless pond, or the legend of the Little People.

  In return, Alex described his medical misadventures, explaining how Brandon had saved him. His sister was grossed out.

  “There was something else,” Alex said hesitantly. And then he told her about his tiny visitor.

  Hannah was agog. The chills she had felt before were nothing compared with what she felt now. Alex was still telling his story when she held up her hand. “Stop! Sukey says that if you tell anyone about a visit from the Little People, they’ll come back and kill you.”

  Alex was shocked. “You think he was real?”

  Hannah shook her head, bewildered. “All of these people, they think he’s real. They believe in the Little People. And you actually saw one. What am I supposed to think?”

  Alex looked dazed. “I was kind of hoping you would say it was my imagination. I thought that was what you would think.”

  “I don’t know what to think anymore,” Hannah muttered. “Not about anything.”

  Chapter 9: IDENTITIES REVEALED

  Hannah returned to find Mr. Gordon working at his desk, and Mrs. Gordon sitting by the fire, wrapped in a shawl, halfheartedly attempting to do a little embroidery. Jane was sitting across from her, bored and staring into the fireplace. She alone greeted Hannah with enthusiasm.

  Hannah sighed. “Jane, I’m so tired, and I still have to make supper.”

  “No need,” Mr. Gordon said without turning around. “We have eaten already, and there is enough cornmeal mush left for you.”

  Hannah looked, and sure enough, congealed corn porridge puddled in the bottom of the pot. She scooped the mush into a wooden bowl, where it landed with an unappetizing “glop.” Hungry though she was, it was hard to get excited about cornmeal mush. This, she thought, is what keeps me alive. That’s about the best I can say.