The Candle Star

by Michelle Isenhoff

  Helen crossed her arms and changed the subject. “Have you ever been to a slave market, Princess?”

  Emily’s father had never allowed her to attend an auction, but Sophia had. Emily chose not to believe some of the details as her friend tended to be overdramatic.

  “Have you?” Emily reciprocated. “You’ve probably never left Michigan. What do you know of it?”

  “I’ve heard firsthand accounts.” Helen narrowed her eyes. “Angelina, I don’t think our princess has any idea what kind of sludge her kingdom is built on. It’s all been sanitized for her.” She jabbed a forefinger at Emily. “You ask somebody who’s been there. You find out what happens on the auction block. Then tell me what you think of your beloved slavery.”

  Emily’s temper blazed. “I know what I’ve seen. We treat our people well. We feed and clothe them, give them housing and see that they get proper medical care. We even teach them the Holy Scriptures. In return, they work for us. They have a much better life under our care than they would in some backwoods shack eating ‘possum and scratching a few crops out of the ground.”

  The bell above the doorway rang, ending the conversation, but Helen called out a parting shot. “The ones I’ve met would prefer a ‘possum freely eaten over your richest castoffs.”

  Mr. Marbliss smiled at them from the front of the room as the children settled into their seats. “I’ve graded your morning work and I’m very pleased. Jeremiah,” he said to a small boy in the front row, “your reading and spelling are showing remarkable progress. And Emily, I can hardly believe you’re the same student who came to me just a few weeks ago. Your skills in mathematics have improved so much.”

  Emily knew she owed that to Malachi Watson and his patient tutelage each night.

  “Now get out your slates and we will practice our penmanship.”

  The afternoon passed slowly. Emily put the disturbing conversation out of her mind and worked steadily, knowing if she didn’t put forth some effort her uncle would find plenty of undesirable ways to encourage her compliance.

  ~

  Autumn turned crisp, and darkness fell earlier each evening. But every sunny afternoon found Emily on horseback. Coal Dust eased her homesickness and gave her a reason to tolerate the hours till school dismissed. At some point, her schemes to get sent home had dropped from memory like the colorful leaves that rained down with each gust of wind.

  One Sunday afternoon Emily donned her riding habit and entered the stable. To her surprise, someone stood inside the mare’s stall. “Hello?” she asked sharply.

  A young woman whirled around. “You startled me!” she laughed.

  Emily recognized her at once. “Miss Thatcher!”

  The woman heaved a dramatic sigh. “Alas, yes, I’m still Miss Thatcher.” Then her smile broke out again. “You must be the new groom daddy mentioned.”

  The new groom? Emily looked down at herself. Did she look like a groom? “I’m Mr. Milford’s niece, from Carolina.”

  “Oh, how dreadful of me!” Melody exclaimed, not looking especially sorry. “I am certainly glad to see you. I’m not at all sure I secured this saddle correctly.”

  Emily looked closer and sure enough, the woman had managed to pinch the mare’s skin in the girth strap. Emily loosened the cinch. “Haven’t you ever been taught how to do this correctly?”

  The woman brushed the comment away. “Mr. Milford always insists on doing it for me. He’s such a gentleman.”

  “Well, he’s not here today. And it isn’t difficult to learn. Watch.” Emily refastened the strap, calling out instructions as she went.

  “Thank you ever so much, dear,” Miss Thatcher gushed when Emily had finished. “I’m sure I can do it now.”

  Emily had her doubts but she kept them to herself. Instead she asked, “Why don’t you board Coal Dust at your own place? Your father has a large stable.”

  “I could, of course,” Melody replied, shooting her a sly glance. “But when would I ever see your darling uncle?” She flashed Emily a brilliant smile and led the mare out of the stall. “Now if you’ll pardon me, sweetie, I’ve been invited to tea.”

  ~

  Twice more Emily ran into Melody Thatcher in the barn, and twice more she had to resaddle the mare. But as the weather turned increasingly cold and rainy, Emily’s outings with Coal Dust grew shorter and less frequent. More often she would pull up a chair in front of the lobby fireplace and read. Occasionally she’d try to recreate scenes from home with her watercolors, but they never turned out quite as sharp as her memories.

  The first snow fell in mid-November, a fluffy white dusting that soon melted. Fall and winter leapfrogged for another month, but winter eventually established its authority. Snow that once sugared buildings and tidied dirty roads now choked them, leaving drifts three feet high, stopping traffic and deterring travelers. December became a white beast that locked the city in its teeth and froze the very air with its breath.

  One blustery afternoon Emily curled up before the lobby fire to reread Sophia’s penny novel, but when her uncle sat down at the piano she tossed it aside and soaked in the familiar melodies. After about thirty minutes, Isaac concluded with his favorite, “Moonlight Sonata,” and retired to his office among a smattering of applause. Emily could see him through the door’s open top and suddenly remembered the strange journal.

  Her curiosity aroused, she strained to see exactly what he was writing on, but she couldn’t make it out. She needed an excuse to enter the office and speak with him, and one quickly came to mind. One that had been plaguing her anyway.

  She leaned on the half-door. “Uncle Isaac, have you ever been to a slave market?”

  He looked up, surprised, and closed his book. She couldn’t say for sure if it was the journal or just some ledger. “Yes,” he said shortly.

  “What’s it like?”

  His eyes narrowed. “You’ve never been?”

  She shook her head.

  He stuffed the book beneath a stack of papers and picked up something else. “I’m not the one to tell you about it. Ask Julia.”

  When it was clear he intended to say nothing more on the matter, she entered, tripping over a bag of apples. She kicked them aside. “May I borrow a book? I’m dreadfully bored with mine.”

  He glanced up briefly. “Help yourself.”

  She browsed through the horrid titles, keeping her eye on the stack of papers, and finally decided on The Complete History of the Great Lakes Region. She carried it over to the desk and stuck it under her uncle’s nose. “Is this one any good?”

  She pretended to bobble the book, and when it toppled to the desk it disrupted the stack of papers, revealing the book hidden beneath.

  It was the journal.

  “Oops, sorry.”

  He picked up the heavy volume and handed it back to her. “Yes, it’s excellent if you’re interested in that sort of thing. But it doesn’t strike me as something a young girl would want to read.”

  She pretended to consider it, then reshelved the book. “You’re probably right. I’ll find something else.”

  But instead, she racked her brain. Why did her uncle hide the journal? What did the strange entries mean? And how could she get her hands on it again?

  That evening after dinner Isaac stepped into the kitchen to lend a hand with cleanup, but Julia placed him at the table with a cup of coffee. “You jus’ set and keeps out o’ de way, Mr. Isaac. Dey’s too many bodies in my kitchen a’ready.”

  Isaac stretched his arms behind his head and chuckled. “I can’t argue with the chief. Now what did I do with my newspaper?”

  Emily had seen it in his office that afternoon. “I’ll fetch it!” she exclaimed, knocking a textbook from the table in her haste.

  She closed both office doors carefully and rummaged beneath the scattering of papers on top of Isaac’s desk. As she suspected, the journal was no longer there. Running her hand beneath the desk where the panels came together, she felt around for some means to open the
secret compartment, but only a smooth surface met her fingertips. Pulling aside the chair, she lit the lamp and crawled beneath the desk, searching the wood for some irregularity, but her examination was in vain. In the end, the mechanism eluded her.

  Disappointed, she blew out the light. The journal was so close!

  She replaced the lamp and grabbed up the newspaper. As she left, she spotted a bolt of gray woolen fabric leaning against the wall beside the apples she had tripped over earlier. Her uncle collected the strangest items.

  She returned to the kitchen just as Malachi tossed the pan of dishwater into the backyard and hung the tub on its hook. Then he picked up the burlap sack that always hung beside it and went out the swinging door to the dining room. Emily dropped the paper on the table before her uncle.

  “Ah, thank you, dear,” Isaac said, flipping it open.

  Shannon came up behind him and planted a kiss on his cheek. Emily grimaced.

  “I’m going home a little early tonight,” Shannon said, pulling on a wrap. “My nephew has taken ill and I want to get back to check on him.”

  “Nothing serious, I hope?” Isaac asked.

  “I don’t think so. But my sister has had a difficult time taking in laundry and managing all those kids since her husband died. I just think I should be there to help.”

  Julia called from her place at the stove, “I gots jus’ what a sick young’un needs. Zeke, grab dose buckets. I made too much chicken soup tonight.” Julia was usually the model of thrift.

  The black woman handed a bucket to Shannon as she went out the door. “Take one o’ dese extra loaves, too. With some food in his belly, dat chil’ should be hisself again in a few days.”

  “Thank you, Julia,” Shannon said. “My sister will be so grateful.”

  After Shannon left, Julia pulled a chair next to the stove and set her knitting on her lap. Emily joined her at the edge of the warmth, rubbing her arms. “Is it this cold all winter?” she asked.

  Julia cut her eyes up at her. “Chil’, you gots no idea what you’s in fo’.”

  Isaac looked up from his paper. “That reminds me, Julia, I picked up some fabric at the market yesterday. Do you know anyone who might need a warm wrap?”

  The woman glanced at him. “I’s pretty certain I can fin’ someone.”

  “Then use it to make whatever is suitable. I have no talents in that area. Emily will you fetch it for her? It’s in my office.”

  Emily rolled her eyes. He could have thought of it two minutes sooner. She pushed through the swinging door again, passing Malachi on his way back in.

  The bolt of cloth still stood propped against the wall. Emily picked it up then stopped abruptly. The apples were gone.

  She carried the material back to the kitchen. Malachi was gone, too, and so were the extra loaves of bread and the second bucket of soup. Julia must have sent the boy after Shannon. After all, her sister did have seven children.

  Julia mistook her survey for uncertainty. “Jus’ set it dere by the door to my room, please.”

  Emily put the matter out of her mind, joining Zeke and her uncle at the table. After only ten minutes of reading, she slammed the book closed and went to stand against the warmth of the stove. In the firelight, Julia’s needles flashed back and forth, in and out, like an intricate dance. Emily watched, fascinated. “Could you teach me to do that?”

  Julia looked at her uncertainly. “It takes practice and patience.”

  “I want to learn,” Emily insisted. Perhaps it would help fill the long evenings.

  “A’right, come set over here.”

  Emily pulled up a chair, and Julia explained how to wrap the yarn and draw it between the needles. Emily tried a few hesitant stitches, and Julia had helped her complete most of a row when Malachi stomped in the back door and hung the empty sack on its nail. He sat beside Zeke and soon the low sounds of the alphabet rose from the table as the old man painstakingly blended words from the Bible he used as a text.

  “Sounds good, Zeke,” Isaac praised him. “You’re learning fast.” Then he slid a section of the paper across the table and tapped a forefinger on it. “Why don’t you try this?”

  Zeke glanced at Malachi and the boy nodded. “Give it a try.”

  So the old man began reading in a slow, hesitant voice, pausing now and again for help from Malachi. “STOCKHOLDERS of the U.G.R.R. COMPANY hold on to your stock!!! The market has an upward tendency. Just today, fifteen thousand dollars worth of merchandise arrived on the express train, fresh and sound, from Kentucky. N.B. stockholders, don’t forget the meeting today at 2 o’clock. All persons desiring to take stock in this prosperous company, be sure to be on hand. By order of the BOARD OF DIRECTORS.”

  Emily glanced over at the advertisement. It was similar to the one she’d seen on Isaac’s desk her first day at the hotel. “Are you buying stock in a railroad?”

  He shrugged. “Thinking about it. Be a good investment. This old hotel isn’t too profitable, you know.”

  “But I thought you inherited your father’s estate.”

  “Of course I did. But that was years ago.”

  Emily stared at him, waiting. He made it sound as if there was hardly any of the fortune left. “But Mama said it was a beautiful estate, with thousands of acres and a hundred slaves. She said it was one of the finest plantations on the Carolina coast.”

  “And so it was,” he stated.

  Emily wondered about his failure to elaborate. Where had his fortune gone? Was he such a poor businessman? Or, and her eyes widened, was he a gambler? Had he squandered it all? He was often gone in the evenings. She wondered if her mother knew.

  He skillfully turned the conversation. “I think large plantations will eventually become a thing of the past. Slave labor isn’t really free, rice requires monumental upkeep, and cotton and tobacco wear out the land.” He sighed. “But the South won’t give it up until there’s nothing left—or until it’s wrested from their hands.” He opened his paper, reciting in a somber voice:

  “Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!

  Sail on, O UNION, strong and great!

  Humanity with all its fears,

  With all the hopes of future years,

  Is hanging breathless on thy fate!”

  Chapter 11

  The next day, Isaac met Emily at the door when she came home for lunch. “Emily, Shannon’s nephew is worse, and she couldn’t make it in this morning. Julia is swamped trying to do the work of them both. Would you mind skipping your afternoon classes to lend a hand?”

  Skip school? She didn’t hesitate a moment. “Of course not!”

  “Good. I’m on my way to fetch the doctor. Julia can tell you what to do.”

  The woman pushed into the room with an armload of dishes just in time to hear the exchange. “When you’s done eatin’, you takes de linen off de line,” she ordered. “Me an’ ’Zekiel will finish up lunch.” She dropped the dishes beside the wash tub, filled another plate, and disappeared into the dining room.

  Ezekiel passed her coming in.

  “Is it busy today, Zeke?” Emily asked.

  “No more’n usual, miss.”

  Emily made herself a sandwich and took it to the table with a glass of milk. Halfway through the meal, Malachi burst through the door with his usual aplomb. Julia set on him at once. “Malachi Watson, when you gonna learn ta open dat door like a Christian ‘stead o’ like some heathen outta de brush?”

  “Sorry, Mama,” he cringed, shooting Emily a look of chagrin.

  But Julia was too busy to send him outside to practice his faith proper. “See dat you get de chamber pots cleaned in rooms six and four. Den Mr. Isaac has a mess o’ wood out back needs splittin’.”

  After bringing in the freeze-dried laundry, Emily got her first lesson in ironing sheets. She had grown accustomed to hard work, and if she didn’t exactly find pleasure in it, at least it had gotten easier. She had, however, purchased a new pair of white gloves and wore them in public to cover her
hands, which were becoming as red and calloused as Shannon’s.

  Julia placed three heavy flatirons on the stove to heat and then padded the kitchen table with an old blanket and spread out one of the stiff linens. When it was hot enough, she wrapped a rag around the handle of the first iron and pressed it across the sheet. The cloth softened and the wrinkles disappeared like magic. When the iron cooled, she replaced it on the stove and grabbed a new one.

  “Now you try it.”

  Emily did it just as the woman had shown her, but instead of gliding smoothly along the top of the sheet like a duck on a pond, she pushed the whole mess across the table, blanket and all.

  “No, no,” Julia admonished impatiently. “You’s not carvin’ a turkey with it. Push it along gentle, like you’s strokin’ a horse.”

  The woman straightened the cloth and Emily tried again. At first she seemed to create more wrinkles than she removed, and she managed to burn her fingers twice, but after two or three attempts, Julia left Emily alone and began tossing ingredients for supper into a big black pot.

  They were alone in the kitchen, but Emily ironed and folded three more sheets before she worked up the courage to ask the question foremost on her mind. “Julia, have you ever been to a slave auction?”

  The black woman stiffened, and silence iced the room like freezing rain. When she turned to meet Emily’s eyes, her back was poker straight, her chin jutted out and her face was tight and proud. She looked like one of the African princesses in the folk tales Lizzie used to tell when they were little. “Why you wanna know?”

  “I just wondered if the things I heard were true. My father never let me attend one, and when I asked my uncle about it, he told me to talk to you.”

  Julia turned back to her pot and remained silent so long Emily didn’t think she would answer. Then her voice came low. “It all true. Everythin’ you heard, it all true.”

  She worked the spoon, stirring memories. “I’s born on a small farm in Georgia. Weren’t so bad. Mr. Peters a hard man, but he lef’ us alone if we gib him no cause to beat us. All dose years I had Mama and Daddy, my sister and brothers, a few other slave chil’ren to play with. I’s happy enough. Din’t know no better.