But Not Forever

by Jan Von Schleh

  I ran my palm across the smooth welts on his chest and found it hard to breathe. He had watched his family die. It was unbearable.

  Kerry’s lonely trip across the ocean to find work, Maxwell’s sad roiling river that took his parents away, and now Tor’s fire of death burrowed ribbons of sorrow into my heart. My problems were nothing in comparison to theirs. He stroked my wet cheeks, at tears I didn’t know were there.

  “What were their names?” I whispered.

  “My mother was Elin. My father, Peder, and my sisters, Inge and Ensi.” The corners of his mouth turned up. He wanted me to know it was okay. “I so rarely utter their names out loud. Thank you, Sonnet, for asking. This way they stay alive in my heart.”

  I remembered my picnic with Maxwell earlier, and talking about my family. I knew exactly what he meant.

  I closed my eyes and thought of tiny, female versions of Tor. Inge and Ensi. They must have been beautiful. I didn’t ask their ages. I couldn’t take it. Instead, I held his scarred hands in both of mine and put them to my heart. More than anything I had ever wanted, I wished to make up for his pain.

  “You aren’t without family. I have something to tell you. Something strange and wonderful. You’ll like it, and if your parents were alive they’d like it too. I know your descendant, your family. His name is Rapp Loken—Loken just like you, Tor. He’s almost a copy of you except his hair is darker. It’s an amazing coincidence. That’s why I thought I knew you at the hotel. Remember how I stared?”

  He nodded. “Is he your sweetheart?”

  “No.” I smiled at the old-fashioned term. “I met him the night before I traveled here. My twin brother, Evan, and I had a birthday party at my aunt’s and uncle’s place. He heard the noise as he walked by the house and just showed up—his uncle lives down the street and he’s staying with him for the summer. Anyway, my brother liked Rapp so much, and was so tired of always being the only boy, he invited him and his uncle on our picnic the next day. Rapp’s face was the last thing I saw before the closet door shut. But I’ve actually spent more time with you than I have with him.”

  Light came back to his eyes. The earth started rotating again. “Rapp. A good Swedish name for a boy who looks like me. For a boy who carries my family name. Thank you for telling me this.”

  “See? You’ll have a wife someday and kids. You won’t be alone.”

  He looked beyond me out the window. His face radiated heat. For her.

  “You love her.” I reached up and touched a lock of curly hair, smoothing it straight between my fingers. I let go and it bounced back into place.

  “Yes, I love her. And you are so like her.” He smoothed my face with the side of his rough finger, as we listened to clattering hooves and the creak of carriage wheels.

  He moved away from me and put his arm out the window, waving at Maxwell.

  “I have what you came for and I must get back to the barn project.” Tor handed me a leather bag. “The smallest clothes I could find are in there along with the hammer and nails.”

  “It’ll be good to put on a pair of jeans again and keep them on, even if they are too big. Girls don’t wear big dresses like this where I come from. Just short stretchy dresses with bare legs.”

  “The things you tell me about your world I find hard to imagine.”

  “If you manage to live long enough, you’ll see some of it for yourself someday.”

  Our eyes met and held each other’s with the miracle of our circumstances. Tor pulled me to him again and we kissed as if he was mine and I was his. As if it was okay.

  He took my hand and walked me to the carriage.

  Thirty minutes.

  I had laughed and I had cried. I had turned down a marriage proposal and then accepted another on my terms. My new friend’s childhood agonies had entered me fully and completely, granted in by my own permission.

  Thirty minutes. The time it took to walk through Tor’s door as one person and leave as someone else.

  The soft leather seat formed around me like a warm body snugged up tight. I let the carriage rock me back and forth against it as the scenes out the window rolled past without my seeing them. Dull and super-alive were all mixed up inside me, and mysteries and secrets peeked from the mountaintop just beyond my reach. I ran my hands up my arms and felt Tor’s fire dance across my skin. I put my hands to my face and breathed in hard, pulling him deep inside me.

  “LET me draw this on over your head, Miss Emma. I used your blue linen dress as a pattern because that one seemed to fit you best. You have filled out over the summer, my dear, but children your age do, now, do they not?”

  We were in Emma’s bedroom in front of the large oval mirror. The seamstress and her assistant had laid out a pile of dresses in different stages of completeness and a variety of fabrics. I held a sumptuous, half-finished, red velvet dress out in front of me. I put it to my face and inhaled the new material smell, dragging the smoothness across my cheeks. “Pretty fancy, Missus Love. This one is obviously not for the classroom.”

  She nodded at the blue cotton dresses and navy aprons. “Those two there will be for the classroom, miss. The velvet, silk, satin, and Belgian linen are for out and about. The better to catch the eye of a potential husband. Baltimore will be a fancy place with lots of young men spying for a rich, young lady like you. You must take better care of yourself and remember you will be in a big, important city, not a small mountain town. Your hair must be coiffed in the latest style, and you must remember to apply rouge.”

  Goldie giggled. I sent her a wink. “No husband for me. Not for many years—”

  “Missus Love!”

  Thorn stood hard in the doorway. My hand flew against my throat and covered the ring hanging above the unbuttoned dress. I dropped my attention to Missus Love’s grayish streaked bun and let my hair fall over my neck and shoulders as she knelt at my waist, plucking pins out of a little cushion wrapped around her wrist.

  “I could hear the two of you prattling on from downstairs. There is a job to be done and we are pressed for time. What is it that you do not understand about this dire situation, Missus Love? Emma is leaving on Sunday and her wardrobe must be ready.”

  “Madam Sweetwine. I have been sewing and talking at the same time for over thirty years—” Missus Love continued to pin material around my sleeve. “And my dresses are the finest. Why, I even have customers as far away as Sedro Woolley. Are you disparaging my work?”

  “No, of course not, I—”

  “Good. Then please let me get on with the job you have tasked me with. These will get done as the others have always been, in more than an acceptable manner and on time. You know my work.”

  Thorn went quiet except for the tap of her shoe. I braced for a sudden slap across Missus Love’s face.

  “I will take you at your word,” Thorn finally said, backing away from the seamstress and leaving the room.

  Goldie waited a minute and then shut the door.

  “You’re sure brave,” I said.

  “I have worked with every kind of woman. Some are good and some are bad. I’m the same way with them all. I have to stand up for myself on occasion or get mowed down by the uppity ones. I have been a war widow since I was nineteen years old. I take care of myself.”

  “Good for you. You’re ahead of your time. You are the most modern woman I know in Monte Cristo. A real career person. Earning your own way, making your own life. You inspire me.”

  “A seamstress and an inspirer. Did you hear that, Goldie? Me! A modern woman who earns her way? Take note, my dear Goldie.”

  Acting more than pleased, with a smile that stretched her cheeks into round shiny lumps, Missus Love, with Goldie by her side, fluttered around me for the next two hours, folding, draping, pinning, hemming, and fluffing.

  “Now, then, I am done, young lady. I’ll return on Saturday afternoon with the finished garments in time to get them all packed into your trunks. Thank you for being such an uncomplaining mannequin.”

/>   Missus Love and Goldie swept up the pile of material, patterns, half-made dresses, and a canvas sewing kit as big as a suitcase, and hauled it all out the bedroom door. They thumped and bumped down the stairs and out to the porch.

  I put on a simple muslin garden dress with a large front pocket. Keeping my feet bare, I cracked the door open and listened. The silence I had counted on. The occupants of the house were busy dressing in their formal wear for dinner.

  I knelt on the floor and towed the leather bag out from under the bed. I dropped the hammer and nails, and the two envelopes I had prepared earlier, into the dress pocket.

  I snuck downstairs and over to the piano. Glancing around, I bent underneath it and inserted one of the envelopes between a wooden slat and a beam. I heard murmuring coming from the kitchen. Cook and Bess were talking.

  The dining room was my next target. Bess hadn’t turned on the gas chandelier yet. I still had a few minutes.

  The top drawer in the sideboard was heavy and filled to the brim with candles, just as I knew it would be. I reached in. Heavy footsteps approached from the kitchen. I slid it shut and dove underneath the table.

  Cook was whistling a mindless tune, the smell of roasting potatoes and ham following her from the kitchen. I watched her feet as she found a serving platter. Her footsteps echoed back down the hallway and into the kitchen.

  Stealing back to the drawer, I piled candles on the floor. The lightened drawer was easy now to dump next to the wax mound. I took the hammer, two nails, and the second envelope from my pocket and stuck my arms into the empty space. I quickly nailed each end of the envelope to the inside frame.

  I balanced the drawer back on its runners and threw the candles in. Footsteps approached again from the kitchen. I rammed it closed and dropped the hammer into my pocket just as Cook rounded the corner.

  “Have you everything you need, miss? I thought I heard banging.”

  “Everything’s fine.”

  She gaped down at my bare feet and bulging dress. “Can I help you with something?”

  “I . . . I just wondered what kind of cake you baked for dessert tonight. Is it . . . chocolate again?”

  “No cake tonight, miss. But I did make apple cobbler.”

  “Even better! Thanks, Cook.”

  She widened her eyes at me in confusion. But I knew her well enough. She would never tell.

  I ran upstairs. Kerry and I would be the only ones to know.

  Shutting Emma’s door, I reached between the feather mattresses, feeling around for my leather and silver bracelet. Pushing the bracelet, hammer, and leftover nails deep into the leather bag, I brought out Tor’s red-and-black flannel shirt. Balling it up, I used it as a pillow as I lay down on my side across the rose-patterned rug next to the bed. I exhaled a sigh of relief and wiggled my nose into the shirt, breathing him in again . . . feeling the gentleness of him on my cheek, and held his leather bag close like a sweet little baby in my arms.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Emma

  2015

  The morning sun lifted the mist that had gathered around their heads toward the towering treetops, as Team Switch, with Keko and Uncle Jack in tow, hiked up the steep hill, pushing through heavy branches and zigzagging over the forest carpet and around mossy logs.

  At the old front porch, they stopped and gazed up at the mansion. Lonely shafts of dappled sunlight lit the weathered siding here and there, and way up on top under the rafters, bits of flaking yellow paint called to Emma across the years.

  The crow was back, just as they were, flapping its sleek, blue-black wings and gazing down at them from the curve of the roof. It cocked its head and listened to their chatter.

  “Your house was quite a spectacular lady,” said Keko, her words loud in the hushed air.

  Emma nodded. “Indeed. She was. I always imagined the house as feminine, too.” She turned to the fraying gables where they raised and dipped over the once-grand home and stared at the boarded-up windows as if she expected to see someone there. “When I was younger, I called her Sylvia, because we lived in a sylvan forest,” she whispered. “Is it childish to name a house? Along with my dolls, she was one of my only friends.”

  “Of course, it’s not childish.” Keko put her arm around Emma’s shoulders and gave her a hug. “It’s endearing, just like you.”

  Emma quivered out of her daydream and trod alone up the porch stairs, avoiding splinters and holes and blackberry thorns. She grasped the hand-and-ball knocker in one hand and the doorknob in the other. She thrust against the door with her shoulder. Emma stepped inside and turned to the others with a grand sweep of her arm. “Please, honored friends, welcome to my humble home.”

  They passed her in the doorway, hugging and kissing her one by one. The ruin would give a sane person nightmares, and Emma had called upon bravery to confront the horrific remains of a past dead life. She hoped she made them all proud.

  They followed each other and gathered in the middle of the dark, cold parlor, the silent piano standing witness to their hushed strategizing.

  “Are you okay, Emma?” asked Uncle Jack, with a quick pat on her back.

  Emma took a deep breath and nodded. “I am.” She was still getting used to so many hearts caring about her. She could do anything as long as she had these people by her side.

  “So . . . we start searching for clues or a sign or something,” said Lia.

  “If you don’t mind, I’ll just wander on my own.” Keko pointed to her head. “I want to focus, so please don’t interrupt and keep the noise to a minimum. That’ll help me.”

  “Whatever you want, Keko. I think I’ll poke around outside,” said Uncle Jack. “I hope to find some outbuildings hidden around or maybe something under the house. You never know.” Evan followed him out the door.

  “Let’s go back up to the closet where I found the photo, Emma. You can tell me whose room it was—you know, give us some context.” Rapp brought a flashlight out from his messenger bag and switched it on. “This time I can light up the space and see better. I’m pretty sure there’s more.”

  “Don’t just leave us standing here. Jules and I want to come, too,” said Niki.

  They hurried after Rapp to the second floor, around a corner, and up four stairs to a landing with a single door.

  “So peculiar,” said Emma. “Why would a family photo be hidden in my mother’s bedchamber?”

  Six tall rectangular windows ran across a curved wall. Niki rubbed off window grime with the side of her hand and peered outside. “This room faces out the front of the house. The covered porch is just below.”

  “Can someone hold the flashlight?” Rapp had dropped to his knees in the back of the closet. He handed it to Lia and pointed at where the ceiling sloped on an angle to the floor. “Right there. The photo I found the other day had been sticking out, making it easy to find. But there might have been more behind it.”

  He shimmied on his belly to the farthest point under the slanted roofline and turned over on his back. He reached up and put his hand between two boards and jiggled old paper out from between them. “Thought so.” He crawled out of the closet backwards with the treasure clamped between his teeth.

  Niki took the papers from Rapp’s mouth as he emerged from the closet.

  “We’re just lucky this stuff wasn’t eaten up,” said Lia. “See, staying positive gives positive results.”

  “And so easy, as if it was all left just for us,” said Jules. “Like you knew where to look, Rapp.”

  “Well, that would be weird,” he said, rubbing some of the black off his knees. “Maybe I’m psychic, too. Someone is sending me a sign.” He waggled his dirty fingers in Jules’s face and made a woo-woo sound.

  Jules batted his hands away as if they were annoying flies. “Well, maybe someone is sending us a signal. And it might just be Sonnet.”

  “Maybe it’s me.” Emma looked at Rapp without a smile. “Maybe it’s not so hard to understand. Perhaps I am back hiding clues now fo
r you in a place Mother would never think to scrutinize. Her own bedroom.”

  Rapp looked like he was ready to waggle his fingers in front of Emma next.

  “Stop!” said Niki, rattling the papers. “This place is making us all crazy. We can trip each other out another time. Let’s just concentrate on what we have here.”

  They gathered close. Lia held the flashlight.

  “It’s another photo.” Niki held the faded card out before them. The edges were nibbled away like the other, but the image in the center was plain to see.

  Shot in the same location as the other, the Monte Cristo Ice Caves Fair banner hung across painted peaks. Two young boys sat on a tufted bench clutching a toy soldier in each of their laps. But instead of facing into the camera, their heads were turned and blurred. They focused on a female to their left being hustled out of the camera’s range by what looked like an arm across her neck.

  “Let me see.” Emma took the photo. “My brothers. This face is blurred but she is wearing the same dress as in the other photo. The one I was not going to wear to the fair.” She blinked. “Sonnet.”

  “Oh, my god.” Jules’s reached out, her turn. “Someone is dragging her away from the camera. You can see she’s struggling.”

  “Someone didn’t want her in the photo.” Rapp took the other image out of his bag and held them out together. “Shine the light here, Lia. The sleeve.” Rapp compared them. “It’s the same dress as your mother’s, Emma.”

  “Yes.” Emma stared at her mother’s arm. She could only imagine the danger Sonnet was in.

  “There’s something else.” Niki picked up crackling yellow papers that had dropped to the floor. “It’s too dark in here to see.”

  “Let’s get out of here. This place is giving me the creeps,” said Jules.