The Seeker

by Ann H. Gabhart

  “Please, I beg you not to speak so plainly, Sister Altha.” Edwin looked over his shoulder again. “We hope to placate them with food and not anger them with words.”

  “Yea, you are right, Brother Edwin.” Sister Altha lowered her voice.

  “Please.” The icy calmness deserted Charlotte as her chest began to feel tight. Tight like her father’s. “My father may be dying. Please, I must go.”

  “You need not my permission if Elder Logan has supplied you with a horse.”

  Charlotte waited for no more words. She was already halfway across the yard to the back fence where she saw the horse tied.

  Edwin ran after her. “Wait, Charlotte. Elder Logan requested Harlan’s captain get a guard together to ride with you and ensure your safety.”

  But Charlotte didn’t wait. She loosed the reins and, putting one foot in the stirrup, easily swung up into the saddle. She had not been on a horse since she had come to the Shakers, but she hadn’t forgotten how to ride. She yanked the full Shaker skirt down to cover her legs with one hand before leaning close to the horse’s neck as she urged him forward. She saw no reason to delay her leaving to wait for a guard of the very men who had put a torch to her home and perhaps killed her father. Panic rose in her that she wouldn’t be in time, and she dug her heels into the horse’s flanks. She hardly noticed when her cap flew off behind her.

  29

  By the time she cut across the front field to the house, the roof had already surrendered to the flames and caved in. The fire was like a live thing, slamming her in the face with its heat and roaring its victory as it raced up the walls and shot flames out the shattered windows. Her home, everything she treasured, going up in smoke.

  Furniture littered the lawn. The hall tree. A rocking chair. The wicker pieces from the veranda. Lamps and other small items were pitched about as though spewed from the windows. Down the way, Perkins was yelling at some men as they pulled the carriages out of the carriage house before its roof caught a stray cinder. The rest of the slaves stood in a tight cluster, staring at the burning house as though spellbound by the flames. Only a few of the faces looked familiar. Twilight was giving way to night, but the fire pushed back the darkness and danced an eerie light on the scene.

  Charlotte searched through the other people scattered about the lawn. She recognized some neighbors who must have been attracted by the smoke. Others she didn’t know.

  The child, Landon, leaned against a tall angular woman in a dress not unlike her own without the collar and apron. Perhaps his governess. The boy’s face gleamed in the light of the fire, but Charlotte couldn’t tell whether he was enjoying the spectacle or mourning his loss.

  When he heard the horse, he turned, and there was no doubt that he was glad to see her. He tried to pull away from the woman, but her long fingers dug into his shoulders to hold him there against her as she leaned down to speak fiercely in his right ear. She was so focused on keeping the child under control that she didn’t give Charlotte a second glance.

  Charlotte didn’t see her father. Or Selena. Perhaps her father had been carried somewhere away from the fire. Or hurried off in a carriage to town to find a doctor. Or had a blanket pulled over his body. She shook away that thought. She couldn’t be too late.

  She tried to guide her horse across the lawn toward Perkins. He would know about her father. But the horse already spooked by the flames neighed in panic as something exploded in the fire with a loud pop. The horse skittered sideways and tried to rear up.

  Willis appeared out of the shadows by the horse’s head to grab its bridle and throw a bandanna over the horse’s eyes. “Your horse won’t be wantin’ to get any nearer the fire, Miss Lottie. I’d better hold him here for you.”

  It might have been any day she’d come in from riding. He was that calm. Even with the house burning and her riding up in Shaker garb after being gone more than a year.

  “Where’s Father? Am I too late?” Charlotte slid off the horse to the ground.

  “The Massah’s bad, Miss Lottie, but he was still breathin’ last I was over there.”

  “Where?”

  “He’s out in Miss Mayda’s garden or what’s left of it. We pulled your momma’s faintin’ couch out for him to lay on after those sons of the devil set the house on fire.” Willis pointed toward the side of the house. “We tried to move him back a ways from the flames before he threatened to shoot us all. Says he has to stay in the garden. You try to talk him back some, Miss Lottie. Where it’s not so hot.”

  “Where’s Selena?”

  “I ain’t knowin’ that, Miss.” The black man’s face went stiff as he turned away from her back to the horse.

  It didn’t matter. Selena couldn’t keep her away from her father now. Nothing could. Nothing but death.

  She lifted her skirts and ran across the yard. A few of the neighbors called out to her, but she acted as if she didn’t hear them as she hurried on toward the garden and her father. She was almost to the corner of what used to be the veranda when Landon jerked free from the woman holding him and ran to grab Charlotte’s skirt. She had to stop.

  “I knew you would come, Charlotte. I told Miss Pennebaker you would. She says I don’t have a sister. Not really. That you were just part of a game my mother was playing, but she’s wrong.” Tears glistened on his cheeks in the light of the fire. “Isn’t she?”

  They were too near the flames. Charlotte gasped to get her breath as she stepped back from the heat, yanking the child with her. He seemed unaware of their danger as his eyes never left her face. He needed her to say yes. So she did. “I am your sister. Come.” Wasn’t she being sister to a few hundred at Harmony Hill? What difference could one more little brother make? She took his hand. “Let’s go find our father.”

  He wasn’t on the couch that stood a little distance from the fire. Instead he sat slumped on a bench much too close to the flames as his longtime valet stood over him stoically fanning air toward his face with a spray of leaves. The heat was overpowering. Selena was nowhere to be seen.

  “Father, we have to move back from the fire,” Charlotte cried.

  He looked up at the sound of her voice, but his eyes showed no recognition.

  Ruben spoke up. “Massah Charles won’t leave the tree he planted for Miss Mayda.”

  That tree was the only thing left from the garden Charlotte had known. Her mother’s rosebushes and lilacs were gone, replaced by evergreen shrubs and ironwork benches. Selena had wiped away the touch of Charlotte’s mother from the garden. Except for the dogwood tree, and now its leaves were scorched and shriveling in the heat of the fire.

  “He can’t stay here. We can’t stay here.” Charlotte pulled one of her father’s limp arms across her shoulders. Even through her skirt, the bench felt hot against her leg.

  Ruben hesitated. “I’ve always done what the Massah tol’ me to do. He tol’ me not to let nobody move him.”

  “I’m not nobody.” Charlotte tugged on her father’s arm, but there was no way she could move him by herself. “Help me get him back from the fire. Now.”

  She put authority in the word, but Ruben stared down at the ground and mumbled, “I can’t, Miss Lottie. He tol’ me.”

  Charlotte stared at Ruben, nonplussed by his refusal to do as she said. She’d almost forgotten Landon when he slipped around her to push his face right up in front of her father’s. “Papa,” he said with no hint of panic in his voice. “I’m thirsty. Can we go find a drink?”

  Her father put his hand on the boy’s head and actually smiled. “Landon, my boy. Where’s your mother?”

  “I don’t know, Papa. But Charlotte’s here.”

  “Charlotte!” And now his smile included her. “When did you get here from Virginia?”

  “Virginia?” Charlotte stared at her father, not sure she’d heard him right. But then she remembered Landon asking her the same thing in the graveyard. Could her father have really thought she was in Virginia? “I haven’t been in Virginia.”


  He didn’t seem to comprehend her words as he reached a trembling hand toward her. “I’ve been so worried about you with all the news of battles in the East, but Selena assured me you were safer there than trying to come home.” His lips stuck together and made each word a struggle.

  “I’m home now,” she said as she took his hand. There was so much to say, so much to try to understand, but not here with the fire nearly singeing their hair. “But remember, we’ve got to get Landon something to drink.”

  “Yes, yes. Landon.” He looked up at Ruben. “Ruben, bring some drinks.”

  “Yassir. I has them ready down at the end of the garden.”

  “Please, Papa. It’s too hot for me here,” Landon said.

  Her father looked past them then at the fire before he turned his eyes back to Charlotte. “Grayson’s burning, you know,” he said as though announcing a rainstorm to her after her head was already soaked. His voice quivered as he went on. “Your mother’s crying out to me from the flames. She loved this place. More than she ever did me.”

  “Nay.” Charlotte shook her head a little as if to clear away the Shaker talk before she went on. “That’s not true. She loved nothing more than you.” She and Ruben pulled him to his feet to begin inching him away from the fire. “A house can be rebuilt.”

  “Not by me, I fear.” He looked down. “I can’t feel my feet. Selena won’t like that. She does love to dance.” His eyes fell on Landon again as they lowered him to the fainting couch. The heat of the flames was not as intense there. “Did you tell me where your mother is?”

  “No sir. I don’t know where she is.”

  “She’s not in the fire, is she?” He didn’t sound worried so much as curious. Then he remembered Landon again. “Of course she’s not, lad. I wouldn’t want you to think that. I’m sure she’s around somewhere.”

  Ruben had run off toward the slave quarters as soon as they got her father down on the couch, and now he came back with a mason jar of water. Charlotte’s father took the jar, but his hand shook so that a good bit of the water spilled out on his pants.

  Charlotte eased the jar out of his hand and held it to his lips. “Drink, Father.”

  He gulped the water greedily before he put his hand over hers on the jar. His hand was still shaking. “I’m so relieved you’re safe, Charley. I could have never forgiven myself if something had happened to you in Virginia. Selena shouldn’t have let you go after they seceded, but she said you insisted on leaving. That you were angry with me for trying to replace your mother by marrying her. And then when you kept sending my letters back unopened, I knew she must be right.” He squeezed her hand. “I’m glad you came home.”

  Charlotte looked at him and tried to take in what he was saying. Unopened letters? There had been no letters. Her hand started trembling like his as she realized what Selena had done. When water sloshed out of the jar, Ruben lifted it from her hand.

  “But, Father,” Charlotte said. “I never—”

  “Shh, Charley. None of that matters now.” He touched her lips with his fingertips to stop her words, then took her hand and squeezed it. “I’m just glad you came home.”

  “So am I, Father.” Charlotte blinked back tears as she tightly held his hand, so familiar, so loved. Selena had lied to them both. She fumbled about in her head for the right words, the gentlest words, to explain how they’d been fooled.

  Those words were forgotten when her father gasped and started jerking on his shirt front. “Why is this shirt so tight? It’s binding me.”

  Charlotte pulled free his buttons, but he still clutched at his chest. He sounded out of breath as he went on. “They thought I was a coward, but it was her. She was the one who made me climb out on the roof. She thought she could sweet-talk them into going away if I wasn’t there. But they saw me and accused me of cowardice. I would have rather they shot me clean and true through the heart. It would have been an easier way to pass.”

  “No, Papa,” Landon cried out and laid his head on her father’s chest.

  “Now, don’t take on so, Son.” He stroked Landon’s head a few times before he looked back up at Charlotte. “You’re going to like Landon. He’s a fine boy. Wants to be a whale boat captain when he grows up.”

  “So I’ve heard,” Charlotte said.

  Her father looked back toward the fire. “Might be a good place to be right now. Floating on the open sea. The salt air in your face. Searching for that one whale that might take you on the ride of your life.”

  “You can sail with me, Papa,” Landon said.

  “You just think about me when you stand in the helm. That will be my ride, Landon.” He smiled weakly down at the boy. Sweat beads popped out all over his face. He reached for Charlotte’s hand again. “Do you forgive me, Charley? After you left, I wanted to follow you to Virginia to talk to you, but everybody said it was too dangerous, and now look at me. Grayson conquered by the Rebels.”

  “Not conquered. Never conquered,” Charlotte said. “Under us is still Grayson land. Our land.” She wanted to take off her shoes and stockings and feel the grass and dirt between her toes.

  “Grayson land, yes. But not my land. Your grandfather just endured my presence here. I was the necessary evil to see that the Grayson blood continued even if the name did not.” He looked around. “Yours now, Charley. Or what’s left of it.”

  “What of Selena?” Charlotte wanted to sling the woman’s deceit in his face, but he looked so sad that she didn’t have the heart to add to his sorrow.

  “Ah, Selena. I fancied I loved her. You can forgive me for that, can’t you, Charley? I tried to explain in my letters. An old man’s last folly.” He made a sound that started out a laugh and changed to another gasp of pain as he grabbed his chest. “Too tight.”

  “Hold on, Father. We’ll get a doctor.” Charlotte pushed her words at him, willing him to listen and keep breathing, but his eyes glazed over as his head slumped down on his chest. She grabbed him and tried to shake life back into him. “Wait, Father! Wait.”

  Ruben bent down in front of her with tears streaming down his cheeks. “Ain’t no use, Miss Lottie. He’s done gone on.”

  Beside her, Landon let out a pitiful whimper.

  Charlotte blinked her eyes and let Ruben gently ease her father away from her hands. “I didn’t get to tell him I forgave him. That I never saw his letters,” she said softly more to herself than to Ruben or Landon. “I wanted to tell him.”

  “He knows now,” Landon said.

  Charlotte looked at the child. “But he died before he heard me.”

  “The Lord will tell him,” Landon assured her with true faith. “The Lord will want him to be happy in heaven, so he’ll tell him. My first papa told me that before he died. He was real sick, but he told me everybody’s happy in heaven. That all the tears stay down here.”

  “Listen to the child. He knows what he’s talkin’ ’bout. Things is always good up in paradise even if there is plenty of tears falling down here,” Ruben said as he laid her father back on the couch with great care. He pushed her father’s eyelids down over his eyes and folded his arms across his chest. “I’ll get a blanket out of the carriage house.”

  Charlotte stared at her father’s body and desperately wished he would even yet gasp and rise up off the couch to talk to her again. But of course he didn’t.

  Landon edged closer to Charlotte and spoke in a small voice. “I wish I could go hide. It’s easier when you can hide.”

  Charlotte put her arm around him. “Does it frighten you to look at him?”

  “No. It only frightens me that he’s gone. I liked my second papa. I might not like my third. Or he might not like me.”

  “Will there be a third?”

  “Oh yes. I think Mother already has him picked out. She doesn’t like to leave things to chance. She says it’s best to always have a plan.”

  “I used to think that,” Charlotte said. She tightened her arm around the boy and felt the trembles shaking him. S
he turned him toward her. “Here, Landon, hide against me.”

  He buried his face in her dress. His voice was muffled as he asked, “Can I cry? Mother says young gentlemen don’t cry, but I don’t think I can keep from it.”

  “Everybody cries sometimes,” Charlotte whispered as tears rolled down her cheek and fell on Landon’s messed curls. “Even whale boat captains.”

  And behind them Grayson burned.

  30

  August 22, 1862

  Dear Adam,

  My father was buried last Thursday. Elder Logan, Sister Martha, and Dulcie came to be with me as the preacher from town spoke words over his grave. I’m sure my father’s political friends and our neighbors were shocked to see me in Shaker dress with a cap covering my hair. What a change for them to witness, but then the whole nation is in a constant state of flux with the way the current conflict is tearing us apart.

  There is much sorrow. Neighbors down the way, the Jacksons, just got word their son was killed at White Oak Swamp. Other neighbors, the Andersons, lost their son at Bull Run a year ago. One fought for the Confederates and the other for the Union, but at my father’s funeral, Mr. Jackson and Mr. Anderson stood shoulder to shoulder and grieved with me and with each other. Death is the great equalizer.

  Behind us as we stood around my father’s grave, smoke still rose from the skeletal remains of my Grayson home. General Morgan’s raiders set it afire when they came through here. They did not shoot my father, but the result was the same. His heart could not bear the destruction of his home and his life.

  Selena disappeared the night of the fire and was not at the graveside to be a grieving widow. Landon, her young son, is in the charge of his governess and they are at a hotel in town waiting for her to return. The governess says Selena has left him in her charge for extended periods before and that she is confident Selena will return for him. As a mother should. Landon was very sad the day we laid Father to rest. He and Father had established a family bond. So much so that he considers me his rightful sister. I don’t mind. He is a charming child. So charming I wonder if Selena can really be his natural mother. I, of course, would not suggest such a thing to him.