“This is the house the slaves used,” Elizabeth said. “Well, I guess they weren’t slaves anymore. I should say the black people who came with Caitríona.”
Next to the cabin was a towering ash tree which had been splintered at one time by a lightning strike. Both tree and cabin were being slowly consumed by an expansive trumpet vine, just beginning to show its red blooms. The little house stood near a large outcropping of rock jutting up out of the ground with a small, clear spring trickling out of a crevice and splashing along a shallow streambed into the woods.
“The black people didn’t live in our house?” Conn asked.
“Well, back then, our house was only the log part where our bathroom is now,” Elizabeth explained. “All the rest was added later. And it wasn’t considered proper for white people and black people to live together.”
“So, only Caitríona and Deirdre lived in our house?” Conn asked. “What happened to Deirdre after Caitríona disappeared?”
Elizabeth thought about this. “I’m not sure. Nana told me the colored people who came with Caitríona raised Deidre, but I never really thought about where they lived. Come on, let’s get to the cemetery,” she said.
They picked their way through the undergrowth back to the path and within a few minutes were in the small graveyard.
Elizabeth stood in front of Nana’s grave, her hand pressed to her chest. “She was a wonderful person,” she said softly.
She wandered and found her mother’s grave. She called Conn and Will to her and they read, “Méav Faolain Cuthbert.” She knelt for a moment, pulling a few weeds. “We need to take better care of this place,” Elizabeth said. “Plant some flowers, mow the grass. Once the house is done.”
They walked on and found a headstone carved with “Deirdre Faolain McEwan.”
“This was Caitríona’s daughter,” said Conn.
“Yes,” Elizabeth said. “Nana’s mother.” Near them were seven small headstones bearing names and dates of children aged four days to thirteen years. “Oh.” She put her hand to her mouth. “I didn’t realize so many had died. It’s so sad.”
Conn thought again of the curse, and turned to watch Will who was following Jed as he climbed a nearby tree. She thought what it would be like to be standing here staring at Will’s name on one of these stones….
§§§
Caitríona looked up as she heard a small moan from the corner of the parlour where Orla was scrubbing the floor on her hands and knees.
“Haven’t you ever cleaned before?” Ellie had asked, trying to mask her exasperation when neither of the girls seemed to know how to do anything needed in the large house.
“Of course we cleaned,” said Caitríona indignantly, but how to explain that their entire house in Ireland could have fit inside the plantation house’s dining room, and that their floor had been flagstone that needed only daily sweeping, not polished wood planks that needed scrubbing and waxing and buffing.
Caitríona hurried over to Orla now. “Stop,” she commanded. “I’ve got the parlour rug rolled up. I’ll take it outside and hang it. You do the beating and I’ll do the floor.”
Orla nodded, wiping sweat from her pale brow. She was not regaining her strength as Caitríona was. She barely ate, stating she wasn’t hungry, but Caitríona, for the first time since she was little, had as much to eat as she wished. She left Orla in the deep shade of a large chestnut tree, beating the dust out of the rug while she went back inside and took up the scrub brush. She was glad her appetite was good, for the work was neverending. Though the master was not there, the house was kept in constant readiness for him. Ellie had a carefully arranged schedule of rooms to be cleaned from ceiling to floor. Each room had soaring windows that had to be cleaned, curtains and rugs to be beaten, walls to be wiped down, furniture dusted, fireplaces swept and floors scrubbed. And the silver and the china and the paintings and the sculptures – it all had to be wiped down regularly. The only break in the routine came on Sundays, when they only worked a half-day. Orla and Caitríona kept the Sabbath faithfully by reading a bit from their mother’s prayer book each week as there was no church anywhere near.
Caitríona took her bucket of dirty water outside to dump and refill at the pumphouse. As hard as their work was, the slaves’ work was harder. The house slaves had to do the laundry, empty and clean chamber pots, cut and carry firewood, kill and clean the chickens or whatever was needed for meals that day. They hauled water and tended to the large vegetable garden near the house. The rest of the slaves, nearly a hundred of them Burley said, worked the fields. Mostly they were weeding now as they waited for the tobacco to mature to the point where the large aromatic leaves were ready to be cut and hung to dry.
The girls and Fiona had been surprised to find themselves the only occupants of the third floor, though there were ten rooms in each of the four halls forming the house’s square contour. Burley and Ellie shared a small set of rooms off the kitchen, while Mr. Batterston had his own small house nearby.
The slaves occupied a small colony of cabins built under a copse of willow trees. Other than Dolly, only a handful of them were assigned to work in the house. A woman named Ruth was in charge of them. She was also the plantation’s healer, and knew how to make poultices and salves as there were no doctors nearby. Ruth’s husband, Henry, was the plantation’s blacksmith and woodworker. He had his own shop not far from the stables.
“Dolly says it was their grandparents who came from Africa, most of them,” Fiona told the girls. “She’s been here for ten years. Her last master sold her husband and son to someone else.”
“They split a family?” Caitríona asked in disbelief. “Could they do that to us?” she asked Orla.
“I don’t know,” Orla replied fearfully.
“She also said,” Fiona whispered dramatically, “that Batterston has sold slaves. She says he lords it over all of them when the master ain’t here, and nobody dares say a word.”
Though the girls had heeded Burley’s advice and avoided contact with Batterston as much as possible, he had the disconcerting habit of silently appearing in unexpected places, so that the staff never knew how long he had been watching them. His eyes were such a pale gray that they sometimes appeared to be colorless, giving the illusion of pupils staring from the eyes of a predator.
Despite the girls’ efforts to steer clear of him, inevitably, “I was told you both read and write,” he said one day.
They both jumped at the sound of Batterston’s cold voice behind them as they cleaned and dusted the china in the hutch.
“Yes,” said Orla.
“Tomorrow, you will assist me with the plantation’s accounts,” he said, looking at Orla.
After that, Orla was tasked once a week to spend the morning in the house’s study, helping him to update the plantation ledgers.
“He’s cheating on the accounts,” she whispered to Caitríona one night in their room.
“How do you know?”
“Ellie told me they got five sacks of flour and four tons of coal two days ago, but he had me enter four sacks and three tons in the book. I’m guessing he sells the extra and pockets the money.” Orla’s eyes were big and scared.
“Does he know that you know?” Caitríona asked.
Orla shook her head. “No. I didn’t let on that I knew anything.”
“Well, don’t,” Caitríona urged. “And don’t say anything to Burley or Ellie or anyone.”
“But he’s stealing!” Orla protested.
“I don’t care,” Caitríona said emphatically. “He’s dangerous. And if Lord Playfair or his son cared, they’d be here, wouldn’t they?”
As if in response to that criticism, a courier brought word the next day that Hugh Playfair and his party would be arriving within the week. The entire household went into a frenzy of activity.
Ellie came to check on Orla and Caitríona as they cleaned and aired the bedrooms. Their sleeves were rolled back as they wiped down windows and woodwork. �
�Don’t forget to change the linens,” she said to them.
“But no one’s slept in these,” Caitríona protested.
“Don’t matter,” Ellie said. “The bed needs clean sheets.”
A moment later there was a timid knock on the door. “Excuse me, Miss.”
Caitríona looked up to see a Negro girl about her own age standing in the doorway. Her skin was a beautiful chocolate brown, but her eyes were blue.
“I was sent for the sheets,” said the girl, pointing to the pile of linens they had just stripped off the massive four-poster bed.
Caitríona nodded dumbly and the girl scurried in to gather the sheets. She had difficulty getting everything gathered into her arms – one piece or another kept falling back to the floor. Caitríona rushed forward to help.
“What’s your name?” she asked as she helped tuck the loose ends into the girl’s arms.
“I’m Hannah, Miss.”
§§§
“Conn!”
Conn blinked and looked around. She was kneeling in front of Hannah’s grave marker, though she couldn’t remember walking over here.
“Connemara Faolain!”
She turned to her mother, who was standing with her hands on her hips.
“Are you deaf? Or just ignoring me?” Elizabeth asked with mild frustration.
Conn got to her feet, feeling a little giddy. “Sorry, Mom. I’m coming.”
They all walked back to the house, Conn barely aware of what the others were saying. She’d never had one of these dreams without being asleep before, and it left her feeling disoriented. She didn’t know who Hannah was, but somehow, she was the key to everything.
CHAPTER 11
Conn woke, blinking in the early morning light of her room. It took her a moment to realize where she was. She felt as if she had barely slept. Her mind was still filled with the vision from the cemetery yesterday. She pressed her hands to her eyes. These glimpses into Caitríona’s life were starting to feel more real than her own.
She kicked off the covers and got dressed. Downstairs, she stumbled into the kitchen where her mother was pouring herself a cup of coffee and Will was already eating breakfast.
“Well, good morning, sleepy head,” said Elizabeth. “I was getting worried. You never sleep this late.” She looked more closely at Conn and frowned. “Do you feel all right?” she asked, noting the dark circles under Conn’s eyes.
Conn shrugged wordlessly. The truth was, she didn’t feel all right, but it wasn’t anything physical.
“Sit down,” Elizabeth commanded as she poured Conn a large glass of orange juice. “Drink this while I make you some breakfast.”
A few minutes later, as Conn ate her eggs and toast, Elizabeth said, “I need to go into town for groceries and a few other things. Do you want to go, or would you rather stay home?”
Conn looked up in surprise. “Could I stay here?”
“Sure,” Elizabeth said, looking over her grocery list. “We might be a couple of hours, though. You’ll be okay?”
“Verily, I say to thee, fair lady, I shall take me to my room and my books,” said Conn dramatically.
“All right, Robin Hood,” Elizabeth laughed, “but no arrows in the house.”
Conn laid her hand over her heart. “Upon my honor.”
From her bedroom, Conn watched the Nomad drive away in a cloud of dust. She quickly went down to the pantry and retrieved one of Nana’s old oil lamps. It took her a minute to figure out how to pry up the glass chimney so she could light the wick.
She went back upstairs and clicked open the hidden panel. From inside the stairs, she pulled the panel shut, and heard it click. She gave it another tug and saw it pop back open. Reassured, she closed it and descended the steps to the tunnel. Walking more quickly than she had the last time, she came to the ladder that led up to the barn, and the place where the tunnel forked. Undecided for a moment, she finally chose the left-hand fork.
This tunnel went on much longer than the distance from the house to the barn, and began sloping downward as the floor and walls became more rock than dirt. Small rivulets of water could be seen dampening the walls here and there, and small puddles sat in depressions in the rocky floor. The tunnel gradually grew in height and width until, suddenly, it opened into an immense cavern.
Holding her lantern high, Conn realized she could not see the top of the cavern. She began following the wall to her right, passing fissures in the rock face that looked as if they could be openings to other tunnels, but she refrained from exploring them. She suddenly wondered if she would recognize the entrance to her own tunnel, and hurried back to it. Thinking she needed to mark this tunnel somehow, she pulled off one of her socks and laid it at the entrance.
She resumed her exploration of the cavern, following the perimeter wall. She had no idea how far she had gone when she came to a shaft of sunlight shining deep within a fissure set high in the wall. Climbing up, slightly off-balance because she still held the oil lamp in one hand, Conn ventured into the cleft and saw that the sunlight was creeping in through a tall vertical slit in the rock. She stepped through the slit and found herself standing on an outcropping of rock overlooking a small house being overgrown by a red flowering vine. It took her a moment to realize that she was staring down at the old slave cabin.
Clambering carefully down the rocks, descending with the spring water as it tumbled down to the streambed, Conn looked up and realized that the fissure opened at such an angle that no one would ever guess at the hidden entrance she had just come through.
Turning back to the cabin, she tried to imagine why Caitríona and the others would have needed this network of tunnels. She picked her way through the undergrowth blocking the path to the cabin, some of the trumpet vine tendrils looping themselves around her legs as if trying to pull her in. It took her a few minutes to locate the door of the cabin. Pushing down on the rusty iron latch, she shoved hard. The door shuddered open on noisy hinges, allowing her in at last.
The cabin was only one room. In one corner was a framed-in bed with a thin straw-filled mat. A stone fireplace took most of one wall, and there was a roughly made table with a few rustic stools gathered around it. Pewter plates and cups still sat on the table, almost as if the last inhabitants had been interrupted at a meal and had never returned.
“What happened to all of you?” Conn whispered as she sat down on one of the stools and looked around.
Deciding not to return home via the tunnel, she blew out her oil lamp and left the cabin, pulling the door shut behind her. Meandering through the woods, as she came within view of the house, she could see both the Nomad and Mr. Greene’s pickup. She quickly hid the oil lamp in the barn and ran to the house.
“Halloo!” she called out as she entered the kitchen.
Abraham’s expression reflected his amusement as he carried a box of groceries into the pantry, replying as he did so, “Halloo, thyself.”
“Mr. Greene was wondering if you would like to go fishing with him this afternoon,” Elizabeth said as she laid out bread for sandwiches.
“I get to go, too!” Will said excitedly.
Elizabeth, immediately reading the jealous expression on Conn’s face, said, “Do you want to go or not?”
“Yes!” Conn said, echoing Will’s excitement despite her irritation that he’d been invited before she was. “What about Jed?”
“Well,” said Abraham, “I’m not sure where Jedediah is today. We’ll take him next time. Go get your fishing rod and we’ll leave as soon as you’re ready.”
“I shall return forthwith.”
Abraham turned to Elizabeth. “Forthwith?”
He laughed as she replied only with a raised eyebrow that spoke volumes.
***
A short while later, as they all munched on their sandwiches, Abraham drove them to a river the children had never been to.
“Where have you been working, Mr. Greene?” Will asked as they bounced along the dirt tracks.
&n
bsp; “I’ve been over at the Peregorn place,” he said, “rebuilding some of their calving sheds.”
“Peregorn,” Conn said, trying to remember where she had heard that name. “Jed! He said something about a Peregorn witch.”
Abraham glanced over at her. “Connemara, I know you are too intelligent to believe the local superstitions.”
Conn looked up at him. “But why would people say that? And who is this person?”
“Miss Molly Peregorn lives by herself, and likes it that way. People always like talking about anyone different, but Miss Peregorn is a good woman.”
Conn mulled this over, but her thoughts were interrupted when Abraham stopped the truck.
“Here we are.”
Conn waited with her new fishing rod, trying to be patient as Abraham got Will set up on the bank with an artificial lure tied to his fishing line.
“This,” he said as he tied a buggy-looking fly to her line, “looks to the fish like a grasshopper that has fallen into the water.”
They waded out into shallow water, and he showed her how to cast the hopper, mending her line when the current dragged it so that the hopper floated along naturally. Conn was not prepared for the excitement of a trout rising to snatch the fly. She could feel the tension on the line as the fish swam into deeper water.
“Don’t jerk,” said Abraham calmly, standing beside her. “Just keep the line tight and let him go a bit.”
The line felt like a live wire as the cane rod bowed under its tension. Conn felt connected to the fish.
“Now, slowly, try reeling him in,” Abraham instructed.
It took a few minutes, but soon, the fish was swimming around Conn’s legs as she stood knee-deep in the river. Abraham bent to hold the trout by its belly just under the surface of the water.
“It’s a brook trout,” he said, turning it so she could see the beautiful slash of brilliant red behind the gills.
“It’s the biggest fish I ever caught!” Conn said as Abraham dislodged the hopper from the corner of its mouth.
“Do you want to keep it?” he asked.
She nodded excitedly and turned back to the river while Abraham strung the trout on a line and went to check on Will.
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