by Sara Donati
“Gabriel Oak,” she said, her voice a little hoarse. “What have you done?”
He blinked at her slowly. “We have had a good morning, Friend Lily and I.” He produced a grin that lifted only one side of his mouth and made him look like a boy. Something had passed between them that Lily did not understand and was not meant to understand, except that Gabriel had somehow got the best of Curiosity.
She had the crease between her brows that meant she wasn’t about to be charmed, not even by Gabriel Oak.
“I’m ready,” Lily said, uneasy and unsure if she were somehow to blame for whatever had so displeased Curiosity. “I’m ready to go now.”
“Hold on just a minute,” said Curiosity. “How much did you take, Gabriel?”
“Enough, I think.” He was still smiling, but not quite so broadly.
Curiosity sucked in one cheek and let it go again, and then she let out a great breath. “Well, then, we’ll just set here with you a while longer.”
She silenced Lily’s question with a quick flick of her fingers. “We got a matter to settle.”
Gabriel blinked at her, sleepy and content. “I made a promise, did I not?”
Curiosity didn’t answer him. She said, “Lily, have you done any drawing in that book your mama gave you yet?”
Lily shook her head.
“Time to get started then. Open it up, now. I’ll stand right here while you work. Don’t worry none, I ain’t going to look over your shoulder. Take his likeness as best you can.”
“You want me to draw Gabriel?” Lily’s voice rose up in surprise, wavering a little at the end.
“I do.”
“But I’m not—”
“Friend Lily,” Gabriel said softly. “I made a promise that I cannot keep without thy help. Wilt thou help me?”
“Yes,” Lily whispered.
“Concentrate on this task before thee. It is within thy power.”
The more that is taken away, the more clearly wilt thou see what is left behind.
Lily studied Gabriel. His skin shimmered damp in the sunlight so that for a moment it seemed that she could see through it to the skull itself. The great hollows of cheek and temple, the line of his nose, the deep cleft above his lip where sweat shone in the sun like dew in the curve of a leaf.
“Will you take off your hat?”
He did as she asked, and she began to work, linked circles and then caught the shape of his deep-set eyes, turned up a little at the corners where the wrinkles were deepest. The color didn’t matter to her pencil but she could not overlook it either, eyes as blue as her own—like flag lilies, like cornflowers—but fever bright, and brighter still, like window glass reflecting a bloodred sunset. His usual kind expression was there too, but lost a little in the heat of his fever. He wasn’t watching her or anything at all, his gaze was fixed in the distance while he waited for her to do this thing he had asked of a little girl. Younger now than he was when he drew his sister Jane and found out the truth about himself.
Panic clenched, rose up from her belly like a fist to lodge in her throat. She put down the pencil to flex her fingers and then she felt Curiosity’s hand on her shoulder, as sure and calm as her mother’s. The fear left her, ran away down her back and disappeared into the ground like a strike of lightning.
The more that is taken away.
Lily let her pencil work. All the rest of the world went away while it moved on the paper, putting down Gabriel’s bones, circles within circles and the planes between them. The beginning and the end of him. And then she was finished, a simple drawing, nothing more than lines meeting and parting and meeting again to build a likeness of her friend.
“A little too broad in the chin,” said Lily. “And the ears aren’t quite right.”
“Shhhh.” Curiosity leaned down to look, her eyes moving quickly over the paper.
“Now see,” she said finally in her softest, sweetest voice. She smelled of linen in the sun, of cinnamon and the color of her own skin. “Now see what you made. Wouldn’t your grandmother be proud?”
Curiosity was looking at Gabriel Oak when she said it, and Lily would remember her expression for a very long time to come, sad and happy at the same time and satisfied, above all things.
In the evening when there was still no word from Three-Crows or Daniel or anyone else, Lily opened Gabriel’s book, working the knots in the string with fingers that trembled a little. When she was done the book sat before her with its warped boards and blackened face like a great horny toad ready to leap.
She turned over the front cover, curious first and foremost about what kind of book it might be, and read with considerable effort:
An Apology for the True Christian Divinity, as the
Same is held forth, and Preached, by the People,
called in Scorn, Quakers; Being a full Explanation
and Vindication of their Principles and Doctrines
The first flush of surprise and disappointment lasted only a second, until Lily looked at the inside of the cover she had set aside. The handwriting was old-fashioned and hard to read but the familiar name was there: she put her finger on it and whispered the words to herself aloud as she read, something her mother would not like but it seemed the only right way, to say the words out loud from the page.
Josiah Oak bought this Good Book
5th day, 2nd Month in the Year of Our Lord 1748 for
his son Gabriel, that he may Endeavor to Walk in
Divine Light
Below the faded ink Gabriel’s father had put on the paper, he had made marks of his own: a whole world of faces, men and women and children, some laughing, some serious or concerned or distracted. Beneath each he had written a few words: Sister Jane, aged 18; Aunt Catherine, with her cat Theobold; Brother Thomas, lost to a fever aged 23; Mother in contemplation; Great-grandmother Clarke; Father.
Josiah Oak was an old man in the drawing, with sunken cheeks and deep lines around his mouth, pain lines Hannah would call them, but there was nothing bad or cruel in his expression, no matter how Lily studied him, looking for a man who would send a son away because he wanted to draw. He had died so long ago and still Lily could know him a little, from the set of his jaw and the look in his eyes. This was the way Gabriel had seen his own father. The bones of him.
Lily turned the pages carefully, afraid that if she made any sound at all what she had in front of her might disappear. She saw now what Gabriel had meant her to have. Not the book, or what the book had to say—the printed words were long and complicated and did not interest her—but for the world inside it. Gabriel had drawn in the white spaces and sometimes along the edge of the words, trees and cabins and a clump of fireweed, a child with a scarred face, an old lady with a sour look that reminded her of the widow, two Indian boys playing a game with dice, one of them laughing while the other scowled. Seneca camp, he had written below them.
Most of the drawings had something noted, sometimes just the name of the place where the drawing had been made and a date. On the Delaware, spring 1749. Meg Brewster of Philadelphia. Mr. Leonard, Barber, 1750. A tree struck by lightning, Marysville.
“I’ve been talking to you for five minutes, girl. Have you gone pure deaf?”
Lily looked up at Curiosity, who stood fists on hips in front of her. “Gabriel gave me this,” she said, her hands spread over the pages. “I don’t know why.”
Curiosity’s expression softened.
“Do you know why he would give me this?”
One corner of her mouth twitched a little, not in laughter at all but as if she were trying to decide what to say. “It’ll come to you in time, child.”
When she had carried Lily into the kitchen and deposited her, she stood back. “Tomorrow you can put some weight on the ankle,” she said. “Walk around the garden a little.”
Just a few hours ago this good news would have driven everything else out of Lily’s head, but the book in her lap was so heavy, and her fingers kept moving back there, tracin
g the cracks in the leather.
Curiosity didn’t seem to notice; she had already turned her back to talk to Daisy, who was washing fiddlehead ferns from the basket in her lap. Lily thought of asking them to light a candle—it was far too dim in the kitchen at dusk to read anything—the urge to open the book was that strong. She had not even come to the first of the papers that were layered between the pages.
“Strangest wedding I ever heard of,” Daisy was saying to her mother. “Wasn’t nobody there except the preacher and his wife. The widow caught herself a chill, so they say, and stayed in bed. Her only child and she wouldn’t stand there and watch him be married. Anna did go on about it.”
Lily sat up a little straighter, her hands stilling on the book.
Curiosity said, “I keep thinking of Martha, rest her soul. She would be pleased to see her Jemima settled so well.”
Daisy let out a soft grunt of disapproval, started to say something, and then she cast a glance in Lily’s direction and stopped herself. “One thing for certain, I never saw a man so blank faced on his wedding day. Kuick looked like he was walking in his sleep.”
“It all happened right fast,” Curiosity said dryly.
“Dolly will have some news to share. She coming today?”
Curiosity shrugged. “I expect Jemima will make her work till full dark, though she’s unlikely to get her full wages.”
Lily didn’t like to ask questions when they were talking for fear that they would just stop, but now she couldn’t hold back.
“Dolly Smythe is leaving the widow?”
Daisy looked up from her basket with the smile that reminded Lily of her own mother.
“She is. The new Missus Kuick don’t care to have Dolly scrubbing her floors or working her loom.”
“That suit me just fine,” said Curiosity. “I’ll be glad of the extra pair of hands, I surely will. The only question I got is, I wonder how long it’ll take for Becca to give notice, just her and Cookie taking on all the housework alone while Jemima lays abed.”
And then the two women exchanged glances and Curiosity closed her mouth up tight. All week Lily had been listening to Curiosity and Daisy worry over the changes at the Kuicks’, but they were far too mindful of her sitting in the corner and always stopped short of the things Lily most wanted to know about.
At night sometimes she lay awake thinking of what happened at Eagle Rock, of Jemima’s face twisted with anger, the grip of her hand, the way she spat out her words.
Nothing to lose if you talk.
When Curiosity and Daisy started in on Jemima there was never any mention of Liam Kirby, who had disappeared into the bush without a word to anybody that very day.
Maybe because Hannah was gone, or maybe because he wanted to get away from Jemima. Both, Daniel had said when they talked about it one morning when they had a few minutes alone. And to these reasons of Lily’s Daniel added his own, the least appealing of all: Liam was still hoping to pick up Miss Voyager’s trail, and he had gone north to the Great Lake to take up with other blackbirders, men who hunted like wolves when the need was on them.
It gave her a bad feeling deep in her gut to think about it. In the dark she wished herself at home where she could wake Daniel and they would talk until it all made some kind of sense. Alone it just stuck in her head like a cocklebur and wouldn’t be shook loose. Maybe together they could go to Hawkeye and tell him the story. He would listen with that quiet look he got when something hard had to be said. Then he might even smile at the idea that Jemima could cause them any harm, the laughing kind of smile that meant the idea was too odd to take seriously or the grim smile that meant that Jemima might try, but she would regret it mightily if she did.
And then Lily looked up and saw her grandfather standing in the door of Curiosity’s kitchen, taller than the door itself, as tall as any mountain. As if he had heard her thinking about him, as if she had called his name loud enough to hear at Lake in the Clouds. The sight of him loosed something tangled inside her so that she felt her bones go loose and tears pushed up without warning. She wiped them away while he was greeting Curiosity and Daisy, because she didn’t know why she was crying and she didn’t want him to see.
He came to kneel next to her chair. Lily leaned a little forward to get more of the smell that always clung to him, pine trees and Indian tobacco and gunpowder and hard work. Different from her father, who liked to chew mint, but the same too.
“Is there news?”
“There is,” he said. “Three-Crows brought you a letter from your mother.”
“But—”
“Read the letter first.” He smiled when he put it in her lap to show her there was nothing to be afraid of, and then he leaned forward so that the eagle feather tied into the side braid above his ear tickled her face, an old trick that still made her laugh. His face could be hard as iron when he was worried or angry but now he was relieved, she could feel it herself.
“I’m going to pay Gabriel my respects, and then we can talk.”
Curiosity lit a candle for her to read by and stepped away to leave her alone, something that must have been hard because Curiosity wanted news as much as Lily did. So she opened the folded pages—the sight of her mother’s handwriting was so familiar and so welcome that Lily touched the paper to her cheek—before she began to read out loud, a little shyly because she had never liked recitation, and had always left that to Daniel.
Dearest children,
Our travels have taken us unexpectedly to Mariah on Lake Champlain, where we are guests of an old friend. You will remember Captain Mudge who came to call at the Schuylers’ when we visited there last. He made each of you a wooden boat to sail on the river and allowed Lily to trim his beard with his pocket-knife when she declared it much too long. Captain Mudge’s sister, Mrs. Emory, who spent many years in Africa, has kindly given us some figures carved of ivory to bring home to you. Our old friend Three-Crows brings you this letter as a favor to your grandfather. We expect that you will treat him as an honored guest and that you will endeavor to listen politely and to curb your impatience.
Tomorrow the captain will take us up the lake on his schooner, the same one on which you sailed when you were infants, called the Washington, Mrs. Freeman or Runs-from-Bears would tell you the story again, if you were to ask. This journey will take perhaps ten days all told, and then we will set out for home from the Big Carry overland. Your father calculates that you should begin to look for us in thirteen days and that it might be as many as twenty, depending on the weather and other things we cannot anticipate. Your grandfather and Runs-from-Bears will know if and when it is time to be concerned at any delay; in this and in them, you can trust completely.
We regret very much this change in our plans but it could not be helped. You will be disappointed, but you must not worry, for we are all in good health and spirits and hopeful of a good ending to this undertaking. We expect that you will continue to be helpful and cheerful and obedient to Many-Doves, Mrs. Freeman, Runs-from-Bears, and your grandfather; most of all we trust that each of you will keep the promises you made to us.
Be good and loving to each other, our two halves, two wholes. We think of you with affection and great pride,
Your loving parents,
Elizabeth Middleton Bonner
Nathaniel Bonner
Lily read the letter twice, and then another time, but they were all agreed that it raised more questions than it answered.
“The rest of the story must have come through Three-Crows,” Lily said, a little unsettled by the look on Curiosity’s face. “Hawkeye will tell us why they’re on the lake.”
Curiosity made a sound deep in her throat that meant she was far less than pleased with another delay. Then Galileo came into the kitchen and Lily was asked to read the letter aloud again.
They sat wondering about what could have caused such a big change in plans, if it might have been blackbirders that kept them from taking Selah to Red Rock and what was it they plan
ned to do with her once they got to the Canadian border. Daisy went back and forth to serve Uncle Todd his supper while her parents talked in a low whisper, as if he might hear them from the dining room.
Lily never could understand why Uncle Todd would want to eat alone while Aunt Todd and Ethan were away; he could be in the kitchen with people, but this evening at least she was glad of his ways because Curiosity and Galileo would never talk so freely in front of him.
“She was being careful,” Galileo said, it seemed more to convince himself than anyone else. “Don’t mean bad news, necessarily. It wouldn’t be wise to say too much in a letter, might fall into the wrong hands.”
“I have got to set down and write that letter Manny been waiting for.”
“Let’s wait, see what Hawkeye have to say,” said Galileo softly. “He’s coming now.”
Lily was glad when her grandfather picked up a stool and settled it and himself down next to her. Galileo, Curiosity, and Daisy all drew up close, Galileo with his arms folded and propped against his knees so that he bent forward, Curiosity and Daisy with fingers wound tight together, sitting close enough to touch shoulders. Hawkeye was a good storyteller and nobody interrupted him, even at the worst parts when Curiosity drew in a sharp sigh.
When he was finished there was quiet for a long minute, the kind of quiet that sets on a house when somebody is laid out in a coffin to look at one last time. Lily tried to imagine it, twelve people dead in five days, young and old. She had seen her brother dead and Falling-Day too, both of them so still in the wood box that her father had built for them, but she could not make herself see twelve dead people all at once. If you counted everybody in both cabins at Lake in the Clouds from Sawatis to Hawkeye, youngest to oldest, that would be twelve people.
