Emily's Song

by Christine Marciniak

  “You don’t have to decide anything tonight.” His father put the whiskey glass on the tray. “Get some sleep. Think about it more tomorrow. Your mother is expecting me upstairs. I’ll see you in the morning. Good night, son.”

  “Good night.”

  The door clicked quietly behind his father, and Sam was left, once again, alone with his thoughts.

  He poured himself another couple of fingers of whiskey and drained it in one swallow. He lit a small candle to light his way to his room and extinguished the others. As his father said, there was time enough in the morning to ponder these deep thoughts. For now, he needed sleep.

  From the ballroom, he could hear the slaves cleaning up. It would be a late night for them, and they would be up early seeing to the running of the plantation. He would be up early as well. There were things to do tomorrow, and he had to be awake to do them.

  The candle’s flickering light made strange shadows on the walls. He was used to them, but between the extra whiskey he had consumed and the late hour, the shadows seemed otherworldly.

  He opened the door to his room. He wanted nothing more than to slip into his bed and drift off to sleep. He lit the lamp on the dresser with the candle he carried. Then he shrugged out of his jacket and kicked off his dancing shoes. He removed his stock from around his neck and placed it on the dresser.

  As he slid his braces off his shoulders, he pulled back the covers on the bed and found himself staring at a sleeping naked woman.

  He took in the roundness of her breasts, the slope of her hip. He reached out a hand to see if she were real, intending to touch her shoulder. His hand, of its own accord, touched the creamy breast instead.

  The woman’s eyes flew open, and she screamed.

  Chapter Three

  Emily

  Emily screamed and pulled the sheet close around her.

  There was a man in her room. Staring at her. He’d been looking at her naked. He’d touched her. Oh. My. God. She was about to be raped. She opened her mouth to scream again, but the man, his eyes wide, mouth agape, looked as astonished as she was. Maybe he wasn’t about to rape her.

  “What are you doing in here?” Her heart beat a rapid staccato. He looked familiar. He must be one of Johnson’s friends. She was sure she’d seen that lean face, that wavy hair, that mustache somewhere before.

  “You’re in my bed.” The inflection was almost that of a question, but not quite.

  “I’m not,” she insisted and then looked around. Now that there was some light, she could see that this was most definitely not the room she had checked into earlier. The furniture was dark and heavy as opposed to white and delicate. The canopy was not some Laura Ashley print but a brown and gold paisley. “Oh crap. I’m sorry. I thought this was my room.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Emily Parks. Maid of Honor.”

  His features smoothed out, and a hint of a smile came to his eyes.

  “Ah, you’re friends with Dinah.”

  “Dayna,” she corrected, but she didn’t think he was listening. “I’m really sorry I’m in the wrong room. Really sorry. You see, I fell into the fish pond and I came up here to change, but I’d been drinking and I guess I got the wrong room, so I thought if I rested for a minute or two…and I took off my clothes because they were wet. If you’ll be so kind as to hand me my dress and perhaps turn your back for a minute, I’ll get out of here and into my own room.”

  “I didn’t know anyone was staying here tonight.”

  It was common knowledge the bridal party was staying. Besides, if this were his room, then obviously he’d been planning on staying here tonight as well.

  “Like I said, if you give me my dress, I’ll go find my own room.”

  He picked up the dress.

  “It’s wet.”

  “Yes, I told you, I fell in the fish pond.”

  He looked really familiar, but she didn’t remember seeing him at the wedding. She knew she’d seen that face, and she knew that if there were enough light to see the color of his eyes, they would be gray.

  She knew who he was.

  “You’re Samuel Marshall.”

  “Yes,” he said, as if that should be obvious to anyone.

  “And this is your house.”

  And he died in the Civil War.

  And she hadn’t been able to find any light switches.

  That was impossible. She had to be dreaming. Or still drunk. Or something.

  No. This was a dream. That was the only logical conclusion.

  Ha, did that mean that Samuel Marshall was the man of her dreams? Figures it would be someone dead for a hundred and sixty years. She pulled the covers back over her head and closed her eyes. When she woke up for real, everything would be back to normal. She heard the creak and sigh of a door opening. Her mystery dream man was leaving. Maybe, since it was a dream, she should have invited him into her bed. No harm in having a little fun in a dream after all.

  “Do you need anything, sir?” A soft male voice said.

  “Yes. One of the party guests has fallen asleep in my room. Make sure the green room is ready and then have Beck come up here with a wrapper or shift for her and get her situated in that room.”

  This didn’t seem quite like how a dream would go, but then again, who could tell with dreams.

  Emily lowered the blanket and peered about. A dark-skinned man in a loose fitting white shirt and brown pants stood in the open doorway.

  “Yes, sir.” He closed the door and left.

  “Beck will be here momentarily to take care of you,” Samuel Marshall, dream man, said, and then left.

  A very strange dream.

  She was somewhere in that state between sleep and not-quite-asleep when the door opened again. Soft footsteps approached the bed. She opened her eyes to see Dayna standing there holding a candle.

  “Dayna! What are you doing here? You should be with Johnson! It’s your wedding night!”

  The woman holding the candle tilted her head. “Sorry, miss?”

  Her voice was not Dayna’s. As Emily’s eyes adjusted, she realized the face wasn’t Dayna’s either, though maybe it had been a minute ago. This was a dream after all. Anything could happen in a dream.

  “I thought…” It didn’t really matter what she had thought. “Are you Beck?” She felt like Ebenezer Scrooge asking the first ghost if he was the spirit foretold to him.

  “Yes, miss.” Her voice was soft and melodic. “Mister Marshall say you need a shift and to be settled in the green room.”

  “My room wasn’t green.” Her protest was ignored.

  “I have a shift here for you.” Beck held out a white cotton night gown.

  Emily snaked a hand out from under the blanket and took it. She waited for Beck to turn her back or leave the room or something, so she could slip it on, but she didn’t seem so inclined. So, she employed the getting-dressed-under-the-covers trick she had learned as a seventh-grader at sleep-away camp. Then, since it seemed, dream or not, she would have to switch rooms, she threw back the covers and got out of bed.

  Beck, holding the candle, led the way out of the bedroom and down the hall to another room. This one was smaller, but a lit candle sat on a side table and the blankets had been turned down in anticipation of her arrival.

  “I’ll bring you fresh clothes in the morning, miss.” Beck stifled a yawn.

  “Thank you.” She climbed under the covers. In the morning, all she had to do was find her own room and her luggage and no one would have to bring her anything, but she was too tired to argue the point right now.

  Beck blew out the candle and left. This was a strange dream, but she’d had stranger, like the time she dreamt that she and all her friends were puppets. That had been way stranger than this. Especially when Johnson sang “It’s Not Easy Being Green.”

  ****

  Emily’s head hurt. The sun coming through the windows hurt her eyes before she even opened them. She needed a glass of water and some aspirin and th
en maybe a huge cup of coffee. Yes. Coffee. A cinnamon latte. Certainly, they’d have those at breakfast in a nice inn like this.

  She opened her eyes, and squinting to adjust to the morning brightness, looked around. The furniture was white with gold trim. The canopy and curtains were light green. The wallpaper was pale green with giant pink flowers on it. This was not the room she had checked into yesterday.

  That room had yellow walls and oak furniture. The canopy on the bed had been pink and yellow. There had been an easy chair in the room and an armoire that hid a TV. None of that was in this room. There was a stand with an old-fashioned basin and water pitcher. There was a dressing table with a mirror. There was a wooden rocking chair. It was tastefully decorated, but it wasn’t the room she remembered. A quick glance around confirmed that her garment bag and overnight bag were not here.

  Then, as if parts of a dream coming to her, she remembered falling into the fish pond and getting undressed and dropping into bed. She wasn’t undressed now, though. She looked at herself to see the unfamiliar cotton nightgown. Where had this come from?

  Waking to a man looking at her, touching her. A woman who looked like Dayna, but wasn’t, leading her to this room, giving her this nightgown. She shook her head and then immediately regretted it. What exactly had happened last night?

  She’d had too much to drink. She knew that for sure.

  Had she really fallen in the fish pond? Doesn’t seem like the kind of memory she’d make up, so it probably happened. The man though, that was probably a dream.

  First step was to find her room and her clothes. Then she’d go down to the dining room and have a kick-ass cup of coffee, and tomorrow she’d be back at work with quite a story to tell about her weekend.

  The rooms weren’t numbered, they were named, and she had been in the Mary Todd Lincoln Room. There had been plaques on each door. It should only take a minute to find the right room. She opened the door and peeked into the hallway. If she could do this without being seen, all the better.

  She checked the door to see what room she’d spent the night in, but there was no plaque. Maybe it wasn’t one of the regularly rented out rooms. There were half a dozen doors up and down the hallway. None of them had plaques. She’d definitely remembered a sign. It was white with gold trim and the words Mary Todd Lincoln had been engraved in it and painted gold so they stood out.

  Someone was coming up the back staircase. Emily ducked back into the room, but the footsteps came right to her door. There was a soft knock. With her heart beating loud enough she was sure whoever was on the other side could hear it, she cautiously opened the door. The woman from last night stood there, holding an immense armful of fabric.

  “Your dress from last night was near ruined in the water, miss.” She edged past Emily into the room. “I borrowed this one from Miss Elizabeth. I think you are close to the same size.”

  “Oh.” Whatever kind of dress she held must be some bridesmaid dress extraordinaire. There had to be yards and yards of fabric in her arms. “Thank you, but that’s not necessary. I just need to find my bags. They should be in the room I checked into. The Mary Todd Lincoln room.”

  The woman tilted her head and furrowed her brow. “You was in a room with the President’s wife?”

  Emily got the distinct feeling that she and this woman were speaking different languages, or at least having different conversations.

  “No. That was the name of the room. All the rooms are named, right?” But were they? She had looked at all the doors, and none of them had name plaques. What was going on here? She reached out and grabbed hold of the nearest thing to steady herself. It was the old-fashioned water pitcher and basin. It moved slightly when she grabbed it, and water sloshed around inside. Water? She glanced in. Yes, water. She scanned the room quickly. There was no door that would lead to an ensuite bathroom. There were no light switches on the wall. The woman in front of her, still holding the yards of fabric, wore a floor length dress, and her hair was under a kerchief.

  “Who are you?” she asked, not able to keep herself from staring.

  “Beck. I’m Miss Elizabeth’s lady’s maid.”

  “Her lady’s maid.” It was like something out of a book. Who had lady’s maids anymore? “And who is Miss Elizabeth?”

  “Why, the daughter of the house of course, Mr. Marshall’s sister.”

  “Samuel Marshall?” Her voice sounded faraway in her ears.

  “Yes, miss. Do you mind if I put this down?”

  “No, not at all. Go right ahead.” She moved aside so the voluminous dress could be placed on the bed. She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. Something wasn’t right here. Maybe she was still dreaming.

  “There was a party in the ballroom last night, right?” Best to get the essentials worked out.

  “Yes, miss,” the woman answered. “You was a guest, right? A friend of Miss Johnson?”

  “Who?” Emily started at hearing Johnson’s name. Where were Dayna and Johnson? Where was the rest of the bridal party?

  “Miss Dinah Johnson.”

  Dinah. That’s what the man had said last night too. Dayna and Johnson. Dinah Johnson. Close. That must be what they meant. At least that much made sense.

  “Yes, I’m her friend. Do you know where she is?”

  “She went home last night, miss.”

  That, however, didn’t make sense.

  There had to be some mistake. She was sure that Dayna and Johnson wouldn’t have already left. She walked to the window so she could see if Johnson’s Mustang was still in the lot. She pulled back the curtain and gasped, gripping the ledge as her knees buckled. Instead of the parking lot with cars parked neatly in lined spaces, a grass yard with a gravel drive led to what looked like a barn or stables. In the distance, instead of the neighborhood that surrounded the small acreage of the inn, were fields. Lots of fields. All with green plants growing in them. And black men and women tending them.

  The sunlight glinted off the ring on her right hand. She glanced down at it, and her heart skipped a beat. Instead of gold and silver intertwined, it was only gold. The silver part of the ring was missing. It was impossible for it to be missing, the two sections were twisted together, one part could not simply leave, yet it had.

  She stared at the pastoral scene in front of her again, and she tried to get both her breathing and heartbeat under control. There were no light switches or door plaques in the inn. A black woman had brought her a huge dress to put on.

  What exactly had happened when she fell into that fish pond?

  “Are you ready to get dressed yet, miss?”

  Emily turned and stared at the dark-skinned woman. Was she a slave? Could she ask her that without sounding like a complete idiot?

  “So, have you worked here long?” she asked, trying to sound casual, and failing miserably.

  The woman’s eyebrows shot up. “My whole life miss, my whole life.”

  “You ever want to do something else?”

  “Like work in the fields instead of tend to Miss Elizabeth?” She laughed, a soft musical laugh, very much like Dayna’s. “No, miss, I don’t want that.”

  “Could you do something else if you wanted to?” This was as close as she could get to asking if this woman was a slave. All the signs seem to point that somehow she wasn’t in her own time anymore but had landed back at the plantation before the start of the Civil War. It wasn’t possible, but sometimes the impossible happened, didn’t it?

  “I better be getting you dressed, miss,” Beck answered.

  That pretty much answered her question.

  What had happened? Had she actually fallen back in time? Right now, she had two choices, curl up in a ball and cry or go with it until she could figure out what to do and how to get back home. Crying might be cathartic, but it wouldn’t get her home. She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders.

  “Right,” she said to Beck. “Let’s get me dressed. What’s first?”

  Beck handed her
a pair of long cotton drawers. She took them and started to put them on, but stopped when she noticed the seam was open.

  “These are ripped.” She handed them back to Beck.

  “No, miss. That’s for to make it easier to use the outhouse.”

  Oh. She supposed that was the sort of thing she should pretend she knew. “Right. Of course.” She pulled the drawers on under her nightgown.

  Next Beck held out a contraption of cloth and ribbon that Emily immediately recognized as a corset. Oh. God no. Women had progressed way past being trussed up like this. She was not going to let her innards be squeezed for the sake of some artificially thin waist. Beck held it out expectantly.

  Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Besides, what a story to tell Dayna when she finally got home.

  She allowed Beck to strap her into the corset. With each tug on the strings her breath was squeezed out of her.

  “It’s too tight!”

  “Another inch or you won’t fit in Miss Elizabeth’s dress.” Beck tugged some more.

  Spots floated in front of her eyes, and she was sure she was about to pass out, but then Beck stopped tugging and she took a tentative breath. She could still breathe, and it probably did wonderful things for her posture. It seemed unlikely a person could slouch wearing one of these. And it did more for her bust line than the latest push-up wonder bra.

  The next item Beck produced was an actual, honest-to-goodness set of hoops. Emily watched in fascination as they were fastened around her waist. Getting dressed was quite the ordeal, not the kind of thing you could roll out of bed and accomplish in only a couple of minutes.

  Finally Beck slipped the yards of fabric over her head. The brown and red dress belled out over the hoops and cinched in at the waist. She felt rather elegant.

  “Sit down, miss, and I’ll do your hair for you.”

  Emily submitted to her hair being brushed and tugged into an unfamiliar style. She studied the result in the mirror. She could be an extra in Gone With the Wind.

  “They’ll be expecting you at breakfast.”

  No going back now. It was show time.

  Chapter Four

  Sam