Emily's Song

by Christine Marciniak

Deep breath. Don’t let the tears win. Be strong. She smiled back at him, hoping it didn’t look forced. “I imagine it is even more difficult for you, you’ve known him so much longer.”

  Mr. Marshall took her hand and led her toward the carriage where Mrs. Marshall and Elizabeth were waiting.

  “That’s sweet of you to say,” he responded, “but I don’t believe for one minute that it’s true. We’ll do our best for you, though, until he can be with you again.”

  She could only hope that day would actually come.

  ****

  She lived through that day and the next. She began planning a trip to Philadelphia with Beck as her companion. She mailed Sam the picture and her letter and got a letter from him telling her not to worry, that the worst they had encountered so far was a rogue coyote, which they dispatched quickly. She did worry though, and the nights were the worst. She couldn’t sleep, for wanting him there with her and imaging all the horrible things that might happen to him.

  She got up and pulled back the curtains. The moon was full and inviting. Perhaps if she went for a walk she could clear her mind and maybe eventually sleep. She took Sam’s dressing gown from the hook by the door and wrapped it around her chemise. She had no slippers to put on, and so went out barefoot, enjoying the coolness of the dirt and the grass in the moonlit evening. She found herself by the fishpond and she marveled at the way the full moon seemed to fill the whole pond. It was almost magical in its way.

  She thought of the magic spell, or instructions or whatever they were that had been passed down through the ages: Lorsque la lune remplit l’étang / Offrez-argent / Et marcher sur les faisceaux de lumière / à un autre moment.

  When the moon fills the pond

  Offer it silver

  And walk on the beams of light

  to another time.

  The moon was filling the pond. She could go home. She could go back to her parents and her apartment and her job. Assuming after a month she still had a job or an apartment. She could go back to her friends. Her life. But she’d be leaving Sam. She couldn’t leave Sam. Not until she knew there was no chance.

  The moonlight reflected off her wedding ring. She brought it up toward her lips and kissed the ring. Oh, Sam. How much it hurts, not having you here with me. A mist started to arise around the pond, and she pulled the dressing gown a bit tighter around herself. Then she froze. She remembered this mist. It was what brought her to the past. But she couldn’t be trapped in it now. She needed to stay here for Sam. She promised Sam she would be here. She tried to move, but her body didn’t respond to her commands, in the meantime the fog rose and encompassed her, wiping out everything around her.

  Something scraped against her knee and she reached down and felt the wall around the fish pond. The wall that was not there when Sam’s family owned the plantation.

  The fog drifted away.

  She looked at her finger. The ring was gone.

  She was still dressed in Sam’s dressing gown.

  From the inn, sounds of a party were going on.

  She edged closer to the patio, where guests were spilling out of the ballroom. She saw Dayna, in her wedding gown.

  Had no time passed? Had it even happened? But she was wearing Sam’s dressing gown, it must have happened. She’d slipped back through time without even going in the water. Of course, she’d fallen in the pond when the wall she’d been sitting on disappeared because there was no wall there in the past. All that dunking in the pond, and it wasn’t even an essential element to the time travel.

  She hurried up to her room. Sam’s room. Her room. What was it now? It was her hotel room again. A flick of a switch turned on the lights, and she saw her own modern things strewn around the room. She sat down on the bed and tried to gather her thoughts. She was home. But she didn’t want to be. She’d left Sam, but she hadn’t meant to. Her heart ached. A physical pain so intense that for a moment she wondered if she were having a heart attack.

  Why was the world messing with her, constantly taking her places against her will? It wasn’t fair. Tears came to her eyes and she let them fall. It wasn’t fair at all. None of it. She had promised Sam and now he would think she’d abandoned him, but what could she do about it? She could go back to the pond. Go back to him.

  She looked at her hands. She had no silver. No wedding band. Why did even that last bit of Sam have to be taken from her? Back home she had more silver jewelry, but nothing with her. She looked out the window toward the pond, the moon was already moving, no longer filling the pond. The opportunity had passed for this month.

  She should go downstairs to the party before people started worrying about her. She wanted to curl up on the bed that should be her marital bed, but obviously wasn’t, and cry. She wanted to be in Sam’s arms. She wanted a drink.

  The drink she could maybe manage. She got off the bed and opened the mini bar. She’d always considered these little bottles of alcohol vastly overpriced. Right now, as she opened a tiny bottle of whiskey, she decided they could charge whatever they wanted and it would be worth it.

  She drank the whiskey right out of the bottle, which was probably not the way it was supposed to work, but she was wearing a nineteenth-century dressing gown, “how things were supposed to work” was all relative.

  A shower to clear her head. That’s what she needed. Then maybe she could be with people again. Maybe.

  The only person she wanted to be with was Sam and now she’d made it impossible.

  She wasn’t sure how she would go on from here.

  She took a deep breath. One step at a time, that was how she would do it. One step at a time and thinking about Sam every second.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Sam

  Sam sat crouched on a campstool in his tent, trying to use his trunk as a desk to write on, while rain pattered on the canvas above him, threatening to come in at the seams. He looked one more time at the picture Emily had sent him in her letter, holding it close to his dwindling candle. It was almost hard to believe she was real. But as she had said in her letter, he too remembered the feel of her skin. He had to stop himself from remembering it sometimes if he wanted to accomplish anything else. But the picture, that made it all real. There she was, in that fabulous dress, the creamy top of her breasts showing, her shoulders alluringly bare. He ached to touch her once more.

  Emily may have heard that he died in the war, but he wasn’t going to let that happen, not if he had any say over it. He would get home to her. It was the only thing keeping him going through the boredom and the rain and the bad food.

  His tent flap lifted, causing his candle to flicker. Sam looked up, prepared to be annoyed, but it was George peeking in at him, and he was nearly always happy to see George.

  “Writing to the little woman?” George asked with a nod at the paper.

  “Already did that.” Sam pointed to a sealed envelope.

  “Ah, more poetry?”

  It was the only thing keeping him sane in this insane world, putting his experiences into words and putting them on paper.

  “Crazy, huh?” He wasn’t quite sure what the men in his platoon thought of his poetry writing. He kept it mostly to himself, but he knew word had gotten around about his odd pastime.

  “No.” George helped himself to a seat on the cot. “In fact the men were saying you should send some to Harper’s Weekly.”

  “Really?” Sam thought of the poetry as something for himself. “Do you think other people would be interested in them?”

  “I do,” George said with a small shrug “They capture the feel of what’s going on, without being overly flowery or so full of imagery that you really don’t know what’s going on. They’re real. You should try it.”

  “Okay, maybe I will.” What did he have to lose? “Is that what you came in here to tell me?”

  “No.” George stood again. “Yuengling says we’re moving out tomorrow. He wants all the officers for a strategy meeting in his tent. Now.”

  “
Finally. Maybe something will happen.” He’d anticipated being scared of war, not numbed with ennui.

  “Didn’t your mama ever tell you to be careful what you wish for?” George tapped him on the shoulder.

  “Ha Ha. I don’t want to die of boredom, I know that much.” He put his papers away and blew out the candle and followed George to Yuengling’s tent.

  The tent was hot and smoky and crowded, and he wished he were pretty much anywhere else.

  “We’re going to meet up with Braxton’s regiment tomorrow up by Allen’s Creek. He’s expecting a skirmish with some rebels who are gathering over by him. We’ll need to leave early and be ready to fight. Have your men leave everything that can’t be easily carried with the supply train. They’ll catch up with us.”

  His pulse quickened. They were headed toward a battle. It’s what he had signed up for. They had drilled and marched and practiced and now they would get to put all that training to use. He was ready. He knew his men were too. Back in his tent he wrote another letter to Emily. Then he put all his poems together and put them in an envelope addressed to Harper’s Weekly. Maybe George was right, and other people would like to see them.

  He didn’t sleep well that night. He dreamed of Emily, wishing she were in his arms, in his bed. He didn’t actually want her to be in an army camp, so he supposed what he really wished was that he was back home, with her. When the bugler played reveille, he didn’t feel rested at all, but he was eager to get up. Today he would face his first real battle. He was anxious to see what that would be like. He packed up what he would carry, put the rest in his trunk to go with the supply train, ate a bit of biscuit and coffee and took down his tent.

  The sun was up by the time everyone was ready to leave. Sam mounted his horse and rode at the front of his platoon, occasionally doubling back to make sure that all was in order. He needn’t have bothered; his sergeants were exceptionally well organized.

  Around noon a scout approached out of breath, his horse lathered. “The rebels are right ahead. Braxton’s regiment is set to take them on. He wants you to stake out this ridge line and cover their right flank.”

  Sam passed the instructions on to his sergeants and he watched while his platoon got in position. Things were going according to plan. He was ready for this fight. It was time. He rode to the back of the lines and dismounted. Leaving his horse, he grasped his gun and walked the lines, making sure his men were ready and knew what to do.

  He wasn’t expecting the first bullet.

  He thought there’d be more time. He didn’t even see the rebels, but clearly they saw him and his men.

  “Careful,” he called to the men around him. “There’s no need to all fire at once. Take your time. See what you are firing at.”

  He ducked behind a tree and loaded his musket. His heart pounded so loud in his ears he could barely hear himself think. Energy flowed through him. He looked from behind the tree and scanned the area until he saw a rebel coming up the hill. He took aim and fired. His target did not fall though. Perhaps he should have waited for him to get closer. He moved farther along the lines, trusting his men to do their job.

  A runner came up to him. “Lieutenant, the captain says advance!”

  “Right,” Sam yelled back. Personally, he would have preferred to keep the high ground, but he wasn’t exactly schooled in the science of battle. He found his sergeants and told them to watch him. On his order they would go down the hill and meet the enemy.

  It started out all right, they headed downhill, stopping every few feet to fire at the advancing rebels. One of his men was hit, and he saw a medic run to him. That was all right then, he’d be taken care of.

  Then everything went wrong. Suddenly the rebels were behind them as well as in front. Shots were coming at them from every direction. His men broke formation. Some ran one way, some another, but there was nowhere to go that didn’t seem to be in the way of the firing.

  He tried to keep his men together, but it was a rout. Okay, fine. If he could not control his men, he could at least control himself. He loaded the musket again and took aim at the rebels advancing on him. One fell. Ha. Take that you nasty cowards, shooting at us. Okay, true, they were shooting back, but it made him feel better to think bad things about the enemy. He advanced to the next tree and fired again. When he went to advance again, a flash of blue cloth caught his eye.

  It was a man down, one of his. There were no medics around, he’d need to get this man to help himself. He approached him cautiously, hoping that when he got to him, he would still be alive. He turned the man over and saw the blood pouring from a wound in the chest. But that wasn’t what froze him in his tracks.

  It was George.

  “George. George old boy, can you hear me?” He took his friend in his arms.

  “Aye, Sam. But, it hurts, I tell you.”

  “Right, sure, but I’ll get you help.”

  All the training they’d had in what to do for an injured man went out of his head. This wasn’t just a soldier. This was George. Think. He had to think. Get him to a medic. But no medics were close. Stop the bleeding. Yes. Stop the bleeding. He ripped cloth from the hem of his shirt and pressed it against the wound, and then wrapped it with another strip of cloth. Red soaked through almost instantly, but it was the best he could do. Now, he had to get him help.

  “Can you stand do you think, with my help?”

  “With your help…”

  George’s voice was faint.

  “Come on George, you can do it.” He pulled his friend to a standing position. He draped George’s arm around his neck and grabbed him around the waist. He took a step, but George’s feet dragged on the ground. This would never work.

  “I’ll carry you.” He managed to get George onto his back and staggered to his feet. He would get his friend to help if it was the last thing he did. They had gone through too much together. They were like brothers. He wouldn’t let him down now.

  “Remember the time we saddled the pig with my mother’s corset?” Sam said. “Boy was there hell to pay after that one.”

  George let out a feeble laugh in reply.

  “Or how about the time we ate all the pies that Sally had cooling on the counter. Five pies we ate between the two of us. I was in the outhouse for hours.” Sam stumbled under George’s weight but steadied himself and continued on.

  There was a brief chuckle from George.

  “Hang on there, George. I’m going to get you help. Don’t you worry about a thing.”

  He had to stop talking to save his own breath, George was not light, and the terrain was uneven. He’d lost track of their unit, gotten turned around in the smoke of the battle. The sounds of battle were muffled now, he’d gone the wrong way. Or had he? He didn’t want to bring a wounded man into the middle of battle. But where were the wagons, the doctors? Where was everyone?

  The weight across his back shifted some and he realized that George’s breathing had gotten too quiet.

  “George?”

  No answer.

  He laid down his burden. Whatever had animated George, made him who he was, was gone. George was dead. Sam sat beside his best friend, his brother, buried his face in his hands and cried. Perhaps men weren’t supposed to cry in battle, but he didn’t care. How could he go on without George?

  But what now? Did he carry him back to the others? Did he bury him here? He’d been told that generally the men who fell would be buried by the battlefield, the army could not ship bodies home to family except in rare circumstances. If that were the case, what would be the point of carrying him any farther? He could bury him here amid the trees. George would like that.

  Sam had no shovel, but he detached his bayonet and started scraping at the earth, keeping up a one-sided conversation as he did so. “I don’t know how I’ll tell your mother, old boy. She’ll be beside herself. And Elizabeth, I think if she ever stopped swooning over Joseph she would have fallen in love with you. Yes, indeed. We could have been brothers for real.
And did I ever tell you Emily’s secret? She was from the future. The future, can you believe that? She says we’ll win. So there’s that, old buddy. We’re going to win.”

  He couldn’t do this. He had barely scratched the surface of the earth. It would take hours to dig a hole deep enough to properly bury George. He wiped tears from his eyes, took a drink from his canteen, and settled in to dig some more. If he got enough of a depression dug, he could cover the body with leaves and dirt, maybe that would be enough. It didn’t seem like enough. George should rest in a pine box in the churchyard. That’s where he should be, not covered in leaves in the woods.

  “Marshall!”

  Sam jerked his head up. Who was here? He had been certain he was alone. But someone who knew him would be a friend, could help him with George. He looked around, but only saw the trees and leaves shifting in the wind. Perhaps he had imagined it. But then he saw him. Daniel Wilkins stood about fifty yards away.

  Thank God. Someone to help. Someone who knew George and would understand how important it was to bury him properly.

  “Phelps is dead,” Sam called out. “Help me dig a grave for him!”

  “I don’t work for you anymore, Marshall,” Wilkins said. He raised his musket to his shoulder and aimed it at Sam.

  Sam stood, unable to process what he saw. “Wait!” He held out a hand in supplication. “No, Daniel, what are you doing? We’re on the same side! Help me with George!”

  Wilkins pulled the trigger.

  Sam didn’t even hear the blast until the impact of the bullet in his shoulder had pushed him off the edge of the bluff. He tumbled and fell, saplings doing nothing to break his fall, only adding to his injuries. He came to rest, face down, on the edge of the creek at the bottom of the ravine. As if from far away he heard another shot, and pain ripped through his lower leg.

  He only had time to think that Emily was right, he would die in the war, before everything went black.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Emily

  Emily got out of the shower, feeling cleaner, but no less dazed. Had she really spent a month in the past? Fallen in love? Gotten married? Sent her husband off to war? Of course she had. She knew it was more than a dream. And if she needed more proof than her own memories, there was always the matter of the dressing gown.