Emily's Song

by Christine Marciniak

  “Looked around, got my bearings, figured out how to dress and get around in my new world. Made friends with people who knew things, who helped me get ownership of the plantation, and I started working to make it what you see today. I got married. I lived a rather wonderful life, really.”

  “What year was it?”

  “Nearly fifty years ago now,” Elsbeth answered with a far off look in her eye.

  “When I saw your family, you’d been gone for nearly sixty years.” If they could figure out the vagaries of time travel, it would help a lot.

  She shook her head. “There doesn’t seem to be a rhyme or reason to it, does there? What did they think happened to me?”

  “They thought you were spirited away by fairies. At least that’s what Moses thought.”

  She smiled, wistfully. “Little Moses. He would think that. And the family?”

  “They didn’t really offer any explanations.” Of course she hadn’t even heard Elsbeth’s story until right before Sam left. There’d hardly been time to process it, much less find out more.

  “Does anyone know the portrait in the hall is of you?”

  “No.” Elsbeth gave her a sad smile. “People don’t see what is impossible to them. If you showed all your friends this picture,” she pointed to the scrapbook, “not one of them would realize that was you. It’s impossible, so it couldn’t be.”

  “Except, we know the impossible is possible.”

  “Indeed.”

  Emily clutched the scrapbook, afraid to open it and find what she really wanted to know. “Sam. Did he survive he war?”

  Elsbeth shook her head. “No, I’m sorry. I told you already, he did not. Everything I have on Sam is in that book. I’ll get a copy of everything made for you.”

  “Thank you.” She braced herself to open the book and look for herself. First of course she had to study the wedding picture some more. “It’s impossible to think this picture was taken only a couple of days ago for me, and yet…”

  She ran her finger lovingly over the picture of her and Sam and then with a deep breath turned the page. There was a clipping from a newspaper listing those dead at the battle of Allen’s Creek, less than a month after she’d last seen Sam. She’d never heard of the battle before, it must not have been an important one in terms of the war, but she saw both Sam and George’s names on the list. Her heart ached, but she forced herself to continue. There was the poem that she’d seen before. “Emily’s Song.”

  “And of course, you are Emily.” Elsbeth smiled at her. “It’s nice to have some things come together. I’d always wondered why I’d never found anything about the woman in that picture. Now I know. You weren’t there to find things about.”

  “I suppose not. So that does answer one of my questions. You didn’t find that Sam and I went on to have six children or something. I don’t go back?”

  “No point in going back,” Elsbeth pointed out. “He died. I know it’s harsh to say it like that, but you have to accept the truth.”

  The words pierced her heart like a sword. She turned another page in the scrapbook and found a part of Sam she’d never known. His poems, all apparently published in Harper’s Weekly.

  And then, two letters, to her, old and brittle, pasted in the scrapbook as artifacts. She read them, his details of mundane camp life, his proclamation of undying devotion. Her eyes overflowed, and she wiped them with the tissue.

  “People won’t believe you,” Elsbeth said. “After all, what we’ve done is impossible.”

  She nodded, unable to speak over the lump in her throat.

  “But.” The woman wrote something on a piece of paper and handed it to her. “Here’s my address and phone number. Anytime you want to talk, I’ll listen. I’ll believe.”

  She took the paper. “Thank you. I will definitely be in touch. I think I need to process some of this.”

  “Of course you do, dear.”

  Emily stood, and so did Elsbeth. “It may be hard to explain to others, the details, but I’ll always know you are the wife of my nephew, Sam. Therefore, you are my niece, and to me you will always be Emily Marshall. As for the rest of the world, might be easier if you stuck with your maiden name. Hard to explain a wedding when there is no groom to show for it.” Elsbeth tapped the scrapbook, “And I don’t think that picture would convince anyone but me.”

  “Thank you, Aunt Elsbeth,” she said and reached out and hugged the older woman. “I’m very glad I met you.”

  “I must say the same. It’s been a long time since anyone knew the real me.”

  Emily reluctantly said goodbye. It was time to go home and piece her life back together.

  ****

  She looked around her apartment. It was impossible that it looked exactly like it had when she had left it only the other day. She’d lived a lifetime since then. How could the same dirty clothes be in her hamper? How could the milk in the fridge not have gone bad? Even the lettuce hadn’t wilted.

  Getting back into normal routine was easier than she would have thought. She did laundry, checked email, watched some TV. Had she really spent a month in the 1860s? It must have been a dream. Except she could still feel Sam’s touch, and she had his dressing gown. If it weren’t for that dressing gown, and the picture Elsbeth had, she would think she had made it all up.

  She looked up Sam on line and found reference to the poems, but nothing more. There was nothing on George Phelps. She looked up Elizabeth and discovered she’d married Joseph Fitzsimmons and had six children. So, she’d been right about him after all, Emily smiled at that. At least someone had a happy ending.

  Monday morning found her back at her accounting job, dealing with the minutia of debits and credits. Her co-workers asked about the wedding, and it took everything in her not to tell them about the real adventure of the weekend.

  Her big regret about her sudden return from the past, other than the obvious, was that she hadn’t been able to help Beck. She had promised to help her escape, and although she had started the ball rolling, in the end had done nothing. This was a case where good intentions really were rather useless without results.

  Every night she dreamed about Sam. It was like they were together again, and then each morning she woke to the realization he was gone from her for good. She couldn’t make that reality stick in her mind.

  She invited Aunt Elsbeth over for dinner. She’d had a professional copy of the scrapbook made and gave it to Emily, as well as a framed enlargement of the wedding picture. Emily hugged it to her. What would people say if they saw it on display in her living room? Though, as Elsbeth had pointed out, no one would actually believe it was her.

  Over a dinner of chicken cordon bleu, her one guaranteed-to-work company meal, she told Elsbeth about the Marshall family as she had known them and they traded stories about the difference between living in the 1800s and now. There was no one else Emily could possibly have that conversation with. The person she wanted to discuss it all with was Dayna, but Dayna was on her honeymoon, and when she did get home, how would she even begin to tell her what happened?

  Life did fall into routine though, and the days passed, though her longing for Sam didn’t diminish. Then, finally Dayna and Johnson were home.

  “Come for dinner,” Dayna texted her. “We’ll bore you with vacation photos.”

  “Be there at six,” Emily texted back. She couldn’t wait to see her friend, there was so much she wanted to tell her. She knew the pictures wouldn’t be boring. She picked up a bottle of wine on the way over, knowing that would always be appreciated. She hoped her stomach would cooperate, lately a lot of food hadn’t been agreeing with her.

  Dayna wrapped her in a hug before she was even all the way through the door. “Oh. My. God! I missed you!”

  “You shouldn’t even have been thinking about me. It was your honeymoon!” She handed the wine to Johnson, who also gave her a big bear hug.

  “Trust me, she didn’t think about you all the time,” he said.

&
nbsp; “How do you know?” Dayna asked giving him some serious side eye.

  He grinned. “Oh, I know. Trust me.”

  This was quickly going to an awkward place.

  “So, show me pictures,” Emily said.

  “Let me pour the wine first.” Johnson took the bottle out to the kitchen.

  “How are you?” Dayna took her by the arm and steered her into the living room. “Was everything okay at the reception? You seemed a little out of it.”

  “I’m fine. I’ll tell you all about it, but maybe not quite yet.” She hoped her smile was sufficiently reassuring. “I want to see the pictures and hear all about your trip.”

  Johnson joined them with the wine. He handed a glass to Emily. Dayna plugged her memory card into the TV, and they sat back and watched the pictures. Dayna and Johnson kept up a running dialog about all they had seen and done. Emily let the words flow over her.

  Imagine if she and Sam had been able to take a honeymoon. Where would they have gone? Probably nowhere, it was war time. She did have one picture of their honeymoon. She’d brought the scrapbook with her, it was in her bag. She wasn’t sure how she was ever going to tell them the story though.

  “You need a refill, Em?” Johnson asked.

  “No, I’m fine, thanks.” She still had more than half of her glass of wine.

  They sat down to eat. In the spirit of just coming back from Hawaii, it was a stir fry with pineapple in it. It was delicious, but her stomach was doing funny jumping things and she couldn’t eat much. She was too nervous about what she wanted to tell them.

  “This is off topic,” she said, because most of the conversation had centered around Hawaii, but she needed to find something out. “But Dayna, do you know the story of how your great-great-great grandmother Rebecca escaped from slavery?”

  Dayna looked up at her, eyes wide. “I do. Why?”

  “I realized I never asked, and lately I’ve been thinking about family history, and I was curious.”

  “Actually, I have something kind of remarkable.” She stood up from the table and a few minutes later came back with a photocopied paper. “This is a copy of a letter she wrote to someone. I don’t know if it was ever mailed. It was stuck in an old family bible. It’s a little cryptic, because obviously the person she was writing to knew a lot of the details, but it does give a fascinating glimpse.” She handed the paper to her.

  The first thing she saw was the heading: “To Mrs. Samuel Marshall.” She almost dropped the paper right there. Beck had written this letter to her. It had never been mailed, because the only way for her to get it was to leave it someplace where her great-grandchildren would find it and show it to their friends. It had worked. More than a hundred and fifty years later, she had the letter.

  “It all worked out okay,” was the next line. Did Beck know she’d feel bad about disappearing on her? “Your sudden departure was the perfect cover for my own. I packed a carpet bag with the new day dress and had Dolly button me into the other. Your hoops and corset were a bit large on me, but I’m making it work. It’s too bad the skirt and shirtwaist hadn’t come yet, those would have been handy. Buttons up the back are annoying when there is no one to help, as you know.” She smiled. Yes, indeed, she did know. “When I realized you weren’t coming back, I took off. They’d be looking for a young lady with her slave, not a young lady on her own. I wore a floppy brimmed hat and gloves and had the tickets they had purchased for you. No one gave me a second glance all the way to Philadelphia. So thank you. It worked. I hope my grandchildren are successful, I mean, I gave up a lot for them, they better make it worth it. Love, Rebecca.”

  “As you can see,” Dayna said, “some of it doesn’t make a great deal of sense.”

  “Oh, no,” she said. “It makes perfect sense to me. Thank you for sharing. Do you think I could possibly have a copy of this for myself?”

  “Sure,” Dayna said and ran one off on the printer.

  Emily took another sip of her wine. Should she tell them? Tell them that she was Mrs. Samuel Marshall? But as Elsbeth had said, no one would believe her, how could they? She would tell Dayna. Someday. But tonight was not the night. She tucked the letter into her bag beside the scrapbook and ate the ice cream that Dayna brought out and let the conversation return to Hawaii.

  On her way home, she stopped at the drug store and bought a pregnancy test.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Sam

  Something tickled his ear. He tried to brush whatever it was away from him, but he found he couldn’t move his arms. Why couldn’t he move? Where was he? The babble of a flowing creek came from somewhere to his right. The coppery scent of blood was mixed with fresh dirt and moss. Ravine. He’d fallen down a ravine. He’d been shot. By Wilkins. Shot and fallen down the ravine. George. George was dead.

  He should be dead too, but he didn’t seem to be. As awareness flooded back to him, so did pain. The tickling by his ear was forgotten as the throbbing in his leg and shoulder took precedence. He shivered with cold. He opened an eye and saw nothing. Had he gone blind? No. It was dark, and the moon was hidden by clouds and trees. He needed to get to help, and to get warm, and to not be lying in the bottom of the ravine. How long had he been here? Would he bleed to death? He’d done nothing to stop the bleeding when he’d been shot. Had he awakened only to die before sunrise?

  Emily. He wanted Emily. He would not die before seeing her again.

  First things first. He had to bind his wounds. He could not lose more blood. He tried to move and again was unable. Okay, thing before the first, get to a sitting position so he could assess his wounds and bind them. It took him awhile. He wasn’t sure how long. Time had no meaning. It was dark. It stayed dark. Did the moon move across the sky? Possibly. It was too shrouded from view for him to be sure.

  The shoulder wound seemed to have stopped bleeding, had the mud he lay in staunched the flow? His leg, although it burned and throbbed did not seem too badly hurt. The bullet did not go into his leg but grazed the side. That didn’t seem to be pouring blood. He ripped off a piece of shirt and wrapped it around the wound on his leg. He wasn’t quite sure how to bandage the wound on his shoulder. It would have to wait for now. There was no point in trying to climb out of the ravine while it was still dark, but he needed to get warm.

  His coat was wool, and the night air did not feel frigid, yet he shivered. Was that a result of his injuries? He had no blanket. Perhaps a fire. Except he could barely move and he couldn’t see, he’d never gather enough kindling. Instead he piled leaves and pine needles on top of himself as some sort of cover and waited for morning.

  He awoke, dripping in sweat, and his throat dry as dust. He reached for his canteen, but it wasn’t on his belt. He opened his eyes to sunlight glittering through the leaves of the trees. He glanced up to the ridge he had fallen from. It was a nearly vertical drop. It didn’t seem likely that he’d be able to make the climb in his condition, but that’s probably where his canteen was. Yet, there was a creek beside him, that would provide him water. He dragged himself closer to the bank so he could dip his head in. That cooled him off some, and he drank, slaking his thirst.

  He couldn’t go back up the way he’d come down, that much was obvious, but yet he certainly couldn’t stay here. There was a roaring in his head, and over top of that he could hear the burbling of the water and the leaves rustling in the trees and birds chirping. He heard no sign of human activity. Staying here in the hopes that someone found him would almost certainly mean someone finding him dead. He needed to move.

  Follow the creek. Wasn’t that the conventional wisdom? Water flowing downhill will lead you somewhere: a mill, a town, something. Plus, he would know he wasn’t going in circles. He’d have to end up somewhere. And it was a better plan than trying to climb back out of the ravine.

  He felt around, and his fingers touched a fallen branch. He pulled it close and used it to help stand. The roaring in his ears grew so great he was afraid he would fall right back over agai
n, but he managed to stay upright, clutching to his stick like a life line. One step and then another. He made it a few dozen yards before his head was spinning too much, and he needed to sit. He fell to the ground and cupped his hands to get more water. There was a large flat rock some distance ahead. If he could make it to that he would take a break there.

  A goal. He had a manageable goal to achieve.

  The sun was high overhead when he reached the rock, and he collapsed on it as if into a warm bed. Despite the sun and the exertion of exercise, he was shivering with cold again. He curled up like a ball in the rays of sunshine on the rock and let himself drift off to sleep.

  He dreamed of Emily. She was here with him, lying beside him, keeping him warm, loving him. He woke up, sweating again. No Emily. Where was his Emily? She was home waiting for him. He needed to get to her. To get home. Would following the creek get him home? It would get him somewhere. He forced himself to walk again. One step and then another. Each step one step closer to Emily. To his love.

  The sides of the ravine lowered, and soon the creek flowed through fields. A farm up ahead promised something more than water for sustenance. He stumbled to the door and fell against it instead of knocking. The woman who opened the door nearly screamed at the sight of him. “Please help,” he managed to say before he passed out.

  He came to as she cleaned his wounds. She bandaged them and gave him some stew, never quite meeting his eye. Her husband came in and glared at him through narrowed eyes.

  “You a deserter?”

  “No, sir.” It took so much energy to even form words.

  “Where’s your unit, Lieutenant?”

  “I’m not sure. I got separated from them when I was wounded.” He told him the unit name and number and commanding officer’s name.

  The farmer rubbed his chin. “Can’t say as I know where they are. Probably south of here, that’s where most of them have gone.” The farmer cleared his throat. “You can sleep in the barn tonight. Tomorrow you’ll have to move on. You can’t stay here longer than that.”