I flinched when the door slammed closed. I flinched again when the window above my head slammed shut.
I was afraid to move or make a sound for the longest time. I listened for the carriage to pull away from the front of the house, and still, I waited a few minutes more. I could no longer hear what was going on inside the house. I had no idea what room he was in, but I knew I couldn’t stay crouched underneath that window forever.
The neighbor’s back door opened. My heart leaped into my throat. Sweat beaded on my forehead. A little blonde girl poked her head out. She couldn’t have been any older than five or six years old.
Please don’t look this way. Please don’t look this way.
“Yes, Mama?” she asked, obviously hearing her name being called from somewhere inside her house. “I forgot. I’ll do that right now.”
She stepped back inside her house and I leaped from my spot like someone had set fire to my coattails. I didn’t even pay attention to where I was going. I just had to get away and put distance between me and Mr. Clive’s house as quickly as possible before I got caught. Keeping my head down, I tried not to look too conspicuous, but my heart raced like a stampede of buffalo and my mind looped over everything that had transpired between Papa, Reverend Burke, and Mr. Clive. I wasn’t being as observant as I should have been, so when I stepped out into the street to cross over, I hadn’t seen the carriage.
“Oh my goodness! Look out!” someone yelled.
My head snapped up. I was staring at the faces of two large black horses coming fast toward me. I barely had enough time to move out of their path.
Curse this godforsaken day!
Once on the other side of the street, I leaned against a hitching post and tried to catch my breath.
Curse this godforsaken rotter of a day!
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.”
“Noah?” I felt someone come closer. “Is that you?”
When she said my name, I knew who she was. She always said Noah like she was ringing a church bell. Clear and purposeful and with reverence. I think that was one of the reasons why I had fallen for her the way I had. And she often looked at me the same way. Like she saw me. Me. Not the stains on my garments.
I turned and let her see my face—to let her know it was me. It was a mistake. The pain in her eyes destroyed me.
“Abbie,” I choked out.
“Noah,” she said again, quieter this time.
“Is the young man all right?”
I peered over my shoulder. The carriage had come to a halt and a man had descended from it.
I held up a hand. “I’m fine. I’m sorry for your troubles. I wasn’t paying attention.”
“No troubles. You’re certain you’re not injured?”
“Not injured.” I gave him a closed-lip smile. “Thank you for your concern, however.”
He tipped his hat. “Very well. Enjoy the rest of your day.” He gestured toward the street. “Look both ways next time,” he said good-naturedly.
“Thank you, sir.” I tipped my hat in return. “I’ll heed the advice.”
Abbie and I watched the stranger climb back into his carriage and depart before she cut through the awkward silence.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“Doing here?” I looked around, disoriented. I wasn’t quite sure where here was. Where had I been coming from? Oh yes, Mr. Clive’s. I turned around in a small circle. I had only made it as far as across the street.
Curse this godforsaken rotter of a damn day!
“Yes. What are you doing in front of my grandfather’s house?”
“Grandfather’s house?”
She pointed to the modest home we were standing in front of. Maybe I’d hit my head after all, because I tried to recall if I knew she lived on this street. Then I remembered I’d never had the opportunity to see her home. She and her grandfather spent so many hours at their bake shop that I simply had spent all my time getting to know her there. I never minded it. I loved watching her work. I also had gotten to know her grandfather a great deal. But I had planned to see her home the evening Mr. Clive had shown up at the bake shop and ruined both of our lives. I would have found out then. I would have known then.
I ran my hands down my face. “I didn’t know you lived here.” I hitched my thumb over my shoulder. “Across from him.” I realized he could be watching us. “I can’t be here, Abbie. He could see me. I need to go.”
“Wait,” she rushed to say. “My uncle . . .” She pointed to an approaching carriage that came to a stop in front of her house, obscuring Abbie and me from Mr. Clive’s view. “He can’t see us if we stand right here.”
“Waiting for us, my dear?” a man of thin build and equally thin face asked as he climbed down from the carriage.
“Hi, Uncle Benny. Yes, my grandfather and I have been waiting for you all morning.” She kissed both his cheeks. “How was your trip?”
“Fine, fine.” He held out a hand for his lady companion to climb down.
“Hello, darling,” the lady said.
“Hi, Aunt Lina.” Abby kissed her aunt on both cheeks, same as she did her uncle. “Uncle Benny, Aunt Lina, this is Noah. A dear friend of mine. We need a minute to talk. Please, go on inside. Grandfather is in the kitchen. He’s been eager all morning for your arrival. I’ll be along in a moment.”
“All right, my dear,” her aunt said, glancing at me, smiling a quick smile then turning to go inside the house.
Abbie’s uncle, on the other hand, lingered a moment. “It’s not altogether proper to be alone with a boy unchaperoned, Abb—”
“Don’t, Uncle Benny.” There was a look in Abbie’s eyes that silenced her uncle. “I said I would be inside in a moment. We have some things to say to each other. Please give me a minute.”
Her uncle nodded. “All right, my dear. All right.” He nodded once to me. I nodded once to him. Then he walked away, up the porch steps and into the house.
Once the door was closed, Abbie and I turned to one another and stared. Just stared. We’d not seen each other since that fateful day. All the memories of her came flooding back to me. All the hours I’d spent with her, getting to know her.
Her grandfather had allowed me into the back after he closed the shop in the evenings, giving me a chair to sit on while he taught his granddaughter recipes and they prepared for the following day. I think I fell in love with Abbie the same way she had learned to bake. Slowly and with time and in small measurements.
“I finally fell in love with the art of baking,” she’d declared one day.
“Have you?” I’d asked, watching her stir batter in a bowl, all the while thinking I had fallen in love with the art of her.
“I heard about Sam,” she said, shaking me out of my reverie. “I’m so sorry.”
Reality was a thunderbolt. Her words had taken me by surprise because for a moment, I’d been back inside that bake shop where I’d been happy. But we weren’t in the bake shop. We were standing on the street, and the pain of losing her, the reality of what happened to Sam, everything, washed over me anew.
I swallowed, looked over her shoulder, to a bird perched on a neighboring roof. I pushed past the burn in my throat, and said, “Thank you.”
“I have wanted to come to you so many times. I know how much Sam means to you. Noah, if there is anything I can do, anything at all, please tell me.”
My jaw tightened. “There’s nothing you can do. But thank you.”
“Noah.” She stepped closer, put her hand on my chest. “Look at me.” My eyes drifted to hers. Pale blue irises stared up at me. “I’ve missed you,” she said.
I exhaled a breath. “I’ve missed you too. Very, very much.” I placed my hand over hers.
“I lo—”
“Don’t, Abbie.”
“Don’t what? Tell the man I love that I love him?”
“I’m holding on by a thread here,” I said, pleading.
“I know you are
. I can see it. Which is why you need to hear this.” She cupped my jaw. “I didn’t want to, you know. I didn’t want to fall in love with you. You are larger than life. I’m just a girl who works in a bake shop with her grandfather. I thought surely you deserved better—more than me.” She shook her head and a tear slid down her cheek. “My traitorous heart fell in love with your wonderful, kind, generous, beautiful heart without my permission. There’s nothing I can do about that now. It’s done. I have to live with this.” Her chin wobbled and her next words wobbled as well. “I am your thread, Noah. Me. And you are mine. I am your thread. Do you understand? I am your thread. Because I, Abigail Christiana Salvador, am in love with Noah Winston Hallison, the best man I’ve ever known. I love you. I will always love you. And you need to know that.”
I didn’t care if Mr. Clive could see us or not, I pulled Abbie into my arms, my tears dripping into her hair. “I love you too. Never ever forget that.”
“I won’t,” she mumbled into my chest.
I held her a few more minutes, ignoring the people who passed us by, stealing quizzical glances our way. Eventually, I had to release her. “I have to go.”
She nodded, wiping the evidence of sadness from her eyes. “I know.”
I palmed her cheeks. “You are my thread,” I whispered.
“You are my thread,” she whispered back.
I kissed her forehead, letting my lips linger longer than was proper, closed my eyes for a second, listening to the sound of my heart crack in silence, turned on my heels, and walked away from Abigail Christiana Salvador for the second time in my life.
Later that evening, I went in search of my father and Reverend Burke. They had slipped off together again sometime after supper. The door to Reverend Burke’s study was closed. I gently knocked, then opened it. There, I found the two men leaning toward one another in a quiet conversation, the desk between them. Their heads turned upon my intrusion.
“Noah?” said Reverend Burke. “Has something happened?”
“Son, is it Sam?” Papa asked.
I shut the door behind me. “Sam is the same. He’s sleeping. Lucy and Mama and Mrs. Burke are with him.”
Both men let out collective sighs.
“You stepping in here like that had us fearing the worst.” Papa gestured for me to take the adjoining seat from his. “Sit down. What brings you here?”
I made my way toward the chair. However, instead of sitting, I placed my hands on the back of it and contemplated my next words.
“Son?” Papa asked.
“I followed the two of you today.”
The only sounds to follow my pronouncement were the creaking of their chairs as they leaned back in their seats. They appeared to be holding their breaths, fearful of what I might have seen or heard.
I held up both hands as though to say I wasn’t judging. “I overheard you both talking in the barn.” I explained the events from there, why I had gone and what I had done—the things I had heard. I looked to Reverend Burke, who sat stiffly in his seat, staring at his hands, rubbing them together, and I asked, “You said you had cards to play. What cards do you have?”
Breathing in deeply through his nose, he looked at my father, then to me. “I have no cards, Noah. I was bluffing. I thought about going to the magistrate. But without proof, it would be folly. We need evidence. Otherwise, it is his word against ours. As it is, he’s the biggest toad in this puddle. I would be seen as a grieving father bent on finding someone to blame.” He pointed to Papa. “I’m not dragging him into this any further.”
“And I told you that man has been threatening me all my life! Do not hang up your fiddle on my account!”
“No one is hanging up fiddles,” I murmured. Since returning to the Burke home, I’d done nothing but think. Reverend Burke’s answer was all I’d needed to decide what must be done.
“What do you mean?” Papa asked.
“If evidence is what we need, then evidence is what we’ll get.”
“What are you saying?” Papa asked, narrowing his eyes.
“I’m going to Boston.”
“Noah—”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. I pointed up, indicating Sam’s broken body above our heads. “If Fredrick did that—if Fredrick almost killed my best friend—my brother . . .”—I jabbed my finger toward Sam’s father—“his son, then he needs to pay. Sam needs justice. We need justice. I don’t care if I have to travel the world to find it. But the first place to start looking for it is Boston. Because, one way or the other, there will be justice.”
“You can’t go by yourself,” Papa insisted.
“I have to go by myself. You and Reverend Burke can’t go. Mr. Clive will know you’re missing. As for me, he can assume I’m here, at Sam’s bedside.”
“No, at least take James with you.”
“James can’t go either, Papa. He’ll need to keep showing up to work every day. No. I’m going by myself.”
“Son—”
“My mind is made up. I’m leaving for Boston tomorrow. Once you’ve had time to let this sink in, you’ll know that it must be this way.” Papa started to protest again. I cut him off. “I can handle Fredrick on my own. If it was him, he’s only tough when he’s sneaking up on someone with a weapon, catching them unawares. Well, I’m not unaware. This time, I’m the hunter and he’s the prey.” I looked both men in the eye and made a solemn promise. “Fredrick Clive is going to wish he never heard the names Noah Hallison and Samuel Burke.” I let those words hang in the air. I had wanted to say them aloud for so long but was afraid how they would make me feel. Vengeful. Full of hate. Everything Mr. Clive and Fredrick were.
My eyes fell to the floor. I pushed those unwelcomed thoughts aside. I’d have to examine the state of my own soul another time.
“Noah?”
I lifted my eyes to Reverend Burke’s. I couldn’t help noticing how similar his green eyes were to Sam’s. So much so, it made me ache to look at them. “Yes?”
“What happened today . . . do you think less of me for it?”
“Less of you? No, of course not.”
“I’m a pastor. A man of God. I’m supposed to be a man of integrity. What I did today . . .” He paused, swallowed. “I’m ashamed I allowed myself to get so out of control. I’ve never—”
“You don’t need to explain yourself to me,” I said. “I was there, remember? I’ve also known you most of my life. Your actions were understandable. Completely.”
“I just—I don’t like losing control. Today, I did.”
“Did you? From what I heard, you seemed very in control.” I grinned. “Knocked that cur into a cocked hat and shoved him into a wall. Or was it the middle of next week? I couldn’t see.”
Papa laughed. “Next week, I believe.”
“Remind me not to ever make you angry, Reverend Burke,” I said with a wink.
He chuckled. “You weren’t supposed to make me feel better about it.”
“Well, if I did, I’m glad for it. You should never feel bad about defending your son.”
The silence fell like a guillotine. I took that as a sign I should take my leave. I headed for the door.
“When will you return?” Papa asked.
I had my hand on the handle of the door. I waited for a beat before answering, then opened it and said, “When I have what I seek. Not a day sooner.”
“What do you seek, son? Revenge?”
“The truth,” I whispered.
I closed the door behind me, started down the hall, out of the house, and readied myself to take a journey. One that may lead me to nowhere. Or one that may lead me to hope.
Because until we knew the truth about who attacked Sam, none of us would truly be able to settle, relax, or take a breath ever again.
“Here’s to hope,” I said to the night sky. “And God, if You’re listening, take care of Sam while I’m gone.”
Sam
I opened my eyes. The sunlight from the window stabbed at my head.
I blinked. Blinked again, turning away from the offending source of pain, and tried to roll over. My entire body throbbed and ached. Only my right arm moved. And my head. I tried rolling over again, putting more muscle into it, and an unholy web of pain spun its way through me.
“ARRGHH!”
Someone sprung from a chair beside me. “Sam, don’t move! It’ll cause you pain. Lie still.” My mother. Our eyes met. I don’t remember her eyes being so dark. Shadows lurked behind them. They leaked with tears. “Your bones,” she whispered, “so many of them . . . are broken. You must lie still so they can mend.” She placed her hand on my forehead, then on my cheek. “The fever is gone,” she mumbled. “The fever is gone.” She yelled for my father. “Jonah! Jonah, Sam’s fever is gone! Sam’s awake! His fever is gone!” Tears fell down her face. She wiped them away with the back of her hand while she also tended to me. “Are you thirsty? Drink this.”
She helped lift my head and I sipped at the cup she put to my mouth. Then she eased my head down to my pillow.
Papa was at the door within a minute, then he ate the distance between the door and the bed. “Son.” He rounded the bed to the other side, took hold of my hand, the one without bandages, and said, “How do you . . .” He shook his head. “What do you . . .” Again, he bit off his words. He closed his eyes, put our joined hands to his forehead and a sob escaped the back of his throat.
In all my eighteen years, I’d never seen nor heard my father cry. Something like a hot ember burned in my throat.
“Thank you, God,” he whispered. “Thank you for bringing him back to us.”
I closed my eyes, not feeling grateful at all. I was in pain. Torn and ripped from the inside out. I pulled my hand from his and clutched it into a fist.
“You’ll be all right now,” my mother said, kissing my forehead. “We’ll get through this.”
My back ached from lying on it too long. I tried to shift a bit to find a more comfortable position and my bladder protested. I needed to relieve myself. My face pinched in discomfort.
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