“Hear anything from that brother of yours?”
Lily fingered the smooth, shiny foil. “Yes, I just spoke with Mrs. Murray about him. He’s well, getting trained yet, and up to mischief as usual.”
“Luis? I can’t imagine. He’s such a quiet man.” Timothy Smith expertly wrapped the box of paper in twine, running several lengths around it. He finished it with a knot and tucked in a faux maple leaf, the shop’s signature logo. “You know, I still have the carvin’ of a sheltie he did for me when he was a lad. When I look at it, I remember our dog Heidi.”
“How kind of you to say so.” Lily thought of her stepbrother’s careful skill with wood. “Luis carved me a whole menagerie of circus animals through the years: elephants, lions, tiger, monkeys . . . you name it. If he knew what it looked like, he could craft it.” Lily’s thoughts took another turn. “What about Jimmy? Has he written? I’m sure you and Mrs. Smith are eager to hear of his news.”
“Jimmy’s not one for long letters, but he did send us a postcard saying he’d arrived at the training camp well enough.” Mr. Smith looked over his shoulder and said in a whisper, “His mother frets.”
“Understandably.”
Lily remembered James Smith as the boy who used to torment her in school and pull her braids. One time, he’d even tacked her braid to the desk behind her seat so when she stood up, she got the yank of her life. She’d never forgiven him for that. Luis had told her Jimmy teased her because he liked her, but she’d never understood why boys could be so horrible at that age. Lily had ended up planting Jimmy’s face in the dirt at recess. He never tacked her braid down again.
“I know Jimmy would appreciate an extra letter or two,” Mr. Smith suggested. “He might have been sweet on you when you were younger.” His eyes held mischief. He laughed. “Well, to be truthful, I think he was also a mite scared of you.”
Lily blushed. “You think I should write? I just might do that.”
“I’m sure you have the address. Luis and Jimmy are at the same place, but their companies may be different. Jimmy’s in company ten, third division.” Mr. Smith pushed the box he’d wrapped towards Lily. “All set, then. On your account?”
“Yes, please.” Lily stowed the purchases in her basket and looked up. “Thank you again, Mr. Smith. Say hello to your wife for me.”
“Will do. A good day to you, Miss Lily. Give your folks my regards.”
“I will.”
Lily opened the door, ducked out, and made her way to Trent’s. She couldn’t get James Smith out of her mind. The image of his crooked smile meeting the point of a German rifle sent a shiver down her spine. She found herself praying for the boy who had tormented her. She began drafting a letter to him in her mind.
Lily swung her basket a bit. I will write him.
It would give her something positive to focus on and hopefully cheer up an old schoolmate and local fellow at the same time.
After she finished her shopping at Trent’s, Lily decided to join Vanessa for lunch, instead of going back to the office. She’d whiled away too much time in town. It surprised her to see her father there when she got to her folks’ house on the cliff, outside of town. He usually stayed at the office for lunch.
“Pop? Everything all right?” Lily had shortened her childish name for her father from Poppy to Pop. It sounded more grown up, but, in her heart of hearts, her father would always be her Poppy.
“Lil, thought you’d be at the office.” He helped her remove her jacket and hung it on a peg by the door.
“Pop, you didn’t answer my question.” Lily inspected her father’s face. A weary look formed about his eyes, and a faint grayness shone on the surface of his skin. She wrinkled her brow in concern. “Are you feeling well?”
“I’m fine. Just thought I’d come check on Vanessa. Smells like Cook has something tasty on the cooktop. I guess potato soup.” Michael sniffed deeper. “With fresh bread perhaps.”
“Is Nessa not feeling well?” Lily loved her stepmother dearly and tried to understand her difficulties with her health and her MS, but she never knew what to expect. To be fair, neither did Nessa.
“Tired from the get-go this morning. Worrying probably.”
“Most people’s nemesis these days.”
“Yes.”
Lily’s father escorted her into the dining room where Vanessa already sat in a chair gazing out the picture window, facing the rocky cliff to Superior below. A deep mournfulness about her made the wrinkles at her eyes deepen and slumped her posture. She turned when they entered.
“Lil?” A faint light appeared in Vanessa’s eyes behind her thick lenses. “How nice.”
She held out her hand, and Lily came and took it. They looked out together at the peaceful day.
The housemaid entered with a tray of steaming bowls, a platter of bread, and a plate of cheeses.
“Here, let me help you with that, Opal.” Michael took the heavy tray from the maid and set it on the lace-covered dining table.
Opal blushed. “Thank you, sir.”
“Not at all.” Michael smiled at the young woman.
Lily smiled at Opal Lintzmann too. She was her parents’ new maid, a mite of thing, but sturdy. Her bright pink, shiny cheeks made her look like her namesake—a bright, pearly pink opal gemstone. She wagered a hidden fire burned somewhere within her depths, just like the fiery stone. Lily had been there at cleaning day and seen the way she’d beaten the rag rugs into submission.
Opal doled out the bowls at the set spots at the table, placed the tray of bread and butter in the center, and set a plate of cheese next to that. She nodded and left them to it.
“Come, dear. Let’s get you turned around.” Michael helped Vanessa position her chair at the table. Lily sat down opposite her, while Michael seated himself at her left. He reached out his hands to them. “My two favorite ladies.” He smiled. “Should I say grace?”
Vanessa nodded as she and Lily took his offered hands and bowed their heads over their inviting bowls of soup.
“Heavenly Father, make us truly thankful for what we are about to receive. Your word says that all good things come down from the Father of lights. May this food be good for our body and our fellowship good for our souls. Guide the ones we love who are far away. Provide for them in this uncertain time. Amen”
“Amen,” Lily and Vanessa echoed.
Lily thought she’d try to lighten the mood. “I talked to Mr. Smith today.”
“Oh?” Michael picked up his spoon and dug into his meal. “How are the Smiths?”
“As good as can be expected. I picked up the letterhead stationery. We had a nice chat.” Lily tucked her napkin on her lap. “I hadn’t realized his son, James, had enlisted. Do you remember him?”
“You mean the rascal who used to torment you?” Vanessa said. “I remember consoling you on a few occasions.”
“He was just being a boy, I suppose.” Lily shrugged and buttered a slice of bread thick enough to completely conceal its surface. Tooth butter, her father called this kind of spreading, because when bitten into, it left a toothy imprint behind.
“Hmm. I was a boy once and don’t remember engaging in such antics as he pulled,” Michael said between bites.
“Didn’t he go off to work in Toronto at some big paper there?” Vanessa asked.
Lily held a mouthful of soup, which she savored. The excellent flavor had a yeasty, smoky flavor she found particularly nice. It comforted her in some strange way.
She swallowed. “Yes, I believe so, but he recently returned to Webaashi Bay. Why, I’m not sure. I didn’t ask.” Lily took another bite and revealed her idea. “I plan to write him. I don’t think he has much of anyone else in his life to lighten his days. Some uplifting letters might be just what’s needed.”
Lily smiled at her parents and focused on her food again. But out the corner of her eye, she saw the look Pop gave Vanessa. He turned and raised his eyebrows at his wife. Vanessa widened her eyes, did a sideways smirk, and shrugg
ed.
“That’s nice, dear,” she commented.
“I wonder when the men will be shipping out to England,” Lily thought out loud.
She checked herself. Why did I say that?
She didn’t want to bring back a heaviness to Vanessa, just when she had seemed to be cheerier.
“I surmise any day now the training at Valcartier will come to an end. Hopefully the war will be just as brief. Really, how long can this squabble go on?” Michael commented.
They ate in silence for a bit, each focused on their own thoughts.
Lily toyed more with the idea of writing letters.
Maybe I could start a letter writing campaign. I could even get the school children involved. Once in a while we could send a package or two.
Michael finished his meal and cut into their thoughts. “Now, I must get back, dear.”
He stood up and kissed Vanessa on the cheek. She grabbed his hand, which rested on the table.
“You really think it will be a short conflict?”
“Most likely. Once the Allies come in force and oppose the German advancement, all will revert to normalcy in due course.”
Lily heard the reassurance in her father’s words, but his tone held a doubtful ring.
“I’ll see you later.” He turned to Lily. “Need a ride back?”
“Yes, thanks. I’m almost done.” Lily shoved in the last morsel of bread and cheese, removed her napkin, dosed down her milk, and stood. “Nice to have lunch with you, Nessa. See you soon.” She kissed Vanessa on the cheek and turned to go.
Vanessa reached for her and looked at her with large eyes and a concerned brow. “I love you, Lil.”
“Love you too, Nessa.”
Lily did care deeply for her stepmother. She’d been the only mother Lily truly remembered. Faint watercolor images floated to her sometimes, or a smell would trigger a faint impression of her natural mother’s love, but nothing concrete. Vanessa had been her caregiver and her mother in action. The four of them had been and were a true family. Though not all of the same blood, they loved each other like they were.
“Try not to worry, Nessa. Promise me.”
“I’ll try.”
Vanessa didn’t sound convincing.
“Marm.” Mauve Cota greeted her mother as she came in the back door of the Murrays’ family home.
The screen door slapped behind her as she opened the thick, interior door and stepped through. Her sisters were busy with homework at the kitchen table. She walked over and gave them each a peck on the cheek. She missed their chitter chatter. Oshki’s house was cold without another body there. It had only felt like a home for one day. When he’d left, the spirit of home had vanished as well.
“Mavey,” Patrice, the youngest of the Murray clan, piped up. “I missed you.”
“Mauve, ‘elp me with my grammar?” Barbara, sandwiched in age between Mauve and their brother Alex, pleaded.
“Now, now. Yer sister ‘as come to ‘elp me with t’ cannin’. Off with ye t’ livin’ room ta study.”
“Aww.”
“But, Marmy,” the girls complained.
“Ye finish and then ye can help.” Ellie tweaked her youngest under the chin.
Mauve thought her sister Patrice a little sprite, with a pixie face and strawberry blonde hair.
The girls reluctantly left them to their work.
“What’s on the docket today?” Mauve enquired as she shed her overcoat and scarf. She tried to be cheery and hide how queasy she felt, but she was unprepared for her mother’s perception.
Ellie ignored Mauve’s question and asked, “Have ye been out boatin’?” She looked Mauve up and down. “A bit green around the gills, I’d say.”
“No, haven’t slept well is all.” Mauve didn’t meet her mother’s discerning eye, for the fear of the falsehood she told.
Ellie kept quiet and got out the vegetables from a bin. Setting Mauve to paring up some potatoes, she worked on peeling and slicing carrots.
“I’m guessing vegetable soup, then?”
“Thought that’d be nice. Always ‘andy to have when we need a quick meal.”
Ellie’s knife scraped against the carrot’s skin. They worked in companionable silence. The honking of migrating geese in the skies primed their conversation.
“Any more news from Oshki?”
“Not yet.” Mauve reached for another potato. She plunked the one she’d pared in cold saltwater.
“How ye doin’ at t’ house all by yerself? Ye can always come back and stay with us.” Ellie switched to slicing and didn’t look up for a response.
“I know.” Mauve didn’t want to confess her loneliness. She wanted to be strong. Oshki had only been gone a little more than a month.
“Got enough wood?”
“Oshki saw to all that before he left.”
Ellie nodded. “Well, if there’s anything you need . . .”
She gazed at Mauve and stilled her slicing.
Mauve met her eyes. “I know, Marm. Truly, I’m fine.”
“Just so ye know,” Ellie affirmed.
The ladies finished with their vegetables. Ellie switched to chopping green beans. Mauve peeled the now cooled tomatoes, which had been dunked in boiling water until their skins blistered. She cut them up in a large bowl, her hands squishy with juice and flesh. Suddenly, she set her knife down.
“Oh . . . mmm . . .” Mauve covered her mouth with the back of her hand. Her eyes protruded as she scooted her chair back and raced out the kitchen door, making it in time to retch in the backyard.
After she was done, Mauve moved to the well and pumped out a spray of cold water into the waiting bucket. She splashed her face and mopped off the bits of vomit stuck to her chin with her apron.
Mauve waited for her mother’s ‘I told you so,’ but it never came. She only commented on the obvious when Mauve stepped back in the kitchen.
“Feelin’ poorly, then?”
Mauve nodded and waited for her mother to rail at her for her stupidity falling into the family way. Ellie, however, only reached her palm to Mauve’s back and rolled gentle circles there.
“Maang-ikwe says wild ginger’s good for sich a thing. It ‘elped with Barbara. She grieved me somethin’ fierce. I think I ‘ave some dried in t’ pantry. How ‘bout I go make ye a tea?”
Mauve looked with gratitude at her mother for her offer and for holding her tongue. “I’d like that.”
Mother led daughter into the house, a protective arm around her shoulders.
“Ye know, this ‘un will make me a grandmarm.” Ellie smiled, a true smile, something Mauve hadn’t seen on her mother’s face in a while.
War never takes a wicked man by chance,
The good man always.
Sophocles
Chapter Four
Mid-April 1917
Middle of the Atlantic
“Ah, awake I see.”
The smell of oil and something foul greets me. I sense motion, a swaying. Are we on the water?
“Where am I?”
“You’re on the HHMS Letitia, Lieutenant.”
“A ship?”
Why am I on a ship? My muddled brain tries to make sense of it.
“Yes. It’s a hospital ship. You were wounded at the battle of Vimy Ridge,” a deep, gentle voice tells me. He has a slight accent I can’t place.
Then I realize something; it’s pitch black. I try to open my eyelids, but they are pinned down.
“Why . . . why can’t I . . . what’s wrong with my eyes?”
The man sighs, and I feel the pressure of his hand on my shoulder. “You have a bandage on. You . . . suffered some damage to your eyes, Lt. Wilson.”
He pauses.
“How bad is it?” I lick my dry lips and ask the most worrisome question. “Will I see again?”
His hand leaves my shoulder, and I hear some papers rustling and the sound of something metal. “There’s no way to tell for certain. We’ll treat the wounds . . . and we wil
l hope for the best. We’ve tended some shrapnel wounds on your arms, but they are on the mend.”
I sense the pain now. It’s not terrible; it's like being kneaded by the sharp claws of a cat. I suddenly feel exhausted. The crushing possibility of never being able to see again, never being able to use my eyes to create my art, has tired me. But maybe it’s what I deserve for taking so much from others. My inner voice reminds me this is war, and in war we have permission to kill and to lie.
“Get some rest now, soldier. That’s what you need right now.”
I hear him take a few steps and talk to someone near my bed. Probably another wounded man.
I lie back and think of the first life I took and the last. Well, the ones I know about. The ones who looked me in the eye before I did my job. Deep down, I wonder what it was all really for. The killing.
Revenge? Greed? World domination?
I wish I had asked myself these questions a couple of years ago when I signed up for a life of lies. Well, I never volunteered, exactly. I was recruited.
October 1914
Valcartier, Quebec
Canadian military training site
“They tell me you speak French and German. Where does the German come from?” Major Lefebvre eyed me with suspicion. “Not much of them in Ontario.”
I wondered why he asked about my language skills. I answered as concisely and briefly as I could. “When I went to University in Toronto, I had a German roommate.” I shrugged my shoulders. “Languages have always intrigued me, and he taught me how to speak German. I picked it up fairly easily.”
“Ah, that would do it, I suppose.” He rubbed his index finger and thumb together in a repetitive motion. I could see he was thinking, sizing me up for some uncertain fitting. “Your friends call you clever, Lieutenant?”
“I don’t consider myself a stupid man.”
I wondered what all the questions were leading up to.
“Stand up,” the major commanded.
I obeyed.
“Hmm, you look fit.” He examined me for a few moments. “Sit.”
I did.
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