Spinning the Moon (70 page)

From far away I thought I heard my name being called and the pounding of hoofbeats.
John.
I forced my eyes open but could barely see the shadow of the woman choking the life from me.

“Catherine!”

It was him, and his voice was like a fire in my blood. With my last ounce of energy I shoved at Clara, knocking her away. As I gasped for breath, I blindly swung the mallet, hitting something soft yet solid.

Clara flew sideways, falling into the desk before sliding to the ground. The candle wobbled at the impact, and I watched it move from side to side, as if undecided as to what it should do, before finally collapsing and rolling off the desk, the flame catching the long draperies on fire. I watched, mesmerized, as long fingers of flame spread along the length of the curtains, creating a wall of heat that nearly singed my skin.

Dropping the mallet, I grabbed Daniel by the shoulders and tugged with a strength I did not know I possessed. Maneuvering him out of the way, I swung open the door and pulled him through it. Billows of smoke covered us, making me cough and my eyes sting as I dragged Daniel through the waiting area and to the front door.

My lungs felt as if they would explode and spots danced in front of my eyes as I searched for air in the suffocating room. I dropped to my knees, no longer having the strength to stand, and found the air clearer near the floor.

As if by my will alone, the door opened and John stood in the threshold. Strong hands grabbed me, then lifted me. I heard him issue orders for someone else to get Daniel, and then I was breathing the sweet outside air once again.

He laid me on the grass while I struggled for breath and words. I clutched at his coat. “Clara . . . she is still . . . inside.”

He uttered a low curse. “I will find her.” With a quick touch to my cheek, he disappeared in the direction of the burning building. I could find no breath to carry my words of caution to him or to call him back.

Daniel was laid next to me, and I blinked up and recognized the judge and two men from Whispering Oaks. Daniel had regained consciousness and now struggled to rise, managing to lift up on his elbows. Relieved to see him alive, I let my head fall back upon the grass, grateful to feel the prickly sweetness of it.

Judge Patterson knelt by my head and brushed the hair from my face. Lifting me slightly, he gave me water to drink from a cup. I drank it thankfully, feeling the cool, soothing liquid slide down my parched throat. “Have . . . you found . . . Rebecca? She is . . . hiding.”

As if in answer to my prayer, she came running from behind a large magnolia, the white bow in her hair glowing like a star in the night. She bounded to me and I hugged her to my side, burying my face in her hair. It smelled of smoke and sweat and fear, and I cursed Clara silently for inflicting such harm on this child.

As the judge moved to stand, I grabbed his wrist. “John?”

He shifted his eyes away for a moment toward the building, which now had flames dancing on its roof and crying out from every window. There was nothing anybody could do but watch it burn.

He turned back to me. “He went around to the back of the house to see if he could get in that way. He has not come out yet.”

I closed my eyes, remembering how I had felt when I heard John call my name, and tried to summon that strength again. When I felt my blood surge, I willed my strength and hope and love to him and waited. My hand crept to the pocket of my skirt and I found the lodestone, wrapped my fingers around it, and squeezed tightly.

The judge spoke, his voice solemn. “I want you to know that I did not go back on my word to keep your secret. I was approached earlier this evening by Philip's father, with a letter Philip had left in his desk drawer before he died. It explained the fire at the sugar mill and Clara's involvement and reasons for it, as well as some other interesting things I do not want to go into now. And when I saw you leave after speaking
with Marguerite, I knew there was trouble. So I told John, knowing him to be innocent of trying to harm you. I hope you will forgive me.”

I grabbed his hand and squeezed.

“Marguerite has disappeared into the swamp. We will find her and bring her in to see that justice is served, but I have a feeling that the swamp will serve its own particular brand of justice.” I shuddered, recalling the night my carriage overturned and the sounds of the prowling night predators.

Patting my shoulder, the judge stood and turned toward the house. I held Rebecca's hand in mine, drawing strength from her sturdy little spirit and taking comfort in her presence. She rested her head on my shoulder and sucked her thumb as the burning house popped and crackled behind us, sending smoke into the sky like an offering. Daniel looked at me for a moment, but the horror and grief in his eyes said more than I could find words for. He turned away, and I stared up into the black sky and began counting stars, keeping the dark thoughts at bay.

I became aware of movement all around me. More men had arrived, perhaps noticing the fire from the levee. Several stopped to check on Daniel and me, and at our request sat us up against a tree. My lungs burned and I still found it hard to breathe deeply. We sat in silence, coughing sporadically, our eyes turned toward the burning building.

A gasp went up among the crowd, all eyes riveted on the south end of the small cottage. With a creaking groan, the wall collapsed, sending sparks and splintered wood toward the onlookers. I stared at the flaming house, then dropped my head onto my drawn-up knees and wept.

Rebecca tugged at my hand and then let go. I felt her warmth leave my side and I jerked my head up. Moving slowly, a dark shadow appeared against the flaming backdrop of the cottage. My heart seemed to stick in my throat as I watched the shadow loom larger as it approached.

“Papa!” Rebecca ran to him and propelled herself into John's arms. He staggered slightly and did not lift her. Instead he put his hand on her head and walked toward me. A loud cheer spread out from the gathering men. His face was blackened with ash, a bleeding cut bisecting his left cheek. He stopped in front of us but did not say anything.

To my surprise, Daniel struggled to a stand, supporting himself against the tree. “I will watch Rebecca. You two have much to talk about.”

The two men faced each other, one man's expression wary and the other impassive. John's voice was deep and hollow, singed from the smoke. “I could not save Clara. She regained consciousness while I was carrying her through the door. She struggled with me and ran back inside. That is when the wall collapsed and I could not go back in.”

Daniel stared at John for a brief moment, his face ashen. “She told me she killed Elizabeth and Philip. I had no idea. . . .”

He turned away then and took Rebecca's hand. With slow, halting steps, he walked to the huge magnolia that Rebecca had hidden behind and he sat, resting his head against it as if still in great pain, and nestled her under his arm.

John collapsed next to me and I listened to his ragged breath. He coughed, then turned to look at me. “Judge Patterson told me everything. It is beyond my comprehension how you could have believed the worst of me.” Anger and pain emanated from his eyes, but he reached for my hand and clutched it tightly as if making a peace offering. His touch told me that despite the anger, his relief at finding me alive was all that mattered.

The emotions of anger and relief chased each other in a circle in my own mind, along with questions yet to be answered. “It is not as if you have always told me the truth. Rebecca saw you on the secret stairs, bringing up Elizabeth's traveling bag. Yet you did not think it important enough to tell me, and I was left with no choice but to believe the worst.”

He let go of my hand and ground the heels of his palms into his eyes. “I only did that to protect myself. I truly believed that she had killed herself and had tried to implicate me. Hence the traveling bag to make people believe she was leaving and to give me motive to kill her. And, to seal my fate, the placement of my glove and the gris-gris. I shudder to think what would have happened if I had not been the first to discover her body. I knew you would never accept my story if you learned of the traveling bag, so I kept it secret. If I had not heard Elizabeth's threats to kill herself, even I would have had difficulty accepting it.”

“But there was also the letterbox and the missing letters. Even though I found your pipe in the attic and the burning letters in the
fireplace, you still denied any knowledge of the letterbox. I knew you were lying to me, but you wouldn't tell me the truth.”

He sat so close to me our shoulders touched, our heat nearly matching that of the flickering flames. “I took the letterbox from the attic and buried it. But after I heard you and Rebecca talking about it, I dug it up again to remove the letters. I did not have the key, so I had to unscrew the hinges and removed the letters before reburying it. I did not want to risk you ever finding them and reading them.”

Tears stung my eyes and I was not sure whether they were from the burning building. “You should have trusted me with the truth. That is all I have ever asked of you.”

“And you should have trusted me to take care of you. All I wanted was to protect you.” He took my hands and brought them to his lips. “I want us to start over—far away from this place. We will go back to Saint Simons, if that is what you want, and rebuild your home. I love you, Cat. I have since the first moment I saw you dancing barefoot on the beach.” He closed his eyes and I could feel his blood pulsing in his hands. “Please give me another chance to make you happy.”

I took his face in my hands, using my thumbs to wipe off the dark smudges on his cheeks. “Even when I thought the worst of you, you still managed to claim my heart. I do want to start over—but I want to start with no secrets between us. They are like dark shadows in the corners of our lives, and I cannot live with them.” I touched my lips to his, sealing my fate. “I need to know what was in Elizabeth's letters.”

His hands reached up to cover mine and I felt them tremble. “Do not, Cat. You do not know what you are asking.”

I didn't release him. “Yes, I do. I am stronger than you think.”

He dark eyes searched mine, our faces close enough to kiss. “When I tell you, I want you to know that you are not alone. And that you are loved and cherished by me and that nothing else matters.”

Fear blossomed in me then—not fear of my own mortality, for I had already faced that, but fear of losing my final innocence. But his touch gave me strength. “Tell me,” I whispered.

His hands tightened on mine, and his eyes did not leave my face. “The letters in the letterbox were from your husband, Robert, to
Elizabeth. They were love letters, dating from before her marriage to me up until the time of his return to Saint Simons after the war.”

I started shaking then, as bright bubbles of light seemed to surface and explode in my brain. He continued. “They talked of their intimacy and of a child they conceived when Robert was in Maryland in the army and she visited him there.”

Rose's voice came back to me.
There be two men in your life—two men you share your life with. But one of them is not who you thinks he be. He betray you in a terrible way.

“Oh, God,” I whispered, shaking uncontrollably now. Still, he did not let me go.

“Rebecca is their child.”

I wanted to scream in denial, but my voice, hoarse from the smoke, deadened my grief. John gathered me in his arms and held me close, his kisses on my hair soft and gentle. I felt as if I were drowning in a sea of betrayal that threatened to pull me under and steal the life from me. He let me cry until I had no more tears left.

When I was finished, John brought my tear-streaked face up to his and kissed me. Grabbing his hands, I allowed him to pull me out of the darkness. I reached for him, feeling the beginning of my salvation in the beating of his heart. The darkness still tugged at me, as I knew it might always do, but John would bear me up to face it.

Together, we walked over to Daniel to claim Rebecca, and then took her home.

S
ometimes I come down to the beach and take off my shoes, delighting in the feel of the shifting sand beneath my feet. I can listen to the waves now without hearing the cries of my lost child, and I am more at peace than I have ever been.

I have begun to swim in the ocean again, and John has asked me to teach Rebecca and our son, Samuel, when he is old enough. We will do so together, John and I, as we have done everything in our lives since the night of the fire.

Robert and Elizabeth's betrayal will always be with me, like a scar from an old wound. The pain is gone, but at times the fingers of my memory touch the ridges of the scar, a medal of survival and a reminder of John's love for me. Forgiveness is an elusive ghost to me still, but I try. Every day I try.

My home and family have become a great tide pool of my own creation, and my love the dam that protects them from the encroaching waves. I can face the vastness of the ocean now, with the salt wind whipping at my hair and banishing the gnawing hunger from my soul, and feel only possibility and an overflowing well of contentment.

When I think back on those first tumultuous months of our marriage, I see it as a macabre dance: John and I waltzing around a circle, with the dark shadow of betrayal lurking in the middle, waiting to consume us. But now the light of my beloved island shines on us, illuminating the corners of our lives and our hearts. We take delight in the building of our house and the joyful cries of our children. His touch strengthens me, and mine him. We have waited all of our lives for this, and know that we are blessed.