The Mapmaker's Children (20 page)

She got out and flinched at the stones underfoot. Leaning against the side of the car, she picked the sharp bits out from between her toes.

“First blisters and now damned rocks.”

“I'm sorry,” came a woman's voice she didn't recognize.

Eden shot up straight.

A girl stood on the porch. She looked to be in her early twenties. Pretty in a plain way: brown hair, brown eyes, not too tall, athletically built. She had the face of the best friend in every romantic comedy Eden had ever seen. However, unlike her movie counterparts, she wasn't smiling. In fact, she looked downright tragic.

Her sad expression prompted a soft reply: “Can I help you?”

“I'm sorry,” the girl repeated and came down the porch steps. “I shouldn't be here.” She took a sharp breath and pulled her bangs back behind an ear. Her hands shook. “I couldn't get ahold of Denny. His roommates said he moved out—that he was at his sister's. They gave me the address.” She looked up, on the verge of bursting. “My name's Jessica. I'm Denny's…”

The tears came, and she never finished. Denny's what?

N
EW
C
HARLESTOWN
, V
IRGINIA
S
EPTEMBER
1860

T
he storm brought wind and torrents of rain that sent the maple tree thrashing its arms against the bedroom windowpanes. Gypsy gave a low, continuous snarl, while the women huddled together in the farthest corner of the master bedroom. Alice cried into the belly of her Kerry doll with Siby softly rubbing her back; Annie, cheek to Bible leather, prayed and rocked herself; Priscilla held a shotgun, its safety on but aimed at the door. Sarah stayed posted by her side.

John Brown had taught his children how to shoot—sons and daughters. One of Sarah's earliest memories was the feel of the smooth wooden stock between her palms. The smell of gunpowder and grease and her father close by. His hand over hers, pointing at a green ear of corn stood up on the fence post.

“Get where ye be aiming lined up in your sight,” he'd told her. But when she'd tried to adjust the barrel a fraction right or left, he'd held the gun as he saw fit. “Ready?”

She'd shaken her head, unsure of what was to come and afraid of what her trigger pull might do. Without waiting, he'd jerked his finger down atop hers. The gun flashed and kicked back so forcefully against her chest that it left a yellow bloom that purpled in under a minute. The bullet struck the ear in the side, sending white kernel pom-poms to the right and the cob to the left. Annie had been with her, and her father had shifted his attention while Sarah rubbed at her breastbone and sniffed back the tears. Annie was older and more eager to do whatever it took to gain their father's favor. She'd taken aim at a fat squirrel and shot it right off the tree limb without blinking.

Now the same girl cowered in the shadows, and Sarah wondered when her brave sister had died and this sad changeling had taken her place.

A man called out. Another answered. In the din of the storm, they couldn't recognize either. Priscilla's grip tightened on the gun. Siby hushed Alice's sobs. Annie rocked harder.

The front door opened, and the house seemed to inhale and hold its breath with it.

“Browns!” Sarah distinctly heard.

The air changed: tensed and pulsed. A squealing pitch rang high in Sarah's ears. And then a crack—of lightning or bullet, they couldn't tell, but the four women gasped in unison. Gypsy's snarl broke to white teeth, and she barked ferociously at the window. A child cried. Feet pounded back and forth below. Doors slammed. Angry voices bellowed in the barnyard before hooves hammered the sodden ground, blending quickly into the beating rain. Another crack. The smell of sulfur. No mistaking: a gunshot.

Priscilla's thumb trembled on the release, but her trigger finger was steadfast.

Boots on the stairs. Alice and Annie went silent. Gypsy moved to the door, sniffed and whined. Priscilla uncocked the safety.

The door swung open, and had he not said her name before showing his face, Sarah was sure Priscilla would've shot her son through.

“Mother?”

“Thanks be to the Almighty,” she exhaled and set the safety back. “Freddy.”

His face was paler than Sarah had ever seen a man's.

“They've run off—after Mr. Storm.” He shook his head. “He tried to lead his family out through the back door, but the bounty hunters had surrounded the house without our knowledge. His daughter dropped the doll. The head broke and cut her badly. She cried out, and the men attempted to pursue. Mr. Storm made himself known to divert their attentions and ran into the woods. We tried to stop him but…” He exhaled.

“But Mr. Storm be a free man.” Siby's eyes were moons of worry.

“Black is black in the night,” whispered Annie. She cradled her Bible. “God be with his soul.”

Sarah thought she might vomit where she stood. The room swayed. The doll she'd given the child…the doll Mr. Storm had made his daughter accept. A white woman's cursed gift.

“The girls—were they captured, are they hurt?” Priscilla rose and set aside the shotgun.

“The child's cut is deep. It will leave a scar. Mrs. Storm is inconsolable. She said her husband couldn't abide putting our family in harm's way. We hid them in the hayloft and are transferring them immediately.”

The Storms hadn't known the bounty hunters were really after Sarah and Annie. Mr. Storm had sacrificed himself unnecessarily. Sarah's heart clutched. “Maybe he'll get away or they'll catch him and go for the bounty but find his free papers and be the fools.”

Everyone seemed to look away in unison. What she'd said was naïve. If the posse caught Mr. Storm, they'd hang him from a tree with all damnation pouring down.

Siby headed for the door. “I best tend to the wounded child, the sick one, too…and their ma.”

Freddy exhaled loudly. “I was the fool for inviting you here. It isn't safe in the South. For black or white, free or slave. Child of John Brown or otherwise.”

Sarah and Annie might've been the daughters of a convicted criminal abolitionist, but they were young, white women from the North. Any man who dared lay a hand to them, drunk or not, would've incurred the full rage of the “John Brown's Song” singing people.

Better to have stayed downstairs and faced the rabble. If they were hurt or, worse, perished, their lives would've been fuel to the abolitionist legacy. But who would sing songs for Mr. Storm? Who would tell his story?

If only they'd been braver and not hidden like mice in the attic. If only she'd not given that doll to the girl. If only she'd not insisted they come to visit. If only, if only…Sarah's knees went weak, and she buckled.

Freddy steadied her. “It's all right.”

She shook her head. Everything was far from right. It was her fault. She'd only wanted to help, and instead she'd caused this tragedy.

Outside the rain turned to hail, beating against the gabled roof and rolling down the shingles.

“We must forward them north as soon as possible,” said Priscilla.

“Mr. Fisher is harnessing the wagon,” said Freddy. “We're taking the Storms to Shepherdstown station. No one will be on the roads in this weather. Mr. Storm ran south, toward Harpers Ferry. We must honor his courage by ensuring that his family reaches safety.” He turned to Sarah. “At first light, I'll drive you and Annie to the train depot. Father and Mr. Fisher will stay behind in case the men return. Though, from the look of it, they were so drunk they could barely stay on their saddles. I'm hoping that works in Mr. Storm's favor. Father will call for the sheriff, too. They'll scour the woods. New Charlestown is law-abiding. We won't fall into anarchy as easily as the southern states.”

“Have the wicked men gone far, far away?” Alice had nearly vanished into the seams of the room and now emerged with a tear-streaked face.

“Yes, darling,” said Priscilla. “Far, far away.”

Despite Freddy's words of assurance, George insisted that the women remain upstairs, locked in the master bedroom. Gypsy, too. The storm continued to howl and spit against the windows.

“The cold pushing out the warm,” said Siby. “Seasons be violent changing.”

She did her best to make everyone as comfortable as possible, draping a Jacob's ladder quilt over them as the air did just as she'd predicted and took on an icy chill. At the glisten of clear daybreak, she woke them, having not slept a moment herself.

“We live to see another day of mercy,” she said. “I best be down to make breakfast. Menfolk been up all night. I'll use the last of our coffee bean and chicory, if that be all right with you, Miss Prissy.”

Priscilla thanked her kindly, and Siby left them to dress alone.

Outside, the sun shone sharply, melting the pebbles of ice into the grass and the gnarled tree roots sticking up from the land. Downstairs, Freddy, George, and Mr. Fisher sat at the table; their grave voices carried through the house's walls along with the smell of fritters, coffee, and burning oak.

“It's this talk of war that's turned men's minds to savagery,” said George.

“I didn't recognize any of 'em—not from New Charlestown,” said Mr. Fisher.

They silenced when the women entered the dining room.

Priscilla kissed George squarely. “God be praised. You are safe.” She turned to Mr. Fisher. “Is there news of Mr. Storm?”

Mr. Fisher looked down at his empty plate speckled with hush puppy crumbs.

“Mrs. Storm and the girls will be in Philadelphia by nightfall,” explained Freddy, though that wasn't the question Priscilla had asked.

Sarah winced at the mention, blaming herself for the girl's cut hand, her cries, her father's sacrifice. The breakfast smells turned rancid to her senses. She had to breathe into her sleeve to keep from gagging.

Siby came through the kitchen door with butter-fried pumpkin. “Figured we could use something sweet to settle our stomachs.”

She went to serve Alice from the skillet, but Alice shook her head. “Thank you, but no thank you. Thank you.”

Freddy forked a pumpkin cube. “It's good—you'd like it, Alice.”

She turned her chin down.

“My secret's a squeeze of lemon,” Siby explained. “Nobody be thinking lemon and pumpkins court well when in fact they's just what the other needs to be at they best.”

Alice refused still. Sarah couldn't blame her. No one but the men had an appetite.

“I put good love in that cooking, Miss Alice,” said Siby.

“I'm sorry,” she mumbled back.

Siby frowned and went back into the kitchen. She returned with a doll no bigger than a corncob. Much smaller than the medicine dolls Sarah had seen in the delivery box.

“This one was hiding under the others. Scrawny thing. I fattened her up cotton pretty for you.”

A fairy doll. Sarah recalled Auntie Nan's description.

Alice's eyes widened, and her fingers itched to touch. “She's a baby,” she whispered. “Kerry's baby girl.”

“You've got to promise you'll eat first,” said George.

Alice nodded. Siby handed her the fairy doll, and Alice adjusted Kerry Pippin on her lap and the miniature on Kerry's so that each skirt mirrored the one beneath: baby, child, adult.

“Her name is Pumpkin,” she said. Then, to the doll: “I won't let any bad men hurt you, Pumpkin.”

Freddy pushed back from the table and stood. “The northbound B&O departs Washington at five
P.M
. We should go as soon as possible.” While Sarah recognized the prudence of their hurried departure, it wasn't until that moment that she felt the impact of its meaning: she was leaving with no foreseen date of return; she was leaving with her canvas map incomplete. The byways and secret routes of her larks' final passage up the Potomac River had yet to even be sketched in charcoal. It would be nothing more than a romantic picture if she didn't finish.

She understood the danger at hand, but this wasn't merely a painting. It was her hand of action in her father's great work. It was a way she could make amends to Mr. Storm. Just as Mary Lathbury's songs were taken south to unknowing plantation masters, her painting could be used as a guide for men and women on the Underground Railroad. No need to conceal. It could hang proudly in any southern home. Its message would be readily understood by those who knew the secret codes. She would not leave without the last details seared into her memory.

It was just past dawn, and they had yet to pack. That would take Annie at least an hour. Sarah had to go to the Bluff. And she had to go now.

She stood, her aim set: “I'll fetch my paints.”

Priscilla nodded. “Yes, Siby, let's see to the girls' things.”

Sarah grabbed her satchel of onion paper and pencils from the parlor, snuck down the servant's hall, through the kitchen, and out the back door. Just past the barn, she heard a whistle. She forged ahead, each footstep sinking deep in the waterlogged apple orchard. At the edge of the woods, she heard it again—this time closer and with more urgency. Gypsy sprinted across the leaf-scattered grass, wagging her tail and circling Sarah. She turned. Freddy had followed.

N
EW
C
HARLESTOWN
, W
EST
V
IRGINIA
A
UGUST
2014

“D
amned D.C. traffic!” Denny swung through the front door cursing.

Turning the corner to the kitchen, he came to a full halt, his eyes nearly dropping out of his head like eggs cracked into a skillet.

Eden had invited Jessica to stay for dinner. What else could she do? The girl was a wreck, and she couldn't stand outside on the porch all night. Denny off doing God knows what errand, God knows where in D.C. She was a sweet girl, once she stopped crying long enough to complete a sentence. Eden hadn't dared ask what the tears were about, which might incite them to start again. Instead, she'd handed Jessica a butcher's knife and had been pleased to see that she was far more skilled in cookery than in conversation. She'd cubed the pile of potatoes in the time it took Eden to skin one, then moved on to the carrots, neatly dicing in a rhythmic
chop-chop
.

“The man of the hour!” Eden scooped up the potatoes and dropped them in a pot of boiling chicken stock. “Look who I found at our front door.”

Jessica laid the knife down beside the vegetable peels.

Denny stood, catatonic in expression.
Earth to Denny?
Eden nearly said, but she didn't want to come off as a reproachful big sister. Whatever was going on with these two, she was really in no position to help or hinder. Look at her marriage: one big Failure. Capital
F
. But like in hers, the laws of force and nature applied. You couldn't just
stand there
gawking. Two pendulums suspended in ineptitude. Somebody had to make a move. Even if that move was from an external push.

“Jessica came all the way from Philadelphia to visit you, Den.” She
stirred the simmering broth, banging the spoon more than was necessary. “You aren't even going to say hello?”

His Adam's apple bobbled. “Hi.”

It wasn't exactly an icebreaker. Fine: maybe one more sisterly nudge would break the mute spell. “We're making Chicken Soup for the Doggy Soul for dinner. Your basic chicken noodle, minus the noodles, so I figured we could have a bite without me making two different pots of the same recipe. Is that okay?”

He nodded. “I'm okay.”

“I asked if the soup was okay, but I'm glad you are, too.”

“Oh, uh, sorry—” He pointed to his gut. “Not feeling right. Unsettled.”

“Is it flu season?” Eden turned the gas burner
tick-tick-tick
until it lit. “Jessica's having stomach troubles, too.” Eden pointed to
The Holistic Hound
, on the counter. “Soup is the best bet for all.”

“She's having dinner
with
us?” Denny looked like he sincerely might be sick.

Jessica clasped her elbows in a self-hug.

That was quite enough. Indigestion, stomach virus—whichever, she didn't care. Denny had been raised better than to be so rude.
She'd
raised him better.

“Denny!” Eden put a hand to her hip and gave him a look that she hoped communicated,
Get your act together, kid
. Jessica was a guest in her house. Sure, it was a house she wasn't planning on keeping, but nobody knew that.

She turned to Jessica. “Jack's the same way when he's not feeling well. The
Washington Post
ran an article a few years back. Research proved men have a lower pain tolerance than women. One twinge of physical or emotional stress and bibbidi-bobbidi, they turn into cranky babies.” She shook her head. “Some way to treat your girlfriend.”

“She's not—I'm not—it's not…” he sputtered, and Eden realized she'd officially crossed into annoying-mother territory.

Jessica shrank into herself. “I tried to call, but your cell phone went straight to voice mail every time.”

Denny sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I was at a job interview. I couldn't talk.”

A job interview! Eden was torn between pride and the daunting feeling that something terribly serious must be going on for her bachelor play-the-guitar-till-I-die brother to secretly interview for a job in conservative Washington, D.C. Only then did she notice that he wore a borrowed set of Jack's pressed khakis and a button-down shirt.

Denny and Jessica were back to staring across the kitchen.

“Jessica,” Eden said, “do you mind babysitting that pan of chicken while I get the rest of the ingredients?”

“Sure,” she replied, meek as a lamb. Eden passed her the spatula.

“Denny, you help me.” She yanked the cuff of his shirt, and he followed her lead.

Alone with him in the dark of the pantry, she pointed a finger up to within an inch of his nose. “You better tell me the truth. Now.”

He leaned back, his head thudding lightly against the wall, then slumped down until he was sitting on the floor. “I'm in trouble, E.”

“Well, I figured that since the minute I saw you.” She was his sister, for God's sake. They shared DNA. She knew him backward and forward, even if he didn't think she did. The sibling sixth sense.

“What's this job business?”

“I'm trying to get a job—with a solid salary.”

“Not to be an age racist, but you are twenty-seven. It's about damned time. You're on the verge of being that old man in some rinky-dink bar smelling like yesterday's sweaty meatballs and playing tunes for tips.”

He winced. She was sorry to take a reality pin to his fantasy bubble, but somebody had to do it.

“Is that what you and Jack discussed on your walkabout yesterday?” she asked.

The two had been close since their introduction. It had warmed her to be able to give Denny the big brother he'd never had, a quasi–father figure. It'd be hard on him when they split…
if
that's what she still wanted. Because at the moment, what she wanted most was for Jack to be beside her in that pantry. He'd agree with her entirely and help her figure this
out. They were good at teamwork, in the office and at home. Or at least, they had been, once upon a time.

“The job was one of the things.”

“And the others?”

He looked up to her from below, the same visage she recalled from their childhood.

“I told him I knew about you trying to have a baby and I—”

A bonfire rose to her cheeks and threatened to come flaming out her ears, eyes, and nose. “You talked about
me
?” she seethed before he was through.

He seemed to eat his tongue, mumbling under his breath,
Jack said this
and
Jack said that
, but Eden couldn't hear past her own mental clamor. Jack hadn't even spoken to her about their failure to conceive, but he'd talked to her little brother? What did he say—how did he feel—did he blame her or did he see that she'd done everything she could?
Every
damned thing. That she desperately wished it had worked. That she was sorry. So very sorry to have let them both down. Her mind whirled.

“Jack's worried about you. He wants you happy. Even if you don't think you're ‘meant to be' in the long run, the dude loves you, E. For real.”

She shook her head. Of course he'd say that. It was the proper Mr. Knightley thing to say. He had to say it, right?

Denny's hand moved under the notched wooden plank, and the floor lifted an inch. “Is this the pit you found the spook's head in?”

She took a deep breath. “It's a root cellar.” She refocused, swapping out Jack's face in her mind for the doll's. “I can't remember if our house in Larchmont had one.” They'd been in the pantry too long. Jessica was waiting. Eden didn't want to make her more uncomfortable than she already was.

“No cellar,” said Denny. “But we had spooks.”

Eden pulled two cans of green peas off the shelf. “I told you before, Denny, no such things. Just bad memories best buried in the past.”

She left him there and marched back to the kitchen. It smelled gamey. Chicken on the verge of burning. Jessica was gone.

Eden pulled the skillet off the burner, then quickly shuffled from room to room until she spotted Cricket outside the closed maid's bathroom, directly next to the pantry she and Denny had been in.

As she came closer, she heard the sound of retching. Eden knocked gently. “Jessica?”

Cricket whined and sniffed the oily air.

“I'm sorry,” Jessica mumbled from within. “I was fine, and then the chicken…”

At the mention, she coughed and gagged again.

“Do you want me to help?” She tried the handle. Locked.

Denny came out of the pantry. “What's wrong?”

“Jessica is sick.”

Then Cricket arched his back and suddenly vomited a pile of twisted green grass at their feet.

“What the hell is going on!” Denny yelped, echoing Eden's very thought.

She knelt down to the dog and smoothed back his fur. “I haven't even served the soup, so nobody can blame my cooking yet.”

Jessica cracked the bathroom door, dabbing her mouth with a tissue. Seeing the dog vomit, she covered her nose and turned away.

“Must be a bug going round,” she said, but Eden recognized the sallow color of her cheeks against the rose of her lips.

She'd become an expert on the signs. Unless Jessica was a righteous vegan, only a pregnant person would react that way to the smell of chicken sautéing. Eden had had the same problem with bacon.

She looked at Denny, and like lightning, she knew she was right. Moreover,
he
knew she knew.

“Help her sit down,” she told him.

Denny obeyed, leading Jessica to the kitchen stool farthest from the offending odor.

“You need to drink something,” he offered, and Eden was relieved to see that he wasn't behaving like a complete asshole anymore.

“There's a lemon in the fruit bin. Put a slice in water. It'll help,” instructed Eden.

On his way to the fridge, he dropped a rusted coin on the island. “I found this in your cellar.”

In light of her new realization about Jessica and after finding a doll's head with a cryptic key inside, a shard of old copper didn't get her excited.

“A penny for your thoughts?” she said sarcastically and moved to turn off the burner. She'd left it on.

Jessica held the object up to the light. It wasn't flat like money but had been tooled with an intricate design. “A button,” she said. “See the sheaves of braided wheat on the front and the back loop for attachment? My mom sewed a lot of our clothes growing up.”

Eden took a good look. She was right. A button. “Another clue for my ace detective dog walker, Cleo.” She put it on the window ledge beside the doll's head, then turned coolly to Denny. “I insist Jessica spend the night.”

He nearly dropped the glass of water he was carrying but didn't argue.

“No—no, I couldn't…” Jessica began, but Eden was resolved.

“It'll be dark in an hour. You can't drive back to Philadelphia tonight. I won't let you, hon. That's all there is to it. You're staying in our guest room, and I've got deviled eggs if the chicken isn't appetizing. Sharp mustard, salt, citrus, vinegar—savories always helped my nausea.”

She smiled kindly. “Thank you, Eden.”

With Jessica in the guest room, she presumed Denny would take the couch, leaving Jack…He'd have to come back to her bedroom. There was no alternative, and Eden was unexpectedly glad. A Newton's cradle of liaisons. She gave Jessica and Denny a click-push, and on the opposite side, they did the same to her and Jack.

“Come on,” Denny said, “I'll show you up.”

He put a gentle hand to the small of Jessica's back. A minuscule, intimate gesture weighted with significance: whatever they were now, they'd been close.
Very
close. It wasn't a casual spot to touch. Further validation of Eden's presumption. She hoped the two would be able to talk alone, if not in her company.

While they were upstairs, Eden plucked the “
IT'S A BOY!
” flags out of the Milton's Market eggs. That was the last thing any of them needed.
She crammed the toy-sized banners beneath the vegetable shavings in the garbage.

“Who's home?” Jack called through the front door, galvanizing Cricket to welcoming clucks and tail wags. The dog was obviously feeling better.

“Jack, I'm in here,” said Eden, hoping to have a moment alone with him before the others returned, but Denny and Jessica caught him first.

“Oh, 'ello, I didn't know we had guests,” he said, looking up to the second-floor landing.

“Uh, yeah, a surprise,” said Denny, making his way down the stairs. “This is Jessica.”

“Jessica? Jessica,” Jack repeated. “Nice to meet you,
Jessica
.”

Eden heard recognition in his voice. Denny must've discussed her on their walk. So the boys were in cahoots on that account, too.

“Nice to meet you. I'm sorry to have dropped in on you like this,” Jessica apologized.

“Not at all,” said Jack with a too-happy jingle. His businessman voice, charm applied in the tensest of circumstances.

All three came into the kitchen. Eden stirred the soup pot. The ingredients whirled round and round in a dizzying pinwheel. “Oh good, you've met Denny's friend. She's staying for dinner and the night.”

“
Really?
An overnight guest. Wonderful!” Jack didn't blink the entire time he spoke. It was one of his subtle giveaways only she knew. “And you cooked, too?”

“Yes, one of Cleo's
Holistic Hound
recipes.”

“More dog food?”

Eden frowned but saw by his expression that he hadn't meant it as an insult. He was making light banter. An attempt to ignore the elephants in the room.

“Gourmet,” Denny added.

Cricket sat in the middle of their foursome, sniffing the air again.