The Mapmaker's Children (21 page)

“I better give the little guy a bowl of soup for his stomach. Jessica.” Eden nodded toward the plastic container on the kitchen counter. “Those are Milton's Market deviled eggs. A New Charlestown specialty, I'm told.”

Only she noticed the tiny hole in the center of each where the toothpick birth announcement had been.

E
DEN HID
her displeasure when Denny said he'd sleep in Jessica's room. They were grown adults, and this wasn't 1950. Besides, the damage was already done. From what she could tell, they didn't sleep much anyhow. Their voices murmured long into the night. The old house's walls were too thin. She wondered if Jack was able to sleep downstairs. Cricket, too. Or if it was just she who heard the murmuring. She'd had a similar problem as a child.

On more nights than she cared to recount, she'd woken to the judder of the front door, the weight of the bolt sliding; heavy footsteps that made no noise but reverberated through her bed and her in it, legs stretched out like a tuning fork. She'd thought it was another in a long list of magical spirits: Santa Claus and his elves, the tooth fairy, the Easter bunny, angels, ghosts, shooting stars, and doll houses come to life. Legends of fact and fiction, all of which stirred only in secret, at night. She almost wished she'd kept believing in those fairy tales, never to know.

It had been raining the night she was given the truth. The kind of downpour that pelted the roof in furious waves; the thunder moaned so deep and long that she wholly believed it was the collective cry of dead spirits washed up from the grave. The house trembled with the sound, and the rain smattered the windows like fingers clawing for admittance.

Eden had sat in her bed, knees pulled to her chest, for as long as her stammering heart could withstand. Then the door below opened; the walls of her bedroom fought the draft, her ears popped from the pressure, and the air smelled of wet dirt. She'd been so frightened, she'd run not to her mother or father but to Denny, in his cradle. Too young to protect her, but the sight of him comforted her.

“Don't be afraid,” she'd whispered to him. “There's no such thing as ghosts. There's no such thing. There's no such thing.”

She'd rubbed his little back until his breath's rhythmic purring gave her the steady courage she needed. Then she'd crept through the shadows,
across the hall and down the stairs, where puddles of rainwater mirrored the floor. A black mass glistened in the hallway corner. The dark figure turned, and she gasped.

“Eden, what are you doing up?” It was her father in his rain slicker.

He hung his wet coat on the rack and attempted to lift Eden, but she pulled away. He smelled not of bay rum but of something cloyingly sour and intensely shameful. It made her nauseated, and she felt the sudden urge to protect her mother and brother upstairs. Not from her father so much as from the mysterious unseen that threatened.

She never told anyone that secret, not even Denny. At first she kept it out of fear. Then it didn't matter. Her father was dead.

There were no such things as ghosts. The only phantom was the other man her father was when he wasn't with them. She'd begun wearing earplugs to bed then and didn't stop until she moved into a one-bedroom apartment in college, in a new building with insulated walls.

Now she contemplated driving to a twenty-four-hour gas station to buy a pair. Just when she thought she might actually do that, the voices quieted for an hour, maybe two. At dawn, they returned when Jessica said her good-byes just outside the master bedroom door.

“I have to teach my three-year-old tap class at noon,” she explained. “If I don't leave now, I'll be late.”

“I'll be back up to Philly as soon as my last interview is done,” Denny assured her. “Call if you need me before then. I'll keep my phone on, I promise.”

Eden was relieved to hear that he was acting responsibly.

The stairs creaked under their weight, and the screen door gave a clatter at Jessica's exit. Then it was Jack's voice rising up through the floorboards. She wasn't worried about Denny seeing him on the couch. He knew—maybe more than she knew—about their marital woes. Not much she could do about that, but she trusted Jack to give Denny practical advice. He was a gentleman with a true heart. It was one of the qualities that had first attracted her to him. That and the sexy British accent. So very Knight in Shining Armor. She smiled to herself.

The two men below exchanged indecipherable conversation. The front door slammed again.

Eden kicked off the sheets. If everybody else was up…Trying to sleep now was pointless. She went downstairs to find Denny on all fours, mopping the floor with paper towels. Cricket licked the pads of her brother's upturned feet.

“Cut it out, dude,” he warned. “I don't need you to barf again.”

“He threw up?” she asked.

Denny startled and flipped over to face her, hands in the puddle he was cleaning. He lifted a drippy palm and screwed up his face. “Peed.”

“Oh?” She came to the last step and sat. If Denny thought cleaning up after a puppy was bad, he was in for a rude awakening.

Cricket pawed at her lap until she took him up. “What's going on with you, buddy boy?” He snuggled his snout into her middle, and she ran her fingers through his fur so that it was whorled like kettle corn.

“Jack went for a jog,” Denny told her while he finished cleaning.

“Aw.” Her gaze shifted wistfully toward the door. They used to jog together. “And Jessica?”

“To Philly.”

“She's okay to drive so far?”

He waved a hand. “Better this morning. Twenty-four-hour virus. You know how that goes.”

Enough with the pretenses. “I don't believe the stomach-bug baloney, Den, so you can spare me the insult of insisting that's what it is.”

“I—she—” he stammered. “Aw, hell.” He ran a piss-tainted palm through his hair. “I screwed up, E. She's pregnant. It was an accident.”

“An…accident?” While she already knew that to be true, hearing the confirmation pierced her more deeply than she'd anticipated. She remembered the opening line of “Thumbelina”: “ ‘Once there was a woman who wished very much to have a little child, but she could not obtain her wish.' ”

“What's that?” Denny frowned, confused by her recitation.

“Nothing. Just a fairy tale.” She tried to breathe, but her rib cage was knit tight. “What are you going to do?”

N
EW
C
HARLESTOWN
, V
IRGINIA
S
EPTEMBER
1860

“W
here are you going?” Freddy asked, winded by the pursuit.

Sarah gripped her satchel to her side. “My painting isn't finished.”

He looked to the woodland behind her. “You can't intend to do it now. We have to leave for the train—and what if the bounty hunters are camped in the woods?” The vein streaking his forehead returned. “Please, be reasonable, Sarah.”

He lifted his palm, gesturing toward the house, but Sarah shook her head. She was going to the Bluff and would make a dash, if need be. He'd have to hoist her over his shoulder to stop her, and he was too much of a gentleman for that.

“I just need to see it one last time. So I can finish the way,” she entreated.

He studied her, assessing her resolve, then lifted an eyebrow high. “The way?”

There wasn't time to stand gabbing explanations. “Yes, for the new map,” she whispered. “You didn't think I was just practicing my paints, did you, Freddy?” She ushered him into the shadow of the forest. “From the Bluff you can see the passage from Harpers Ferry north along the Potomac. Mary Lathbury taught me the codes on sampler quilts taken to slave plantations. I'm using those, too. The bear-paw maple leaves, waterways, wagon wheels, stars, animals, shapes, and colors. Don't you see? I must finish! For Mr. Storm, if no one else.”

Evoking the name seemed to act as fuel. Freddy marched along beside her.

Suddenly, when they were only steps from the Bluff, Gypsy crouched low in the ferns and bared her teeth in a snarl. Freddy grabbed Sarah back by the waist so that they were hidden behind the breadth of a tree trunk, mossy wet against their backs. He had one hand firmly about her and the other under his coat where earlier she'd seen that a pistol had been holstered. Now he pulled it free. The sight of it and the feel of his body firm against hers sent Sarah's pulse galloping.

Gypsy pounced.

An opossum with black eyes stood on its hind legs, hissed like a creature twice its size, then scurried off.

Behind Sarah, Freddy's chest heaved with relief. He lowered the gun but did not release her. In the absence of movement, she was keenly aware of the loud rustle of trees, the drip of rainwater all around. The wind moved the grand patchwork of leaves overhead like a kaleidoscope, so that looking up made her dizzy. She steadied herself against Freddy. The rhythm of his heart palpitated through the center of her back. She put a hand to her chest and could not decipher which beats belonged to whom.

“Only an opossum,” he whispered in her ear.

She nodded. She knew.

Using his free hand, he slowly turned her. “You're safe,” he consoled her, drawing her cheek close.

She was trembling. He smelled of barn tackle, lemon, and spice. She lifted her chin to face him, and without warning, his lips were on hers. She didn't pull away. Instead, she leaned in, allowing the flame to consume her. It was all she'd ever imagined—too quickly come and gone. Potent as a drug.

Gypsy bounded back to their side with a yip, and they parted. Freddy flushed. Sarah was sure she did the same.

Her first kiss. In every romantic novel she'd read, there'd been a chapter break upon the kiss. In every painting, a suspended moment. She was unsure what one said after. But they weren't lovers on a stroll, she reminded herself. A man's family had been divided and he might have been murdered beneath these very trees. It shamed her afresh.

She pointed ahead. “Through there.”

Out from beneath the canopy, the sky opened crisp as an apple cut wide. New Charlestown was haloed in the plumes of morning fires. The piercing sun had yet to burn through the haze below. Sarah had never been there so early.

Gypsy nervously paced the wood line, unwilling to venture onto the boulder. Keeping her guard over them, she lay down on a pine-needle bed to wait for their return to solid ground.

Sarah went to the sandstone circle and took out her onionskin paper. She quickly sketched the last portion of the panorama, but her mind was preoccupied with the scene that had just passed: Freddy's mouth on hers; the taste of pumpkin; the smell of rawhide; the leaves singing. She wished she could paint all of those feelings.

Below, a farmer with a wagon full of his harvest drove across the village square. Sarah could only make out the contents by color: red.

Civil unrest was mounting. The country was on the brink of gashing in two. She in the North. Freddy in the South. It was like Auntie Nan's
Tempest
. Her eyes welled.

“You're right. It's the clearest view of the pass I've ever seen,” said Freddy. “Your canvas will be extraordinary.” He turned to her. “
You're
extraordinary.” Clearing his throat, he ceremoniously took her hand in his. “Sarah,” he began.

The gravity of his tone and the formality of his touch made her stiffen.

He studied her fingers. “I know this isn't the time, but I'm not sure when…” He faced her with shoulders squared. “I love you, Sarah…and I think you love me, too.” He looked toward the village in the distance, then back at her. “I want you to stay in New Charlestown. Not in danger, as a Brown, but in safest keep—as my wife, a Hill. I want us to make a family together. That is to say, I'd like to marry you, Sarah.”

His stare was earnest; his hands, hot. Her own went clammy.

Hearing that he loved her had nearly sent her flying off the cliff top. Then, in the same instant, she'd fallen. Was that how love felt?

Her seed of belief had sprouted fruit. But she couldn't harvest such a life. A family: wife and a houseful of children at Freddy's knee. She couldn't give him what he asked for and deserved.

How desperately she wished things were different—wished she could say yes and live the rest of her days painting, working in partnership with Freddy, freeing their enslaved brethren, the two of them loving each other. Just the two of them. But those were the fantasies of a silly girl. To put her own desires before his meant she must love him less. She hated herself—body and spirit—for her failures. If she disregarded the reality, Freddy would come to hate her, too, for not making good on the vision he sought for his life. She couldn't bear for him or their UGRR collaboration to suffer because of an impractical decision she made now.

Sarah pulled her hand free from his and let it drop to her side. Deflated and nearly more grief-stricken than when her father had been put to death, she turned to face the abyss.

Sarah Brown, Sarah Brown, Sarah Brown, who will love you now?
She'd proven her mother wrong after all.

“I can't.” She choked and felt the air grow cold behind her.

Freddy paused for so long Sarah had to shut her eyes to endure it.

“Don't you care for me?” he finally asked.

She held herself steely. She had to be strong, for him, for her. “Oh, Freddy, why must you go and spoil us.”

“But…what was that back there?” He was wounded, and it stabbed Sarah equally. “Tell me you don't love me.”

She didn't dare turn to him. “Not in the way you deserve to be loved. I admire you greatly, Freddy. You're the dearest person to me.”

“Is there no hope that you'll come to love me?”

“Not in that way…” Her voice broke. “Don't you see that it would be unkind? We'd become bitter and unfulfilled by the humdrums of marriage.”

When he discovered her inability to bear children, how could it be any other way? He'd said he wanted to make a family. It would be cruel of her to allow his affections to continue.

“I can't. You see, I…” It was not something to speak of. Her wounded womb, too shameful. “I just can't…”

“Is there someone else?”

She faced him. She couldn't stand for him to think she loved another.
“No, no one, Freddy. I care for you better than anyone in the world. Let's go on being as we are. Eternal friends.”

Freddy guffawed. His jaw set tight. He looked past her to the horizon. “Friendship isn't enough. I want your love. So where does that leave us?”

“Forgive me.” It was all she could say.

His gaze cast downward to New Charlestown. “There's nothing to forgive. I'm the fool. I deceived myself into thinking you felt the way I do.”

The morning mist had evaporated, and the village stood stark. Below, a shepherd herded his lambs into an alley for the butcher to pick his choice.

B
ACK AT
the Hills' house, Sarah wept bitterly in the guest room. She wondered if it wasn't better to be born into lack—deaf, mute, sightless, orphaned, loveless—so that you'd never know life any other way. The memory of blessings now absent seemed an unendurable curse. Losing Freddy was agonizing. She understood her sister-in-law Martha's torture and Mrs. Storm's suffering.

Annie entered as Sarah's sobs gave way to labored hiccups.

She studied her, baffled. “Come now, sister, be strong. We can give in to our emotions once safely home.” She fussed with their luggage. “I packed your bag.”

Sarah turned her face toward the pillow, wishing Annie were a thousand miles away and also glad she wasn't.

“Where did you go?” Seeing a broken leaf clinging to Sarah's boot, she put down the bags and came to her bedside. “Something to do with Freddy?”

Though Sarah thought herself empty of tears, the mention of his name crushed her like a cider press. Annie ran her hand over Sarah's poplin skirt, soothing her in the old ways.

“He loves you. It's as plain as the nose on his face. Is that what happened? You told him of your female inabilities and he rejected you?”

Sarah hadn't ever discussed the subject with Annie or even her mother.
She couldn't imagine speaking of it to anyone else, particularly the man for whom she cared so deeply.

“He asked me to marry him.” Sarah gulped. “And I refused.”

She expected Annie's expression to be one of sympathy and comfort; instead, her sister strode from the bed in a fury.

“You are an
idiot
, Sarah Brown,” she seethed. “I thought perhaps he'd confessed his feelings for you. But romantic charms and a marriage proposal are
entirely
different. You
refused
?”

Sarah sat up on the bed. Her temper lit. Anger felt slightly better than grief. “What else could I do!”

Annie came within inches of her face, pointing a bony finger. “Married him, you witless girl. He was your chance. Now you've gone and condemned yourself to spinsterhood when you could've been a wife!”

Sarah reached to grab Annie's finger and snap it like a twig, but Annie pulled away. “I can't have children, Annie!” she hissed.

“So what! He wouldn't know that until at least a year after the wedding, and by then, vows would've been made. You would've been secured in a home of your own with a new family, prosperous in-laws, a husband with an income and a future,” she railed under her breath. “You wouldn't be poor anymore, living off the charity of richer men. You wouldn't have to be afraid. You wouldn't have to be a Brown! You'd be a Hill. All that
and
love?” She screwed up her face in disgust, then turned from Sarah to the vanity, where she fingered the plaster water pitcher. “There are those of us who would do anything for that opportunity.
Anything
. You're a grown woman, sister. It's time to put away childish flower fables and gallant ideas. They didn't do Father or our brothers any good.”

“You would have me lie to him? Trick him into a fruitless marriage for my own sake.” Sarah shook her head. “Father would be ashamed of the pitiful woman you've become.” She stood then, trembling. “Go back to North Elba. A small,
insignificant
life suits you. Not me.”

Sarah's voice was hoarse from crying. The girls stood facing each other: two wounded women speared through by truth.

Then Annie sat on the edge of the bed with her back to Sarah. “Maybe you're right about me. But you're wrong about marriage. You've tricked
yourself into believing it some idealistic portrait and only you know its secret. Do you think Mother was besotted with Father when they wed?” She turned her cheek to her shoulder to wipe away a tear. Her voice gave no hint of it. “She confessed to me that she thought him a terrifying old man with hair gone gray and patchy like the trees in December. She wanted spring, not winter. But she was sixteen and already once a widow. Young men want young wives, yet untouched. Had she ascribed to your sentimentalism, she might've lived her whole life in mourning clothes at the impoverished knee of her kin. A financial and social burden.

“Father was a good match, a step up in the world, with money and security. She learned to love him with the respect and gratitude so described in the Word. She gave him a family. She stood by him through joy, struggle, death, and disgrace. She did her duties with honor. We wouldn't be in this world if it weren't for that
insignificant
life.”

Sarah bit the inside of her cheek, cursing her words. It never failed that when she unleashed her tongue in spite, it scorched everyone—including herself. She wished she could undo it. She wasn't surprised by their mother's confession. She'd always known her parents' marriage had been one of reverence, not love. They shared very little beyond common children.

“Had they loved each other madly, we might never have been born,” continued Annie, adjusting her bodice and facing Sarah with renewed poise. “You've seen the couples doe-eyed for one another. The wife wants to dote on her husband instead of her children, and the husband worries that each new expectancy will harm his wife. Covetousness.”

Sarah didn't agree but held her tongue as recompense for earlier.