I have never been one for surprises. When we were kids, Remus hid a honey cake in my dollhouse. It wasn’t on purpose. He’d snuck a piece of the delicious honey-soaked cake before supper and needed to get rid of it before Mother found out. The only thing he could think of was to put it in my dollhouse and leave it out back on the porch. It wasn’t his fault that the bees claimed it. He had no way of knowing I would carry the wooden dollhouse to school later that week. Shake it up and down, up and down, as I skipped to school. I opened the house during show-and-tell.
“See the pretty furniture my daddy made?” I said.
Daddy had carved each piece of furniture, painted the house inside and out to look just like our real house. Mirrors and all. There I was, holding up a tiny couch with dark red cushions filled with bees. Angry, they streamed out of the dollhouse and stung the nearest flower they could find. Me. I wouldn’t have known it was Remus’s fault if he hadn’t come crying to me, apologizing for it. I warned him I’d get him back. I warned him.
THE bells ring and the whole town files in for Sunday service. It’s midmorning but there’s no sun to speak of and the air is thick with the promise of rain. I’m wedged in between Delilah and Elias, with his brother and father close to the aisle. We’re in the family box. The boys sit on phone books, their little legs swinging, backs straight, faces streaked with tears as the pastor preaches about damnation and love, damnation and duty, damnation and damnation. I don’t have a favorite and even if I did, I wouldn’t wish nothing bad on the other one. I would take them with me when I go only I know that would crush poor Delilah, who only ever had good luck and now has Margaret whispering in her ear about how even though he’s been gone five years, Estelle doesn’t seem to be mourning her father.
“Mum, are you all right?” Delilah pats my hand, gives me a handkerchief to wipe my own wet face. She’s as tender as Jasmine would be at a time like this.
I squeeze Delilah’s hand tight, hoping she reads it as Get away from this place and hoping her squeeze back means I promise to. The pastors take turns talking about the importance of good deeds. To hear them tell it, folks should be grateful for kindness, grateful for one another and grateful to be here in Evanshire instead of anywhere else in the world. Folks should count their blessings, and by folks, they say, they mean—and they point here—me. I’m nodding along like everyone else until the choir, pastors, Sunday schoolchildren, Mother Sampson, Delilah and even Elias turn to stare at me.
I’m suddenly hot, skin scalding, scalp tingling, fingers cracking in a way Estelle would never do although, from the sounds of it, pre-rescued Estelle just might have. Delilah’s hand feels like an iron pressed against my back. My grandsons slip off with the rest of the children to perform the first part of the two-part Turn Not Your Back on Home, a play about an old woman plotting to run away from Evanshire. My heart’s beating so loud that I’m pretty sure everyone can hear it. In the play, the children ask if anyone has a confession. I might be imagining it but the child cast as “the woman” looks a lot like Estelle and I’m pretty sure she’s wearing a dress that up until this morning was out hanging on my line.
It’s not possible. Unless they’ve slipped into my house and overheard me praying to the ancestors, rifled through my papers and read them, they can’t know I’m planning on leaving. I know it but my hands are still shaking. The junior choir’s singing the finale. It’s a capella. In round-robin they chant about lights, lights, and torches in the night, while Elias and Tobias have their first duet in falsetto. My little angels sing beautifully about fallen apples overflowing with rotten seeds. It’s like they’re singing just for me, which is only fitting since the lead female, now revealed as Little Estelle, opens her mouth to confess just as the curtain closes.
They get two standing ovations and, even though I don’t really want to, I’m on my feet clapping and whistling like everyone else. When the collection plate comes around, once to build a wall to surround Evanshire and once for the Christingle, I leave two coins in each plate, twice as much as Estelle would have done, to show there’s no hard feelings. Delilah is sorry but although she’s been for supper every night for more nights than I could have imagined, tonight she has to be with Mother Sampson and won’t I join them?
Everyone stops. Children rushing from the stage down to their waiting parents stop mid-stride. Parents are mid-congratulations, words plastered on tongues. Pastors are mid-blessing, caught between giving and taking. Even the coins seem to stop clinking. The windows are open so the birds are still singing except for the whorish seagulls who scream throughout the service and scream even louder now as if I’m the best sort of fish. One that’s done the work for them and caught my own self. Everyone’s waiting. I gather my stole, the flowers and the beautiful program, check it again and note that Part II is at dusk. I kiss Delilah on the cheek. “I’ll be there as soon as I pick up a fresh pie,” I say. “It’s going to be a long night.” My mouth’s so dry that the words almost get stuck in it.
Margaret offers to get it for me, take it to Mother Sampson’s this afternoon so it’s ready for us. My heart stops, but I thank her and tell her I have to bake it first and ask if she wouldn’t mind also hanging out the wash I’ve left in a pile so I wouldn’t be late for church and if she wouldn’t mind that, while she’s hanging out the wash, please and thank you, fetch the casserole from the sideboard since bringing supper is the least I can do and if she doesn’t mind that too, thank you very much, visiting the sick and shut-in since I have a leeching scheduled that I’m not sure can wait much longer. Margaret doesn’t mind doing it, of course, but wouldn’t feel comfortable with the sick visits and actually she has remembered some chores of her own so she’ll just meet me at Mother Sampson’s after the play if that’s all right? Of course it is.
AT home, I strip out of Estelle’s clothes immediately. They’re too heavy, too bulky to be good for anything other than bedding, so I fold up a sweater to use as a sack. I put on a dress I sewed myself with pockets in places pockets aren’t meant to be. I hide the stones in the pockets and stuff the sack full of beans, canned fruits, thick-crusted sandwiches with thin streaks of jam, and trinkets I’ve taken from neighbors I’ve nursed. They won’t be missed. It’s almost dark. I light the candles, place them in each window. I’m wrapping a fruitcake in wax paper when there’s a knock at the door.
My legs tremble. Another knock. Inside, the house creaks and settles. It must be windy out there. I’m shivering. I haven’t lit the fire though I’ve brought in fresh logs, rotten all of them, to sit in the woodstove. At the sign—a sharp rap, followed by two short ones—I open the door. Romulus is there, his wooden stick raised, all set to knock again.
“Got everything, Osira?” he asks. It feels so good to hear him call my name that I almost cry out. “We have to hurry.”
We’re going to find the children, I can feel it. I stumble a little. He steadies me, hushes me. He’s already down the front porch ready to slip into the night. I don’t even know where we’re going. It doesn’t really matter, he’s my brother, and there’s nowhere I wouldn’t follow him. Sooner or later we’ll find our way home, or run out of wells to fall into. I say a silent goodbye to Evanshire. This place is full of secrets.
Other than the lights from the house casting shadows across the windows, the leaves and our feet, the only other thing moving is the thin line of light from the torches headed toward the Town Hall. I imagine this is the gathering—the part where someone—more than likely Margaret, one of the pastors or Mother Sampson—reads out all of the strikes against the accused and someone else determines the amount of the debt and the terms of repayment. The whole town will be there. To hear the children tell it, it all ends with pitchforks and torches just as I’d expect from a place with no Moving On. Judgment is quick. The bells ring. It’s the start of the procession. Both congregations, led by the pastors and the children, make their way toward us.
“Ready,” I say. We’ll take our chances at the next town. Unless plague or word about how Romulus and I got here reaches there before we do, the well won’t be sealed yet. The song is louder. The rhythm is moving, fast-paced, something to run by. It beats so loud it almost sounds like singing. I look up to see if Romulus can hear it too. The look on his face, his lips parted, eyes half-closed, arm outstretched reaching for me, show me he does. The singing is the choir. Even from here, I hear their a capella hymns, voices lifted high in praise, almost like angels leading wolves to slaughter lambs. I close the door, turn the key in the lock, and slide it under the welcome mat for the next Estelle.