SHE AWOKE TO THE SMELL of frying eggs. Dressing behind the closed bed curtains, she made herself as decent as possible, combing her hair with her fingers. But she couldn't coil her hair and cover it, having lost her linen cap the day before. Her hair tumbled loose, spilling over her shoulders and down her back. She imagined she must look like a ghoul with her eyes swollen from too much crying. Opening the curtains, she stuck her feet into her shoes and made her way to the trestle table.
Gabriel's face was taut and drained, his eyes shadowed. He, too, must have had a hellish night. Without speaking, he passed her a trencher of fried eggs and cornbread, and a cup of milk. At least he still had hens and a cow, she thought, until she tasted the milk, which was so strong and musky it could only have come from a goat. She made an effort to empty her cup. Even goat's milk was too precious to waste.
This was her husband, Hannah thought as they ate in silence. This was the table where they supped together. She looked down at her own hands and saw May's hands. Finally she spoke.
"Will you take me to the graves?"
***
After feeding the dogs, he led Hannah down a narrow path through the trees. There was only room for them to walk single file. He spoke in a hollow voice with his back to her.
"My father thought he was clever, coming here to start his own plantation. But the land was too wild for him. Killed him, it did. Just like it killed your sister and the child."
His pace accelerated to a march. Hannah struggled to keep up. Then he stopped so abruptly that she bumped into his back.
"There you see them." He pointed.
On a grassy knoll near the river were three weedy mounds, each with its own wooden cross. The first cross was the biggest, made of two sanded oak planks neatly nailed together.
HERE LYETH NATHAN WASHBROOK, ESQUIRE
PLANTER
1639–1690
R.I.P.
Each letter had been carved with precision. Hannah imagined Gabriel patiently working the wood with chisel and hammer. By contrast, the other two crosses were made of rough planks lashed together with rawhide. The epitaphs were scratched in the horizontal plank, as crudely executed as paupers' graves at home.
Here lyes Hannah Washbrook, aged 7 days
1690
R.I.P.
Plainest of all was May's grave.
Here lyes May Washbrook
Hannah dropped to her knees in the long grass. Tears stung her eyes. When she found her voice, it came out like acid. "This does not look like the grave of a cherished wife." She swung around and looked Gabriel in the eye, not caring if she offended him. She thought of her parents' tabletop grave at home, the marker as enduring as the stone from which it had been hewn. These two flimsy crosses looked as if they could barely last through one more winter.
Gabriel recoiled. The muscles in his throat twitched. "It is true I am a poor engraver, but I did my best."
She looked at him in confusion. "But your father's grave..."
"Not my handiwork." He turned away. "One of the servants did carve his marker. A lad called James. My father favored him." Something in his voice sounded devastated. Three deaths in the space of a year.
Hannah rose shakily to her feet. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Washbrook. I am so sorry."
"No matter," he said tonelessly. "I will leave you here. I have work to do."
Before she could say anything, he had gone. Hannah knelt again on the green mound that covered her sister's body. She clutched handfuls of weeds and pulled them up by the roots. She was tempted to dig into the earth with her bare hands, scratching like a mole until she came to her sister's coffin. I shall never believe she is truly dead until I see her bones. In one of Joan's tales, a conjurer gathered a dead girl's scattered remains and played his harp until he charmed the living flesh back on the skeleton and the girl returned to life.
"I will tend your grave," she whispered. She would plant flowers on the mound. Foxglove and heartsease. As long as she lived, she vowed, her sister would never be forgotten.
***
Walking back up the path, Hannah could find no sign of Gabriel. Even his dogs were gone. She cursed herself for her cruel words. The way she had spoken to him was like bludgeoning a wounded man. May God forgive me for my sharp tongue.
Had there been a funeral for May? she wondered. In her letter, May had written of Cousin Nathan's burial and the scarcity of clergymen. We did for ourselves. Gabriel read from the Book of Common Prayer. He must have done the same for May. She pictured him broken at her grave with the prayer book in his hand.
"Gabriel!" She called his name, but he had vanished. There was only the rustle of the wind in the trees, the rush of the river, the harsh music of crows. For some time she followed the paths that sliced through the underbrush. Eventually she discovered a garden enclosed by a fence. Unlatching the gate, she stepped inside. Cabbage, kale, and orange pumpkins held out bravely against the weeds. In her father's botany books, she had read of these large North American gourds and seen pictures of them. She crouched beside one and pressed her fingernail into the hard rind. It barely made a scratch. There were so many New World plants of which she was ignorant. If Father were here, he would send her out to study their properties. Lucy had spoken of powerful physick herbs that were native to this country.
Hannah spun in a circle. She felt a sense of lightness, her sister's presence. The garden was May's handiwork, to be sure, planted from the seeds Hannah had sent along with her. Here were the stalks of foxglove. Its season had passed, but in spring it would rise again. In a sunny sheltered corner, she found a few heartsease flowers still in bloom. Peppermint had completely overrun another corner of the garden, but it was brittle and dormant now.
How late in the year was it? She had lost track of the days. The cloudy sky was full of birds heading south, and the ground was hard. Winter would come soon. Bleakness settled over her again, making her wonder where she would spend the dark, cold months.
Not far from the garden she found two shacks, standing about thirty feet apart, with a clump of trees and bushes between them. They must have been servants' quarters. Both dwellings had dirt floors littered by dead leaves. One was roomy, the other small. On the doorframe of the larger one, someone had carved notches, probably to mark the days.
Hannah was about to return to the house when something drew her toward the smaller shack. Her pulse raced as she stood in the doorway. She couldn't explain why. The hut was empty and bare, not a spoon or rag left behind. The blood rushed inside her ears, rising in a red tide. She could almost hear her sister's voice warning her to be careful. The rules here are different, love. Watch your step. On the lintel someone had carved a heart pierced by three arrows.
A memory came back to her of Joan laying out cards on the kitchen table. The three of spades. She shook her head. What nonsense was this? She shivered, teeth rattling. It was really too cold to be out without a shawl. Lifting her skirts, she ran back to the house.
***
Hannah stood on the porch, one palm on the closed door. "Mr. Washbrook? Gabriel?" There was no answer. If he had work to do, he would be outdoors, not inside the house.
By daylight, the house appeared a different place altogether. Though the benches were battered and the table scored from knives, she was astonished how clean and well ordered it was, especially considering a man lived here on his own. Nonetheless, she found a broom in the corner and began to sweep. Joan, who had never believed in Father's medicine of the humors, had said that keeping busy was the only true cure for melancholy. The devil gives idle hands work to do.
Once the floor was swept, she decided to search the place for some artifact of May. Surely Gabriel would forgive her. This had been her sister's home, after all, and what a comfort it would be to uncover some possession of hers.
Hannah opened a door that led to a narrow pantry, lit by a high window. Bunches of dried herbs and strings of onions hung from the ceiling. Stoppered clay jars lined the shelves. She lifted the lid of one jar and sniffed a powerful-smelling fat that she recognized from the previous night. Gabriel had used this to grease the pan. The fried fish had tasted delectable, but the fat in its pure state made her slam the lid back down.
In the other jars she found dried beans and peas. There was a barrel of salt pork, another barrel of dry maize kernels, a basket of eggs, three boxes of apples wrapped in straw, two more of some unknown tuber. In the far corner was a butter churn that looked as though it hadn't been used in some time. On the floor, arranged in a row, were pumpkins and gourds. Though the pantry seemed well stocked, she wondered whether there would be enough to get two people through the winter. Gabriel had thought he would have to provide only for himself. If she remained here, she would be a burden to him. He had been hospitable enough, but he had not invited her to stay.
Leaving the pantry, Hannah closed the door behind her. It wouldn't be respectable for a man and a woman to live together, so far apart from society, without even a servant for company. People would surmise the worst. Her reputation would be as ruined as May's had been in their village, even if she remained as ignorant of the whole business as some papist nun. It would do nothing for Gabriel's good name, either. She would have to leave. Where could she go? Back to Anne Arundel Town? If only she hadn't lost track of Lucy and Cassie. They would be able to tell her what a spinster with her education might do.
As long as she was here, she should make herself useful. There was nothing worse than a lazy houseguest. She should wash the window, air out the bed linens and curtains. Hunting for cleaning rags, she went to the chest and opened each drawer in turn. She found a worn pair of men's breeches, two linen shirts with raveled cuffs, a brown woolen waistcoat, and a folded greatcoat. She found a drawer of men's stockings and underlinen. In the very top drawer there were rolled-up maps of the Bay and surrounding plantations, but nothing that could have belonged to her sister. Not even a handkerchief. What had become of her beautiful wedding dress? Her green cloak?
Maybe Adele had stolen May's clothes when she ran away. But when she thought back to her sister's letters, that made no sense. May had praised Adele, saying she was loyal and good, her only friend on this shore. Could that girl have been so treacherous to a mistress so fond of her? The hair on Hannah's nape prickled at the memory of standing before the hut with the pierced heart carved in the lintel. What a tangle. She couldn't begin to comprehend any of it without Gabriel's help. She would have to gather her nerve, question him more closely, even if she risked offending him again. On her own, it was just one big riddle. The deductive reasoning Father had taught her was of no use. Joan could have made more sense of it with her cards.
She reached for the curtains of the bed she assumed had been May and Gabriel's. They were thick with dust and could use a good beating. When she unhooked them from the bed frame, she saw there was no mattress, just the mesh of ropes that had once supported it. Hannah stared at that blank space until her stomach clenched. She thought of May bearing down in childbirth. The mattress had been ruined. Perhaps after her death Gabriel had burned it for fear of spreading contagion.
But where could May's trunk be? It was too large an object to hide, too heavy a thing to be easily stolen. An impulse overtook her. Crouching down, she looked under the bed. Though the bed was high, there was not enough space to conceal a trunk. But some object was stored there. Her fingers grabbed the edge and slowly pulled it out into the daylight. When she saw what it was, she cried more than she had at May's grave. Grief was a terrible trickster, Joan always said. Just when you thought you could live with your pain, grief found a new way to twist its blade into your flesh.
The cradle was veiled in cobwebs, stuffed with stained rags. Though it was built of sturdy planks, one of the side walls was loose. A crack ran down the headboard. Hannah upended the cradle, dumping out the rags. Fetching a clean cloth and the bucket of water Gabriel had left on the table, she scrubbed at the dirt and grime until the grain of the wood was visible. The cradle was made of birch. Joan would be pleased, for she had always said that a birchwood cradle protected by a rowan cross would guard the baby from every evil. It would keep the faeries from stealing the child.
Hannah held the cradle as if it were an infant. Setting it down again, she rocked it gently. She ran her finger up and down the crack, which could be sanded smooth or varnished but never mended.
A fever moved through her. Before she took the curtains out to air, she had to find something else, another clue. The dresser contained only crockery, knives, and spoons. The oak box on top of the chest of drawers housed the family Bible and the Book of Common Prayer.
She climbed the ladder to the trapdoor. To open it, she had to push with both hands. After several attempts, she finally heaved it so that it fell on the attic floor with an explosion of dust that left her coughing. Climbing up the ladder, she poked her head in the opening. It was the darkest attic she had ever seen, no window to pierce the gloom. The light coming from below wasn't strong enough to illuminate more than what lay in the immediate vicinity of the trapdoor. The air was stale and smelled of mildew.
Backing down the ladder, she found the candle stub she had used the night before, lit it from the hearth embers, and picked her way back up the rungs. The ceiling slanted sharply on either side, but it was high enough in the middle to allow her to stand. She held out the candle in different directions. Indistinct shapes covered the floor. Sleeping pallets? The candle flame revealed cobwebs, thick as carded wool, that coated the eaves. Gritting her teeth, she took a few steps. A scuttling noise made her think of beetles rushing for cover. Her foot caught on some object. As she fought to keep her balance, her free arm flailed and brushed the cobwebs. Spider silk coated her hand.
She stopped short, trembling. What would Gabriel think if he knew she was groping around in his attic like a thief? She couldn't get down that ladder fast enough. Back in the main room, she snuffed out the candle and put it away.
***
Hannah washed her hands. She took down the curtains from the other bed and stripped off the linens. Carrying them outside, she shook out the dust until her arms ached, then hung them over bushes to air. She swept and scrubbed the floor, finding only a chamber pot beneath the bed where she had slept. She carried the furs Gabriel slept in to the porch and shook them out, too, then put them back, careful to make them appear as if they had not been disturbed. The skins still had an animal scent clinging to them. Or maybe it was Gabriel's smell, the piny odor of male sweat. She ran to the river to fetch fresh water, scrubbing down the table and dresser. Then she swept the pantry and wiped down the shelves. Last she washed the windows, hung the bed curtains back up, and made her bed.
When she had finished cleaning, she unpacked the bar of lye soap from her trunk, took the bucket, and headed for the river. In a sheltered place surrounded by bushes and pines, she filled the bucket, then stripped and soaped herself. The cold water ran in rivulets down her goose-pimpled skin. Joan would say she was courting sickness. Even Father would disapprove, but somehow, after seeing her sister's grave and the crack in the cradle, she felt dirty and had to be clean.
She dried herself on the cloth she had brought with her, then dressed again as quickly as she could. The blinding sun descended toward the treetops. It was much later than she had thought. There were so many narrow paths cutting through the woods, she was afraid of losing her way in the twilight. The forest echoed with noises she could not identify. Creatures slithered in the fallen leaves. Things crashed through the underbrush. A blurry shape came toward her. The bucket fell from her hand as she screamed. The thing grunted and squealed, dashing across the path. Hannah let out a long breath. It was just a pig, left to forage in the woods. But it could have been a bear.
If May were here, she would laugh at her for being so afraid. Hannah picked up the bucket. She should fill it up again. They would need water for cooking. Shoulders rigid, she forced herself back to the river.
The full bucket was heavy and slowed her progress. When the handle cut into her palm, she switched to the other hand. May was made of tougher material than she was. Her sister was bigger, stronger. She was brave. But had her fearlessness been her downfall? Hannah wondered as she trudged up the path. If May had been a more timid, careful soul, would she still be alive? Setting the bucket down, she rubbed her sore palms on her skirt. Nonsense. May had died after giving birth. That had nothing to do with being brave or cowardly. Then Hannah considered. Gabriel hadn't actually told her how her sister had died. She would have to ask him. As May's sister, she had a right to know.
***
A few yards from the house, she came to a halt, water sloshing from the bucket and wetting her skirt. Gabriel sat on the porch while his dogs watched him intently. When they tried to edge closer, he scolded them. Deep in concentration, he did not seem to know she was there. Even the dogs ignored her. Before she could announce her presence, she saw the knife in his hand.
He was skinning a rabbit, slowly working the hide off the body. He had already gutted and beheaded the animal. Where its legs had been were only stumps. Blood seeped from the open belly, falling in the weeds at Gabriel's feet. The dogs strained, as though longing to lick up the blood, but he spoke firmly, keeping them back.
A sick taste filled her mouth. Why did the sight disturb her? She had held the bowl to catch blood and pus when Father lanced his patients. She had cut into men's living flesh. This was just a rabbit.
Gabriel dumped the skinned beast into a bowl and set it on the porch behind him, out of reach of the dogs. Balancing the skin on a plank, he worked over the hide with the blunt edge of his knife, scraping away the bloody pieces of flesh and tissue that stuck to the soft inside of the pelt.
A dull pounding sounded inside her temples. She looked him over, from the worn soles of his buckskin boots, to his lean limbs and torso, to his young face with the shadowed eyes of someone much older. A wicked thing took hold of her as she pretended to look at him through her sister's eyes. In the golden evening light, she could not decide which shone more brightly, the blade in his hand or his long black hair. She imagined him holding her sister.
He looked up and caught her staring. Her skin burned. Remembering how harshly she had spoken to him that morning, she didn't know what to say.
"Did you go in the river?" he asked. "Your hair is wet."
Hannah fingered her damp red locks, now frizzing like wool. How immodest she had become, wandering around with her bare wet head. She would have to search her trunk for a new linen cap to cover her hair.
"You court the grippe." His eyes did not leave her face. "Bathing in the river so late in the year. You risk peril, too. A public waterway, it is, and you know not who travels there."
Hannah set the bucket down at her feet. "I fetched water."
"I only take water from the creek out back. Mayhap you have not yet seen the creek, but the water there is purer."
She nodded, feeling like a child.
His face softened. "Go in the house and sit by the fire until your hair is dry."
She carried the bucket inside. He had already built the hearth fire. Onions and white chunks of tuber simmered in the pot. The steam was fragrant with rosemary and thyme. Fetching her comb from her trunk, she sat on a bench and worked through her tangled hair.
A while later he came in and melted grease in the skillet. Then he chopped the rabbit into pieces and tossed them in. She had eaten nothing since breakfast, and her hunger left her faint. Gabriel stirred the pot of steaming vegetables with a wooden spoon.
Hannah looked at him shyly before turning to the fire again. "I quite forgot myself today. I had no right to speak to you the way I did this morning." She took a deep breath. "This has been so strange for me."
"You are in a strange land," he said. "Nothing is as you thought it would be."
She wondered if he noticed that she had cleaned the house. Or if he resented the liberty she had taken in doing so. This was his domain.
Moving away from the fire, Gabriel cleaned his knife blade, then sat down and began to sharpen it with a stone. Each movement was practiced. Hannah thought he must take great pride in his knife, the way he carried it with him everywhere. Such a sharp blade must be a treasure out here in the wilderness. It could make a difference, she thought, whether or not he had meat in his pot or skins to keep him warm in winter.
How far I have come, but to what end? The months of her passage seemed like years. England was a lifetime away. The girl she had been in her father's house didn't exist anymore. But she was still unsure who the new Hannah was. What shape would her life take now? Looking at Gabriel, she summoned her courage and will.
"Could you please forgive me one more intrusion? I must ask you how it happened." She clasped her hands in her lap. "How did my sister die?"
He put his knife away. "Two years ago she did go into childbirth. A midwife was sent for, but the child was sickly and died before it could be christened."
Despair closed her in its fist. She was a girl on the Bristol pier, holding on to her sister with all her strength, begging her not to go.
"This land does destroy people," he said. "It does demand blood like heathen sacrifice. I told you so this morning."
"The child lived only seven days." Hannah tried to picture the doomed baby. "But what of my sister? What became of her?" She leaned so close to the hearth that the heat blasted her like the flames of hell. If she got any nearer, a spark would catch her skirt and she would burn to cinders.
"She was sorely grieved to lose the child." He stood up and paced to the dresser. "Then she did perish, too."
Hannah fidgeted on the bench. "How, Gabriel?"
"What questions you ask."
"She was my only sister. I must know."
He stood frozen, his back to her. "The childbed fever."
"Were I only there." Hannah covered her face. "I know something of physick. I might have saved her. Did the midwife not give her medicine?"
Something came out of his throat. "By then the midwife was gone." He spoke as though each word had to be dredged from the bottom of his misery. "Midwives are scarce on this shore. They do not linger. Please," he begged her, his voice stretched painfully tight, "let's speak no more of it."
Hannah wept in silence. How had her May lost the will to live? "What will you do now?" she asked him.
"What can I do?" He turned at the noise of the hissing pot.
"It will boil over." Hannah covered her hand with a rag and moved the hook so that the pot got less fire. "How can you go on like this?" She stirred the pot of vegetables, then the chunks of rabbit meat frying in the skillet. "Alone?"
He said nothing.
"And what of your tobacco harvest?"
"There is no harvest." He laughed curtly. "Do you know how many hands it takes to raise tobacco? We barely pulled in a good crop when there were eight of us working in the fields from sunrise to dusk. After your sister died, they all fled."
"How will you keep your leasehold?"
"I will lose it." He spoke plainly. "There are many things that Paul Banham covets. And he does covet my land. When the news goes round that there is no more tobacco here, he will drive me away."
"It is true, he covets much." Hannah winced and thought about Mrs. Gardiner. "But to rob you of your land? When the ship anchored at Gardiner's Landing, he offered to deliver to you any goods you had ordered from the ship. He offered to give you credit in his own name."
"He would have me beholden to him. Credit would turn to debt, and then he would relieve me of my land and make me at best a tenant farmer."
He emptied the skillet of rabbit meat into the simmering pot of vegetable stew. The meat bobbed on the surface, the bloody red now brown.
"To survive here you must be either master or servant." Gabriel spoke bitterly. "My father was all for being master. He ruled his servants with a bullwhip. He didn't spare me, either." He broke off, nearly losing his grip on the spoon as he stirred.
"Then he did die, and that was the first breakdown of rule. Then your sister. She was so proud." He looked away. "Adele obeyed her, and the manservants, too, in the beginning. She knew how to work her will. But after she died, all was undone. I could be no master. The manservants had seen how my father had whipped me just as he had whipped them. They saw no difference between our stations. To be their master, I would have to show them. I would have to pick up the whip and do my will with them, as my father had done, but I could not."
The rising steam glazed his face. "My curse is that I can be no master," he said in a tired voice. "But neither will I have a master ruling me. I aim to be a free man, left in peace, with none but God above me."
"My father taught me the history of the Civil War," Hannah said. "Once there were many who thought as you do. The Diggers and the Levelers would have no masters over them and refused to pay rent to their lords. They thought the land itself was a commonwealth to be shared by all. The Quakers refuse to bow to any man, even the King." She stopped short, feeling foolish. He was so quiet, it was as though she were talking to herself.
She cleared her throat. "I will lay the table." Crossing to the dresser, she took out the wooden trenchers and the horn spoons.
"You are very different from your sister." The hearth flames caught his face and threw his shadow on the wall.
"In our village," she told him, "they used to jest that one of us must be a changeling."
He did not laugh but regarded her solemnly. "You have had an uncommon education, I think."
"Aye. It hardly mattered to Father that I was a girl. He taught me everything he knew, and he was a very wise man." Regret flared when the words had left her mouth. She hoped she hadn't caused Gabriel any more pain. If her father had been kind, Gabriel's had whipped him like a slave.
"You were fortunate indeed," he said. "My father taught me letters and sums and the art of surveying—that was his profession until we came here. But I fear he never knew what to do with me. My mother died when I was only small. He was left to rear me on his own. He thought he could make a man of me, but the harder he was on me, the more I resisted him."
"Can you remember your mother?" Hannah asked him softly. "I can't remember mine. She died when I was born." The family curse, she thought. To think May had come to the same end.
"She was a Welshwoman. Name of Olwen. Full of fire." A smile spread across his face, making him look for once like an unburdened young man. "Everyone who knew us in Anne Arundel Town said I was the spit of her. I inherited her stubbornness." He laughed. "She used to tell me stories about the faery ointment and the glamoury eye."
"The what?" Hannah leaned closer to him.
"Oh, it's just an old wives' tale, but it was my favorite." He gave the stew another stir. "Once there was a servant girl who could do the spinning of ten others. She worked so fast because the faeries were spinning for her."
Hannah bit her lip, remembering May at the spinning wheel, how swiftly she had pumped the treadle.
"Well, one night the servant girl wandered out to take the air and never came back. You see, she had struck a bargain with the faery folk. In exchange for their help with the spinning, she had agreed to marry one of their number. Her old mistress heard not a word from her until a year later, when the faery man came riding to her door. You see, the woman was a midwife and the girl about to deliver her firstborn."
Hannah wondered how, given everything that had happened, he could sit there and tell that tale. A look of pain crossed his face, but then it was gone and his eyes were far away, as though lost in memories of childhood.
"So the midwife went into the dank cave where the girl lived with the faery man. 'Ach, the wench has come down in the world,' the woman thought. The new mother had no bed but a pile of dead leaves, yet she seemed content enough, and the baby was bonny and strong. The faery man gave the midwife a jar of the faery ointment and told her to put it on the infant's eyelids. She did as she was told, but couldn't resist rubbing a little of the stuff on her own left eyelid. That's how she got gifted with the glamoury eye. With her right eye, she still saw the same cave with the new mother and baby lying on the dead leaves, but her left eye saw that the cave was a palace with golden ceilings. The mother and baby lay on a high, rich bed with silk draperies. The midwife had always thought the faery man a rough-looking fellow, but now he was as wondrous to look upon as the sun itself."
Hannah smiled. "I should like to see with the glamoury eye, too."
"When I was small," he said, "I dipped into my mother's jar of bear grease. I pretended it was the faery ointment and rubbed it on my eyelids."
"Bear grease?" Hannah thought of the mysterious fat he had used for cooking. "Did it give you the glamoury eye?"
"It might have done." He offered her a half-smile. "Sometimes when my father was at his wit's end with me, he used to say I wasn't real at all, but fey, like one of the creatures in my mother's tales." He leaned over the pot. "The stew is ready."
While they ate, she noted how lean he was, how he wolfed down his portion as though he had been famished for days. He ladled more stew on his trencher.
"What will you do," she asked, "if they take away your leasehold?"
He shrugged. "I always knew my father's house was only a way station. I am no planter, but I know enough of the forest. If this country is brutal, then it is also big. When they come to take the land, I will vanish into the forest."
Hannah shook her head. "You cannot live alone all your life. There must be some settlement, a village of Quakers mayhap..."
"I have spent too long with the dead," he said, "to go back into the world of the living."
Hannah shivered. "You cannot mean what you say. What of the Indians? I have heard of massacres."
"They only kill those who take their land. I told you I am no planter, just one lone hunter. I don't think they would trouble me. I am no harm to them or anyone." The fire leapt and the shadow of his hand lifting the spoon darted across the wall. "But I think I will be left in peace through the winter. Banham won't come upriver until his men clear the logs and beaver dams away." He glanced at her. "But you have more pressing troubles, I think. What will you do?"
"I will go downriver." There was no enthusiasm in her voice.
"It is better for you," he said, "to rejoin society. I will take you to Banham's as soon as I can build a canoe."
***
Asleep in the curtained bed, Hannah whimpered, dreaming of skinned rabbits hopping through the forest. They left behind a trail of blood, which seeped into the river, staining the water wine-red. The trees in the forest screeched and moaned, the clamor so great that she lurched awake, clutching the bedclothes to her chest. The wailing wound around her, a tightening cord. The noise came from the corner by the hearth, where Gabriel slept in his bed of skins.
Swinging her legs off the bed, she planted them on the cold floor. A few glowing embers in the hearth guided her path across the room. He cried and thrashed like a haunted man, so loudly that his pain took shape and substance. In the darkness, Hannah saw her sister's face, her sister's cold body in his arms as he carried her to the river to bury. Grief has undone him. He's just as lost for her as I am. Men were confounding creatures, as different from women as the sun was from the moon. She remembered how her father had shriveled up and withered away after May had left. Men didn't weep openly but held their sorrow inside, where it festered and poisoned them.
"Gabriel!" she cried hoarsely. "Wake up." She found his shoulder and gave it a shake before backing away.
He sat up with a gasp.
"You were dreaming, Gabriel." She hurried to her bed.
***
The next morning his face was gray. He couldn't seem to look her in the eye.
"You dream of her, too." Hannah looked down at her bowl of corn mush. "I have dreamt of her every night in this house." She put down her spoon. "I loved her more than anyone, even more than I loved my father." She had never made this confession before.
"Let's not speak of the dead, Hannah." He got up from the table. "I can't abide it. She's gone and I can't abide it." At that he walked out the door and whistled to his dogs.
***
Dispiritedly she washed the wooden bowls with the water he had fetched that morning. Gabriel had left her alone again. She had no idea what to do with herself. Rummaging through her trunk, she found her second linen cap. There was no mirror, but she tried to make herself as respectable as possible, even though it seemed rather pointless in this wilderness. May would have let her hair tumble free, but Hannah braided hers, pinned it to her head, and covered it with the cap.
She carried the dishwater to the porch and emptied it in the weeds. When she turned to go back inside, she saw the rabbit skin Gabriel had pegged up on the outer wall. Slowly she raised her hand to stroke the soft fur. Then she decided to hunt for the creek he had mentioned the day before.
Picking her way down the network of paths, she passed the garden and the servants' shacks. The path widened as it went by the chicken coop. Gabriel and his dogs were nowhere to be found, but she heard tinkling bells. Drawing to a halt, she held her breath as a goat ambled out of the bushes and gazed at her with its yellow devil's eyes. In the distance, beyond the house, smoke rose in a tall column. Had Gabriel lit a bonfire?
The earth sloped down a steep bank into a ravine where ribbons of white water gushed over rocks. She followed the footholds worn into the ground. Once May had gone down here to get water and probably to launder. She imagined her sister beating dirty clothes against the rocks, hands rough and swollen in the cold water. She remembered the way May had laughed and said, Fancy his name being Washbrook. Wandering downstream, she came to a still pool that reflected her forlorn face. Once Joan had told her she could look into the future by gazing into a pan of water. Hannah hovered over the pool until her neck hurt. After a time her reflection blurred. She fancied she could see her sister staring back. May had aged. Dark rings marked the skin beneath her eyes. Her hair hung loose and uncombed. Her lips were bitten and bleeding.
Hannah lifted her head at the sound of an ax striking a tree in the distance where smoke billowed in the sky. The ax blows were rhythmic as drumbeats. Gabriel must be cutting firewood for winter. He had so much work to do. Really, she should be helping him. She should weed the garden, gather eggs, prepare the evening meal. Filling the bucket, she trudged up the slope toward the house.
The sound of chopping continued. She heard an enormous creak as the tree gave way and crashed to the ground. The sound seemed to come from near the tobacco barn.
She stopped at the chicken coop and filled the water trough before marching back to the creek to fill the bucket again. The chopping resumed. Once he had felled the tree, he had to cut and split the logs. It might keep him busy till sunset. Carrying her bucket of water, she passed by the side of the house where a blood-red bird flitted through the trees. When she followed its flight, she noticed a shuttered window in the attic wall. If she wanted to search the attic for May's trunk, she only had to go to the window and open the shutters—then she would have all the light she needed.
***
She mounted the ladder and heaved open the trapdoor. Gabriel wouldn't have to know. As long as she heard the chopping, she knew he would be away from the house.
It was a straightforward proposition. The attic window was on the wall opposite the hearth. Downstairs, she had already measured the distance by pacing from the ladder to the wall and counting her steps. Twelve measured paces would bring her to the shuttered window. Candle in hand, she put her feet down cautiously, aware that unseen objects might lie in her path.
At the count of twelve, she held the candle over the cobwebbed wood until she made out shutters and a latch, which gave way with a squeak. When she pushed the shutters open, light flooded through the glassless window. Blowing out the candle, she turned.
On the floor lay a pallet speckled with mildew. Near the trapdoor, she spotted the object that she had tripped over the day before—May's spinning wheel lying on its side. She remembered Gabriel's story of the girl who called upon the faeries to help with her spinning, only to be obliged to marry one of them. How could he have stored the spinning wheel so carelessly? May's had been her most treasured possession. After righting the spinning wheel, Hannah wiped the dust and cobwebs away with her skirt. She spun the wheel and examined the spindle and gears. By some miracle, it appeared to be in good order. Leaving the wheel in midspin, she moved to the other end of the attic. In a dark corner, away from the window, she found her sister's trunk and dragged it to the window. Outside, the red bird sang with unbearable sweetness. Holding her breath, Hannah threw open the lid and went through the chest, one item at a time. She recognized the infant clothes passed down from Mother and the quilted counterpane that she and Joan had helped stitch. But there was not a single item of May's clothing. What had become of her wedding gown?
At the bottom of the trunk was the first letter Hannah had written to her. With a sinking heart, she realized that May had been dead by the time the second letter arrived—if it had arrived at all. Also at the bottom of the trunk was the leather-bound book Hannah remembered Father giving May—their mother's receipt book of cookery and household physick. Father had kept it with his private mementos of their mother until the day before May had sailed.
Hannah Thorn Powers
This her own Book
1663
Underneath, May had penned her own name in a bolder hand.
May Powers Washbrook
1689
Though the ink had faded and the pages had yellowed, the script was clear to read. Looking at the pages, Hannah tried to catch some essence of the woman who had died giving birth to her.
To make a Soop
Take a Leg of Beef, and boil it down with some Salt, a Bundle of sweet Herbes, an Onion, a few Cloves, a bit of Nutmeg; boil three Gallons of Water to one; then take two or three pounds of lean Beef cut in thin Slices; then put in your Stew-pan a Piece of Butter, as big as an Egg, and flour it. And let the Pan be hot, and shake it till the Butter be brown; then lay your Beef in your Pan over a pretty quick Fire, cover it close, give it a turn now and then, and strain in your strong Broth, and a Handfull of Spinnage and Endive boil'd green, and drained, then have Pullets ready boil'd, and cut in Pieces, and Toastes fry'd.
The pages were well fingered and stained with broth. Hannah pictured the book lying open on the trestle table as May and Adele labored over the soup pot. She turned to the physick receipts.
A Stay to prevent a sore Throat in the Small-Pox
Take Rue, shred it very fine, and give it a bruise; mix it with Honey and Album Graecum, and work it together; put it over the Fire to heat, sew it up in a Linen Stay, and apply it to the Throat pretty warm: As it dries repeat it.
A Receipt for a Consumptive Cough
Take of the Siroop of white and red Poppies of each three Ounces, of Barley, Cinamon-water, and red Poppy-water, of each two Ounces, of Tincture of Saffron one Ounce, Liquid Laudanum forty Drops, and as much Spirit of Sulphur as will make it acid. Take three or four Spoonfulls of it every Night going to Bed; increase or diminish the Dose, according as you find it agrees with you.
Hugging the book to her chest, Hannah knelt on the dusty attic floor until she lost sensation in her legs. The red bird with its tufted head still warbled, but the chopping had ceased. She heard the noise of sawing. As pins and needles shot through her calves, she struggled to her feet and limped to the window. Already the sun was sinking. Soon Gabriel would return. She closed May's trunk and then the shutters, but took the receipt book with her and concealed it in her own trunk.
***
Heading in the direction of the sawing, she found Gabriel in the woods behind the tobacco barn. The felled trunk of a massive pine, stripped of branches and bark, rested on split logs. Gabriel worked the top of the log with a saw. His face was grimy, marked in wood dust. When he caught sight of her, he wiped his forehead on his sleeve. "This is for you."
She looked at him blankly. "What do you mean?"
"I am making a canoe to take you downriver."
Hannah lowered her head, not knowing how to thank him. "Where did you learn how to do such a thing?"
"When we lived in Anne Arundel Town, I apprenticed as a boat builder. A good skill to have in these parts." He held up his blistered palms. "Tonight I shall rub my hands with bear grease."
"Shall I fetch eggs and vegetables for our dinner?"
He nodded and began to saw again. "There is still a little more I can do before nightfall."
***
Hannah noted she was a poor cook compared to him. Her stew consisted of cabbage, onions, and turnip simmered with salt and herbs. It wasn't nearly as rich as the rabbit stew he had made for her. She boiled eggs to serve on the side. When Gabriel dragged himself through the door, he ate three trenchers without complaint. After the meal, he took the jar of grease from the pantry and rubbed it into his raw hands.
"I have clean rags," Hannah offered, "if you want to bandage your hands for the night."
"No, I just want to sleep now."
Hannah washed up and retired early so that he could, too.
***
May sat at her spinning wheel beside the bower of white roses in Father's garden. May was an unmarried girl again, the beautiful, loose sister for whom the boys yearned. She laughed as she spun, foot pumping the treadle until the wheel spokes blurred. Then she pricked her finger on the spindle, her blood spraying the roses red. The earth demands blood. And the deep red roses were so heavy, so huge, that they toppled from their stems, toppled on Hannah, pinning her to the mattress so she couldn't move. She could only choke on their musky-sweet odor. The roses took the form of a man, a red man whose flesh branded her. He kissed her violently, his breath on her face like heat from a brick oven. Wrenching herself awake, Hannah threw off the heavy blankets and fought for air. The darkness clung to her like a shroud as she listened to Gabriel toss in his sleep.
***
Hannah rose with the first light, taking pains not to wake him. Putting on her cloak over her shift, she slipped into her shoes and crept out the door. She hurried to the creek, headed away from the worn path, beating her way through the brambles until she came to a still eddy enclosed in blazing red sumac. Shedding her clothes, she knelt in the cold water. Shivering and panting, she slapped the water against her belly and chest, then grabbed a fistful of ferns to scrub her skin until it chafed.