TIME SLOWS DOWN to a nearly stagnant trickle of minutes and hours, and yet one morning I awaken and realize it’s been almost a week since that awful day. I want to throw my body against the uncaring hands of the clock. I’m afraid that with every stroke of the hour that my memories of her will fade, and that I will acclimate to the numbness, as if it was always such and she was nothing more than golden-tinged dream.
I wander the house, uneasy and restless. We’ve barely lived here two months but every room holds some memory of Emeline. There was never any need for her to have a room of her own; we always shared a bed in Boston. But Father built Willow Hall with five bedchambers—including a nursery on the third floor—anticipating that we would each have our own bed with room to spare for overnight guests. Many nights Emeline would come tiptoeing down and slip into my bed, where I would tell her stories until she fell asleep, curled around my arm.
Snip pads behind me as I stumble into the nursery. I never spent much time in here, and I assumed Emeline didn’t either. We were always so busy exploring or sprawled out in the library surrounded by stacks of books. She was such an old soul, I forget sometimes that she was just a child of eight. But as I stand enveloped by the heavy silence of the nursery, it dawns on me that she did still spend time here, that she did leave her mark.
Bottle flies hurl themselves at the windows. Joe has been setting out jars of vinegar to trap them, but they don’t seem to be helping much, and I have to bat a few of the more aggressive flies away. I move slowly, running my hands over all the things that used to be hers. A dollhouse complete with a miniature family has been emptied out, the rooms filled with twig dolls and carpets of moss. I crouch down to open her little leather trunk and Snip throws himself down beside me in a sunbeam, watching me with subdued interest through the lazy dust motes.
I run my finger over the lid, Emeline’s initials spelled out in smooth, silver studs. How many times she must have opened this trunk, putting in some new treasure, taking out the others, all of them special because she chose them, imbued them with her own meanings. I close my eyes and inhale, desperate for some lingering scent of her. What did she smell like? Pressing my eyes until they water, I reach for some sliver of memory, but come up empty.
There’s the gold necklace that Mother gave her on her fifth birthday, but Emeline had taken off the pearl pendant and replaced it with an acorn. Mother used to call Emeline her “little pearl,” a rare surprise, found later in life when Mother had thought herself past the age for such miracles. There are some scraps of paper with her childish scrawl from when I was teaching her how to write her name. An embroidery sampler with a crooked alphabet and numbers up to ten. A little farther down I find the pearl strung on a cotton thread and wrapped around a smooth stone. We used to collect stones like that in the harbor. Running my finger over it brings back the sharp, salty air filled with woodsmoke, the gulls wheeling overhead as we ran down the beach with wet hems and sandy shoes. Emeline was always faster, even though she was so much smaller. Sometimes I would whisper a secret word into the wind, and she would try to catch it down the beach. It was almost as if we could read each other’s thoughts, because she always knew the word, even if she was much too far to hear it. I wince with guilt that I didn’t know she was in trouble the evening of the dance when so many other times I could sense what she was thinking, doing.
I’m just about to close the lid when something stops me. A glimmer in the depth of the trunk catches my eye, peeking out from beneath the embroidery. My breath catches in my throat. It can’t be... With shaking fingers, I reach down and pluck it out.
It’s hair. Soft, mousy brown hair, tied in a red ribbon.
I drop it like a hot coal.
How did my hair get into Emeline’s trunk? I don’t remember ever giving her a lock of my hair. That is, not until I placed one in her coffin.
My head goes light and my mouth dry. Well, I must have given her one. Or perhaps she took it upon herself to cut one while I was sleeping. It would have been daring for her, even if she had been in a naughty mood, but I suppose it’s possible. It has to be possible.
I haven’t heard voices or seen cryptic messages in weeks, but now that Emeline has died, all the stress has come back tenfold and my mind is playing tricks on me. I put the hair back, tucking it under the embroidery and covering both with the beach stone. I can’t let my desperate imagination get the better of me.
Closing the lid, I rock back on my heels. There will never be any more runs by the oceans. There will never be any more stones or acorns or little treasures added to this trunk. I will never be an older sister again. All that I have are my memories, and I won’t let them wither and fade with time.
I sit paralyzed like that until my ears buzz with silence and my legs fill with pins and needles. I’ll never be an older sister again, but I am still a sister.
* * *
Mother settles gingerly into her seat at breakfast the next day. She looks thin and brittle, dark smudges in the hollows under her eyes. She helps herself to an egg with shaking fingers, and when she almost knocks over the teapot reaching for it, I swoop in to pour it for her. Since Emeline’s death she’s receded into herself more and more, until it feels like she’s nothing but a ghost, a living shadow. Most days she claims it’s headaches, though anyone can see it’s her spirits, dampened to the point of being extinguished.
“We ought to invite Mr. Barrett and Mr. Pierce for dinner again sometime,” Catherine says lightly.
Mother stares blankly at her and even I’m not sure I heard her right.
When no one says anything she raises her brows and looks at us. “What? We ought to thank them for coming to the burial, and for the flowers.”
“A note would suffice, I’m sure,” Mother says coolly.
She brushes off Mother’s suggestion. “Well, I think it’s the correct thing to do. Besides, goodness knows we could use a bit of distraction around here.”
I butter my toast without taking my gaze from Catherine. She’s doing a good job of pretending to be her breezy self, but there are little lines of worry around her mouth, and a tinge of desperation in her eyes.
The last time that I tried to do something nice for Catherine, we had the town meeting and dance. I try not to let myself dwell on the aftermath, but I haven’t forgotten her revelation to me that night. Catherine needs a husband, and soon.
There is nothing more I would like in the world—short of it never having happened in the first place—than for Catherine to clean up her own mess. But that won’t happen.
Even though it makes my stomach curdle, I force myself to give a tight smile. “That’s a good idea, Cath.”
She snaps her gaze to me in surprise, but then her expression softens, and a flicker of gratitude lights her eyes.
Mother’s shoulders slump a little. I’m taking advantage of her weakness, knowing she won’t fight. But I also know that if Catherine isn’t married safely soon that an entirely fresh scandal will be laid at our doorstep, one that Mother does not have the strength to handle.
* * *
Mother sends an invitation to Mr. Barrett requesting his presence and that of Mr. Pierce at dinner the next week. I had thought that my heart was dead, that it would never beat fast and excited again, but to my surprise—and shame—as I dress with Catherine that evening I can’t help the nervous flutter in my chest at the thought of seeing Mr. Barrett.
Catherine is in a rare good mood, rooting through her gowns and pulling out different options, even going so far as to insist that I borrow her best silk shawl, a creamy buttermilk-colored one that I’ve always coveted.
Emeline would have made a game of it. We would have pretended that we were spies, dressing up as genteel ladies to infiltrate some sort of military ball where powerful men would fall over themselves to tell us secrets in the hopes of securing a dance with us. I blink back the hot tears that seem to linger so close to the surface every day now that she’s gone.
If Catherine notices, she doesn’t say anything, instead handing me her lip rouge.
I hesitate. It feels wrong to be dressing up like this when we should still be in mourning. A clean dress and neatly done hair is one thing, but painting my face feels like something else entirely. I give her a weak smile, and dab my finger in the pot.
The hours have flown by, and evening is settling in around the house. “Catherine,” I say. She’s rooting around in her desk for a necklace. I look down at my lap. “Do you...that is, do you ever think about that night?”
Her back is toward me, and her intake of breath is so small I almost miss it, but it’s sharp, quick.
“What night?” She continues opening drawers.
“You know what night. After the dance... Do you ever think about it? Think what would have happened if we hadn’t left Emeline alone?”
Now she does pause, slowly retrieving her necklace and shutting the drawer. “Why should I think about that? What’s done is done.”
Seeing my face, she softens a bit. “Hand me those earrings, would you?”
I hand them to her. Her hand bobbles ever so slightly as she guides the pearl drops in, but her voice is light and even. “You think it’s your fault, don’t you?”
I don’t say anything.
She sighs. “The way I see it, you can always trace it back to something. Did you leave her alone? Yes, but we all thought she had gone to bed like she was supposed to. Should she have had more sense than to run off to the pond by herself? Of course she should have, she knew better than that. Maybe it’s Father’s fault for moving us here. Maybe it’s Mother’s for never taking an interest in us anymore. Maybe it’s mine for causing all the rumors in the first place, driving us from Boston.”
I’m behind her, fastening the clasp of the necklace. It’s the gold one with the little C charm. When she says this last part the auburn curl at the nape of her neck quivers. I stay my hand. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this flash of honesty. I’m suddenly awash with loneliness, so close to Catherine yet so far away. I want to put my chin on her shoulder and cry with her. I want to ask her so many questions and try to understand. But she’s already standing up and giving herself a last look over in the mirror.
“Anyway,” she says brightly, “as I said, what’s done is done and it’s no use wallowing in guilt. Now,” she says, straightening and turning to me, “are you ready to go down?”
How I wish I could feel as light and blithe about it as her. But there is one question I must ask her, something that has been clawing away at the back of my mind since her revelation the night of the dance.
“Catherine,” I say evenly, “who’s the baby’s father?”
She goes completely still, and then stands up abruptly, moving to the window.
“Catherine?”
“Oh, what do you care?” she snaps without turning around.
I care because something is very wrong and in a few moments two young men will be in our dining room, each completely besotted with her and at her mercy. When she first told me of her condition I had assumed that it was Mr. Pierce, and that it had happened that day we went to the pond. But she’s already starting to show—just a little—and that was barely over a month ago.
The curtains are closed, but she’s staring at the window, her eyes misty. For the first time in my life my older sister looks lost, and it’s unnerving. “Catherine?”
She’s playing with the C necklace again, her face etched with misery. “If I told you,” she says, her voice low, “you would be sick.”
It’s the way she says it. The necklace runs through her fingers and something heavy sinks within me. I know. My first impulse is to tear the necklace from her neck, to hurl it out the window. It’s only a little thing, filigree gold, but I imagine it smashing through the window, landing in a pile of shattered glass on the lawn outside.
“They weren’t rumors,” I whisper. It was true, true all along. My head spins as another piece of my world crumbles beneath my feet. “Did he...did he force himself?”
“No!” She launches herself at me, taking me by the shoulders and shaking. “Never! Those vile things everyone said about me, about us...those self-righteous gossips, clucking like hens, they had no idea what really went on. They said that I seduced him, and that he was so depraved that he...” She spits. “None of them understand what we share, how it’s always been him and me. How ever since we were children he was there for me, my protector, my friend.”
Her fingers dig into my collarbone, sending ribbons of pain through my body. “You’re hurting me.”
Catherine looks at me blankly and then pushes me away, turning and standing with her back to me. “You don’t understand,” she says. “No one understands.”
I don’t want to understand. How did I never see it? Was it right there in front of me all along? All the times they walked arm in arm, laughing together at some private joke, was it as lovers? All the times that they shut me out, said that I would just get in the way... Maybe deep down I knew, but just didn’t want to admit that it could be possible.
My body is heavy and the room is too small. She’s still talking, looking at his miniature on her desk and stroking the little gilded frame with loving fingers.
“Do you know how hard it’s been? It’s like having half my being torn from me and hidden away where I can never find it. Everything, every part of me aches for him. And there’s nothing I can do about it! All I can do is sit here, growing big with his child. The most I can hope for is a marriage, a loveless one, but one that will at least save me—us—from further scandal. And even then, I’ll grow old without him. Oh.” She lets out a long sigh, her white shoulders falling like the broken wings of a bird.
She’s sick. There’s something inside of her, something damaged. That’s the only explanation. For all her vanity and all her games, her bright smiles...they just mask what lies beneath.
Her lips curl into a bitter smile. “You might have told Cyrus that there was a sister willing to overlook his character and lack of fortune in return for a husband. If I don’t get a proposal out of Mr. Pierce soon then, well...”
Swallowing hard, I force out the question I’m afraid to know the answer to. “Or Mr. Barrett?”
She can throw herself at Cyrus for all I care, but Mr. Barrett... I press my palms against my eyes, desperately trying not to envision them standing hand in hand at the altar, of Mr. Barrett taking her to bed in his house just beyond the trees. She would be sentencing him to a life without love, using him for nothing more than his name and protection.
Her expression loses some of its venom, and she looks faraway, thoughtful. “Yes,” she says, “perhaps there’s still hope with Mr. Barrett.”
Just then there is a knock at the door downstairs. Catherine and I look at each other. “Ah! Speak of the devil.” She takes a deep breath, pastes a bright smile on her face and trips out of the room, humming as if she hadn’t a care in the world.
I linger in the doorway, my chest tight, as I watch my sister walk away, swollen with our brother’s child.