I POUND DOWN the stairs, right to the front door when I stop. Catherine is standing by the window in the parlor, bathed in the predawn light of a snowy day. Her shawl has fallen off, and she bites at her fingers as she gazes out into the palette of whites and grays.
“Catherine?”
She doesn’t move and I catch my breath, wondering if perhaps she too is nothing more than a spirit. But when I say her name a second time, she slowly turns around. Even in the dim light her face is pale, her eyes bloodshot.
“When Cyrus was here yesterday I heard him say you and he had an agreement. What did he mean?”
“Oh,” I say with a little breath of relief, “I thought something was wrong.” There’s no time for this, to explain everything. And even if there was, what does it matter? “I don’t know. I suppose it was just drunken rambling.”
She nods, but doesn’t look convinced. “Lydia,” she says, not meeting my eye, her fingers hovering near her lips, “I think that I...that is, I’ve been—”
“Can this wait?” I glance out the window where the first weak fingers of light are struggling over the trees. “I have to go.”
She opens her mouth to say something, but there’s no time. I might already be too late.
* * *
The first snowflakes are starting to fall as I plunge into the still December morning. I’ve barely gone as far as the front walk when a pale little form appears out of the frosty mist.
As soon as I see her all else is forgotten.
Emeline looks much the same as the last time I saw her; she has not decayed further, nor is she crawling with maggots, and thank God. But she is pale to the point of translucence, nearly as sheer as Mary Preston.
I run to close the distance between us, mindless of the ice and snow. “Oh, Emeline.” I skid to a halt, falling to my knees in front of her. “Thank God you’ve come back. I... I know how to help you now,” I tell her. “You need only say the word and I will make sure that you are free to rest.”
She shakes her head. “Not yet,” she says. “Not until it’s over. I won’t leave you until it’s over.”
A chill—heavier than the December cold—settles over me at her words. “Where are they, Emeline?” I ask in a whisper.
“You know where they are.”
I close my eyes. Surely the pond is too deep in the woods for even tall men like Cyrus and John to be able to reach in the snow. I visualize John waking up, throwing on his greatcoat, and going to his desk to retrieve his pistol. Where does he go next? Where would he have told Cyrus to meet him? I take a deep breath, clearing my mind. And in an instant, I know.
I open my eyes, and Emeline is gone.
Joe cleared our drive of snow but one look at the road reveals that little carriage traffic has passed through in the last few days. I might be able to make it to town, but all the way to the old mill? My boots are a lady’s boot, pretty and sturdy enough for a turn around the park, but not for trudging through ankle-high snowdrifts.
But there’s nothing to be done about it, so I gather up my hem and start picking my way to the road, trying to ignore the icy bite of the wet snow through my stockings. Oh, why could John not have left well enough alone? What happened after they left the house yesterday? How could they have talked or argued or whatever it was they were doing right through the night until dawn and come to this conclusion?
I’ve hardly gone three steps when behind me the door slams. “Miss, wait!”
Ada is throwing on a shawl, hurrying toward me. “Where are you going? And without your good cloak. You’ll catch your death!”
“Mr. Barrett’s in trouble.” I swallow. “I think... I think he and Cyrus are going to duel.” It seems so ridiculous when I say it out loud. “I have to stop them.”
There’s silence for a beat, and then Ada’s thin voice and determined step falls in behind me. “I’m coming with you.”
“Oh, Ada, I can’t ask that of you.” I don’t tell her that I’m afraid she’ll slow me down, that I already don’t know if I’ll make it in time as it is.
She gives a stubborn lift of her chin. “I’ll not let you go alone.”
I’m already turning around, hands out at my sides for balance as I navigate over the icy gravel. “And I love you for it, but for God’s sake then, hurry.”
But when I glance back, Ada isn’t there. She’s running back to the house, door banging behind her. She must have seen the road and changed her mind. I can hardly blame her. I’m nearly to the bend in the road, lungs already aching from gasping in the cold air, when the sound of horse hooves crunching on the ice stops me.
Bundled up like a fur trapper and leading one of our carriage horses by the bridle, Joe trudges toward me. “It’s no use trying to stop me, Joe. I have to go.”
“Ada said you were determined to take a jaunt into town,” he says with a crooked smile. “Ajax isn’t much used to the saddle, but he’s sure-footed, and so long as you give him his head, he’ll take you as fast as you please.”
Ajax bobs his head impatiently, surveying me out of the side of his dark, rolling eye. I swallow, sure that he would just as soon buck me and leave me with a cracked skull on the side of the road than take me to John.
Joe is already turning him about, looping the reins over the big bay’s head. “What do you say, miss?”
It takes only one look down the winding, icy road to make up my mind. I hitch up my dress, the cold air greedily embracing my stockinged legs. “I say whatever Father pays you, it isn’t enough.”
Joe grins, helping my foot find the stirrup and swinging me up and astride the saddle as if I were a man. Ajax dances nervously, bucking his head up and down. My fingers curl around the reins and into his thick mane.
With a hearty smack to the horse’s flank, Joe sends us off. “You be careful now, miss,” he calls after me. “And you tell Mr. Barrett to leave off this foolishness and bring you home safe.”
Oh, how I hope it’s that simple.
* * *
Joe was right, I need only to give Ajax his head and he carries me swiftly across the icy road, plowing through the snowdrifts as if they were nothing more than tall grass. The wind stings my eyes, tears freezing on my face. I think of the book of magic stories, the one about the girl who could turn herself into a yellow bird at her whim and fly fast and undetected above the treetops. But if such magic is possible, it is still well beyond my meager abilities. It’s all I can do to hunch into Ajax’s neck and try to stay on. He must sense my urgency, because without asking my leave he extends his long legs, gobbling up the ground. We pass the fork in the road, veering into town and across the first bridge. The sleepy little village flies by in a blur of smoking chimneys and tightly shuttered houses.
We follow the path that I took that day with Catherine and Emeline in our pursuit of Snip. What an eternity that seems, another life. John was walking the first day we met him, caught by the summer rain, searching for Moses. And now I must find him in the swirling snow and gray mist.
My fingers are red, purple almost, and cracking at the knuckles. I should have heeded Ada’s advice. It doesn’t matter. I pass over the bridge, the water gurgling and at odds with the still, snowy landscape that surrounds it.
I can barely breathe, and my legs are rubbed raw from the saddle. I just have to go a little farther. The gaping windows and crumbling chimneys of the old mill are already visible ahead. I rein in Ajax, his breath coming as fast and labored as my own, and slide off him, falling hard onto the ground. Scrambling to my feet, I ignore the pain radiating from my sore hips and follow the two sets of footprints that lead around the mill to the river embankment behind it. My heart is in my throat, a silent plea running over and over through my head. Please let me be in time. Please let him be all right.
But it’s too late. Just as I’m closing my eyes and gathering my strength, the first shot rings out.