4

JENNY

Jennifer March, called Jenny by her friends, walked with purpose down the road leading along the low crest of Pearson’s Point from town toward her home. She bore two heavy baskets of groceries that she shifted from side to side in the crook of her arm, trying to avoid her touching her gloves as she did so. Merrick had promised to meet her in town and give her a ride with her burden, but at the appointed time he had not arrived. She’d set off on foot, hoping more than believing he would show up. She should have taken the horse cart from home but found it difficult to hitch it up, let alone wield the reins. So instead she had had to walk all the way down the road that ran from Gamin in a long crescent around the bay to her home on Pearson’s Point. It was a pleasant journey for the most part as she walked in the scent of the windblown pines and the autumn hardwoods that lined both sides of the road. Yet now her arms were aching and her hands were bothering her again.

She looked with displeasure at her gloved hands, their deformity hidden under soft gray kid. The accident. She frowned at the ground and took a longer stride, her petticoats swishing in a large arc as she quickened her pace.

If I weren’t weighed down with this food nonsense I could be standing on the shore down from the house by now. But she continued to hold her burdens because she knew she must, and here on the solitary road her thoughts kept pace with her.

It was strange to think about what had happened the last time she’d seen Ellis and that Ellis had no knowledge of it. Jenny had been warned that Ellis most likely would not remember anything, not even her. How can she not know me?

Jenny sighed, patting the cloth of her gloves and giving them a tug to smooth them out. She gave herself over to the memories Dr. Carmichael had helped her piece together in the days that came after the game. That late-summer day she and Ellis had been playing on a path between the woods and a fenced pasture that confined a herd of cows. Was it fair or cloudy? Jenny shook her head, not remembering, but every other detail was painfully bright.

“I know a good game! Let’s find the old gate that leads to the Garden of Wonders,” Ellis said. Ellis plunged off the path and into the woods.

“Ellie, no!” Jenny trailed reluctantly behind her.

The Garden of Wonders was an old and childish game they played, which usually devolved into hide-and-seek. The gate was never found, of course, but remained compellingly elusive and just out of reach.

“Merrick doesn’t like these woods. He won’t like that we are playing here.”

“He’s not king,” Ellis tossed over her shoulder. “Besides, some of our friends are supposed to be out here, too.”

Jenny made a sour expression at Ellis’s back but tried to match her steps to Ellis’s as her cousin chanted the old riddle that marked the start of the game:

“The old gate is high and heavy and hidden

Till you choose to be chosen it is forbidden

The toll for passage is the age of a man

You cannot go back the way you began.

What am I?”

Ellis sprinted forward deeper into the bramble-like woods. “I can hear our friends, Jen; we’ve just got to catch up.”

Jenny didn’t hear anything but her own ragged breathing and the occasional scurrying of a surprised squirrel whose kingdom had been trespassed upon. “Please, Ellie, let’s go back to the house. We can get some lemonade and look for seashells on the point,” Jenny begged.

The thorny bushes became thicker and snagged Jenny’s skirts and scraped her arms, but Ellis went ahead heedless of Jenny’s words. Jenny lagged behind without enthusiasm. She’d lost sight of Ellis but could hear her crashing through the thick woods. Jenny looked up in surprise as she heard several squeals of delight just ahead.

“There it is!” said a young male voice. “Shove harder! Push!” A cheer rose up of several familiar voices just beyond her in the thick underbrush.

Jenny tumbled into a small clearing where she saw a tall door-like gate made of broad oak planks set into a stone wall. Her eyes grew wide as she ran forward just in time to see Ellis pushing hard against it and peering through the slit of the opening. It couldn’t be real. It couldn’t, thought Jenny.

“Don’t go, Ellie. You don’t know what’s over there.”

“Come on, Jenny; this is our chance to see the Garden of Wonders. Don’t you want a little peek at least? The others are already in there. It’s getting harder to hold it open. Help me!” Ellis leaned her face forward into the opening.

“Ellie, it could be anything in there. You don’t know where it goes. Come on; let’s go back.”

“But the others have already gone in!” Ellis protested.

Jenny, whose words were having no effect, yanked on Ellis’s hair.

“Stop that!” Ellis reached back, keeping her shoulder jammed against the gate, and shoved Jenny roughly. Jenny grabbed Ellis’s hands and the girls tugged fiercely at each other. Ellis slid around to face Jenny and dug her heels into the soft earth beneath her while shoving her back against the gate to keep it ajar. Neither girl was willing to relinquish her hold upon the other.

Suddenly the dirt gave way beneath Ellis’s feet and as she lost her balance all her weight fell against the gate. Ellis stumbled backward, letting go of Jenny’s hands. Unwisely, Jenny grabbed the other girl hard by the wrists. Momentum pulled them forward but not fast enough to save Jenny from what happened next. Ellis tripping backward through the opening, ripped free from Jenny’s grasp. Ellis fell completely through the opening. The gate swung back quickly with a sickening thud, hitting Jenny in the head, crushing and dragging her hands along the stonework to where the gate and the wall met as one. The last thing she heard was the clanging of the gate’s latch into place. Hands crushed and captive, head bleeding, she fainted against the now-closed gate.

That was the last time she had seen Ellis. This was the memory that she’d pieced together with the help of Alicia and others.

Jenny had been plagued with headaches and a spotty memory in the long days that followed. Her hands were thickly splinted and bandaged. She’d been placed in the care of the Disir sisters, who fed her soup and kept up a constant prattle as they quibbled and gossiped across their quilting frame, threaded needles in hand.

Jenny eventually thought to ask them about Ellis, who had not come to see her since her accident. Clucking their tongues over the pity of her plight, they told her that Ellis was no longer in Gamin but had been taken to the city. Jenny felt ill inside that her dearest friend had not come to comfort her.

The time came when the doctor removed the gauze and splints. Jenny’s hands were weak, deformed things; her fingers would not straighten out properly. Uncle Lucian gave her a hard rubber ball to squeeze to strengthen her hands and gave her a packet of willow bark tea in case she felt pain. She had never used either of them.

Life had changed, of course. The piano at Summersend sat silent. I only ever tinkered on it a bit anyway, she acknowledged. She’d had to find ways to adapt to working with her now-inept hands or ask others for help. Most folks in town had been helpful for a while, but they wearied of it, though they would never say so. Merrick had been the most persistent in his assistance. She had felt so frightened and awkward in social situations. She had wondered if people would treat her differently now because of her strange hands and found it easiest to avoid gatherings. As she thought of how Merrick had saved her from shutting herself away she warmed and was grateful to him for including her in the literary social club, many parties and events in Gamin. He was her hero. Except for today, she thought tartly, but smiled anyway.

Jenny looked up, realizing she had stopped walking at some point in her reverie in the middle of the lane and had just stood staring into the past. It was time to move on. The gravel crunched beneath her boots as she stepped forward.

She didn’t blame her cousin for what happened, an accident to be sure, but she wished Ellis hadn’t gone away so fast. Now Ellis had come back, in trouble herself. Jenny understood the pain of not being able to recall the facts about one’s life, though through the kindness of the doctor and friends she had come to know most of it and indeed remembered a good portion of it herself. Where Ellis was concerned, though, Jenny’s memories seemed to be striddles and riddles, as the Disir sisters would say. Merrick and the doctor had encouraged Jenny to spin the rags into stories to comfort Ellis. It seemed that for now pretense and pretend would be the kindest memories of all. In time it would all come back, Merrick and the doctor had assured Jenny. The one story that was brightest in her memory was the one she was determined never to speak aloud again to Ellis or anyone else. The gate story would remain untold.

Jenny had been asked to help Ellis convalesce. It was the opinion of the doctor that the quiet offered by the seclusion of Summersend was just what was needed and that Jenny’s company just might be the tonic to heal Ellis’s woes. He told Jenny he hoped she and Ellis would help each other.

Jenny rounded the last turn in the lane as the gables of Summersend came into view. Gamin Harbor lay sparkling beyond the house and grounds dancing in the sunlight, free of shadow. Her heart lifted at the sight of it. I won’t be “poor Jenny.” It’s not who I am today, she mused. She shifted her burdens again and walked onward knowing that she could hike up her skirts and wade barefoot into the brisk waters of her little cove unseen by anyone except the gulls. What shall I be today? A stranded mermaid? A smile edged its way up her lips and she took a deep breath and plunged forward as though she were at the water’s edge already.