Anxious Hearts (10 page)

I am with Gabe again, only this time we are somewhere different, somewhere higher. There is no tide, no fog. We are in the mountains, high mountains I’ve never seen before, mountains above the trees. The peaks stretch ahead forever, and I know because I can see forever in every direction, and what I see is beauty, quiet and unchanging, no tides to wash away the past or the future, and Gabe’s arms are wrapped around me, his notebook pressed against my chest, and we’ve come here together, to stay together, forever. And then I realize that we are not on the mountaintop, but soaring above it, flying, together, silently and effortlessly, the weightlessness of infinity surrounding us on all sides, lifting us higher and higher. As I rise, I look for Gabe, but he is gone and the sky is cold around me.

Gabriel

“A
ND DO YOU SO PROMISE, FOREVER?” ASKED
Père Felician. He stood behind the flower-strewn altar.

“I so do,” answered Gabriel, kneeling before Evangeline. “Forever.”

Gabriel stood up and gingerly lifted Evangeline’s veil. Every corner of her face smiled at him. He kissed her, and the crowd cheered. Michael’s bow hit his strings, giving rise to a cheerful tune.

And Gabriel, proud and complete, his beloved aside him forever now, finally knew what it was to be alive.

eva

It is not until I wake up that I really begin to worry about Gabe. It is still night, and he is not back, and it is raining, hard. Not like raindrops, but like big, juicy chunks of water, splattering on the roof of the tent like water balloons. “It’s raining cats, dogs, and fried fish,” Da’ would say. I am glad I moved into the tent.

I am not worried about Gabe’s safety. Gabe knows the forest. If anyone can find his way through a storm, Gabe can. I am worried that he will never come back. Maybe he decided that he doesn’t want me around. He wishes he hadn’t brought me here. He didn’t want us to be together last night, he hated the way I looked, the way I moved, the way I sounded. I try
to remind myself how I felt this morning, leaning against the birch tree, unworried and certain.

I unzip the tent and shine the flashlight out into the woods. I gasp when its light catches a pair of sneakers, standing four feet from the tent.

Gabe’s sneakers.

“Gabe? How long have you been standing there? Why didn’t you come in?” I shine the light up at Gabe’s face. “You’re wet.”

“I’m going, Evangeline,” Gabe says, emotionless and stern and certain. “Away. Forever.”

I slide on my shoes and step out of the tent and into the rain. “Gabe, what are you talking about?”

“I only came here to say good-bye.”

“You said that yesterday,” I say. “What’s the deal?” My hair, suddenly soaked with rain, begins to mat to my face. “Gabe?”

Silence.

“I’ll come with you,” I say. I think. I’m not sure. I want to say it, and I want him to say yes.

“Not this time,” he says. “No.”

I point the flashlight at his sneakers again, then turn it off. “What did I do?” I say. “What did I say?”

“Not you,” he says. “Not you.”

“Is this about Paul?”

Gabe turns around and takes a few steps toward the woods before stopping. He shakes his head. “I failed him, Eva,” Gabe says.

And I know, as well as I’ve ever known anything, that this time Gabe really is going away. He wants to disappear.

He walks not slow, not fast. I notice that he is limping more than before. His notebook peeks out from under his sleeve, wrapped around his forearm. And I just stand still and watch.

As his footsteps fade and his shadow is swallowed by the wet pre-dawn forest, my heart sinks and slows. I feel for my pulse in my wrist and I find none, and I wonder if this is what it feels like to die.

Gabriel

S
UN GAVE WAY TO MIST, WHICH GAVE WAY TO A
shower, reversing the usual order of things, but the wedding celebration progressed through the hazy seaborne spray. Gabriel held Evangeline’s hand tightly while they danced, spinning her faster, ever faster, under the canopy of apple trees, her swirling skirts and his soaring soul caught up in the lively tune from Michael’s fiddle and the clapping hands of the Cadians. All joined in the dancing, jackets tossed aside, the children skipping between the frolicking legs of the revelers.

Gabriel saw none of them. His eyes and mind were filled with Evangeline, spinning with him through the orchard, and there was no room for anything more.

The only man who didn’t dance was Jean-Baptiste Leblanc, who stood beyond the orchard wall at the farthest crest of the bec, sullen, watching. Just watching.

Suddenly, as if from a giant’s bugle, a shrill, ear-searing sound rang through the air, a blaring, disconsolate note so piercing and broad that Michael the fiddler dropped his bow and the dancing Cadians froze instantly, their flying skirts settling with a silent sway at their ankles. The air fell hollow and dead.

Wordless faces twisted in surprise and fear as each citizen searched the others for an explanation. Gasps gave way to whispers.

Evangeline darted to Benedict, clasping him in her arms. Gabriel turned his eyes skyward, seeking the source of the sound, and followed her.

“It is the sounding of the horns of heaven,” said the pastor’s wife. “Judgment day is here.” A murmur ran swiftly through the crowd, culminating in the shriek of the seamstress. “The rapture!” she cried, filling the silent air with her frenzied call. “Oh, heaven!”

“You are wrong,” shouted Basil the blacksmith above the panicked voices. “That song is not the angels calling us home. It is a song of ill. It is the New Colonists! They are here!”

Gabriel turned and looked over at his father, who was pointing at the woods just beyond the orchard. There, blocking the exit from the orchard, was a wall of sixty soldiers, muskets drawn, bayonets glistening, faces soulless and blank. They wore matching uniforms of close-cropped woven jackets, buttoned at the neck, with buckskin breeches and broad leather belts.

The blistering note rang again, slicing into the ears of the Cadians, drawing gasps and shrieks. Gabriel covered Evangeline’s ears until it ended, then whispered softly, “Do not be afraid, my love. My wife.”

“Attend!” shouted Basil, and he raced to the head of the orchard. “Gabriel!”

Confusion spun through the crowd now milling in quick, tiny circles as mothers searched for toddlers and old men tossed their hands toward the sky. “What will become of us?” “What do they want with us?” “Where is my baby?” Evangeline steadied Benedict, who was breathing heavily.

“Gabriel!” Basil shouted again. “To arms, my son!”

Gabriel stretched his head above the crowd, straining to see Basil. “Father!”

“Gabriel.” Evangeline’s voice was just a whisper, but it resonated in Gabriel’s ear.

Gabriel took her cheek in his palm and cupped it for one
eternal moment. And then he tore his hand from hers and pushed his way into the panicking crowd toward Basil.

“Gabriel!” Basil shouted again. “To arms!”

But Gabriel, and everyone, knew that there were no arms there.

The wall of soldiers began to move. They stepped forward, in perfect formation and at an astonishing speed, easily surrounding the orchard in just seconds, muskets across their chests, bayonets raised. The Cadians crouched toward one another, condensing themselves in the center of the orchard.

“Cadians!” came a steady, booming voice, from a source Gabriel could not see. “Cadians, all. Please pardon our interruption.” The murmurs quieted slowly. The voice had a strange accent, not entirely foreign but not a native speaker of the Cadian dialect. It was formal, polite, like he’d learned the Cadian tongue from books, not people. “Please, forgive us for interrupting what appears to be a lively set of festivities. We understand this is a day of celebration here.”

Gabriel looked around the circumference of soldiers for the speaker. His eyes came to rest on the one intruder dressed, like Gabriel, in expensive black. His coat was stiff and square, with shoulders that sloped upward, giving the illusion of wings. Rows of silver buttons lined his chest in
crosshatch patterns. His woolen breeches fastened at the knee with a silver closure. Two soldiers crossed their muskets in front of his chest as he read from a tablet. Gabriel guessed he must be the commander.

“We have been sent from the New Colonies by His Excellency Lord Governor Lawrence to welcome you and your land into his generous governorship, and he asks that all able male inhabitants of thirteen summers or more convene in the Great House for a formal meeting. Presently.”

No Cadian moved.

“This way, please,” the commander said, gently and politely and formally to the Cadians nearest him. “Thank you very much. Please.”

“It’s a trap,” said Basil. “Beware.”

Just then, a ruckus arose at the crest of the bec. Three soldiers had surrounded Jean-Baptiste Leblanc. Two soldiers lifted him by his armpits and a third began prodding him forward with the butt of his musket. Jean-Baptiste strained and thrashed against them, but the three soldiers dragged him down the bec and to the orchard with the others, tossing him onto the ground in front of the crowd. He quickly stood up and smoothed his jacket.

“Assemble the male inhabitants!” barked the commander, spitting as he said it.

“Yes, Commander Handfield,” answered the soldier next to him. “Attention!” The soldier directed the soldiers flanking the head of the orchard to part. From the back of the crowd, soldiers began to bear down, nudging the men into a group and pushing the women and children aside to the stone wall.

Evangeline covered her father with her cloak, hoping to disguise him, to mask him from the soldiers, for he would surely die in their care, so frail was his body. A soldier tore at the cloak, revealing Benedict’s face. “He is not able!” Evangeline cried. She pointed at his cane. “He is not able!”

The soldier pushed Benedict to the ground and walked on.

“Evangeline!” Gabriel shouted. A tall soldier grabbed Gabriel by one arm and jerked him away from her. “Angel!” He held out his other hand, but she could not grasp it before another soldier pushed her to the ground beside Benedict.

“Gabriel!”

The shower intensified over the bec, droplets running like tears down the cheeks of the gathered Cadians.

Evangeline squared her shoulders and steadied Benedict. “Take care, my husband,” she said, though he could barely hear her. “Be not afraid, as I am not.”

The rain, now a deluge, saturated the bec and all upon it, as the weaponless men were corralled into two lines and led away. Unprotected from the weather, they marched along the
soaking, muddy trail down the back of the bec, sliding here and skidding there, trampling slowly toward the fate that awaited them at the Great House, musketed soldiers on both sides to keep any from flight.

Gabriel walked beside Basil and watched him simmer—surveying the guards, assessing their statures, recording their arms in his memory, silently moving his lips in running protest. Water ran down their noses, dripping into the trail ahead of them and soaking the tips of their moccasins. Gabriel fell twice, knocked down once by Père Felician, who slid into him from above, and once by a soldier who pushed him too quickly around a switchback and nearly swept him off the path.