Fire Along the Sky (23 page)

Another moon waxed and waned. On a morning warmer than the ones before it, a morning with the first smell of spring in the air, the lake spirit took Walking-Woman. She was moving across its center, following her own tracks, when the layers of snow and ice under her feet let out a sound like a tree falling and then simply opened. One moment she was standing in the sunshine and the next she was tumbling, loose-limbed, hard snow in her mouth, waiting for the bite of the water to snap her in two.

She thought,
Now I will see him, my son,
and,
How bright it is in the shadow lands,
and then she found herself standing, breathless and dry, on the bottom of an empty lake.

It was the sound of her own harsh breathing that made her understand that she was not drowning, could not drown because the lake water had drained away over the long dry moons. Overhead the roof of ice and snow creaked and sighed like a living thing, flexing in the sun. Walking-Woman stood and listened to the ice talking while her eyes adjusted to the odd shadowy lake-cave.

She took a step, cautiously, and stumbled on a catfish frozen into the rutted lake bottom. A few more steps took her out of the light from the hole she had broken in the ice, further into the shadows. She walked until she could no longer stand, and then she crawled in the dark, over bones and fish and other things she could not name and did not like to imagine.

When she came to the first grasses she used the axe and struck at the ice, bowed her head while it fell in great chunks that would leave bruises on her shoulders and back. Then she stood up in the sunlight, ice clinging to her bearskin coat, and saw that she had walked most of the way to the shore.

For three days she searched the empty lake, carrying a torch before her where she could stand, or pushing it before her when she must crouch. The fish lined the lake bottom like Dutch tiles, the scales catching the firelight in flashing colors. She found rusted blades and fishing spears, the hull of a canoe and, inside of it, a cage of ribs. The bottom of the lake was littered with bones enough to build a city of the dead.

On the third day, when the sun was hot overhead and the ice roof groaned like a woman in travail, Walking-Woman dropped down into the lake and saw that the crows had followed her. There were a dozen of them, prying fish from the icy mud, and they paid her no attention. Enough for them all.

Late that day Walking-Woman found a snowshoe, a bow, a scattering of arrows. And then the boy. Curled like an infant on the floor of the lake, he looked like a child carved out of wax. She took him in her arms and cradled him, and thanked the spirit of the lake for returning her son to her.

When she woke the next morning the rain had come again and the lake was already filling. She had nothing with which to dig a grave in the frozen ground and so she climbed the tallest pine tree she could find and wedged the boy there among the branches.

The same day she started out for Lake in the Clouds.

Chapter 15

Dear Cousin Lily,

Your mother and father bid me write down for you the events of the last weeks. It is a task I take on out of concern for them and you, but it is neither an easy nor a pleasant one. Nor am I your mother's equal in matters of the pen, but I hope my poor efforts will serve.

On Christmas Eve, while Blacksmith Hench was busy lighting firecrackers, Cookie Fiddler's remains were discovered floating beneath the ice on the lake. And more shocking still, it was Callie Wilde and Martha Kuick who first came upon this gruesome sight.

You will remember that Mrs. Fiddler has been missing since the day late in November when Dolly Wilde was found near death on this mountain. Foul play was feared, and indeed it seems as if foul play has been done. Our first worry was for Callie, as you can well imagine. It is a very hard burden indeed for such a young lass, to lose the two women she loved best in the world in such a violent way. Martha was just as distraught as Callie herself, and the two of them clung together and wept so pitifully that it took all of Curiosity's and your mother's efforts to see them to an uneasy sleep in Curiosity's own bed, where she could watch over them in the night.

While we were busy with the lasses, Constable McGarrity and Mrs. Fiddler's sons and some of the other men had managed to retrieve her remains from the lake. I did no see her myself but Mrs. McGarrity tells me, and I have no cause to doubt her, that there was a great gash to the back of her head, it is believed made by a blunt object such as a piece of firewood.

It was midnight before the constable made his announcement. It was only by accident that I was in the trading post to hear him, where I had been sent by your mother in the hope that I might find your father. (Which I did no, for he was at that time already back at Lake in the Clouds with your sister who was, I think it is fair to say, in a state of shock. But that is another story that is best told by your mother.)

Never have I seen the trading post so crowded. The constable stood on a box with Mrs. Fiddler's two sons standing to either side of him, and all of them looking like the wrath of God. Constable McGarrity announced that he would rule Mrs. Fiddler's death (these were his words, most exactly) as “murder, by person or persons yet unknown.”

Just as he was saying this, Charlie LeBlanc came in, who had been sent to fetch Nicholas Wilde but came back instead with another story, this one as aye strange and disturbing as the rest of what had passed that night: Nicholas Wilde was nowhere to be found. There was no sign of him at hame nor in the barn nor anywhere in the orchards, and his horses and sleigh were gone, and some other things from the house that made Charlie think he had left Paradise.

You who grew up in this wee village can well imagine what kind of talk began then, some arguing that Nicholas must have killed his poor guidwife and housekeeper both, and now had run rather than wait to be hanged, leaving poor Callie behind to make her own orphaned way in the world. Others thought there must be a murderer among us who had struck again, making Mr. Wilde the newest victim. Still others claimed that it was Dolly herself had attacked Mrs. Fiddler in a fit and then wandered off to die on the mountain. Mrs. McGarrity put a stop to the worst of the talk by promising to thrash the next man wha spoke of hanging in her hearing—and no doubt she would have, too, for she waved a stout stick about her head as she said as much.

Then Mr. Hench took off his wooden leg and pounded with it on the wall to get everyone's attention and asked had anyone thought to go to the millhouse? For it turns out, or so he claims, that Claes Wilde had been courting Jemima Kuick for some weeks at least. A wild and, aye, almost violent argument followed, most of the women saying that if there was any courting being done, it was Jemima who was behind it for hadn't she been husband hunting since the day she buried her first and lost all his fortune? At that some of the men blushed and hung their heads and studied their shoes, for it turns out that Mrs. Kuick had indeed been looking for a new husband and had cast a wide and well-baited net, all without return.

And in the end the whole party marched together from the trading post to the millhouse, waving torches overhead. Their aim, they said, was to call Jemima Kuick to an accounting and perhaps more, though those words were not spoke aloud. I must admit that I went along out of naught but morbid curiosity for I would never sleep without knowing what was to happen next.

I'm sure you can imagine the crowd's disappointment and—the only word that comes to mind—delight when they found the millhouse deserted and Mrs. Kuick gone. And now the talk began in earnest, a wild conjecturing that lasted for an hour or more in the cold millhouse kitchen, until Constable McGarrity shouted loud enough to be heard and said they could talk all night without getting anywhere, or they could wait until morning when the wee lasses might be able to tell what they knew.

In the moment of quiet that followed, one of the Fiddler brothers—I believe it was Zeke but it may have been Levi, I could not see very well from where I stood—said while they all stood around wondering who Jemima Southern was bedding and where, his mother lay murdered and he'd have justice or revenge or both, and he wouldn't be fussy about which came first.

He spoke in a voice that made the gooseflesh rise on my neck, low and calm and as serious as the grave, and some of the men looked at each other and shifted on their feet the way men will when they disapprove but must bide their time to say so. And then Jed said in his gentle way, justice will be done, I vow it, and then all the energy was gone from the room and people began to drift away to their beds though it was only a few hours to sunrise.

And in all this I had forgot my errand, to find your father and sister, but it was too late and truth be told I was too weary, and so I went back to the Todds' place and found a bed and went to sleep and did not wake until well into the morning.

I found your mother in the kitchen with Constable McGarrity, and she looked very relieved to see me. The constable had come to talk to Martha and Callie and wanted another witness present, for Curiosity had gone to Lake in the Clouds to see about Hannah and Ethan was sitting with his stepfather's remains and receiving visitors who called to leave their condolences. And this you must imagine: Ethan in the parlor with such a solemn purpose and in the kitchen the constable and Elizabeth and I, and two young lasses as still and white as ghosts.

They answered the questions Constable McGarrity put to them, but always first looking one at the other. Aye, Callie's father and Martha's mother were away, aye they had left together, no, they had no said why but they would be back today or tomorrow. They had left enough firewood and food for the girls, who were to do their chores and milk the cow and goats—at this they looked at each other in great alarm, until the constable assured them that the livestock had been cared for—and not speak to anyone in the village about family business.

At that both girls began to weep again, quietly, holding hands in such a touching way that I should have liked to weep myself.

Then the constable asked about Mrs. Fiddler and Martha broke out in great racking sobs that shook her shoulders and would not cease even though Elizabeth rocked her and spoke calm words. And this was strange, of course, because it is Callie who suffered the greater loss, but she sat still-faced and like an old woman who has seen so much in a hard life that she has no more tears left to shed.

No matter how the question was put to them, by Elizabeth or the constable, neither of them had even a word to say that shed any light on the circumstances of Mrs. Fiddler's death, and indeed it seemed to me that with every passing minute they were more and more distant. This troubled Mr. McGarrity and indeed I, too, had the idea that they knew more or suspected more than they cared to say. Later I had a moment alone with your mother and I asked her what he might be thinking, but she only shook her head and begged not to be asked, as she could not say such terrible things aloud without evidence. Which proves once again what an unusual and thoughtful woman your mother is, for no one else in the village (except, of course, Mr. McGarrity himself) scrupled to say exactly what they thought, and that in a loud voice.

All day long men were gathered in the trading post, suggesting more and more outlandish scenarios and murder plots, which stopped only because the Ratz boys came in to say that Mr. Wilde's sleigh was just coming into the village and seemed to be headed for the millhouse.

And as it turns out, the younger widow Kuick
was
with him, but she had come back to Paradise as Mrs. Wilde, for they had been married the day before in Johnstown in front of the magistrate, and had the marriage lines as proof. I suppose this would have been a gey great scandal even without the discovery of Mrs. Fiddler's murder—the women in the village hold a verra low opinion of Jemima's manner of getting husbands, I'm told—but taken together you might have thought Benedict Arnold had come to Paradise, such outrage was there among the villagers.

Someone had set the meetinghouse bell to ringing and everyone came running, the men gathering around the sleigh. And that is how I saw them first, the bright red sleigh in the middle of a crowd. There was a great shouting of questions and threats and promises of damnation.

Mrs. Kuick—Mrs. Wilde, now—looked curiously untouched by it all, and even pleased, like a cat let out after being closed up in the buttery all night. She sat in the sleigh with her hands crossed in her lap and looked over the faces turned up to her as she might have looked at a field full of crows. As if the questions they were asking—the accusations they threw in her face—were irritations only, and not to be taken seriously. To my mind this makes her either smug in her innocence, or arrogant and the worst kind of heartless wretch, who could do murder and shrug it off so easily.

Her new husband was far less composed. The news of Mrs. Fiddler's death shook him so that I thought at first he might faint. But then the constable claimed both of them and took them into the trading post. As there is room in the jail for only one, Nicholas is being held there while Jemima is locked up in the cabin where your old teacher Mr. Oak once lived, with a guard at the door and the shutters nailed closed. She would have been allowed visitors, but none went to her, not even her own daughter.

The Wildes were charged with two counts of murder, and now the whole village waits impatiently for the judge to come through on his circuit. It is his job to decide whether they must both be tried, or, as most in the village have decided, Jemima alone is guilty of these terrible crimes. Mrs. McGarrity explained it to me thus: Jemima wanted what she wanted, and the two women who stood in the way—both of whom she hated for years—are both dead.

And indeed it seems that Mr. Wilde cannot have had a hand in either death, for even Mrs. Fiddler's sons say openly that Nicholas and his daughter were in Johnstown at the time of their mother's disappearance.

In all of this it seems that the wee lasses suffer the greatest injury. The women in the village ask each other again and again what is to become of them, too young still to go into service or fend for the family holdings, and without means or family to take them in.

Perhaps the one good thing to come of all of this sad business has to do with your sister, who seemed determined never to leave Lake in the Clouds again. The only time she came to the village was to examine Mrs. Fiddler's remains and write a report, for she is the only trained physician in the village now. Otherwise she stayed at home and cared to hear nothing about the turmoil. Then, a few days ago while Curiosity and Ethan were with us for dinner, the subject of the lasses and what would become of them was raised and for the first time Hannah seemed to be paying attention.

And she said, quite calmly and in a tone that was almost normal, but the girls must come to live in the doctor's house, don't you think, Curiosity?

The surprise in the room was almost comical, and if the subject matter had not been so very serious someone might have laughed. I was certainly in danger of it.

Ethan recovered first and said what a fine idea, it would do them all no end of good to fill up the empty house with little girls. Of course we have not yet had the reading of the doctor's will, and your father seems to fear that there might be some trick there that would make a shambles of such plans.

For my part I will stay at Lake in the Clouds with your parents, whom I have come to love and respect as my own. When your brother comes back to make a bride of me he will find me here, as we agreed.

This is a very long letter and one I know must cause you great pain and distress. I hardly know how to end it, for anything I might put down now must sound trite. The village waits impatiently for Mr. O'Brien, a strange thing, I am told, for while he is the circuit judge he is also the tax collector and most go out of their way to avoid him. When he is come and the matter is settled, I will write to you again with whatever news there may be.

In the meantime, I beg you to turn to your brother for comfort. He is sometimes too strict (I have written him a stern letter reminding him that you are not a child, and your private business is none of his concern). He is also overly fond of teasing, but in times of trouble you will find out now how truly devoted he is to you and how very much he cares for your well-being and happiness.

I do pledge that I will do my best—with your little brother's help—to keep your good parents in high spirits.

Your cousin and friend and soon-to-be sister,
Jennet Scott, once of Carryck