Fire Along the Sky (4 page)

“Strikes-the-Sky,” he said without hesitation, and the words jolted Elizabeth as surely as a slap.

“Oh,” she said. “Of course. I wish it were Strikes-the-Sky, but I think you will be pleased nonetheless. Luke is come.”

Nathaniel looked just as surprised as she was herself. “Luke? But he always sends word first.”

She shrugged. “And he brought Jennet with him.”

It was hard to shock Nathaniel, but she had managed it. He pushed her a little away from him to study her face, as if she would make up so outlandish a tale.

“Jennet Scott? Of Carryck?”

“Do you know another?”

“You're saying Luke brought that girl over the border in the middle of a war?”

“Yes, he did,” Elizabeth said. “I expect they'll be here shortly, and I have to find places for them all to sleep. So if you'll promise me—”

He kissed her hard, the kind of kiss that meant he had more on his mind and meant her to know it too, though they both had work to do.

“I'll get Hannah to sew up my hand,” he said. His disquiet and concern were giving way, slowly, to pleasure at the idea of seeing his son. “As soon as I've laid eyes on Luke and had an explanation.”

There was a celebration to get ready on short notice, food for fifty people, wood to be gathered for the cook fires, and a hundred other tasks from the setting up of trestle tables to the tuning of Levi's fiddle. It seemed that Cookie's sons were known as far away as Albany for their musical talent.

The villagers came to the Todd place in a dribble and then in a steady stream, carrying kegs of ale and cider and squealing piglets that would find their way onto spits before the afternoon was much older. There were chickens to be plucked, a brace of trout and another of bass, baskets of plums and apples just off the trees, casks of bacon fat and butter, jars of honey and pickles, and loaves of bread. Curiosity directed the cooking, marching back and forth so that her skirts snapped smartly around her legs.

Jennet drew people to her without trying, and she met all of them with such openness and simple delight that Hannah found herself laughing at nothing. Then Curiosity put an end to it all.

“Get yourselves up to Lake in the Clouds,” she said, putting one hand on Jennet's shoulder and one on Hannah's. “Get settled in, have a look around and meet the rest of the folks. Then chase everybody on down here. I expect it'll be two hours at least afore we're ready to start dishing up any food.” She cast a glance across the field. “I'd tell you to take Luke and that Simon fellow with you but it look to me like Gabriel already got just about everybody who can hold a stick in the bagattaway game.”

A group of men and boys had stripped to the waist and divided themselves into teams. Daniel and Gabriel and Luke stood together, the two older brothers with their heads bent down toward Gabriel in a protective posture that made Hannah's breath catch on memories too sweet and tender to deny, for once. She could feel Strikes-the-Sky and the boy both at her back, the solid warmth of them and their absence both.

“Ooh,” said Jennet, craning her neck. “I've been wanting to watch—”

Curiosity gave her another gentle push. “No fear, Miss Jennet, that game won't be over soon. You can come back in plenty of time to watch them stomping on each other. Get on with you now.”

They went on horseback, Hannah taking Luke's big gelding and leading the way. Now and then Jennet would ask a question, but for the most part she seemed so intent on taking in the details of the village and then the mountain trail that she fell silent. Hannah was glad of the time to think, though the thoughts that raced through her head were so many and quick that she could fix on none of them for very long, except this: her brother had come home and brought Jennet with him, and for no reason she could understand, Hannah felt as if she had just woken from a long and unnatural sleep.

Chapter 2

As soon as Luke's letter arrived with the news that Hannah was on her way home, Elizabeth had set about making one of the four chambers over for her; it was that, she told Nathaniel, or lose her mind with the wait and worry.

In a matter of days every fine thing in the house had found its way to the chamber: the best blankets, an embroidered pillow slip normally folded away in tissue, a heavy china washbasin and matching water jug sent all the way from England. A new standing desk had been placed between the windows and a worktable in the center of the room. A bright rag rug covered the plank floor and on a long shelf above the bed a dozen books stood between blocks of cherry wood sanded and polished to gleaming.

Everyone had come to leave some gift, large or small, for Hannah; clothing and soap and candles, a beaver pelt for the foot of the bed, a pretty rock. A panther skull, scrubbed clean, held down a pile of newspapers from Albany and Manhattan.

Daniel and Lily had argued for days about the right gift and finally decided on a bottle of ink, a dozen finely sharpened quills, and a new journal sewn from the best paper they could afford. Because, they reminded each other, Hannah always kept careful records of the patients she saw. In the old days her fingers had always been stained with ink.

In the week between the news of Hannah's coming and her arrival, Lily had imagined the hours she would spend in this room with her sister, but she had found instead that the door was always closed. Now she stood in the middle of Hannah's chamber, and Lily saw what she had only suspected: since she had come home Hannah had not written a word; the quills and ink and paper were untouched. Nor was there any sign of her old journals, the ones she had taken west with her or the ones she must have written over the years. Whether they had been lost or stolen or destroyed only Hannah knew.

This was another kind of loss, one that Lily had not imagined, and it made her catch her breath and understand finally and clearly what she had been afraid to admit, even to herself: the sister she had missed so fiercely was not home and would never come home, because she did not exist anymore.

“Space will be very dear,” Lily's mother said behind her. “I cannot put Luke and Simon Ballentyne in the same room with Daniel and Gabriel, and so I must make room for all the young women here. I trust you will not mind sharing with your sister and cousin. No doubt they will keep you awake all night with their talk.”

Even an hour ago Lily would have been thrilled at this turn of events, but she was suddenly overcome with shame for her own selfishness. Her mother, occupied with the linen in her arms, seemed not to take any note at all.

Hannah's chamber had windows hung with white muslin curtains on two walls: one provided a view of the orchard and beyond that the cliffs; the other looked out over the whole glen and the mountains. Jennet Scott Huntar thought she had never seen a view so beautiful. Mountain upon mountain, fading away into a blue haze on the horizon where the sun made its way toward the other side of the world. The endless forests. Jennet had never been able to grasp the idea until she saw it for herself: a world overwhelmed with trees, and every one of them glowing in the sun and casting shadows like reaching hands.

“Hannah Bonner,” she said finally. “I waited far too long to come. This is Paradise indeed.”

“Yes, well,” Hannah said, “it is not without its faults, this Paradise. But I'm glad you're here.”

She sat on the edge of the bed with her hands folded in her lap, her expression calm and almost happy in the late afternoon light. They had been girls the last time they saw each other and they were women now. Both with tragedies behind them, or losses that were meant to be tragedies. Sometimes Jennet said it out loud:
I am a widow
. But it sounded strange and even silly to her own ears. Her widowhood seemed a plaything, of no real substance, while Hannah's losses had dug themselves deep into the bone.

Her cousin's face had set in its planes and curves, with faint creases on the brow and at the corners of her eyes. A line of blackfly bites arched across the high crest of her cheekbone like a new tattoo, and below that other scars shimmered faintly where furrows had been dug into the soft flesh and healed. She wore a small doeskin bag on a string around her neck, one that she fingered when she was lost in her thoughts as she was now.

She has lost more than I ever imagined having,
Jennet reminded herself, and came to sit across from Hannah on the single chair at the table.

“Look,” she said, drawing a chain out of her bodice. “I've worn it since the day you left Carryck. My mother thought it was unladylike to wear a bear's tooth next to my heart, but Ewan did not seem to mind.”

Hannah said, “I'm glad you still have it.” She looked away briefly. “I lost mine, some time ago.”

Jennet hesitated. “Will you tell me about it?”

Hannah blinked at her. “I think I will,” she said finally, and she managed a small smile. “Sometime I think I will. If you will talk to me about Luke.”

“That's a promise then,” said Jennet. “But let me ask you this: will you listen to what I have to say with an open mind, Hannah Bonner?”

Hannah had believed herself incapable of being surprised, but then she had not reckoned with Jennet, who reached into a pocket tied around her waist and took out a deck of cards wrapped in a rosary.

“This is called a tarot deck. It was given to me by a friend; I think someday you may well meet her.” She unwrapped the rosary and laid it on the table very gently. “The beads are for my mother, to quiet her scolding.” From the top of the deck she took a single card and turned it face up.

“This is the card I want to tell you about. It's called
Fuerza
in the Spanish tongue, that means ‘strength' in English. You see that
Fuerza
is a woman in her full power. She holds a lion's mouth open with her bare hands.” She looked Hannah directly in the eye. “This is what you may find hard to believe. The first time I saw this card I felt the bear's tooth growing warm against my skin.” She paused and looked at Hannah very closely. “Shall I go on?”

Hannah was overcome by a rush of feelings she could not immediately sort out: unease and curiosity were foremost among them, but just beneath the surface there was a flickering of anger she could not explain.

“I'm listening.”

“Very well. As soon as I arrived in Canada—as soon as Luke stopped his ranting long enough to answer a question—I asked for news of you, as I'd had no word or letter for more than a year. Luke told me what he knew, and that you were on the road home, and why.

“Well, of course I wanted to leave Montreal and come here straightaway but your brother would not hear of it. Every day there was news of another skirmish on the border, and he would not risk my neck, nor his own. But I could not stop thinking about you walking so far to get home to Paradise, and so every morning I laid out three cards thinking of you.”

She paused. “Twice in a row
Fuerza
showed herself to me, but always in reverse, you see, like this. Now the lion has gained the advantage over the woman. On the third morning when I sat down I was almost afraid to turn the cards.”

“If you are going to tell me that the woman was there again, I will have to ask you if you bothered to shuffle the cards.” Hannah said this with a gentle smile, but Jennet was not to be distracted. She shook her head very firmly.

“I shuffled the cards,” she said. “And I wish I could say
Fuerza
had shown herself again, but it was something very different. It's called the tower. Hannah, you may believe what you like, but when I saw the tower my heart leapt in my breast and I could draw no breath. It's a fearsome card, and it had never before showed itself to me since I began with this deck of my own. So I went straight to your brother and said that I must come here to see you, should I have to walk the whole way alone, and barefoot.”

“I take it he gave in?”

“Not at first,” Jennet said. “We argued for a long while. Then Granny Iona spoke up for me.” Jennet's smile was so quick and overwhelming that Hannah found herself smiling in response.

“And I ask you, what mortal man can stand up to a runaway nun? Others may stand aside when the mighty Luke Bonner strides down the lane with his men trotting along behind, but not his granny Iona. To all his arguments she only flicked her fingers. I'll tell you this, Hannah. It may be more than fifty years ago that Iona wore the veil, but she still has much of the nun about her when she's in a temper.

“And so Luke gave in, bit by bit, and we came to an agreement.” She cleared her throat, and color rose on her cheeks as she let out an awkward little laugh. Her hands closed over the deck of cards in her lap thoughtfully.

Jennet had eyes the same green as Daniel's, rich and startling as new maple leaves, but the expression in them just now was solemn. Hannah was taken with the urge to stop her, but when she opened her mouth no sound came out.

“He believes—as you may believe, cousin—that the tarot cards are naught but bits of paper that tell me what I want to hear. I wanted to come to Paradise and so they told me I must. In the end we made a wager, Luke and I, witnessed by Granny Iona and Simon Ballentyne.”

“Luke wants you to go home to Scotland,” Hannah said.

“Aye. Should my worries prove unfounded, I promised to go home to Carryck without further argument and not to come back until the war is done.”

“And if you are right? What must he give you?” Hannah leaned forward a little. “Will you have him marry you?”

Jennet flushed such a deep color that it looked as if she had been struck by a sudden fever. “Do you think I'd have him like that, on a wager?”

“I think you love him now as you loved him when he left Carryck,” Hannah said. “I think you mean to have him.”

Jennet did not seem to take offense, though a fine tremor fluttered in the muscles of her cheek.

“It's true that your brother will not admit he loves me, yet—”

“Yet,” echoed Hannah with a smile.

“—but the day will come. Not even Luke Bonner can run from the truth forever, and after so many years I can wait a wee longer,” Jennet said firmly. “I am his fate and he is mine, just as you and Strikes-the-Sky were fated for one another.” She touched a finger to the hollow of her throat in a distracted way.

“It's all right,” Hannah said. “I like to hear his name spoken.”

“Oh, I'm glad,” Jennet breathed. “For I'd like to hear your stories, and I will tell ye mine.”

“First you must tell me what Luke wagered.”

Jennet shrugged. “Just this: should I have the right of it, he will speak to me no more of going home to Carryck without him.”

There was a longer silence.

“Say what's on your mind, cousin,” Jennet said with a faint smile. “We must have honesty between us, you and I.”

“All right, then. What if I tell you that I am well and that I am recovering from my losses. Will you really go home without an argument?”

Jennet's gaze was severe and unwavering. “I will say it again: you will have honesty from me in all things, and I ask you for the same. If you do not need me here you have only to say so. I will set off for home tomorrow.”

“Oh, I need you here,” Hannah said. Her throat was suddenly swollen with unshed tears. “I didn't know I needed you until I saw you, but I do.”

Jennet's smile was bright and genuine and so welcome that Hannah had to pinch the web of flesh between thumb and finger to keep herself from weeping.

“You want me to stay?”

“Yes.” She nodded. “I would like you to stay. But have you thought that Luke will be going back to Montreal without you?”

“Aye, he'll go,” Jennet said. “And then he'll come back again, because he must. When he comes back to me of his own accord the time will be right.”

“I can see that you believe that with your whole heart,” Hannah said. “But has he spoken to you—”

“Of love?” Jennet's throat worked. “Once, long ago. The day he left Carryck to go home to Canada, just a week before I was to wed Ewan Huntar. He said, ‘He's the husband your father wanted for you' and I—” She paused. “I called him a coward, and other things I dinnae like to remember, and all the while he stood there as uncaring as a stone in the rain. But then he kissed me.”

“Not a brotherly kiss, then.”

Jennet drew in a shuddering breath. “He kissed me as a man kisses a woman he loves.”

“And still he left.”

“Aye,” Jennet said, rubbing her cheek with the back of her hand. “He left. The last thing he said to me was, ‘I can't stay and you can't go, and what cannot be changed must be borne.'”

“So,” Hannah said.

“So I married Ewan as my father wished and my mother insisted and I lived ten years with him and then he died, and I came to find Luke. And he was glad to see me, he couldna hide it for all he tried. Now.” Jennet jumped up and went back to the window. “It's time we went down to the village and joined the party. There's a great kettle of something.”

“Beans and squash most probably,” Hannah said.

“And there's Lily too, the poor wee thing. I've not had the chance to talk with her, but I think she has a secret or two to share. Perhaps we can make her smile again.”

“Ask her to show you the meetinghouse,” Hannah suggested, getting up from the cot. “And you'll have your answer, and her smile.”

Elizabeth walked down to the village with Jennet, who was so full of questions and observations and plans that in a matter of minutes she found herself laughing. Jennet must know the names of the birds and trees, the smell of every flower; she asked about Hidden Wolf and then wondered out loud how long she would have to wait before she saw the wolves who gave the mountain its name. When they were close enough to the village to hear the bagattaway game her pace picked up, along with her questions.

While Elizabeth explained the game she watched Jennet's face: round of cheek and flushed with excitement under the wild tousled curls bleached almost white in the summer sun. She had been a lively child, quick of wit, and she had grown into a vibrant and curious woman. The question was not why she had left her home in Scotland, but how she had waited so long.