Shadow of a Life (14 page)

“
You’re right, I would never
be happy about you lowering your standards to his level. Besides,
he doesn’t like to feel threatened. If you tried to blackmail him
it might make matters worse. You can’t let my father be a bad
influence on you, Nick. You have to get out. Now.”

He sighed. “I don’t know what else I’m
going to be able to do. I’m not qualified for any high-paying jobs.
If I have to work my way up from the bottom, it’s going to be
forever until I can take you away from here.”

“
Nick, I don’t want you to
take care of me. Let’s take care of each other. Let’s go to one of
the bigger cities—like New York. We can both get jobs in the
factories. We don’t need fancy things and a lot of money as long as
we’re together.
Please.
”

“
How could we ever get your
parents to agree to that?”

“
We could never convince
them. We’ll just have to run away together—before you get back on
that boat.” Sophia could feel the excitement rising inside
her.

“
Are you sure this is what
you want?”

“
Nick, I have been waiting
to leave my entire life.”

He was silent for a while as he mulled
things over in his head. “Okay. Let’s do it. Let’s go to New
York.”

He picked her up and swung her around,
kissing her on the forehead, both cheeks, and finally her lips.
When he finally set her down she continued to float.

“
You better get back. Your
parents are going to think you fell into the well. Love, I can’t
carry the water for you today or they would know I was with you.
I’m so sorry.”

He was more than she deserved. No one
had ever cared for her like Nick did and it touched her heart in a
way she couldn’t possibly explain.

Sophia hurried back to her house as
fast as she could with her load of water, hoping she hadn’t angered
her parents too much for taking so long. Luckily, they were again
hunched over the kitchen table in a whispered conversation and
didn’t appear to notice or care how long she’d been gone. She
spread breakfast on the table for all of them and pretended she
didn’t care when Nick walked in a little while later. He avoided
making eye contact with her and Jeremiah and Elsa were none the
wiser to what had transpired earlier that morning.

When the morning meal had been
consumed, Sophia stood and began to clear the table. Jeremiah
reached out and pushed on her shoulder, forcing her to sit back in
her chair. “Hold on, Sophia. Your mother and I need to talk to you
about something.” Had they figured out her secret plans with Nick
already?

“
Sophia, you will be turning
eighteen in a couple of days and it’s time you started a household
of your own. Your mother will be accompanying me on the
Mist Seeker
the next time
I leave and we aren’t about to leave you here alone. We have made
an arrangement with Michael Mason. You will be marrying him before
we leave.”

Sophia felt as if she had been punched
in the stomach as all the air in her lungs left her body at
once.

“
Father . . . no. You can’t
do this to me. I’m not a possession you can just sell. Mr. Mason is
so much older than me and I don’t care for him at all.
Please
don’t make me do
this.” She looked to Nick for help.

He sat in stunned silence and shook
his head slightly as if he didn’t know what to do. Elsa frowned,
but wouldn’t make eye contact with Sophia.

“
Stop acting like a child,
Sophia. The deal has already been made. You
will
marry Mr. Mason and you
will
do it next week.
It’s time for you to be someone else’s problem.”

Sophia ran from the room and out the
back door of the house. She kept running even as her hair came
unpinned and fell down around her shoulders, tangling in the wind.
She didn’t stop until she reached the shore and there was nowhere
else she could run. She threw herself to the ground and sobbed. It
felt like all she did was cry. There couldn’t possibly be any tears
left inside her.

She didn’t know how long she lay on
the pebble covered beach, but it must have been a long time because
the water began to lap at her as the tide rose. She sensed a new
presence and sat up to see Nick kneeling beside her.

“
Oh, Nick. What am I
supposed to do? I am so scared of Michael Mason.” She was almost
hysterical.

“
Shhh . . . love. Your
father has set your wedding day for two days after your birthday.
We’ll just have to leave before then.”

“
I don’t know if we can pull
it off, Nick. When we talked about leaving before, I thought Father
would secretly be happy that I was gone, but if I break a contract
he made he will be angry and will hunt for us.”

“
We’ll just have to disguise
ourselves, give ourselves new names, and lose ourselves in the city
as soon as we can. If he catches up with us, we always have a
secret weapon.”

“
What secret
weapon?”

“
We could threaten to expose
his illegal activities if he doesn’t leave us alone. It’ll work.
I’m sure of it. Besides, you’ll be eighteen, Sophia. It’s not like
I’m stealing a child. You just have to pretend as if you are
unhappily going along with your wedding to this Mason fellow until
we leave. You will even be able to pack your bags without anyone
being suspicious. I’ll go to town this week and secure railroad
passage for us under different names. We can do this,
Sophia.”

The two made plans to rendezvous on
the morning of Sophia’s eighteenth birthday. Nick had purchased two
tickets to New York leaving town on October 31, 1888. If they met
at the Goodwin well when Sophia went to fetch water that morning,
they would have just enough time to get to town and board the
train. By the time Jeremiah and Elsa realized she wasn’t coming
back to the house and went looking for the couple, the train would
be gone. Their tickets were under the names of Neil and Samantha
Jackson, newlyweds traveling up the coast. Once they got to New
York they would look for work and rent a small apartment under the
same names. In theory, it would be almost impossible to track them
down.

The last few days before her birthday
were some of the longest days of Sophia’s life. She expected their
plan to be uncovered at any moment and jumped every time either of
her parents approached or spoke to her. The day before her birthday
she went with her parents to discuss the upcoming nuptials with the
Mason family. The affair was to be a small one—just the families of
the bride and bridegroom and a nearby preacher. The vows would take
place at the Mason farm. While they were there, Sophia received a
tour of what was to be her new home and farm.

Michael’s home was not far from his
parent’s large two-story farmhouse. His home was smaller, but still
beautiful compared to the house she currently lived in with
Jeremiah and Elsa. It would have been a dream come true if it
weren’t for the man she was supposed to live there with. While they
visited he barely spoke to her, but he incessantly leered at her
and she constantly pulled at the shawl draped around her shoulders,
trying to cover every feminine feature she had.

The night before her birthday she met
Nick in the barn for a brief moment. He reassured her that
everything would be fine and he would meet her at the well with
Mabel hitched to his two-seater buggy. They would follow a trail
through the woods that met up with the road just past the Mason
farm. All was well.

“
I love you, Sophia. I can’t
wait until we get to New York so we can be married.”

“
I love you, too, Nick.
Tonight is the last night I will ever have to be
unhappy.”

He looked through the barn door to
make sure no one was coming and then quickly kissed her. Her whole
body turned to mush and when he tried to pull away she leaned into
him more, not wanting the kiss to end. He gently squeezed her
shoulders and pulled her away.

“
I will see you in the
morning, love, I promise,” he said as he slipped through the door
and returned to the house. She watched his retreating figure and
wondered again how a girl like her had become so lucky.

CHAPTER 11

Modern Day

Evergreen Cemetery,
Marion, Massachusetts

S
ophia paused in the telling of her story. All of us were
sitting upright on the blanket, hanging on every word she said,
desperate to hear how her story ended. I for one couldn’t imagine
what it would have been like to live the life she had all those
years before.

“
Don’t stop there, Sophia,
you’re just getting to the good part,” Peter encouraged.

“
You still haven’t gotten to
your death,” I added.

“
I know. I know. I’ve just
never told anyone about it before. Sometimes ghosts compare how
they died. Everyone has to one up each other, you know? But I’ve
always avoided the question when people ask me how I passed on. It
brings back bad memories that I’ve spent years trying to
forget.”

I looked at my watch. It was already
midnight and we’d been sitting in the dark cemetery for hours.
Halfway through Sophia’s story Camille had texted her mom, telling
her that she would be spending the night at my house. I was
supposedly at Camille’s home, she was supposedly at mine, and no
one was home to wonder about Peter’s whereabouts. We could stay
there all night if we wanted and no one would ever know.

After sitting in silence for a few
more minutes, Sophia finally began the conclusion of her
heartrending story. “The morning of my eighteenth birthday I woke
up early. Of course, I don’t think I ever actually fell asleep the
night before. I was too excited and nervous to sleep. What Nick and
I were undertaking was potentially dangerous. Jeremiah seemed nice
enough—until you crossed him. If he caught us there was no telling
what he would do to me or Nick. Actually, I was more worried for
Nick than myself. My sentence would be to marry Michael Mason, but
his anger toward Nick could have brought any number of things.
Anyway, I dressed in the burgundy and lace dress that I’d gotten
for Christmas the year before. Then I pulled the oldest dress I
owned over the top so that I wouldn’t bring any suspicion when I
left the house. With my shawl and apron covering you couldn’t tell
what I was wearing. I figured I could throw my worn dress into the
well and travel in my best clothing. Jeremiah and Elsa were in the
kitchen having a heated discussion when I grabbed the water buckets
and left. It was hard not to look around, taking one last
sentimental look at everything, but I didn’t want to alert them
that something wasn’t right. I didn’t have to worry—they barely
even looked at me that day. I’m pretty sure I ran all the way to
the well. I can still feel the water buckets swinging and jostling
me as I ran. When I got there, I couldn’t see Nick so I paced back
and forth and quietly called his name into the trees. I wondered if
he’d had trouble getting Mabel hitched up without my father
noticing.”

Sophia squirmed restlessly on the
blanket. “Time wore on and I was starting to get nervous. My heart
raced and I didn’t know what to do. I ran around the edge of the
trees calling his name. I even went farther down to the edge of the
water to see if I had somehow misunderstood where I was supposed to
meet him. There wasn’t any sign of him and no sign that he had ever
been there.”

“
What happened to Nick? Did
something happen to Nick?” Camille panicked.

Sophia ignored her and continued
talking. “Finally, after what seemed like hours, although I’m sure
it wasn’t, I decided I should go back up to the house. If my father
had detained him, we might’ve still had a chance to leave and get
to the train on time if I met him at the road near our home. It
would be riskier, of course, but I didn’t know what else to do.
Since my plans had changed and I was going back to the house, I
still had to fill the water buckets. I hurried as fast as I could.
I’d never been more anxious in my life.”

Sophia wrapped her arms around her
legs and rocked back and forth. “When I got back to the house,
Jeremiah met me at the back door yelling about how slow I was. ‘I
hope Michael Mason can knock some sense into you,’ I remember him
saying. I entered the kitchen and frantically looked around hoping
that Nick was there, but there was no sign of him. ‘What’s wrong
with you this morning?’ Elsa asked me. Jeremiah followed me in and
told me I needed to come help him hitch up his wagon. I asked him
where he was going and he said he was headed to town to find
someone else for his crew. He pulled out a piece of paper and waved
it at me. ‘It’s a note from that boy,’ he said. ‘I found it on the
kitchen table when I got up this morning. The boy says he doesn’t
want to live life on the sea anymore and he’s left. The no-good,
stupid boy didn’t know how good he had it.’ Jeremiah cursed about
the inconsiderate way Nick had resigned and how he was forced to
train someone new and how he might have to delay leaving on his
next sea journey. He was so angry . . . he didn’t even notice I was
crying through it all.” Sophia stopped to catch her
breath.

“
He really left you?” I
asked in unbelief.