The Mirk and Midnight Hour (36 page)

“Because he’s a fiend. I’ll explain later. Ouch,” Sunny said, dropping Seeley and then helping him up. “It’s no use. Even if we could get you out, we couldn’t risk your life with the drop down. Y’all think we can break through the wall?”

“Hush,” Laney whispered. “Listen.”

We all paused, wide-eyed. From outside came thudding sounds, as of objects being thrown against the house, and then voices—King’s rumbling tones and Dorian’s higher ones.

“What’s going on?” Sunny cried. “Seeley, get on me again and look.”

The boy clambered onto Sunny and stretched his neck to see out the window. “King’s dumping brush and logs in a pile against the house.”

“What on earth?” Miss Elsa jumped to her feet. “No, they wouldn’t!” she cried as realization set in.

“Uh-oh,” Seeley said. He shouted now and waved his hands out the window. “King! King! Don’t do it! We can’t get out!”

The smell of smoke wafted up.

“He’s torching the house!” screeched Sunny, dumping Seeley and shoving against the door once more. “He’ll burn us alive! We’ve got to get out of here!”

“Dorian!” I screamed toward the window. “We’ll give you anything. Seeley will give you Panola. Don’t do this!”

By turns, we shouted, prayed out loud, beat at the door, whacked at the plaster, sobbed. I don’t know which things I did. Maybe all of them.

“Let me see out again,” Seeley said. This time it was me who lifted him. “King’s arguing with Dorian. Dorian’s holding the gun on him. King won’t let—the kitchen’s caught fire—”

Laney gave a shriek and clawed at the door. I dropped Seeley down. “Enough—don’t look anymore.” Cubby’s faint, faraway howling reached us. The rest of us joined Laney to heave, push, and work at the hinges, but the door might have been a mountain for all we could move it.

One by one, we sank to the floor. The noise of flames whipping, snapping, and crackling grew louder till it almost drowned out our screams and moaning.

A sharp bang rang out. A shot. And then a second one. Poor King.

No hope. Smoke hung heavy in the room and we crouched under it. Sunny and Miss Elsa clung together. Laney, Seeley, and I wrapped our arms around each other and rocked a little. Tears poured down Laney’s cheeks, but I was tearless now, sick and numb, waiting for the end. I had told Dorian he couldn’t kill everyone who knew of his treachery. I had been wrong. Certainly he would lie in wait for Michael as well.

But something … Another sound … It took a moment for my brain to register what it was—feet pounding up the stairs.

“I’m coming, Master Seeley!” King’s voice boomed. I loved King’s voice. So deep. So reassuring. “Y’all stand back,” he hollered. “I got to bust this open.”

At last our stunned minds could grasp the fact that we were
being rescued. We scurried to a corner as the door came flying inward with a crash and the screech of hinges torn from the frame.

King bounded to Seeley’s side, squatted, and put his big hands on the boy’s shoulders. “You all right? I couldn’t let Master Dorian burn you up. No, sir.” He picked Seeley up in his arms, thick as tree trunks. “Y’all come on out. We got to put out the fire.”

Coughing and sputtering, we all dashed downstairs and toward the blazing, smoke-filled kitchen. Laney reached it first. Gasping, she backed out of the doorway and into the hall, her eyes huge. “The cradle’s gone.” She swayed on her feet.

“Don’t you worry none,” King called back as he headed out onto the front porch. “Cubby’s safe—hear him caterwauling outside? I got him out first.”

Laney raced down the steps and around to the barn, where Cubby yowled reassuringly. The rest of us stumbled outside and immediately formed a line to pass buckets of water from the well and douse the kitchen. Thanks to the recent damp weather, it was still the only portion of the house that had caught. King took an ax and hacked away the burning parts. Bucket after heavy bucket, we began to turn the tide, and then, miraculously, the weighty clouds finally let loose, and rain poured down to finish the job. It was over—the kitchen destroyed, everything blackened and smoke-damaged, but the rest of the house safe.

We dropped to the front porch floor, out of the weather, exhausted, dripping, and relieved. A goose wandered past the steps; the kitchen yard fence was down. I didn’t even think of corralling it. I wasn’t going to do anything ever again. Except—I started up in a panic.

Dorian
.

I said it out loud now. “Where’s Dorian?”

We looked at each other blankly—Seeley, Laney, Sunny, Miss Elsa, and I. King was nowhere to be seen. I jumped up. “Let me fetch the pistol,” I said, and hurriedly grabbed it from the mantel. Outside again, I led the way around the house.

King was kneeling in the grass beside Dorian’s body. It sprawled stiff and contorted with a dark bullet hole in the chest. Rain diluted the blood to a pale rose. Blood and water on the shirt, blood and water puddled beneath.

The big man looked up, his eyes black as chasms and his mouth distorted. “I done it. I shot him. Couldn’t let him burn y’all up.” His homely face seemed to dissolve. Great, wrenching sobs racked his body.

“It’s all right, King,” Miss Elsa said, patting his shoulder.

He raised his head. “ ‘All right,’ ma’am? It ain’t all right. I done killed a man.”

“You had to do it,” I said, “to save our lives. You’re a hero.”

For a long moment Sunny, stunned, stared down at Dorian. with his bright hair spread in the grass. She turned slowly and went out of sight around the barn.

Miss Elsa stood. “I’m going to get bandages to bind your wound, King. It looks like you got grazed.”

Only now I saw that King’s upper sleeve was torn and showed ragged, bleeding flesh.

“He tried to kill you as well,” I said. “The law would have hung him if he wasn’t dead already. Leave him, King. Come out of the rain.”

King trudged after the rest of us onto the front porch. He
slumped down against the rail, his head in his hands. Gently Miss Elsa bandaged him.

Michael came home. Laney fell into his arms. After finally untangling all our scrambled explanations, he said, “So what are we going to do with the body?”

No one seemed to have an answer.

At last Miss Elsa spoke firmly. “If we fetch the marshal, there’ll be too many questions. So, Michael, would you please bury it out in the woods somewhere? Then, as soon as dear, wonderful King feels up to eating, we’re going to give him the best meal he’s ever had and send him off to the Yankee lines. They’re near Corinth, aren’t they? King, we’ve got a map somewhere that we’ll give you. Can you sneak through the woods without letting anyone see you until you reach the bluecoats? When you get to them, you’ll be free.”

King nodded slowly.

Miss Elsa paused before turning again to Michael. “And, it’s awful to ask, but can you find our money on the body? We’ll need to send some with King.” Her shoulders sagged suddenly. “I think I’ll go in now. First I’ll open all the windows to air out the smoke. And then …” Her voice trailed off.

I couldn’t blame her for seeking laudanum tonight.

It all played out as Miss Elsa had said. We prepared to rebuild our lives. And the kitchen.

During the following days, we scrubbed the house until everything smelled only a little of smoke, and a few charitable men from church began coming out daily to rebuild the kitchen.

With Dorian’s final and forever departure, we should all have felt
more peaceful and secure. Somehow, though, peace eluded us. Four days later Seeley didn’t seem to have recovered at all. I didn’t know if it was still the original poison or the nightmare Dorian had put us through. Whatever it was, Seeley did nothing but lie on the sofa, wan and languid, with a sheet covering his face. He whimpered if I left the room and would hardly speak. He wanted nothing to eat. He even pushed Goblin off every time she tried to lie on him.

My worry over Seeley tangled with that nagging sense that there was something I needed to be doing or somewhere I needed to be going. Someone …

I watched Seeley, pondering what I could do for him. “Shall I read to you?”

He barely shrugged. “I guess.”

“What do you want me to read?”

“Maybe
Castle Sliverbone
.”

“That’s a book you brought from Panola, isn’t it? Is it up in your room?”

He nodded.

Upstairs it took me a few minutes to find the book under Seeley’s bed, mixed in with dust, peach pits, and dirty undergarments. As I held the volume in my hands and read the cover, an odd feeling came over me. The author’s name—Thomas Lynd—seemed so familiar. I shook myself. Seeley must have mentioned it before or else I had caught a glimpse of the cover.

Downstairs, when I started to read
Castle Sliverbone
to Seeley, he stopped me. “I guess I don’t really want it.” He turned his face away.

I tapped my fingers on the book for a few minutes. Then I slammed it down and announced, “Time for you to go outside,
Squid. There’s something I need to do and you’re going to help me. Do you have any of those lemon drops left from the other day?”

Sluggishly he rose up on his elbows. I thought he was going to rebel, but instead he told me where to find the few remaining pieces of candy in a twist of paper. I got them.

Seeley’s legs gave way when he stood. I started to lend him some support, but he pushed me away. “I’m not a baby.”

However, when he almost keeled over on the porch steps, he let me assist him down. We made our way across the yard. As we went, I remembered.…

Rush is about to leave for the last time, although we don’t know that’s what it is. His gray uniform is too big across the back and his rifle is shiny new. Laney prepares his favorite meal, but no one really eats it. It’s time for Rush to go, but still we scrabble to delay. I play the songs he loves on the harp
.

Pa stands finally, stretches, and says, “Well …
”

“
Soon, Pa,” Rush says. “Violet and I need to take a walk first.
”

He and I walk down to the river, and then along the edge of the woods
.

He puts his arm across my shoulders. “It’s been a long time since we visited the bees.” We head toward the gums
.

“
Don’t forget them,” he says, halfway there. “There’s something in the bees that’s very wise, and if you’re the right sort of person and you treat them with the right sort of respect, they’ll be with you when you need them. And Violet”—he stopped in mid-stride and faced me—“if I don’t come back, don’t think it’ll be betraying our secret to share this with someone else.
”

I shove him. “Don’t even say that.” He knows I mean the part about not coming back
.

He gives a faint, sad smile, but says nothing
.

He did know it was the last time.

“Now,” I said to Seeley when we stood on the slope above the gums, “the hives are the city of the bees. They are wise far beyond what most folks believe. I’m going to teach you to do something that Rush taught me. No one else knows I can do it. You talk to the bees. You tell them all the news and give them little gifts. And if you’re the right sort of person, you can also call the bees to you when you’re in need. I think you can do it. It’ll take some courage on your part, but you’ve shown how brave you can be through all this business. Now put the lemon drops on the ground by the gums.”

He did as I told him. I taught him the rhyme and we repeated it together.

“My lady queen and noble bees,” I said, “this is Seeley Rushton, whom you probably already know a little. Please care for him and let no harm come to him. All right,” I told Seeley, “you’ll have to hold very, very still.”

I showed him how to lie down in the grass, hands flat against the ground, feeling the earth, imagining blossoms and honey-sweet smells.

“We summon thee.…”

They came.

Most landed on me, but several alighted on Seeley. I heard his sharp intake of breath at first and then his steady, soft breathing beneath the humming.

Afterward, on the way back to the house, Seeley shambled a bit but smiled and shook his head when I made a move to help him.

It continued to tug at me—that restless, fearful sense that there was something I was forgetting. Something important. Urgent even. I would try to pin my mind to whatever it was, but it always slipped away like an oily, elusive dream.

No one else had any idea as to what it could be or what commitment I might have made.

Well, there was plenty to keep me busy these days without borrowing some problem that didn’t exist, and I tried to shake myself free of it. The cotton fields were growing cushiony and puffy. We were still putting things to rights in the new kitchen and canning the first harvest from the garden.

A large basket of withered poppies sat in Miss Elsa’s room. First she pierced the capsules with a needle. Next she dropped them into a glazed crock near a small fire that she kept burning on her hearth, in spite of the heat, to allow the opium to sweat out. Afterward she mixed it with sugar and alcohol to make her medicine.

However, nothing enabled her to escape completely from the
aftereffects of Dorian. Finally she requested details about what had happened between him and Sunny. She listened, with pain lining her face. “It’s all my fault,” she said sadly.