The Secret of Sentinel Rock (12 page)

Rushing back to the cabin, she lifted the latch softly and opened the door. Emma was ­weeping.

“It’s Granny,” she whispered hoarsely. “She’s dying. I know it.”

Emily tiptoed over to the cot where Emma’s grandmother lay. Her skin was yellow and her breath came in great rasps with a lingering rattle in her chest. Emily could feel the hair stand up at the nape of her own neck. The old woman looked just like Grandmother Renfrew had before she’d ­died.

Emma came to stand beside her, and Emily clasped Emma’s hands in hers. Both girls stood ­wide-­eyed as Granny struggled for breath, and then after a huge gasp was silent. It was over so quickly that the girls never even had a chance to do anything. Numb, Emily pulled the blanket up over the old woman’s face, then drew the sobbing Emma ­outside.

•••

It seemed like ages later
that Emma finally stirred. She’d fallen asleep with her head cradled in Emily’s lap. Emily must have dozed too, for the sun was lower in the sky and a breeze wafted through the clearing. She felt chilled and ­cramped.

Just then they heard the door latch opening behind them, and both girls scrambled to their feet. Sandy stumbled out and headed to the bushes behind the house where they could hear him being sick. A few moments later he reappeared, trembling and shaky on his ­feet.

Emma ran to him. “Come, you must get back to bed.”

“No. We have to bury Granny,” he ­mumbled.

“We can do it later,” Emma insisted. “When some of the others can help.” She grabbed Sandy by the ­shoulder.

But he shrugged her off and staggered to the barn for a ­shovel.

They found him collapsed there a few minutes later. Emma roused him and together she and Emily managed to help him to the house. Emily held open the door. Then he sank onto his mattress moaning. At the commotion, Geordie sat ­up.

Emily huddled by the door, not sure if she wanted to venture in very far with the lifeless form lying on the other side of the room. Instead, she watched Emma give Geordie some broth when he said he was feeling better. Soon after, he slept ­again.

The girls quickly scooped up the neglected basket of herbs and plants, a basin and a knife, and took them outside to the plank bench on the east side of the house. There they began preparing the ingredients needed for the remedies. They separated and washed leaves and roots, and scraped inner bark from its casings. As they worked, Emily explained the uses of the plants and how to make various ­medicines.

Once Emma took a few minutes to feed and water the animals. When she returned to Emily’s side, they talked quietly about their lives. At first they avoided mentioning Emma’s grandmother’s death. Emily was concerned about Emma’s reaction, but Emma was the first to bring up the subject. She mentioned how odd it was that they’d both lost their grandmothers so ­recently.

Emma seemed to be consoled by being able to share her feelings with Emily, because she understood so ­well.

Emily soon learned what a feisty and hardy lady the senior Mrs. Elliott had really been. She had raised five children alone after her young husband had died falling off a roof he was thatching for a neighbour. For years they had struggled, living in a tiny hut on rough hilly terrain, but somehow she’d always managed to have food on the table for her growing ­brood.

Emily thought of all the modern conveniences she had available to her in comparison to the primitive life of the Elliotts. How difficult everything must have been for them. Emily looked at the ­rough-­hewn plank she and Emma were working on behind the squat sod house. Perhaps their daily life as immigrants wasn’t much different from what they’d known in ­Scotland.

They weren’t even property owners, according to Emma, just renters. And when their lord of the manor had decided to sell and break up his estate, all the renters were homeless. They lost the small plots of land that they’d lived on for generations, and would never be able to go back, nor have any hope of owning land themselves if they ­did.

Even though the elder Mrs. Elliott loved her “bonnie” Scotland, she’d been willing to emigrate to a new country with her youngest son and his family. At least they had a chance of owning their own land. And the other members of her family would be following ­soon.

The girls continued to clean and chop roots as Emma talked. Emily was spellbound by Emma’s account. The probable sale of Grandmother Renfrew’s farm seemed minor in comparison to the upset the Elliotts had faced. They weren’t even able to live in their own country. At least Emily was staying on the prairies and could easily take a drive through the land she loved so much. She shook her head, realizing she had many reasons to be ­thankful.

“Why are you looking so queer?” Emma asked, setting down the knife she’d been using on the willow ­branches.

Emily shrugged. “I was just thinking about how different your life is from mine. Yet how similar in a way.”

She threw a basinful of dirty water onto the ground, and then walked over to the rain barrel at the corner of the house. As she scooped clean water into the bowl and dropped more roots in to soak, she told Emma about the auction and sale of Grandmother Renfrew’s farm. Emily also explained all the ideas she had for saving the farm, but none seemed realistic when she discussed them with her ­friend.

Her family didn’t seem to want to be bothered with renting the land to Gerald Ferguson, because of the problems of having to split the proceeds between all the family members, and her uncle Ian wasn’t going to come out of retirement to run it either. None of the other family members who farmed lived near enough to make it feasible to work the land along with their own. There seemed no hope for keeping her grandmother’s beloved ­farm.

All of a sudden Emily gasped. She’d forgotten all about going home. She’d been so caught up in Emma’s world that she’d been gone from her own for ages. “We’d better get some of these things steeping, Emma. I’ve got to get back.”

Gathering a handful of herbs and leaves, she rushed into the house and began measuring them into a pot. As she poured boiling water over them, she explained to Emma again what the various ingredients did. In another bowl she prepared a liniment to rub on their chests, hoping she’d remembered just exactly how her grandmother had prepared it. She’d seen Grandmother Renfrew do some of these things many times, but it was different when she had to do it herself. At least she knew none of the ingredients were toxic and if she’d put a little too much of one thing in, it wouldn’t harm the ­Elliots.

“Are you sure you can remember all that?” Emily quizzed Emma anxiously when she was done. “Make sure you follow what I said exactly, otherwise it might not work.”

Emma nodded and recited the information back to Emily as she laid each plant or root from the basket onto the table. Confident the girl understood, Emily headed for the door. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. Good luck.” She ran back and gave Emma a ­hug.

“Thanks for all your help, Emily,” Emma whispered into her ear. “You’re the best friend I could ever have.”

Emma watched Emily walk across the room. Her eyes were full of admiration. ­“Good-­bye, lass.”

­“Good-­bye, Emma. Take care of yourself. See you soon.”

As Emily reached the door, Molly let out a healthy cry and Emma’s mother awoke. Emily watched through the almost closed door as the woman sat up shakily on the edge of the cot and tried reaching for the unhappy ­child.

“You’re awake?” Emma ran and hugged her mother. Then she picked up Molly. As she placed the squawking baby in her mother’s arms, Geordie and Sandy stirred at the noise. Emma turned and gave Emily a smile that said “everything is going to be all right now.”

Emily closed the door softly and darted for home through the quickly failing light. When she reached the rock, she yanked the stone from her pocket and deposited it back in the crevice. With a jolt she found herself in total ­darkness.

Instant terror gripped Emily. She could feel the fear all the way from her scalp to the pit of her stomach. She’d never been this far from the house this late at night. Not only that, she had no idea how long she’d been gone, or how much trouble she’d be in when she got ­home.

Squinting to get her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she stumbled down the slope in what she hoped was the right direction. Gradually as she walked, the moon seemed to brighten the starlit sky, and she could see the trampled grass of a path in front of her. She quickened her pace when she heard the distant howl of a ­coyote.

The evening was damp and chilly, and she felt numbed by the events of the day. Exhaustion was closing in on her, and halfway across the pasture, she tripped and fell. Shortly afterwards she heard a rustling in the buckbrush. She must have disturbed some creature. She shuddered and jumped back up to her feet, not wanting to guess what it might have been. A rabbit, she told herself and ­ran.

By now she could make out a faint glow in one of the windows of the stone house ahead, but it was odd the place wasn’t lit up more. She found it even stranger when she finally crawled through the pasture fence into the yard and discovered there was a light only in the ­kitchen.

Cautiously she opened the porch door to the chirping of crickets close at hand. She couldn’t hear any sound inside, except the hum of the fridge. At the table a hastily scribbled note in Aunt Liz’s handwriting leaned against a vase of ­flowers.

Another shot of adrenalin pulsed through Emily’s body as she read how her mother had fallen and injured her wrist. Aunt Liz had taken her to have it ­x-­rayed at the hospital in town, but they didn’t know when they’d return. Except that it would be sometime tonight. Emily was to call either the Fergusons or the Barkleys, if she needed ­anything.

Emily wilted into a chair. At least her mom probably wouldn’t know how long she’d been gone. But she wondered how badly her mom was hurt. How had the accident happened? Emily laid her head on the table. She didn’t think she could take any more emotional upheavals today. As she lay there calming down, she felt herself almost nod off to sleep. Then she jerked her head up. She had to get up to ­bed.

As she pulled herself to her feet, she realized she was hungry. She hadn’t eaten all day. Yet when she opened the fridge, the only thing that appealed to her was a glass of milk. Emily downed it and dragged her weary body up the ­stairs.

As she passed the spare room on the second floor, she had an overwhelming desire to take her grandmother’s handmade quilt with her. Lethargically, she pulled the quilt off the top shelf of the closet and carried it up the last flight of stairs. Flopping onto the bed, she kicked off her runners, dragged the quilt over her, and fell into an exhausted ­sleep.

Some time later, she heard the vague sounds of her mother and aunt returning. Emily remembered crawling under the rest of her covers before they came up to her room to tell her everything was fine and to say good night. But she wasn’t sure if she’d answered them. She drifted back to sleep, feeling relieved that her mother had only a sprain and hopeful that Emma’s family was ­recovering.

Chapter ­Nine

Emily slept soundly most of the night
, but awakened with a start just before dawn. Although still a little groggy from her ordeal of the day before, she felt an urgent need to find out how Emma’s family was doing. Quickly she changed into fresh clothes and ran a brush through her hair. Folding the quilt, she tiptoed down the stairs and slid it back into the closet, being as quiet as she ­could.

Minutes later she slipped out of the house and jogged across the pasture. A stiff breeze made her pull her jacket closer about her. She could hear faint twitterings in the trees as she passed, and by the time she reached the rock, the dark sky was tinged with ­colour.

With taut fingers she reached for the stone, and found herself shifted into early afternoon and a hazy sky. Although the sun warmed her body, she still felt tense and worried as she walked down the familiar path through the stand of poplars. Her throat tightened as she approached the clearing where Emma’s home stood. What would she find ­there?

A bubble of laughter burst from Emily when she spotted Emma sitting with Molly on a quilt in front of the house. She was braiding onions. In the garden, Emma’s mother and sisters were digging rows of potatoes and carrots, laying them in the sun to dry. She could hear oxen bellowing and the shouts of the men in the field in the distance. How wonderful to find things back to normal again in Emma’s world!

Geordie suddenly emerged from a deep hole in the ground on the west side of the house, and Emily felt her face break into a grin. He was always popping up from somewhere, and she was glad to see he was active and healthy again. A wheelbarrow heaped with cabbages stood by the entrance. Geordie was probably hauling them down to the root cellar for the family’s winter ­use.