Valley of the Moon (23 page)

P
erhaps my father had done me a favor. Now that Benno was going to the lake, I could let go of it. I could pass that baton on to my son, along with all the regrets and nostalgia that went with it. I'd lost my place at the lake and I'd lost my place out in the world. But in Greengage, I was found.

I belonged here. Everything felt familiar now. I'd worked on practically every crew and was capable at all of them, although I most loved the kitchen, winery, education, and the herbal apothecary. Martha had taught me how to make a simple tincture. She'd even let me peek at her family's herbarium.

Today I was working with Friar in the infirmary, not that he needed much help: he hadn't had any patients in days. I dropped the metal implements into the soapy water.

“Let's launder the bandages, too,” he said.

“Are they soiled?” The bandages appeared freshly washed.

He scratched behind his ear. “I guess not.” He was searching for things to keep me occupied.

“Throw them in,” I said.

I'd been here a week and was starting to feel hopeful. Maybe I did have a future. I'd told Joseph the only legal, non-restaurant jobs available for a woman with a high school diploma were menial: receptionist, secretary, salesclerk. Any of those would be better than waitressing, he'd said: more stable hours, potential for advancement, less physically taxing.

That was the first phase of the plan. The second was that I get myself back in school. I could attend City College at night and in two years' time have an associate's degree.

The front door of the infirmary swung open. Ilsa shuffled in. She looked pale. Her eyes were glazed. Two bright splotches of red shone on her cheeks.

Friar helped her into the examination room. “My God, you're burning up,” I heard him say.

A few minutes later he told me, “Find Martha.”

In the next hour three more people came into the infirmary with the same symptoms. I wanted to stay and help but they kicked me out.

“Go tend the lavender,” commanded Martha.

She had a separate lavender garden. Ten long rows of it. I'd spent hours tending that garden. I knew its pests, its contours, its dry soil, like I knew the N-Judah bus schedule. She didn't have to tell me what had to be done.

Late that afternoon, Joseph came back to the house. He'd spent the day on the building crew, installing new shelves in the root cellar.

“What's happening in the infirmary?” I asked.

“Six people are ill now.”

“Oh God.”

He gave me a perplexed look. “There's no need for alarm. It's a simple flu. Martha and Friar have it well in hand.”

“Are they taking precautions so they don't get sick?”

“Martha has a hearty constitution; however, she's not taking any chances. She's been exposed and doesn't want to get anybody sick. She'll sleep at the infirmary tonight,” he said.

Joseph was right: Martha and Friar had it well in hand. It was a quick-passing influenza. It began with a sore throat. Next the fever spiked and then came the nausea. A couple of uncomfortable days in bed, but by the third day, up and walking around again.

Even though I assured Martha I had been vaccinated against and exposed to every kind of disease known to twentieth-century man, she advised me to go home. I gently refused. Instead I tended her plants and cut back the grass around the flower clock. She still hadn't completed it. She'd managed to get ten sections of it working, the blooms opening and shutting on the hour, but the section between eleven and twelve still eluded her. In the apothecary I turned the jars of tincture every morning so that each blossom and root and stem had its daily light.

In short, I tried to make myself indispensable.

“Are those diaries?” I asked.

Joseph sat at his desk in the parlor, a pile of unopened notebooks in front of him.

His eyes narrowed. “No.”

“Don't worry, I'm not going to read your personal journals.”

“There's nothing personal in there. They're market notebooks. It's how I keep—how I
kept
—track of the fields. Evaluate the crops. Calculate yields and productivity. Money in, money out. Distribute profit checks. Obviously, there's no need to do that anymore.”

“Well, maybe that's a relief not to have to worry? Only having to provide for yourselves?”

“I'm not sure what it is.”

When I'd first met Joseph, he seemed so much older than me in every way. I was twenty-nine now and I'd known him for four years. Even though he'd aged only nine months in that time, I felt like I was rapidly approaching his age. It helped that he treated me as an equal.

“I think this flu has run its course,” he said.

About a quarter of the people in Greengage had cycled through it. We hadn't seen much of Martha for the past two weeks, but only a few people remained in the infirmary now.

“Martha will be home tomorrow for good.”

“You must be happy about that.”

“She's exhausted. She needs to sleep in her own bed.”

“It's strange,” I said. “How slowly things change. I mean, you know things will change, of course they're going to change, they always do, but when you're in the moment sometimes it feels like that moment will never be over.”

“Time elongates.”

“Exactly, it stretches. And sometimes that's a good thing, if it's a good moment and you don't ever want to leave it. And sometimes it's a bad thing.”

He finished my thought. “And you find yourself trapped in a terrible moment forever.”

“Yes,” I said. “This is not a terrible moment, you know that, right?”

M
artha grimaced as she worked the bar of soap between her palms. Her hands were raw from washing them so much.

“Why don't you let me heat the water?” I asked.

“There's no need, Joseph.”

I made her some toast and a soft-boiled egg. Even though she'd barely slept in days, Martha was full of energy. Her leg jittered up and down under the table and her eyes were bright. She thrived in a crisis.

“We're down to John,” she said. “His temperature was normal today but we kept him one last night just to be sure.”

She sopped the rest of her egg yolk up with her toast.

“Shall I make you another egg?”

She pushed her plate away. “No, thank you.”

“Some tea.”

“No.”

“A biscuit.”

She gave me the faintest glimmer of a smile. “I'm tired. Let's go to bed.”

“It's only seven and you said you're not tired.”

“Bed,” she whispered, taking me by the hand.

Oh.
Bed
. I followed her up the stairs.

The next morning Martha slept in. I went back to the house at lunchtime to check on her, and she'd just risen. She bustled around the kitchen, wiping down counters, tossing a rotten apple into the compost bucket.

“When is Lux going? The moon will be full in two days.”

“Today or tomorrow,” I said, guessing. I hadn't spoken to her about it. She'd stay as long as she could, I suspected. She might never have an opportunity to put her life on hold for a month again.

I spent the afternoon mulching garlic, Fancy by my side.

“I'm famished, Joseph. Did you bring any sweets?” she asked.

“Why, yes, right here in my pocket.”

“Really?”

I raised my eyebrows at her.

“I should know better than to count on you,” she said. “You only think of yourself.”

She was teasing me; still, there was something about the comment that stung.

“I'm going to get some water. Would you like some?”

“No, thank you.”

She stood and squinted. “Who's that?”

A man on horseback galloped toward us, clearly in a hurry. As he got closer we could see it was Magnusson, a grave look on his face.

“Dear God, what's wrong?” said Fancy as he approached.

Magnusson slid out of the saddle and handed the reins to me.

“Martha,” he said.

“I'm fine,” said Martha.

“You passed out,” said Friar, taking her pulse.

“It's because I haven't been sleeping,” she muttered.

John had been deemed well enough to go home and Martha had been cleaning up in the infirmary, stripping sheets, wiping down counters, when she'd collapsed.

Martha tried to sit up and Friar gently pushed her back down.

“You're not going anywhere,” he said.

She shook her head angrily.

“She does look fine,” I said to Friar.

“How's your appetite?” Friar asked.

“She's been eating like a horse,” I answered for her. “Finished everything on her plate last night.”

“Why are you people so concerned with my appetite?” snapped Martha.

Friar stood. “Just do me a favor. Stay here for the rest of the afternoon. Let me keep an eye on you. You don't have a fever but you feel a little warm.”

“That's not how the other cases presented. The fever was immediate and high. A sore throat for two or three days prior. My throat feels fine. You are being ridiculous, Friar.”

“I am being careful, Martha.”

A few hours later Martha had a temperature of 102.

“What's wrong, darling?” she asked.

We'd agreed it was best for her to stay at the clinic overnight.

“What's wrong is that you just called me darling.”

“Why shouldn't I call you darling?”

“You should call me darling, you just never do.”

“I don't?”

I kissed her on the forehead. “Go to sleep.”

I was at the door when she called out to me. “Don't forget to buy sugar at Poppe's. And tea. Jake set some Twining's aside for me.”

Poppe's was the general store in Glen Ellen, and Jake Poppe had likely been dead for some fifty years.

“Of course. And how about some grape taffy?” I teased her.

“Oh, yes.”

“And some butterscotch drops?”

“Lovely.”

Martha had such a gallows sense of humor. It was one of the things I loved most about her.

The next morning Lux came downstairs dressed in her modern clothes.

“You're going home?” I asked.

“The full moon is tonight. I don't have a choice.” She looked at me sadly. “Thank you for being so good to me. I don't know what I'd do without Greengage.”

“You have a plan. All you have to do is execute it now.”

“Right.” She slung her backpack over her shoulders. “Walk with me to breakfast?”

“I have to stop by the infirmary first,” I said.

“I'll go with you. I want to say goodbye to Martha.”

“I was just going to send somebody to get you!” cried Friar when we walked in the door. “Her fever is 104. I don't understand. I checked on her just an hour ago and the fever had gone down. I thought she was out of the woods.”

Martha lay on the bed with the sheets pulled back, her nightgown nearly transparent with sweat, her hair wet, like she'd just come out of the bath. She moaned; the cords in her neck tightened.

“Ice,” she whispered.

“She's been asking for ice all morning,” said Friar.

“Ice,” she moaned again, delirious.

“It's coming, darling. I can hear the ice wagon now,” I said.

“We have to cool her off somehow,” said Friar.

“The creek.” It was 55, maybe 60 degrees this time of year.

“What can I do?” asked Lux, frantic.

“Just stay out of the way,” said Friar.

I wrapped Martha in the sheet and carried her out to Friar's buckboard.

“I can get you close,” Friar said, “but I won't be able to get down the bank with the rig.”

“I can manage.”

Martha clung to me as we drove.

“If we get the fever down?” I asked.

Friar frowned.

“Will that be enough? Will she be all right?” I demanded an answer.

“Nobody has had this high of a fever. I'm inclined to believe this is a different virus. Or maybe it's the same and it's just hit Martha harder.”

“Why would it hit her harder?”

“I don't know. I'm sorry, Joseph.”

I waded into the water with Martha.

“No,” she whispered. “It's too cold.”

“Yes, my darling. We have to cool you off.”

“But what about the summer solstice party? Have the tables been moved from the dining hall? I have to get dressed. People are arriving at five.”

“We've got plenty of time,” I said.

I held Martha out in front of me and slowly lowered her into the water until only her face was above the surface. She sighed. Her blond hair fanned out from her head. I rocked her back and forth.

Friar called down from the top of the bank. “Is she all right?”

“She seems to be.”

“Good. Keep her in there as long as she can bear it.”

Martha bore it for about five minutes, then her lips turned purple and she started to shiver. I staggered up the bank with her. Friar met me with a woolen blanket.

Martha's color slowly returned to normal.

“I'm fine, Joseph. Why are you all making such a fuss?” she asked.

Friar felt her forehead with the back of his hand. “The fever has gone down. Let's get her back to the infirmary and into some warm, dry clothes.”