Valley of the Moon (6 page)

I thought of Benno with my parents. Day two of his vacation.

“Please, go,” pleaded Martha.

“If I go, will I be able to come back?”

“I don't know,” she said.

I'd always had a sixth sense about Benno being in danger. I knew moments before he fell off the jungle gym that he was about to fall off. I would often wake in the middle of the night just before he woke with a nightmare. We were that close, that connected. I tried to reach out to him, to feel him three thousand miles away in Newport. I sensed nothing but good, clear energy. He was probably sitting on the couch with my mother, eating apple slices.

“I want to test out the fog once more,” I said. “Make sure I'm okay in it. That I really can leave whenever I want.”

Martha gave me a concerned look.

“I'll stay in there just a minute,” I said.

“You have somebody—at home?” Joseph asked.

“Yes.”

“If you decide not to come back, we'll understand,” he said.

Heart thudding, I walked into the fog. It was thick, but I had no trouble breathing. In fact, it seemed completely indifferent to me. I turned my back on Greengage and tried to peer through the fog to my campsite. I saw the faintest of glows, which comforted me: it was daylight in my time just as it was daylight here. I listened carefully and heard the hum of Route 12. And then a song. A car radio as it drove by. The unmistakable chorus of Captain and Tennille's “Love Will Keep Us Together.” That song reassured me like nothing else—it was on a constant loop on every station in 1975.

“A minute's up,” said Joseph.

I hesitated, then stepped into the past.

“You're sure?” I asked Joseph, back at the house. “That unless it's the day of the full moon, time passes regularly here?”

“As sure as I can be.”

Martha frowned. “I still think she should go back.”

Now that I'd convinced myself time was passing normally on the other side of the fog, I didn't want to go, and I didn't want them to force me to. I had something to offer them. Information. I would parcel it out to them while trying to figure out what was really going on.

“We studied the earthquake in school,” I said. “It leveled San Francisco. The city went up in flames. It was an eight-point-something on the Richter scale.”

“The Richter scale?” asked Joseph.

“It's a way to measure the magnitude of a quake.”

“Eight points is high?”

“It's a monster.”

“We kept waiting for somebody to rescue us,” said Martha. “We were well known in Sonoma. We sold our produce to every restaurant and grocery store within fifty miles of the farm. Why didn't people come looking for us?”

Joseph rubbed his temples and sank lower in his seat. I could see the depression enveloping him. Crazy or not, I had to do something.

“When I go home, I'll get help.”

“What kind of help could you possibly get?” he asked.

“I don't know. Who could figure out a way to get you out of the fog? A physicist?”

He gave me a skeptical look.

“Maybe a meteorologist?” I said, attempting a joke. “Look, I'm not kidding. There's got to be a solution.” Even though part of me was still not accepting the reality of all this, I forged ahead. “What about if I got some sort of a vehicle here? We could drive you through the fog.”

“We tried that,” said Joseph. “We have a Model T. Magnusson built a compartment for it. It was airtight. It didn't work.”

The front door opened and footsteps pattered down the hallway.

“My sister, Fancy,” said Joseph.

The woman who'd hugged me when I first arrived walked into the room. Her dark hair was cut in a pixie. She wore crimson silk pants and a green kimono top. Compared to Joseph and Martha, she looked like a circus performer.

“Is it true?” she asked Joseph. “Is it true?” she asked me, not waiting for her brother's reply. “Are you really from 1975?”

“I am.”

Tears sprang to her eyes. “I've missed everything,” she cried.

I understood what it was like to feel like life was passing you by.

“Did women finally get the right to vote?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“What year?”

“Nineteen twenty, I think. Here in the States, anyway.”

“Oh goodness, it took that long, did it? I have so many questions. Is she going back? Are you going back?” She looked at me with a desolate face, handing me something folded up in a cloth napkin. “I brought you a treat. A bribe, really, to induce you to stay. Some of Elisabetta's almond sponge cake.”

I opened the napkin. A square of golden cake was nestled into the cloth. “No inducing necessary,” I said. “I'm staying.”

I was still far from convinced it was 1906, but I wasn't leaving without looking around a bit more.

“For the day,” clarified Martha.

“Goody!” said Fancy, clapping her hands. “There's so much we have to talk about.”

Suddenly I was aware of how bad I must look. My shirt was smeared with mud. I smelled of Wilbur, of barnyard. I tried to smooth my hair down, untangle it with my fingers, but it was hopeless.

“You'll want to clean up,” said Martha.

“I'd love a quick shower,” I confessed.

Martha filled two large pots with water and put them on the woodstove. “Fancy, help me with the tub. It's in the scullery.”

The two women carried a tin tub into the kitchen. There was no such thing as a quick shower here.

“I didn't mean for you to go to all that trouble. I'll just wash up at the sink. Or in the bedroom,” I said, remembering the basin and pitcher.

“Nonsense,” said Martha.

She emanated calm. She was a woman who dealt with the facts. I was here. I was dirty. I needed a proper bath.

“Your clothes will have to be washed. Get her something to wear in the meantime, Fancy,” said Martha.

“You mean like a corset?” Was Martha wearing one right now? Her waist was tiny.

“I don't wear corsets and neither should you, Lux,” said Fancy. “Constricts the lungs and the liver. Death traps. I believe in a more natural look.”

The conversation had taken a disturbingly intimate turn.

“You may find me in the parlor when you're done,” said Joseph, disappearing.

“There is nothing natural about your look, Fancy,” said Martha.

Fancy's brightly colored silks were definitely not the norm, but I appreciated them.

“It's the latest style, I'll have you know. From Shanghai,” she sniffed.

Once the water was hot, Martha poured the contents of the two pots into the tub, retrieved a towel and a cake of soap, and handed them to me.

“Martha makes the most brilliant soaps,” said Fancy.

I smelled the soap. Lavender.

Martha abruptly left the room without speaking. Had I done something wrong?

“Don't take it personally. She's not good with hellos and goodbyes,” said Fancy. “We are going to be friends, I just know it.” She smiled. “Would you like to know a little about me? I'm sure you're very curious.”

She gazed at me expectantly.

“Of course,” I said.

“Well, I've never been married. I've come close. I was engaged to Albert Alderson, but I called it off at the last minute, and do you want to know why? He had horrible breath, like blue cheese. Edward, my father, was so angry. He said, ‘You're calling off a marriage because of halitosis? Give the poor man a mint! Or breathe through your mouth.' Yes, Father dear, I'll breathe through my mouth for the next fifty years. Ah, poor Edward. I'm afraid both his children gravely disappointed him. Are you married, Lux?”

I hesitated. “Yes,” I lied. If she really was from an earlier era, I didn't want to put her off.

“Really, you lucky girl! There's nobody interesting here. What's your husband's name? Tell me all about him.” She leaned forward, her eyes bright.

“Oh. Well, I sort of misspoke. I was married, but I'm not anymore.”

Her face fell. I could tell what she was thinking. Was I a divorcée? To her, that was probably even worse than having a child out of wedlock.

“I'm a widow. I have been for a while. He, my husband, died years ago.”

Who knows? Maybe Nelson and I would have gotten married if he'd lived. It was another lie, but it wasn't that much of a stretch.

“Oh, Lux, how awful.”

“It's okay, we don't have to talk about it.”

“I'm so sorry. How rude of me to interrogate you like this when we've only just met.” She stood. “I'll go upstairs and gather up some clothes. You have a lovely, long soak.”

I didn't have time for baths at home. Something about the experience made me feel like a child. I trailed my hands through the warm, soapy water and took inventory of the room. Pots of herbs lined the windowsill: chives, tarragon, and mint. On the shelves, stacks of simple white crockery. On the wooden table, bowls piled high with fruit and vegetables: peaches, plums, a basket of corn. It was so perfect—I still couldn't shake the feeling I was on a movie set.

My mother once told me impossibility was a circle. You started at the top and immediately fell, plunging down the curve, all the while saying to yourself,
This can't be
. Then you reached the hollow at the bottom. The dip. A dangerous place. You could lose yourself. Stay there forever, devoid of hope, of wonder. Or you could sit in that dip, kick your legs out and pump. Swing yourself clear up the other side of the curve to the tippy-top of the circle, where impossibility and possibility met, where for one shining moment they became the same thing. I pointed my toes underwater in the tub and gave a kick, so small it barely disturbed the surface of the water.

When had I grown so cautious?

The clothes were surprisingly comfortable. A pale blue blouse, velvety soft from being laundered so many times, and an oatmeal-colored cotton skirt, loose enough that it didn't bind at the waist. I felt strangely liberated wearing the outfit, grateful to leave my jeans behind. Fancy had given me a tortoiseshell clip, but I had no idea how to use it to pin my hair back. Instead I braided it loosely and bound the end with a bit of twine I found on the counter.

Finally I made my way to the parlor, where I found Joseph sitting in a leather chair, his eyes closed, listening to opera on a gramophone. An Italian soprano keening in a minor key.

The room felt intimate and cozy. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. A piano and a large mahogany desk that was covered with letters, papers, a microscope, sheet music, and—was that an ostrich egg? The air smelled pleasantly of candle wax and tobacco.

“All freshened up?” he said.

How long had he been watching me?

“It's a beautiful room. Inspiring.”

“Inspiring? How?”

“I don't know. It just makes you want to do things. Discover things. Get out into the world.”

“Ah,” he said.

I was tongue-tied, seemingly incapable of saying anything intelligent while still occupied with casting about for an explanation. I needed to find some sort of strategy to calm my mind. I decided I would act as if this was really 1906, without truly accepting it. In that duality I was able to move forward.

“Are you feeling all right?” he asked.

“I'm fine.”

“You look—” He trailed off, as if he thought better of what he was about to say.

“Shell-shocked?” I offered.

He nodded. “You find this impossible to believe.”

“Well—yes,” I admitted.

He sat erect in his chair. “How can I help?”

How can I help?
Had anybody ever asked me that? He had such a calm, steady presence about him. His gaze didn't flit away from mine. He looked directly into my eyes without blinking. I was hanging on a rock face, searching desperately for my next handhold. He was offering to throw a rope up to me, to be my belayer.

“You're not lying, are you?”

“I don't lie,” he said.

“You really believe it's 1906.”

“It's 1906, Lux.”

“Do you believe I'm from 1975?”

“I must confess I'm struggling a bit with that.”

“You think I'm lying?”

“No. I think you believe it's 1975.”

“Then you think I'm crazy.”

He hesitated and then said, “It has crossed my mind.”

“So we're both thinking the same thing. That the other is a lunatic.”

I don't know who began laughing first, but the laughter was contagious. I stood ten feet away from him, but that distance closed rapidly, our communal astonishment at the madness of our situation serving as a bridge, connecting us to one another.

Finally he stood. “I think a tour of Greengage is in order.”

“You want to give me proof that this place is really what you say it is.”

“Proof and a chance to show the farm off.”

“You're the one in charge? The owner?” I suspected he was—everybody looked to him.

“I bought the original parcel of land, but as far as I'm concerned we all own Greengage Farm equally.”

“Greengage? Oh, because of the plums? You must grow them. I love greengage jam.”

“We don't grow greengage plums. They are notoriously hard to grow.”

“Then why did you name the farm Greengage?”

He frowned ever so slightly. “Would you like a tour?”

“Sorry. Yes, please,” I said.
Stop asking so many questions, Lux.

As we walked, Joseph explained to me what he'd set out to do, what kind of a community he'd envisioned: a residential farm where all jobs were equally valued and all jobs, whether done by men or women, paid out the same wage.

“Women still don't get paid as much as men,” I said.

I watched his reaction carefully. Would he be surprised to hear that fact? He didn't seem to be.