NaGeira Read online

  For years I wondered what harm he thought I meant his young Sara. Had I become so irretrievably tangled up with some infant nightmare of his that he felt he must pass the confusion on to his children? Later, when Elizabeth became ill with Mary and I was warned by the community to stay away from a home I had never been to in the first place, I lost patience. I barred my door and refused to admit anyone for days. I softened after a while as I knew I must and the timid knocks of the sick and anxious found a way into my world again. But what about John Rose? This part of the puzzle is the one that hurts me most. What could charitable, shy John have said against me? Or was the girl merely lying? Feeling around this question like a beetle probing for rot, I find an uncomfortable answer. She was many things, that girl—vicious, arrogant, rude—but it seemed likely that she was telling the truth.

  Daylight creeps into my cabin. I shift slowly onto my side. Why should I not march down to the cove and ask Simon Rose why he should talk ill of me to his daughter? I know I will not do this, but it is a stirring thought and pleases me. There are high walls around me and the only freedom I have comes from trust. I never argue, cause trouble, or break a confidence. This is my only safety and I am not quite ready to sacrifice it, even though I lie in the cold.

  I shift onto my back and gaze into the milky dawn of my cabin. The straw mattress makes scrunching noises beneath me. I take in the scent of the earth; the sods lying on the roof overhead have come alive again now it is summer. There’ll be insects and wriggling things now there is warmth and moisture during the day. I find myself smiling and realize my thoughts have skipped on to Thomas Ridley. The boy had the wholesome smell of the earth and early summer is his season. Perhaps I have given him a passing thought or two every summer since that burning night at the inn between Bristol and London. But this is different. These days he is not far from my thoughts most of the time.

  I remember the dark-timbered room of the inn, how the moonlight skimmed along the floor once my candle was out. An oak tree brushed against my window and cast shadows of its leaves all over the walls, so that my room seemed like an arbour of oversized vegetation. A stubborn twig beat a rhythm against the glass and the air was heavy with blossom. I lay awake amidst layers of darkness trying to gauge the changes inside me. I felt like an alchemist’s vessel and I could sense my blood altering with the infusions of fate and circumstance. The journey had unsettled me and the summer made me restless. But Thomas Ridley climbing into our coach, treating me like a lady, turning the full attention of his pale blue eyes upon me—these things had pushed me entirely over the edge. I was turning golden inside. I needed the alchemist to return to his experiment and confirm its success.

  The building creaked and footsteps drummed along from one quarter of the inn to another. My heart beat faster whenever these footsteps seemed to approach, then slowed again when they moved further off. I couldn’t understand my excitement until a footfall, softer than the rest, came very close to my own door. Whoever it was seemed to stand there for a while. There was silence, then a creak, then silence again. Then it came—a soft tapping at my door. My heart rolled like thunder. I sat up.

  “Yes?” I said too quietly to be heard, I thought. But the listener’s hearing was acute and the door began to open.

  And there was Thomas Ridley, still dressed in day breeches and shirt. He looked like a young deer, his pale eyes large, his movements slight but swift. In the wavering light of his candle, he gave an apologetic smile. I think I was smiling too, but I couldn’t think of what to do or say. We remained gazing at each other for some moments, he on the threshold with his candle, me sitting in bed cradling a knee in my hand for support.

  “Everyone is in bed now,” he whispered at last, protecting his candle with his hand. He kept his eyes towards the flame and frowned slightly, shifting on his feet. For a moment I thought he would turn and leave. I still could not think of what to say. I smiled foolishly, trying to form words that wouldn’t come.

  He sighed, bit his lip, and shrugged. He took a half-step backwards and began to turn, so I quickly cleared my throat and said the first words that came into my head. “Come in and watch the shadows.”

  He stared at me, questioning.

  “Come in,” I urged again. He did as I asked and closed the door quietly after him. “The moon is throwing giant shadows over the walls.” I turned and pointed to the wall above my bed. But there were no shadows there now because Thomas Ridley’s candle had washed them away.

  Thomas looked at me, smiled, and came a step or two closer.

  “You’ll have to blow that out to see them.”

  I heard his lips part. It was like the first pat of rain before a torrent. He blew out the candle. A dot of fire remained on the wick briefly, then disappeared.

  The shadows of the leaves returned, but we had forgotten them already. Somehow and without noise, Thomas Ridley had made his way onto my bed. My hands were running over his shoulders and arms as a fast-moving stream washes over boulders. I pulled his shirt blindly one way and then another to find my way inside. His warm lips touched my cheek and then I felt the weight of his head on my ribs.

  Oak leaves hissed against the glass and the lone twig tapped a pendulum rhythm. The shadows bloated as the moon arced high, then rose to the ceiling as the great orb sank. Soon dawn burned pink through the trees and the twig tapped loudly to the strengthening breeze.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The whole world rumbled, the words thom-thom-thom-thom vibrating like a giant drum. Burning lava spewed into the valley, hissing ridley-ridley-ridley as it slid down the mountainside. Men, women, and children scattered, screaming “help-us-thom-as-rid-ley!” their togas flying, their eyes in panic. Even the chickens cackled ridley-ridley-ridley, their flightless wings battering the air. The Forum fell with a great, booming THOM! Dust rose and thickened, whispering, as-ridley-ridley.

  I awoke from Pompeii to find the noise was real enough. Footsteps were thumping somewhere below. “Thomas Ridley!” came a loud, angry voice, not for the first time, it seemed. “Where are you?” It didn’t take much time to identify the voice of Thomas’s father. It took even less to answer his question.

  Thomas Ridley’s warm arm lay across my bare belly. His hair pressed into my cheek. I raised my hand and touched his elbow with my fingertips. The day outside was bright and sunny. The oak leaves rustled joyfully against the window. The lone twig prodded the glass as if to say I warned you.

  My companion breathed in slowly, coming awake.

  “Thomas!” the voice boomed again.

  Thomas tilted his head a fraction. Wide awake now, he had halted in mid-breath.

  “We must wake your daughter, my dear,” came Mr. Ridley’s voice below. “Our coaches will leave within the hour.”

  Double footsteps came up the stairs, one set sound and resolute, the other quiet and uneven—a young deer following a wild boar.

  Thomas Ridley’s pale-blue eyes fixed on mine. His breath touched my face. The tip of his tongue emerged from between his lips and he turned to the door.

  The corridor outside vibrated to Mr. Ridley’s tread. Already it was too late. Three hard knocks came on the door. I pulled the sheet up to my chin. Thomas Ridley slid under the blankets as far as he could.

  “Sheila!” my mother called.

  I could not reply.

  By the time I heard the door creak open, the sheet was covering my head. I knew they would see both of us right away. How could they not? Thomas Ridley’s feet were not covered, neither was one of my arms.

  Not a word was spoken. I tried to imagine what they were doing as the floor creaked. Someone—Mr. Ridley, by the boar’s tread—came right to the foot of the bed. I expected the blankets to be pulled violently from us, exposing our nakedness. But there was only hush, then the soft creaking of the floor, then a silent withdrawal to the exit. Eventually, the door creaked shut. I heard whispering outside, then louder conversation retreating to the stairs.

  I lowered the sheet f
rom my head. Thomas Ridley stared across at me, then closed his eyes and buried his face in the pillow.

  ———

  Fear can defeat a person more surely than a sword, I realize now as I gaze at the calamity that is my life—the withered timbers of my walls, the cracked medicine jars resting on my shelf, the dried worms, my splintered crossbeam.

  I could have answered my mother’s call and told her I would be down in a short time. Thomas Ridley could have hidden under the bed as soon as he heard his father’s voice. Why did we panic and let our silence give ourselves away?

  I push myself up from the straw mattress and lower my feet to the cold floor. Another day in this settlement seems too much to endure.

  I wish I could crawl back inside the past. I remember pulling the sheet over my head when my mother called my name. If I could go back to that time like a lizard re-entering its long-discarded skin, I could change everything. If I could answer, “Yes, Mother, I am dressing, I’ll be down soon,” the whole of my life from that moment on would have been quite different.

  I find my old chest hammering at the thought. It’s as though this were a call to action, as though part of me believes I could change it all now. I’m sorry for the disappointment that must inevitably descend from my brain to my pulsing veins and racing heart. It’s true my whole life turned on this single omission. But it’s also true that, once the moment was past, absolutely nothing could be done to change it. I am stranded in old age and misery and I can never return.

  At least the dream of going back has given me energy to rise. I make my way towards the door and open it wide. The sky is clear-blue with strings of unmoving clouds very high above the earth. The bright sun kisses the grass and the tops of the trees sparkle in the undulating breeze. The world before me would make me feel almost serene were it not for one detail. David Butt is moping beneath a canopy of branches only a few footsteps from my door. His shoulders are sloping and his hands are buried in his breeches. He gives me a mournful stare when he sees me.

  “I’ve brought you firewood,” he says with a sullenness that belies the helpful gesture. Close to his feet is a generous pile of broken sticks and branches. He bends and scoops some up in his arms. Turning with his burden, he approaches the cabin jerkily, like a scarecrow learning how to walk. I move inside and out of the way as he makes for the fireplace and lowers the bundle onto the floor.

  “Thank you,” I say, pulling back my chair and sitting.

  He turns to me as he dusts himself down. “I saw her this morning,” he announces, his voice strange, almost cracking. His green eyes catch the sunlight from the doorway and their watery paleness reminds me, for a moment, of Thomas Ridley. “She was on the wharf, pacing, staring out at the sunrise.”

  He sighs, biting his lip, then crouching down by the firewood again, fingers the twigs at his feet. “I watched from the house for a while,” he says, picking up a short stick. “I threw on my clothes and followed her out. Things had gone so well recently, I assumed she was sleepless for me as I have been sleepless for her.” He breaks the stick in both hands. “But when I came up to her and touched her shoulder, she spun around and slapped me in the face.”

  “Did she say why?” I ask.

  “She called me a filthy little ruffian,” he says with a nervous laugh, “and told me I must never lay a hand on her again.” He stares at the broken stick. He is breathing hard and shivering. He says nothing for a while.

  “So, what happened then?”

  He looks up slowly. I notice red rims around his eyes.

  “You must help me, Sheila,” he says. “You must help me get away from here. You must tell me how to survive in the woods.”

  There’s a sickening thud in my chest.

  “Why would you need to do that?” I ask. “What happened, boy?”

  “It’s Sunday,” he says, standing. “No one was up. They might never know.”

  “Know what?”

  “Nothing. Nothing that concerns you.”

  “You’re scaring me, boy.”

  “I couldn’t stop myself,” he whispers. “It happened before I knew it.” He puts his hand to his forehead and his eyes flash desperately. “It’s all your fault!” he exclaims. “It’s your responsibility to help me!”

  I continue to stare up at him, waiting, hoping for some explanation other than the one I most fear. He turns away suddenly, shaking his head. “She’s gone. Sara’s gone. One moment she was mocking me, eyes like darts, tongue like an arrow. Then she was choking, my thumbs on her neck, squeezing.”

  My head goes dizzy. I lift my hand to my temple and groan.

  “But it wasn’t my fault!” he says with such certainty I almost believe him. “She made me do it! You made me do it too, with your spells! What kind of wickedness gives hope where there is none?” He stares at me with frantic eyes, then blinks a few times as though waking from a dream. He begins pacing in a semicircle around the firewood, opening and closing his fists.

  “There is no hope for you, boy,” I say, watching him. “A murderer can never live in peace. The act will eat away your soul.”

  He looks at me, startled, and stops pacing. “I’m not a murderer! I’ll tell everyone it was your fault.”

  “How could it be my fault? I’m too old to have strangled Sara Rose.”

  He begins pacing once more, but in the opposite direction. “If they find the body, I’d say you put me under a spell. If they don’t, I’ll say you put Sara under a spell that made her wander off into the woods and never return. They’ll believe either of those explanations easily enough.”

  “Why would they believe such nonsense?” I’m genuinely curious, aware that a mystery might be opening to me at last.

  “Because they’re all terrified of you,” he says with eyes narrowed. “And it isn’t nonsense. How do I know you didn’t plan this whole thing? How do I know you didn’t want me to murder Sara?”

  I’m suddenly too tired to hear these questions, and tired of watching this young fool pacing and circling. How do they know I don’t cause drought and mist and cold? How do they know I don’t cause the fish to disappear from the bay and the beasts to run away from the woods? There is no end to such foolishness and no defence against it either. Why don’t these idiots build me a scaffold, hang a noose about my neck and be done with it?

  “What did you do with Sara’s body?” I ask feebly to change the subject.

  “I took it out in Uncle Seth’s boat and threw it into the bay beyond the cove. It might wash up around here. It might be pulled out into the ocean, or wash up somewhere else.”

  He’s pacing more slowly now, calmed by his decision to put the blame on me. I put my hands on the sides of my chair and prepare to rise. “Well, if I’m the murderer,” I say, “you don’t need my help. Let’s go down together and see who they believe.” I begin to stand but he leaps towards me.

  “No!” he says, flapping his hands urgently to sit me down. “No, you must not!”

  “But you said there was no danger they would blame you.”

  “That’s only if I can’t survive on my own.” His fingers tremble over my head. “I don’t want to give you away.”

  “That’s very kind of you,” I tell him, settling down again.

  “I need to know all about the forest. I know you have charms to protect me.”

  ———

  I shouldn’t have helped the boy. Murder is murder. Concealment is not only wicked, but futile. But I did feel responsible. I should have warned him when he first came to me that love could not be forced. I knew his passion was unhealthy, but the boy drew me inside his desire. I felt its heat and its compulsion. And now he has committed the worst of all crimes, there is still something about this clumsy, foolish boy I cannot refuse. Once again I am inside his feverish mind, looking out.

  I picture him weaving his way under the pine-scented canopy. I wonder if the amulet I gave him helps him sense the forest’s pulsing heart. Does he hear the man of the forest in the r
ustling leaves? Will he harvest the mushrooms I told him about? Will he set rabbit snares when he gets far enough into the interior?

  The settlers have been yelling Sara’s name for some while, but no one has come up the hill. It is still early and they are not panicking yet. Perhaps they suppose she has skipped along the shore or rounded the rocks to the next cove. Or maybe that she has hidden herself in someone’s home as a jape. But when the sun climbs higher and the waves roll and sizzle for hours on end with no sign of her, things will change. Beyond the settlement—the cluster of homes, the ribbon of beach, and a few bald rocks—there is only an endless murmuring ocean and a vast and unexplored forest. Few have troubled to learn the ways of the woods and, for most, including the Rose children, being lost is the same for an hour as for a hundred years.

  Already there is tension in one man’s voice, and I can sense him listening hard as his call of “Sa-ra-Sa-ra” echoes around the cove, then dies into silence. This must be Simon Rose. He is trying to decide how angry he should be.

  “Sara!” he calls sharply this time. Judging from the voice, he has climbed a little way up the hill. What would it take, I wonder, for Simon Rose to knock on my door? How desperate would he have to be? And what would that extraordinary meeting be like? Two people who have lived for forty years in the same small settlement exchanging words for the very first time.

  Simon Rose is silent again as he listens for his Sara’s reply. I hear his boots scrape against the dry earth as he turns and goes back down to the settlement.

  He will have to come again; it’s inevitable. And eventually he will have to come to me. His other daughters might already know that Sara came to see me. They definitely know about David’s visits—Sara told me that. Soon they will realize that both Sara and David are gone, and they will connect the two. It occurs to me for the first time that I’m in rather an awkward position. I had better start thinking of some answers.