Alias Dragonfly (5 page)

“Last to come, Mr. Whitestone. Was your sleep disturbed?” Aunt Salome asked, an unusual note of kindness in her voice.

“Yes, ma’am. The newness of it all, I suppose,” he said, shooting a quick glance around the table, his eyes resting lastly on me. He had bright green eyes, a strong chin with a cleft in the middle, and suddenly, my cheeks were burning hot. I reached for a tumbler of water, accidentally spilling it over the tablecloth, and wiping clumsily at the puddle.

“Sorry,” I said, looking down at the pooling liquid.

Aunt Salome forced a smile, “It’s only water, not blood.” This comment brought another rusty chuckle to her throat.

Whitestone’s eyes met mine. He was hiding a smile behind his napkin.

I looked away. My cheeks burned. What was happening to me?

“Madeline! You’ll starve to a rail,” Aunt Salome snapped, shoving my plate even closer.

My father whispered, “Just to please her, take some bites, Maddie. I have to go now. My camp isn’t far. I’ll come back soon.” He whispered again, “I’m leaving the Colonel’s revolver in your trunk upstairs, Madeline. The war, it seems, is all around us.”

Good
, I thought. Papa had taught me to shoot, and I was good at it.
As long as you don’t kill a living thing, Maddie, he’d said when we were deep in the forest as I shot at rocks lining an ancient, crumbling wall.

My father got up from the table, straightened his uniform jacket, and headed for the door. “Thank you, Salome,” he said, “for taking care of my precious Maddie.”

My aunt nodded. “Godspeed, brother,” she said, rubbing her eyes. Was she about to cry, the hard old thing? “Don’t worry over her, hear?”

My breakfast came up in my throat. I jumped up from the table and fled toward the kitchen, nearly toppling Nellie as she struggled through the door with a huge bowl of applesauce. I knelt down, my breath coming in gasps. I was heaving, but nothing came up. Saying goodbye to my father filled me with dread.

Behind me, I heard the dragging of one foot behind the other, like someone was limping. It was Mr. Whitestone.

“May I offer some assistance, Miss? My name is Jake.”

I didn’t answer. I just kept staring at the floor.

“It’s hard saying goodbye, isn’t it?” He knelt down next to me.

I looked away. “What do you know about it?” I snapped, my voice gruff and low.

How could he know what I was feeling, or what was hard for me?

I stood up to get away, but I was unsteady on my feet, and I fell right against Mr. Whitestone. I jerked away as though I’d been stung by a bee. I stepped clear of him.

“You don’t know anything about us,” I whispered.

“That’s true,” he said. “But I know this. Your father is in Mr. Lincoln’s army. My father is a Rebel.”

I was listening, then. I finally looked at Mr. Whitestone. His face was so sad.

“Your father is true to the cause and willing to die for it. Be grateful,” he said, giving a little bow to me, and leaving by a small side door that I later learned led to a street through the alley.

I was stunned and confused. What was Mr. Whitestone doing here? Did his bad leg keep him out of the war? Was he a coward, or maybe he was a Rebel like his father? It seemed like everyone was suspicious. Oh, how I wished Papa were there, so I could talk to him about all this.

Through that same window, I watched Papa mount a horse and ride away. I wanted to race out and tell him how much I loved him, but I just stood there, wishing like crazy that I could go with him.

Wishes are fishes. You are here now. Heaven help you.

To fight away my sadness, I fixed my mind on the young man I’d just met. Was I a gibbering mess because he was so handsome? Bosh!

I opened the door,
not to follow Jake Whitestone or my father, mind you, but to get some air, and untangle my brain. Although I didn’t realize it then, I started spying when I was there in that alley. I found myself out in a high-walled enclosure with broken cobblestones, a tangle of thorny vines and rambling ivy-covered brick walls. A rat skittered between my feet; a crow, something large and shiny in its beak swooped overhead and then, I heard voices. Loud voices from afar, like after I had my accident and every sound was turned up.

“Man up, private, and stop your blubbering!” a man said.

“Jeez, I want my mama,” another cried out.

“Man up. Fool! We muster in the morning.”

I looked all around me. I was alone in the alley.

I couldn’t see beyond the walls, so I headed toward an opening at the end of the alley. I stepped into the street and was nearly run down by a newsboy racing ahead of a milk wagon.

“Extra!” the boy shouted. “The Rebels march in Virginia! Might Washington City fall?”

I stood gaping at five soldiers across the road. They were laughing and stumbling, dragging a weeping man by the collar.

“Mama, Mama!” he sobbed. “I don’t want to die.”

I’d heard his voice all the way back in the alley, I realized.

One of the soldiers stopped when he saw me and beckoned me to come closer.

“Whoo-ee! Come to me, sweet thing!” he said with a leer on his face.

I looked him in the eye like he was a wild boar in the woods, steady and hard, without blinking.

“Excuse me, Miss,” he said, backing away.

A Negro woman with a wash basket on her head deftly swerved between the drunken soldiers. She was very, very tall, with a brightly striped yellow and red bandana around her neck. Or was it a woman? There was something strange about her. Somehow, she moved like a man.

I stepped further into the street. I didn’t get far. A strong hand grasped my elbow. I whipped around to see who was there. It was Nellie, her face set in a scowl. She wrapped my arm firmly in hers.

“Bad sorts, Miss, that’s what’s out there.” She steered me back though the alley toward the boardinghouse door and into the kitchen.

“You set right down. I’m making a pineapple upside down cake. Seeing as you is just that, upside down, I’m meaning, maybe you’ll have a bit and you’ll be right-ways.”

She stretched a quilt with blue crisscrosses and a steamboat wheel embroidered on it over the top of a window glass on the door.

“Now you won’t be peering out to them sorry sights,” she said.

“I was just taking it all in.” I said, and told her exactly what I’d seen; the soldiers, the washerwoman, everything.

“You caught all this in the wink of time you was out?” she said, shelling her peas so fast that a bunch fell to the floor.

“I remember things,” was all I answered.

“Umm-hum,” Nellie murmured, a worried look on her face.

“Do you have any family, Nellie?” I asked, hoping she wasn’t alone here in this hard city.

She dumped the peas into a heavy pot and hung it over the fire.

“Just my son, Isaac,” she said, glancing down.

“Does he work for my aunt, too?”

With one hand Nellie poured water from a pitcher; with the other she wiped her brow on her bandana. It was the same color and pattern the washerwoman in the alley was wearing.

“Isaac ain’t in these parts. Got to set the waiter out to boil. Then them ham hocks, see, goes on top.” Nellie kicked up the fire under the pot with a poker.

I handed her the plate of ham parts.

“That door, with the heavy latch, where does it go?” I asked, pointing to the small door the back of the kitchen.

“That goes to the cellar, right, Nellie?”

“It goes nowhere, nowhere,” she said, her voice raised. “There’s bugs and spirit-devils down there, so stay clear of it.”

Of course I decided then and there to explore it if I could.

There was a small, scraping sound outside the alley door. Just then, Nellie doused the lamp that lit our small corner of the dark kitchen.

“Get on with you now, Miss,” she said, getting all firm again, taking my arm and steering me from the room.

“Is something wrong, Nellie?” Her complete change of mood and her sudden dousing of the lamp shocked me.

“Miss Madeline, leave me now! Git!” Nellie picked up a rolling pin, and moved toward the door. She brandished the wooden roller like it was a weapon.

It was the letter from my father
the next day that fixed me in a plan.

Maddie-mine,
he said,
I’m settling in, and oh, my daughter, I hope you are all right and minding your aunt.

My camp is like an Eden lying in a sprawl of oaks and pines on the grounds of a mansion owned by a Mr. Gales. It is about four miles from where you are now, so I’m hoping to get a pass to see you real soon. I promise.

There are some good fellows here.

I’ve never been in close company with men, and truth, Maddie, I like it fine. But I sure am itching to fight.

Keep me and Mama in your heart. Remember we’re always with you.

Love, and love again,

Papa

I found a map of the city in my aunt’s parlor and memorized it. I saw just where he was, out on Bladensburg Road, right before the Maryland border, and the street route that took him there. I decided to find him, and join him no matter what.

How? How would I do it? I felt like a fox caught in a snare, ready to chew its own paw off to be free.

But when the mysterious man came to stay at the boarding house, the trap that held me opened. A hole just big enough for me to crawl through appeared until finally, I made my escape.

He bowed, removed a wide-brimmed white hat, and seated himself at the table. He was decked out in a white linen suit with a narrow, dark brown tie.

“I’m Timothy Webster,” he said.

Aunt Salome rose up slowly like she was a queen—and actually curtsied! How phony and dumb did that look?

“I’ve just arrived in the city, madam, from the faraway Carolinas.” Mr. Webster spoke with a pronounced Southern accent, dragging out syllables and dropping the ends of words. He was of middle size and of middling age, maybe in his thirties, it was hard to tell. He was stocky, with large, strong hands, a heavy beard and moustache that twirled up like half moons at its two waxy ends, and a thatch of black hair salted with gray. His left pinky was bent over like a gnarled apple tree branch.

“I saw your notice of rooms to let, Mrs. Hutton, and, well, here I am,” he said. Aunt Salome fanned herself with a napkin and simpered.

Mr. Webster smiled at me. “What is your name, young Miss?” he asked. His iron-gray eyes looked straight into mine, as though he could see into my brain. But his manner was so gentle, and his voice so musical, I was not uncomfortable. I forgot for an instant that he was likely a Rebel.

“I’m Madeline Eve Bradford,” I said softly.

“Her father wears Union blue,” Salome said, as though describing a disease. “She’s here for, well, for the duration of our little conflict,” she added.

Little conflict? It was a darn war! And just wait, I’m going to find a way to be part of it.

“Will you be taking all your meals with us, sir?” My aunt sighed. “Some don’t pay for their board,” she said, with a sideways glance to me, “so your fine greenbacks, sir, are as welcome as the sun.”

My face reddened at this humiliation.

“Nellie!” she shouted. “Go find another chicken for supper, and don’t be making of pet of it this time.”