All That Lives (8 page)

“Tomorrow, Thenny.” I waved goodbye and felt my throat grow tight as I knew I could not rely on tomorrow. I knew not what
lay ahead of me in the dark evening. The days were lasting longer but already it was dusk. My brothers and I walked quickly
over the bridge and through the hazel thicket, all absorbed in our own thoughts.

“Let’s take the shortcut through the meadow,” Drewry said, leaving the road and looking over his shoulder to be certain we
followed him down along the riverbank. I let the little boys go in the middle between us, and we moved single file. All at
once, I felt a cold spot like the one by the stream when I was nine, and I looked about, feeling a bristle in the air. There
was a tingling bright as pins around me and I had to stop. I called ahead to Drewry.

“Look!”

Across the field near the woods I saw flickering lights skimming over the tops of the grasses, flowing toward the river.

“What’s that?” Joel backed up instinctively and took my hand in his.

“Let’s see!” Drewry set off running, but swift as he was, the lights had gone before he neared them. The boys and I ran after
him.

“How fast those lights did shift!” Richard was intrigued.

“Where did they go?” I disliked the prickling tension in the air.

“There!” Richard spotted them again, drifting along the ground, moving in the distant direction of our house.

“Could they be lightning bugs, clustered for some unknown reason?” Drewry squinted, looking across the meadow, and I thought
he had a most pragmatic soul. The brilliant glossy shimmer sparking from the ground and rolling up the hill was clearly no
mass of insects. It was not a pleasant feeling to see it moving toward our house with the day growing darker by the minute.

“We must turn back and take the road,” I suggested, afraid to go forward.

“No, Betsy, we must high our tails to home.” Drewry took off across the meadow without further discussion, and Richard and
Joel and I ran after him, not knowing what else to do. The tall grass whipped my hands and face so I felt it was tiny needles
dlespuncturing my skin and I clutched the strap of my satchel as it bumped against my hip. Please, God, keep us safe, I prayed,
and with my eyes half closed I ran, trusting the Lord and Joel’s hand pulling me, and soon we reached our own hill and I summoned
the energy to bolt the final stretch behind my brothers. We clattered across the porch with the last light and threw open
the great cedar door.

“Mother, Father, come quickly! There are lights in the fields and meadow!”

“Strange lights, with tingling!” We shouted our information, crowding around Mother, who came at once into the hall, frowning
at the commotion we caused.

“What say you, children? Be calm!”

Frightened, we struggled to catch our breath, talking all at once.

“The lights were crawling to this house!” Joel tugged with two hands on Mother’s skirt, his nose wrinkling, as if he were
about to cry.

“ ’Twas heat lightning,” Father said. He shut his desk with a bang and strode toward us raising his voice. “I have seen it
myself.” He maintained his tone of annoyance as the tears welled over Joel’s lids, and Mother pulled him to her side, leading
him into the parlor to sit on her lap in the hickory rocker placed beside the fire. The rest of us hung up our coats and put
our satchels away in silence under Father’s watchful gaze. Through the parlor window I glimpsed the lights flashing. They
were not in the sky, but rather ran across the ground, sparking up in bursts, and they did not look like heat lightning or
anything at all natural to me.

When we retired that evening, our troubles resumed. It began with the gulping sound beside my ear in bed, but before I could
call out, the covers were ripped from my body and my hair was twisted at the nape of my neck and nearly pulled off my head.
Father tested the affliction and experimented with not lighting the lamps until we could no longer stand it. Once the flame
illuminated my room, all was revealed to be as it had been the evening before last, unaltered and silent as the dead night
beating down around the house. We dozed unhappily in my well-lit chamber.

There was no question of school the next day, nor for the rest of the week, as each night the torment increased. In the day,
we rested alone, or in silence together, and the feeling within our house was similar to illness, for discomfort accompanied
our every breath. We attended only to the most necessary tasks, like visiting the outhouse and eating, to sustain our slight
energies. We crept through the rooms as though the ground beneath us were a robin’s shell and we were challenged not to crack
it. Our souls focused on the too quick passing of the minutes as the sun moved overhead. We prayed and pretended to ourselves
there were ways and means to stave off the dreaded setting and, thus, another night of torture. Meanwhile, Tuesday, Wednesday
and Thursday passed each alike. The days were silent, and each night the torment increased.

Near the Friday supper hour, I was sitting in the chair before the front parlor window, for I had just finished mending a
white cotton slip for Mother, when looking up, I noticed Reverend Johnston on his chestnut horse turning off the high road
to our path.

“Reverend Johnston’s come to call!” I shouted for Mother to come from the kitchen, for I had hoped some good person from our
community would notice our days of silent absence from school and Thorn’s store, and call, inquiring after us. Mother did
hurry, and looked only briefly outside to confirm I spoke the truth, before turning with some desperation to Father, who was
at his desk, writing in his book of accounts.

“Jack, there is barely oil left for the lamps, and I do not believe we can stand many more nights like those of late. We must
do something.”

“Pray, Lucy, what is your suggestion?” Father turned his stoic face to hers.

“Understanding this phenomenon requires the help of God. Ask the Reverend to spend the evening here with us. Please.” Mother
placed her hand firmly on his shoulder and I held my breath for his response.

Father stood and pulled the heavy brocade curtain in the parlor farther aside so he could better see the Reverend engaged
at our horse tie, delivering to Zeke instructions regarding the feeding of his horse down at our stables.

“He must mean to stay awhile without our invitation.” Father’s jaw was grave against the windowpane. “All right, Lucy. We
will discuss it with him.” His lips were tightly drawn and I could tell he wished it had not come to this, for he did not
want to break his vow of silence regarding our family troubles. My feelings ran more toward throwing open the great door and
racing down the hill to drag the Reverend in. I hoped he could do something to help us.

“Why, Miss Betsy, hello.” When he reached our porch, huffing in his long black coat, and carrying his Bible in his right hand
folded over his heart, I thought the Reverend was possibly the most comforting sight I had ever witnessed.

“Hello, Reverend Johnston!” I delivered an enthusiastic greeting to him, and he removed his hat, entering our hall.

“Reverend Johnston, we are delighted you have come to call. Never have we been more pleased to see a visitor.” Mother shared
my enthusiasm and grasped the Reverend’s hand in hers.

“I confess I came this way on purpose for there were rumors of illness here, and yet, I trust you are all well?” He looked
about, seeming slightly bemused.

“We are well, and not so well.” Father gave him a firm handshake and it was then I saw the Reverend raise his eyebrows, for
Father was not known to be so inexact in his responses.

“How say you, Jack?”

“Please, join us here for supper and we will tell you all our news.” Mother took the Reverend’s arm and drew him to the table,
enacting the regular social convention, yet clearly she was not her normal self either.

“I am happy for the invitation,” the Reverend replied calmly, unaware of anything amiss. I took his coat to hang, and everyone
got seated at the table while Chloe laid an extra place.

“We are experiencing unusual events in the evenings at our home,” Father began, coming straight to the point.

“Is it related to the earth movements we recently discussed?” the Reverend inquired, settling his round bottom in his chair.

“Perhaps …” Father paused, as if he did not have adequate words to describe our trauma. “Yet, I wonder if these noises are
earthly.”

“How say you?” The Reverend smiled and balanced the heel of his hand on the table edge, awaiting Father’s explanation of his
claim, but it came from Mother, who touched the Reverend’s arm and nodded in my direction.

“Our Betsy has had her quilts ripped from her bed and her hair pulled and twisted by invisible hands.”

“Not only that, there is a terrible sound of lips smacking and gulping in the air, yet there is no person there!” Without
requesting permission to speak I interjected, I so wished to relieve myself of the experience.

“And there are rodents gnashing their teeth on the bedpost!” Richard added. He was most frightened by the thought of being
bitten in the dark.

“You could fill a riverbed with the stones dropped down our stairs,” John Jr. said, for he had spent some part of every day
carting wheelbarrows of rocks from the front of the house down to the stream.

“But if you keep the lamps burning it won’t come in the room.” Joel looked across the table at the Reverend with hopeful eyes,
expecting a man of God would know what to do.

I could not ascertain what the Reverend was thinking, but he did not immediately volunteer an explanation for our complaints,
though he did return his hands to his lap.

“I will happily pass an evening in your good company,” he responded, “and if tonight is convenient, so be it. Mrs. Johnston
is aware I planned to call on you, and she will assume I have accepted some kind invitation, and that I am not lost to bandits
on the road, for Adams is blessed this year in having none about.”

“To be certain I will send my man with a message to your home,” Father reassured him. “We do not wish to worry your good wife.”

“That would be kind of you indeed, Jack Bell.” The Reverend folded his hands before his empty plate, with no expectation of
trauma in his expression, despite what he had heard. I was surprised he asked no further questions and the conversation turned
to how the crops were growing.

After the meal, Mother and I helped clear the table, and in the kitchen Chloe was bold, touching Mother’s forearm.

“We done seen your house at night, Miz Lucy. Your double logs do shake and pulse as if it ’tis a livin’ thing.” Chloe’s forehead
wrinkled nearly into her kerchief with concern.

“We are gripped by a storm of violence inside, dear Chloe. Tell all the Negroes they must pray to God for our deliverance
and never fear.” Mother turned away to join the men already in the parlor. I wanted to ask Chloe if the slaves had seen the
lights and heard the noise, and I wanted to discover what they did imagine it to be, but I did not dare, for I could tell
it was contrary to Mother’s wishes. I left Chloe alone in the kitchen without a backward glance, following Mother to the parlor.

The Reverend was seated in Father’s usual chair by the fire with his good book in his hand so he might read to us. Father
sat at his writing desk, drinking from his silver flask. I saw him upend it, shaking the last drop into his throat while I
made myself comfortable at Mother’s feet.

“I shall read to you from I Samuel,” the Reverend announced, and Father moved to sit in the rocking chair, nodding his head,
as though I Samuel was the text he himself would have chosen as appropriate for our situation.

The boys fidgeted on the bench, despite John Jr.’s presence beside them, but as the Reverend read how Samuel had heard a mysterious
voice in the night and prayed to the Lord for deliverance and knowledge, they grew still and attentive.

“And the Lord said, Behold, I will do a thing at which both the ears of every one that heareth it shall tingle.” I wondered
how the Reverend knew about the tingling, but the fact he did greatly deepened my faith in his abilities. When the story was
over, he asked us to rise while he recited a psalm. “We see not our signs. There be no more any prophet; neither be there
amongst us any that knoweth how long. O God, how long shall the adversary reproach? Shall the enemy blaspheme thy name for
ever?” I did not understand the Reverend’s meaning in this, but to see him praying, with his eyes and hands raised to the
ceiling, made me feel he sanctified our home, calling God into our presence. I grew excited, for surely God would protect
us, God would grant us a respite.

“Betsy, will it now be over?” Joel turned his wide excited eyes to mine when we climbed the stairs up to our bedrooms. Mother
walked behind me with a lamp and though I smiled, I deferred to her to comment.

“It will be what it will be, my little Joel,” she answered, but her good humor added a great measure of trust and when I pulled
the quilts around my nightclothes I was able to hope the night had arrived when our trials would cease.