SelfSame (6 page)

Sorcha

She sat up abruptly in bed and cried, “No-no-no-no-no!” Enid couldn’t have fallen asleep at a worse time. Sorcha grabbed her pillow and buried her face in it, swearing profusely into its softness.

Her door burst open and Grammy Fay rushed in. “Are you alright?”

Sorcha dropped the pillow and responded in a plaintive whine, “
I’m
fine. Not so sure about Enid, though.” She filled Fay in on the events at the farm; her words pouring forth with her emotion.

Fay sank down onto the side of the bed with a heavy sigh, patting Sorcha on the leg. “There’s nothing you can do about it, so I suggest you pull yourself together, Sweetling.”

“I wish I could go back.” It was the first time Sorcha had ever uttered that sentiment. She gave Fay a hopeful look and said, “Maybe if I take a sleeping pill..?”

Fay pursed her lips disapprovingly. “None of the medications your doctors gave you as a child made any difference,” she reminded her. “You said you thought Enid could trust this Joseph fellow, right?”

Sorcha dropped her head in her hands and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes with her index fingers. She saw Joseph’s fierce face and kind eyes. “I suppose.”

“And he said the Mohawk are just passing through, so I’ll bet when you go back it’ll all be over and everything will be fine.”

Sorcha had her doubts, but as Fay had pointed out, there was nothing she could do. She got out of bed and into the shower, trying to downshift from the excitement of Enid’s world to her mundane existence in this one.

The rest of the day started out just as ordinarily as any other, except the ride to school with Paula was like picking a scab off a fresh wound. Paula coaxed her into talking about Elizabeth, and as much as she’d rather push the painful feelings aside, at least she didn’t have to explain about Joseph and the Mohawk and Enid falling asleep in the midst of it all.

After History class, Mr. Lee made her stay after to discuss the ‘D’ she’d gotten on her test.

“The first month in class you were averaging an ‘A,’ Miss Sloane. What’s going on with you?” he asked.

The first month of class they’d studied the Revolutionary War. She was briefly tempted to tell him her grandmother died, but squelched the urge. She couldn’t very well back it up if he were to contact her parents, and besides, it seemed disloyal to Elizabeth to use her sadness as an excuse, even though it was true.

“I’ll try harder,” she said.

Mr. Lee offered to give her extra credit to make up the ‘D’ and she took it, mostly to get him off her case. She wanted to care about her History grade, but in the big scheme of things, it just didn’t rate very highly.

By noon, she was on edge to the point of being twitchy. She and Paula ate their respective lunches as the minute hand of the clock taunted her with its slowness. Ben was conspicuous by his absence from the lunch room. She wondered if he’d come to school at all the last two days. He’d taken quite a beating, but from the look of his knuckles, had given as good as he got. She studied the faces around the room, but didn’t see anyone who looked like they’d been at the other end of those knuckles.

In place of fifth period, they had to sit through a pep rally for the football team. She and Paula had attended every game for the last three years so Paula could secretly cheer on Dalton, who was a rather indifferent linebacker. There was a rare Saturday game tomorrow.

“Are we going?” Sorcha asked.

Paula’s shoulders drooped. “Probably shouldn’t, huh?”

“You still like him.”

“Of course I do.”

Sorcha patted her on the back. “Then we’re going.”

After school, on the way to Paula’s car, she made a point of sauntering past the truck she’d seen peeling out just before she’d found Ben face-down in the grass. It was jacked up too high for her to see into the side window. Casually, she asked Paula, “Whose truck is this?”

“Um, you know Terri Frazier’s ex-boyfriend? I forget his name, but he’s a senior.”

“John Nelson, isn’t it? Wasn’t he the guy Ben beat up and got put in juvie for?” Things were starting to make sense now. Ben had gotten jumped as payback.

They reached Paula’s car. “Yeah, but I heard it didn’t happen like that.” Paula was talking to Sorcha over the hood, but she stopped and her gaze shifted. Sorcha turned just as Ben rode up next to her on his bike.

He said, “Can I talk to you?”

“What happened to your face?” Paula asked.

His jaw tightened and he lifted his eyebrows at Sorcha.

“Sure,” she said, and followed him to a patch of trampled grass too far away for Paula to hear.

“I’m sorry I was a jerk the other day.” He appeared to be inspecting the ground when he said it, but he sounded sincere.

“It’s alright.”

He looked at her then. “It’s not alright. You helped me when a lot people would have left ‘that scumbag juvenile delinquent’ to rot out there.”

She tilted her head. “I think it’d take a lot more than John Nelson and his friends to keep you down.”

She watched, fascinated, as he fought the smile that crept over his lips and lost. With a little laugh, he shook his head. “I got my black belt when I was twelve. John upped his game – he got some moves he didn’t have two years ago – but, yeah, it took all four of them to put me in the dirt.”

“Mud.”

He full-on grinned at that and she caught her breath. His teeth were straight and white and a dimple winked into existence in his left cheek. It occurred to her suddenly that he’d done a one-eighty from the surly young man she’d walked with in the rain. Was there a reason he seemed to be pouring on the charm?

“What did you want to talk to me about?”

His grin melted away. “It’s just…I gotta know…who’d you hear about Bear Talker from?”

She’d had a feeling he was going to ask her that. He’d been so upset about it.

“You tell me why it’s so important,” she said, “and I’ll tell you what I know.” She had no intention of telling him the truth, but was confident it wouldn’t come to that anyway. He’d already said it was a secret; he wasn’t going to tell her anything.

But he surprised her with, “Deal. You go first.”

“No. You.”

His lips thinned in a quick flare of annoyance, but he kept his voice steady. As if he was talking to a three-year-old he said, “If I tell you, there’s a very good chance you won’t believe me.”

That got her attention. Before she stopped to consider the potential ramifications, she heard herself say, “Ditto.”

It must have dawned on him that they were at an impasse. “Fine.”

“Fine.” She started to turn away.

“Wait.” He put a hand on her arm and let out a little growl of reluctance. “Okay.” He pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers and said, “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” before looking intently into her face. “You can’t say anything – to anyone.”

“I’m good at keeping secrets.”

He glanced over at Paula, but she’d gotten into her car and appeared to be reading something. There was no danger of her overhearing, so he seemed to relax somewhat. His next words tumbled out. “I’m only telling you because it’s obvious you already know something. So, yeah, I’m part of a – secret society of sorts. We meet there twice a year. There. Now you go. Who told you about Bear Talker?”

A secret society
? She almost laughed. It seemed like such a lame reason for him to get so riled up, but obviously he took it pretty seriously. Maybe he thought one of the other members had broken the sacred vow of silence or something and told her about this Bear Talker. She decided to tell a modified version of the truth after all, since she was a bad liar and he had no way of verifying it anyway.

“Bear Talker is a medicine man. He came to help my grandmother Elizabeth cross over into the spirit world. She died yesterday.”

He frowned. “Your grandmother’s name is Elizabeth? And you
met
Bear Talker. Are you messing with me?”

“Yes, her name was Elizabeth, and I’m all torn up about it, thanks for asking. I can tell you one thing for sure: we’re not talking about the same Bear Talker.”

“Oh, really? In the woods, you said, ‘Bear Talker’s longhouse.’ If we’re not talking about the same guy, what did you mean?”

He had her there. “I – I was talking about someone from the past.”

He looked absolutely aghast. In a dark voice, he demanded, “Who told you to say that?”

“No one!” She was getting frustrated with the conversation, and Ben’s strangeness was freaking her out. “Why would someone tell me to say it?”

His head went back and forth in almost undetectable little shakes. “No. It’s impossible.”

She stared back at him, a jolt of panic running through her. He was looking at her as if he’d seen a ghost. This secret society business was serious to him, deadly serious apparently. She reviewed her exact words and couldn’t figure out what had him so spooked. He backed away, watching her the entire time, before getting on his bike and riding off.

“What just happened?” she murmured.

She was standing there feeling like something momentous and very, very bad had just occurred when a loud honk startled her. She looked over at Paula, who had her thumbs in the air and a happy, questioning look on her face.

Back in the car, Paula let out a little squeal and said, “Oh, my God, he totally likes you.”

Sorcha sighed. “Oh, I doubt there’s any danger of that.”

“Well, then what was that all about?”

She debated not telling her, but it would take nearly as much effort to brush Paula off as it would to just tell her. So on the ride home, she did.

Enid

Not once in her entire life had Enid woken up anywhere but in her bed. When Sorcha had laid down to sleep, she’d hoped that was where Enid would wake up this time, too, but she’d been prepared to find herself out in the open, still in the grass with Joseph.

She was assaulted by confusing sensations when she came to: the sharp smell of horse, the dull sound of hoofs clumping in the dirt, bright light. She was not lying in her soft bed under her warm bedcovers; instead of the comfort and safety of home, she appeared to be draped over the front of a horse.

Once she realized where she was, she assumed Joseph had carried her unconscious body to his mount and was taking her to safety. Her next thought was for the children and servants. She tried to move, but her arms appeared to be bound behind her back. Had he done it to keep them from flopping around? She turned her head to let him know she was awake, but from her head-down position, all she could see of him was his leg.

She focused past the leg to determine where she was, and that’s when she saw him. Joseph was not sitting astride the horse. He was face up on the ground in front of her house, eyes closed, arms and legs splayed and tied to stakes driven into the soil. His shirt was missing and rivulets of dried blood laced his face.

Horrified, Enid struggled against her bonds. Fingers slid into her hair and grasped a handful. The rider lifted her head by her hair, forcing her face towards him. She’d never seen him before, but there was no doubt this man was one of the Mohawk warriors. He said something to her in his language then spat on the ground in Joseph’s general direction and laughed.

She didn’t speak, just glared her hatred at him. If the quizzical smile he gave her was any indication, he wasn’t fazed by her defiance. She held off on her tears until the warrior released her hair and her head dropped back down against his mount’s side. He kicked the horse into a walk down the dusty dirt path. She watched Joseph shrink into the distance, praying he was alive. Had the children escaped, or remained hidden? She wondered if she would ever know.

One thing appeared certain: she wouldn’t be marrying Jedediah after all.

Hours passed. Her hands had long since gone numb from her bindings and her upper back and neck muscles were knotted into spasms from her attempts to lift her head, which felt like it was going to burst from the blood pooling there. She was thirsty and hungry and desperate to relieve herself. If they didn’t stop soon, she was afraid she’d be forced to humiliate herself right there on the horse.

She tried to distract herself from the pain and discomfort, but time takes on new meaning when you’re hanging upside down on a hostile Indian’s horse. Joseph had said they weren’t a war party. If he was still alive, he was probably reevaluating that assumption. He’d said they were headed south to rendezvous with their chief in New York. How had he known? It was logical to assume the party had stopped by Bear Talker’s longhouse on the way into the village. She’d looked out the kitchen window and seen that great cloud of smoke. Perhaps it hadn’t been coming from the village, but from just outside it – from Bear Talker’s longhouse. If the Mohawk had attacked Bear Talker it might explain why Joseph had come for her. Had the medicine man revealed to them that she could predict the future? Joseph had flat-out said the warriors were looking for her, but she’d given his statement the more generalized meaning that they would be looking for anyone who lived in the house they’d chosen to squat in.

God, her head hurt. She’d compounded it by crying uncontrollably for the first hour, so her eyes were swollen and her sinuses thickly congested. Dust kicked up by the horses ahead of them made it even more difficult to breathe.

The sun was past the mid-day point when they finally stopped. Her captor pulled her roughly from his horse and set her on her feet. Her knees immediately buckled and she sat in the trail as her circulation returned to normal.

The horses were allowed to drink at a nearby stream and then began grazing on the grass. The men in the party went about the business of taking a break. Something told Enid she wouldn’t have much time to relieve herself. She couldn’t very well do so with her hands behind her back, so she mustered all of Sorcha’s bravado and struggled to her feet before approaching her captor, who was eating what looked like a slice of fruitcake.

She spoke loudly so everyone in the party would hear; hoping one of them spoke English. “Please remove the bindings.”

Her captor looked over at an older man, who said something. It must have been a translation, because her captor looked back at Enid and shook his head no.

“If you do not, I will be forced to wet my skirts and you will have to smell it for the rest of the trip,” she declared.

The older man laughed and translated again. Her captor’s face fell into a disgusted grimace, but he stuffed the rest of his meal into his mouth and fumbled with her bindings. All five men watched her closely as she went off the trail in search of a suitable spot to go. She was too desperate to be concerned that they could see her – besides, her skirts provided enough protection that they didn’t see anything anyway.

She was surprised to find that the small knife she’d secreted away in her under-pocket was still there. Not that she had any intention of using it.

The older man who’d translated gave her a drink from his canteen and a small portion of his meal. It was a cake of dried meat and berries that she chewed and swallowed quickly. When her captor gestured that she should put her hands behind her back so he could bind her again, she balked.

Turning to the translator, she said, “Tell him I won’t fight or try to escape. Please ask him to let me sit upright.”

He obliged, and a minor argument ensued. Finally, a man with his hair singed on either side of his head in a traditional Mohawk snapped out what Enid took to be an order because all discussion ceased. With no humor in her heart whatsoever, she made a mental note that the Mohawk with the Mohawk was the boss of this operation.

Her captor set her upright on the horse and mounted behind her. He snarled something in her ear and she understood the threat perfectly well without knowing what his actual words meant.

The afternoon passed more tolerably, although now that her physical discomfort had been attended to, her mental torment had free rein. Since the first ships made harbor on these shores, colonial girls and women had been stolen from their families and integrated into various Native American tribes. Enid knew she was now a slave. Whether her life would get worse or better remained to be seen.