Storyteller (6 page)

They drag the branches out to the back and lean against the fence, winded.

“Elizabeth,” Libby begins, and stops.

Elizabeth looks away. “I’m sorry,” she says in a voice so low she wonders if Libby can hear her. “I took the picture of Zee. I broke the glass, the frame. I’ve ruined everything.”

“Your father called,” Libby says, as if she hasn’t even heard Elizabeth.

Elizabeth tries to connect this. Libby has seen that the picture is missing? She’s told Pop? And Pop—what?

Libby rushes on. “I’ve lived alone for such a long time.”

“I should never have taken it.” Elizabeth’s eyes are so filled with tears that it’s hard to see. Libby’s eyes seem blurred to her, but soft behind her glasses.

Libby reaches out and touches Elizabeth’s cheek; she runs her hand over Elizabeth’s hair. “Poor child,” she says, as if she’s the one who has to be sorry about what has happened.

For the first time, Elizabeth realizes what it must be like to have a mother. How wonderful it would be. If only she could do everything over, she’d be perfect—so perfect Libby would never want her to leave.

“Having you to look after was such a shock,” Libby says. “Not being able to read at dinnertime, trying to talk, having to cook meals when I’m the worst cook—”

“You’re not so bad,” Elizabeth says automatically. Libby couldn’t be much worse. But what difference does it make? She knows what’s coming, knows that Libby is trying to tell her she can’t stay.

And that’s exactly what Libby says. “Your father is coming home early. He called an hour ago. He’s finished in Australia. He said to tell you he’s sold all the carvings, even the miserable ones.” Libby stops. It’s as if she can’t get the words out. “He’ll pick you up on Monday.”

Elizabeth thinks of leaving Libby, leaving Zee. Her mind goes to the chess set in the living room that she’s never tried, to lunchtime today, to swapping stories with Annie.

She stares down at the branches and the few crumpled leaves that still cling to them. She hears a woodpecker knocking at the oak tree in back of them and a mourning dove cooing its sad song.

She hears something else. Libby is making a sound in her throat.

“I’ve wanted to tell you,” Libby says, “that my life has
changed since you’ve been here. I hurry home after work, and—” She reaches out and wraps her skinny arms around Elizabeth.

Elizabeth is used to Pop’s hugs, but this is different, softer, a little awkward because she’s not used to it. Was her mother skinny like this? Would her arms have felt the same way?

She’s going to lose all this, her new life with Libby.

“I argued with your father,” Libby says. “I told him you’re happy here, I’m happy. I’ve asked him to let you stay for a while and finish the term at school. But he says he misses you. He needs you.”

Elizabeth looks up.

“Of course he misses you,” Libby says. “Who wouldn’t?” She pauses. “I didn’t tell him that we both love Zee. I didn’t tell him we both talk to her.” She nods. “I’ve heard you.”

Elizabeth is really crying now. She feels as if she’s going to choke.

“The first time I talked to Zee,” Libby says, “I was exactly your age.” She takes a breath, crying, too. “You’re so much like your mother, Elizabeth.”

Libby’s hair smells shampoo clean, and the plants against the fence are green. If only she’d never come here, she wouldn’t know what it was like.

“If I know anything,” Libby says, “I know that Zee would have loved you. Don’t worry about the picture. We’ll get a new frame, and a piece of glass. That’s not so terrible.” And then she stops. “What will I do without you?”

The days passed, warm days, waiting days. Everything was alive; there were mud nests of barn swallows over the doorway, eels in the river, woodpeckers hammering, frogs peeping at night from the trees, their music so loud the whole world hummed with it
.

I remembered one year; a wren had fallen from its nest. Isaac had held me up, the bird cupped in my hand, to bring it back to its frantic mother
.

Where was Isaac now?

Where were John and Father?

How hard it was to be alone, Mother and I going about our work quietly, watching, listening
.

I had a new thought. It began as I looked at the land around
me; the sturdy corn in neat rows; the herb garden that Mother tended, bending, her face red with effort; the house that Father had built with his own hands
.

Did I not have a part in that building? I had helped fill in the spaces between the logs so that inside we’d be snug and warm. I’d brought hay to the cow and milked her in the mornings. I’d helped with the birthing of the lambs
.

Our land, our food, our house. Not the king’s
.

I felt that even more when I pulled open the door that led to the root cellar. At the bottom of the steps, shelves were filled with potatoes that looked like the faces of old men, and rounds of pale cheese. On hooks overhead were dried sprigs of thyme and rosemary, and underneath, withered apples, the last of fall’s harvest. I was almost drunk with their sweet smells
.

Ours. All of it. Miller had said that once
.

That fierce feeling grew inside me each day
.

At night I no longer slept in the loft. Mother and I shared the bed near the hearth. I awoke dozens of times, listening to the tree frogs. They were sentinels. Should something disturb them, even a footfall, their music would stop
.

Half-asleep, I thought of the river and the bateau, a flat-bottomed boat that had carried us here when I was four years old. Mother and Father had brought John across the ocean from the
Palatine before I was born, searching for freedom from the French swords just across the Rhine. In the new country, they’d worked on one farm after another until they were able to settle on their own land
.

That day Father had stood in the front of the bateau, shattering the river’s thin crust of ice with his pole. I’d leaned out to push against the skim of ice with my palm, watching black water appear that numbed my hands, until Mother pulled me back by my petticoat. “Zee, what will we ever do with you?”

Beside her now, I slept again
.

When trouble came, it wasn’t night. There was a hint of daylight, and mist still floated above the fields. The tree frogs slept
.

The chicken coop went first
.

I walked between the house and the coop, swinging a pail of corn. There was a curl of smoke, a twist of gray, and before I had time to move, the roof exploded. Pieces of wood flew off, and in the opening, orange flames shot out
.

The pail clattered away from me as I ran to open the door. The rope was gone, burned away, and I wasted moments trying to dig my nails into the rough edges of the door to free the poor hens
.

Smoke came up from around the base of the coop, thick and black, and I stepped back, horrified by the pain of the hens. I took in great gulps of air until I heard Mother screaming, “Run, Zee! Go!”

The house was in flames. Mother was in the doorway and men were around her. In the dim light, I couldn’t see who they were. I started toward her, coughing, retching, and she screamed, “Go!”

One of the men separated himself from her and moved toward me. I flew. Barefoot, breathless, I clambered over the rocks between the fields, trying to reach the safety of the trees. I remembered the rabbit and the hawk
.

I was the rabbit
.

His footsteps were light and sure; he knew the ground as well as I. A Loyalist from the valley, then, or one of the Indians. If I had turned, I might have seen who he was, but there was no time for that
.

The trees came closer. They were thick and the ground was overgrown. I reached them, darting between them, backing up against a trunk with rough bark. Don’t move, I told myself, don’t cough
.

I was Old Gerard’s pupil, after all, and whoever was chasing me passed by. Had I reached out, I could have touched him
.

I bent over, my hands on my knees, trying to catch my breath, to slow the beating of my heart. What should I do?

Gerard came to my mind. Gerard would tell me
.

I waited until I saw glimpses of the sun directly overhead, and then I went toward his lean-to, not on the path I usually took, but along its side
.

I didn’t call out, but he heard me coming. As quiet as I was, I could never surprise him. He held out his arms, and I fell into them. “What have you done to your hands, child?”

I looked down. They were blackened, charred, but strangely, there was no feeling in them
.

He motioned to Elam, who was in the doorway. Elam went for a cup of water, and Gerard held it, icy cold, to my lips. Nothing had ever tasted so fine
.

But what about Mother?

My words tumbled out: the house, the coop, Mother. Gerard listened. And then we were both silent for a moment
.

“She was right,” he said. “You must go.”

“I have to go back to her.”

He shook his head. “Don’t go back.”

I didn’t answer. I knew she was gone, that the house was gone, that there was nothing left to go back to
.

I wanted to sink under Old Gerard’s walnut tree and
close my eyes. If only I could wrap my arms around myself until the trembling died down, until I could stop thinking about the whoosh of fire as it had gone through the roof of the coop. If only I could forget the moment I’d seen the house, seen the black smoke coming from the doorway. But most of all, I wanted to stop seeing Mother with those dark shapes around her
.

I couldn’t stay; I knew that
.

Gerard went into his lean-to and came out with a clay jar. He covered my hands with a thick poultice that smelled of bark, and grease, and maybe rum
.

My hands felt as if they were encased in thick mitts, and my fingers were stiff. As he helped me lie down, I knew I had the beginning of a fever
.

I slept for what must have been hours, and awoke at last to see Gerard coming across the field. Elam followed, head down, a spade in his hand
.

I sat up. They had buried Mother. Mother, with her soft face, her warm hands. Gerard and I looked at each other in silence
.

“Under the trees, I’ve marked her grave with a stone,” he told me. “I think it is a good place for her.”

“I’m grateful,” I said, my voice strangled. Only that morning she had turned the cheese in its tray
.

I saw then that the sun was a red ball beyond the fields. “I must go,” I told him
.

He nodded and I could see the pity in his dark eyes
.

I almost asked him to come with me, almost blurted out the words
I can’t go alone. How do I know where to go?
But I knew that as long as he was alive, he’d stay there, straddled between the Patriots and the Loyalists
.

“You will go north,” he said, “and somehow find your father and your brother.” He held out a cloth bag he’d filled with more of the poultice, a water jug, dried meat, fire starters, and lengths of linen for my hands
.

I thought of the piece of parchment I had carried with me since the day Father had left. It would show me the lines my feet had to travel, the high points I’d climb first, the earth gentling out, rolling in front of me, the sweep of the rivers I’d have to cross
.

Gerard spoke again. “You will have to find your way. You won’t know whether those you’ll meet are friends or enemies. Stay alone; keep to yourself until you are sure.”

I half listened to his reminder about what to do for thirst and hunger. I was thinking it would take weeks to find Father and John. I looked down at my hands. What use would they be?

The sun had disappeared, but the sky to the west was shot
through with its rays. “You must leave now,” Gerard said, “before someone realizes you are here.”

I stood, and he eased the bag over my shoulders. He slashed some of the linen into pieces with his knife and wrapped them gently around my hands. He touched my forehead, and then I turned, my eyes burning, and went toward the field. When I was halfway across, he came after me and dropped his knife into the bag
.

How could I leave him?

Almost blind from tears, I stumbled away
.

My head told me to go north, but my feet knew where I belonged, and that was the path I took. I skirted the trees until what was left of the house was in front of me: the blackened logs, the spirals of smoke still wafting upward, and the chimney standing high and alone. The land was scorched, the corn shriveled away. The stench of it burned my nostrils
.

I waited, watching, until it was almost dark, and then I went closer. Nothing was left of the chicken coop but ashes. The cow was gone, and the sheep
.