The Endless Forest (69 page)

“Of what?” Nathaniel said.

Levi glanced at Callie, but she had lowered her head again and she wouldn’t raise it.

“Miss Callie here thinks I been conspiring with Jemima behind her back. I guess she forgot it was Jemima who killed my ma. I’d as soon snap her neck as lift a hand to help that woman. I’ll do it too, if I ever get the chance.”

Elizabeth caught Ethan’s eye. She thought probably her expression looked like what she saw on his face: numb surprise.

Nathaniel said, “You know more about what went on back then than the rest of us?”

“Maybe I do,” Levi said. “But that got nothing to do with this business we got to settle right now.”

“So tell us,” Nathaniel said. “You have got our full attention.” Under the table he put a hand on Elizabeth’s knee, and she covered it with her own.

“It has to do with an apple tree,” Levi said. “We call it the Bleeding Heart.”

Levi talked for a half an hour. For that entire time none of them spoke or even moved, but Elizabeth’s mind raced back over the last weeks, back to the flood and further still. Callie’s grim determination when her crop failed once and then again, her unwillingness to talk with any seriousness or in any real detail about the orchard. What it must have been like to harbor such hopes and to lose everything on the cusp of success. How she had kept it all to herself; how in the confusion and chaos of the flood nobody had seen her distress. She and Levi had supported each other in their common cause, and now something had turned them against each other.

That it had to do with Jemima did not surprise her. She should feel anger, but instead there was only a deep weariness.

Ethan was asking questions about the surviving apple tree, the reaction of the orchardists Levi had called on, the potential for earnings.

“Once we got enough trees bearing fruit, I reckon cider and jack will bring in two thousand a year.” Levi hesitated. “If Callie wants to sell saplings, those will bring in quite a lot as well. I hope she doesn’t. Sell saplings, I mean.”

There was a small silence around the table, mostly, it seemed to Elizabeth, out of pure surprise. A small family could survive comfortably on twenty dollars a week; farmers, who traded for most things and grew a lot of their own food, could make do with less. An apple orchard that earned two thousand a year for its cider was a valuable holding.

Ethan and Nathaniel had a lot of questions, and between Callie and Levi they all got answered.

Then Elizabeth spoke to Callie directly. “Tell me about what happened today, with Nicholas.”

“I’d sure like to hear that myself,” Levi said.

Callie’s mouth tightened. “You heard it yourself, Elizabeth. When Nicholas was carrying on about Jennet’s story. You heard him say the words
Bleeding Heart.”

Elizabeth nodded. “Yes, I did hear that.”

“About an apple, he said
Bleeding Heart,”
Callie repeated. “And where did that come from?”

She wasn’t looking at Levi, but her whole posture said clearly what she was thinking.

Levi said, “Before today I ain’t never spoke those two words aloud to anybody in this world except you.”

“You must have,” Callie said. “It can’t be a coincidence.”

“Wait,” Ethan said. “Levi, when you went to call on the orchards with the cider samples, you didn’t say the name even then?”

“No, I did not,” Levi said, much calmer now but with an anger very near the surface. “I handed over the letter Callie wrote and I answered questions, and that’s all.”

“You never told Lorena about the tree.” Callie’s tone was flat.

“Nobody,” Levi said. “You want to send for her? You can ask her your own self.”

“Callie, think. You wrote that name in your letters,” Ethan said. He turned to Levi. “Did you go as far as Boston on your journey?”

“No,” Levi said. “I went along the Mohawk trail as far as Greenfield, and then I was out of samples and so I turned around for home.”

“Where is Greenfield?” Elizabeth asked, and Nathaniel glanced at her.

“Short of Boston by a couple days’ walk,” Nathaniel said. “Hard to imagine how the Fochts would have got word of an apple tree in the city.”

Callie straightened in her chair. She caught Ethan’s eye and took a deep breath.

She said, “Nicholas never lived in Boston. He told me today. He says he grew up in a place called Banfield but he doesn’t know where it is, exactly.”

Levi closed his eyes and opened them again. “Banfield is a small town
on the Deerfield River. Farms, mostly. I don’t know what Jemima and her husband would have been doing there.”

Ethan said, “Callie is going to faint, Elizabeth.”

Elizabeth steadied her, and then Ethan was there to take her. He didn’t often seemed rattled, but Elizabeth saw his confusion and worry and she took over.

“On the divan, I think. Nathaniel, please fetch some water. Is there a facecloth?”

Levi stepped in closer, his fists clenched tightly at his side. “Should I fetch Hannah?”

“She’ll come around in a moment,” Elizabeth said. “And then she’ll have questions. Perhaps you should fetch Lorena after all.”

To Ethan Nathaniel said, “Where is Nicholas? He shouldn’t come back here until things are settled down.”

Ethan’s wheat-colored hair was plastered to his temples by sweat, and his color was high. Then he made a visible effort to concentrate.

“He’s at Curiosity’s,” Ethan said. “Unless they all went over to your place after supper.”

“That’s where he should stay for the time being,” Nathaniel said. “Boots, if you can manage I’m going to head up and have a quick word with Curiosity. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

B
irdie loved the summer for the long days, when twilight stretched itself out like a cat before a fire and children were allowed out to play until it was full dark. They only had to stay in shouting distance of either the Uphill or Downhill House, but that gave them a half mile, from Birdie’s own front porch to Curiosity’s.

Even the blackfly couldn’t take away her love of the summer evenings; she simply covered herself with Hannah’s pennyroyal ointment after supper as she did after breakfast and dinner. It was also her job to make sure the little people did the same. Luke’s twins turned up their noses at the smell, but would have tolerated much worse than stinky ointment to run free in the evenings with their cousins.

They played hide-and-seek, and its opposite, seek-and-hide, or Sardines, as Birdie’s da called it. They put on theaters where they re-enacted scenes from their favorite stories, except this year the boys always wanted the same thing: the tournament of Ashby-de-la-Zouch from Mr. Scott’s
Ivanhoe
. Birdie liked the story too, but, she wanted to know, how many times could you refight the same battles? Which made her da laugh in
the way that meant she had come up with a good point that most grown-ups never thought about. The real problem was there was always a lot of argument about who would get to be Prince John or Cedric or Rowena, or Robin of Locksley. Usually Ma or Hannah had to step in and assign roles, which never turned out very well, in Birdie’s opinion.

More often they played jumping games and guessing games and tag, but the best game of all was capture the flag, because the grown-ups could be wheedled into playing.

It’s your favorite because it suits your nature
, her da pointed out, and it was true. Birdie loved the mad dashing that paused only long enough for quick discussions of strategy. She liked trying to outwit her elders, and she had good mates in her nephews, especially. The little people loved nothing more than watching their own parents being marched off to gaol.

Once when she jumped down from a branch to tag Gabriel he had thrown up his hands in surrender and laughed all the way to the porch. He said,
Too bad you’re a girl, little sister. You’d make a good exploring officer
.

Except he didn’t say such things in Ma’s hearing, because while even Ma had to admit that Birdie couldn’t enlist in the army, she would still tell stories about warrior queens from long ago. There was a whole page of them in her notebook: Boadicea, Queen of the Iceni who drove the Romans off, Jehanne la Pucelle, and Tomyris, Queen of the Massagetae, who defeated Cyrus the Great. And Birdie’s favorite, Caterina Sforza of Milan in Italy, who had been a tomboy and good at sports, and an excellent soldier and leader of armies who had saved St. Angelo. Birdie had a hard time imagining what St. Angelo could be and what it might look like, until Lily came home from Italy and explained it to her.

So Birdie couldn’t join the army, but neither would she forget that things had once been different, and might be different again.

This evening, though, she didn’t care to play. Instead she sat on the porch with Lily, who was sharing the role of gaoler, as she couldn’t move from the spot where Simon had settled her.

“It’s just as well,” she told Birdie. “I wouldn’t want to deny you the pleasure of gaoling your brothers.”

And it was very satisfying when someone got tagged and Birdie was called over to take the prisoner to the porch. This evening they had had three prisoners so far, Daniel, Adam, and Isabel, but all three of them escaped when Birdie went to get a shawl for Lily.

“They took advantage of your condition.” Birdie glared at the escapees, but they were too busy running off to notice.

Ma said they could play capture the flag only once or twice a week, for fear it would become routine. Birdie could hardly imagine such a thing; it was only during these games that she had seen Luke laugh so hard he got the hiccups and tears ran down his face. Jennet was everywhere at once, holding her pregnant belly as she ran and ignoring Hannah’s scolding until Simon and Ben each took an elbow and carried her, feet flailing, protesting in a broad Scots, to the sidelines until Hannah declared she might play again.

Even Ma played, whooping with delight when she evaded capture, her cheeks flushed a deep red. When Ma got tagged the little people capered with delight to see her dragged off because she didn’t go quietly, but argued all the way and reminded them that she had broken out of—and into—more than one gaol in her time. That made Da laugh like a boy.

But Ma and Da weren’t playing tonight. They were gone down to see Ethan and Callie. And what was that about? No one seemed to have even the slightest idea, even Curiosity, though Birdie had asked more than one way.

A lot of outraged laughter erupted from behind the house, and Nicholas Wilde came trotting around the corner with the other side’s flag—a piece of an old red flannel hunting shirt—raised high overhead. At the same time Anje poked her head out of the door and said Curiosity was asking for Birdie’s help in the kitchen.

Curiosity didn’t really need her help; that was clear to Birdie before she went through the swinging door into the clean and ordered kitchen. The fact that her father sat across from Curiosity at the table did take her by surprise.

“Da,” she said. “I thought you were down in the village at Ethan’s place.”

“Came up the back way. I’ve got to go back right now, but I need to ask you to do something first.”

Her da’s voice and expression were calm and steady, but a shiver went up Birdie’s spine anyway.

“What’s wrong?”

Curiosity shook her head. “Why you got to jump to that conclusion, little girl?”

“Because there’s something wrong, I can almost smell it.”

Curiosity’s expression softened a little. “Yes, I suppose you can.”

“Da?”

He got up from the table. “We’re trying to figure that out, daughter. I need you to keep Nicholas here until somebody comes to fetch him home to Ethan’s.”

Curiosity said, “And that might could be a while.”

“Has he done something bad?”

“No,” Birdie’s da said. “But he’d be in the way just now. So will you do that for me?”

Birdie nodded. “If he starts to talk about going home I’ll think of something.”

He put his hand on her head and smiled. “I know you will.” And then: “You got any good words lately for your notebook?”

It took her a moment to clear her thoughts. “One,” she said. “Inscrutable. Do you know what it means?”

“Sounds like some kind of skin rash.” But he winked when he said it.

“It’s the word you use when you can’t make out what somebody’s really thinking from their face. Mostly you’re inscrutable and Ma’s scrutable, but just now I can see you’ve got something on your mind.”

She hated it when grown-ups laughed at things she said when she was serious, but Curiosity and Da only looked at each other. Then he said, “Have you ever heard Nicholas talking about a place called Banfield?”

“He’s talkative,” Birdie said. “But I never heard him mention any Banfield. Do you want me to ask him?”

“No, don’t ask him. We’ll try to sort this out without that for the time being.”

He went to the door and picked up his rifle from where he had leaned it against the wall.

“Nathaniel Bonner,” Curiosity said. “Don’t you walk out that door before you tell us what a place called Banfield got to do with anything at all.”

He smiled, which put some of Birdie’s worry to rest. Da wasn’t one to put a false face on things.