The Mirk and Midnight Hour (19 page)

He didn’t urge us to remain. “Thank you,” he said. “For everything.”

Something in his tone made me look at him closer and consider
how he must feel, alone and wounded and vulnerable. I turned and scurried about, trying to replace everything we had moved to exactly as it had been when we arrived, kicking rubble and dust over our footprints. I didn’t want the VanZeldts to know we’d been there.

Although he didn’t ask if we’d come again, Seeley told him anyway. “We’ll be back. We’ll bring more food.”

I didn’t confirm this. Instead I stepped carefully over the debris and hurried outside. Once Seeley was out, I carefully leaned the door over the entrance.

We didn’t run but made our way swiftly back to the canoe. Seeley didn’t veer off exploring as he had earlier, and I was in no mood to allow it if he had. However, when we reached the pool, he began shedding his shoes, stockings, and shirt.

I had promised him a swim. A few more minutes out couldn’t hurt. I perched on the rocky ledge and pondered the chance that laid up the author of Seeley’s favorite books so close to Scuppernong. I was struck by the many improbable situations brought about by the war, the many dissimilar lives drawn together.

And what quirk had caused the VanZeldts to care for a Union soldier? Out of the kindness of their hearts? Although Dr. VanZeldt and Amenze had approached me with friendship, they were odd, detached people. But why wouldn’t Amenze talk to Lieutenant Lynd when she could speak English?

Everything was twisted and troubling.

Maybe Dr. VanZeldt was a Northern sympathizer and therefore ordered his servants to attend to the lieutenant. Yankee partisans certainly existed down here. Or perhaps Lieutenant Lynd had had
the same effect on all of the VanZeldts that he had on me—it’s a much easier task to hate faceless foes in blue uniforms than it is to hate a helpless man in dire need. They must have stumbled across him and could not leave him lying there. They wouldn’t dare take him to Shadowlawn in case it was discovered they were harboring a Yankee.

Seeley crawled up toward me through the water, dragging himself by his hands like an alligator. “You’re not going to turn the lieutenant in, are you, Violet? You wouldn’t do that, would you?”

I picked up a handful of gravel and threw it hard against the cliff face across the pool. “I should. He’s the enemy. If he lives, in a few months he might be the one shooting at my father. And also for his own good, I should turn him in. Our soldiers would take him to one of our hospitals, where he’d have the advantages of modern medicine.” We were civilized. The doctors would try to heal Lieutenant Lynd before he got locked away in a prison camp.

Seeley scrambled onto his bottom and let wet sand dribble through his fingers. “He doesn’t seem like an enemy. He made up Heath Blackstock, so he has to be a good fellow. Heath is always nice to everyone he rescues. You should read
Castle Sliverbone
. It’s somewhere in my room.”

“With that captivating title, I certainly will.”

“If you turned in Lieutenant Lynd, they’d probably saw his whole leg off clear up to the top, wouldn’t they? Since it’s his hip that’s hurt. Isn’t that what they usually do?”

And he’d probably die shortly afterward, just as Isaac Lafarge and so many others in our hospital had died, with our fine modern medicine. I didn’t answer Seeley.

“Please don’t turn him in,” he begged. “Promise you won’t.”

I sighed and tried not to look down into his beseeching eyes. I fingered the lump of my amulet beneath my bodice. As always, it felt reassuring, as if the energy it held were on my side.

Seeley would not stop nagging until I finally answered. “All right. I won’t.”

“And we’ll bring him food every day. And other things. He needs pen and ink and paper so he can write books. Think how awful it was for him to lose his horse and his clothes and all his belongings.”

Like the owner of Star. Star, who had wandered magically into our pasture in early April. Or perhaps not so magically. I gave a little gasp, remembering that Star’s owner was a Union soldier named Thomas.

It wasn’t so great a coincidence. I would have connected them immediately if I had been thinking clearly. So the saddlebags were Lieutenant Lynd’s. The letters and photograph. The interesting mind that had created such fanciful carved figures.

“What, Violet?” Seeley was tugging at my skirt. “What did you just think of?”

I hardly dared tell him. “Well … I’m not sure, but … You’ll never guess what else we might be bringing the lieutenant.”

“What?”

“His own saddlebags full of his own things.”

“How—”

“Star is probably his horse. Scuppernong is only a few miles from Freshwater Springs, where the lieutenant was shot. And Star was carrying saddlebags.”

Seeley’s eyes shone. “That’s perfect! How did such a perfect thing happen?”

I lifted my hands. I couldn’t begin to grasp all these twists of fate.

Seeley was tugging at my skirt once more. “And can we go see him sometime at night? I want to show him the constellations.”

“I don’t know, Squiddy. Maybe. Come on. Into the canoe with you.”

As I lay wakeful in the dark that night, I saw the face of the man in the Lodge. There was a tranquillity in his good looks, an unselfconsciousness. Of course, part of that, I told myself dryly, could be that he hadn’t bathed or shaved in a couple of months—just how attractive could he be feeling? No. That wasn’t it; the lieutenant’s manner came from something more than skin-deep. He was the kind of man Rush and I would have called a friend.

The next morning, I was stitching up slashes in the armchair that the bushwhackers had ripped when Seeley sidled up to me.

“Can we take the stuff to the lieutenant now?” he whispered.

“Tomorrow. We mustn’t draw attention by going there two days in a row. He’ll be all right till then.”

Seeley nodded and left the room. A moment later, he popped back in and plunked down eagerly on the arm of the chair. “There’s a fox slinking around the henhouse. In broad daylight. He’s littler than you’d think a fox would be from all the stories. Not much bigger than Goblin, but I bet he’s mean. I bet he wants to eat up the only chickens we got left.”

“Probably so,” I murmured, stitching away. “Bad old fox.”

“He might get Rowena. I’m going to stop him.”

“Please do.”

I had settled back to my stitching when a boom sounded from outside that rattled the windows and made me drop my needle. I ran
out the back door while everyone else dashed from wherever they were. A flash of red, black, and white zoomed across the lawn and into the woods.

Seeley was sprawled facedown in the barnyard. A few feet away from him lay the old rifle from the barn, bits of its stock scattered, shattered, and blackened upon the ground. For one heart-stopping moment, horror clenched my whole body.

Then Seeley moved. He was scrambling to sit up even as I was at his side, kneeling in the dust. His hair was sticking up all over, his cheeks were smudged, and skin was scraped from his nose and forehead where he had fallen face-first. Other than that, he appeared unharmed. Except that his eyes were scared. His mouth drooped. “I—I was trying to shoot the fox and fell over something. The rifle jumped out of my hands and it—I guess it blew up.”

I hugged him tightly. “You’re all right, Squiddy. It’s all right.” I must have repeated that several times.

“I
know
it’s all right, Violet,” Seeley finally said, pulling away. He was shaking all over and tears weren’t far off. He was perfectly aware of what could have happened. Strange that this time it was his clumsiness that had
saved
him.

“How’d you get that rifle?” Michael demanded, picking up one of the pieces. “You get it down from the rafters yourself? Mr. William, he left it up there till he could have it fixed because the firing mechanism was broke—he thought it might would jam and explode.”

“It was leaning against Star’s stall this morning,” Seeley said. “I figured it was just an old gun nobody cared about, so I could use it. I always wanted a gun.”

Michael and I looked at each other. Someone had been very irresponsible to take the rifle down and leave it lying around. My guess was that it was King, but I wasn’t going to say so right now.

“Don’t ever, ever touch a firearm again until Michael teaches you to use them,” I said. “Anyway, I didn’t mean for you to shoot the fox; I meant to chase it away.”

A furrow showed between Michael’s brows. “However it got down, we wouldn’t never have left no ammunition in it.”

I shook my head. There was no answer to any of this. I scanned the yard around Seeley and saw nothing he could have tripped over. His guardian angels must have had a hand (or foot) in it.

Seeley was tense all day because of the rifle incident. It required the enticing candy jars at Maloney’s Mercantile later that afternoon to take his mind off it. The store was better stocked than it had been in a long while. A small shipment of supplies had made it in, including flour, at twenty dollars a barrel, and some sweets—horehound drops, rock candy, lemon drops, and taffy. After several minutes of contemplation Seeley finally chose lemon drops that looked like fat yellow bees. He brightened as he sucked them on our way home.

“You know I may not eat supper now,” he said complacently. “Mammy never let me have candy before supper.”

“Mammy was right,” I said, wishing that sugary treats could make me recover as quickly.

“You don’t know much about raising children, do you, Violet?”

“How could I? Will you be sad not to gobble your share of suppertime ham hocks?” I asked this just as I heard my name called, and there was old Jubal, waving us down from the edge of Miss Ruby Jewel’s property.

“Would you kindly come have a word with my mistress?” he said. “She sent me to watch for you. Said it’s important.”

Reluctantly I left the road with Seeley. “You may want to stay outside,” I whispered. “It’s kind of horrible in Miss Ruby Jewel’s house. She’s got way too many cats.”

“I want to see way too many cats.”

“Then take a big breath of fresh air before you go in.”

Seeley followed as Jubal showed us into the parlor and across to another doorway. “In here, please. Miss Ruby Jewel has taken to her bed.” He put his head inside. “Miss Violet Dancey, ma’am.”

I saw why Jubal didn’t enter the space himself—there was no room. A narrow path wound through towering crates and boxes and barrels on either side. Cats leaped from one height to another or watched us from above, unblinking. At the end of the trail was Miss Ruby Jewel’s bedstead. The old lady huddled inside it, covered with cats. Her mouth was gaping and her eyes were closed. They flickered open at Jubal’s voice. The familiar, quick, cunning light seeped slowly into them.

“Sorry to wake you, ma’am,” I said.

“Good night a-living! I wasn’t asleep,” she said. “Just checking for holes in my eyelids.”

Seeley stared closer at that. A spotted tom pawed a gingersnap off a plate on a candlestand beside the bed and jumped down to nibble.

The old woman shifted. “Help me set up, you, girl.”

I tried to plump the limp pillows behind her, without much success, and gingerly lifted her up against them. The tabby on her stomach barely budged. I had never touched such an old person
before. Beneath her grimy nightgown her arms felt like bones with crepey skin slipping and stretching over them. I was afraid I would break her.

“You’re unwell, ma’am?” I said.

“Feeling right puny. Don’t I look it?”

She did. I would not have thought it possible for Miss Ruby Jewel to appear any more shrunken or frail, but evidently it was. Her flesh had taken on a gray tinge.

“What does Dr. Hale say?”

“That fusspot wouldn’t tell me nothing ’cept to leave off the gingersnaps and tobaccy. I ain’t about to give up the two things—besides my kitties—that make me happy—I’d as soon croak and be done with it—so I thought to get a second opinion.”

“And you did?”

“I did and that’s why I done told Jubal I needed to talk to you. But first, who’s this young whistle britches hiding back there? He your beau?”

Seeley had been watching the cats with interest. At Miss Ruby Jewel’s words he flushed, and she grinned her wicked, black-gummed grin.

“This is Seeley Rushton, my cousin,” I said, and shoved the boy forward.

I was proud of him as he took off his hat and bravely held out his palm. “Pleased to meet you, ma’am.”

She pulled her arm out from beneath cats and shook his hand. “So you’re the gentleman owns Panola, are you?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Think you’re mighty highfalutin to have your own plantation,
eh?” She looked up at me. “Well, girl, you done good for yourself to have snagged a fancy planter sweetheart.”

“I’m not—she’s not—” Seeley stuttered.

Miss Ruby Jewel cackled.

“It’s all right, Seeley,” I said. “She’s teasing.”

“Oh,” he said. He dug in his pocket, drew forth a lemon drop, and held it out to the old lady. “Would you care for some candy, ma’am? It’s fresh.”

“Why, thank you, young feller,” Miss Ruby Jewel said, taking the drop and popping it in the corner of her mouth. “You’re a good boy to give an old lady sweeties. And now why don’t you go find Jubal and get him to fetch you some lemonade. I got private business with your cousin and can’t no one else listen in.”