The Peculiar Miracles of Antoinette Martin: A Novel (35 page)

“He’s gone. I checked everywhere.”

Lily relaxed. The night was warm, more fit for August than April. She plunged her hand into the cold water, opening and closing her fingers, concentrating on the feel of the water.

Seth ran his hand through his hair, making it wave around his face. “I didn’t expect it to be so difficult to see you again.”

Lily raised her eyebrows. Whatever she had been expecting him to say, it wasn’t that. She curled her hand in the water. The shock of the cold kept her in the present, preventing her mind from slipping back to the summer nights they had spent here. “It hasn’t been easy for me either.”

“I thought I could forget the past,” he said, “but I was wrong. I’ve missed you. I don’t want to interfere with your life. If you and Will are—”

“We’re not,” she said, the words coming out faster than she meant for them to. She took a breath, deliberately slowing her thoughts. “Do you remember when we used to come here and watch the clouds? You and Rose found shapes, but I couldn’t see anything other than the two of you. I wanted to stay like that forever. How did everything end up so differently than I planned?” It was the question she had been asking herself since coming home. She didn’t expect him to answer, and was surprised when he did.

“I don’t know,” he said. “For a long time, I never thought I’d be back here. Now I can’t imagine being anywhere else. I believe there are places that get to you. They slip under your skin and won’t let you go. Redbud’s like that for me.”

Lily shook the water from her fingers. Tiny droplets sprayed over her face, cooling her skin where they touched. “What about people?” she asked.

He shifted until their fingers touched. When he looked down at her, she shivered. “Some,” he said. “I think it’s like that for some people.”

“What about for us?” The question was easier to ask in the dark, when the rustle of the trees and the buzz of cicadas covered her words as soon as they were out.

“When I left for seminary,” Seth said, “I thought I could forget everything—it wasn’t easy for me here. Dad made sure of that.

“But there, no one knew my family. People didn’t stare when I walked across campus. No one whispered behind my back. No one pitied me. I felt like I could leave my past in Redbud and just be me, not the boy whose drunk father beat him. For the first time in my life, I was just Seth Hastings.

“It wasn’t until I came back for Mom’s funeral that I realized leaving didn’t free me. Instead, it gave the past that much more power over me. I could never be myself because I was always hiding part of my life.

“I’ve tried,” he said, “but I can’t stay away from you. You’re the only person I can be myself with. I don’t have to hide from you.” He moved closer.

“I bought into Eden Farms because I wanted to come home, but I stayed because I saw you everywhere. In the fields, I saw us running through the sunflowers down to the creek. In the barn, while hanging flowers to dry from the rafters, I would see you standing in a halo of sunlight. Sometimes it was so real I thought I could touch you. I’d sit on this rock at night and feel you beneath me.”

Seth pressed his forehead against hers. “The best parts of my life have been with you. You see all of me and you love me anyway. Or at least you did.”

She watched his lips as he spoke, wondering whether they would feel the same after all these years. She brushed his hair back. The thick strands slid through her fingers. Then she ran her hands over the broad planes of his back and down his arms.

“I still do,” she said. “I never stopped.”

It felt as if they had been slowly bending toward each other since that first day at the farmers’ market. Instead of beating faster, her heart slowed as if trying to stretch this moment into an eternity.

His breath was hot when he lowered his mouth to hers. His lips were as soft as she remembered. He wrapped his arms around her, laid her back on the rock, and covered her body with his.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Antoinette was talking in her sleep. She woke from a dream where she rode the wind to the edge of the creek and knelt in the mud. As in real life, ferns grew along the bank, but in her dream the fronds were made of words instead of leaves. She searched until she found a word that calmed her body and made her feel whole. She plucked it and placed it on her tongue. The word tasted like blueberries, sweet and tart at the same time. “Mommy,” she said as it slid down her throat.

Dream-talking wasn’t unusual. Everything happened in dreams, even the impossible, but this time was different. This time, her lips hummed when she woke as if the actual word had just left her mouth. A breeze blew through the open window, billowing the sheers and sending goose bumps along her arms.

She tried again. “Mmmm,” she said. She closed her eyes, trying to remember the ease with which she spoke while dreaming, but it was too late. The word was gone.

It was the evening before the garden show, but the farm was quiet now. Earlier that day, Antoinette had been so tired she fell asleep with her head against her mother’s knee. Vaguely, she remembered Lily carrying her to her room.

Outside her window, crickets chirped and an owl hooted. Everything had a voice except her. Even the wind whistled as it swept through the window. She balled her hand into a fist and hit the wall. If she could speak, she could make her mother listen.

“Let me help you,” she would say, and for once her mother would be the silent one. Antoinette would hold her mother’s hand and sing until everything was fixed. Until her heart was so strong it would never stop beating.

Antoinette’s arms were stiff, but she shoved her covers back and concentrated on untangling her legs from the quilt. Some dreams came true. She had fixed Lily’s hand after thinking she would never heal again. Why couldn’t this dream come true too?

The wood floor was cool under her feet. Her knees wobbled as she stood, but she was calm, still under the thrall of her dream. She didn’t twitch or flap as she walked downstairs into the kitchen, and she wondered,
Is this how other people feel?

In her dream, the words grew on ferns by the creek bank, so that’s where she’d go. She would sit there, eating leaves, singing under the moon until her throat was raw. Then she’d run home, wake her mother, and fix everything. Words had power.

Dark shadows sat in the kitchen corners, but Antoinette didn’t care. It was easier to see without all the colors getting in the way. As she crossed the kitchen to the back door, her skin prickled in anticipation. What would it feel like to open her mouth and say anything she wanted? She flapped her hands and reached for the doorknob. Everything would change tonight.

She stopped when her fingertips brushed the flaked paint on the door. She had forgotten the red light. If she opened the door, it would squeal. Her mother would wake, and everything would be ruined.

Before looking up, she squeezed her eyes shut.
Please
, she prayed.
Let the light be off.
She flapped her hands twice for good measure, then opened her eyes one at a time. She let her head fall back and looked up.

The light was off.

She blinked hard and looked again. Nothing. The space above the door was beautifully blank. Her heart quickened, and she shrieked twice before she could stop herself. Her voice filled the empty room and echoed through the house, louder than the alarm ever was.

She didn’t wait to find out if anyone heard her. She shoved her arm straight out and pushed the door open. It smacked into the wall with a loud crack. She stumbled through, her bones loose under her skin, her knees wobbling.

Antoinette was at the top of the porch steps when she heard a voice from inside the house. “Antoinette? Is that you?”

Her mother.

In a rush, Antoinette tumbled down the porch steps, cutting her leg in the fall. Blood dripped down her shin, but she didn’t stop.

The sky was dark and the land silent. No music rolled through her mind, but that didn’t matter. Everything would be better soon. Heat shimmered up from the ground. She easily made it to the stone path that led to the woods.

She was at the edge of the field when the kitchen door slammed, and her mother yelled, “Antoinette? Are you out there?”

Hurry, hurry, hurry.
Antoinette walked as fast as she could.
This must be how birds feel
, she thought. She spread her arms wide to catch the wind.

“I can see you Antoinette!” her mother yelled. “Come back here!”

The woods marking the end of the fields had filled out. The trees’ branches twined together to form a thick screen.

Antoinette shoved through. She lost her footing but locked her knees and didn’t fall, even when twigs pierced the soles of her feet.

It was cooler and darker under the branches. Instead of following the well-worn path to the creek, she turned off onto a narrow deer trail. It would be easier to hide that way. She wasn’t going home until she found the ferns from her dream.

A branch from a birch tree flicked back against her cheek. She felt blood welling along the cut, and she put her hand to her face, willing the edges of her skin back together, but she had never been able to heal herself, and this time was no different.

“Antoinette!” Her mother’s voice floated behind her, to her right, so she went left, moving deeper into the woods, toward the sound of creek water.

In the distance her mother called again, closer this time. Antoinette imagined her mother’s distress, and she almost turned back, but then she remembered the way her body had felt after speaking. She had to know whether it was possible.

By the time she emerged from the tree cover and onto the creek bank, her face was covered with tiny scratches. Blood trickled from her cheek to the corner of her mouth. It was warm and salty when she touched her tongue to it.

The creek was swollen with rain. Water rose halfway up the muddy hill. Exposed tree roots hung over the thin lip of dirt separating the woods from the water. She was farther downstream than usual, far from the flat rock that jutted from the center of the creek. She wasn’t familiar with this part of the woods, but that didn’t matter. Ferns grew all along the water’s edge; she could find them anywhere.

Though the moon was out, its light was blocked by the trees, and she could barely see. She found moss and twisted tree roots, but no ferns. She shifted to her left, brushing her fingers along the ground, searching. She was concentrating so hard, she missed the footfalls behind her.

“I thought I heard someone,” a man said, startling her. “God must be smiling on me. I went for a walk in the woods to sort some things out and here you are.”

Antoinette turned. Eli stood behind her. For a moment, she was happy to see him, but almost immediately she sensed that something was wrong. He stood too close to her, and he whispered as if he didn’t want anyone to overhear him.

“I need you to do me a favor,” he said. “Then I’ll bring you back to your mama. A little girl like you shouldn’t be out in the woods by herself.”

Normally, Antoinette would be happy to help Eli, but he was different tonight. She tried to scoot backward to put some distance between them but she was at the edge of the creek bank.

“Antoinette!” her mother yelled, her voice closer. She must have followed the flagstone path to the creek, coming out downstream, across from the flat rock.

“Antoinette!” It was Will’s voice this time. “Your mom needs you to come home.” Her mother must have asked for his help.

Antoinette opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Her dream seemed foolish now. She should have known nothing could fix her.

There was nowhere to go except down the hill. It took all of her concentration to put one foot in front of the other without sliding down to the creek.

“Come on now,” Eli said. “I’m not going to hurt you. I want to take you back to your mama. But first MaryBeth needs your help. You love MaryBeth, don’t you? You want to help her.”

His words made her stop inching toward the creek. She
did
love MaryBeth.

“Be a good girl,” Eli said, holding his hand out to her. “That’s right. Take my hand. The Lord works in mysterious ways. He must have known I needed your help and sent me out here to find you.” Eli turned toward the woods, and this time, Antoinette allowed him to pull her along with him.

“We’ll go see MaryBeth, and you’ll fix her,” Eli said. “Then I’ll bring you back to your mom. You’ll be home before she misses you.”

“Antoinette!” her mother called again. “Where are you? Please make a noise, a sound.
Anything.
”

The panic in her mother’s voice made Antoinette stop. She loved MaryBeth, but she loved her mother more.

“Come on,” Eli said, tightening his hold on her hand. Though they were skin to skin, Antoinette couldn’t hear his song. “We’ve got to keep going. Hurry.”

But Antoinette didn’t want to go with Eli anymore. She wanted her mother.
Mommy!
she thought over and over again, and she managed a small shriek.

“Hush,” he said, and he gripped her tighter, his fingers pressing into her flesh until she felt the bone bruise. “I’m just taking you to MaryBeth. You like MaryBeth, don’t you?”