The Vanishing Point (17 page)

She went into the woods and collected walnuts and hickory nuts. Gabriel taught her which wild mushrooms were edible and which were poisonous. He showed her an edible fungus that grew in brackets on tree trunks. When she fried it, it tasted just like chicken. He introduced her to native plants to be avoided, such as poison ivy, as well as beneficial herbs like jewelweed, which was good for treating poison ivy rash and insect bites. She began to list these plants and their properties in the blank pages at the back of her mother's receipt book.

At sunset she went down to meet him near the tobacco barn where he split logs for winter. They stood on the riverbank, his arms around her waist, and she begged him to tell her the story of the faery ointment again. Love allowed her to see the world anew, with the glamoury eye. See behind the masks and outer trappings. The Gardiners' residence, for all its imported finery, was hateful as a charnel house. A rough cabin could be as splendid as a palace if she dwelt there in happiness with her beloved.

***

That night he pushed her shift up to her throat. A thousand things rushed through her. It was strange to be stripped naked like this. She didn't know which way to move, but he held her fast, fixed in place. "I want to see you," he said. The fire warmed her bare skin as he pulled her shift over her head and threw it aside. He turned her over so that she lay on her stomach, then he rolled her on her back again.

"You're so small," he said.

His exploration of her body left her shy and half skittish. As much as she longed to meet his embrace with equal passion, she was suddenly nervous. She thought of May's lush body, and then her own, so flat and thin. Was he comparing her to her sister? But he looked at her with longing, stroking her until the blood sang in her ears. The more he caressed her, the more pliant she became, lying back on the bearskin while he took each breast in his mouth. Under his touch, she bloomed, her skin coming alive. He stroked the inside of her thighs until she was in a frenzy, then he stroked her most secret parts. "You are soft as a little rabbit." He caressed her until she writhed, her hair in her mouth.

He tugged off his breeches and lay naked, letting her straddle him as she ran her hands over his body, which was hard where hers was soft. She had thought that all men were as hairy as those on whom she had operated, but Gabriel's skin was smooth. She wasn't ignorant of male anatomy. She had seen Mr. Byrd splayed like a plucked rooster. But Gabriel wasn't a drugged, blindfolded body tied down on a table. His flesh rose to meet hers. She squeezed him in her hand until he pressed her back down on the bearskin. Opening her legs, he entered her slowly, his eyes never leaving hers.

"You have an angel's name," she murmured, wondering why she had never thought of that before. "They named you after an angel."

Then she cried out so sharply that the dogs outside howled and scratched at the latched door. It hurt more than she had thought possible, but she clung to him, wrapping one leg around his back so he wouldn't pull out of her. As he kept moving inside her, she felt the blood trickle down her thigh. It would leave no stain on the bearskin. So this was what they sang the songs about, what the preachers railed against, what had ruined her sister's name. This was the moment in which she finally became a woman. She closed her eyes and saw the face of the Green Man in her old village church.

"I love you, Hannah." He shuddered and lay still, his body covering hers. She thought he would kiss her then, but instead he trembled, his face in her hair.

"What is it?" she asked.

When he lifted his face above hers, she saw that he was in tears. "I don't deserve you."

"Gabriel." She twined her arms around his neck, not letting him go. "Shh." As she embraced him, she felt the raised skin on his back—scars from his father's whip. He hid his wet face between her breasts. After what seemed like a long time, he sat up. He touched her bloody thigh, then raised his hand in the firelight and stared brokenly at his shining red fingers. When Hannah saw the blood, she, too, was overcome. She wanted to tell him it was only a little blood, it didn't hurt anymore. The bleeding was such a small thing compared to what stirred inside her. But when she saw the horror on his face, she couldn't speak. Why did he look so terrified to see her blood on his hand? She knew May had not come to her wedding night a maiden. Was he so shocked because he had never been with a virgin before? For an instant, Hannah saw her sister's ghostly face superimposed on his.

"Gabriel." She took him by the shoulders and kissed him until he kissed her back, marking her arms with her sticky blood as he held her. Barefoot and naked, she hobbled across the freezing floorboards to the table, took a clean rag, and returned to him. She wiped his hand, then wiped the blood off her own skin. Crumpling the stained rag, she threw it into the fire. "There," she told him. "It is done."

They slept with their hair tangled together, limbs intertwined. Each time she rolled over, he rolled with her, tightening his arm around her waist as though now that he had her, he would never let her go.

***

In the morning she searched the creek bank for late-blooming flowers. She found a clump of autumn crocuses tucked in a pocket of mossy earth. With the spade she brought with her, she dug them up, then placed them in her basket. Shaking the dirt from her skirt, she made her way to May's grave.

For the first time, she felt a sense of apprehension as she knelt on the mound that covered her sister. Blinking back tears, she set to work. When the hole was dug, she planted the crocuses, patting down the earth around them. Afterward she took the sharpened kitchen knife from her basket and cut off a lock of hair. She plaited it in the shape of a heart and set it beside the flowers she had planted.

Lying down, she stretched her body on the grave, her head where May's would be. She pretended they were children again, back home in their own bed, whispering under the covers and telling secrets.

"Don't hate me, May." She stroked the brittle autumn grass. "It was only because we were both half mad for missing you."

T
HE MORNING MAY STEPPED
off the ship in Anne Arundel Town, drizzle fell, dampening her hair, which she had combed so carefully before leaving the hold. She had bitten her lips and pinched her cheeks to make them red. Now she asked herself why she had bothered. Clouds hung over the harbor town with its crude jumble of houses. A cow lowed from a distant paddock as the drizzle dimpled the pewter water. May observed the bewigged planters and the sailors unloading cargo. She clutched her cloak around herself, and her eyes searched the scene for something exotic to ease her disappointment. To think she had sailed this far, breaking her poor sister's heart, only to arrive at such a dismal place. She had expected to see the flowering tulip trees Cousin Nathan had described in his letter. She had expected red Indians with feathers in their hair.

Surveying the crowd, she wondered which of these strutting planters was her bridegroom. When her eyes met those of a curly-haired young man, she winked at him before she could stop herself. Though the days of her freedom were well and truly over, old habits were hard to kill. She needed some bit of cheer to lift her spirits. This was the Chesapeake, after all, not some dour Puritan settlement like the ones in New England of which she had heard. In his letter, Cousin Nathan had written that people here were merry, loving nothing better than horseraces, hunting parties, and cotillions, where they got themselves up in handsome clothes.

Her thoughts turned to her wedding dress, folded away inside her trunk. She, Joan, and Hannah had spent six weeks sewing it. She could still feel the crisp lawn, the silk embroidery thread slipping along her fingers as her needle guided it through the fabric. Hannah had baptized the gown in her tears. Although it would have been unpardonable for her sister to abandon Father in his old age, she wished Hannah were standing beside her now. Hannah wouldn't be so easily discontented. Eyes big and wondering, her young sister would clutch her arm, both amazed and a little frightened by the strangeness, while May reassured her that all would be well. No, they were not abandoned at the pier; the Washbrooks would find them any minute.

A commotion drew her attention to the waterfront. The crowd pressed forward, cheering and then jeering at some spectacle. Standing on tiptoes, she tried to see what it was about. Though she didn't want to abandon her trunk, it was impossible to get any view where she stood, so she pushed her way to the front of the throng.

Beyond the harbor wall, a shallop boat skimmed the water in wide circles. One man worked the rudder, another controlled the sail, while a third man stood at the prow, arms outstretched, welcoming the applause. At first she didn't understand what the fuss was about, then she spotted the rope dragging something in the boat's wake. Straining her eyes, she finally recognized the body at the end of the rope, the long skirt trailing. May snorted and shook her head. What manner of sport did these bumpkins play at, pulling a dead woman behind a boat? But the woman, she realized, was still alive, though only barely. She clung to the rope, struggling to keep her head above water. The boatmen showed her no mercy. The scene reminded May of a line in one of Joan's dark old ballads.
Sometimes she sank, sometimes she swam.
The woman's drenched head crested above the white foam before the current slammed her beneath the surface. Fists clenched, May glared around at the clapping crowd. Were they just going to stand there like grinning half-wits while the woman drowned?

"Do something!" she shouted. "They will kill her!"

No one paid her any mind. It was like a nightmare where she was forced to witness a masked stranger slitting her sister's throat and she was powerless to do anything but watch. Just as she thought the woman would surely drown, the men in the boat tugged on the rope, dragging her out of the water. May watched her spit and vomit overboard. No one helped her, even to give her a handkerchief or to put a blanket around her quivering shoulders. The man who had stood at the prow sat down, his back to her.

"That'll teach the trollop," a voice behind her said.

May whirled around to confront the speaker, but there were so many faces, she had no idea who had spoken. Among the men and boys, there were also women who pointed and laughed. It dawned on her that this near drowning was punishment for some crime—much like public flogging or putting someone in the stocks on the village green. As the boat sailed out of view, May imagined the woman quaking in fear and cold. What would happen to her now? Shoving her way back through the crowd, May decided to return to her trunk before someone made off with it. Her thoughts were in such a muddle that she hardly looked where she was going. Before she knew it, she had trodden on a boy's foot.

"Begging your pardon," she muttered, though if he had gotten any pleasure from watching the proceedings, she was not sorry in the least. If she caused him pain, then so much the better. Half a head shorter than she was, the boy glanced up at her in confusion. Brushing past him, she strode toward her trunk, only to find a stout man peering over it. With his gloved hand, he traced the letters of her name carved on the lid.

"What business have you with my baggage, sir?"

Straightening his back, he looked her over carefully, as though a merchant inspecting a bolt of cloth to see if it met his satisfaction. She held his gaze without backing down. They were the same height. His wig, she noted, was woefully out of fashion.
It looked as if he had affixed a spaniel's pelt to his skull.

"Are you May Powers?" he asked, doffing his hat. When he bowed, the spaniel wig nearly slid off. Although he looked like a rustic, there was a hint of steel in his voice, no deference in his bow. May sensed that he was not a man she would wish to cross.

"That is my name, sir," she replied, matching his haughty air. Joan had always scolded her for her pride. She dropped in a reluctant curtsy. If Hannah were here, she would bob her head as a modest maiden should. May stood tall and lifted her chin.

He appraised her. "You do resemble your late mother."

May dropped her eyes. Though only seven when her mother died, she still remembered her singing at the spinning wheel. She remembered brushing Mother's hair.

"As you have surely gathered, I am Nathan Washbrook, your father's cousin." A note of cheer mingled with the pomposity in his voice. She decided he was being convivial.

"Pleased to meet you at last, sir." She inclined her head.

"Here comes your bridegroom."

She looked in the direction he pointed and saw nothing. So he had only meant to jest with her. If her future father-in-law had a sense of humor, she just might be happy here. Then she saw the boy whose foot she had stepped on earlier. This could only be a joke. That boy was a mere stripling with a girl's long hair. He hardly looked to be eighteen, as the letter had claimed. She turned helplessly to Cousin Nathan, who still pointed at the boy.

"This is my son, Gabriel."

***

How the disappointment bloomed on her face. The way she looked at him, Gabriel thought, as though he would never do for her at all.

"Good day to you," she said, so tall and stately, so voluptuous and womanly, that he felt like a minnow before a queen.

"Good day to you also, Mistress Powers." He bowed.

"I trust your voyage was not too harrowing," said Father. "You look rested and well nourished." He was busy examining her. Gabriel almost expected him to open her mouth and inspect her teeth.

"I am blessed with good health, sir." May's attention was focused on Father, as if this business were strictly between the two of them.

"Very well, then." Father caught Gabriel's eye and grinned. "I have rented a chamber in the Shipwright Inn. There you may prepare for the nuptials."

For an instant, May looked so helpless and lost that Gabriel saw only beauty, the color high in her salt-stung cheeks. He searched for words of kindness.