Whisper Falls (14 page)

I walked up behind my mother and looked over her shoulder. “Is it almost time to eat?”

“A few more minutes.” Mom stirred something in a pot. “Why? Going out?”

“Uh-huh.” The pot held potatoes, and there was a stick of butter nearby, a promising sign. I opened a cabinet and grabbed a couple of plates.

“With Alexis?”

I shuddered. She was the last person I wanted to spend time with.
“No.”

My mother twisted from the stove and stared, a curious squint to her eye. Must've answered more loudly than I meant to.

“She called last night asking for you.”

“And you told her where I was.” Mystery solved.

“Is that a problem?”

“Not really.” I shrugged. Might as well get the subject over with. It could prevent more surprise visits on the greenway. “Alexis dumped me on May twenty-third.”

“Prom night?”

“Yeah.” I half-sat on the edge of the table, faced my mom, and tried to ignore how hard my stomach clenched at the memory. “During the first dance, we started arguing about whether I'd go on vacation with her. And when she finally got it that I really meant no, she broke up with me and left.”

“She left the dance floor?”

“And the ballroom.”

“Ouch. Were you in the middle of the floor by yourself?”

“No. Forty other couples were out there with me.” That had been an awful moment. Not that I remembered precisely everything about it, or anything.

Mom muttered a single, vicious word under her breath.

I laughed. “Did you just say ‘bitch'?”

“You weren't supposed to hear that.” She swung back to her pot, spoon banging wildly.

I crossed to where she stood, wrapped her in a hug, and gave her a noisy, smacking kiss on the cheek. “Go, Mom!”

She laughed as she threw the stick of butter into the potatoes. “Are you upset about the break-up?”

“No.” Too loud again. “I'm fine with it,” I said with greater control.

“How come?”

Mom and I rarely had a conversation this long about my social life, so it was a little strange talking about it with her now. “I need to stay focused on the Carolina Challenge.”

“Good. I wish you'd told me earlier. We've been ready for you to move on. Alexis wasn't right for you.”

“Why not?”

A little laugh. “She's pretty self-centered.”

“I thought that was fairly standard among kids my age.”

“It is, but Alexis takes it to an extreme.” Mom sighed. “The endless texts are over.”

“To me?”

“No, to me.”

I grabbed some silverware and slapped it on the table beside the plates, then frowned in the general direction of my mother's back. I hadn't known that Alexis texted my mother, and I didn't much like knowing it now.

“Why did she text you?”

“To find out where you were.”

Liking it even less. “Did you tell her?”

“If I was ticked at you, sure.”

Last Tuesday at work—that was how Alexis had found me. Well, fine. The whole thing worked out in the end. Alexis had her pick of guys, I had no one harassing me about my schedule, and Mom had fewer texts.

“Why didn't you say something?”

“If you'd known, would you have made an issue of it with her?”

“Probably not.” I sniffed, more interested in food than ex-girlfriends. “What are we having?”

“Fried chicken. Fried okra. Mashed potatoes. Apple pie with ice cream.”

My
first
favorite home-cooked meal.

“What's the occasion?” I picked up a wooden spoon and sampled the potatoes. Oh, yeah.

“Your dad comes home tomorrow from his business trip. We need to take care of our junk food fix before he returns.” She spun around with surprising speed and grabbed the neck of my T-shirt. “We'll keep this meal a secret between the two of us.”

Tell my health freak father? Not a chance.

“I won't say a word.” I wanted this meal to be repeated as often as possible.

We ate in silence. It was too good for talking.

By the time dessert was ready, the light was fading fast.

“Hey, Mom, I'm about to head out. Can I take the last drumstick with me?”

“Sure. Where are you going?” She stacked the dirty dishes and carried them to the sink.

“On the greenway.”

I tucked a flashlight and the stapled print-outs under my arm, then wrapped the drumstick in a paper towel. So Susanna could eat her fill.

“It's a little late.” Her narrowed gaze took in all the stuff I carried.

“I'll be careful.”

A quick check of my watch made me groan. I ran the entire distance, crossing my fingers Susanna was still there.

I saw her outlined through the falls long before I arrived. She returned my wave. Her figure seemed less like a trick of the light the closer I went.

“Hey.” I took a flying leap and sailed through the falls.

She smiled, her gaze going to the items in my hands. “What did you bring?”

“Leftover chicken.” I held up the sheets and braced. The second item might be less welcome. “And some information about what happens to Worthville.”

Mark's betrayal tore at my gut. I never asked anyone for anything. Yet I'd expected Mark, of all people, to honor my wishes. I should not like to have friends if this was how it felt when they wounded me.

“I asked you not to find out. Was I not clear? Did you misunderstand?”

His lips thinned into a straight line. “I didn't misunderstand.”

“Then why did you persist?”

“I figured you would change your mind.”

“You were wrong,” I said, enunciating each word through gritted teeth.

“Sorry. I won't make that mistake again.” He shuffled the papers, slid them into his pocket, and nodded toward a boulder. “Want to sit?”

Did he truly believe we could go on as before while his actions lay between us?

“No, I do not want to sit.”

“Okay.” He gazed out at the creek.

I didn't know what to do next. I couldn't bear to be with him. And I couldn't bear to leave.

“Do you think me too simple-minded to make good choices?”

“There's nothing simple about you.” His hands clenched and released. “In my world, girls say stuff all the time they don't mean.”

“Perhaps that is protection against gentlemen who do not respect their judgment.”

“Come on. You know better than that.” His voice sounded weary. “I respect your judgment. I just wanted to be prepared.”

“For what, precisely?”

“When I was dating Alexis, she would say ‘no' one minute and ‘yes' the next. I never knew what to expect, so I always arrived ready for anything.” He took a step closer.

I flinched away. “How does this apply to me?”

“I figured if you didn't want to see the data, I could keep it in my pocket. If you changed your mind, I'd have it with me.”

“But you know what happened to my village. I can see the truth of it in your eyes.”

“You're right.” He stared at me, stony-faced.

“The fate of my village separates us. As long as you know something that I do not, we cannot be equals. You have forced me to decide between receiving knowledge I do not want or being the lesser friend.”

“Okay, you're pissed at me. Got it. Can we move on?”

“Indeed, we can. What will our next topic be?”

He muttered a word. It sounded suspiciously like “shit.”

A gust of wind brushed past our granite hideaway, heavy with the scent of wood smoke. In the gathering dusk, the creek and forest had faded to silvery shapes and shadows. It held a different kind of beauty.

I leaned against the rock wall and closed my eyes. The minutes ticked by slowly while we waited in a painful silence. As the sense of betrayal ebbed, disappointment flowed into its void. A better emotion—disappointment. I knew it well. I had practice in moving past it.

“Let us speak next of your friend Alexis.”

“That wouldn't be my choice of topic.”

“I can ignore preferences, too.” I pushed away from the wall, chin high. “Did your friend Alexis seek you out because she had changed her mind about something?”

He tensed. “She wants us to date again.”

“How did you answer?” I waited, oddly anxious.

“I told her no. We had too many problems to fix. Alexis is part of my past.”

Relief rippled through me. When the girl had taken Mark's arm, a wicked envy had sliced through me like a sharp blade. She was a beautiful creature with her wispy golden hair and smooth, golden skin. Perhaps all the girls in his world were as lovely and confident. Would I ever touch him so casually?

“Do we have too many problems to fix?”

He shook his head immediately. “No, Susanna. I didn't mean to upset you so badly, but I had to know what might happen.”

“I shall move to Raleigh soon.”

“You could come back to visit.”

The statement lingered in the air, hinting at the disaster to come. He knew the when and the how. What else had he learned? What stories did his information tell? I frowned at him as temptation built. Was this what he'd expected—that my resolve would waver?

He crossed his arms. “Are there really thirty indentured servants and slaves in Worthville?”

Irritation flared and then quickly died away. In spite of my protests otherwise, I was intrigued. “Thirty is possible. There are not so many at present, but no doubt the number will grow with the years.”

“How long have you been indentured?”

“Since I was ten.”

“That sucks.”

“Sucks?” He had used this word before, almost as if it were a curse.

“Sucks is slang in my world.”

“Slang?”

“Yeah. Slang is where you take a word that means one thing and use it to mean something else. Sometimes the opposite.”

“A word can mean something different than what it means?”

“Sure.” A corner of his mouth twitched. “Like when we say something is fine, it probably isn't fine at all.”

“Can a slang word retain its original meaning?”

“Yes.”

“So if I say ‘fine,' it can mean ‘fine' or ‘not fine.'”

“Exactly.”

I shuddered. How difficult that must be—never to trust the meaning of words. “I should think your conversations become quite treacherous.”

“Most of the time, you can tell the difference by looking at the person.”

“What if you cannot see the person as they are speaking?”

“Then you're screwed.”

“Screwed?”

“It's slang for
you have problems”
He averted his eyes. “It has another meaning, too, which I'm not saying.”

I would remember
screwed
and ask again later. “Explain
sucks.”

“If something is terrible, it sucks.”

“Do you think it is terrible for parents to bind out their children?”

Mark looked at me, sympathy sobering his face. “At the age of ten? Yeah.”

We agreed. It had sucked. It sucked at ten and, with a master such as Mr. Pratt, it had sucked every day since.

Mark's compassion invited me closer. We had been apart long enough. I offered my hand.

He linked our fingers firmly. “I'm not apologizing any more for finding stuff out. I'll do what's necessary to keep you safe.” His voice rang with intensity. “Even if I piss you off.”

I swallowed back the whisper within me, a desire that wouldn't stay quiet. Perhaps I did wish to know what he'd discovered. The information was here, within reach. All I had to do was ask and I would know the town's fate, whether it had been abandoned or destroyed.

The temptation was too strong to be denied. Perhaps just one question. “When does Worthville end?”

“1805.”

I would be gone, but so many others would not. I had to know more. “How?”

“A storm.”

It would have to be a fierce and terrifying storm to destroy a town. If I read his document, I would learn more about the villagers. How they had fared. Their marriages and babies. Had my mother remained a widow? Had my sister moved away or stayed here to marry?

Tension gripped me like a vise, until I could hardly breathe. Would I be able to face the people involved later, knowing their fates?

“What type of information do you have on those sheets?”

“Records from the 1800 census.”

Four years hence. “Does my name appear?”

“It contains heads of household with the number of family members, slaves, and servants. There are mostly men's names.”

I dropped his hand and backed up a few paces away, preparing myself. To learn the future was frightening, but I wouldn't stop now—not when I was so close.

“I am ready. Please tell me what you found.”

He drew in a deep breath. Papers rustled briefly. “There are twelve families listed. First is Betsy Drake with one servant.”

It would be someone new. Mary Whitfield would likely be gone and married in four years.

I nodded for more.

“Next on the list is…Reuben Elliott and wife. No children.”

“Ah.” Whom would he marry? Someone from Worthville? Or would he find his bride farther away, perhaps in Hillsborough? I was glad for him.

“The third is Robert Foster, wife, two servants, and nine children.”

They had eight at present. Most of the Foster children were younger than Phoebe. And soon there would be another.

I nodded.

“Jethro Pratt…”

I clenched my fists, nerves quivering under my skin. “…wife, four children, an indentured servant, and a slave.”

An icy shiver rolled down my spine. Had I heard wrong? “Did you say four children?”