“It could be like this every night,” he says. “If we were free.”
“If Otto wills it,” I reply quickly.
“Don’t you dishonor my boy.” He crooks an eyebrow at me, but he doesn’t linger. He turns to join the other Pellings, across the other side of the bonfire.
“I won’t,” I whisper after him. But I don’t think he hears me.
I ignore Mother’s curious look when I sit next to her again. Boone distracts her by rushing into the woods, gripping his stomach.
“I warned him,” Mother says, but she smiles. Then she takes another dainty bite of pillowy white bun. She is still working on her first plate.
But eventually even she goes to get more food.
When we finish eating, the songs start again. Not religious songs—old songs from Hoosick Falls, instead, from the days before Darwin West and cups and spoons. I know them all. But tonight I don’t feel like singing.
I want to be near Ford, even though I shouldn’t be. I won’t talk to him. I want only to hear his breathing, to know his body is near mine.
When I stand to brush off my skirts, Mother frowns up at me. “You’re having thirds?”
“No. I—I want to be by myself for a bit.”
“Stay here,” Mother warns sharply, looking at the Overseers ringing the fire. “Who knows what they might try to do—they’ve been drinking spirits.”
Indeed, many of the Overseers are holding a bottle in loose hands, no gun in sight. Though the bulge of the chain still shows in their pockets.
“I’ll stay right by the fire,” I promise her.
Ford stands with his back to the deepest part of the woods. He’s not holding a bottle, only a gun. I wonder if Darwin wouldn’t let him have spirits.
I come close to him—perhaps three steps away, then turn my back and settle onto the ground, wrapping my arms around my knees. I balance my chin atop my knees and stare into the flames.
When I was smaller, I used to imagine that an entirely different world lived in those flames. I can still see the leaping figures that live for a moment, then shift into something else. Fire ghosts, I used to call them.
“I miss you,” Ford says, so quiet I can barely hear him over the roar of the fire.
I nod once, slowly. But I won’t answer.
“Give me another chance,” he says.
This time I don’t answer at all.
“Talk to me,” he says, his voice a little stronger now. There’s something in it that reminds me of the desperate way Darwin talks to Mother … especially how he’ll talk to her tomorrow night.
No. I won’t let that ruin things tonight.
“It’s not safe,” I say to the fire.
“Nobody’s watching. Come closer,” he urges.
I stand and take a few steps back, as if the heat of the fire is too much for me. But I do not look at Ford.
“Let me take you out. Just one date,” he says.
“What’s a date?” I dare one glance back. The flickering fire shadows fall against the curve of his lips. They look thicker, more dangerous.
He doesn’t answer me, not right away. His hand lifts, as if to touch me. But he drops it before he dares, and I look away from him.
“A date is when I take you somewhere else. We do something fun,” he says.
“I can’t leave here.”
“Only for a few hours. Please.”
I hear a noise behind me, and I know he’s closer to me—so close I can smell him, feel his breath on the back of my neck. It sets chills over my entire body.
“Where would we go?” I ask.
“You must be pretty sick of the woods,” he says.
“Only a little.” I smile, bigger than I mean to, and it’s impossible to tuck the smile away once it starts.
“I’ll take you somewhere different. You’ll feel like you’re a million miles away. We’ll eat—lots, food way better than this stuff.” He tilts his head toward where the table is.
Food … and Ford. Tomorrow I’ll be empty of both. But maybe I could have one more taste.
“How?” I ask. “I’m not allowed—”
“And Darwin watches me,” he sighs.
A ring of Overseers stand on the other side of the fire like short, broad stumps in the darkness—watching, but never moving. Darwin is far from here, talking to one of the Overseers, holding one of those bottles.
“I can’t let you get hurt again.” Cold, suddenly, I take a step closer to the fire. The warmth feels less now. Will they put more wood on the fire? It can’t yet be time to let it die out.
“I’ll be gone soon.” Ford says it quietly, but not quietly enough. I hear him far too perfectly.
I whirl to face him. “You’ll be gone for the night, only. You’ll be back the next day.”
“I mean I’ll be gone for good,” he says. “Just a couple more days and I’m done.”
“Gone,” I whisper. The food I gobbled down settles into a hard rock inside my stomach. Being hungry felt better than this.
“The harvest is done. Darwin says he won’t need so many men.”
“Maybe he’ll keep you. Maybe—”
“Quiet,” Ford says, his voice changed. “Move away.”
Fear makes the back of my neck prick. I turn, slowly, looking up at the sky as if I’m counting the stars. Then I step closer to the fire and turn my body entirely away from him.
“They behaving over here?” Darwin’s voice, just a footstep behind mine. No fire is warm enough to cure the chill down my back.
“Yep,” Ford answers. His voice is deeper, dead, when he talks to Darwin.
“Are you behaving?” Darwin laughs. I slide away, away, until I can’t hear any more of what he says or how Ford replies.
What does he mean? Does he know about us? Does he suspect, at least?
The singing is less now; there are knots of Congregants standing and sitting around the fire. They talk in low voices, mostly, but sometimes a burst of laugher rolls out from a group. And for once, they don’t quiet their voices.
Ford is leaving, for good. He said it. But I can’t believe it. I try to imagine it—everything as it used to be, just like it was before he came this summer. Life was never easy, before Ford came. But now it seems impossible.
I see someone waving at me. When I get closer, I see Hope and Asa sitting near the fire, Asa closest of all to the flames.
Hope smiles at me and holds up her hand. “Come sit with us. We’re telling stories about your mother.”
Her light tone makes me think of stolen berries and mud pies, before I was old enough for my own pewter cup. She stretches her hand even higher and grasps my unwilling fingers.
“Come on,” she coaxes.
I don’t want to tell stories. I want more time with Ford. I want to sit with him here, in front of the fire, and talk about nothing. I want to feel his fingers sliding over my hair, down my back, his arms around me.
Nothing will warm me, nothing ever, once he’s gone.
“Ruby?” Hope gives me a nudge. “You’re in another world tonight.”
“I am.” I give her an apologetic smile.
“Your mother was the same, when she was around Otto,” Hope says.
My breath stops. Has she guessed the truth about Ford?
She gives me a sympathetic smile. “Were you like that around Jonah?”
“No—no, not exactly,” I stammer.
“I’d seen sheep with more brains, compared to your mother around Otto.” Asa grins.
“She wasn’t stupid. She was just …” Hope shrugs.
“Aye. She was clumsy,” Asa says.
“It’s true!” Hope claps her hands together and nods. “She’d walk into furniture, stumble down hills, drop crockery.”
“I can’t imagine it,” I tell them. Mother, so sure-footed in the woods, her hands holding her cup steady after ten hours of being in the sun.
“People change when they’re in love.” Hope looks behind me, and even without lookin
g I know that she’s finding Gabe.
And then, so simple, so certain, I know: I love Ford. It’s more than stolen kisses and the thrill of the modern world. I love him, and I can’t let him go—at least, not without one more night together.
I stand.
“Gone already?” Hope pouts.
“Only for a little bit,” I tell her.
Darwin’s back by the trucks; still, I know I shouldn’t stay by Ford for long. Darwin is obviously watching him.
So I walk around the fire, slow, arms out wide like a small girl playing a game. Slow, patient, ignoring the people around me, I make my path toward Ford.
When I reach him, I don’t even slow or change my walk.
“I’ll go on your date,” I say.
“You will? Good.” He sounds so happy.
“When?” I’m nearly past the point where I’ll be able to hear him.
“Meet me at the cisterns tomorrow night, soon as the sun is down.”
“Aye,” I answer, and then I keep walking.
It’s not until I reach Hope and Asa again that I remember: tomorrow night will be a terrible night.
And now I’ve agreed to abandon her.
I should go back and tell him no. I should tell him it will have to be another night.
But I don’t. I settle beside Hope again and smile, and laugh, and tell my own stories about my strong stubborn mother.
And I dream about what my stolen night with Ford will be like.
Chapter 30
Darwin comes to our cabin the next night, just as I knew he would. It’s the only time he comes here—once a year, when the cisterns are full, before the Visitor comes.
“You’re not welcome here.” Mother is standing at the door, chin lifted high, blocking the way inside with her body. I remember the days when I clung to her skirts and peered up at him. I couldn’t make out his face under the shadow of his hat.
But I always knew who it was. Darwin West, come to beg my mother.
“It’s my property. My land. My trees. My cabin. All of it.” His eyes wander down her body and she lifts her chin higher.
“Leave, Darwin,” she says, her voice hard and low.
“You’ll want to hear what I have to say.” He sweeps the hat off his head and tucks it under one arm. His thick blond hair glints in the sunset.
He looks as young as Ford.
Ford, whom I promised to meet tonight. Ford, who wants to take me away, just for a night.
Let this time be different than the others. Please, Otto. Help Mother.
She never looks back at me, or says anything to indicate I’m here in the cabin. I’m back by the stove, building a small fire, even though the leaves have barely turned. The nights are cold now. Soon we’ll be sharing one bed and both of our blankets.
She warned me earlier, as she always has on this day. “Darwin will be by later,” she said.
“Why does he keep trying?” I asked her.
“Why does he do anything?” Her smile was small and tired. “Stay back when he comes, Ruby. Don’t interfere. If he remembers you’re here, it’ll make things worse.”
“I can help,” I protested. For years, now, I’ve thought of the ways I could help her when things start to go wrong. I could tell him to stop. I could fight him.
“Promise me you’ll stay quiet. Promise you won’t do anything,” she urged.
She kept me safe all these years. She survived this night, every year. How could I not give her what she asked?
“I promise,” I told her. But still, I slipped out later to find a thick stick. I shaved the end to a point, just like the one Jonah gave me, and slid it under my bed. I’d be ready to use it, I swear, if I had to.
“It doesn’t have to be like this,” Darwin tells Mother. “Let me come in.”
“Tell me we’re free,” she says. “Or leave.”
How I wish I were as bold as Mother.
“You can be free,” Darwin says.
“Then send the Overseers home,” Mother tells him.
“And me? What would you have me do?” His voice is husky, and he takes a step forward. Mother’s body leans back—I can tell she doesn’t want to be a bit closer to him—but she stands her ground.
“Leave us, Darwin,” she says. “Forget we ever came here.”
“You said that two hundred years ago, and I couldn’t do it. I tried. Oh, I tried.” He grips the hat close to his heart and squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, as if in the kind of pain I’d like to exact with my stick.
Mother lets out a snort. His eyes fly open.
“Otto never came,” he says.
“He will,” she answers.
“No. He won’t.” His voice is soft now, like a lover’s, and he takes two more bold steps toward her.
With each step there’s a soft jingling sound. He brought the chain, as I knew he would.
“Leave,” Mother says again. But her voice shakes a little.
The fire is built; I strike the flint.
“I’ve come to ask you again,” Darwin says. Then he slowly, slowly drops to one knee.
He draws a small parcel out of his pocket—something wrapped in a soft handkerchief. Then he presses it to his face and breathes in deep. “It still smells like your perfume.”
“Impossible.” Mother tries to turn away, but he snakes out one fast strong arm and catches her by the wrist.
“You will listen,” he says.
She does not try to move more. But she does not turn to face him either.
“I’d still have you. I’d still be your husband.” He sets the parcel on his knee and unwraps it with his free hand, still keeping hold of Mother with the other.
A silvery thimble, carved and softly gleaming, lies in the middle of the cloth. Its brightness is so strange, so wrong, compared to the rough and mildewed wood that surrounds us.
“You accepted this, once, as a token. It was a promise,” Darwin says. “Will you remember your promise?”
Mother’s eyes flick to the thimble, and then away. She shakes her head.
“If you marry me, I’ll set them free. I’ll give them all the help they need, to find a new place. I’d do anything, if I had you,” he says.
Hearing him desperate makes me hate him even more.
“I wait for Otto, always,” she says. “He is the one I’m promised to.”
Darwin’s hand clenches into a fist around the thimble, the cloth covering its shine.
Mother turns to look at me. “Leave, Ruby,” she says, breaking her own rule for me to be hidden.
Darwin looks at me—really looks—for the first time tonight. He wavers on his knee, as if he’ll tip over.
I step close to her and wrap my arms around her in a hug, my lips pressed to her ear.
“I won’t have him hurt you,” I whisper.
“He can’t. Not the way he wants to,” she answers, pulling me into a tight hug.
“Sula?” Darwin asks, and there is anger in his voice. “What do you say?”
Mother’s arms drop away from me, and I step quickly away. Still, my skirts brush against Darwin’s face. His cheeks redden.
“Go to Boone’s cabin,” Mother orders. She is sending me to the safest place she can think of—at least the safest place she can name in front of Darwin. I always used to go to Ellie. But no more.
I step around Darwin, and the cabin door shuts behind me. I hear his voice, and no reply from her. I wonder when the begging will stop and the hurting will begin.
I can’t leave her. So I find a bush to huddle behind, a safe enough distance from the cabin. I listen. And then I realize—I have left my stick and all my grand plans to protect her under the bed.
She screams, and fear ripples through me.
Otto, make him stop, I plead. Make him go away.
She doesn’t scream again. Perhaps Otto heard my prayer. Or perhaps this year will be different.
I let myself make a terrible wish, for a moment. I imagine Mother nodding, taking the thi
mble in her hand. She’d slide it over the tip of her finger, perhaps. Darwin would stand up, then. Maybe he’d even kiss her.
The thought gives me the chills. Darwin’s cruel mouth wasn’t made for kissing anybody.
But if she agreed, he’d free us. I wouldn’t just see Ford tonight. I could see him any night. I could leave this place and be a modern girl. None of us would have to scrape for water in the woods. Never would I have to heal Mother.
Or perhaps she’d need healing all the more. Being married to Darwin would be a rough business.
Shame washes over me, hot, like water in a shallow puddle that’s been in the sun all day. How could I wish for such a thing, even for a moment? Does love make you so selfish that you could sacrifice your own mother?
“No!” Mother shouts. “Never!”
Then she screams again, a long sharp scream, and I jump at the sound of it. I want to help her, but she made me promise.
“I’ll heal her,” I tell myself. “She’ll heal.”
But there’s another scream, and another, and then I can’t even count how many there have been, anymore.
Healing isn’t enough. I have to stop him, even if she told me not to.
I rush down the hill and lunge for the door. But it opens just before my fingers close around the handle.
Darwin comes out of the cabin. I stumble back.
“Hello, little Toad.” He gives me a slow, lazy smile. “Your mother refused me again.”
I don’t answer. I’m not sure I could speak even if I wanted to.
Then he whips his arm up high and takes a fast step toward me. I cringe away. He holds his trembling fist high above my head. In a blink he could smash me to the ground.
“I’m sick of this,” he says.
“Me too,” I whisper.
He lowers his arm, slowly. “You’ll want a mop,” he says.
Then he walks up the hill to his truck.
I yank open the cabin door.
“Mother? Mother!” I slip on something—something wet that sends me skidding. I drop to my knees and crawl in farther—and find the wetness, again, a puddle wider than me. I lift one hand close to my eyes and see the liquid is dark. A hint of metal drifts into my nose: blood, all over the floor.