Fire Along the Sky
Page 191

A candle came to life, and then another. At their feet Justus Rising groaned and twitched. Curiosity looked down at him thoughtfully.
“First of all we got to get us some stout rope,” she said. “And then I want you girls to go fetch the Reverend Mr. Stiles. Invite him over here to do some preaching. I'm in the mood for a little fire and brimstone, myself.”
An hour later Callie and Martha, carefully instructed on exactly what to say, left the cabin. The storm had passed and the late summer afternoon was all shining green and damp gold, but even sitting in the sun Lily could not stop shaking.
She listened to Curiosity talking. Curiosity had an especially deep voice for a woman, and old age had added an edge to it, a crackling like walking through leaves in the fall. Everything about her voice was a comfort, but the words themselves made little sense to Lily. Something about Mr. Stiles and money and the orchard, and the things he had said when he had been confronted by Simon and Lily's father.
There was a cup of tea in her hands, sweetened with honey and milk. Lily took another sip and felt it settle in her belly, closed her eyes in the sunlight and saw Justus Rising's smile. She started and the cup sloshed in her hands, but Curiosity was there and she reached in quickly.
“No harm done,” she said firmly. Her hand settled on Lily's arm and pressed. “You listen to me, Lily. No harm done. He shook you up bad, but we got there in time.”
“Just in time,” Lily said.
“Listen to me,” Curiosity said, more firmly. “You got a choice now. You can let yourself get caught up in what might have happened or you can use this. You got the power now. If you get it in your head to waste the opportunity, why, you can say the word and your menfolk will teach that boy a lesson he won't never forget. But then he'll be here still, every day, for you to see. No, Lily, you got to pull yourself together and think. The boy was trying to take something from you, but what he did was, he gave you the power. You going to throw that away?”
Don't let him.
What? she wanted to ask her brother. More than anyone else, she wanted her brother just now. Don't let him do what? Control me? Hurt me? Take something away?
She lifted her face to the sunshine and listened. After a while she said, “Tell me then. Tell me what it is we have to do.”
They left the room as it was, though it bothered Lily greatly. While they waited, she looked for the shards of the china cups and saucers, putting every little bit she found into a careful pile. In a bucket full of water she found one of the cups, whole and unharmed. It seemed to her a miracle, and it loosed the tears that had been hovering just out of reach. Curiosity handed her a handkerchief and let her get on with it.
“Now look at this,” Curiosity said, turning the china cup in her long fingers. “I don't think I ever seen anything so pretty in my life. Look at the way it takes up the light. Do you suppose someplace there's folks who drink out of cups like this one, regular like?”
“I think there must be,” Lily agreed, her voice still shaking. “Though it's hard to imagine.”
Curiosity made a humming sound deep in her throat. “I expect you'll see all kind of strange things when you go traveling the world. And you'll put it all down on paper, won't you, and we'll sit here looking at your drawings and wonder at it all.”
Lily was shaking so that she could hardly speak. What she wanted to say was, No, no, no, I'm never going away from here, from you, from any of my people, from home. But some part of her mind knew that this was Justus Rising's poison still inside of her, trying to put down taproots.
It would please him to know that he could put such fear into her that she would simply roll herself into a ball and go to sleep for the rest of her life. And she would not allow him to have any such power over her.
She said, “Yes. I will, I promise.”
“I know you will,” Curiosity said softly. “You are the brightest light, Lily Bonner. You do shine on.”
Her long hand cupped the back of Lily's head and rocked it gently, and then Curiosity got up and went back to watching at the window.
Lily dried her face and was doing the same for the cup when she heard Callie's voice on the porch, and Mr. Stiles.
Curiosity straightened her back and gave her headwrap a tug to set it to rights. Then she looked hard at Lily and seemed to be satisfied with what she saw. She opened the door.
All Lily could see was Curiosity's long form, outlined by sunshine.
“Mr. Stiles,” she said. “Ain't it good of you to come so quick like. We got something of yours around back. And then Callie here got a business proposition for you. But first say hello to our Lily, would you?”
She stepped aside and the sunlight filled the cabin. Lily felt it on her swollen mouth and the bruise on her jaw; she saw it on Mr. Stiles's shoulders and the slope of his hat.
He stood there for a very long moment. She could make out nothing of his face or his expression, but his whole being seemed to shiver, just slightly.
Finally he cleared his throat. He said, “Where is my nephew?”
“Tied up out back, like I said,” said Curiosity. “Now let's us have a word about Miss Callie's proposition.”
It was a delicate business Curiosity had proposed, but Lily had no doubt that the old woman would manage it, and so it was. When the talking was done, Lily let herself be shuffled off and hid away, first with Curiosity's daughter Daisy and then in Uncle Todd's laboratory. She was vaguely aware that her father and Simon must be looking for her, that her mother would be worried, but she knew, too, that Curiosity would handle all that.