Fire Along the Sky
Page 3
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She is the spider; will you be the fly?
Jennet imagined her mother sitting between them, her brow creased in disapproval. She answered: It is a way to pass the time, nothing more.
“And that one, the two of cups. What does that tell you, madame?”
“A new friendship,” said the lady. “One from which both parties will learn.”
“I see.” She paused. “And what can I learn from the cards?”
The lady tilted her head to one side. “You will learn to look inside yourself. Most of what you want to know is within you. The cards only open the door.”
You see? Jennet said to her mother. There is nothing of the devil in this.
Her mother replied: There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch. And then: Ask her about Luke and see the temptations she spreads out before you.
“There is a man,” Jennet said, her voice coming hoarse and soft. “In Montreal.”
Madame del Giglio touched the table. “There is still another card.”
“The star, you called it? What does it tell you?”
“Montreal is only one stop on your journey, Lady Jennet. The first of many.”
It was not what Jennet was expecting to hear, and it sent a small shock up her spine, a spark of something strange and familiar all at once. She felt perspiration gathering on her brow and in the hollow of her throat.
“My mother would not approve of this, madame. Are you—I think you must be Catholic?”
As I am. She did not add those words; the Carrycks might follow the church of Rome but they did so in strict secrecy. To admit such a thing in Protestant Scotland would bring repercussions that had been drummed into her since she was old enough to talk.
The dark eyes studied her for a moment. “My mother was the daughter and granddaughter of Catholic priests.” She said this as she might have said, I am the granddaughter of a carpenter or, My father was a lawyer.
The three cards were gone, swept away.
“The door is open to you if you care to step through, Lady Jennet. That is a decision that only you can make. But I can tell you this: there is nothing evil in the cards of the tarot.”
Awakening, friendship, a journey. But no word of Luke. Not yet.
“How do I begin?” she asked.
With a smooth movement Madame del Giglio spread the deck across the table in an arc: a rainbow, a bridge, the blade of a scythe.
She said, “We have already begun.”
Prologue: Hannah
August 1812
In the gauzy high heat of late summer, a solitary woman walked a trail through the endless forests.
All around her the woods were alive with noise. A thrush sang overhead in the canopy of birch and maple, white pine and black ash, his long sweet melody caught up and cast out again by a mockingbird. Preacher birds scolded; a single crow called out to her. She raised her head and saw Hidden Wolf for the first time in ten years: the mountain where she had been born.
The sunlight brought tears to her eyes. She dropped her head and saw a footprint that she recognized as her father's. He must have been this way earlier in the day. For many years she had seen his face only indistinctly in her dreams, but she knew his footprint. Others were with him: her uncle, younger boys, and a man, tall and strong by his mark. Strangers to her, her blood relatives.
If she raised her voice to call they might hear her and come. This idea was a strange one—she had not used her voice in so long she wondered if it would even obey her—and it was frightening. She had wished for her father so often and so hard, and still she was not ready to look up and see him standing in front of her.
Sweat trickled between her breasts and soaked the small doeskin bag she wore on a piece of rawhide around her neck. Her overdress stuck to her, rank and worn thin as paper, a second skin she should have shed long ago. She walked faster, the swarming blackfly urging her on. At the point where the mountain's shoulder shoved itself up from the forest floor she turned onto a new trail, one that would take her to home by the way of the north face of the mountain. The climb was steep and winding and dangerous but it could take two hours off a journey that had lasted far too long.
The walking woman was thirstier with every step, but she forced herself onward through air grown so heavy and hot that it rested like another weight on the shoulders.
The sound of singing came and went, drifting on a teasing breeze, interrupted now and then with talk, too faint to make out clearly. A young girl, maybe six or seven years old by her sound, and playing alone on a part of the mountain where the woman herself was not allowed to play as a child.
The walking woman climbed for an hour. When she rounded an outcropping of rock the voice was suddenly clear. The child was talking to herself in lively imitation, the tone high and wavering and round with plummy sounds.
My dear Lady Isabel, may I pour you tea. How very kind, with sugar please.
The girl shifted from English to Mohawk, her tone scolding, as harsh as a jay's.
No sugar! No sugar! O'seronni poison, as bad as rum!
The girl was such a good mimic of her mother that the walking woman had to press a hand to her mouth to keep from laughing out loud. She paused to wonder at this oddity, that she was capable of laughter, and then the woman turned in the girl's direction.
She was a little below the trail, wading in one of the streams that ran down the mountain like wet hair down a woman's back. The water pooled between boulders before spilling down twenty steep and rocky feet.
Jennet imagined her mother sitting between them, her brow creased in disapproval. She answered: It is a way to pass the time, nothing more.
“And that one, the two of cups. What does that tell you, madame?”
“A new friendship,” said the lady. “One from which both parties will learn.”
“I see.” She paused. “And what can I learn from the cards?”
The lady tilted her head to one side. “You will learn to look inside yourself. Most of what you want to know is within you. The cards only open the door.”
You see? Jennet said to her mother. There is nothing of the devil in this.
Her mother replied: There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch. And then: Ask her about Luke and see the temptations she spreads out before you.
“There is a man,” Jennet said, her voice coming hoarse and soft. “In Montreal.”
Madame del Giglio touched the table. “There is still another card.”
“The star, you called it? What does it tell you?”
“Montreal is only one stop on your journey, Lady Jennet. The first of many.”
It was not what Jennet was expecting to hear, and it sent a small shock up her spine, a spark of something strange and familiar all at once. She felt perspiration gathering on her brow and in the hollow of her throat.
“My mother would not approve of this, madame. Are you—I think you must be Catholic?”
As I am. She did not add those words; the Carrycks might follow the church of Rome but they did so in strict secrecy. To admit such a thing in Protestant Scotland would bring repercussions that had been drummed into her since she was old enough to talk.
The dark eyes studied her for a moment. “My mother was the daughter and granddaughter of Catholic priests.” She said this as she might have said, I am the granddaughter of a carpenter or, My father was a lawyer.
The three cards were gone, swept away.
“The door is open to you if you care to step through, Lady Jennet. That is a decision that only you can make. But I can tell you this: there is nothing evil in the cards of the tarot.”
Awakening, friendship, a journey. But no word of Luke. Not yet.
“How do I begin?” she asked.
With a smooth movement Madame del Giglio spread the deck across the table in an arc: a rainbow, a bridge, the blade of a scythe.
She said, “We have already begun.”
Prologue: Hannah
August 1812
In the gauzy high heat of late summer, a solitary woman walked a trail through the endless forests.
All around her the woods were alive with noise. A thrush sang overhead in the canopy of birch and maple, white pine and black ash, his long sweet melody caught up and cast out again by a mockingbird. Preacher birds scolded; a single crow called out to her. She raised her head and saw Hidden Wolf for the first time in ten years: the mountain where she had been born.
The sunlight brought tears to her eyes. She dropped her head and saw a footprint that she recognized as her father's. He must have been this way earlier in the day. For many years she had seen his face only indistinctly in her dreams, but she knew his footprint. Others were with him: her uncle, younger boys, and a man, tall and strong by his mark. Strangers to her, her blood relatives.
If she raised her voice to call they might hear her and come. This idea was a strange one—she had not used her voice in so long she wondered if it would even obey her—and it was frightening. She had wished for her father so often and so hard, and still she was not ready to look up and see him standing in front of her.
Sweat trickled between her breasts and soaked the small doeskin bag she wore on a piece of rawhide around her neck. Her overdress stuck to her, rank and worn thin as paper, a second skin she should have shed long ago. She walked faster, the swarming blackfly urging her on. At the point where the mountain's shoulder shoved itself up from the forest floor she turned onto a new trail, one that would take her to home by the way of the north face of the mountain. The climb was steep and winding and dangerous but it could take two hours off a journey that had lasted far too long.
The walking woman was thirstier with every step, but she forced herself onward through air grown so heavy and hot that it rested like another weight on the shoulders.
The sound of singing came and went, drifting on a teasing breeze, interrupted now and then with talk, too faint to make out clearly. A young girl, maybe six or seven years old by her sound, and playing alone on a part of the mountain where the woman herself was not allowed to play as a child.
The walking woman climbed for an hour. When she rounded an outcropping of rock the voice was suddenly clear. The child was talking to herself in lively imitation, the tone high and wavering and round with plummy sounds.
My dear Lady Isabel, may I pour you tea. How very kind, with sugar please.
The girl shifted from English to Mohawk, her tone scolding, as harsh as a jay's.
No sugar! No sugar! O'seronni poison, as bad as rum!
The girl was such a good mimic of her mother that the walking woman had to press a hand to her mouth to keep from laughing out loud. She paused to wonder at this oddity, that she was capable of laughter, and then the woman turned in the girl's direction.
She was a little below the trail, wading in one of the streams that ran down the mountain like wet hair down a woman's back. The water pooled between boulders before spilling down twenty steep and rocky feet.
