Fire Along the Sky
Page 66

In the spring the lake would come to life, and the earth would soften and in the village they would dig graves for the dead.
Behind her she heard Gabriel stir and shift and sigh to himself in his dreams. Since the twins had gone away he slept in Lily's bed, a restless sleeper always at odds with covers, always struggling with his dreams.
She went to sit on the edge of the bed. In the dark he was just a little boy, any little boy. Hannah lay down next to him and went to sleep.
Curiosity ran an orderly household, one that rolled along smoothly without any discussion or argument, so different from the kitchen at Carryckcastle that Jennet sometimes wondered if the women went behind closed doors to bicker.
One day passed and then another. Most of the chores that Jennet took on were easy enough, at least the ones outside the sickroom; more than that, she liked talking to Sally and Lucy and Curiosity and most especially to Ethan, who was a quiet soul but a thoughtful one, full of odd observations and willing to tell stories, when he was asked.
The sickroom was the hardest part, not because Richard was a demanding or difficult patient. An argument would have been far preferable to watching the man struggle with pain. The illness had got the upper hand now, and while Richard Todd seemed unwilling to die quite yet, he had forfeited his temper and moods, good and bad. For the most part he slept with the help of opium, and it was during those long periods that Jennet sat beside his bed, watching his breathing and counting his pulse, as Ethan had taught her to do.
She did not like to touch him. She didn't like the hot dry skin stretched tight over heavy bones, skin that had gone such a deep shade of yellow that Jennet must think of egg yolks congealed and rotting. She didn't like the fact that any touch at all—her own light fingers, the sheet pulled up over his swollen abdomen, the cup held so gently to his mouth for him to sip—any touch at all caused him to moan in pain. She didn't like these things but she did her best to hide her own feelings.
“You make a good nurse,” Ethan told her one evening when they sat together at the supper table. Soon he must go and relieve Curiosity, who was sitting with Richard, but for now he seemed relaxed and even content. Jennet studied him closely but could find no glimmer of resentment or unhappiness in his expression.
“You have remarkable calm for a man of just twenty years,” Jennet said. “Where does it come from?”
Ethan lifted a shoulder as if to disavow the compliment. “I have had good teachers. Curiosity and Galileo and Nathaniel and Elizabeth.”
He said nothing of Dr. Todd, and Jennet did not make a point of the omission. She said, “What will you do, when—”
“I haven't thought much about that,” Ethan answered before she could finish. For the first time Jennet had the certain sense that Ethan was lying to her. He thought, she was quite sure, of nothing else except what he would do with himself. When this vigil had finally taken its end.
When going down to the village could be avoided no longer, Hannah offered to take the children along with her. For the exercise, she said; but in truth because she needed the company and the distraction. But Many-Doves needed Annie with her for the day, and so Gabriel had Hannah to himself, as he put it.
And he was a distraction of the first order, moving first faster and then slower than she wanted to, stopping to study tracks in the snow or gather up treasures, disappearing and reappearing without warning. He knew no fear, and that in itself made Hannah fear for him, as she had once feared for Daniel, and for her own son. Sometimes it seemed that time had folded back on itself and merged this youngest brother with the older one, they were so much alike in their physical beings, in their curiosity about the world and the way they moved in the woods.
Once in the village Gabriel ran ahead to the trading post, shedding his snowshoes and disappearing through the door before Hannah could think of an excuse to call him back. On her own she would have forgone the pleasures of Anna McGarrity's curious company and plodded on, but now she couldn't avoid at least a short visit without giving offense. She followed her brother, taking more time than she needed with the unbuckling of her snowshoes.
After a blizzard the trading post was always busy. People came for supplies and news and simple companionship outside their own walls. Men settled in front of the hearth or the Franklin stove to play drafts or skittles or to whittle while they talked; children studied the jars of peppermints and malt drops with their hands folded decorously behind their backs; women nursed babies and traded advice and weaving patterns and gossip.
When Hannah came in every head turned in her direction, took stock of her health, or lack of it, the mantle she was wearing, the color in her cheeks, her expression. Some called out a few words, others only nodded. A few ignored her studiously. Coming into the crowded trading post always reminded Hannah of running a gauntlet, though it would have shocked and offended the people of Paradise if she were ever to say such a thing. They might overlook the fact that she was red-skinned—the ones who had known her since she was a child, at least—but their tolerance would not extend to such a comparison.
One small blessing presented itself in the form of old Mrs. Hindle, who was taking all of Anna McGarrity's attention to settle a debt. The widow Hindle took a coin from a pile of tarnished pennies she had poured out in front of herself, examined it front and back, and then pushed it across the counter to Anna with one swollen red finger.
“Seventy-four,” Anna said patiently, and winked at Hannah.
“You heard the news about the Widow Kuick?” called Jed from a far corner. He was stacking boxes and dust whirled around him like a storm cloud.