Fire Along the Sky
Page 69

He said, “What did your mother tell you about me when you were a girl?”
The words would not order themselves in Hannah's brain; they made no sense, though she worked through them once and twice and three times. “My mother?”
“Your mother. Sarah. Sings-from-Books. What did she tell you about me?”
He was looking at her intently, his breath coming fast and shallow. If she were to put her hand out and touch him she would feel his pulse shiver and jump.
Once Richard had tried to claim her as his own daughter. Her grandmother Falling-Day had told her the stories, because, Hannah realized now, she had known this moment would come. Sooner or later, Falling-Day had said, Richard would try to take her away from Nathaniel. All these years he had been waiting for this chance, this dying man, who wanted to claim her as his own blood.
She could feel pity and compasion but she could not lie, not about something so important.
Hannah said, “She never spoke to me about you as anything but a friend and neighbor.”
After a moment he nodded, and turned his head away.
Curiosity came then and Hannah went out into the hall without another word. At the top of the stairs all her strength ran away, leached from muscle and bone like water from a wrung cloth, flowed down and away so she staggered and would have fallen, if not for Ethan.
They sat side by side on the step, neither of them able to talk at first. It was cold in the hall, so cold that their breath mingled white and damp in front of them. Looking straight ahead Hannah could see out the hall window, a perfect rectangle of cold sunlight, and into the colder world beyond.
“He isn't my father, you know. No matter how much he wants that to be true.”
Ethan took her hand in both his own and simply held it. It was a kind gesture and a brotherly one.
He was weary and sad and quiet. Not quite twenty years, but right at this moment Hannah could see the old man he would be someday. Just as she could close her eyes and see him as a newborn, ruddy faced and wide-eyed and so small that they had feared for his life. Ethan was quiet and solitary and lonely to the quick; his mother had been like that, unable to settle on happiness, unable to take nourishment from the best things around her.
Hannah was glad of his hand, of its warmth and firm grip and the things it meant, the comfort he was offering and asking for, all at once. The truth was, Ethan was smarter than his mother had been, and there was a generosity to him that was all his own. People talked to Ethan Middleton, opened up their secrets to him without thought or concern, because he knew how to listen, and when to talk.
Born to another family he might have made a Catholic priest, Hannah thought to herself wearily. A man who heard confessions and passed out forgiveness like sweets to a repentant child.
She said, “I thought he was going to ask me about my son. About what happened to Makes-a-Fist.”
But Ethan had nothing to say, even to this: her son's name, spoken out loud for the first time since— She stopped herself then, unwilling to pursue the memory. When she looked at Ethan his expression was so completely calm, so empty of curiosity or calculation, that she had the urge to pinch him, just to hear him make a sound.
The clock in the downstairs hall chimed four, and Hannah was surprised to realize that they had been sitting like this for more than an hour. In the snowfields outside she imagined the shadows stretching out and out, seeping into the forests, like ink poured across paper. The shortest day of the year, Curiosity had said. The darkest, the coldest. And yet there was something comforting about the still fields and the dark, something promising. A snowfield was like a bed, white and smooth and inviting: come and lay your head. Lay your head and sleep. A glittering soft death, a sliding away without noise or pain.
She said, “My son drowned. It was a day a lot like this one, in the winter dark. He fell through the ice and drowned.”
Ethan's breath came in a short, sharp burst. He squeezed her hand, and waited.
Headed back to the Todds' place in the late afternoon with only Ethan's dog Big for company and protection, Jennet decided that she liked the world like this. The cold had loosened its grip for the moment at least, overhead stars burned bright in a clear sky, and at night the snow was beautiful. Right at this moment she was happy, and why should she not be, Jennet reasoned to herself; next to her skin she carried the five letters that had come from Luke since he went away, and all the people she loved best in the world were healthy and accounted for.
With the last post there had been letters from Scotland, from Montreal, and from Daniel and Blue-Jay, who were not, as Elizabeth had fretted, sleeping in snow caves every night but in farmhouses and cabins as they made themselves available. Lily was applying herself to her studies and enjoying the winter season, though it seemed from Luke's own letter that perhaps she spent as much time being courted by Simon Ballentyne as she did at her work.
This news bothered Nathaniel more than it did Elizabeth, who was glad to know that her daughter was taking advantage of the things the city had to offer. Jennet, who knew a little about Montreal and more about Simon Ballentyne, kept her thoughts to herself and did not offer to read Luke's latest letter out loud. To her he had written more explicitly about Lily's behavior. Jennet had the idea that he wanted her to pass on information he scrupled to write directly, but in this she would not comply, no matter how slyly he maneuvered for her to take up this unpleasant task.
As Jennet saw things, the real concern was not Lily, or even Daniel or Blue-Jay, who were in true mortal danger, but Hannah. And she seemed to be the only one who was worried.