Into the Wilderness
Page 283

* * *
Hannah woke, as she had hoped she would, to the sound of her father's voice. What she heard now in his tone was not the rage she had half expected and might have welcomed, but something far more frightening. Despair had its own sound; it was one she had never imagined to hear from him. She looked down over the half wall that separated her sleeping space from the main room, and she caught just the flash of his profile as he disappeared into the bedroom. She had wanted more than anything to be with her father, but she did not want to follow him into that room. The thought of what he might have found there made her feel sleepy.
Hannah wound herself in her blanket, buried her head down deep in the bedding, and insisted on sleep.
* * *
She was on her back, her face turned toward him. The dressing on her head was scattered with traces of dried blood; her eyelashes were like bruised half moons against the milky white of her cheeks. He leaned toward her to call her name, and got no response.
Falling—Day put her hand on his arm. "Yonhkwihsrons." She struggles.
Nathaniel nodded to show that he had understood: it was not the best news, but there was reason to hope. Elizabeth was trying to find her way back to them. Falling—Day left the room and Nathaniel sat on the edge of the bed to watch her sleep. So many times he had reached out for her in this bed, and she had turned willingly to him. She had come to him with laughter or small sounds of sleepy welcome, in grand silence or with teasing words.
The smell of her could wake him from the dead; he knew this, he believed it absolutely. He hoped that the same was true for her, and so he stripped out of his buckskin and homespun and slipped naked into the cocoon of fur next to her. The corn husks in the mattress crackled as he moved closer to put his face to the slope of her shoulder where it met her neck, in that perfect curve that was now his solitary focus in the world. He rubbed his cheek against her skin and inhaled.
She smelled of herself and nothing more. The relief of this loosened the tears from his eyes. Eventually, calmed by the smells of her, Nathaniel slept and hoped that she was aware of him.
The room was still dark when she woke him with an elbow and a mumbled curse. Unsure at first of what was real and what had been dream, he simply rolled away. Then Nathaniel sat up and leaned over her; he saw the meager light of the moon shining in her open eyes, her expression creased in confusion and irritation.
"Boots," he breathed.
"I cannot fly," she said, very clearly.
"But you can, lass. You're flying now. Don't give up."
She scowled at him even as her eyes fluttered shut and she fell away to sleep again, suspended in his arms above the world.
* * *
Elizabeth woke for short periods over the next day, sometimes talking or answering questions, sometimes without seeming to see any of them. When she began to turn her head and pluck at the furs in her struggle up toward the world again, Nathaniel fetched Hannah and kept her there.
"Can she hear me?"
"I think so. Talk to her."
Hannah's face contorted with the challenge of it. Then she leaned forward.
"Grandmother has been feeding you willow—bark tea," she said. "For the ache in your head."
"Tell her to make it stronger," Elizabeth muttered, one eye cracking open.
Hannah grinned broadly. "I will," she said. "I'll go now and fetch it for you."
"No," Elizabeth said, raising her hand an inch off the blanket. "Wait." Her tongue came out to trace her lower lip.
"What is it, Boots?" Nathaniel caught her hand.
"Tell me," she said. "Tell me about the baby."
He squeezed her hand. "The child is unharmed. We've been telling you so all along."
Elizabeth drew in one long, shuddering breath. "Good," she whispered. "Nathaniel, I saw, I think I saw—”
“Dutch Ton. Aye, he's in the village waiting to hear how you are. He brought you these."
From the table he took the gold band that had once been his mother's, and the silver hair clasp he had given Elizabeth as a wedding present. He put them in her hand. After a long moment, she looked up at him.
"He meant no harm?"
"It looks that way."
"Good," she said again, her eyes drifting shut. Then they struggled open again and she gestured him closer.
"That dream you had in Albany," she whispered. "I shouldn't have doubted you."
He put her hand to his cheek, and said nothing.
When she was sleeping soundly again, Nathaniel left her to Hannah's watch. The women gave him food, and then he went to clean up and see about fresh clothes. Most of the well—wishers and curious had drifted away when Elizabeth had first shown signs of waking, but he found Axel on the porch, nursing his pipe, and the judge.
"Tell me about Todd," Nathaniel said. He stood quietly until Axel had finished.
The judge was looking pale; he had lost some weight.
"Maybe you should go along home," Nathaniel suggested. "You need some sleep."
He shook his head. "Not until she's well again."
Nathaniel drew up, surprised. "That could take weeks, man. She knows you've been here and that you're worried. And there's Kitty and your grandson down there to look after."
The judge ran a trembling hand over his face. "I never spent enough time listening to her."
His agitation suddenly deflated, Nathaniel looked harder and saw clearly what he had missed, in his preoccupation with his own troubles. In the last month the judge had become an old man.