The Endless Forest
Page 149

The beaver were hard at work putting their world back together, though some of the younger ones seemed more interested in the large supply of food that had been deposited all around them. Hannah saw more than one lounging on its back in the water, nibbling the soft inner bark from a branch.
Birdie said, “Is Jennet well?”
The question startled Hannah so that she couldn’t find her voice for a moment.
“Yes,” she said finally. “I think she is. Why do you ask?”
The girl lifted both shoulders and let them drop.
“Something is worrying you. Tell me.”
Birdie looked at Hannah over her shoulder. “She just seems tired all the time. More tired than you were when you were going to have Simon.”
After a long minute in which Hannah thought very seriously about Jennet, Birdie said, “What’s that?”
“What?”
“That. I thought at first it was just a log, there on the end of the dam. But there’s something blue caught on it.” And then, her tone calm and even: “Sister, I think that’s a body.”
Elizabeth was in the trading post to see if there had been mail when the door flew open and her youngest came bounding in, red-faced and out of breath. Hannah was just behind her, looking serious.
“Ma!” Birdie flung her arms around Elizabeth’s waist.
“Is there something wrong with Daniel?” Her voice creaked and broke.
Birdie’s expression was almost comical. “Daniel? There’s nothing wrong with Daniel. But something awful—”
Almost of their own volition Elizabeth’s hands touched the girl’s head and back, searching for some hidden wound but finding only the rapid beat of her heart.
“A body,” Birdie said. “At the beaver dams.”
There were a lot of people close by, as was always the case when the post rider was expected. Even those who rarely got a letter wanted to know who had, and what news there might be. And now there was something much more interesting to tell at the dinner table.
The questions came from all over the room. Had Hannah seen the body too? Did she recognize it? Was it a local? How long had it been in the lake? Why hadn’t she brought it back with her?
Hannah looked at Elizabeth, who inclined her head toward the counter where Magistrate Bookman and Uz Brodie were standing. Brodie served as a kind of sheriff and a substitute for Bookman when he was away on business. “We couldn’t get very close,” Hannah told them. “You’ll need a canoe.”
Baldy O’Brien snorted. “And where would they get a canoe?”
Before the flood there were close to a dozen canoes on the lake; the only one to survive had been up at the Ames place waiting to have a hole in its side fixed.
“What about Runs-from-Bears?” asked Brodie. “He started on a new canoe the day after the flood.”
“Not finished yet,” Hannah said.
John Mayfair said, “There’s the raft. We took it out of the water once the bridge was done, but we never broke it up. It’s right out back.”
“Well, then,” said Bookman. “The raft will have to do.”
“I want to go back with them,” Birdie said. “There’s room on the raft. Please, Ma, can I go back with them?”
“Of course not,” Elizabeth said, her tone more severe than she had meant it to be.
Tobias Mayfair raised his voice to be heard above the noise. “Friends, has anybody gone missing over the last few days?”
The sudden silence lasted only as long as it took for people to take inventory of their family and neighbors.
“We’ll have to go around and ask,” Brodie said.
The crowd shifted and in that moment Elizabeth saw her grandson Adam and young Nicholas Wilde standing near the door. Nicholas looked intrigued but confused, while Adam seemed to be worried.
Birdie made straight for them, with Elizabeth and Hannah close behind.
Hannah crouched down a little so she could look the boys in the eye.
“Is someone missing?”
“You had best speak up,” Birdie said to the boys, and Elizabeth put a hand on her shoulder and pressed. Birdie gave her an insulted look, but she held her tongue.
“You aren’t in any trouble,” Hannah was saying. “But we need to know if someone has gone missing.”
“Harper,” Adam said softly.
Nicholas looked at Adam with surprise. “Harper wouldn’t go away,” he said. “He just goes exploring sometimes. He’ll be back.”
“Harper?” Elizabeth asked.
“Harper Washington,” Birdie explained. “One of the servants the Fochts left behind.”
Hannah said, “When did you see him last?”
“I see him all the time,” Nicholas said. He was growing agitated.
“Early this morning,” Adam said.
“Nicholas,” Elizabeth said. “Does Harper like to swim?”
This time the boy’s face lit up. “He’s going to teach me,” Nicholas said. “He promised to teach me. But Ma says swimming is for fish, and I had best stay far away from the water.”
Lily was reading to Curiosity when Adam came to stand in the door. The older children had gone into the woods with Simon and Luke to haul timber, but Adam had stayed behind with Nicholas, who had been forbidden such outings by Lorena.
Lily held up her finger to ask him to wait, and finished the paragraph.
Curiosity turned then and saw him there. “Good God, Adam. What is wrong?”