The Endless Forest
Page 151

The question clearly surprised Hannah. After a moment she said, “He will never have full use of his arm, but if we are lucky the pain will be more manageable.”
“Isn’t it better now than it used to be?”
Birdie had gone off to play with Hopper, but Hannah still looked around herself to be sure they couldn’t be overheard.
“Yes,” she said. “It is better. Every year it is a little better, though it can flare up now and then, if he’s not careful. You’ll know when it does because he will go to ground. Daniel doesn’t want anyone nearby when that happens, even those who could do him some good.”
“Including me,” Martha said. “Is that what you’re trying to say?”
“Yes.” Hannah looked away over the strawberry fields. She said, “His spirits seem high.”
Martha coughed a laugh. “I should say so. He’s a terrible tease.”
Hannah smiled openly. “I’m glad to hear it. For his sake and yours too. You are blushing, but what I mean to say is that you are good for him. Better than any treatment any doctor might suggest.”
“I’m not so sure I deserve such praise. I have been—unreasonable at times.”
At that Hannah laughed. “I never said you were a saint. That’s not what Daniel needs, anyway.”
Martha might have asked the logical question: What does Daniel need? But it was not for Hannah to answer. She was still thinking about this when her good-sisters had gone.
After waving them off she went to walk through the fields with no intention but to think.
The little stream that separated the strawberry fields from the woods meandered its way downhill, and Martha walked along it until she was out of sight of the house.
She had a favorite spot where the stream was broad and just a few feet deep, surrounded by high grasses and wildflowers and a great tumble of rocks. Martha spent a few minutes picking flowers until she had a handful of bluebells, pussytoes, foamflowers, phlox, and long grasses. Then she sat down on the broadest, flattest rock and began to weave a fairy crown.
She was concentrating so hard that it took a moment to realize that she was being watched. A red fox stood at the edge of the woods, its bright eyes fixed on her. She blinked, and it was gone.
As girls she and Callie had sometimes argued about Martha’s love of fairy crowns. Callie thought them a waste of time and always balked, but in the end she would give in. They would unplait their hair and settle the ring of flowers on their heads to play enchanted princess or bride.
Now they were both married, and Martha had lost the talent for cheering Callie up. Callie, who once had been sharp-tongued and witty and great fun. The events of the last weeks had taken that out of her, and Martha felt it as a real loss.
It was very hot in the sun, and so after a short debate with herself, Martha stripped down to bathe in the stream. The water, ice cold, made her draw in a sharp breath. In a moment she let it go again and settled in to wash. She had no soap with her, but she was glad of the cold water and the warm sun.
I am very fortunate in my husband. She whispered those words to herself every day. Today, somehow, she had forgot that basic truth.
Martha made a promise to herself. When she next saw Daniel, she would tell him the things she had wanted him to see for himself.
Now she climbed out of the stream and onto the flat surface of the rock, to lie in the sun and fall into an immediate sleep.
When Martha had been gone far longer than he liked, Daniel went out to look for her. It wasn’t difficult to trace her trail across the fields, but he was in no hurry. The last thing he wanted to do was to startle her. In fact, he was going to find her in order to make peace between them. It had occurred to him, lying on the table while his sister placed her needles in spots along his spine, that he had been neglecting Martha. It hadn’t been his intention, and in fact he might not have realized it but for Hannah, who waited until Martha was out of the room to point out the obvious.
“You hurt her feelings.”
His first impulse was to deny this charge, but he held back for a moment and tried to make sense of it.
“And how do I fix that, when I don’t even know what I did?”
Hannah was smiling; he could feel it. She said, “It doesn’t matter what you did, not really. She’s new to this business, Daniel.”
“It’s not like I’ve ever been married before,” he said.
“You know that’s not what I mean.”
And he did know. Martha had come to him a virgin, unsure but willing. Insecure about the things they did and how they made her feel. He had responded with playfulness, and it seemed now that maybe that had not been enough.
“So how do I fix things?”
“My guess is that all she needs is a little wooing.”
For the hour he had been ordered to rest, Daniel had contemplated his sister’s advice, and then he set out to see if he could meet the challenge.
He knew where she was, because he liked the spot on the stream as much as she did. Daniel scanned the shadowed woods, the rocks, the water itself, and then he saw a flutter of color rise and fall in the wind.
Martha’s hair. She had loosed her hair, and threaded flowers through it.
The images came hard and fast: Martha’s pale shoulders breaking through the river of color, the feel of it sliding across his skin.
Now she slept in the sun, half turned on one side with one long leg crossed behind the other. She wore only her chemise, of fabic so fine that he could see the very color of her skin.