The Endless Forest
Page 167

“Short of Boston by a couple days’ walk,” Nathaniel said. “Hard to imagine how the Fochts would have got word of an apple tree in the city.”
Callie straightened in her chair. She caught Ethan’s eye and took a deep breath.
She said, “Nicholas never lived in Boston. He told me today. He says he grew up in a place called Banfield but he doesn’t know where it is, exactly.”
Levi closed his eyes and opened them again. “Banfield is a small town on the Deerfield River. Farms, mostly. I don’t know what Jemima and her husband would have been doing there.”
Ethan said, “Callie is going to faint, Elizabeth.”
Elizabeth steadied her, and then Ethan was there to take her. He didn’t often seemed rattled, but Elizabeth saw his confusion and worry and she took over.
“On the divan, I think. Nathaniel, please fetch some water. Is there a facecloth?”
Levi stepped in closer, his fists clenched tightly at his side. “Should I fetch Hannah?”
“She’ll come around in a moment,” Elizabeth said. “And then she’ll have questions. Perhaps you should fetch Lorena after all.”
To Ethan Nathaniel said, “Where is Nicholas? He shouldn’t come back here until things are settled down.”
Ethan’s wheat-colored hair was plastered to his temples by sweat, and his color was high. Then he made a visible effort to concentrate.
“He’s at Curiosity’s,” Ethan said. “Unless they all went over to your place after supper.”
“That’s where he should stay for the time being,” Nathaniel said. “Boots, if you can manage I’m going to head up and have a quick word with Curiosity. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Chapter LVI
Birdie loved the summer for the long days, when twilight stretched itself out like a cat before a fire and children were allowed out to play until it was full dark. They only had to stay in shouting distance of either the Uphill or Downhill House, but that gave them a half mile, from Birdie’s own front porch to Curiosity’s.
Even the blackfly couldn’t take away her love of the summer evenings; she simply covered herself with Hannah’s pennyroyal ointment after supper as she did after breakfast and dinner. It was also her job to make sure the little people did the same. Luke’s twins turned up their noses at the smell, but would have tolerated much worse than stinky ointment to run free in the evenings with their cousins.
They played hide-and-seek, and its opposite, seek-and-hide, or Sardines, as Birdie’s da called it. They put on theaters where they re-enacted scenes from their favorite stories, except this year the boys always wanted the same thing: the tournament of Ashby-de-la-Zouch from Mr. Scott’s Ivanhoe. Birdie liked the story too, but, she wanted to know, how many times could you refight the same battles? Which made her da laugh in the way that meant she had come up with a good point that most grown-ups never thought about. The real problem was there was always a lot of argument about who would get to be Prince John or Cedric or Rowena, or Robin of Locksley. Usually Ma or Hannah had to step in and assign roles, which never turned out very well, in Birdie’s opinion.
More often they played jumping games and guessing games and tag, but the best game of all was capture the flag, because the grown-ups could be wheedled into playing.
It’s your favorite because it suits your nature, her da pointed out, and it was true. Birdie loved the mad dashing that paused only long enough for quick discussions of strategy. She liked trying to outwit her elders, and she had good mates in her nephews, especially. The little people loved nothing more than watching their own parents being marched off to gaol.
Once when she jumped down from a branch to tag Gabriel he had thrown up his hands in surrender and laughed all the way to the porch. He said, Too bad you’re a girl, little sister. You’d make a good exploring officer.
Except he didn’t say such things in Ma’s hearing, because while even Ma had to admit that Birdie couldn’t enlist in the army, she would still tell stories about warrior queens from long ago. There was a whole page of them in her notebook: Boadicea, Queen of the Iceni who drove the Romans off, Jehanne la Pucelle, and Tomyris, Queen of the Massagetae, who defeated Cyrus the Great. And Birdie’s favorite, Caterina Sforza of Milan in Italy, who had been a tomboy and good at sports, and an excellent soldier and leader of armies who had saved St. Angelo. Birdie had a hard time imagining what St. Angelo could be and what it might look like, until Lily came home from Italy and explained it to her.
So Birdie couldn’t join the army, but neither would she forget that things had once been different, and might be different again.
This evening, though, she didn’t care to play. Instead she sat on the porch with Lily, who was sharing the role of gaoler, as she couldn’t move from the spot where Simon had settled her.
“It’s just as well,” she told Birdie. “I wouldn’t want to deny you the pleasure of gaoling your brothers.”
And it was very satisfying when someone got tagged and Birdie was called over to take the prisoner to the porch. This evening they had had three prisoners so far, Daniel, Adam, and Isabel, but all three of them escaped when Birdie went to get a shawl for Lily.
“They took advantage of your condition.” Birdie glared at the escapees, but they were too busy running off to notice.
Ma said they could play capture the flag only once or twice a week, for fear it would become routine. Birdie could hardly imagine such a thing; it was only during these games that she had seen Luke laugh so hard he got the hiccups and tears ran down his face. Jennet was everywhere at once, holding her pregnant belly as she ran and ignoring Hannah’s scolding until Simon and Ben each took an elbow and carried her, feet flailing, protesting in a broad Scots, to the sidelines until Hannah declared she might play again.