The Endless Forest
Page 177

Daniel went out to the barn and found his father sitting on a keg of nails in the open doorway, his face raised to the sky.
“That storm means business,” Nathaniel said by way of greeting. “Things battened down at home?”
“Martha can manage,” Daniel said. “I just wanted to talk for a few minutes before I head back. Can you tell me what’s going on with Callie? She came up in the middle of the night, and they talked until light, her and Martha. From the look of her she’s shed a bucket or two of tears.”
“You don’t want to wait to hear it from Martha?”
Daniel crouched down to rest on his heels. “If you tell me now that gives me the ride home to sort it through.”
“Fair enough,” said his father. And he told him.
Later Daniel said, “That bitch.”
“That’s one word for her.”
He walked in a circle through the stable to think it through. “Da, is there any way to know who the boy really is?”
“Probably not,” his father said. “Maybe she gave birth in Boston and couldn’t stand the sight of him. Maybe her own child was born dead and she got another one from the orphanage to take his place. Lorena wasn’t in the house long enough to get any sense of things.”
“Jemima did the boy one favor,” Daniel said. “She handed him over to Lorena instead of raising him herself.”
Rain had begun to fall in heavy drops that raised dust in the door-yard.
“You know what Ethan’s thinking? How he wants to handle Jemima when she comes back? I doubt she’ll just give over when she hears Callie sold the orchard out from under her.”
Nathaniel said, “I think most of us have an idea of how to handle Jemima, but your ma would object. You got any suggestions?”
“Maybe,” Daniel said. “Let me think about it for a bit.”
The wind picked up and began to drive the rain against the roof and walls. A warm rain, the kind that was made for children to play in. Daniel realized he was sorry to have missed the little people. Even more than that, he saw how things had changed. Just a few months ago he would have been glad to be left to his own devices.
“I got this idea,” said his father. “Your ma wouldn’t like me asking you such a thing straight out, but I’m going to anyway. You count yourself happy these days?”
It was a word Daniel seldom considered. He wasn’t even sure what it meant, and he said so.
“You are your ma’s son,” said his father with a half smile. “If you cain’t even take a word like happy at face value.”
“Da, this is the best way I know how to say it. If one of Jennet’s fairies offered me the chance to change one thing in my life, I don’t know what I’d say. I like teaching, and I’m getting better at it all the time. I like where I live, halfway between Lake in the Clouds and here. I like coming here on Sundays especially. And—” He paused, because he wasn’t sure he wanted to put the way he felt about Martha into words. His father waited, content with the quiet.
“And when it comes to Martha, I can’t believe my own good luck. Even arguing is something to look forward to, and I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so much in one day. There’s nothing to not love about her.”
And there it was, the word that loomed so large in his mind, bigger by the day. The word he had never spoken out loud, even to Martha. The word neither of them had said aloud.
His father watched the rain for a long minute. Then he said, “That’s the way it’s supposed to be, and I’m pleased for you. But what about your bad arm? Caught you off guard, did I? You weren’t even thinking about it.”
“I guess not,” Daniel said. He looked at the hand that lay in the fold of the sling, and then, quite deliberately, he flexed his wrist and then, before he could lose his nerve, lifted his elbow. The pain was there, but was there less of it?
Maybe Hannah’s needles were making some difference. He had never allowed himself to consider that possibility. He had accepted the pain and the loss of his arm, or he thought he had. The idea that there might be some improvement made him feel jumpy.
“So.” His father got up and stretched to get the kinks out of his legs. “Rain or no, there’s work to be done. You planning on staying around or heading back to that girl of yours?”
Daniel said, “I’m already gone.”
Chapter LVIII
Curiosity said, “You got a scowl on you would sour milk. You finally ready to tell me what’s been eating at you the last couple weeks?”
Birdie came all the way into the kitchen and sat down on the stool next to Curiosity’s rocking chair. It was a little easier here on the talking stool, as she thought of it. It was a good place to settle her mind when things were going badly.
“June,” Birdie said, “has been a terrible month.”
Curiosity pursed her lips. “Go on.”
“First Levi and Lorena get married and don’t even have a party after.”
“I don’t suppose you can forget that any time soon,” Curiosity said dryly.
“And it’s rained almost every day since.”
“It has been some wet this year, that’s true.”
“The little people get awful fractious when they’re stuck indoors for any length of time.”
Curiosity looked at her down the slope of her nose, and Birdie heaved a great sigh.