The Endless Forest
Page 18

The travelers came in Curiosity’s front door and found themselves in the middle of what looked like a hospital ward. The hall was filled with refugees from the flood, many of them in an exhausted sleep and others who barely took note of yet more people arriving. Lily didn’t see a single familiar face and for a moment she couldn’t remember where she was, exactly.
“Friend Elizabeth,” said an older woman, holding out a hand. “Is there any news? Is the river still rising? If I might ask of thee, is there word of my sister and her family?”
Lily’s mother crouched down and spoke a few words. Her tone was so soft and gentle that while it was impossible to make out what she was saying, there was still comfort to be had.
Raised voices could be heard in the kitchen, and one of them was Curiosity’s. Lily went ahead, her muddy traveling cloak trailing behind her, her boots squelching with every step.
“You’ll want to get out of them clothes right quick,” said a man with a bandaged head and a mouthful of bloody teeth. “Or you’ll take a chill.” Then she recognized him: Jim Bookman, who had been a militia officer in the last war, and now was sheriff and possibly even a magistrate—something she might have been able to remember if not for the crusted blood on his face.
“Yes,” she said. “Of course. Thank you. Has my sister seen to your wounds?”
He had eyes the color of periwinkle, as blue as her own, but the expression there was sharper, as if he saw more and better than anyone should.
“There’s others hurt worse than me,” he said. “I can wait.”
The kitchen door swung open and she stepped through.
“I won’t have it,” Curiosity was saying. “Not in my kitchen.”
The young girl in front of her was weeping, though her expression was mutinous. The cause of Curiosity’s displeasure was the basket in the girl’s arms, and what looked to be a half dozen raccoon kits.
“But their mama left them,” the girl wailed. “They’ll drown.”
“Better them than you,” Curiosity said, but she huffed a little. “Take that basket out to Miz Hannah’s laboratory and give it over to Emmanuel if you must. He’s got a fire going and they’ll perk up quick enough. But if they leave their droppings all over that clean floor it’ll be your hide Miz Hannah will be looking to tan.”
The girl was gone before the last word was spoken.
“You are as soft-hearted as ever you were,” Lily said.
Heads came up all over the kitchen: those who had nearly drowned, others who had broken bones or torn flesh in their struggle to reach dry land, children separated from their parents. And a girl who looked so much like the face Lily saw in her looking glass that it could only be Birdie.
Curiosity broke into a broad smile. “Look who the cat drug in, and soaking wet too. Birdie, child. Don’t stand there. Your big sister standing right there in front of you. Go and give her a hug.”
It was eight o’clock and full dark when the Bonner men came back from the village, Nathaniel bringing up the rear with his long, loose-jointed stride. Every one of them was worn down to a nub; the smiles they gave her were sincere but strained.
Elizabeth shifted the baby sleeping on her shoulder and quickly stepped out of the way lest her grandchildren bowl her over in their eagerness to reach their fathers.
“Are you whole?” Elizabeth asked her husband.
“We are,” he said. He cupped her head in one hand and kissed her on the temple. “And hungry, and wet.” He pulled back a little to examine the sleeping baby’s face, and then he brushed a lock of dark hair off a brow the color of faded roses. Young Simon had helped himself to the best features each parent had to offer. He could be taken for Kahnyen’kehàka or Seminole or North African. Nathaniel saw nothing of himself in the boy’s looks, but it didn’t concern him. His grandsons would never have any doubt where they came from.
“Ballentyne,” he called. “Come, man. Let me introduce you to your namesake.”
Simon studied Hannah and Ben’s youngest for a long moment. “Aye,” he said. “The resemblance is uncanny.”
They were still laughing when Lily came out on the porch and stood there with a hand pressed to her mouth, as if she feared the things she might say.
“Sister,” Daniel called to her. “You’ve traveled so far, stay there and I’ll come this last little distance to you.”
Elizabeth found herself blinking away tears. Beside her Nathaniel cleared his throat and then he put an arm around her.
“That’s a fine sight,” he said.
It was a fine sight indeed to see the twins reunited. Elizabeth would have said so, if it had been within her power.
In Curiosity’s kitchen the men were poked and prodded until the women convinced themselves that no one was making light of a serious injury. The worst they had among them was Ben’s broken toe. And there was good news: The river had stopped rising.
That simple sentence ran through the house, rousing the injured and the exhausted alike to cheers and renewed conversation on how long it would take to clean up and rebuild, whether they might still be able to get the crops in the ground on time, what steps could be taken to replace the lost livestock, how much cash all these steps would require.
It was just at that point that Curiosity had said they needed to get home, and showed them the door. The only reason Ma and the rest agreed to go was by that time Curiosity’s daughter Daisy and her two grown daughters had come to help, and the kitchen really was too crowded to get anything done.