Lake in the Clouds

  Dr. Todd threw Jemima a pointed look. “Jemima, you’ve got a cut on your cheek.”

  Jemima touched herself with one finger, felt the warm smear of blood. She hadn’t even noticed when it happened.

  “It’s nothing,” she said.

  “Mr. Kuick?” Dr. Todd asked.

  Beside her, Isaiah cleared his throat. “We were discussing wedding plans. Jemima and I are to be wed.”

  Jemima could no more keep herself from smiling to hear those words spoken out loud than the widow could keep from letting out a single strangled gurgle of surrender. It was done now; it was said.

  Jemima’s hand brushed against Isaiah’s. He shuddered and moved away from her, just ever so slightly, a half-step. But Dr. Todd had seen it, and when he looked at Jemima this time she saw that he moved beyond curiosity to some dawning understanding.

  A flush ran through her, hot and cold at once.

  “I wish you joy,” said Dr. Todd. “And now I’ll see to Cookie.”

  “Dr. Todd,” Jemima said in her coolest voice.

  He paused at the door. “Yes?”

  “Please send Becca in, this mess needs to be swept away.”

  One eyebrow arched in surprise at her tone, but he nodded, and closed the door behind him.

  Lily had forgotten all about the widow Kuick’s fit by the time she started home. Even when Bump came back to work in the garden and Dolly Smythe came out of the kitchen to talk to him, Lily could not be drawn away from her spot next to Gabriel Oak. The widow’s fit didn’t seem important anymore, because her head was full of drawings.

  Under her arm Lily clasped a sheaf of paper filled with shaded circles and squares and lines, and the most magical thing of all, two linked rings that built the structure of the human face. Just as soon as Gabriel’s pencil had finished drawing the line where the circles came together, and on that line the placement of the eyes, something small and bright had flared in Lily’s mind: it made such sense, she didn’t know how she had missed it before. Lily reached into her pocket and ran her fingers over the two black-lead pencils and the piece of India rubber Gabriel Oak had lent to her.

  She had just come in sight of the schoolhouse when she heard a rustling in the bush and her brother jumped out onto the path with a loud war whoop, waving his wooden tomahawk over his head. He had slicked down his hair with mud and painted his face in yellow and blue stripes, but the green of his eyes stood out anyway for all the world to see, the same green as the new leaves on the maple trees.

  Lily said, “I heard you coming.” Because she had, and because it would irritate him: a warrior struck silently.

  “I could have been a bear, for all the attention you were paying,” he said reproachfully. “Could have killed you with a single swipe of a paw.”

  “But you aren’t,” Lily said. “And you didn’t.” She walked on, and he followed her.

  “Where’s Blue-Jay?” she asked.

  “Many-Doves needed him. What’s that you’ve got?”

  “Paper.”

  “I can see that much. What’s it for?”

  She stopped and turned to him. “Gabriel Oak is giving me drawing lessons.”

  Beneath his war paint, Daniel’s expression was thoughtful. “Why would he want to do that?”

  That was a question Lily could not answer, so she shrugged.

  “Let me see,” Daniel said, reaching out, but she sidestepped.

  “Your hands are dirty. You can see at home.”

  When I’m good and ready, and not before. This last she didn’t say out loud, but she could see by Daniel’s expression that she had hurt his feelings. Before she could think how to fix that, he had turned away.

  “I’m going home the short way,” he announced.

  “I’ll come too.”

  He threw her a furious look. “No.”

  “You can’t stop me, Daniel Bonner.”

  But he could, almost. She was wearing skirts, and he was in leggings; she had her precious bundle of paper and he had both hands to use. And he was angry, and anger made him move even faster than normal.

  Daniel cut up the worst part of the slope, whacking at the underbrush with his tomahawk and never looking back to see how Lily was faring. She was panting hard when they hit the first crest with that deep burn in the lungs that came with pushing so hard uphill. Her free hand was throbbing with scratches too, but there was no time to try to make peace with her brother. Daniel ran off, and she followed.

  Lily knew now that he was headed home by way of Eagle Rock, a route that the boys took often, although it had been forbidden to them. It was the fastest way home, and the most dangerous. He was trying to make her turn back.

  “I’m not scared,” she whispered to herself.

  Eagle Rock was a boulder almost as tall as a house, half-buried in the mountainside. From the top of it you could see where the Lake in the Clouds waterfall came out of the mountain; you could see the village and the schoolhouse and at this time of year, when the trees weren’t filled in yet, you could follow anybody moving on the south face on the mountain. They came here sometimes with their father or grandfather or Runs-from-Bears, but never from below.

  Lily came up the last bit of the slope under the Eagle Rock ledge, and found Daniel waiting for her. He was crouched down low among the bushes and his face had gone very white. Before she could ask him what was wrong he had pulled her down next to him and put a hand over her mouth.

  She was too short of breath to struggle. When the thundering of her blood finally ebbed, Lily understood why Daniel had dropped to the ground. A man and a woman were standing not twenty feet away. If she were to stand up she would be able to see them clearly, and they her.

  Strangers on the mountain. A hot flicker of fear erupted deep in Lily’s belly and she pressed her face to the rough earth, feeling the scrape of stone.

  Daniel put his head next to hers, nose to nose so that her eyes crossed when she tried to look at him. His smell was a comfort and disturbing too, because it reminded Lily of their mother, but his expression was angry, his mouth pressed together hard.

  “It’s all right,” he whispered. “They’ll go soon.”

  “Strangers?”

  He shook his head. “Kirby,” he whispered. “And Jemima Southern.”

  Lily’s fear gave way to surprise. That Liam Kirby had been roaming the mountain for the last two weeks was no news at all; their grandfather and Runs-from-Bears kept track of him, waiting for Liam to tire of his search for Selah Voyager. But Jemima Southern on the mountain was another matter entirely. Lily remembered the trouble at the mill and wondered if her coming here had anything to do with the widow’s fit. Lily listened hard but the wind was high and she could make out only a few words now and then, Liam’s voice agitated and impatient: on my way to the great lake and work to do; then Jemima’s laughter in response, like swarming wasps.

  I’ll swear a rape, Lily heard her say in the argument that followed. And your wife. Jemima talked and talked while Liam said less and less, and then there was the sound of a hand striking flesh and a small cry not so much of pain as satisfaction. Voices raised again, angrier now, and the sound of struggling.

  “Is he hurting her?” Lily had to ask, but Daniel shook his head.

  “Cover your ears,” he whispered. And Lily gave him a look that said she would no more cover her ears than she would take them off and hand them over. Daniel’s mouth was twisted in disgust, but no matter what questions Lily whispered, he gave her no answers at all.

  And it occurred to Lily that Liam Kirby and Jemima Southern were doing what married people did behind closed doors, that mysterious thing that put color in her mother’s face and made her father laugh as he never laughed otherwise, the thing they liked so much that they kept it to themselves. Children weren’t supposed to ask about it because it was private, but Lily had some ideas about what was happening behind the door when it was closed, ideas she hadn’t discussed even with Daniel or Hannah because they were unsettl
ing and strange. There were animals enough around to watch, and animals didn’t worry about keeping things to themselves. And neither did Liam and Jemima, it seemed.

  Then suddenly Jemima laughed, a short harsh laugh that echoed off the rock, and for a moment Lily had the idea that all of Paradise could hear her, as if she had stood up on Eagle Rock and blown a trumpet to draw their attention. A satisfied laugh but bitter. As if she had managed to wrestle something of value away from Liam only to find it was broken anyway.

  Daniel pressed Lily’s arm hard enough to raise a bruise in order to keep her quiet, and finally they heard the sound of someone moving off through the bush, upmountain. And more footsteps, coming their way.

  They were on the only path that led away from Eagle Rock; that thought struck Lily just as Jemima’s shadow fell over them.

  “Look here,” she said. “Spies. The apples don’t fall far from the tree, so it’s said.”

  Daniel leapt to his feet. “We ain’t spies. This is our mountain, and you’re trespassing.”

  Lily got up too, but Daniel stepped in front of her to keep himself between his sister and Jemima Southern.

  Jemima leaned forward, and Lily saw that her face was splotched with color and her lower lip was bloody, as if she had bit it. Her bodice was untied and her hair had come down, and there was a glitter in her dark eyes that reminded Lily of spiders.

  “What you saw here ain’t none of your business,” she said, looking at each of them in turn. “You’ll keep it to yourselves if you know what’s good for you.”

  All the fear in Lily was gone, replaced by a flush of irritation and anger. “First of all, we didn’t see anything at all. And second, why should we listen to you?”

  Jemima hissed and grabbed her hard by the elbow, pulled her forward so that Lily came face-to-face with the spill of breasts in the open bodice. Jemima smelled of sweat and fear and something else, something strange and sharp.

  “Let her go!” Daniel pulled out his tomahawk and thumped Jemima on the shoulder with the flat of it, but she dug her fingers deeper into Lily’s arm and turned on him. Jemima was strong, and a wildness had come into her expression that made Lily’s stomach cramp.

  “First you’ll listen to me, you little infidels. If you breathe a word of seeing me up here on this mountain with Liam Kirby I’ll make you pay.”

  “You had best let her go,” Daniel said in the kind of calm, pointed voice that sounded just like their father when he was truly angry. He was almost as tall as Jemima, and for a moment Lily had the sense that he was on the edge of doing her real harm.

  Jemima didn’t seem to see the threat in his face, or maybe she didn’t care. She said, “I’ll come after that half-breed sister of yours. I mean it. I won’t have nothing to lose anymore if you talk, so I might as well settle some scores.”

  “My father will kill you if you hurt any of us,” Lily shouted in her face.

  “Then we’ll all die together,” Jemima said, and let her go so suddenly that Lily stepped backward onto the sheaf of drawing paper. It began to slide away and over the edge of the incline, one page fluttering after the other like birds. Lily snatched after them and suddenly the earth beneath her feet was gone.

  She heard Daniel draw in his breath as she hung suspended over the incline and he was reaching for her but it was too late; she was tumbling, over and over and down. Protect your head; she could hear her father saying it and she crossed her arms up over her face, knowing with a separate part of her brain that this must hurt, that she should be feeling pain.

  A spruce tree stopped her with a thump. Lily lay there for a moment looking at the sun filtering through the branches overhead, moving not at all because it was too much work to breathe.

  Then Daniel was leaning over her and she was never so glad of anything as the sight of her brother with his muddy hair and his yellow-and-blue face: two linked circles, forehead to nostrils, eyebrows to chin, and in the intersection his green eyes wide with terror.

  She wanted to tell him not to look so scared, but she couldn’t get enough breath to use her voice. Lily reached up and touched his cheek, felt the stickiness of the war paint on her fingers, and saw that there was water in his eyes. Her brother on the verge of tears, that was something she didn’t see very often.

  He said, “You got the breath knocked out of you.”

  “I lost my paper,” Lily heard herself croak.

  “I’ll get it for you, every single piece, I promise. But you’ve got to stay here, Lily. Promise me you won’t move until I get back with help.”

  Lily frowned at him. “No. I can walk.” She tried to push herself up on her elbows, but a stab of pain ran up from her left ankle and came out of her mouth in a squeak.

  “Promise me,” Daniel said again, his eyes flickering toward her leg and back again to her face. “Promise me.”

  “Is it broke? Can you see the bone?”

  “No,” he said. “No bone. But it looks broke. Promise me you won’t try to move.”

  Lily called after him, “Slow down or you’ll fall too!” And then he was gone.

  She was still clutching a single sheet of paper in her hand. Lily spread it out as best she could. Not one of her drawings, but a blank sheet, torn and smudged. With her other hand she felt for her pocket and the shape of the pencils. Neither of them had broken in the fall, and she was glad of that. Lily put her head back and stared up through the branches of the tree and the sky and at Eagle Rock, not so very far above her.

  Jemima Southern had disappeared with the wind, and so had Liam Kirby.

  Not so very far to fall, she whispered to herself, and felt the throb in her ankle keeping time with the beat of her heart.

  She might have fallen asleep in the dappled shade under the trees if it weren’t for the ache in her bone or the way that the scrapes on her arms and face had started to burn. Lily was just thinking about trying to sit up against the trunk of the spruce when she heard Runs-from-Bears coming up the incline as fast as he could move, with Daniel just behind him.

  Lily let out a great and relieved sigh when they were standing over her, but then she saw the look on Bears’ face and she remembered that they shouldn’t have been here in the first place.

  “What made you come up this way in skirts?” It wasn’t like Bears to ask such an obvious question; that was one of the things that Lily liked best about him, that he understood things without a lot of talk.

  “It was my fault,” said Daniel. “Don’t be mad at her.”

  Bears made a sound deep in his throat that meant he was seriously displeased, but he picked Lily up with great care and settled her so that her legs hung over his arm. Lily got a look at her ankle then, swollen and already changing color.

  “We just wanted to get home the fast way,” she said to Bears, and this time the sound he made was a little softer.

  “You must have seen Liam Kirby,” he said. “He’s been up here all morning. Did he have anything to do with this?”

  “No,” Lily said, louder than she meant to.

  “She just slipped,” said Daniel, telling just enough of the truth to keep the secret; it was one of his best tricks, but Lily wondered that he was using it now. It was hard to believe that Jemima’s threats had silenced him so easily, and what was even worse was that Lily would have to stay silent too, at least until they had had a chance to talk things through.

  But Runs-from-Bears was not fooled; Lily could see that on his face as clear as the bear-claw tattoos that marched across his forehead. For a minute he looked at Daniel hard, and then he made another sound deep in his throat before turning away to start down the incline with Lily in his arms.

  Chapter 31

  Just when Lily was about to desair of another lost morning sitting in front of Curiosity’s hearth with her foot propped up on a pillow, and no more scrap paper to draw on, Blue-Jay and her brother came bursting into the kitchen. Lily was so glad to see them that she almost smiled before she remembered how mad she was. She
would leave the smiles to Curiosity, who looked up from her bread dough and laughed at the sight of them, both out of breath.

  “You boys look to be in an awful hurry,” she said. “And a good thing too. Your sister about to bust at the seams.”

  Lily pressed her mouth together and made a great show of stroking Curiosity’s old tomcat, who had claimed her lap for his morning sleep.

  “A messenger’s come.” Daniel swallowed hard.

  Blue-Jay said, “With word from your da.”

  Lily sat up so suddenly that Magnus rolled off her lap, but before she could reach for her crutch, Curiosity stepped right in front of her and put out a hand.

  “Hold on now.”

  “But a messenger’s come.” Lily tried to reach around Curiosity, but the old lady just raised her eyebrows so far that they disappeared underneath the blue-and-white-checked kerchief.

  “Not so fast, missy. I’ll tie you down if I have to. You know I’ll do it.”

  Curiosity was looking from one boy to the other with a grim expression. “Out with it, now. What news?”

  Daniel shook his head hard enough to send his hair flying. “Nobody hurt, everybody safe. Selah had a boy, she’s calling him Galileo.”

  “Praise God.” Curiosity pressed the flat of her floury hands to her face and closed her eyes for a moment. “Got to go find that husband of mine, give him the good news.” She headed right for the door without even taking off her apron, not stopping until she had stepped over the threshold, where she paused and turned back to Lily while she wiped the flour from her face.

  “Don’t you be getting up from that chair, Mathilde Caroline Bonner.” She meant to be firm, but she was smiling so broadly that it didn’t work. “I mean it now, you hear me good.”

  Nobody was quite sure if Lily had cracked a bone in her ankle or just sprained it, but Curiosity had made up her mind not to take any chances one way or the other. Every morning she unwrapped the ankle and had a hard look. Then she’d call Dr. Todd and he’d have a look too, and they’d ask her to turn the foot one way and then the other. Finally they spoke a few words to each other and Curiosity bound up the ankle again from toes to shin, even though the swelling was gone and even the greenish-yellow color that matched Magnus’s eyes exactly had faded to almost nothing.