Hannah sat in a meadow of bluebells, strumming her fingers along the tops of the flowers. Her hair glistened in a warm sun, but she appeared to have been crying. Suddenly, she turned and began to smile in my direction.
“I miss you so much, Sissy,” she whispered.
I wanted to tell her how much I missed her, that I wasn’t the same without her, that I was now a different person, but who I was I knew not. I wanted to tell her that I forgave her. That I loved her and I understood.
My lips were glued shut, and no matter how much I struggled they remained closed.
“Now I get to be your guardian angel.” She smiled again. “Seems fair to me.”
I tried to swallow, to take in a breath of air, but there was none to take. Suddenly, I remembered that Jacque had shot me through the heart. I was dead.
“You’re not dead, silly girl.” Hannah laughed like we were back at our family’s farm, sharing secrets. “My, but aren’t you the dramatic one. No, no, you aren’t dead. Weren’t you listening to Jacque? You’ll never die again.”
In a flash I opened my eyes to the smoky clouds. Clutching at my bleeding heart, I took a deep breath of Massachusetts’ air.
“There, there,” Jacque whispered.
I was in his arms, and he stared down at me with a lone tear descending his hollowed check, his black stubble slowing the moisture.
The pain in my chest was enough to remind me of when Jacque had poisoned me, as if my muscles were turning themselves inside out, then igniting on fire. I looked down at my bloody hands and the red stains on my shirt that encircled the hole in my chest. A gaping red-black hole!
There wasn’t as much blood as I thought there should be, but then again I’d thought I was dead.
I should be dead.
Something creamy white flashed beneath the gaping wound. Like two sides of ivory clothe being sewn back together, my breastbone stitched itself whole. Gleaming white and completely healed, the bone, my bone, was intact. It was gristly to watch and felt as if searing hot needles worked on my body, but I couldn’t turn away. Just as quick as my bone reconstructed itself, I saw red-pink sinew suddenly appear and stretch over my unbroken bone. Lastly, my pink skin, like fingers reaching to intimately interlace with another’s, extended and blended the seams until there was nothing but a bruise under my bloody linen shirt. My corset was completely ruined by blood and the shredded hole in the center.
I fingered my still sensitive casing. The blood on either side of my skin was still so fresh it felt warm and wet, not yet cold and sticky.
Jacque adjusted his hold on me, reminding me of where I was. Perhaps, too, harking me back to who I was now.
I jumped from him and couldn’t believe how far I’d flung myself—at least six feet. Yet my legs were so weak, I fell on my knees instantly.
He sighed and nodded, still sitting with his legs crossed. “You have your strength back, I see.”
I clutched at my shirt, at my tender skin. No words came to my mind, but I managed a confused gargling sound.
Jacque ignored the noise. “Since I knew no Hindi,” he began, “I know virtually nothing of our condition; other than, of course, I don’t think I can die; I don’t age, and,” he paused and looked away from me, “I—probably you too—can’t have children.”
That I did hear. For some strange reason I couldn’t quite grasp, even with watching my own bone meld into a healed one, that I couldn’t die. But not have children?
“What do you mean?” My voice rasped.
He looked at me, probably unsure of my odd sounding voice, but then he quickly gazed back down to the ground. “The man, the little man in the cave had said something about it, but I couldn’t catch what he was saying. He had pantomimed something about a baby, then shook his finger at me. At the time I merely thought he was crazy or trying to preach abstinence. He lost his patience with me and stabbed me in the heart. I’m sorry to have given you a similar demonstration, but it was the only way I understood. Even then I hardly wrapped my head around it, but now after so many years, after I’ve had to leave my home so many times because my own people become suspicious of the fact that I don’t age, after—after everything, I know I will keep on living. I don’t know if there is anything that will kill me from this curse. And it is a curse. Trust me—”
“What? What did you do to me? What do you mean I can’t have children?”
His jaw line twitched. “You, more than likely, like me, will not be able to have children.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that now you will live forever. You don’t need to propagate yourself in a child. As I said the little man in the cave—”
“I don’t care what he said! Why do you believe you can’t have children?”
He was silent for a long moment. “I,” he paused, “have . . . not . . . had . . . a child . . . myself.”
“You’ve had opportunity? To make a child? I thought you said something about not being like your father, not—”
“Never raping. Oui, I never raped a woman. Never.” He inhaled sharply, then slowly drew out his breath. “That does not mean I was chaste.”
I gasped. God, I wanted to slap myself for my loud reaction. I recovered quickly, however. Nonetheless, Jacque wore a small quirk of a satisfied smile, which I wanted to smack off, was going to punch off once I knew more of the wildness he spoke of. “Tell me more. How do you know you can’t have children now? Mayhap you couldn’t have children before you drank the water?”
“I impregnated one of my mistresses well before I left for India.”
I swallowed, very aware of how my heart ached. It had to be from the burn of being recreated, not from any jealousy for a man I should hate. He had killed me twice now!
He shrugged and looked up with a small lopsided smile. “I wasn’t as emotionally matured as I am now. Although being the recipient of me forcing you to drink water that has made you immortal, you may not feel I am wholly developed.” He kept a small smirk despite my not laughing at his self-depreciating humor. “I—I—only had mistresses that wanted me. I swear, unlike my father, I never forced myself on any of those women.”
I gritted my teeth. “I don’t care.” I lied. “I don’t care about the women you were intimate with.” Yet through all my bravado I embarrassingly added, “You have a child?”
He sipped in a breath. “My mistress miscarried. She was seven months along. She died shortly after.” A streak of legitimate pain crossed his eyes, making the dark azure, just blue.
“I’m sorry . . . sorry for your loss.”
He nodded once curtly.
I didn’t want to feel sorry for him, so I continued our conversation. “You have had mistresses since? And none of them were with child?”
He nodded. “Correct.”
I swallowed. “That doesn’t mean I can’t have a baby. I’m a woman. Perhaps the water works differently with women.”
He looked up. His eyes returned to resolved dark blue, but he forced a quirk of a smile on his visage. “Perhaps. As I said, I don’t know very much about our condition.”
His grin was made of cold marble. He’d turned statuesque. He was hiding his true emotions, for which I didn’t blame him. He was trying to give me hope, and for that I could almost think a kind thought about him. Almost.
“How can I tell Mathew about my condition?” I slumped to the earth.
He shrugged nonchalantly. “You could shoot yourself in front of him.”
I felt my own nose flare at Jacque. “You know, one day I just might strangle you for this.”
He actually smiled. “Do try. I know I need the punishment.”
“Is there anything that will kill you?”
He shot a glance at me. His eyes could not hide the hurt I’d caused in that instant, but the next he concealed his everything. “I know not. There might be something.”
I shook my head. “How on earth am I going to tell Mathew this?”
He shrugged only one shoulder this time, seeming to care even less as the conversation meandered.
“How am I going to tell him that I can’t age? Wait, what if I can age?”
“I doubt it. You heal quickly, which I believe also inhibits your aging process.”
I nodded. Then my nodding became maniacal as inspiration set in. “Wait! Do you have more of that water?”
One of his eyes twitched, as he shook his head.
“You found the water in India?”
He nodded. “The water vanished after I drank it, Violet. I only had that little bit in my flask, because I had learned from the days of running to capture as much water as I could before I drank from the puddle, never knowing I would have the time to sit and drink or keep running.”
I regarded him for sincerity. From the strain in his voice I could tell that he knew what I was after. If I couldn’t die, then neither could my husband. I needed Mathew to take a sip of the strange spring water. I needed my husband. He was my savior when the world took everything away from me. I was such a fool to waste so much time not truly appreciating him, for betraying him with my desire for Jacque, for so many things I knew I was a devil of a woman, but somehow Mathew still loved me. He loved me, and his love saved me.
How could I have no ending? How could this be?
Yet I’d seen my own skin become whole again. If I hadn’t seen it, felt the fire and ice of healing so quickly, then I wouldn’t have believed any of this.
Jacque interrupted my tornado-like thoughts. “The little man in the cave said something about either there being more immortals, like us, or that there was more water somewhere on this earth.”
I looked up into his black blue eyes. “So we could go back to India to find him, your little cave man. What if he . . . couldn’t die too? What if he was alive, but just not back in that cave when you went to look for him? We could search for him, couldn’t we? Then Mathew could—or wait! What if there is something out there that is the opposite of the water, and it would make me . . . die again. I mean, that I could die again, so I could live a normal life with Mathew? Do you think there such a thing?”
His statue face cracked. He visibly winced, but nodded. “Of course. There could be something like that out there. Perhaps I didn’t do enough searching for that little man. Perhaps he is still alive. We . . . all of us could travel to India to figure this out. At my expense, of course. You and Mathew could call it your honeymoon.”
His voice broke, but he kept a smile on his face. It was strained and awkward, but I was grateful for it. I didn’t know what I would do if he would show his true emotions.
“Then I have to find my husband in this mess, and we will go to Boston then to India.”
“I think your husband will wish to stay with his militia until he is no longer needed.”
Lord, I’d almost forgotten about this God forsaken day. There were dead men in Lexington. Isaac was dead. Other colonists were dead. Dead redcoats too.
The lobsterbacks were waiting for their orders in the Concord Commons from some plump colonel who couldn’t make up his mind about what he should do. That much had been relayed to me. My husband was to wait with other militiamen in the copse that surrounded Concord, watching to see what the redcoats would do.
I looked at Jacque, the man who had all the answers. “What is the militia going to do once the redcoats leave?”
His jaw line bulged. “Do you know Meriam’s Corner?”
I nodded once, recalling the lush meadowland that encompassed the Meriam house. The home itself was more than a century old and stood only a few miles from Concord. It was called Meriam’s Corner, instead of homestead, because the Lexington Highway ran in front of it at a sharp corner to compensate for the crossroad that ran to its west, Bedford Road. The meadow would, by now, have a vast array of wild flowers there this time of year, mostly yellow buttercups. Lord, how could I think upon flowers at a time like this?
“The militia intends to send a message to the British soldiers and their General Gage, perhaps all the world,” Jacque said. “They intend to fire once the British army is on Meriam’s Bridge.”
Meriam’s Bridge was small and made room for only one wagon to pass at a time. I visualized the militia waiting for the redcoats to pass over the bridge, effectively bottlenecking the Regulars, becoming better targets for the ever-increasing Massachusetts’ militias.
It would be a slaughter.
I stood and turned, looking through the forest, searching for Mathew through the thick trees. “Why? Why are they doing this?”
“Reciprocity, Violet.”
I looked at Jacque. He seemed shrunken from our conversation. He had been hoping for a helpmate and found obstinate me instead. My heart pinched, but that was all the feeling I would give him at the moment. I should hate him. Hate him for doing this to me, but I would figure out how to hate him later. I had to find my husband.
“I have to get Mathew—”
“Violet, he’s a gentleman. He won’t leave his militia. He gave his oath he wouldn’t.”
I had tried to seduce Mathew from joining his militia this morning, but not even that had slowed him down. All right, suffice to say he was distracted and took his time when I needed him to, but after we were done, he left me for this battle. The only reason he would ever leave this cause was if I were in danger. Seeing as how I could now heal my own broken, gun-punctured heart, there was no way I could be in any real peril. Ever again, for that matter. I could try to fake that I was threatened somehow, but I wasn’t the playactor that my sister was. I’d probably just admit my lie to Mathew anyway, which would make him, more than likely, cross with me for trying to take him away from a noble battle.
“It is why I decided to come and protect him, Violet,” Jacque said. “I knew he would stay to fight.”
My heart sank. Damn Mathew’s virtues.
Then I remembered that being a militiaman, Mathew could possibly face criminal charges if he left while he was still needed. I sighed.
I had already decided to protect my husband, to protect my future. But what kind of future did I have now? I could hardly understand that twice Jacque had just killed me, and that was really starting to irritate me, but how could I tell Mathew about my condition, especially since I had become . . . a not dying person because I had spent a chaste yet lustful night with Jacque? How could I explain my disloyalty? How could I explain that I might not be able to have our children?
No, no, I had to have Mathew’s children. I dreamt of our babies. They had his blond hair and my streak of stubbornness. I would find a way to tell him about whatever was wrong with me, but then tell him I’d make it right. I was his wife, and I loved him, and I loved our future children, our future.
Nothing was going to stand in my way of my expectations.
Chapter Twenty-Four: Introductions