Darkest Hour

  Tears dropped off my cheeks and fell on his grave. My body shuddered and my legs of clay collapsed beneath me, bringing me to my knees. There I knelt, my sobs growing stronger, harder until my shortness of breath terrified me. I was starving for oxygen; I could die here, I thought, and my baby would die here, too. Panic seized me. I reached up and took hold of Niles's stone and pulled myself to my feet so awkwardly, I tottered uncertainly for a moment before gaining a secure stance. Then, my tears still flowing, I turned away from the grave and hurried toward the wooded path.

  I had made a terrible mistake. I had gone too far. Fear and anxiety seized hold of my legs and made each step an ordeal. My stomach grew twice as heavy and my breathing grew shorter, faster. How my back ached with every turn. My head began to spin. Suddenly, my foot got caught under a tree root and I fell forward, screaming as I caught myself on a bush and felt it scratch my arms and neck. I hit the earth with a thud, the collision sending a resounding clap of thunder down from my shoulders, through my chest and into my stomach. I groaned and turned over on my back. There I remained for minutes, holding my stomach, waiting for the storm of pain to end.

  The forest had grown quiet. The birds were in shock, too, I thought. What had started out as pleasurable and wonderful had become dark and frightening. The very shadows that had earlier looked cool and inviting now looked dark and ominous, and the wooded pathway that attracted me and promised enjoyment had turned into a formidable journey fraught with danger and peril.

  I sat up, moaning softly. Just the idea of standing again seemed an enormous task. I took two deep breaths and struggled to my feet, rising like a woman of ninety. The moment I did so, I had to close my eyes because the woods had begun to spin. I waited, sucking in short breaths and holding my right palm against my heart as if I wanted to be sure it didn't pound its way out of my chest. Finally, my breathing and my heartbeat slowed and I opened my eyes.

  The afternoon sun had dropped more quickly than I had realized. Shadows were deeper; the forest was colder. I started down the path again, trying to move quickly, but trying at the same time to avoid another unpleasant fall. The effects of this one had still not left me. My stomach continued to ache ominously, the dull but continuous pain traveling farther and farther down until I felt needles in my groin and every step became harder and harder.

  I thought I had been walking for so long, but I recognized the surroundings and markings and knew that I was merely halfway back. Once again, fear had a strong hold over me and with it came a rush of heartbeats that took my breath away. I had to stop and take hold of a sapling and wait for the attack of anxiety to lessen. It did but it didn't disappear. I knew I had to continue and go as quickly as I could, for something strange and new was happening inside me. There was turmoil where there had never been turmoil before. The problem was that each and every new step forward only increased the pain, only encouraged the commotion.

  Oh no, I thought. I'm not going to get back; I'm not going to make it. I started to shout, small, low cries at first, but then stronger and more desperate cries as I experienced more pain, more aches. My legs were rebelling, too. They didn't want to move forward and my back . . . it was as if someone were driving nails into it every time I moved forward. After a while I realized I had gone only a dozen or so yards. I screamed again and this time the effort made my brain reel and my eyes fall back. I gasped and sank to the forest floor once again, when all went black.

  At first, when I regained consciousness, I thought I was up in my room in my bed dreaming, but the sensation of small ants and other insects crawling over my legs inside my skirt quickly reaffirmed my location. I brushed myself down and when I did so, I felt the warm, wetness trickling down my calves. There was just enough daylight streaming in between the trees and leaves for me to see it was blood.

  This new panic left me cold. My teeth actually began to click. I turned over and pushed myself up into a sitting position first. Then, I used the nearby sapling to lift myself to my feet. No longer aware of the pain, too numb with fear to realize if I were being scratched by bushes or nicked by branches, I plodded onward, moving forward ponderously but continuously. The moment I set eyes on the plantation house, I released another scream, this time calling on all my strength. Fortunately, Charles was just returning some equipment to the barn and heard me.

  I suppose the sight of me was shocking: a pregnant young girl coming out of the forest, her hair disheveled, her face streaked with tears and mud. He simply stared. I didn't have the strength to scream again. I lifted my hand and waved and then my knees gave out and I fell very hard and very fast to the ground. I lay there, too exhausted to try to move. Instead, I closed my eyes.

  I don't care anymore, I thought. I don't care. Let it end this way. We're both better off, my baby and me. Let it end. My prayer reverberated down the long, hollow corridor of my darkened mind. I didn't even hear anyone come; I didn't hear Papa shouting; I didn't feel myself being lifted. I kept my eyes closed and settled softly in my own comfortable world, a world away from pain and hate and trouble.

  Days later, Vera told me Charles said I had a smile on my face all the way back to the house.

  13

  LITTLE CHARLOTTE, SWEET CHARLOTTE

  "How dare you do this after Papa and I have worked so hard to keep the shame a secret!" Emily screeched down at me. With great effort, I opened my eyes and looked up at her twisted, angry face. Never were her stone-gray eyes as wide or as hot with rage. The corners of her contorted thin lips cut into her cheeks, and the center of her lower lip dipped so far, her dull teeth were exposed to her pale gums. Her lackluster hair dangled down the sides of her face, the dry strands split. Her fiery wrath made her snort through her small nostrils like a mad bulldog.

  Shafts of sharp pain shot through my stomach, down to my groin and back up the sides of my body. I felt as if I had been lowered into a bathtub of kitchen knives. I groaned and tried to sit up, but my head was a lump of iron and I hadn't the strength in my neck to lift it an inch off the pillow. As best I could, I gazed around my room. For the moment I was so confused, I couldn't recall anything. Had I left the room, really snuck out and gone for a walk through the forest, or was that all a dream? No, it couldn't have been a dream, I thought. Emily wouldn't be screaming and wringing her hands about a dream.

  Where was Papa? Where were Charles and Vera and anyone else who had assisted in my return? Did Mamma hear all the commotion and ask to know what had happened to me?

  "Where were you? What were you trying to do?" Emily demanded. When I didn't respond, she took hold of my arm and shook me until I opened my eyes again. "Well?"

  The pain took my breath away, but I gasped out my answer.

  "I just . . . wanted to go outside, Emily. I . . . just wanted to take a walk and see . . . flowers and trees and . . . feel the sun on my face," I said.

  "You fool, you little fool," she said, shaking her head. "I'm sure it was the devil himself who opened your locked door and urged you to go out."

  Pain made me want to cry out, but I ignored it and fired back at Emily instead.

  "No it wasn't, Emily. I did it myself because you and Papa made me desperate!"

  "Don't you blame it on us. Don't you dare blame anything on me or Papa. We did what we had to do to restore righteousness in this house," she replied quickly.

  "Where is Papa?" I asked, looking around again. I expected him to be in a worse rage, a veritable storm of anger raining curses and threats over me.

  "He's gone for Mrs. Coons," she said, practically spitting the words down at me. "Thanks to you."

  "Mrs. Coons?"

  "Don't you know what you've done? You're bleeding. Something's happened to the baby inside you and it's all your fault. You've probably killed it," she accused, and stood back, her head bobbing on her long neck, her bony arms folded under her chest. Her skin was milk white at her pointed elbows.

  "Oh no," I said. That was probably why I had so much pain. "Oh no."

  "Yes
. Now you can add murderess to your list of sins. Is there anything or anyone you haven't touched or confronted and destroyed or harmed, anyone beside me?" she asked, and then quickly answered her own question. "Of course not. Why Papa expected it would be any different, I don't know. I told him; I warned him, but he thought he could make it all right again."

  "Does Mamma know what happened to me?" I asked. Nothing Emily said mattered anymore to me. I decided to simply ignore her.

  "Mamma? Of course not. She doesn't know what happened to herself," Emily retorted, "much less anyone else . . ." She turned and started away.

  "Where are you going?" I struggled to raise my head a few inches. "What are you going to do?" I cried.

  "Just lie there and shut up," she muttered back, and left me, shutting the door behind her.

  My head fell back to the pillow. I was afraid to move anyway. The smallest jolt sent the stings burning through my body, sent dozens and dozens of hot pins floating through my veins, sticking and cutting along the way. I was so hot all over, it felt as if my heart was soaking in a chest full of boiling water. I groaned louder. It was getting worse.

  "Emily!" I cried. "Get some help. I'm in great pain now. Emily!"

  Something was happening in my stomach. I felt rumbling, and then my stomach tightened and tightened, causing excruciating pain. I screamed so hard my vocal cords ached. The tightening continued and then suddenly, thankfully, it began to ease. It took the breath out of me and I gasped and coughed. My heart was pounding. My body shook with such tremors that the whole bed rattled.

  "Oh God," I prayed. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I'm such a Jonah, a curse even to an unborn child. Please, have mercy. Take me now and end my misery."

  I lay back, gasping, praying, waiting.

  Finally, the door was opened and Papa came in slowly, followed by Mrs. Coons and Emily, who closed the door behind her. Mrs. Coons approached and looked down at me. Beads of sweat had broken out over my forehead and cheeks. I felt as if my eyes, my nose, my mouth had all been stretched to the point of tearing apart. Mrs. Coons put her scrawny fingers and scratchy palm over my forehead and then pressed her hand over my heart. When I looked up at her and into her dull, gray eyes, looked at her gaunt face and brown-stained skin, I felt as though I had really died and was in the land of the dead. Her hot breath smelled of onions. It made my stomach churn that much more and a wave of nausea climbed into my throat.

  "Well?" Papa demanded impatiently.

  "Hold your bowels, Jed Booth," Mrs. Coons chortled. Then she lowered her hands to my stomach and kept them there, waiting. The tightness began to build again, this time harder and faster than before. I took short, quick breaths and then began to groan, my cries growing longer and louder as my stomach became firmer and firmer until it felt like solid stone. Mrs. Coons nodded and straightened up, her birdlike gaze fixed on me for a moment.

  "She's rushed it along," she declared. "Well, Emily," she said, "you wanted to learn how to do this. Now you will get your first lesson. Bring in some towels and a basin of hot water, the hotter the better," she said.

  Emily nodded, her face full of excitement. It was the first time I saw Emily interested in anything beside her Biblical studies and religious teachings.

  Mrs. Coons turned to Papa, who looked pale and confused. He moved to the right and then to the left. His eyes were jerking from side to side and his tongue was washing his lips as if he had just eaten something delicious. Finally, he tugged on the ends of his mustache and fixed his gaze on Mrs. Coons.

  "You want to help, Jed Booth?" Mrs. Coons asked him. His eyes bulged.

  "God's teeth! No!" he cried, and ran from the room. Mrs. Coons cackled like a witch and watched him go.

  "Never seen a man who had the stomach to watch," she quipped, rubbing her skeletonlike hands together. The veins rose against the flaky skin on the backs of them and were all purple and blue.

  "What's happening to me, Mrs. Coons?" I asked.

  "Happening to you? Nothing's happening to you. It's happening to that baby inside you. You've gone and shook it out," she said. "Now it's floundering about, confused. Nature tells it to wait, it's not time, but your body is tellin' it it's on its way.

  "If it's still alive, that is," she added. "Let's get your clothes off. Come on. You're not as helpless as you think."

  I did what she asked, but when the pain returned, I could only lie back and wait for it to subside.

  "Take deep breaths, many deep breaths," Mrs. Coons advised. "It's gonna get far worse 'fore it gets better." She cackled again. "Don't seem worth the pleasure it took to get you in this condition, do it?"

  "I had no pleasure, Mrs. Coons."

  She smiled, her nearly toothless mouth a gaping dark hole in her face, her tongue clicking within.

  "Times like this makes it hard to remember," she said. I had no strength to argue. The pain was coming faster and faster each time now. I saw that Mrs. Coons was impressed with that. "Won't be too much longer," she predicted with the certainty of experience.

  Emily arrived with the water and towels and stood beside the old hag who had positioned herself at the bottom of the bed after telling me to raise my knees.

  "First one's always the hardest," she told Emily. "Especially when the mother's this young. She ain't grow'd and stretched enough. We're surely going to hafta help it along."

  Mrs. Coons was right. The pain I had felt was not the worst of it. When the worst of it came, I screamed so loud I was sure everyone in the house and even people outside a mile away could hear. I was gasping and clinging to the sheets. Once, I reached for Emily's hand, just for the comfort of holding another human being, but Emily refused to give her hand to me. She pulled it away as soon as our fingers touched. Maybe she was afraid I would contaminate her or even burn her with my pain.

  "Push," Mrs. Coons commanded. "Push harder. Push," she shouted.

  "I am pushing!"

  "It ain't comin' easy," she muttered, and placed her cold hands on my stomach. I felt her fingers digging into my skin, pressuring my stomach. I heard her mumbling orders to Emily, but I was so full of agony at this moment, I couldn't listen to her; I couldn't see her. The room was clouded in a gauzelike red mist. All sounds drifted farther and farther away. Even my own screams seemed to be coming from someone else in another room.

  It took hours and hours. The pain was relentless, my efforts exhausting. Every time I tried to relax, Mrs. Coons was at my ear screaming for me to push harder. In the midst of one particular seizure of agonizing pain, Emily knelt down beside the bed and whispered in my ear.

  "See . . . see how the sins of pleasure are paid for; see how we suffer for the evil we do. Curse the devil; curse him. Drive him away. Say it. Get thee to hell, Satan. Say it!"

  I would do anything to stop the pain, anything to stop Emily's continuous banter in my ear.

  "Get thee to hell, Satan!" I cried.

  "Good. Say it again."

  "Get thee to hell, Satan. Get thee to hell, Satan."

  She joined me, and then, to my surprise, Mrs. Coons even became part of the chorus. It was maddening—the three of us chanting: "Get thee to hell, Satan. Get thee to hell, Satan."

  Somehow, perhaps because I was so distracted, the pain did seem to deaden with my cries. Was Emily right? Was I driving the devil out of me and out of the room?

  "Push," Mrs. Coons screamed. "It's happening finally. Push hard now. Push."

  I groaned. I was sure the effort would kill me and I understood now how my real mother could have died in childbirth. But I didn't care. I never felt more like dying than I did at this moment. Death loomed as a true source of relief. The temptation to close my eyes and sink into my own grave was great. I even prayed for it.

  I felt a gush, a surge of movement. Mrs. Coons was mumbling orders and lessons so quickly to Emily it sounded like the gibberish of witchcraft. And then, suddenly, in an overwhelming tremor, my lower body shuddered and it happened . . . the baby emerged. Mrs. Coons cried out. I saw the look
of amazement on Emily's face and then I saw Mrs. Coons lift the newly-born infant in her bloodied hands. The umbilical cord was still attached, of course, and dangling, but the child looked perfect.

  "It's a girl!" Mrs. Coons declared. She placed her mouth over the infant's bloodstained face and lips and sucked and then the baby cried out; its first complaint, I was sure. "It's alive!" Mrs. Coons cried.

  Emily crossed herself quickly.

  "Now watch closely and learn how to cut and tie the umbilical cord," Mrs. Coons told her.

  I closed my eyes, an overwhelming sense of relief washing over my body. A girl, I thought. It's a girl. And she's not been born dead. I'm not a murderess. Perhaps I was no longer a curse to those who I touched and who touched me. Perhaps with the birth of my child, I, too, was reborn.

  Papa was waiting at the doorway.

  "It's a girl," Emily announced when he stepped in. "And it's alive."

  "A girl?"

  I saw the disappointment on his face. He had been hoping for the son he didn't have.

  "Another girl." He shook his head and looked at Mrs. Coons as if it were her fault.

  "I don't make 'em. I only help bring them into the world," she told him. He lowered his head.

  "Get on with it," he ordered, and gave Emily a conspiratorial look. She understood.

  After the baby had been cleaned and wrapped in a blanket, they began the second phase of the great deception. They brought my child to Mamma's room.

  It was over, I thought. But before I fell asleep, I also realized that now, it was also about to begin.

  I didn't move from my bed for two days and two nights. Emily let me know immediately that she would no longer be catering to my needs.

  "Vera will bring up your food and help you with your necessities," she declared. "But Papa wants you up and about in short order. Vera's got enough to do without looking after the likes of you, too.