Christabel Read online

  When she reached the clearing of the Sacred Tree, she was sweating hard but not really tired. Such journeys were routine for her and most of her people. Certainly a horse would have been faster, but she had none.

  There was someone there in the clearing with her. The tranquility of the tree was disturbed. She drew closer, suspicious of white man’s mischief—a trap or hunting net could be lurking.

  She didn’t see the bundle of clothing at the foot of the tree until she was almost upon it. She hurriedly unwrapped it, not willing to believe it was a person, so forlorn.

  In horror she uncovered a girl, still and blue, and knew this was what she had been called to find.

  Someone was shaking her, but if she woke up she would be cold again. Christabel closed her eyes tightly and willed away the insistent hand and voice.

  Her hands were unwrapped from the edge of her cloak. Christabel was shocked awake by sudden heat in her fingertips. She gasped and found herself staring into outraged green eyes. After a moment’s confusion, she realized her hands were trapped between the native woman’s thighs.

  She tried to snatch them away, but her body didn’t listen. She couldn’t feel anything except her hands and the icy chill of her breath through her nose.

  The woman made a noise of satisfaction, bending to peer intently into Christabel’s eyes. Christabel tried not to be afraid. She had no strength to protest as the woman unwrapped her cloak and removed her wet clothes. She could feel her wrists now, through a stinging prickle of pins. When her hands slipped away from the other woman’s body, she wanted to cry out at the pain of the rapid return of cold. She managed to turn her head slightly—and did moan. Her fingers and arms were marbled with blue.

  Was this woman stealing her clothes? She had never been naked in front of a stranger. She was going to die here—she’d been a fool. Her eyes were too cold to tear. She couldn’t manage more than an incoherent whisper through her frozen lips.

  The shock that followed was vividly painful. All at once the woman lifted her out of the hollow and drew Christabel’s naked body against her own, wrapping them both in the voluminous fur that served as her cloak. The heat of the other woman’s body pricked like needles against Christabel.

  After a few minutes she found she could cry. The pins stabbing in her body intensified, and the stranger held her as she sobbed.

  It was a long while before she realized the woman was speaking in English. “You will be warm, soon.”

  I’ll never be warm again, Christabel thought. It seemed like forever since she had slipped out of Bitsy’s house, but there was still no sign of dawn in the sky above them.

  “Can you speak?”

  Christabel cleared her throat experimentally, then croaked, “Yes, I’m better.”

  “Why are you here?”

  There was a slight trilling, almost a ringing sound, when the native woman spoke.

  “I am dreaming of my true love,” she said, before she thought better of it. Surely the woman would think her crazy. Well, all things considered, she probably thought that already.

  Instead, the woman laughed. “You’ve been told only half of the magic. You must sleep here on the long day. In summer.”

  “Oh,” Christabel murmured. She was getting warm again, truly warm. “That makes more sense.”

  “Are you so desperate to know your true love’s face?”

  “No, I just wanted to show Bitsy and her friends that they’re cowards.”

  “You are not a coward,” the woman said, very softly. “But you are foolish. By morning you would have been dead. Thank the Great Mother I am here.”

  “Great Mother?”

  The woman made a sound that could have been consternation. “I am sorry. Yours is not the way of the Great Mother. You are a child of the Christ.”

  “Well, I’m a Puritan.”

  “A Puritan clergyman taught me English,” the woman explained. Christabel thought it was more to keep her awake than out of any necessity. “I studied his religion. I am Puritan also.”

  “You mean you accepted Christ as your savior?”

  “What is Christ but the child of the Great Mother? All comes from her. It matters not to her that I say to the clergyman that I accept Christ as my savior. I hear the voice of the Great Mother. I want to understand white man’s ways.”

  “Do you understand them?” Christabel wanted to say that she did not, but she didn’t want to appear ignorant.

  “No. I am often mystified. The Christ speaks of forgiveness and salvation through faith, but then I heard what happened to Eliza Albright.”

  Christabel nodded drowsily. She wasn’t supposed to know about Bitsy’s cousin, Eliza, but what she hadn’t overheard from her parents she’d been supplied with by Bitsy. Eliza wasn’t married, and her father had found out she was having a baby. She’d disgraced the entire Albright family. Bitsy’s mother didn’t make or receive calls for three whole weeks after the news had spread.

  Christabel hadn’t even realized that such a thing was possible. Eliza wouldn’t tell who the man was, either. Reverend Gorony and some of the Elders had taken the baby away; Bitsy didn’t know where. Eliza had spent three days in the stocks after the baby was born, and then been taken by boat in the middle of the night and left on the mainland, her face marked with charcoal to say that no man protected her. Eliza had never come back.

  “What would the Great Mother have done to Eliza?”

  “Loved her. Loved her baby. There is no sin in love.”

  “Reverend Gorony makes it sounds like all love is a sin, even if I love my parents. It’s more important that I obey them than love them.”

  “I—I miss Reverend Downing. He was a wise man, much as the resting chief of my clan. I wished once to bring them together and help make talk. They would have liked each other.”

  “I miss him, too. He let me read.” She felt so drowsy, and yet she knew she had to go home. “I think I can walk now. I have to get back before sunup.”

  The woman seemed to understand that necessity. She unfolded her cloak, and Christabel was oddly pleased to find that the woman was taller than she was—it got very tiring being the tallest girl in the entire town. The woman helped Christabel put on her freezing clothes and kept her moving when she wanted to just stand still and shiver.

  “You have a long walk. I will go with you. You should eat this as we go.” She offered a stick of dried meat wrapped with something that tasted vaguely lemony.

  Remembering not to talk with her mouth full, Christabel said, “This is good. You don’t have to walk with me,” even though she longed for the company.

  “I know. Stay to the edges of the path,” the woman instructed, and they set off.

  Christabel quickly realized that had she done that earlier she wouldn’t be half as muddy. She’d stayed in the middle of the path because she had been afraid to be too close to the darkness of the trees. But with her guide following closely behind, she didn’t mind at all.

  “What’s your name?”

  “It was written down as Geraldine in the church Bible.”

  “That doesn’t suit you,” Christabel said. “What’s your real name?”

  “Rahdonee.”

  “That’s pretty. Nicer than Bitsy.”

  “What is your name?”

  “Christabel. My ma calls me Chrissy.”

  “That is also nicer than Bitsy.”

  Christabel laughed and was suddenly glad she had met Rahdonee. So she didn’t dream of her true love. So what? She’d met someone smart and funny, qualities that Bitsy and the rest didn’t possess in any great quantity.

  “Mother deer,” Rahdonee said, and sure enough a doe, heavy with fawn, ambled across the trail in front of them. It didn’t seem to mind their presence at all. “That is a good omen,” Rahdonee added.

  Christabel remembered her question about the spirits of trees and found herself telling Rahdonee all about Greek creatures and absorbing every word Rahdonee said in return. The spirits of
trees were called after the tree, as were the spirits of clouds and rivers. It was so much easier to remember, Christabel thought.

  It was a surprise when the first buildings of the Bouwerie came into view. It seemed like they’d been walking only minutes.

  “I can find my way from here,” Christabel said. “I just follow the road now, and I know how to get back in without being seen.”

  “Are you certain?” Rahdonee didn’t seem too eager to get much closer to the town.

  “I can do it,” Christabel insisted. The moon had risen fully, and the road was well lit compared to earlier. She glanced at Rahdonee and realized she hadn’t really seen her face in the dark. Rahdonee couldn’t be that much older than she was—but she seemed so wise.

  “I’ve never seen an Indian with green eyes,” she said.

  “I am the daughter of the nordwek, who came to our island many, many lifetimes ago. None of them stayed, but their children are still with us. I am the only green one now, but more will follow me.”

  Christabel could see Rahdonee smiling in the dark. “You don’t mind being different?” Christabel minded her unfashionable auburn hair dreadfully.

  “I take it as a gift from the Great Mother. Her hand touches me. It is a good omen for my people. I have the medicine way. So I must tell you that when you get home, you should drink as much hot liquid as you can. Ask your mother for tea made with the mustard leaf.”

  Christabel seriously doubted her mother would have mustard leaf and if she did that she would make tea with it. But she couldn’t tell Rahdonee that. She’d think they were backward or something. “I know my way from here,” she said instead. “I’m not afraid anymore.”

  Rahdonee stopped. “Are you certain?” She nodded vigorously, even though she was a little scared of getting caught on her way in through the millpond. “I don’t know...thank you for...”

  “Thank the Great Mother,” Rahdonee said, solemnly. Then her eyes sparkled and she held out one hand. “I am so pleased to have met you. I hope we shall meet again.”

  Christabel snickered and shook Rahdonee’s hand. She imitated Reverend Downing’s wife very well indeed. “Likewise, I’m sure.”

  “We shall meet again,” Rahdonee called over her shoulder. She loped into the darkness, and Christabel turned toward home.

  She made good on her plan to say she got muddy going to the church. The sky was lightening, and those few people up that early could not see her well enough to tell she was soaked and muddy. She slipped into the church and found it empty, as she had hoped.

  It was only slightly warmer inside than out, and she huddled on a back pew, wishing for her bed and the tea Rahdonee suggested. Thinking of Rahdonee made her look around the church with new eyes. Its simplicity was a tenet of the Puritan faith. There were no gold chalices or fancy altar linens to incur the wrath of God over pagan idols. She had never been particularly touched by the church, except when Reverend Downing’s wife read Pilgrim’s Progress aloud in Sunday school. She had had a voice much prettier than her looks and Christabel had liked her for her warm, melodic voice. She missed the Downings.

  She didn’t like Reverend Gorony. She supposed she ought to, but he frightened her. He was so angry all the time. And he wouldn’t let her read anymore. She thought maybe Pa was afraid of him, too, and realizing that Pa could be afraid of anyone had made her dislike the new Reverend all the more.

  She ran her hand over the rough-hewn wood of the pew, then slipped into the aisle and approached the altar. It was equally rough, but she liked the smell of it. Rahdonee said the Great Mother was Christ’s mother. She would have to think about that. Rahdonee said that the Great Mother was in the trees and rain and stars. She touched the altar appreciatively. That meant the Great Mother was here.

  That was a comforting thought.

  In the future when she came here she would think about Rahdonee and the Great Mother. It would help pass the time.

  When she judged it to be past rising at the Albright’s, she peeked out the church door. There didn’t appear to be anyone there, so she slipped out, planning to wait for someone to appear at the end of the street to witness her fall from the sidewalk into the muck.

  She had just made it to the edge of the walk when a voice grated in her ear.

  “What have you been doing in God’s house?”

  She yelped and backed away from Reverend Gorony’s outraged gaze. He reached for her. She lost her footing and tumbled backward into the mire.

  There was an outcry of several voices, and then people were all around her, lifting her up. She was filthy right to her hair. She wiped mud off her brow, protesting that she was fine. Only then did she dare look up at the preacher.

  He was very angry. She didn’t know if he’d got a good enough look at her to know she had been dirty before she fell.

  Well, he was looking at her now. Her cloak was still in the mud, and her dress clung to her like a second skin.

  It was Mr. Dennison who helped her back up onto the sidewalk and wrapped her cloak around her. The cloak didn’t provide any warmth at all, but she felt protected. Reverend Gorony was still staring at her.

  “What were you doing in church?”

  It was harder to lie with Mr. Dennison listening, too. “I, I wanted to pray, so I got up very early and, and when I was done I felt better and I was going to go home again so my folks wouldn’t miss me. I didn’t want anyone to know.” She was thinking as fast as she could—demonstrations of excessive piety were almost as bad as no piety at all.

  Reverend Gorony’s expression had changed, but he was still angry—and suspicious. “You are too old to be on the street so early by yourself.”

  Mr. Dennison agreed. “Chrissy, you should be home safe and sound. There could be tavern folk still about. I’ll walk you home.”

  She turned gratefully toward home, but looked back over her shoulder when Reverend Gorony spoke.

  “I want you to come see me before Sunday. We need to discuss your sudden need for prayer.”

  Christabel gulped. He suspected her of being up to something, but didn’t know what. She’d have to figure out the best things to say that wouldn’t get her in more trouble.

  Mr. Dennison left her at their gate, and Christabel thanked him for his trouble. She knew he’d tell Goody Dennison about it, then their daughter, Martha, would tell Bitsy—she and Bitsy were thick as thieves sometimes. Well, that was fine. Bitsy would know she’d slept under the tree then. But knowing she’d nearly died took some of the satisfaction out of it.

  Smoke was curling in the chimney, which meant Ma was up. Her mother turned from the fire when the door opened.

  “Chrissy!”

  “Ma, I fell. I went to the church to pray—” She got no more out of her mouth before her mother slapped her, and then began stripping her of the filthy clothes.

  “I’ve never seen such a child—how could you embarrass your pa like this? The Reverend saw you? What were you thinking, child? You’re too old for this.”

  Christabel was dizzy by the time Ma finished pulling off the clothes. She had expected to get slapped; she was used to it.

  “There’s no time to boil water and I won’t have you messing up a blanket.” Ma was hauling the heavy steel bath into the center of the wet porch. “If your father sees you like this there’ll be plenty to pay, I can tell you.”

  With a shudder, Christabel realized what was coming. Ma lifted one of the buckets of water from in front of the fire and poured it into the bath. “In you go, girl. I don’t want any arguments from you.”

  She stepped gingerly into the cold water and sat shivering. The water had been slightly warmed, but not enough. Ma came back from the pump and tipped the bucket over her head. The shock of the icy water made her cry out, and all the cold and misery when Rahdonee found her flooded back.

  “Stop your whining, girl. You reap what you sow.” She stomped down the steps to the pump again.

  Christabel tried to put the soap to good use whil
e Ma was gone, hoping the water would hide her tears. Another bucket of water made her shiver uncontrollably.

  “You brought this on yourself. I don’t have time to heat water.”

  She’d made a lot of extra work for Ma. That was for certain. She’d be lucky to escape a whipping.

  Ma didn’t whip her, and neither did Pa, though that might have been because he had to meet Lord Berkeley by mid-morning for an overnight trip to the mainland. She spent the day scrubbing pots on the wet porch and then plucking the quail Pa had brought home last evening. Even her own bed, with wrapped hot bricks at her feet, didn’t make her warm.

  By the next morning she was feverish, and it had started to rain again.

  Chapter 5

  “Dina! How delightful you could take the time to meet us.” Leonard Goranson greeted Dina like a long lost friend. They’d exchanged two phone calls and several e-mails in the last two days, and his effusiveness felt false to her. She stiffened as he kissed her cheeks, European style, and fought the urge to brush her face and arms where he’d touched her.

  “It’s a luxury,” Dina said carefully. She hardly wanted to encourage him to think she could drop everything in the evenings and continue acting as tour guide.

  Then Christa emerged from the cab as well and Dina knew she’d never resent any situation that let them spend time together. Her body’s reaction to Christa’s two quick kisses on her cheeks was markedly different.

  She forgot what she was going to say when she realized Goranson was watching them speculatively and whatever it was he saw pleased him. The look in his eyes was unclean, like he was imagining her and Christa performing sex acts just for him. She fought back another shudder. She would not let him make her feel soiled.

  Looking carefully blank, Christa said, “We hardly had time the other night to see that one floor. I mentioned to Leo what a good guide you were. You’re so kind to go back so soon.”

  Dina gave Christa a reassuring smile. “It’s no bother.”

  Goranson’s phone chirped.

  He stepped a few feet away, spoke quickly and even before he hung up Dina knew he was going to beg off. She felt strongly that the call was prearranged, and her certainty had nothing to do with any gift from her mother. All he had cared about was that she and Christa spent more time together, and that should worry her.