Untitled Story

Written for Prompt #6 at The Aeolian Harp:

Reverend John Greaves was a believing man.  So when he walked into his bedroom that bright Thursday afternoon and found his young wife giggling in front of the looking glass, a diamond necklace flashing  around her neck, he believed her when she said that the fairies had given it to her.

He sat on the edge of the bed, holding Mary’s small hands in his, as she told him how it had happened.  She had spent the morning picking blackberries at the edge of Burke’s Meadow.  After a while, when her second pail was nearly full, she retreated from the hot sun, and sat in the shade of the rowan tree to rest.  She thought that she must have dozed off, for the next thing she recalled was finding the necklace glittering in her lap.

There was certainly no reason to doubt his sweet young wife’s word.  Their village, tucked in the valley below Belmont Manor, was a humble one.  None of the villagers or crofters had the means to own such a fine piece of jewelry.  As Mary related her story to John, so many other tales about that tree sprang to his mind  It was an old tree, to be sure, growing in the center of old stones left standing by the ancients.  “Charmed,” is what the villagers called it.

In the days that followed, Reverend Greaves worried about what to do with the necklace.  He also worried about Mary, who suddenly left the dishes unwashed in the sink after dinner, and spent a great deal of time out of the house.  He hoped that she was just visiting the sick and poor of their parish, as was fitting for a rector’s wife.

One late afternoon, after he picked up the house and washed the dishes, Reverend Greaves found himself walking to Burke’s Meadow with the necklace in his pocket.  He was just outside the village when he came upon his wife on the road up ahead.  She wasn’t alone.  Standing quite close to her was Lord Belmont himself.  The man’s handsome head was inclined towards Mary as he listened attentively to whatever it was she was saying.  Then they both laughed, and Lord Belmont offered her his arm.  Mary took it as they set-off walking toward Reverend Greaves.

“John!”  she called out.  “What are you doing here?”  Reverend Greaves watched her step away from Lord Belmont and drop his arm.

“I might ask the same of you, Mary” replied Reverend Greaves.  He turned to Lord Belmont and said, “Good afternoon, my Lord. May I ask, how is Lady Belmont fairing these days?”

“Good to see you, Reverend Greaves.  I came upon Mary as I was making my way to the village. She has offered to visit with Lady Belmont, who, I am afraid, has become weaker these last  few weeks.”

“I am very sorry to hear it.  I am sure that Mary will be good company for her,”  said Reverend Greaves.

“And, you were you on your way to….?”  asked Lord Belmont quizzically.

“I was on my way to the meadow,”  answered Reverend Greaves.  “I thought that I might find Mary there.”

“Yes, yes, I was just there.  Picking more blackberries,”  his wife thrust out her half-full pail as proof, but she didn’t quite meet his eyes.

“Well.  Shall we all walk back to the village together then?”  suggested Lord Belmont.

The entire way back, the diamond necklace weighed heavily in Reverend Greaves pocket, as they conversed about the weather and the price of tea.

~*~

Four nights later he awoke to find Mary’s side of the bed empty.  The clock struck three as he rose, tied a robe around his waist, and went to search the house for her.  She was not in it.  He thought that perhaps she was out using the privy, so he sat down at the kitchen table and waited.  After a while, he fell asleep and dreamed scandalous dreams about his wife and Lord Belmont.  The sound of a cock crowing at dawn woke him; hiis neck was stiff.  He found his wife asleep in their bed.  Bending over to kiss her fair cheek, he saw a dry brown leaf tangled in her hair.

Reverend Greaves was very troubled by the changes in his wife.  As he reflected upon them, he remembered the stories that his grandfather Seamus used to tell him about the Little People when he was a child.  Their gifts, his grandfather said, always come at a cost.  They may offer you gold and finery, but they will take your soul in return.  Reverend Greaves began to suspect that the woman who ran-off without doing the dishes, and who disappeared in the night was not his Mary. The diamond necklace was still in his pocket.  He would return it to the rowan tree in exchange for his true wife.  Then, he would take an axe to that cursed tree.

It was a warm day, and the drone of bees filled the meadow.  Reverend Greaves walked through the tall grass, fragrant with honeysuckle, praying fervently for Mary.  A breeze blew his hair as he put a hand on one of the old stones and wondered whether it be an ebenezer or something else.  The rowan tree stood there in the middle, heavy with red berries and full of noisy birds.  He took the necklace out of his pocket and watched it dazzle in the sunlight.  “Take this!”  he shouted.  “And, give me back my wife!.” Suddenly, the birds flew off in a frenzy of wings and calls, forcing Reverend Greaves to cover his head with his arms and sink to his knees.  The necklace was lying in the dirt at the base of the tree.

For a long time he sat there waiting.  Would they come and take the necklace?  Would his Mary come out of the tree?  He watched the sun go down.  He heard the buzz of the bees fade away, replaced now by chirping crickets.  He saw the first star,and the moonrise.  He listened to an owl  call off in the woods. And then, he heard voices, Lord Belmont’s and Mary’s.  They were over near the brook.  They were laughing together.

Reverend Greaves heart was pierced by raw grief  and cold fury.  He rose swiftly from the ground, gripping the axe in his hands. He began to stride towards them when all at once a voice arose from the bleak twigs overhead…
  

My 80 Year Old Desk

This is where I do a lot of my writing:  letters, bills, and sometimes a story :- )  It is one of my favorite places in my home.  It even has two secret compartments!

Deliverance (written for prompt #4 at The Aeolian Harp)

I never wanted to go with him.  In fact, I begged mama to let me stay in Massachusetts with her, but my father had been the minister of the village congregation,  and she was above all a god-fearing woman.  She told me, with tears in her eyes, that my place was with my husband.  I hugged her tightly, and breathed the familiar scent of her, memorizing it.  I knew that I would never see her again.  “I’ll write,” she said.  But, letters to the frontier could take many months to deliver.  

The next morning we left for Indiana territory, our small wagon loaded down with all of our worldly goods, which consisted of:  six quilts, two pots, a tea kettle, a bit of mismatched flatware, a wooden chest, linens, a bedstead,  sacks of seeds, and my husband’s tools. We left the table and chairs behind.  Daniel would make new when we got to our land. 

Our party was small. There were five families and our guide, twenty-six of us in all, including women and children.  By the time we made it to the territory our number had been reduced to eighteen.  My own vitality was greatly diminished, and yet, I discovered that I was with child.  I was twenty years old.  

It was July, and Daniel and I immediately set ourselves to the task of clearing the land and building a cabin.  It was just the two of us.  All of the others had settled some distance away from our own claim.  Occasionally, La Bounty, a French trapper, would come by and camp with us for a few weeks.  He brought us news from the territory about the other settlers and Indian sightings,  and helped Daniel with the heaviest work, in exchange for meals, darning his socks, and mending and laundering his clothes..  I didn’t like him.  He had poor manners, spoke rough language, and had hungry eyes that followed me around camp.  Daniel said that we should be grateful for his help, and besides, La Bounty just needed a wife.  I knew that Daniel was probably right, but still, I didn’t’ trust the man; I wanted him gone.  

By September I felt the quickening of the child within me.  My body had become lean and hard, and although my pregnancy was advancing, my gown hung loosely upon my frame.  I was heart sore and lonesome for my mother and my village back in Massachusetts, but I was too tired to cry.  I woke each morning feeling hollow and broken, but I kept doing what I needed to do to survive:  fetch the water, prepare the food, cut brush, haul wood, mend clothing. I watched Daniel’s body become leaner, too, and I saw some of the certainty and determination vanish from his eyes.  I wondered if he regretted coming out here as much as I did.  

But, then, by October the cabin was built, and life got a bit easier for awhile.  We had stores of grain to see us through the winter, and I had gathered what I could from the woods and fields:  dried apples and cherries, preserved blackberries; plus the pumpkins and squash that we had planted when we arrived at the beginning of July.  We would have enough to sustain us if we were careful.  In the spring, we would purchase a milch cow and chickens.  

In December, during a swirling snowstorm, there was a knock at the cabin door.  It was La Bounty come to tell us that fever had spread throughout the territory, and many people had taken sick.  The next day, La Bounty himself was burning with it.  We made a bed for him and I nursed him for over a week . Then, just as he began to recover, Daniel fell ill.  Three days later he was dead.  Even though it was early in the winter, the snow was already deep, and I was heavy with child.  I wouldn’t be able to travel back to my mother in Massachusetts until spring.  I was completely alone in the world.  Except for La Bounty.  

He stayed on at the cabin for two more weeks.  I washed and dressed Daniel’s body, and La Bounty built a plain pine coffin out in the shed.  The ground was frozen, and Daniel wouldn’t be buried until spring.  

One night, while we ate our supper together by candlelight, La Bounty asked, “How will you get back to Massachusetts come spring?”  That I did not know.  I would need a guide at the very least.  The way home would be made more perilous because I would have a newborn baby to nurse and carry along.  

“Maybe I could go back with the post,”  I said.  

La Bounty scoffed at this idea.  “No, you would slow the mail considerably.  They will not allow it.  I will take you back,”  he volunteered, but his black eyes glittered with greed, “for a fee.”  

I sat in silence for awhile, considering my options.  “How much?”  I asked, in what I hoped was a confident voice.  

La Bounty grinned, “One hundred  fifty-two dollars.”  He must have known; Daniel must have told him how much we had.  It was the money for the cow and the chickens, and anything else we needed.  It was all we had.  But, I wouldn’t need the cow and chickens now.  Come spring, all I needed was safe passage home.  

“Okay.”  I whispered.

“Yes?  I will need the money in advance.  To purchase supplies for the journey,”  He said.  And, like a fool, I gave it to him.  He was gone before morning light.   

~*~

The next two months were a gray void of loneliness and grief.  In those first days of being alone I cried.  I cried for Daniel, for my mother, for myself, for my baby.  I cried until my eyes and throat were red and raw.  I cried as loud as the wailing wind outside the cabin door. When the wind stopped, my tears stopped, too.  Then, my life was just quietness, punctuated by the clicking of my knitting needles and the crackle of the fire.  I was a white woman living alone in Indian territory, but I wasn’t afraid.  I doubted that I would survive for very long out here by myself, although, with Daniel gone, I had more than enough provisions to see me through winter. 

At the end of February, my time came.  The pains lasted for two days.  I saw the sun rise and set twice.  When the pains became so fierce that I was sure that the baby and I would both die,  he suddenly was born into my hands.  I named him John after my father, as I couldn’t bear to call him Daniel after his own father, when he had brought me here and left me.     

After that, I wasn’t alone anymore.  I had my sweet, robust baby boy for company.  Joy came back into my heart, and with it, fear.  Now, I had something to lose, something precious and perfect.  As the days grew longer, and the snow turned soft and began to melt, I began to worry about two things:  burying Daniel, and La Bounty coming back.  

~*~

One sunny morning in March, I tied Johnny to my chest with a shawl, and took the water bucket down to the creek.  The buds were swollen on the trees, and here and there the ground was covered in trillium.  Birds were singing, and the sun was warm on my back.  As I filled my bucket with icy creek water, I realized that I could no longer put off burying Daniel. I would have to do it soon.  Maybe today.  I stood with my bucket full, and suddenly felt that I was being watched.  The hair on the back of my neck prickled, and I instinctively put my free arm around my baby, holding him close to my chest.  I looked around, straining to listen, and noticed that the birds had stopped singing.  Out of the corner of my eye I thought that I saw movement.  I dropped the bucket, dowsing my shoes in ice-cold water, and ran for the cabin as fast as I could.  Johnny started crying.  When I reached the cabin, I bolted the door and took down Daniel’s rifle.  My hands shook as I loaded the gun.  Who could be out there?  Was it La Bounty?  Indians?  “Shhh, shhh,” I softly sang to quiet my baby.  I needed to hear if someone was coming near the cabin, but all that filled my ears were  Johnny’s cries and my own pounding heart.  I  whispered a prayer on a sob, “Please, Lord.”  There was a soft knock on the door.  I tried to see who it was through the cabin’s only window, but I didn’t want to move the curtains and give myself away.  The soft knock came again.  I couldn’t open the door with the rifle in my hands, but I didn’t want to be unarmed.  I grabbed a knife from the mantle.  Then I took a deep breath and opened the door.  

It was a bear.  A great black bear, standing up on its hind legs, at least six feet tall.  I felt faint.  I tried to slam the door shut, but the bear pushed its way inside.  Instinctively, I raised the knife, but the bear caught my wrist in its great paw, and said, “No.”  I did faint then.

I was lying in bed when I awoke.  The scent of something delicious filled the cabin.  I sat up, and saw a man squatting by the hearth fire, stirring something in a pot.  His hair was long and plaited, glossy black, with feathers in it.  Terror filled my breast when I realized what he was.  Just then he stood, in an easy graceful movement, and turned towards me.  I was startled, his eyes were blue like mine.    He didn’t smile, but he held a bowl of good smelling food towards me, and his eyes were kind when he said, “Eat.”  I took the bowl from his hands.  I hadn’t had breakfast yet, and I realized that I was hungry.    

“I thought you were a bear,“  I told him.  He pointed to the bear skin hanging on the peg by the door.  Then he motioned me to come to the table.  He opened a pouch that was tied around his waist and took money from it, which he set upon the table.  It was one hundred fifty-two dollars.  

He said, “La Bounty dead”.  

I was shocked, relieved, bewildered:  why did this Indian man have my money?  

“How did you get this?”  I asked.

“I kill La Bounty,” he said.  There was pride in his voice and eyes, and I felt my fear return.  

“Why?”

“La Bounty cheat my people.  La Bounty cheat you.”  he said, and his eyes held mine assessing.

I felt myself let out a breath I hadn’t even known I was holding.  “Thank you,”  I said, and I meant it.  Now I had the money to get  back home.  

The Indian man touched his chest and said, “Kitchi”

I smiled and touched my chest and said, “Charlotte”.  

His lips turned up at the corners in the smallest of smiles as he reached out and gently touched my spectacles.  “Little Owl”, he said.  Then he asked,  “Your man dead?”

My heart began to beat fast, as I wondered  why he wanted to know. “Yes.  The fever killed him this winter, “ I said.

“Buried?”  Kitchi asked.  His voice was quiet, like the soft sound of rustling leaves.  

I was afraid to answer him.   I knew that the Indians burned their dead, and I didn’t think I could stand  it if he insisted that Daniel’s body should be burned.  But, he was looking at me with that assessing look, and I was afraid to lie, so I told him, “No.  His body is out in the shed. I’ve been waiting for the ground to soften so that I can bury him.”  

Kitchi nodded and said, “Let me.”  Then he left the cabin, and I followed him to the shed.  He found the shovel and walked back along the field for quite a way, and stopped near an old maple tree.  “This place?”  he asked me.

“Yes.  Thank you,”  I said.  And I was filled with wonder as he began to lift the earth with the shovel.  Where had this Indian come from?  Why was he helping me?  I thought about the scriptures that spoke of angels, and I began to wonder if the blue-eyed Kitchi were one.  

It took him a long time to dig a hole large enough for Daniel’s coffin.  He hitched the horse to the wagon and brought the coffin out to the field.  Then I prayed, and Kitchi buried my husband.  

That night Kitchi slept in the shed.  In the morning, he came into the cabin and made a delicious breakfast of corn-meal breaded fish.  While we ate, I remarked shyly, “Your eyes are blue.“  

He said, “My mother was white.”  

I was filled with questions then, but I was afraid to ask them.  Then Kitchi said, “It is time to ready the ground for planting.  Let me.“  

“That is kind of you, but  unnecessary,“  I replied.  “Now that I have my money I’m going back home to my people in Massachusetts.“  

“How will you do this Little Owl?  It is many rivers from here, and you have papoos.“  

“I will find a guide and pay him,“  I said, lifting my chin defiantly.  “I made the journey here, and I can make it back.”  Even as I spoke the words, I wondered if they were true.  Massachusetts was a thousand miles away, and not every guide was skilled or trustworthy. 

Kithci  looked me in the eye and said, “I do not have family. You do not have man. I will guide you.  Let me”