A Whisper in Time (20 page)

In my new century, the very concept of one human being owning another had been long abandoned in America. Nor were women viewed as lesser than men. Clever ideas and hard work had been added as measures of worth.

Yet, even with this enlightened thinking, I had learned through my quest to prove my birthplace that there were still plenty of ways to keep people in their places.

Motionless, my back against the willow’s trunk, I watched as the Eton household settled into its evening routine.

An hour passed before a cap-covered head emerged from the basement of the main house and tiptoed into the garden.

“Susie?”

I stood, remaining behind my curtain of willow branches a moment longer. “I am here.”

She skipped to my spot, linked her hand with mine, and held a hushing finger to her lips. We crept around the perimeter of the property, slipping from shadow to shadow until we’d circled all the way around to the kitchen building.

“Phoebe?”

She shook her head to silence me.

“Truly, is such stealth necessary?”

She leaned closer and pressed her lips to my ear. “My delight at your arrival is so excessive that I suspect all who see us together will have to know that you are not a mere cousin or friend. Let us not tempt fate.”

I shuddered at the wisdom of her statement. My sister had matured more than my heart had anticipated.

She tiptoed up a pair of steps to the ground floor of the kitchen, looked about, and then waved me in. I rushed straight past her to the upper floor, hesitating on the top landing.

She waved me into the chamber to the right and closed the door behind her. “Letty will retire soon. Shall we share our private stories before she arrives?”

It took no more than a second to reclaim our hold on each other. I wanted to weep and laugh and dance out my joy. I would not think on the brevity of this visit, for that would surely change its feeling. No, indeed, I should think only of her and now.

“Do you wish to store your sack while we talk?”

The sack? How could I have forgotten the entire reason I had risked this visit? “There is medicine in this sack that I have brought to you.”

“Medicine?” She waved airily.

I grasped her by the shoulders. “It is the reason I have come. I traveled a great distance to bring it to you. Please accept its grave importance.”

“Indeed, Susie.” She blinked in surprise. “Tell me what you wish me to know.”

I set the sack on a scarred table and drew out the ointment jar and the drawstring bag of pills. “Did you ever hear what happened to me after I brought you to Raleigh?”

“Jacob Worth told me the entire tale after Mama’s funeral.” She shook her head. “He was most disgusted by his father’s role in your suffering.”

“Then you know Mr. Pratt shackled my ankles.”

She nodded, her lips trembling.

“The pain was fierce and the infection deadly.”

“But it did not kill you.”

“No, it did not. Mark took me to a place with powerful medicine.”

“Mr. Lewis?”

I nodded. “Without this medicine, I would surely have died from poisons in my blood. As it was, I nearly lost my feet.”

“They would have been severed?”

“They might have been.” I leaned forward, hoping that she would remember my urgency. “Phoebe, I put myself in danger to bring this to you.”

“Why should I need it? I shall not be shackled.”

“Perhaps not. Yet you often handle sharp things, like knives and scissors.”

Her brow creased. “And needles.”

I shuddered with relief. Would she not recall better what she had concluded on her own? “Indeed. Needles too. If you cut or puncture a limb, try this ointment. Perhaps it will hold the infection at bay. If not, you must swallow these pills. One at night and one in the morning until you run out of them. Promise me?”

She smiled. “I shall not forget, but do not worry. I am most careful with sharp things, and Mrs. Eton is most wise in the ways of healing.”

“It is better to prevent a wound than to heal it after it is there.” Mrs. Eton could never be as wise as the science in Mark’s world. “Do you have a place to hide these remedies?”

She nodded. Reaching beneath the corner of her pallet, she drew out a simple wooden box. Inside, I could see a small stack of letters, tied together with a thin blue ribbon. She placed the jar and bag inside and then closed the lid.

“Who sends you letters? You’ve never—” I bit off the rest of what I was about to say. She had never mentioned them in her journals.

“They are from Jacob Worth. He writes me of the adventures he has in Williamsburg.” She smiled. “He attends college there.”

“Do you write him back?”

“Naturally. It would be inconsiderate not to return a letter now and then.”

I didn’t know how I felt about this news. “Is Jacob Worth your beau?”

“No, indeed. We are very, very good friends. I think that such pleasantries are possible between a man and a woman. Do you not?”

“I do.” I didn’t know how I felt about the view of my sister as a
woman
either.

She gestured toward a washstand against the wall. It held a candlestick with a stub of a candle. “Let us go over there where I can see you better.”

We sat beneath the washstand, cross-legged with knees touching, and held hands.

She sighed sadly. “You will go again in the morning.”

“Yes.”

“Tell me where you live now, that I might visit when I am free from my indenture.”

“I live far away in a strange land. You can never visit.”

She shook her head firmly. “It can not be very far away if you can visit me. Perhaps, if it is wonderful, I should want to live there too.”

Could I consider bringing her forward? Would she be able to survive in Mark’s world?

I gave my head a quick shake, to clear my thinking. No, she could not endure it. The only reason I had moved was the push that the fear of death gave me. I survived because I had no other choice.

Neither could I be sure that Whisper Falls would permit her passage. It would be devastating to make such a decision, reach the waterfall, and have it end there. “Phoebe, I should dearly love to have you visit me, but the journey is arduous and the customs are peculiar. I do not think it is wise to make such a plan.”

“Very well. We shall see.” She smiled primly. “Do you live with Mr. Lewis?”

“I live in the same home.”

“Have you married?”

“I am devoted to Mark, and he is devoted to me. One day, we shall marry, but the time is not right.”

Her eyes narrowed in outrage. “You are nearly twenty-two, Susie. It is long past time to have a husband and children. If Mr. Lewis loves you, why does he allow you to languish so?”

I’d forgotten the difference in time. What had been only two months for me had been four years for her. I shook her hands lightly, as if reassuring a child. “We do not have an improper relationship, Phoebe. I cook in his parents’ home, and I clean. I have my own room above the…stables.” It was only a slight deception, yet it still ached in my throat.

Her face clouded. “Why does a servant talk of marriage to a member of the family?”

This conversation had become treacherous. How much of the modern world had I absorbed in the months I had lived there? “In Mark’s city, there is more familiarity between the classes. It is not frowned upon.”

“Truly? His parents would consent to an alliance between you?”

I tried to imagine the reaction from Sherri and Bruce if we were to announce our marriage. I nearly choked on a bubble of laughter. “They do not consent at present. They wish for us to wait until Mark has finished his studies.”

“And then it will be allowed?”

I nodded. “Indeed, no one—not even his neighbors—would bear us ill will.”

“A most unusual place, sister.” She bit her lip, thoughts racing behind her expressive eyes. “I must think on this idea.”

“Let us not talk of me.” I smiled with encouragement. “Tell me of your life.”

“I have but a few months left on my indenture. Mrs. Eton will release me on my seventeenth birthday.”

A fact I already knew—yet I displayed the most profound surprise. “So early? How generous! What will you do after?”

“I hope to work for a seamstress and work on beautiful gowns.” She rose to gaze out the window. I stood too and followed the direction she looked. There was the Eton house, ablaze with candlelight. “Earlier today, when the carriage rolled up and I departed, that was my mistress returning with two of her children.” Her voice grew wistful. “They were accompanied by Miss Margaret—she is Mr. Eton’s sister’s stepdaughter. She is to have a lovely new frock for her birthday ball. I have glimpsed the gown. It is…”

“Snow white from neckline to hem, embroidered with whitework fleur-de-lis, enjoying a train.”

“Indeed, that is precisely how I would describe it. Have you seen this gown?”

I yielded to a naughty urge. “Where I live, that style is too common to be distinctive.”

“You have moved to a wondrous place, sister. It is no surprise you do not wish to return here.” She linked her arm through mine and stared out into the peace of the night.

* * *

We slept on a pallet meant for one. Across the room, Letty stirred fretfully. I suspected my presence was to blame. Letty had been confused by Phoebe’s quick, vague explanation.

The other girl arose before dawn and began her day. Phoebe, as the senior housemaid, could claim an extra thirty minutes of sleep. She did not rest this day. We rose, donned our gowns, and stood before the tiny oval mirror that made a pitiful adornment on the wall above the washstand.

“Here, let me dress your hair,” I said, taking the comb from her. I pulled her locks into a golden plait before pinning it neatly at the back of her head.

Silently, she did me the same favor. When the work was done, Phoebe moaned a sob, and quickly cut it off.

“Please do not cry,” I said.

“We shall soon say our final goodbyes.” She made her statement with certainty.

There was no use in denying what we both knew to be true. “You will never be far from my heart.”

“Can you write me?”

I shook my head, unable to speak the response that would cause her such hopeless grief.

“I hate what Mr. Pratt’s actions have done to us. Without him, we could be together. We could be a family still.”

“Do not say hate. Mr. Pratt deserves no emotion from us except contempt.”

“He must have done horrible things to you, sister, to make what has come afterward worth the pain.” She covered her mouth with her hand and whispered, “I did not know, Susie. I am sorry.”

“Keeping you safe from him is worth the sacrifice. I regret nothing.”

She nodded, dabbed her face with her apron, and then smiled, wobbly but sweet. “Oh, sister, my chores await me. I shall stop in the kitchen, put together a packet of breakfast for you, and leave it in the garden.” She grasped the doorknob and turned it with a squeak. “You will find your meal on a bench near the rose bushes, midway between this building and the lane. Give me ten minutes and then go.”

“I love you, Phoebe,” I said, my voice cracking. “Do not forget.”

“Never.” Her smile widened. “I love you, dearest Susanna.” And she was gone.

I didn’t stay as directed. Instead, I crept from the kitchen building, retraced our route around the perimeter, and hid beneath the shelter of the willow. My sister burst from the kitchen moments later, ran first to the bench, and then down the brick steps leading to the basement, her white cap bobbing forever from view.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-E
IGHT

P
OTENTIAL
A
CCESS

Last night had been maddening. My parents had insisted on seeing the “place where Susanna lived.” Again. I’d taken them once before—and there was just as much nothing now, only it was darker at night.

We walked through the woods of Umstead Park with flashlights, before emerging into the meadow that held the crumbling foundations of the meetinghouse and store. I waited as they looked for clues that might lead us to where the village had gone. We found nothing useful other than a bit of litter that, of course, I knew hadn’t been left by the Pratts.

When we returned home, I was grilled for an hour, sitting at the kitchen table while they pounded me with questions. Mostly, I said “I don’t know,” which was true in this case. I didn’t know where Susanna was, although I could guess. I didn’t know when she would be back, and I didn’t know whether she was in imminent danger.

My mom had left abruptly, eyes shiny with tears. Were they tears of frustration? Tears of fear?

Yeah, I totally got that.

When I awakened this morning, I didn’t bother to follow my normal routine at all. No training. No preparing for school. It would be useless to go today. I wouldn’t be able to function until Susanna returned.

Both parents were out of the house by eight. Before I jogged down to the falls, I sent an email to Mr. Rainey that I was on a college visit. If I were lucky, he wouldn’t press too hard about which one or, even worse, ask my folks. I didn’t want to have another conversation with my parents about skipping school.

I reached Rocky Creek without thinking about what my plan was. I didn’t know where Susanna was. Probably with her sister, but where was Phoebe? Still with the Etons? That was most likely.

Much as I didn’t want to, I also needed to consider the possibility that she’d failed at whatever mission she was on. She could be injured somewhere. Or…

Nope, not going to think about this. I’d play it by ear. Standing on my launching rock, I studied the flow. It was clear. Normal.

“Are you going to let me through?” I let the water pour over my fingers. It was wet, dammit. I hadn’t planned out what I would’ve done on the other side, but it pissed me off that it hadn’t let me through.

“She came through here yesterday,” I said, drawing my hand back. “I know she did.”

Nothing. Nada.

Okay, I wouldn’t get mad. It was just a waterfall with an attitude. “Why won’t you let me through?”

Even more nothing.

All right, if it wasn’t going to let me through right now, I would wait. Until it changed its mind. Or until she came back.