Lake in the Clouds (21 page)

Then Liam pushed himself off the wall and started across the room fast; Nathaniel caught the flash of Hannah’s skirt as she disappeared around the corner into the hall.

The fiddles stopped with a flourish and the voices came up clear and sharp to fill the silence:
wait now.
And Hannah’s, as sharp as he had ever heard it:
nothing more to say.
The whole room was turned toward those voices, knowing smiles and troubled ones. Jemima Southern’s mouth clamped down like a vise, her arms wrapped around herself. Then the slam of a door, and silence.

“Perhaps—” began Elizabeth, but he squeezed her hand, harder than he meant to.

“She can take care of herself, Boots. You’re always telling me so.”

“But he followed her into the kitchen.” And then, when his expression did not change, she tugged harder at his hand. “It’s not Hannah I’m worried for, it’s Liam. Curiosity is in the kitchen, or have you forgotten?”

The air in the kitchen was warm and heavy sweet with cooking sugar, bright with the hearth fire reflected in the pans that hung from the rafters. A mob of children—most of them Elizabeth’s students—stood motionless, arms bared to the elbow and shiny with butter, hands filled with warm taffy. Daniel came over to stand between his parents with Lily close behind, but every other pair of eyes was fixed on the adults who stood in the middle of the room: Liam, Hannah, and Curiosity.

Elizabeth believed that she had seen Curiosity in every shade of joy and anger over the years, and saw now that she was mistaken. The older woman was angry, yes, that was plain from the way she stood with fists on hips, her shoulders thrust forward. But there was a bitterness in the curve of her mouth and the set of her head, and it said more than any words how badly Liam Kirby had disappointed her.

Liam stood in front of her with his arms at his sides, all the fight taken out of him. He seemed to have forgotten Hannah and everybody else, fixed in place by Curiosity’s force of will; she might pull out a gun to shoot him, and he wouldn’t be able to move.

Without looking in their direction Curiosity said, “Children, take that taffy out in the hall and keep pulling. And Nathaniel, shut the door behind them if you plan on staying. Don’ need all of Paradise listening to what I got to say.”

“I’m not going,” said Daniel.

“Me either,” said Lily.

“That’s right,” said Curiosity. “This your business too.”

“Curiosity—” Liam began, but she cut him off.

“You be quiet, now. All week you been staying clear of me, but you in my kitchen now and I’ma say my piece.”

The rest of the children left reluctantly, casting longing
glances back at the scene in the middle of the room. Ethan paused to say a word to Daniel, and then he left quietly and closed the door behind himself.

Curiosity was looking Liam up and down, her jaw working hard.

“You and me, we spent a lot of time right here in this kitchen when you was a boy, as I know you recall,” she started in a slow, clear voice. “When your brother didn’t think to feed you, that door there was always open, like it was when you needed a place to sleep or when you was hurt. Ain’t that so?”

Liam’s wary gaze moved to Hannah, and then back again to Curiosity. He nodded. “That’s so.”

“Now as I recollect, you was a good boy, Liam Kirby. Billy did his best to turn you, but you had something inside you that knew better. Or so I thought.”

Liam flushed to the very tips of his ears. “My brother ain’t no business of yours.” And he flinched as Curiosity stepped closer to him, and as if he expected to get his ears boxed.

“Billy got everything to do with you and me and these folks too. The time has come for plain talk. You know deep in your heart that he was a worthless excuse for a man. The things he done—” She looked at Hannah, and her face contorted with anger. “The man lived and breathed to cause hurt to folks who never did him no harm. And you yourself was one of them, boy. Maybe you don’t like to think about it, but none of us have forgot the things he done to you.”

“But—”

“Never mind your buts, you listen. Will you stand there and tell me you don’t remember the night he burned down the schoolhouse? We almost lost Hannah, and we buried Julian, but when I dream about that night what I see is what your brother done to you. I have seen some sorry things in my time, but I ain’t ever saw a child hurt so bad by his own kin. Billy beat you till your bones broke, and when he did that he crossed the line. He was lost for good.”

She paused to draw a deep breath.

“Maybe you like to think you forgot that night or put it behind you, but I know you ain’t. Just ain’t possible to let go of something like that. So let me remind you, boy, and this is something you dursn’t forget: these good people saved your life that night, and they took you into their home. They don’t
owe you nothing, and neither do I, but I got something for you all the same. Now you listen.

“The day your brother died the good Lord was looking out for you. He took Billy out of your life so you would have a chance to grow into a decent man. But you took that opportunity the Lord gave you, and you pissed on it.”

Elizabeth saw Hannah startle. Both the twins shifted backward to lean harder against Elizabeth, but neither of them turned their faces away.

Curiosity’s voice had gone hoarse. “Don’t know what you been doing since you left Paradise. Don’t doubt you swallowed down your share of sorrow. I see that in your face. But there just ain’t no excuse for the way you earn your living. When you was a boy you sat in this kitchen and ate the food I put in front of you and now you out there in the world hunting down human beings and putting them in chains. Because you don’t like the color of they skin, black just like mine. Your brother would be proud of you, Liam Kirby, but when I look at you all I see is pure waste, and it disgust me.”

Curiosity’s voice had dropped to a harsh whisper, but her words hung in the air just the same. Liam swallowed hard, all the muscles in his throat convulsing. “You finished?”

“I ain’t, not yet. Just one more thing I got to say. I hear told that you got you a wife. Is that true?”

He swallowed again. “Yes.”

“Then you best leave our Hannah alone. She has told you clear as bells that she don’t want nothing to do with you. You go on home to that wife of yours and leave us alone to mourn the boy we used to know. Don’t see nothing left of him in you.”

The expression on Liam’s face reminded Elizabeth of old Mistress Glove, who had lived through a scalping.
Don’t miss my hair none,
she had said, running bent and swollen fingers over her scarred scalp.
There’s worse things to lose in this life than a little flesh and blood.
Curiosity had taken something from Liam that was gone for good, something beyond flesh and blood. Everything she had said was true and right, but they all were swaying with the shock of it, just like Liam.

“I’ll be on my way and I won’t bother you again,” he said, his voice cracking softly. “But I need to talk to Hannah, just for ten minutes. If she’d be so kind.”

“She’s standing right here,” said Curiosity. She turned to
Hannah and her expression softened. “Are you willing to talk to Liam, child? You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

Hannah’s gaze shifted to Elizabeth and hesitated. There was a question written clearly on her face, but it was Nathaniel who answered.

He said, “You must follow your heart, Walks-Ahead.” He said it in Kahnyen’kehàka, and he used her woman-name for the first time. To make her hear, to make the answer as clear as the question she had not put into words.

Hannah’s shoulders sagged just for a moment and then straightened. She nodded.

“Outside,” she said. “I will talk to you outside.”

They walked away from the house into the trees, walked until they could be sure that no one had followed them. Through open windows the sound of fiddle music still came to them, rising and falling with the breeze.

Hannah pulled her cloak tighter around herself and shivered in the damp cold. The rain had stopped and the sky was mostly clear, enough moon and starlight to make out their shadows. She could taste ice on the wind. “A frost coming,” she said. “Maybe snow.”

The first words she had said since they left the kitchen. All the terrible things she had imagined saying to him, and now she could think of nothing more to talk about than the weather. But then there was no need anymore; it had all been said. Curiosity had used the truth like a knife, cut into him as neat and quick as any surgeon. How deep she had cut, what good it would do, that Hannah didn’t know. Some folks seemed to hold on tightest to the thing that hurt them worst; she had seen that before, and she knew she would see it again.

She could feel him searching for his own words, weighing them carefully. He would not speak until he was sure of himself; she remembered that about him, and Hannah realized something she hadn’t been able to see before through her anger. This man was a stranger to her in so many ways, but other things, important things, had not changed. Curiosity could find nothing of the boy Liam had been in the man he had become, but he was there, some part of him. That gave her courage, and she raised her face to look at him, making out the line of his jaw and forehead in the faint light of the moon.

Without turning his head, he said, “There’s two things I need to say. First off, there’s men down in the city who are thinking hard about arresting Manny Freeman. They got this idea that he’s been helping runaways move north and they’re just looking for an excuse to hang him. Won’t need much of one either.”

Hannah drew in a sharp breath, but he didn’t stop.

“I meant to tell Galileo, but then I don’t know if he’d believe me. You’re on your way to the city; I thought maybe you could have a talk with Manny. Tell him to step careful. Tell him, it wasn’t just luck that took Vaark to the Newburgh dock. Will you do that?”

“Yes.” Hannah put a hand to her forehead and rubbed hard, trying to get hold of her thoughts. Manny Freeman was in danger; Liam Kirby had just saved his life. Ten minutes ago he had stood in front of Curiosity and took the worst she had to offer without defending himself or making excuses. He might have stopped her with this news; he could have used it like coin. Such valuable information about her son’s well-being was the one thing that might have gained Curiosity’s forgiveness, made her look beyond her anger and disappointment to see that there was some hope for this man.

Worse still, Liam had tied her own hands. She could not go to Curiosity and Galileo and tell them about this good thing he had done for them. Not until she could also tell them that Manny had been warned, and was safe. Liam had laid this responsibility on her shoulders, and she had no choice but to accept it. She would reap what he had sowed.

Unless it was too late already. Unless Liam had left the telling of this until it was too late to do Manny any good. Hannah pushed that thought away; as bad as Liam had shown himself to be, she couldn’t believe that of him.

He was watching her face, his own expression unreadable. “The second thing is, that man Vaark that got a knife in his throat on the docks, does that name mean anything to you?”

“No,” whispered Hannah. “Should it?”

He shrugged. “He was Ambrose Dye’s brother-in-law. That means the runaway I’m after is the property of Vaark’s widow, who happens to be Dye’s sister. I gave him that news not an hour ago, and it sure got his attention.”

“I can imagine it did. What else did you tell him?”

Liam was silent for a long time. “Nothing,” he said finally. “Nothing but the truth, that my dogs lost her scent some days ago. But I expect he’ll want to come with me now when I go into the bush, or he’ll set off on his own. He was a blackbirder himself, some years back, and a good one. Now you take that information and do as you please with it. I’ve had my say, and now I’ll be gone.”

“Wait.” Hannah reached out to touch him and then pulled her hand back. He was turned away from her; she could see the muscle fluttering in his cheek like a trapped bird.

She said, “You came to Paradise to warn them about Manny.”

“No,” he said sharply.

“Yes. Yes, you did. Why not admit it?”

He shot her a flash of irritation as hot as a lightning strike. “Have it your way.”

“And you came to see me.”

Liam rounded on her, shaking with fury. “I’m a blackbirder,” he said. “I track down runaways for profit and I drag them back to the city. I’m good at it. Six in the last year. They cry and beg and I don’t listen. I take them back to beatings and worse, and I collect my money and walk away before the whipping starts. That’s why I’m here, on the trail of the woman you’ve got hid on the mountain. That’s the only reason I’m here.”

Something sparked in Hannah, an anger she had been holding on to so tightly that she didn’t know its strength until she let it go. “You’re lying. You wrote me a letter, you came to find me. You’re standing here with me now, Liam Kirby, when you could have told my father about Manny, or Elizabeth, or Hawkeye. You’re standing here with me because you came to say something. So say it. Did you want to tell me about the girl you married? Is that it? What’s her name, Liam, you’ve never once said her name.”

He leaned over her and grasped her arms, his grip hard and desperate.

“Goddamn you for a witch. Yes, I came to see you.” His harsh voice, the warmth of his breath against her mouth; Hannah wanted to close her eyes, but she could not look away from his face.

“I came to tell you I should have stayed on the mountain, that I should have waited.”

“But you didn’t.” Her voice sounded flat to her own ears. “You didn’t wait. And now it’s too late.”

He shuddered and pulled her closer, opened his mouth to speak and then closed it. He had no denial to offer her, no explanation, no excuse. And there on his face was the proof that Curiosity hadn’t cut deep enough, hadn’t been able to reach the thing inside him that he couldn’t say, was afraid to say out loud because to do that would be to make it real. Hannah could feel it there, rising up just below his skin, could feel the shape of what stood between them: the girl he had married. Sophie or Jane, Mary or Julia, with blue eyes or green, hair as red as his own, or blond or the color of the earth. Any color but black. She was waiting for him now, waiting for the sound of his step on the porch, waiting in front of the hearth where she cooked his meals, where she nursed his child, sewed his shirts, the girl who was raised to those chores and who cared for no other life or work of her own. A girl content to wait; a white girl.