The Girl in a Coma (4 page)

Six

Rebecca

The very handsome Edward de Vere called on Rebecca in the morning at Cabin 27. He had washed up and brushed so much dirt off his uniform it looked almost clean. Rebecca had already eaten a breakfast of bread and beans. She was sitting with some women and a few kids by the fire outside, watching the tea water boil and chatting.

“You've settled right in,” he said when she stood up to greet him.

She smiled shyly as he walked over to one of the older women and leaned down to kiss her on the cheek. She was the same woman he had left her with the previous night. Her name was Madge. She had helped Rebecca get cleaned up.

“What do you think?” the young man asked Rebecca. He spread his arms slowly in front of him to take in the whole camp. It was a city of sticks and mud. He was proud of it.

“There are more than twelve thousand of us,” he said. “Nearly a thousand women. You look surprised. They are known as the Camp Follower Brigade.”

He winked at Madge.

Rebecca blushed.

“Yes,” he said, responding to Rebecca's embarrassment. “Some of the women are prostitutes.”

Rebecca was not very worldly. She wasn't exactly sure what
prostitutes
were, but she thought they must be like whores in the Bible.

“And there are scavengers,” he continued. “Women who crawl out into the battlefield and bring back valuable weapons from the dead.”

She couldn't imagine a more terrible job.

“There are cooks and the women who mend clothes. There are sisters and wives and daughters. There are mothers.”

Edward de Vere stopped talking and walked back over to Madge, a handsome woman dressed in clothes that had been worn and washed so often they were little more than rags. He put his hand on her shoulder and said proudly:

“Madge de Vere is my mother.”

Rebecca was stunned. Madge looked poorer than a beggar woman. But she had a broad smile, good teeth, and her eyes flashed when she talked.

“Now then,” said Edward,“here comes my boss. I'll have to be going to do drills and practice fighting but I'll come back early this evening. We'll walk about the camp and find your lost young fellow.”

A man of medium build wearing a strange gray uniform came over to them and bowed formally.

After Edward de Vere presented Rebecca, the man bowed again.

“I am Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, acting inspector general of the Continental Army. I am German, like you,
Fräulein
Rebecca Haun, and it is much my honor your acquaintance to make.”

Rebecca had not ever thought of herself as German. She had been born in Lancaster County. She was British and she was Mennonite. She was what they called “Pennsylvania Dutch.”

The man in the unusual uniform bowed to her a third time and turned away.

“Come, Edward, we must to work, to work. Good day to you,
Fräulein
Haun, good day,
Frau
de Vere.” He gave Madge an informal salute.

When Edward and Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben disappeared among the rows of cabins, Rebecca turned to Madge.

“And just who is he, when he's not being a very fine gentleman?”

“Oh, a gentleman, he is,
Fräulein
Haun. He is the second most powerful man among us and a good friend of Frederick the Great, the King of Prussia. He's here to make soldiers of farm boys and storekeepers. He doesn't mind getting down in the mud, unlike some other officers I could name.”

“Really?” Rebecca had never met a baron who knew a king. She had never talked to an officer before meeting Edward, not even a British officer at the garrison near Warwick. Only the private and corporal who came looking for Jacob.

“Even though he doesn't speak English so well, he is very smart,” Madge continued. “And they say in battle, he is a bloodthirsty villain. You want him on your side, for sure.”

“And what about Edward, is he a bloodthirsty villain?”

“Edward is a terrifying soldier in battle, I'm told. Her real name is Edwina. She is my only daughter.”

Rebecca's mouth hung open like a flytrap.

What kind of a world had she come to?

Allison

Last night I woke up and he was standing so close I could feel the air move from his breathing. It's like he's haunting me, only he's real and I'm the ghost.

He watches me while I lie here, imitating a vegetable.

If I batted an eyelid, I bet he'd freak. I know I would.

I heard a clicking sound just after he arrived, like he was flipping open a smart phone or something. I wonder if he's taking my picture.

Now that's a scary thought.

Really. It is.

Sometimes, I think I can feel my eyelids. I can't focus on any other part of my body. It's like I'm a blob of jelly in the shape of a girl. A woman. A pretty woman. I wonder if I'm still pretty, with a hole in my head? With tubes going in and out?

There must be tubes. I don't eat or drink and I don't poop or pee, so there must be tubes.

I think I can tell where my eyelids are. I can't make them move or anything. But at least I'm making progress. Yeah, well, potatoes have eyes.

That's another joke.

David always laughs at my jokes. He did.

Life with our mother wasn't the most cheerful thing in the world. She tends to feel sorry for herself a lot. Like, all the time. She works as a receptionist for a plumbing contractor called Dripless. She watches television. She gave up having friends after my dad went away.

Me, I'm sociable, I used to have friends. But let's face it, what's the point of coming in to visit a vegetable? So they don't.

Anyway, I wanted to fall asleep again but it seemed impossible, knowing the creep was still watching me. I wonder if he can tell when I'm asleep and when I'm awake?

I wonder if anyone can tell the difference?

Back to Rebecca: If I thought she was going to give up on Jacob and fall in love with the handsome soldier, Edward de Vere, I was on the wrong track. I mean, no one was more surprised than me to find out Edward was Edwina, for glory's sake.

Somebody once told me about women soldiers in the olden days disguising themselves as men. Maybe it was Mrs. Muratori in history class. She taught me both English and history, but in different grades.

Lots of soldiers and sailors back then were in their mid-teens. They seldom bathed or changed their clothes. If their voices were soft, it was because they were young, not because they were secretly growing boobs under their shirts.

And women can fight. We can be fierce. Just ask the former boyfriend whose name I will never say again in my entire life. He's got a crooked nose to prove that it is not nice to hit women. They might hit you back.

Rebecca

It wasn't that difficult to track down a young Mennonite recruit. Before nightfall, Edward de Vere and Rebecca strolled along an avenue of mud to an intersection with signs. One sign pointed to the east: New York. One pointed to the South: Richmond. One pointed to the west: Ohio. One pointed to the north. It said New France but that was stroked out and someone had scrawled North Pole.

“That's so we know where we are in the world,” said Edward de Vere, laughing. As usual, his face was smeared with dirt. Now Rebecca understood why. As long as it was smudged, no one would know that the young officer never needed to shave.

Rebecca still thought of him by his man's name, not as Edwina. Rebecca wondered if the other soldiers knew. They probably did, but it didn't matter. Edwina was a soldier and she was fierce. They would fight side by side with her to the death.

At the intersection, Rebecca and Edwina turned south and walked along to the third cabin. Several men were sitting out front, smoking and staring into the flames of a roaring fire.

Jacob Shantz was among them. He saw them coming and stood up. His blue uniform was still clean. His cheeks flared bright red. He smiled at Rebecca and grasped her hand.

The only time they had ever touched before was when they kissed goodbye.

He was pleased to see her but confused. The Mennonite world he had left behind must have seemed very distant.

“How are you, Becky?” he asked.

He had never before called her Becky. Only girls at school and her sisters called her that. To boys and men and grown-up women, she was Rebecca, as God had intended.

“How are you, Jacob?”

“Quite well, thank you.”

They were very formal.

Edward, or Edwina, backed away.

“Well,” said Jacob Shantz, “it is good you have decided to join the Revolution. I see you have found a young gentleman to look after you.”

Rebecca was confused.

“No, this is my friend.”

She introduced Edward de Vere, who stepped forward to return Jacob's salute.

“Captain de Vere, I am honored, very much,” said Jacob, flustered at being in conversation with an officer.

Rebecca had no idea what being a captain meant, although she assumed that Edward de Vere was important.

“Where's Bess?” she asked Jacob. She could think of nothing else to say.

“I don't know any Bess.”

“Your big gray mare.”

“Old Bess? She's still in the barn, I imagine. Or out in the fields, doing spring plowing with Noah behind her, flicking his whip.”

“Jacob, you don't know?”

“What don't I know? A lot I suppose. But I'm willing to learn.”

“Your father?”

“Damn my father,” he said with a snarl.

She had never heard Jacob swear. She had never heard anyone swear. She cringed a little, fearing God might strike them both dead.

But God struck neither of them.

Before she could warn Jacob that he was wanted for murder, she realized it made no difference. No one would find him here. He was a soldier, now, swept up in historical events. She decided not to tell him his father was dead. It would only confuse him. She decided not to tell him about Old Bess. It would make him unhappy.

“It is good to see you, Jacob.”

“It is also good to see you, Rebecca.”

Edward de Vere spoke up to relieve the awkwardness. “Perhaps we had better go,” he said. “It will be dark soon, we should be getting back.”

“Goodbye, Jacob,” Rebecca said.

She was surprised they had nothing more to say. The past slipped away as she searched his eyes and found no connection. The boy she had gone to school with, the man she had intended to marry, he no longer existed. The boy had been displaced by a young soldier with a florid face who showed not the slightest curiosity or imagination about why she was really there.

For a brief moment she was confused, then she smiled. She leaned forward and kissed Jacob on the cheek. He turned brilliant red. She turned to her escort and nodded to say she was ready to leave.

As they walked back to the women's cabin that she shared with Madge de Vere, Rebecca took Edward's arm to keep from slipping in the mud.

She gazed straight ahead.

She refused to cry.

Seven

Allison

When I rise up and walk out of this hospital, I will become a vegan. I identify with vegetables. I will eat
only
vegetables. Or fruits and grains and nuts. When I open my restaurant, no meat. Nothing with a face. Nothing with a mother. Nothing dead.

The truth is, lying here like a slab on a platter turns me off meat.

So what! Surely you've got better things to think about, Allison Briscoe.

You're getting stupid. If you let your mind wander, you'll wander in circles, off the cliff, into the deep end, over the edge, whatever.

I've got to get my mind working. Logically, rationally.

I'm in charge of how I think. I'm in charge of what I feel.

Just thinking that, I feel better.

Today David told me about something mysterious they'd learned in history class. There's nothing like a good mystery to get the mind thinking.

They got their teacher talking about buried treasure.

It's on Oak Island in Nova Scotia, just over from Maine. No one has been able to reach it. There's a pulley on a tree at the top of a deep shaft with layers of stones and logs going down over a hundred feet. Six men have drowned or suffocated when the hole caved in or flooded while they were digging. No one has reached the bottom. Drills have dug up bits of gold and Spanish doubloons. It's pirate treasure, they say. It was buried by Blackbeard. Or maybe it belonged to the French government when they still controlled the area. Some say it belonged to a secret club called the Freemasons. Some have suggested it was part of the American treasury.

I like the Blackbeard version best. He was the most famous pirate in the world before Jack Sparrow.

It's hard to beat a mystery about buried treasure that people die trying to reach. When I get out of here, maybe I'll go down to Nova Scotia and see Oak Island. It's just offshore, there's a bridge. David's teacher has been there. He says the island is cursed and it's haunted. He's a teacher—he shouldn't be talking like that. Unless he believes it. Unless it's true.

David's story grabbed my attention but I have a mystery or two much closer at hand. I have murder to deal with.

There's Noah Shantz. He may have been an unholy terror but he didn't deserve to be clubbed to death. A good beating would have been enough. I need to stay close to Rebecca to find out who killed him.

And there's another attempted murder, even more pressing. My own. Let's start with me.

I've been thinking a lot, but I've been on the wrong track. I've been wondering
who
, instead of
why
. Why would anyone hate me so much that he'd want me dead?

I don't know. I've come up against a brick wall.
Why
would someone want me dead? Why me? Why dead?

There must be a motive that connects me with the shooter.

In fifteen years I've done some bad stuff, I suppose. Like pounding
what's-his-face
until he cried. But it wasn't him who shot me. I'd recognize him with my eyes closed.

Is that a joke? I mean, they won't open.

Anyway, he left town. Peterborough wasn't big enough for the two of us. He moved to Lakefield or Toronto.

Don't know, don't care.

What else have I done that's really bad? Bad enough to be killed for? Well, why do people murder people?

Out of anger. I don't go around making people mad at me.

For jealousy. Come on, who'd be jealous of me and Jaimie Retzinger?

For money, then. Yeah, the big insurance payoff. Jackpot!

What about mistaken identity? I repeat, what about mistaken identity?

But no, he drove his blue Chevy close beside me before pulling ahead and stopping. I guess the cops don't know it was a blue Chevy. I mean, they couldn't find out from me, could they? There was fresh snow on the ground. It was bright. I was standing under a streetlight. He knew exactly whose head he was shooting at. I heard a shout before he fired. Was the guy in the car trying to stop him? I remember grabbing the bear spray. With the other hand I clutched the silver medallion hanging on a chain around my neck. It's what they call a talisman, a good-luck charm and family heirloom. It has been in my family for generations. But good luck? Good glory, I was shot in the head.

And yet, like…wait, good luck for sure: I'm not dead. And I'm dreaming of ancestors as if they were real. Well, they were, of course. My wounded brain is awash in remembering blood.

What about revenge?

Good. We're back to square one. What did I do to deserve to be shot?

Maybe I'll do better thinking about Rebecca and Noah Shantz.

She's convinced Jacob didn't take Old Bess. But Old Bess went missing. So where did she go? Jacob doesn't understand that Rebecca came to warn him about being wanted for murder. But it turns out he's well hidden in plain sight. He doesn't even know his father is dead.

She's just someone from home who joined the Revolution. Since he turned his back on his Mennonite brethren, it doesn't surprise him that she could do the same. It seems he's not the sharpest knife in the box. More like a spoon.

I feel myself drifting into sleep. I know my midnight stalker is watching. What's he looking for? Does he know what I did to get myself shot? Does he know
why
he did it—if it was him? Who else? There could be a conspiracy, a horde of villains determined to eliminate Allison Briscoe. I doubt it, but who knows? Glory, glory, I'm safer asleep. Good night, Allison. Sleep tight.

Rebecca

Rebecca lay on her straw mattress, staring up into the rafters. It was still dark outside, but bright enough with the new moon that a few chinks of light shone through the boards in the gables, between the logs and the sloped roof. She refused to sob but she couldn't hold the tears back. She could feel them burning her cheeks and soaking her pillow.

Now she understood the kiss, the one beside the church. Jacob was saying goodbye to the world he had grown up in. She had been the best thing in that world, just like his father was the worst thing. It was not because she was extra special. It was because she was pretty and kind and smiled at him whenever their eyes met.

It was not about romance. Coming to school must have been a relief for Jacob from the horrors of home. Sitting across the aisle from her had been the best part of his day.

It made her happy to know this, in spite of being sad.

She felt very old and very young at the same time. She knew that whatever love between a man and a woman was, Jacob had not been in love. Neither had she. They might have got married and had children and lived long lives, but they would never have been in love.

A warm hand came to rest on her forehead. It was Madge de Vere, Edward's mother. Rebecca felt a calmness sweep over her. She fell asleep, almost happy.

In the morning, Madge took her around and introduced her to a woman who put her to work sewing. Her job was to stitch up the blue jackets and the brown pants of the soldiers. Sometimes, the men wrapped themselves in blankets and waited while she sewed. Some of the men flirted with her.

She was always cheerful but she didn't have any idea how to flirt. She just smiled her sweet smile and lowered her eyes and dozens of young men fell in love with her.

Not Jacob Shantz.

She never saw him again in her life.

She was told he died of typhoid fever. The first week, a bloody nose; the second week, delirium; the third week, intense pains in his gut. Before he had been at Valley Forge for a month, he was dead.

He had just turned sixteen.

Captain de Vere came to tell her. It was the morning of May 6, 1778.

Together, they visited his fresh grave. It was one among many. The cemetery was close to a stand of tall maple trees with bright green leaves just beginning to unfurl. The old soldiers who cared for the graves were tapping some of the trees to make syrup. The real maple syrup season was over but there was still a bit of a flow. She could smell the sweet smoke from the fires where they were boiling down the sap.

“He didn't have immunity,” de Vere explained.

She didn't know what that meant.

“His system was weak.”

“No, he was very strong.”

“But his body wasn't used to being sick.”

“There is not much sickness among the Plain People.”

“And perhaps that was his problem. Our insides build up immunity. It's like scar tissue. Each time we're sick and recover, we're a little bit tougher.”

“But I didn't get the fevers and I grew up just like him.”

“Then you're very lucky, Rebecca.”

Captain de Vere stood back while Rebecca kneeled down beside Jacob's grave and prayed to her God to love and forgive him.

Theirs was a stern God but she thought Jacob deserved His love.

When she stood up, she removed her black bonnet with the white trim. She set it on top of his grave. She was not angry at God but she knew she was no longer a Mennonite.

She wasn't sure about anything else.

Captain de Vere returned her to the sewing room in one of the cabins. Rebecca still thought of him as a handsome young man, even though she knew he was a girl only a few years older than herself. If the Continental Army of George Washington accepted Edwina as a gentleman officer, then that's what she was!

“Don't forget to come down to The Grand Parade,” he said before leaving her.

“I don't feel very much like a party, Captain.”

“It might be just what you need,
Fräulein
.”

“Will I see you out there on the field, marching and saluting?”

“You will, and ten thousand more just like me. The French have joined our cause and Baron von Steuben has declared a military holiday.”

“A military holiday? What's that?”

“We fire our cannons and our muskets in a
feu de joie
. That's French for ‘fire of joy.' It will be spectacular, I promise.”

“I don't like guns.”

“Then you're in a funny place, aren't you?” Edward de Vere grinned.

Rebecca smiled shyly.

“And,” said de Vere, “you'll get to meet my older brother, William.”

Edwina de Vere was full of surprises.

She wondered what her brother Christian would think of her now!

“William has been in the hospital in Virginia. He was wounded but he's recovered nicely. Come along with Madge to the celebrations. She'll make sure you meet him. He's a handsome devil.”

“I won't meet the Devil, Captain de Vere, handsome or otherwise,” she snapped back, suddenly not at all shy.

But after a morning's work she was excited. She looked forward to joining Madge on the big field known as The Grand Parade.