SelfSame (3 page)

Sorcha frowned. “Nothing, I guess. Thought I’d check just in case. That’s where I really wanted to go.” She pointed to a thin, overgrown path that led away from the museum, up the rocky slope, and disappeared somewhere behind the condos.

“You don’t want to go up there.” The voice came from behind and both girls whirled around. Ben stood there, shoulder-length hair blown back from the wind of his bike ride.

“Why not?” Sorcha met his eyes, challenging.

“Well, it’s private property for one thing. Plus, there’s a homeless old Indian dude who camps out up there every winter.”

The girls exchanged a startled look before Sorcha turned back and lifted her chin. “How do you know?”

“He’s my uncle.”

“I thought your uncle was in jail,” Paula said.

“Different uncle.” His head tilted to the side. “Oh, hey, you’re Paula, right? You gave Loony a ride this morning.”

‘Loony’ must be his sister Luanne’s nickname. “Yeah,” Paula said. “This is Sorcha.”

Ben’s dark eyes lingered on Sorcha’s face for only a moment. He didn’t say anything; just pushed his bike over to the museum entrance ramp, wrapped the chain around one of the posts and clicked the lock. With his backpack slung over one shoulder, he strode past them up the narrow path. He’d walked ten yards or so before looking back. “You coming?”

Sorcha and Paula exchanged another look, more alarmed than the first, but Sorcha couldn’t afford to hesitate. She followed him, skipping a little to catch up. Paula brought up the rear.

Ben didn’t chit-chat on the hike up the rocky hillside and for that Sorcha was grateful. The déjà vu she’d been plagued with all day was back in full force. Her surroundings were far from identical, but her inner perspective kept shifting to Enid’s memories of the ride on Jedediah’s mare; the jolting and the odors and the apprehension. When they reached the top, Ben turned to her and that eyebrow of his disappeared into his hair.

“You okay?”

She consciously relaxed her face, knowing she’d been sneering in distaste at the memory of being close to Jedediah. “Yeah, fine.”

“You look like you’re gonna yak.”

Sorcha felt Paula’s hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged it off and moved past Ben to stare at the landscape. Her feet moved practically of their own accord, one step after another until she was standing where the cabin had been. In her mind’s eye, she saw the headstone through the window.

In her peripheral consciousness, she heard Ben ask Paula, “What’s she looking at?”

There was nothing to look at: the ground was completely bare, not even an outline of the cabin’s frame remained. Sorcha walked on, straight through the invisible walls out across the rocky, packed dirt with its patches of dying grass. When she reached general area where the headstone had been, she began kicking at the ground with the toe of her boot.

“What the hell’s going on?” Ben asked. “Sorcha.”

It was the first time he’d said her name and for some reason it broke through her trance. She looked at him and took a deep breath that came out in a heavy sigh. “I’m searching for a gravestone.”

His head went back in surprise. Paula shot her a warning look.

Ben spread his hands as his lips twisted in a sardonic smile. “I’ve lived here my whole life and haven’t ever seen a gravestone. If you want, we can ask my Uncle Harry. He’s gotta be around here somewhere.”

Disappointment swept over her. “It was stupid to come here,” she said. “Let’s go.”

She stalked past Ben and Paula on numb legs, only her determination and the steepness of the path compelling her forward.

Enid

The transition from sleep to wakefulness was as seamless as ever with one exception: Enid’s morning was marred by the sensation of being shaken roughly. Her eyes opened to Aggie’s worried face and the words, “Wake up, Miss. Wake up!”

Enid pushed the slave girl away and sat upright. “What is it?”

“Ye wouldn’t wake. It’s like ye was dead!”

“Yes, yes. I wake when I wake, and you’d do well to remember that.” Enid spoke more sharply than she intended, but Aggie’s urgency curled her empty stomach into a ball of dread. “What’s wrong?”

“Yer father, Miss. Soldiers came to the door last night and took him off! And the old lady – she’s in a bad way.”

Enid threw the covers back and rushed out of the room, her bare feet thumping down the narrow hallway to Elizabeth’s small room. Her grandmother was in bed, but her upper body was hanging halfway off the straw mattress, face down. For a horrified moment, Enid thought she was dead, but then her frail body began to shake as she coughed. A thin drizzle of crimson spittle hovered over the already bloodstained wooden floor. Elizabeth was feebly gasping for breath between each cough.

Enid did what she always did when her grandmother was taken by a fit. She snatched her homemade cotton face mask from the mantle and quickly fastened it over her nose and mouth. The fire had died down; she tossed a log and some sticks on and added water to the kettle that normally filled the room with steam. The bottle of medicinal elixir she’d concocted from honey mead and herbs from the garden was almost empty, but she lifted Elizabeth’s torso, wiped her mouth with the bed sheet, and coaxed her into drinking the rest of it.

Enid supported her grandmother as her painfully thin body contracted into another spasm, patting her on the back to encourage the phlegm to rise. Elizabeth’s nightgown and bedclothes were soaked from night sweats and Enid barked at Aggie to get fresh linens while she gently removed the soiled garments. With the slave girl’s help, she managed to make her grandmother as comfortable as she could.

“Thank you, Aggie,” she said. “I’m sorry I was cross.”

Aggie’s dark eyes dropped to the floor as she backed out of the room. “Yes, Miss.”

Enid settled into the spindly chair next to the bed, the same chair Elizabeth had sat in when Enid was a child demanding to hear the story of her birth.

“It’s time,” Elizabeth said in a weak voice.

“Don’t talk,” Enid replied, fearful another coughing fit would result.

“Send for him now.”

Enid assumed she meant the pastor and her eyes filled with tears. She stood, but Elizabeth’s skeletal fingers reached for her. Enid took her grandmother’s hand between her own and held it to her breast, waiting. The whites of Elizabeth’s eyes were tinted yellow with streaks of red from vessels that had burst from the force of her coughing.

“Bear Talker,” she whispered. “Bring the medicine man.”

It was the last thing Enid expected her to say. Elizabeth had lived out the second half of her life as a devout Christian and was very involved with the church. Enid would have questioned her, but her grandmother fell into a doze, probably induced by the medicine Enid had learned how to make off the Internet in Sorcha’s world. She’d wanted to grow her own batch of mold to use as an antibiotic to cure the tuberculosis, but the process was far too advanced for the instruments available to her in the eighteenth century. All she’d been able to do was extend her grandmother’s life and make her more comfortable as she wasted away.

She went to her room and dressed as quickly as she could. Downstairs, Aggie handed her a bowl of porridge that she ate without tasting. Everyone knew the old medicine man lived in a longhouse outside the village. He was tolerated because he grew particularly fine tobacco in a secret location and traded it to the men for food and necessities.

“Who were the soldiers who took my father?” she asked.

Aggie shook her head. “I don’t know, Miss.”

“How many were there? What color were their uniforms?”

“Four, all on horseback, and they was dressed as men always is. They was muhlitia.”

“Militia?”

At Aggie’s nod, Enid looked for her father’s long rifle, normally mounted above the back door. It was gone.

She dropped her head in her hands. “This is bad.”

She wasn’t worried about him; her father wasn’t due to die for another decade. He was a staunch supporter of the rebellion and she knew from historical records that he would serve in several Revolutionary War campaigns – including the Battle of White Plains almost one hundred miles to the south, which, now that she thought about it, was going to happen any day now. In the back of her mind, she’d known this was coming, but thought her father would have at least prepared her for his leaving. Perhaps the local militia had coerced him into leaving so suddenly. It wasn’t as if he could wake her to tell her he was going, nor could he leave her a note: he could not read or write.

“Miss, I hear them say they was headed out to Mr. Jedediah’s place.”

“Did they take the horse?” She didn’t wait for an answer, but immediately muttered, “Of course they did.”

She hastily finished her porridge. She would be forced to walk to fetch the medicine man, but given her father’s lack of sympathy towards Elizabeth’s illness, she would likely have had to walk whether the horse was here or not. Her father had tolerated her grandmother’s presence only as long as the old woman had been useful. Elizabeth had long contributed to the household income with sales of her beautiful beadwork.

Enid wrapped her woolen shawl around her shoulders, but before she made it to the door, a timid knock sounded. On the stoop, to her utter dismay, stood Bess - with Jedediah’s children.

“Yer father sent us,” Bess said. Aggie leaped forward and threw her arms around the woman. The children showed the first emotion Enid had seen, letting out little cries of joy and hugging Aggie fiercely. Over Aggie’s head, Bess said, “There be trouble down south, and they’s gone to fight. We to stay here until they return.”

“Come in,” Enid said, masking her surprise with politeness. Until her father and Jedediah returned, she was mistress of the household. She turned to Aggie. “Put the children in my room. I’ll stay in Father’s, but the linens will need washing. I must go fetch the medicine man for my grandmother now. Please see to her comfort while I’m gone. Try to get her to eat.”

Aggie nodded.

It was cold out, bitterly so, but the sky was cloudless. Enid walked briskly, thinking of her grandmother and happier times. No matter how poor they’d been or how miserably her father had treated her, Elizabeth had been a bright spot in this life. Tears trickled out of her eyes and froze on her cheeks.

She skirted the village, following along a row of harvested corn through the Hornsby family’s southernmost field and trudging through the wide marshy meadow beyond. There was no path, so she kept an eye out for the landmark that would tell her she was close; a huge, weather-worn grey rock the size of a bus in Sorcha’s world. When she spotted the stone jutting up from its otherwise flat surroundings, she noticed as she got closer that cracks in the stone made a vague pattern, like the head of a bear with its mouth open wide.

By the time she reached the medicine man’s longhouse, the sun had heated the frigid air somewhat and the exercise had warmed her. From what her grandmother had told her, the longhouse had once been home to many people, but now, as far as Enid knew, the hermit occupied the large structure alone. Two mangy dogs began barking and rushed to within a few feet of her skirt. She froze in the path and stood very still, avoiding eye contact as they snarled at her, kicking up dust in their fury. A shout from within the structure sent the dogs scrabbling away as quickly as they’d arrived. A tall figure exited the longhouse and strode towards her, musket held casually in his left hand. He was dressed in a coarse linen tunic and pants, and his black hair, what little there was of it, stood straight up in a scalplock on the crown of his shaved head. He was either young enough to have no beard, or clean-shaven. As he got closer, she saw that his nose and ears were pierced with rings of silver. His brown eyes held no welcome.

He looked her up and down and must have mistaken her for an Indian because he said something in his language. Although she had picked up several Mahican words here and there, her father had forbidden Elizabeth from teaching Enid her mother’s native tongue. She shook her head and said, “I come to speak with Bear Talker.”

He just frowned, so she tried the word for bear, “Machq?”

The young man’s frown deepened. “Bear Talker sees no one.”

“Please. It’s urgent.” She cursed the wavering of her voice, trying to keep her emotions at bay.

He shrugged as if he couldn’t care less and turned back to the longhouse, leaving her standing there with her mouth hanging open in dismay. A horse whinnied plaintively from somewhere in the trees. She couldn’t go back home with her grandmother’s last request unfulfilled.

“Tell him...” she said to the young man’s retreating back, “…tell him I’m the girl with two spirits.”

The young man stopped dead in his tracks. He slowly turned and this time his eyes held wary enquiry. His hand was clenching the musket so tightly she could clearly see the defined muscles in his forearm. It suddenly occurred to her to wonder why an Indian warrior was in her village, especially now that most, if not all of the men had just gone off to war.

“My grandmother Elizabeth is dying.”

His scowl came back. With evident contempt, he said, “And you think he can save her.”

She shook her head earnestly. “No one can save her. She seeks peace.”

He turned away again. “Tell her to seek it from her Christian god.”

She bristled at his dismissiveness and his assumption that Elizabeth was Christian, but the animal skin covering the entrance to the longhouse was swept aside by an unseen hand and another voice joined the conversation. The voice was male and authoritative, snapping out curt words Enid didn’t understand. The young man called out his answer and after a brief hesitation, the medicine man himself stepped into the light. Enid had seen him from a distance on more than one occasion, but he seemed smaller, shriveled almost, up close.

She stood her ground as the old man approached. He was dressed as plainly as the warrior, but his hair wasn’t shaved – he wore it in two braids just like her grandmother, only shorter. He walked with a slight limp and the skin of his face, neck and hands was the color of teak and heavily wrinkled. As he passed the warrior, he gave a quiet order that the young man rushed off to obey.

Bear Talker pointed a shaky finger at her and said, almost accusingly, “You do not have two spirits.”

She blinked in confusion but thought it would be impolite to disagree, especially since she needed to convince him to come with her into the village from which he’d been banned long ago. She didn’t have to say anything, however, because he wasn’t done talking.

“Pohtommauwaus divided your spirit between two bodies,” he declared. “Tell me, divided one, what is the name of your other half?”

Enid found she couldn’t look away from the intense black eyes blazing out of Bear Talker’s raisin face. For fear of being labeled a witch, she’d never discussed her other life with anyone but Elizabeth. Yet he was the one who’d prophesied her condition in the first place, and the force of his personality seemed to coax a response out of her now. Her lips parted and she said quietly, “Sorcha.”

“And when does she live?”

Enid caught her breath in a sharp intake.
He really did know
. After a moment, she admitted, “Far in the future.”

“I will come with you to ease your grandmother’s passing; she is an old friend, but I would ask a boon of you in return. My people were driven from these lands, but have tried to live in peace among the other nations. Now the Mohawk encourage us to join the British crown in this fight against the colonials. Who will win this conflict? Which side should my people choose?”

Enid felt as if her heart had dropped into her feet. The warrior was rounding the longhouse, leading two horses in their direction. He’d slung his musket and a leather haversack over his shoulder. She spoke quickly so he wouldn’t hear. “There is a thing in Sorcha’s world called the butterfly effect. It refers to the theory that if a person were to travel back in time, anything they do could alter the future. Even so small a thing as accidently crushing a butterfly could change the course of history. It has always served as a warning to me to keep my own counsel about what is to come.”

Bear Talker held his hand out to the warrior, who halted on the spot, still out of earshot. Enid didn’t know if he’d stopped him so the warrior wouldn’t overhear the rest of their conversation or whether the medicine man was sending her a subtle warning: answer the question or I won’t go.

His smile didn’t seem threatening as he responded, “Yet you have lived both of your lives and I will wager you have crushed many an insect in this one. Mayhap nothing you do can change the future because it is already written.”

She couldn’t fault his logic, and the longer they waited, the more likely it was that Elizabeth would die before they arrived. She made a split-second decision.