Fine, I thought. Reduced to having philosophical arguments with a ghost. It’s been a worse day than I thought.
Imagination or not, the thought had succeeded in wrenching my attention off the single-minded track of worry. I felt a sense of invitation—or temptation, perhaps. The urge to talk to him. The need to escape into conversation, even if one-sided . . . and imaginary.
No. I won’t use you that way, I thought, a little sadly. Not right that I should only think of you when I need distraction, and not for your own sake.
And do you never think of me, for my own sake? The question floated in the darkness of my eyelids. I could see his face, quite clearly, the lines of it curved in humor, one dark eyebrow raised. I was dimly surprised; it had been so long since I thought of him in any focused way that I should have long since forgotten exactly what he looked like. But I hadn’t.
And I suppose that’s the answer to your question, then, I thought silently to him. Good night, Frank.
I turned onto my side, facing the door. I felt a little calmer now. I could just make out the outlines of the door, and being able to see it lessened that feeling of being buried alive.
I closed my eyes again, and tried to concentrate on the processes of my own body. That often helped, bringing me a sense of quiet, listening to the purling of blood through my vessels and the subterranean gurglings of organs all carrying peacefully on without the slightest need of my conscious direction. Rather like sitting in the garden, listening to the bees hum in their hives—
I stopped that thought in its tracks, feeling my heart jolt in memory, electric as a bee sting.
I thought quite fiercely about my heart, the physical organ, its thick soft chambers and delicate valves—but what I felt was a soreness there. There were hollow places in my heart.
Jamie. A gaping, echoing hollow, cold and deep as the crevasse of a glacier. Bree. Jemmy. Roger. And Malva, like a tiny, deep-drilled sore, an ulcer that wouldn’t heal.
I had managed so far to ignore the rustlings and heavy breathings of my companion. I couldn’t ignore the hand that brushed my neck, then slipped down my chest and rested lightly, cupped around my breast.
I stopped breathing. Then, very slowly, exhaled. Entirely without my intent, my breast settled into her cupped palm. I felt a touch on my back; a thumb, gently tracing the groove of my spine through my shift.
I understood the need of human comfort, the sheer hunger for touch. I had taken it, often, and given it, part of the fragile web of humanity, constantly torn, constantly made new. But there was that in Sadie Ferguson’s touch that spoke of more than simple warmth, or the need of company in the dark.
I took hold of her hand, and lifting it from my breast, squeezed the fingers gently shut, and put it firmly away from me, folded back against her own bosom.
“No,” I said softly.
She hesitated, moved her hips so that her body curved behind me, thighs warm and round against mine, offering encompassment and refuge.
“No one would know,” she whispered, still hopeful. “I could make you forget—for a bit.” Her hand stroked my hip, gentle, insinuating.
If she could, I thought wryly, I might be tempted. But that pathway was not one I could take.
“No,” I said more firmly, and shifted, rolling onto my back, as far away as I could get—which was roughly an inch and a half. “I’m sorry—but no.”
She was silent for a moment, then sighed heavily.
“Oh, well. Perhaps a bit later.”
“No!”
The noises from the kitchen had ceased, and the house settled into silence. It wasn’t the silence of the mountains, though, that cradle of boughs and whispering winds and the vast deep of the starry sky. It was the silence of a town, disturbed by smoke and the fogged dim glow of hearth and candle; filled with slumbering thoughts unleashed from waking reason, roaming and uneasy in the dark.
“Could I hold you?” she asked wistfully, and her fingers brushed my cheek. “Only that.”
“No,” I said again. But I reached for her hand, and held it. And so we fell asleep, hands chastely—and firmly—linked between us.
WE WERE ROUSED BY what I thought at first was the wind, moaning in the chimney whose back bulged into our cubbyhole. The moaning grew louder, though, broke into a full-throated scream, then stopped abruptly.
“Ye gods and little fishes!” Sadie Ferguson sat up, eyes wide and blinking, groping for her spectacles. “What was that?”
“A woman in labor,” I said, having heard that particular pattern of sounds fairly often. The moaning was starting up again. “And very near her time.” I slid off the bed and shook my shoes, dislodging a small roach and a couple of silverfish who had taken shelter in the toes.
We sat for nearly an hour, listening to the alternate moaning and screaming.
“Shouldn’t it stop?” Sadie said, swallowing nervously. “Shouldn’t the child be birthed by now?”
“Perhaps,” I said absently. “Some babies take longer than others.” I had my ear pressed to the door, trying to make out what was going on on the other side. The woman, whoever she was, was in the kitchen, and no more than ten feet away from me. I heard Maisie Tolliver’s voice now and then, muffled and sounding doubtful. But for the most part, only the rhythmic panting, moaning, and screaming.
Another hour of it, and my nerves were becoming frayed. Sadie was on the bed, the pillow pressed down hard over her head, in hopes of blocking the noise.
Enough of this, I thought, and when next I heard Mrs. Tolliver’s voice, I banged on the door with the heel of my shoe, shouting, “Mrs. Tolliver!” as loudly as I could, to be heard over the noise.
She did hear me, and after a moment, the key grated in the lock and a wave of light and air fell into the cell. I was momentarily blinded by the daylight, but blinked and made out the shape of a woman on her hands and knees by the hearth, facing me. She was black, bathed in sweat, and, raising her head, howled like a wolf. Mrs. Tolliver started as though someone had run a pin into her from behind.
“Excuse me,” I said, pushing past her. She made no move to stop me, and I caught a strong blast of juniper-scented gin fumes as I brushed by her.
The black woman sank down on her elbows, panting, her uncovered rear in the air. Her belly hung like a ripe guava, pale in the sweat-soaked shift that clung to it.
I asked sharp questions in the brief interval before the next howl, and ascertained that this was her fourth child and that she had been laboring since her water had broken the night before. Mrs. Tolliver contributed the information that she was also a prisoner, and a slave. I might have guessed that, from the purplish weals on her back and bu**ocks.
Mrs. Tolliver was of little other use, swaying glassy-eyed over me, but had managed to provide a small pile of rags and a basin of water, which I used to mop the woman’s sweating face. Sadie Ferguson poked her bespectacled nose cautiously out of the cell, but drew back hastily when the next howl broke forth.
It was a breech birth, which accounted for the difficulty, and the next quarter-hour was hair-raising for all concerned. At length, though, I eased a small baby into the world, feet first, slimy, motionless, and the most unearthly shade of pale blue.
“Oh,” said Mrs. Tolliver, sounding disappointed. “It’s dead.”
“Good,” said the mother, in a hoarse, deep voice, and closed her eyes.
“Damned if he is,” I said, and turned the child hastily facedown, tapping its back. No movement, and I brought the sealed, waxy face to my own, covered nose and mouth with my own mouth, and sucked hard, then turned my head to spit away the mucus and fluid. Face slimy and the taste of silver in my mouth, I blew gently into him, paused, holding him, limp and slippery as a fresh fish, blew—and saw his eyes open, a deeper blue than his skin, vaguely interested.
He took a startled, gasping breath and I laughed, a sudden wellspring of joy bubbling up from my depths. The nightmare memory of another child, a flicker of life blinking out between my hand, faded away. This child was well and truly lit, burning like a candle with a soft, clear flame.
“Oh!” said Mrs. Tolliver, again. She leaned forward to look, and an enormous smile spread across her face. “Oh, oh!”
The baby started crying. I cut the cord, wrapped him in some of the rags, and with some reservation, handed him to Mrs. Tolliver, hoping she wouldn’t drop him in the fire. Then I turned my attention to the mother, who was drinking thirstily from the basin, water spilling down her front and soaking the already wet shift further.
She lay back and allowed me to tend her, but without speaking, rolling her eyes occasionally toward the child with a brooding, hostile look.
I heard footsteps coming through the house, and the sheriff appeared, looking surprised.
“Oh, Tolly!” Mrs. Tolliver, smeared with birth fluids and reeking of gin, turned to him happily, holding out the baby to him. “Look, Tolly, it’s alive!”
The sheriff looked quite taken aback, and his brow furrowed as he looked at his wife, but then he seemed to catch the scent of her happiness, above the gin. He leaned forward and touched the little bundle gently, his stern face relaxing.
“That’s good, Maisie,” he said. “Hallo, little fellow.” He caught sight of me, then, kneeling on the hearth, doing my best to clean up with a rag and what was left of the water.
“Mrs. Fraser brought the child,” Mrs. Tolliver explained eagerly. “It was laid catty-wumpus, but she brought it so cleverly, and made it breathe—we thought ’twas dead, it was so still, but it wasn’t! Isn’t that wonderful, Tolly?”
“Wonderful,” the sheriff repeated a little bleakly. He gave me a hard look, then transferred the same look to the new mother, who gazed back with a sullen indifference. He beckoned me to my feet, then, and with a curt bow, gestured me back into the cell and shut the door.
Only then did I recall what it was he thought I’d done. Little wonder if my juxtaposition with a newborn child made him a trifle nervous, I supposed. I was wet and filthy, and the cell seemed particularly hot and airless. Nonetheless, the miracle of birth was still tingling through my synapses, and I sat down on the bed, still smiling, a wet rag in my hand.
Sadie was regarding me with respect, mingled with a slight revulsion.
“That’s the messiest business I ever did see,” she said. “Heavens above, is it always like that?”
“More or less. Haven’t you ever seen a child born? You’ve never had one yourself?” I asked curiously. She shook her head vigorously, and made the sign of the horns, which made me laugh, giddy as I was.
“Had I ever been disposed to let a man near me, the thought of that would dissuade me,” she assured me fervently.
“Oh, yes?” I said, belatedly recalling her overtures of the night before. It wasn’t merely comfort she’d been offering, then. “And what about Mister Ferguson?”
She gave me a demure look, blinking through her spectacles.
“Oh, he was a farmer—much older than I. Dead of the pleurisy, these five years gone.”
And totally fictitious, I was inclined to think. But a widow had a great deal more freedom than did a maid or a wife, and if ever I saw a woman capable of taking care of herself . . .