Storyteller (4 page)

I had to do better
.

I had to try
.

After yesterday’s breakfast of almost raw eggs and burnt bacon, Libby shook her head. “I’m giving up cooking in the morning.”

“That’s a relief,” Elizabeth blurted out, thinking of the times they’ve eaten together: soggy French toast, waffles hard as rocks. Then, horrified at what she’d said, she’d patted Libby’s arm to make up for it.

Libby laughed. “You remind me so much of your mother.”

Elizabeth knew Libby was saying it as a compliment. It gave her a warm syrupy feeling.

This morning she stands in the hall, the last of her toast in one hand, a glass of apple juice in the other. She’s whispering to Zee’s drawing. If only Zee could step out of her frame, alive and breathing, Elizabeth would never need another friend.

What would Libby think about her talking to a picture?

What would the kids in her class say? They haven’t talked much to her in the month she’s been here, but actually, she hasn’t talked to them much, either.

Every day at lunchtime she sits on the end of a bench, any bench at any table, and pretends to study her sandwich, her milk container. Sometimes she reads. Nobody notices her.

She feels a hot flush of embarrassment when she thinks about a field trip her history class took. Mr. Stewart had them wandering around the muddy Catskills searching for arrowheads, obsidian, and mica and wading into the west branch of the Delaware for smooth bits of glass. He was in love with the past.

Elizabeth found a small sparkling rock and held it up, picturing a comet exploding, far up, worlds away, a shower of hot golden colors raining down on the earth, and now one of those pieces, cool and smooth, lay in the palm of her hand.

“If only I hadn’t said all that aloud,” she tells Zee. At home she wouldn’t have been embarrassed. Even Pop would have nodded seriously. That’s Elizabeth, they all would have said.

But here everyone looked away as Mr. Stewart explained that it was a petrified chunk of wood from a tree that had fallen long ago.

Elizabeth stares at Zee’s face. Her hands are hidden. Elizabeth knows about that now.

Last night she cornered Libby in the small study. Libby’s back was to the door as she read from a large notebook. She looked up, tilting the book. “Part of my research,” she said.
“I’m always at it, even most weekends. Studying bacteria. What makes them survive, what makes them die off.”

Elizabeth nodded, then sat on the couch opposite her, leaning forward, hands on her knees. “I want to know about Zee.”

Libby put down her book. “All we know are bits and pieces, passed down for so many years.” She hesitated. “Her hands were badly burned.”

Elizabeth felt her breath catch.

“Their cabin was set on fire and it burned to the ground. Only a few stones were left to mark where it had been. Her mother—” Libby shook her head.

“Burned?” Elizabeth asks, her voice strangled.

“She was killed, maybe by Loyalists who lived in the valley, maybe by Indians. No one ever knew.”

How soft Libby’s eyes were; Elizabeth realized Libby cared about what had happened to Zee. Elizabeth pictured flames shooting up, exploding into orange embers. How frightened Zee must have been, and how terrible the pain. How had Zee escaped? And what about her father? Had he been there to beat out the flames, to wrap her hands?

Or had she been alone?

Elizabeth remembered one night when she was four, or maybe five. She’d been alone upstairs in her bedroom. Pop had been carving one of his art things in the basement. He carved unusual pieces; it was hard to make sense of them. She’d heard a sound, and then another. Footsteps on the stairs? The third step always creaked. She’d pulled the blanket off her bed and silently, slowly opened the closet door and bundled herself inside.

But no one had been there. Pop had come up later, making so much noise on the stairs that she’d known he was real.

Pop, who was miles away.

This morning Elizabeth stares at Zee’s picture. Zee, with the terrible burned hands.

Elizabeth tells herself it was more than two hundred years ago, trying not to care so much.

She wants to think of something else. Anything else. She looks at the cap with the ruffled edges Zee has plopped down over her head, her hair escaping in many directions.

At least Elizabeth washes her hair every morning—two rinses, conditioner, and gel. She doesn’t have to wear a cap because her hair hasn’t seen a bucket of water or a cake of soap in months. That’s what Libby told her about those caps. And what about the soap! In those days they poured boiling water over ashes and mixed in animal fat.

Pretty awful.

Elizabeth winds a thin strand of hair around her finger. Mr. Stewart has asked them to bring in something old today. “The oldest thing you can find. An artifact from the past,” he said.

Elizabeth looks up at the drawing. Who could doubt that it’s old? How could a grandfather’s blackthorn cane compare, or a pair of candlesticks that belong to someone’s mother?

She’s thinking of taking the drawing to school. She can ask, but what if Libby says no?

Not even
what if
. She’s sure Libby will say no. She can
imagine Libby shaking her head, her blue eyes blinking behind her glasses.

But Libby works in a lab across town; Elizabeth might be able to get the picture back up on the wall before she gets home.

And if not?

That’s late this afternoon. She won’t worry about it yet. By the end of the day, she’ll have her first A in Mr. Stewart’s history class.

And maybe the kids in her class will see her—she tries to think of the word—
differently
.

She unhooks the drawing from the wall and slides it into her backpack.

Libby calls, “Want a lift?”

Elizabeth glances toward the window. It’s warm today, and the apple tree is veiled in white, like a bride. A few flowers drift to the ground, the train of its gown.

“Elizabeth,” Libby calls.

Elizabeth shakes her head. How guilty she’d feel knowing the drawing was in the car with them. Suppose Libby could tell by her face, by her eyes, that she’d done something—something just not right.

“I’ll walk,” she says.

I walked to the edge of the river and bent over to dab water on my face. I had to be careful to keep my clean cap dry. I hurried. Mother wouldn’t approve of my being there alone
.

“This is a smaller river than our Rhine River in Europe, but often it brings trouble,” she’d say. “Illness, angry Iroquois, thieves, poachers, and …” Her voice would trail off
.

Was she thinking
ghosts
or
English?
I couldn’t decide which
.

I was drawn to the river Old Gerard called Big Fish Water. I loved watching whiskered catfish sweep slowly along the sandy bottom, pickerel and bass moving silently just under the surface. Often I sneaked up on turtles sunning themselves on the rocks, but I never reached them before they disappeared into the water
.

I wrapped my arms around myself. Even though the coming day would be warm, the water on my face was icy. “A good morning for catching trout,” Gerard would say
.

But I was on my way to see Ammy’s mother, Mistress Patchin, without Father’s knowing. Mistress Patchin had a face like their watchdog’s, and was just as unfriendly. But I had to help her make soap. Then she’d cut off a block of it for me to take to Mother. “We must ask because we have none,” Mother had said, shaking her head
.

We both knew it was my fault. Hadn’t I left the door open so the ashes flew into the wind? Hadn’t I spilled the bucket of fat that spread itself into thick puddles on the doorstep and mingled with mud and hen droppings?

Now I scooped up another handful of water for my face. I waited for the river to settle. Waited to see myself
.

My eyes were the color of the river on a cloudy day. My nose was small and round, and freckles dotted my cheeks like spots on a trout. “Good morning, Zee,” I told myself kindly
.

Zee smiled back at me
.

Isaac Patchin liked my face; I knew that
.

I patted the water until my face wrinkled up and was gone
.

Soap for Mother, I reminded myself. And Father will never know where it came from
.

I didn’t mind going to the Patchin’s farm, even though Mistress Patchin had slapped my poor speckled cheeks when I’d left her gate open and the hog had run loose
.

I climbed up from the river, rubbed my water-wrinkled fingers on my petticoat, then picked up the hard bread Mother had wrapped for my meal
.

I had a long way to walk, but I paid it no mind. The path wound its way through the apple trees and curved through Old Gerard’s planting field. I picked through my thoughts the way I worried nut meats from their shells in the fall. I had time to think about which of our neighbors were Loyalists. The Patchins, of course
.

I wondered about our other neighbors. Certainly not Miller and Julian, who were off with John to the north. Certainly not Old Gerard, who said he had given up fighting long before I was born
.

Nor Mistress Eddy, whose face was as creased as the river in a storm, and whose lips trembled with age
.

What about the others? The Williams family, whose house hung on the side of the mountain, threatening to slide down any minute? Or the Gregorys, who kept to themselves? And there were families who lived in the next valley and those who perched in tents at the edge of the river
.

I turned with the path at the cornfield. Overhead a hawk screeched. A rabbit zigzagged away, trying for safety, but there was no place for the poor thing to hide
.

I wondered at my pity. After all, I was always the first one to scoop rabbit stew into my bowl and to lick every one of my fingers for a last taste
.

But this rabbit looked terrified. Its ears were laid back and its body hugged the ground as it ran, almost as if it could sink into the earth. I screamed at the hawk, waving my arms
.

The rabbit reached the rocks just before the hawk swooped. Safe
.

But I was as unfortunate as the hungry hawk. I stumbled and went down hard. My cheek scraped a stone, my sleeve tore as the hawk dived over the rocks and plucked up a snake. It flew over the trees with the snake dangling from its beak like a twisted rope
.

I sat up, rubbing my elbow, trying to straighten my cap. I touched my cheek carefully. How could I face Mistress Patchin looking this way?

I saw Old Gerard come out of his lean-to. He stood against the trunk of the tree that bent over his doorway, and cupped his hand over his eyes. “Zee?”

I hobbled over to him. We sat ourselves on a smooth rock, me
to catch my breath, and Gerard to put his leathery face to the sun. His eyes were the color of walnuts that appeared in the tree over our heads each fall, and the lines around his eyes were like crevices. His grandson Elam came outside their small lean-to, which backed up against a hill, closing the makeshift door behind him. The three of us sat there peacefully, listening to the sad coo of a mourning dove
.

The sun had shifted. How long had I been there? A few minutes? It must have been longer
.

I scrambled up. “I have to go.” I shook the dust from my petticoat and ran. As I reached the woods, stones and small brown twigs dug into my bare feet
.

At the Patchins’ fence posts, I had to stop. Bent over, I took in deep gulps of breath, my hands on my knees, my chest heaving. I plucked my cap into shape, rubbed one foot against the other, then straightened my kerchief
.

In front of me was the Patchins’ finely made house, wider than ours. It had glass windows. Glass instead of oiled paper!

Ammy’s family was rich. Hadn’t I seen Mistress Patchin hide a gold coin on top of the shelf near the hearth? I had lowered my eyes that day so she wouldn’t know I was watching
.

Their door was open, swung back, and a slip of paper was stabbed into it with a knife. I looked closely at the letters, but I
didn’t recognize most of the words. I knew, though, that it was the warning John had left for them
.

I poked my head in. “It’s Zee,” I called, blinking in the dim light. The old chair that Mistress Patchin prized was tipped over, and strands of Mistress Patchin’s brown wool were bunched up on the floor like a small bird. I stepped inside. The ashes in the fireplace were cool. I ran my hand over the shelf. The coin was gone, but the wooden plates were still on the table, a bit of food left in each
.

How could this be? I was shocked at Mistress Patchin. The plates should have been brushed out and put up on the shelf
.

The bedding was gone, and the spider pan missing from its hook. I tried to take it all in. What could have happened?