Storyteller (5 page)

The Patchins were gone
.

The class crowds around Elizabeth, and Mr. Stewart does, too.

“How old is the drawing?” That’s what he wants to know. He runs his fingers over the frame and taps the glass gently. “The cap,” he says almost as if he’s talking to himself. “Could it possibly be eighteenth century?”

“Revolutionary War days,” Elizabeth says.

The kids are looking at her; Karen points. “She looks a little—”

Elizabeth raises her hand to her face. “Like me.”

“A lot,” Annie says, and for the first time, she smiles at Elizabeth.

Elizabeth smiles back, then looks down at the picture.

Zee’s cap, the long strands of hair across her cheek, the kerchief that covers her shoulders and crosses in front are all different from the way Elizabeth looks. Nothing like her streaked hair, her hoodie, her jeans.

Except for one thing.

No matter how often Elizabeth combs her hair or wears a new sweater, she ends up looking as messy as Zee does. She wishes she could reach out and put her arms around that long-ago Zee.

Mr. Stewart doesn’t look up; he can’t take his eyes off the drawing. “Notice the glass. It’s not flat; it curves out just a little.”

He looks at Elizabeth. “Someone in your family put it together, maybe a hundred years ago.” His smile is warm and approving. “To keep it safe for the future. That would be you, Elizabeth.”

“She was in a fire,” Elizabeth says slowly.

Everyone looks more closely.

Zee’s face is untouched. So are her clothes.

“Her hands were burned.” Elizabeth holds up her own hands. “Her skin must have been webbed, her fingernails thickened. She couldn’t have touched anything, lifted anything, not for weeks.…” Her voice trails off.

Around her, the kids are nodding. They look at the drawing a little longer, everyone quiet.

“Wonderful,” Mr. Stewart says. “Thank you for bringing this in.”

Annie taps the glass. “You could see it better if you took it out of the frame.”

Elizabeth looks at her in alarm. What will she do if Mr. Stewart agrees? Suppose they can’t get Zee back inside the frame again.

She shakes her head, and at the same time, Mr. Stewart’s eyes widen. “We can’t do that; the glass and frame protect it.” He holds the picture in both hands. “Don’t you see?
That’s why we have so little of the past. We don’t take care of the things that remain.”

Annie puts her hand on Elizabeth’s shoulder. “Sorry,” she says. Then she adds, “How about sitting with Merry and me at lunch?”

“Sure,” Elizabeth says as Annie opens a box.

“I brought my mother’s wedding gloves,” Annie says. She pulls them out and waves the fingers. “But that was only fifteen years ago.”

The bell rings. On her way to her locker, Elizabeth looks out the window next to the stairs. She watches a bird flit from one tree to another. A robin, maybe.

Still holding the picture, she goes downstairs. She has kids to sit with, and it’s all because of Zee. She likes having this locker. At home, there are hooks for jackets in the hallways instead; uneven piles of books and lunch bags cascade out from underneath.

Elizabeth twirls the lock: twenty-fourteen-two, then a twist to the right. The lock sticks as she tries to pull it open with one hand.

The picture slips out of her other hand and falls to the floor. The narrow frame cracks, and the glass shatters in an arc around her feet. The backing hits her foot, and the drawing sails across the tile floor.

A couple of kids stand there, mouths open. Elizabeth thinks she might be sick.

She kneels down to pick up the drawing, feeling a sharp pain as a piece of glass embeds itself in her knee.

She takes the drawing gently between her thumb and index finger, almost afraid to look. Please, she thinks. Please.

And there’s Zee, up close, looking at her. She’s sharper, clearer, outside the frame.

“All right?” one of the kids says nervously.

She looks up and nods.

Pop’s face flashes into her mind, and then she feels a sudden panic. She hasn’t seen Libby angry. Libby is …

It’s hard to describe. Steady, maybe. Libby smiles, but she doesn’t laugh. She speaks slowly, quietly. But suppose that’s just one side of Libby. Suppose she’s furious when she sees this. Suppose she puts Elizabeth out.

Where could she go? Hitchhike back to her empty house in Middletown? Break in through a window? Live there by herself until Pop came back?

She leans back against the wall. There’s a round red stain on her jeans.

“Don’t move,” Annie says. “Let me get some help.”

So she sits there, wondering how she’s ever going to tell Libby, while the custodian sweeps up the frame and the glass that someone put together for the future.

She holds the drawing on her lap and turns it over. On the back she sees a group of uneven lines. In one corner are three triangles, the one in the center larger than the other two. Up a little farther are intersecting bits, curling around themselves.

What is it? What could it mean?

Mr. Stewart comes along and gives her a hand up. He helps her wrap the drawing. And all the time, she’s thinking, Libby.

What will she say to Libby?

What will Libby say to her?

I started home from the Patchins’ place along the river’s edge, walking softly in the mud. I was mindful of disturbing the kingfisher that was balanced on a hollow log and the purple finches that flitted along the willow branches, chattering to each other
.

But why was I watching the birds? It would have been better for me to think of what I’d say to Mother. How could I ease her disappointment when she saw me returning without soap?

The kingfisher flew up suddenly, and I realized the finches had stopped their chirping
.

It was almost as if Old Gerard stood in front of me, hand up, warning me. Someone was coming—someone who didn’t care about the noise. Twigs crackled and small stones pinged as they
were dislodged. Ghosts weren’t about in the daylight, but I slipped back into the trees and held myself completely still. I heard the sound of someone’s hard breath, and whoever it was stumbled past me
.

“Ammy!”

She reached out to me to steady herself. “I’m so glad it’s you,” she said when she could talk. The hem of her petticoat was wet, her sleeves were muddy, and her hair had escaped from her cap. “I was coming to find you, but I have only a moment.”

I reached out absently to wipe a spot of mud from her cheek
.

“Father has gone ahead,” she said, “and Mother has stopped for something at Mistress Eddy’s cabin.”

“I was late this morning,” I said, trying to make sense of it all. “When will we make soap?”

“Zee! Look at me.” Her face was the color of old milk. “I’ve come to tell you. You must leave, or you’ll be hurt.”

I ran my tongue over my lips. What was she talking about?

“The Loyalists are massing together; they’re determined to put an end to this rebellion.” She raised my chin with her finger. “And your family—”

“We’re Americans,” I said slowly, finding the words John used over and over. “And this is our country.”

“No,” she said. “We’re on British soil, and those who deny it
are nothing but—” She hesitated. “John and his friends left frightful messages at the Loyalists’ doors. And those who are true to the king won’t stand for it.”

I stared at her. She looked almost wild
.

“The Loyalists have the power,” she said. “The Iroquois have come in on our side.”

I felt a tremor in my fingers, my chin quivering
.

“My father wants no part of this fight,” she said. “We are going to Ticonderoga, and then to Canada. A terrible journey, but we’ll be safe there, away from all this.” She stopped, her own chin unsteady. “Tell your father.” She waved one hand uncertainly. “Find safety.”

She gave me a little push, then turned and was gone, splashing through the mud along the riverbank
.

How long did I stand there, frozen in that spot? It was enough time for the chatter of the birds to begin again and the kingfisher to swoop back onto his log
.

I ran from the riverbank, taking the old Lenape trail that wound through the trees. Only at the edge of Old Gerard’s field did I stop to gasp for breath
.

Gerard stood at the far end. He waved, and I raised my hand, but I kept going, running across the field, climbing over the rocks near the river, looking for Father
.

I burst into the house after circling Stout Lucy, who was sunning herself on the stones in front. Mother stood there silently, shaking her head as I began to speak
.

“Zee,” she said, “what you have to say will have to wait. There’s something I must tell you first.” Her eyes filled with tears. “Your father has gone north to Tryon County to prepare for battle with Herkimer’s men.”

There was that name again: Herkimer
.

“General Herkimer’s father came from nearby in the Old Country.” She took a breath. “Father said he cannot wait, he cannot stay, he has to be part of this fight. If we don’t win, we’ll lose everything, house and land, maybe even—” She stopped, biting off her words the way she’d bite off a strand of sewing thread
.

“We’ve spent our days together, your father and I. How strange to be without him now.” She waved her hand toward the table. “I told him I couldn’t bear not to know where he was, and so he left us this.”

A piece of parchment lay on the table, a map drawn with walnut ink. The lines led to Father, to John. The lines led to Herkimer
.

“Keep it, child,” Mother said. “It’s a piece of Father. I have it in my head now, in my heart.”

I picked it up and held it in my hands. Then I tucked it under my kerchief to keep it safe
.

I sank onto the one chair in front of the hearth, trying to take everything in. “Ammy says that the Loyalists will come after us,” I said finally, “that they’ll hurt us.”

She didn’t answer
.

“The Iroquois have joined them.”

I saw her look of fear, but her voice was calm. “And the British regulars are not far away, I suppose,” she said. “But we will go on as we have been. There is nothing else we can do.”

And so that was what we did. I picked up the yarn that had been dyed, and began to knit a sock. Knit one, purl one, knit one—

I lost a stitch and watched it travel down three or four rows before I caught it with the edge of my needle
.

Mother prepared the pans for cheese making and then began a supper of bread and a few early strawberries
.

The only sound we heard as the sky darkened into evening was the snapping of logs in the fireplace. We listened, waiting for something else
.

Waiting is so hard. How is she ever going to tell Libby? She walks home from school, the packaged drawing under her arm. She remembers a book Pop read to her:
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times
.

That was today. At school Annie and two other girls went with her to the nurse’s office. They stayed while the nurse slapped bandages on her knee. Then Annie made room for her at the lunch table. If anyone had told her a week ago—even three days ago—that she’d have friends here, she wouldn’t have believed it.

Suppose she just leaves the drawing on Libby’s dining room table. Suppose she packs up a few things—not two heavy duffel bags’ worth, of course. She sees herself at the entrance to the highway a few blocks away, raising her thumb. Dangerous. She could never do it.

How many miles is it to home?

She thinks of Pop. When he e-mails her, she doesn’t e-mail back. She barely speaks when he calls. If she’d been home, she would never have gotten into this mess!

She realizes she’s been standing under a sycamore for the past several minutes. A woman is peering at her from her window.

She begins to run, her backpack bouncing gently. But as she turns the last corner, she sees the blue car in the driveway. Her mouth goes dry. Libby is home early.

Elizabeth walks up the front path, pulls out her key, and lets herself inside. Is Libby in the kitchen? In a corner of the living room? Everything is quiet, except for a tiny ping coming from the faucet in the kitchen.

She lays the drawing on the dining room table. Then she climbs up to the bedroom and throws herself into the chair. She sinks into the pillows, wishing she could stay there forever. She glances at the quilt with its crooked houses and picks a green one. She pretends it belongs to her, that she’s sitting on the porch reading a great book. Inside, Pop would be carving a small animal, or a bird. Neither of them would have ever heard of Australia.

Outside, movement catches her eye. She leans forward to see that several dead branches have been piled up in a corner of the yard. Libby is raking furiously, her face red under a wide straw gardening hat.

Elizabeth watches her; has Libby seen the empty space? Does she know the drawing is gone?

Elizabeth ducks back in the chair, just to be sure Libby won’t look up and see her.

What can she say? What can she possibly say? Why has
she done this terrible thing, anyway? Think, Pop would have said.

Libby glances up. Her eyes look worried, or maybe sad.

Libby must be able to see her. Elizabeth raises her hand to wave.

Libby pushes her hat back and motions for her to come down.

Elizabeth walks to the stairs and looks back at the room. If only she could stop time and hold on to this moment, seeing this wonderful bedroom, the quilt with its crooked houses.

She goes downstairs slowly, then through the kitchen, tightening the faucet. How will she explain?

But she doesn’t have to explain to Libby yet; she doesn’t have to say a word. Libby says, “Hi! Can you help me with the winter branches?”