The Spirit Room (24 page)

Finally, Mrs. Purcell said, “My own brother died in an accident with a threshing machine on a wheat farm.” Tapping the end of her knife on the table and looking forlorn, she stared at Papa.

The whole supper went by and there wasn’t any more from Papa, not a word the whole time and Billy never looked over at him either, not once. Clara was going to have to find out more about this supposed timber post because she was dang sure there wasn’t any timber post. Here she was sitting between Billy and Papa and they weren’t speaking and they weren’t looking at each other. She jammed her thumbnail between her teeth and began to gently gnaw on it. She needed a moment alone with her twin. She didn’t see much of him these days. He was always out, either working or in the evenings roaming with his friends. She’d surprise him and walk up to Maxwell’s Nursery at the end of the day, maybe walk him home to make sure he got the ointment on his bruises.

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AT THE END OF THE AFTERNOON, Clara slipped out of her séance dress at the Spirit Room and into her dark blue checker calico. She walked out of town and up along Castle Street toward the nurseries. It was one of those sticky humid summer days, heat peaking around five o’clock in the afternoon. She kept thinking about Billy’s bruised face. Trying not to bite any more of her fingernails, she made her hands into fists and buried them in her dress pockets.

As she made her way slowly along the road and got closer to Maxwell’s Nursery, and the Smith Nursery across the road, the smell of roses grew strong. It was a syrupy smell, almost like some kind of drink. It tickled the back of her throat and made her sneeze several times in a row.

There were acres and acres of trees—apples, plum, pear, peach, and shrubs of all kinds as well, laid out in rows, neat and countable, snaking across the rolling hills. Billy probably knew the number of rows and the number of plants in each. There were buildings, barns, and greenhouses along narrow roads running up and down and across the endless lines of plants. She passed through a gate, walked around two waiting carriages, and entered a house-like building that had a sign over the door: Office, T.C. Maxwell & Bros.

A man in a tan greatcoat and a woman dressed in pale yellow and full crinoline were studying a catalog at a central counter.
Lawky Lawks
, that woman must be about to pass out from the heat in that dress and crinoline, thought Clara.

On the other side of the counter was a fellow with curly brown hair, beard, mustache and sideburns, all beginning to gray. He watched his customers with friendly eyes.

“
Are there any of these summer apple varieties ripe now? We’d like to see and taste the fruit on the tree,” the woman said.

“
There are quite a few that ripen next month, August apples, but right now there’s just one called Early Harvest. It’s a very nice apple. Do you want take a look? It’s a bit of a ride up the hill, or you could come back in a few weeks. We’ll have at least five or six varieties ripening then, Early Joe, Early Harvest, Golden Sweet, Early Strawberry, and… Sweet Dough, I think.”

The couple looked at each other, but didn’t speak. Then the man told the bearded fellow they’d return and thanked him. As they walked out passing her, Clara stepped forward to the counter.

“
My brother, Billy Benton, works here. Do you know where I could find him now?”

The friendly-eyed man called out toward the open door behind the counter. “Joshua, do you know where young Benton is?”

A voice from an open door behind him called out, “He’s right back here, sorting through some orders. I didn’t want him out digging or hauling with that injury.”

Billy appeared in the door. Even though his ragged, stinky black wool cap was pulled low over the hurt side of his face, the frightful swollen, purple flesh still showed. She clenced her fists inside her pockets.

“
Will you be finishing soon? I’ve come to walk you home so Mrs. Purcell can put that ointment on your face.”

“
Denton’s Balsam?” the man behind the counter asked.

“
No, homemade with white lilies and wormwood,” Clara said.

“
Well, he needs something. You can go, Benton. You’re lucky to have a pretty sister looking after you. You need to be more careful when doing those chores at home. Get your father or someone to help you if things are too heavy for you. And don’t be cocky about your own strength. That’s how boys get into trouble. You’ve got to learn your own strength.”

Chores at home? Ah,
tarnation
. Billy was lying every which way about his smashed-up face.

He darted a hard brown-eyed “don’t you dare say a thing” glance at her, then drew his cap down even lower over his brow and headed outside. “Yes, sir. Goodnight, sir.”

Clara thanked the man and followed Billy out into the thick, hot, rose-smelling air. When they got outside the gate and started along the side of the road, at first they walked in silence, Billy with his hands plunged in his trouser pockets, Clara with hers in her dress. Wagons and carriages rambled by in both directions, kicking up dust. After they had walked a short distance, Billy turned right on Brook Street. As town and home got closer, her private time with him was running short. The dang silence had to be broken.

“
What happened, Billy? You weren’t hurt at home. Your weren’t hurt with any fence post.”

Billy kept on in silence, his eyes on the ground. They reached the little bridge that crossed over Castle Creek, but instead of walking onto the bridge, Billy climbed down the embankment to the stream. Squatting on a couple of large stones at the water’s edge, he took off the skanky cap and dipped it into the water, sloshed it around, drained it, then set it aside. He splashed handfuls of water onto his sandy hair, then combed it back with his fingers. Clara scrambled down to the creek and perched next to him. With his hat off and his hair slicked back, she could see he’d been hiding a huge black and blue and yellow mound above his eye.

“
Billy, you’re swollen the size of a ham hock.”

He shifted onto his knees on some flat stones, leaned toward the water, noisily sucked in air, pinched his nose closed, and shoved his whole head into the stream. He stayed under water a good long moment, letting the current swirl by. When he came up, he gulped in more air, and went down again, then up and down several more times.

When he finished dunking himself, he put his cap back on and sat back next to her.

“
You know, Clara.”

“
I know what?”

“
You know.” He strung out the word “know” as if the longer he made the word sound, the more she would understand him.

And she did know. That was all he had to say. That was all he could say. It was Papa that hurt him. Papa had done something horrible and cruel beyond anything he had ever done before and then made Billy promise not to tell. She did know.

“
How could he do that to you? What did he do?”

Billy scratched at the earth, picked up a pebble and tossed it into the creek.

“
I might have to leave, Clara.”

“
What? What do you mean?” She got up and walked straight into the creek. Her feet and ankles were instantly soaked and shocked with cold. “You can’t leave. You’re not leaving.”

“
I might have to.” He dug up another pebble and tossed it downstream.

Annoyed, she kicked water at him, spraying his white shirt. “Where would you go?”

He raised an arm to shield his face. “Hey!” Grabbing his wet shirt, he lifted it away from his skin. “Two of the boys from Maxwell’s are going to Kansas to fight with the Free Staters, maybe find John Brown. I might join them.”

“
You can’t do that. You’re too young. You’ll get killed. If you have to leave, just go and live with Izzie in Rochester. Why do you have to go off and do something dangerous?”

“
I just said
might
. Nothing is for certain. But I want you to know in case one night I don’t come home. I don’t want to leave you and Euphora, but I’ve got to save my own life…” He didn’t finish, but looked downstream toward the town and the lake. The water was rushing, burbling and it seemed for a moment that Billy went with the creek, all the way to Seneca Lake and beyond. A tear slipped from her eye.

He picked up another pebble and pitched it further downstream.

“
I don’t want you to leave.” She kicked again at the flowing water, but not enough to splash him, then sloshed her way out of the stream and sat down next to him again.

Billy was frozen still a long moment, then she felt his arm rest over her shoulders. She let herself cry then and, after a while, he took his red bandana from a trouser pocket, dipped it into the water, wrung it out, and offered it to her.

“
Here, wipe your eyes with this. It’s nice and cool.”

She took it with both hands and covered her face with it. It was soothing. How was she going to do it? Live every day without Mamma, Izzie, and now Billy, too? Everyone was leaving her. Why did they all have to leave her?

“
Let’s go get Mrs. Purcell’s herbal concoction,” he said.

She looked up from the wet bandana. Smiling down at her, his cap on, brim askew, he offered a hand. She grabbed it and hauled herself up. They walked over the Brook Street bridge, and headed for home. When she gave him back his damp bandana, he pressed it against the beat-up side of his face.

“
At the Nursery, do you know the number of rows of every kind of plant and the number of plants in each one?” she asked.

“
Almost, but something changes every day. Someone buys something or we plant new ones, take out sick or dying ones.”

“
How many Early Harvest apples?”

He looked down at the road, concentrating, smiling. “Seven rows, fifteen trees each row, one hundred and five trees.”

“
What about peaches?”

“
What kind of peaches?”

“
Billy, if you leave, who will count things with me?”

“
You can count for yourself and write me letters with your findings. I’ll count whatever there is to count, maybe rifles, maybe rebels, whatever they have in Kansas, I don’t know, and I’ll write you back.

“
It wouldn’t be the same in a letter.”

“
How many Black-eyed Susans in bloom right this minute at home?”

“
Twelve plants. I don’t know the blooms,” she said.

“
How many carriages passed us since we left Maxwell’s?”

“
I don’t know, I was thinking about your dang bruises.”

“
It’s just a bruise. It’ll go away. Six. There were six,” he said.

“
I think it was only five.”

He looked at her with his good eye and his chest filled up with air like he was about to argue with her, but then his shoulders came down.

“
I’ll only go if I really have to and you’ll be all right. He won’t hurt you or Euphora. He never has. It’s only me and maybe Izzie he hates.”

As they walked up the path to Mrs. Purcell’s, past the border gardens in full bloom, she began to count the pink hollyhocks. Eleven, twelve, thirteen.

Twenty

IT WAS A WARM SEPTEMBER DAY. Out on the sparkling blue lake in the rowboat, Clara had Papa all to herself. He pulled steadily, powerfully, at the creaky oars.

In the past weeks, since the day the sheriff had come by to see him and since Billy’s face had been so horribly bruised, Papa had been silent as a grave. But today, not only was he talking the hind leg off a horse, he was taking her, her and nobody else, for a row down the lake.

The days were still hot like summer, but the nights were cold and the maples, elms, and oaks were already turning sunset colors along the high bank shore. The grand houses high above them shrank away one by one like candles being snuffed out as they glided south.

“
Papa, we’re leaving Geneva. It’s my first time out of the village since we got here last year.”

“
Can’t be.”

Sweat beaded on his temples as he cranked at the oars.

“
Where would I have gone, Papa? I’ve been working almost every day, or at least waiting around at the Spirit Room.”

He frowned. She shouldn’t have mentioned the Spirit Room, but he knew she hadn’t been anywhere. He was the one always gallivanting off without explanation. “Something important,” for their family business he’d always say. “I’m goin’ to look into somethin’ lucrative up north,” or “down south,” or “I’m goin’ ta Albany for a few days.” That was all he said. Then, he’d walk out the door without a traveling bag like he was going to buy a couple of apples at the market and not reappear for days, sometimes weeks. In that first month between when Izzie left and before Isaac Camp ruined everything, he brought her small gifts—pens and paper, ribbons for her hair, tea from India. That was nice. This boat ride was nice. Since Isaac Camp blew up, he hadn’t shined at her one bit, though.