CHAPTER 25
Marlie tried to still the tremors in her fingers as she changed bandages and applied poultices. The bravado that had seized her when she walked in on the skulkers’ conversation had left her, and now she tried to focus on the work in front of her instead of the men gathering their weapons and bags and heading out of the cave. Instead of Ewan, who had been buried deep inside of her, who had driven her to madness with pleasure and restored her soul both in the span of a day.
How could she look at him again, when she was still sore from what they’d shared? She’d told herself it would mean nothing, that it was juvenile to think a physical act could change what must pass between them, but she hadn’t anticipated how much she wanted to be wrong.
Taking is different from loving, she reminded herself, but hadn’t Ewan given as well? It was too much to think on; she was on her own in the world, now, and stepping from Sarah’s care into that of Ewan would only prove that she was truly as helpless as she thought herself to be. Once they got to Tennessee and separated, she would . . . would . . .
Henry walked over to her, the last of the men heading out on their mission.
“I just want you to know that I meant it. Your family is safe, from our hands at least.”
She thought of Sarah sitting at home worried for her, and how close she had come to being harmed, and her throat went tight. She couldn’t think it anything other than providence that she had been there to change the men’s minds.
“Thank you,” she choked out.
He nodded and marched out behind his men, pulling his long, dark hair back and tying it with a leather strap as he did. Marlie realized the move wasn’t cosmetic, but a preparation for battle, and her stomach lurched.
What am I doing here?
She put a hand to her chest as the desire to follow after them and return to Lynchwood held her in its tantalizing grip. If Cahill was defeated, maybe there was a chance she could go back . . . but Melody would still be there. Even if she weren’t, she had already made it clear to Marlie that neither her money nor intelligence nor family name would protect her. She would have to do that herself.
There was no going back.
“Marlie? Are you all right?”
Ewan was beside her again, reminding her of how quietly he moved. An image of them in a home, their home, and him sneaking up on her and giving her a fright before kissing it away flashed in her mind.
No. That’s foolishness.
“I’m fine. I’m just relieved that Sarah will be safe.”
“As am I, but I meant are you all right in a more corporeal sense.” His cheeks went pink and she knew exactly what he was thinking of, then her face flushed, too.
“A bit sore,” she said. “What about you?”
“Me? I’m wishing we could go back to that little hole in the ground and not think about Cahill or the war or Tennessee.” His gaze shifted to her mouth and he took a step closer. She wanted to lean into him, but she took a step back instead.
“That book of yours warns against wishing for a reason. All the wishing in the world can’t change reality.”
“What reality precludes us being together or guarantees our having to go our separate ways once we reach Union soil.” And there it was; the truth that could not be avoided.
“The one in which I can be sold like a prize sow and you can’t,” Marlie said.
Ewan’s eyes squeezed shut, and his nostrils flared. He brought his fingertips to his brow and pressed hard for a moment, before opening his eyes again.
“Marlie. I cannot understand how that must feel, but you are punishing me for things outside of my control. Again.”
“What you see as punishment for things beyond your control is the only thing within mine.” She tried to hold on to that, that this was the only way to keep herself safe from the world, and to keep her heart safe from Ewan.
“Did what passed between us mean nothing to you?” His face showed no anger, no upset, but Marlie had come to learn that Ewan kept the things he cared about most submerged beneath seas of rationality. She saw his emotion in the clench of his hand, and the way his Adam’s apple worked in his throat.
“It meant everything,” she admitted. Her throat had gone rough and the words barely choked out. “But what we do in the privacy of my rooms or some hidden cave has no bearing on the real world. Once you get back North, would you really risk your relationship with your family, your friendships, your standing in your community for me?”
She refused to cry. Not again. But her heart ached for what might have been between them.
“Yes,” he said. His voice was impatient, as if he had tired of explaining a simple concept to her. His gaze bored into hers and his body fairly hummed with tension now. “I understand your reticence, but you make presumptions on what I would and wouldn’t do without my consultation. That is called fantasy.”
“No, that is called logic,” she said softly. “I must see to the men.”
She moved to walk past him and he let her, telling her everything she needed to know. He could pretend all he wished, but some part of Ewan had to understand that there was no future for them in a world where death and destruction plagued the land and men fought over whether people like her would even deserve freedom.
* * *
It was hours later when she finally sat down beside Bill, and Ewan, who was beside him. Most of the men were fine, but she had checked and rechecked their progress and then set about to making some larger batches of general decoctions that might be of use when she had gone.
“How are you feeling?” she asked Bill.
“Ornery,” he replied. “I hate not being able to go with the men. Henry is a fine leader, but I feel the same as when my kids first started heading off to the schoolhouse on their own.” He chuckled. “Don’t tell him I said so though. He’d never let me hear the end of it.”
“Your secret is safe with me,” Ewan said. Marlie glanced at him. His expression was neutral, carefully so. He did not look in her direction.
“I suppose you know what it’s like, Ewan. I heard that when they came upon you, you almost took off old Larry’s head when you thought they meant to harm your woman,” Bill said. “Seeing you two makes me miss my wife something awful,” he added quietly.
“Is she in Randolph?” Marlie asked, avoiding Bill’s implication.
“No, she went to stay with some folks in Guilford. Other free blacks. We was the only ones round our way, and once I joined up with the Heroes she had no one to look out for her. I send her letters sometimes, but my writing ain’t so great.”
He looked askance and Marlie recognized the shame in him, one she had seen often in the slaves making their way North when they’d showed up in tatters and been received by Marlie in her fancy dress. It was the shame of knowing that being enslaved had denied him something vital. Marlie’s heart ached for that misplaced emotion, but she couldn’t tell him how to feel. She had never been in his place, and had been privileged enough to be able to run when threatened with such a fate.
“I’m sure she’s just happy to hear from you,” Marlie said.
“Well, I’ll be happy when the Confederacy is sent to tarnation and we can be together again. That’s the worst part of this skulking. Sometimes I wake up and expect her next to me, and there’s nothing but Carl’s hairy behind.” He nodded toward a man a few feet away. Crinkles formed around his eyes as he laughed. “Don’t tell anyone I said that, either.”
Marlie understood Bill’s words all too well; she’d felt a moment of panic when she’d awoken to find the light fading outside of the cave and Ewan gone instead of beside her, where she expected him to be. Just a few nights and it now seemed strange—wrong—to awaken without his warm, wiry figure beside her. That, and the tenderness at her apex, had been a much-needed reminder of how painful their parting of ways would be. She’d cauterized a few wounds for the skulkers as she assisted them, and she could cauterize her own heart if that meant surviving.
Is that what Maman did?
Her beautiful mother, who had rebuffed every man who’d shown her interest during Marlie’s youth. Marlie had always thought it was because she had no need for a man, but perhaps the truth was more awful: She’d only ever loved one. And he’d taken advantage of her and deserted her.
Ewan rose from beside Bill, his expression tight.
“I’ll return shortly,” he said.
Bill and Marlie nodded and he stalked off.
“He’s got a small bladder,” Marlie said, when Bill turned a curious gaze at her.
“And a heart he wears on his sleeve,” Bill replied. After that there was silence between them. Bill poked at the small fire with a stick, and the crackle and pop of wood mixed in with the murmurs of the injured men around them.
Marlie told herself it was the silence that made the time stretch on, that she was being silly, but then suddenly she was up on her feet and looking down at Bill. She didn’t know where the urge came from, or why the words Vas-toi! echoed in her head, but she knew she had to go.
Bill picked up his rifle. Reached the long end of it out to poke Carl. He made a signal and soon all the remaining men who were capable were reaching for their arms.
“Did you hear something?” she asked.
“No, but when someone with eyes like yours jumps up like a haint whispered something in her ear, best to be ready for whatever’s coming.”
Carl crawled over. “The sentry should have been back ten minutes ago. I thought maybe he stopped to take a leak, but . . .”
“Ewan,” Marlie said, and whirled to run but something gripped her skirt. She looked down and found Bill holding the fabric bunched in his hand.
“Running out and getting yourself killed ain’t exactly what that man of yours would want.”
Fear constricted her throat at the word killed, and her desire to get to Ewan pushed toward panic. But Bill was right. If this was something more than a hunch, she couldn’t rush out blindly into the night.
Ancestors, help me.
Bill released her skirt and turned to confer with Carl, and Marlie slipped away. There was a valley of difference between running wildly into the night and doing nothing, and the latter wasn’t an option.