Again, I was awake before dawn.
Impatience for the indigo harvest was driving me to madness. I felt as if any one of a hundred things could go wrong at any moment. Sarah and the way she had looked when Ben made that promise haunted me.
The new batch of live oak shoots I was growing in a box on my window ledge would soon become trees if I didn’t take them outside and plant them.
I gave them a bit of water in the half light, then holding my shoes in one hand and the small container in the other, I padded down the stairs and out into the cool early morning. I was surprised Essie hadn’t seen to me yet.
Not only my mind, but my body was restless too. I waited anxiously for the harvest of course, and I was keyed up about having to leave for Charles Town soon, but there was something else. Something I couldn’t pin down. A sort of aliveness that ran under the surface of my skin and just out of reach from my thoughts. It was hard to concentrate on anything, let alone relax enough to sleep. And it was hard to keep still.
A late rising moon shot a twinkling path toward me across the water of Wappoo Creek. I donned my shoes, lacing them tightly, and grabbed a small trowel from the basket at the end of the veranda.
Seeking out a spot near the water on the southernmost part of our land, in a spot rarely trampled upon, I methodically planted a spaced-out stand of what I hoped would become beautiful, tall, and strong live oaks. The earth was damp and gritty, dark and fertile. I was careful not to plant in the line of sight between the house and the creek, lest they should one day block the view.
There was a live oak near Lord Fenwick’s land across the creek that, rumor had it, was a thousand years old. The trunk would take the arms of six men to encircle it, its gnarled and curving branches almost too heavy to hold themselves up. What majesty and mystery must a specimen hold to affix itself upon the earth in such a hardy manner, come thunderstorms and hurricanes. I hoped at least a few of these oaks I was planting would see out whatever became of this land a thousand years hence, sentinels upon the banks of Wappoo Creek. Others, I knew, would doubtless be harvested for ships. That was my intention, anyway.
I’d ask Quash later today to create a barrier of sorts with sticks and twine so that nobody damaged the small saplings.
Quash’s lessons were going well. I thought I might try to procure some books on architecture for him if Charles had some. It seemed his knack for arithmetic, along with his carpentry and building skills, had coalesced into a burning fire. His thirst for knowledge had been well and truly ignited.
I blew out a breath and tramped back to the house just in time to hear an almost inhuman scream that froze the blood in my veins.
The hut where Sarah and her daughter, Ebba, lived was dark as I entered, lit only with a small oil lamp I recognized from the house. Essie was within, hovering over Sarah, whose normally dark skin seemed leached of color and polished with sweat. Her eyes were squeezed tight, her teeth bared.
The smell of camphor and Essie’s herbs did little to diminish the sickly sweet and metallic smell of bodily emissions. I hurriedly pulled out my small hanky to cover my nose and mouth.
Essie’s face was grave.
“What happened? Is she all right?”
Sarah moaned, the hoarse, guttural moan of a wounded animal bleeding out. It was then I saw the dark blood staining the sheets around her lower body.
My chest seized, my stomach flipping over in protest. Her baby! I lurched forward. “Oh, my sweet Lord.” I made the sign of the cross upon my body. “What can we do?”
Essie shook her head. “It is too late.”
Sarah seemed to hear Essie and cried out again, her back arching in agony.
“No. It can’t be. I shall run to the house for wet cloths. We’ll bathe her and give her willow bark for the pain. She will be all right!” The baby wouldn’t. My breath hitched. But she would be.
I turned and fled, hurrying toward the kitchen block. Mary Ann was there already. Ebba, unaware of the situation with her mother, sat with Mary Ann’s daughters at the scarred wooden table eating corn cakes and drinking cow’s milk. Hopefully Lil’ Gulla would stay oblivious in the stable block.
The pot of water was already heated, and I went to the shelves that held the lye soap and cloths, grabbing a handful and dumping them in the pot. “We need some willow bark tea too please, Mary Ann.”
Sarah had lost her baby. Ben’s baby perhaps. I could not identify my feelings on that score. How painful must it be to have a life wrenched from your body? Surely there was no sin that would warrant that act from God.
I thought of Mrs. Pinckney and what Charles had told me. Was it better to have the babe taken from your body before you knew him or her or for the babe to die as an infant? What was God’s plan to invoke the miracle of life under even the most difficult of circumstances, and then cruelly rip it away? Why? I blinked rapidly against the horror and bloodiness of the scene I had witnessed, even though I was headed back to it. God grant that I may never have to endure such a thing.
I drew the cloths out with a wooden ladle and set them into a pail, and then also spooned some water into the tin cup Mary Ann had set on the table.
Approaching Sarah’s hut, I saw Ben crouched outside. He sat upon his haunches, his indigo-dyed trousers stretched across his thighs and a tanned leather work vest upon his upper body. The charm that normally rested against his breastbone was clutched tight in his fist. He watched me approach, his eyes dark.
I swallowed, at once sympathetic but with a pain in my heart I couldn’t fathom. Shaking my head, I stepped past him. “Excuse me,” I muttered and holding my breath, entered the hut. I thought I felt him reach out to me as I passed, but I did not slow.
There was quiet from the bed. Sarah was perhaps unconscious at last. “Come, leave the pail. I must wash her,” Essie instructed, indicating the bucket I had brought.
“I’ll help.”
“She would not want that.” Essie shook her head and took the tea from me, setting it upon a low table. There was a small collection of artifacts upon its surface. Bones, some rocks, twigs, and dried berry husks. It looked like the bits and pieces Ebba liked to collect. Essie’s movements knocked a horse chestnut hung with twine, and it rolled from the table to the floor and under the low platform that served as Sarah’s bed.
I bent to retrieve it. Movement and light caught my eye. A blown glass jar was pushed under the bed. Curiously, I brought it out, seeing it was covered in cloth and tied with twine.
Then I almost dropped it in fright at the contents, mottled and distorted through the thick glass. Caterpillars.
No. Not caterpillars. I shook my head, not believing. Stuffed into the jar were indigo leaves and dozens of the awful pests I had seen only once before in my indigo fields.
I looked up and saw Essie staring at the jar in my hand, looking as aghast as I. Then my gaze slid to the bed and Sarah, who should have still been asleep but now lay staring at me. Her eyes were narrowed to slits and filled with such hatred, I could feel it slicing across my skin.
“How could you?” I asked, too shocked to feel anything but confusion. “I … I saved you. Didn’t I? Why would you do this?”
She didn’t answer.
The hatefulness of her actions, her intent, was almost too much to bear. It was hard to breathe under the assault of such malice. I blinked at her and thought she smiled, though her lips were pale and cracked, white against her dark skin. I wanted to be angry, but as I looked at her I couldn’t summon it.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I whispered with as much meaning as I could muster.
“She make it on her own self,” Essie muttered as she rang out the washcloth and peeled the sticky darkened sheets from Sarah’s legs.
I looked away, my stomach rolling at the sight. I had to swallow down a retch.
“This here dark magic. She done practiced a charm upon a body who is protected. Mighty protected.” Essie glanced at me meaningfully as if I was to know of what she spoke. “It come back upon her.”
My gaze darted back to Sarah’s face at Essie’s words, my gut still churning. But Sarah was passed out again. Taking the jar, I stepped outside into the now bright dawn, my eyes creasing against the assault of light.
Ben stood and looked down at what I held in my hands. I watched the realization take hold. His jaw hardened, and he made a short clicking sound. Reaching out, he closed his hands around mine, so together we held the jar. The warmth and roughness of his skin soothed me, and I felt the delayed emotions inside me lurch for the surface. I let out a hiccuped breath, looking up at Ben’s kind and beautiful dark face. With all my might, I wished for Ben to draw me close and hold me against his strong body. I wished for two friends to be able to take comfort from each other. I yearned for it with such a fierce desire, I trembled, my heart hurling itself against my rib cage.
“Why does she hate me so much?” I whispered instead.