Lake in the Clouds by Sara Donati
Elizabeth knew that if she climbed the ladder she would find that the twins were in the same bed, sleeping back to back. She could go up there now and separate them, but in the morning she would find them together again. They might bicker and wrangle endlessly during the day, but in sleep they could not deny the bond that had been forged in the warm dark waters of the womb. One day circumstance or age or both would separate them for good, but they were in no hurry for that day to come, and neither was Elizabeth.
Tonight it was not the twins who had robbed her of sleep but Hannah. She made her way to the workroom, where she hesitated with one hand on the door. Over the last years the room that had once been dedicated entirely to storage and workspace had become more and more Hannah’s, given over to her medicines and books and journals, her narrow bed tucked into a corner like an afterthought.
Cora Munro had followed Hawkeye into the endless forests to take up housekeeping, but she had not done so without some conditions of her own. This cabin was a copy of that first one, larger than most with planked floors, but what distinguished it from every other cabin was the abundance of windows. The workroom was long and narrow and very light in the day. Even in the night it was never completely dark, unless there was no moon at all.
Elizabeth pushed the door open and saw Hannah sitting on the edge of her bed with her hands folded in her lap.
“I heard you coming,” she said. “I can’t sleep either.” She moved over to make room for Elizabeth on the edge of the bed.
There were many things they could have talked about, but neither of them seemed willing or able to begin. Elizabeth did not have to close her eyes to see Cookie’s face, Curiosity’s, Ambrose Dye’s. The coffin of green wood; the circle of faces overfull with anger, distorted with sorrow, changed forever. Strikes-the-Sky, with his black eyes and bright purpose.
Instead she looked at Hannah, whose skin glowed like dark opal in the moonlight: high brow, cheekbones like raised wings, the planes beneath, the strong line of her jaw, the curve of her mouth. With no trouble at all Elizabeth could blink and call forth Hannah as a little girl, but that child was gone.
When Strikes-the-Sky looked at Hannah he saw a young woman with a straight back and strong hands, a keen intelligence in the dark eyes, a simple and undeniable beauty.
“It might have been better if my uncle had come home alone.” She said it clearly but it was not true; they both knew it.
Elizabeth covered Hannah’s hands with her own. She said, “I have never known you to be unfair.”
Hannah stiffened as if it were her duty to protest. She started to speak and stopped herself. Started again, her voice rough. “It is not rational to make so much of a stranger who will go away so soon.”
“Then you must ignore him, if that is the way you feel.”
“That’s the only reasonable plan.” Hannah said this as if it were the least reasonable plan in the world.
Elizabeth patted Hannah’s hand again, and when she spoke again she had to work very hard to keep her tone even.
“You know, when I came here from England I had a plan too. A very carefully constructed plan. I was going to start a school in the wilderness and devote my life to education. Especially to the education of girls. I wanted nothing else, and I was determined not to be distracted from that goal. But then I met your father. At first I was very angry at him for the way he complicated my plans.”
Hannah did not get up or turn her face away, but her whole body hummed with denial.
“I should not have interfered,” Elizabeth said finally. “Forgive me.”
All Hannah’s fury left her just that simply, her expression softening. She said, “It is happening too fast.”
Elizabeth paused. “Fast or slow, it is up to you. If something is happening.”
“Of course something is happening,” Hannah said. “What did you think?”
Nathaniel was awake when Elizabeth came back to bed, and waiting for her. She saw it in the curve of his back and the set of his shoulders. She slipped under the covers and rubbed her face against his hair where it pooled behind him.
Nathaniel said, “My father told me it would come like this for her, but I didn’t believe him. I guess I didn’t want to believe him.”
“Strikes-the-Sky may not be the right one. It’s far too early to say.”
He turned to her, and Elizabeth was relieved to see that he could smile. “If not Strikes-the-Sky, then someone else. And it won’t be long. Nicholas Wilde will offer for her before the summer’s out. She’s ready, even if she doesn’t know it yet.”
“She does know it,” Elizabeth said. “I think … I think that Strikes-the-Sky may be the one, and I think she knows that herself. But she’s frightened.”
“I hope she’s more than frightened.”
“Oh yes,” Elizabeth said softly. “Of course she is, but she doesn’t have the words for what she’s feeling. Or rather she’s not ready to use them. Not yet.”
“I just hate the idea of her going off so far.”
Elizabeth put a hand on his chest. “I imagine that’s what your mother thought just before you went north and ended up living in Sarah’s longhouse.”
“Maybe so. So what did you tell her?”
“I told her about how it was for me, back then. How you managed to confuse all my well-laid plans when I first came to Paradise, and how irritating that was to me.”
A hand snaked out from under the covers and around her waist, pulled her up against him. “At first,” he prompted.
“At first,” Elizabeth agreed, biting back a laugh. She struck away his other hand, busy wiggling its way under her nightdress; strong fingers on the curve of her hip.
“Then you saw the light,” he said sternly.
“Then I saw—Nathaniel.”
She tried to squirm away, and for her trouble he rolled, pinning her down beneath him. Took her hands to hold them still over her head as he kissed her hard.
“Then you saw the light,” he prompted again.
“Then I saw the light,” she whispered.
“You couldn’t resist me.”
She couldn’t hold back a strangled laugh. “Oh, please. Really.”
Her laugh gave way to a gasp, and then, eventually, a sigh.
A long time later when he had kissed her into boneless submission he said, “You might as well give in, Boots. One way or another I’ll have a full confession out of you by morning.”
“Will you now?” she said. “Go on then, sir. Do your worst.”
Because she could not sleep after Elizabeth’s visit, Hannah went out to sit by the falls. Because she could not sleep, and because she knew that she would not sleep well again until she went to see what she knew in her heart was true: Strikes-the-Sky was sitting there in the light of a waning moon, alone. Waiting for her. He had been swimming; the water pearled on his back and scalp and ran down his chest.
She walked up to him and said nothing until he unfolded his legs and stood.
“Tell me what you want,” she said.
There was a long silence, but it was an easy one. Strikes-the-Sky said, “I want peace for my people. I want the whites to stop pushing us west.”
“Those are good things,” Hannah said. She did not look up at him but she could feel the heat of him, as if he were in the grip of a terrible fever. “Now tell me why you are here. What do you want from me?”
She felt him shrug. An unexpected flush of anger and embarrassment rose up from deep in her gut and shot through her, tingling sharp and hot. Hannah started to turn away and Strikes-the-Sky caught her upper arm and used the force of her anger to swing her toward him.
And she saw that he was smiling, an honest and open smile with nothing of derision in it. Such a kind smile on such a frightening face; it still took her by surprise, and robbed her of her temper.
He said, “It is for you to say what you want, Walks-Ahead. What I want must wait until the time is right.”
“I am tired,” she
“And still you stand here with me.”
He tugged at her arm with his strong fingers until she followed him down to sit. She stemmed her hands on the cool, moss-covered rocks and thought of swimming under the falls. If she had come a little earlier she could have watched him. He would be a good swimmer, strong and sure. If she went into the water now, he would follow her.
She said, “I will not lie down with you.” The words felt strong and true as they left her mouth and still she wanted to call them back.
He was so quiet that she finally looked at him. His expression was neither closed nor open; he had been waiting patiently for her to look at him.
He said, “Not ever?”
The laughter came up out of her without any warning, slow and deep, and she clasped a hand to her mouth. When she took it away again she said, “Not now. Not tonight. Maybe not ever.”
“Ah,” he said slowly. “That is good, that maybe. So why did you come out here to me? Was it all the talk of kissing?”
He had moved close enough so that their arms were touching. It was strangely comforting and unsettling at the same time: the feel of him, warm and smooth and hard through the fabric of her overdress. Sweat trickled at her throat and she shivered.
She said, “You were teasing me. Trying to get me to … react to you.”
“You were so serious, Walks-Ahead. But my plan worked. Here you sit.”
“It hasn’t worked. The fact that I am sitting here does not mean you will do any kissing tonight, Strikes-the-Sky.”
“A man can hope.” He leaned against her a little harder and she could smell him faintly: lake water, pine sap, bear grease; other things she couldn’t name. “And anyway, maybe it is you who will do the kissing.”
All the discomfort and strange, unwanted longing that had followed Hannah throughout the last two days was simply gone, and between them now was a calm, a knowing that she had no name for. She did not understand it, but she was glad of the relief it brought her. Like a patient who doesn’t realize how bad a pain is until it is gone, she thought. But what strange medicine is this?
Hannah said, “You think I have never kissed a man?”
“There is no right answer to that question. If I say you have never kissed a man, you will be angry at me for thinking of you as a child. If I say of course you have kissed many men, then you will be wounded that I might think you are too careless with yourself.”
“I have kissed five men,” Hannah said, too quickly. “Now what do you think of that?”
“Now that we have finally started, I think that this conversation will take many days to finish. I think you should go in to your bed and sleep—”
“Now that what has started?” she interrupted him.
He blinked at her, as if to reprove her for such a question.
“I think you should go to your bed and sleep. And I think you should kiss me once or maybe twice before you go. Are you brave enough?”
She turned to him. “Now you ask questions that can’t be answered. Either I must call myself a coward or kiss you. You tread very hard for a man who is supposed to be such a good hunter.”
He inclined his head so that the hawk feather brushed against his shoulder, and smiled at her. “You do not look like a coward to me, Walks-Ahead.”
“You are right, I am not afraid”—Hannah leaned forward until her mouth was very near his—“… to be thought a coward.” Then she hopped up before he could stop her.
Strikes-the-Sky craned his head to look at her over his shoulder. His back was perfectly straight, still wet in the moonlight. “Sleep well, Walks-Ahead.”
Hannah looked down at him and thought suddenly of Lily’s drawing.
“My little sister thinks you are the perfect man.” For me, she might have added, but did not; her courage did not reach so far.
He smiled in surprise. “I have made one conquest, at least.”
Hannah bent over and she pressed her mouth to his. His fingers caught in the dark veil of her hair and he cupped her face in his palms, hard and warm, and just that simply she came to know the taste of him: sweet and sharp. He made a welcoming sound deep in his throat.
She pulled away, her hair trailing through his hands.
“Good night,” she said, and walked back to the cabin without looking back, not even once, because she was afraid that if she did she would go to him and make a liar of herself.
Chapter 37
There were two things that Lily and Daniel agreed on without hesitation: Jemima Kuick was plotting something bad, and Hannah needed to be protected from her. Lily’s idea was this: they would take turns going on Hannah’s rounds in the village with her.
Daniel said, “It’s my responsibility to keep her safe, not yours. You’re a girl. You can’t even fire a gun.” Not only was that a bald-faced lie—Lily was a good shot with a musket and would be a better one if she bothered to practice more; when she was tall enough, she would learn how to handle a rifle too—but all that was beside the point.
Her brother was doing his very best to start a fight that would end with him pinning her down on the floor, so he could remind her that he was bigger and stronger. It was an old trick of his, one Lily had discussed with their father. His advice had been simple and to the point, as it always was. He said, “You’ll never best your brother for pure strength, Lily. You’ve got to use your mind. Pin him down with words first, that’ll throw him off.”
“I shouldn’t have to fight my own brother,” Lily had grumbled, and her father took her by the shoulders and looked her in the face.
“Where’d you get that idea?”
“From Mr. Gathercole. We were arguing about … something and he came up behind us and said we should be glad to have each other and that it was sinful for us to fight.”
Her father got his most thoughtful look then. After a while he said, “Mr. Gathercole means well, but he don’t always make sense. Listen here, daughter. You’ll have to get along with all kinds of folks out there in the world when you go off on your own—don’t argue with me now about staying here forever, just listen. Some’ll play fair and some won’t. What goes on between you and your brother, that’s part of learning how to tell the difference. You know Daniel would never cause you real harm. You know he’d put his life on the line to keep you safe, and you’d do the same for him.”
It wasn’t a question, but Lily nodded anyway. The thought of Daniel’s painted face that day at Eagle Rock came to her, and with it a rush of affection.
“Then pay no mind to Mr. Gathercole. You remember that your best weapon in any argument with your brother right now is your mind. Someday down the line he’ll come around to realize that he needs to use his head before his muscles, but right now it’s your advantage. You understand me?”
The funny part about advice was this: the better it was, the harder it was to remember when a person needed it most.
To her brother Lily said, “She’ll be suspicious if it’s always you. She’s used to having me follow her around the village.”
He frowned, because he didn’t like the argument but he couldn’t counter it either. “I could tell her I’m interested in medicine.”
“Are you?”
Daniel lifted a shoulder in an absent way. “I could be.”
Lily said, “I’m going with her today. I can’t stop you if you want to come along but then it will look strange tomorrow when it’s your turn. You decide for yourself.”
It turned out that Lily didn’t need to fool Hannah into letting her come along when she visited patients, because by the third day people had begun to ask for her. Word had traveled that Lily could draw a good likeness, and it seemed that everybody in Paradise wanted to see themselves on paper.
Her mother made her a new sketchbook, this one bound so that it could lie flat while she worked; her father gave her a penknife and spent time teaching her how to best whittle the pencils Gabriel Oak had left her without wasting any
All of this combined with the fact that Hannah was spending more time every day talking to Strikes-the-Sky put Daniel in a bad mood that no words could counter. Then Runs-from-Bears decided to take the boys into the bush for a week of tracking.
“What about Jemima?” Lily asked him while he was getting ready to go. “I thought it was your job to protect Sister from Jemima Kuick.”
The look on his face, confusion and guilt and anger, made Lily sorry to have spoken.
“Sister has Strikes-the-Sky,” Daniel said crossly. “She doesn’t need me now.”
Which made Lily feel even worse, because there was some truth to it. Hannah was so busy with the doctoring and the vaccinations and with Strikes-the-Sky that she seemed to be moving away even when she stood at the hearth stirring soup and talking to the other women about the garden or work around the house or who was sick in the village.
Between her chores, going around the village with her sister, and Uncle Strong-Words, Lily shouldn’t have had time to feel alone. But she hadn’t thought about what it would be like to have the boys gone while Curiosity and Galileo were away in Albany too. She said as much to her father, who put down the trap he was fixing and pulled her onto his lap.
“Things have been mighty unsettled this summer,” he said.
She snuggled closer to push her face against his buckskin shirt, better than any silk. As a little girl she had sometimes sat on his lap and chewed on the fringe on his shirt when her mother wasn’t looking. Lily wished now she were not too old for such things.
He said, “It’s no wonder you’re anxious. I am too.”
Her father made her no promises about everybody coming home soon safe and sound, but Lily felt better anyway.
“Yesterday I drew a likeness of Mrs. Cunningham that made her laugh out loud.”