“His name is Hunter,” she said.
“Oh,” Rachel said, and her smile blossomed slowly through the vines.
88
In Which Things Do Not Add Up
IAN DECLINED AN INVITATION to stay the night in the longhouse, to Rachel’s very apparent relief. He squeezed her hand, and when no one was looking raised it to his lips.
“Tapadh leat, mo bhean, mo ghaol,” he whispered. She knew that much Gaelic, and her face, a little strained under the blue and white streaks, relaxed into its normal loveliness.
She squeezed back and whispered, “Hunter James, and whatever the Mohawk is for ‘Little Wolf.’”
“Ohstòn’ha Ohkwàho,” he said. “Done.” He turned to make their farewells.
Tòtis would stay with his mother until the Murrays’ departure for the Ridge, and so it was only the three of them that returned to Joseph Brant’s house, riding in the wagon through the quiet, cold dark. The early storm had passed, and the light snow melted; the moon cast light enough to make the muddy road visible before them.
He thanked her again for agreeing to take Tòtis, but she shook her head.
“I grew up as an orphan in the home of people who sheltered me out of duty, not love. And while I had Denzell for some of those years, I wanted more than anything to have a big family, a family of my own. I still want that. Besides,” she added casually, “how could I not love him? He looks like thee. Has thee a clean handkerchief? I fear my paint is running down my neck.”
The house looked welcoming, all its windows lighted and sparks flying from the chimney.
“Does thee suppose Silvia and her daughters have come yet?” Rachel asked. “I had forgotten them altogether.”
Ian felt his heart jerk. He’d forgotten them, too.
“Aye, they have,” he said. “But the house is still standing. I expect that’s a good sign.”
EVERYONE SEEMED TO be at the back of the house; there was talk and laughter in the distance and the smell of supper hung appetizingly in the air, but only the servant-girl who let them in was in evidence.
Rachel begged him to make her excuses; she wanted only to feed Oggy, who, having slept in her arms like a small, heavy log all the way home, was now showing signs of life, and to go to bed.
“I’ll ask the cook to send ye a wee snack, shall I? I smell roast salmon and mushrooms.”
“Mushrooms have no smell unless they’re right under thy nose,” she said, yawning. “But yes, please.”
She vanished upstairs, and Ian turned to go and announce their arrival. As he did so, though, he heard footsteps on the landing above and turned to see Silvia, with Prudence and Patience, the girls gleaming with cleanliness, their hair tightly braided under their caps.
“Well met, Friends,” he said, smiling at the girls. They wished him a good evening, but were plainly in some agitation of mind, and so was their mother.
“Can I help?” he said quietly, as she stepped down beside him. She shook her head, and he saw that she was wound tight as the string of a top.
“We are well,” she said, but a nervous swallow ran down her throat, and she had a fold of her skirt still clutched tight. “We—are going to meet Gabriel. In the parlor.”
Patience and Prudence were clearly trying hard to preserve some sense of decorum, but it was just as clear that they were fizzing with a mixture of excitement and apprehension.
“Aye?” Ian said. He looked at Silvia and said, low-voiced, “Ye’ve talked to them, of course?”
She nodded and touched her cap to make sure it was straight. “I told them what has happened to their father and how he comes to be here,” she said. Her long upper lip pressed down tight for a moment. “I said that he will tell them … everything else.”
Or maybe not, Ian thought, but he bowed to them, ushering them toward the parlor. A small giggle escaped Prudence, and she clapped a hand over her mouth.
To Ian’s surprise, Silvia opened the parlor door and motioned the girls in, but promptly shut it after them. She leaned against the wall beside it, dead white in the face, eyes closed. He thought he’d best not leave her and leaned against the opposite wall, arms crossed, waiting.
“Papa?” one of the girls said inside the parlor, almost in a whisper. Her sister said, louder, “Papa,” and then both of them shrieked “Papa, Papa, Papa!” and there was the sound of feet thundering across a wooden floor and the screech of a chair’s legs as bodies struck it.
“Prudie!” Gabriel’s voice was choked, filled with joy. “Pattie! Oh, my darlings, oh, my darling girls!”
“Papa, Papa!” they kept saying, their exclamations interrupting each other’s half-asked questions and observations, and Gabriel said their names over and over, like an incantation against their disappearance. Everyone was crying.
“I missed you so,” he said hoarsely. “Oh, my babies. My sweet, dear babies.”
Silvia was crying, too, but silently, a crumpled white handkerchief pressed to her mouth. She motioned to Ian, and he took her arm, helping her down the corridor, for she walked as though drunk, bumping into the walls and into him. She wanted to go outside, and he grabbed a cloak from the hook by the door and wrapped it hastily round her, guiding her down the wooden steps.
He took her to the tree his mother and the Sachem had used for their shooting practice, observing absently that they—or someone—had been at it again, for the torn corner of a pink calico handkerchief flapped from a nail, the lower edges ragged and singed brown. There was a bench, though, and he sat Silvia down and sat beside her, his shoulder touching hers while she wept, shaking with it.
She stopped after a few minutes, and sat still, twisting the wet handkerchief between her hands.
“I keep trying to think of a way,” she said thickly. “But I can’t.”
“A way to—?” he began cautiously. “To let the girls stay wi’ their father?”
She nodded, slowly. Her eyes were fixed on the ground, where the thin snow was trampled and footmarks had scuffed through it, leaving a moil of dirt, snow, and slicks of half-frozen meltwater.
“But I can’t,” she said again, and blew her nose. Ian disliked the painful look of the wet handkerchief applied to her raw, red nose, and handed her a dry though paint-stained one from his sleeve. “Two of my daughters are his—but I have three. Even if—”
Ian made a small noise in his throat, and she looked at him sharply.
“What?”
“I’m sure he’d ha’ told ye himself, were ye on speaking terms,” Ian said. “But Thayendanegea told me this morning, that he has two wee bairns wi’ the woman he … ehm …” She’d have found out anyway, he argued silently, and she would, but he still felt like a guilty toad, a feeling not improved by the look of naked betrayal on her face.
“Does it help, to curse aloud?” she said at last.
“Well … aye. It does, a bit. Ye dinna ken any curses, though, do ye?”
She frowned, considering.
“I do know some words,” she said. “The men who … came to my house would often say wild things, especially if they’d brought liquor or … or if there was more than one, and they … quarreled.”