Chapter 25
For days afterward we spun in a strange dance, Flora, Abby and I tiptoeing around one another, uncertain of what to say, what to confess, what to accuse.
My nighttime visitor didn’t return to my bedside, but the dreams revived in the brightest hues.
When I closed my eyes, I saw my world stained with blood and lust without explanation.
Still, we settled back into the uneasy equilibrium demanded by a household in crisis.
After dinner, I stood by the sink drying dishes while Flora fretted about our woes.
“If this boarder plan doesn’t work, I will take my children to my father’s farm. And then what would you all do without me?”
“Leave? But you don’t need to leave, Sister Flora.” The words of Jacob’s letter burned bright in my mind.
“Why not?”
“Because I need your help.” I spoke as fast as the words would come out. “I still need you to teach me.”
It wasn’t a complete lie, at least.
She gave me a satisfactory nod. “Yes, you truly do. I’m glad to see I’m finally appreciated.” And on she went with a list of things I needed to improve on.
I let out a deep breath behind the dish I held. Hopefully her pride was assuaged enough to drop thoughts of leaving. Not that I particularly wanted her to stay if I had the choice.
The door burst open, rattling the line of saucers along the shelf, and Abby floated into the kitchen. My heartbeat quickened. This was the first time the three of us had been together alone since that night on the stairs.
“We’ve done it, Sisters. Our first boarder arrives tonight after he finishes his day’s work. And he already paid for the month in full!” Abby rapped the table in a celebratory gesture.
“Who is it?” Flora asked, her fingers scrubbing the pot in the sink with extra vigor.
“A young man, newly returned from a mission. He’s taken up work with a nearby farmer,” Abby said.
“Is he respectable?”
“As respectable as any man can be.”
“I merely worry about the influence on our children—”
“That he’ll corrupt them?” Abby said. “I don’t think we need a boarder to do that.”
“A priesthood man will be good to have in our house,” I said, hoping to further appease Flora’s doubts. “He can give a level of protection. Mr. Reginald was back recently.”
Flora grumbled beneath her breath.
Abby pressed on. “You’ll hardly even see the man aside from mealtimes, most likely.”
“Have you told Sister Prudence the good news?” I asked.
After dinner, Prudence had thrown off her mask of a smile that she reserved for the children and disappeared up to her room, even as I had begged her to stay and sit with me a while.
“I haven’t. The poor thing keeps slipping off.”
“She’s sulking,” Flora said.
I gripped the dish in my hands tighter. “She’s mourning.”
Silence billowed over us. Only the fire popped and crackled in the hearth as if on command. Not even Flora dared to speak, but the water sloshing over the side of the sink betrayed her thoughts. The walls surrounding me inched tighter, suffocating the remaining air.
I needed to get out of this stifling kitchen.
As I placed the last plate on the shelf above, I glanced over at the empty woodpile by the fireplace. My feet decided before my head. I untied my apron and crossed to the back door.
“I’ll fetch more wood before night falls,” I said.
The early October sky was already pinkening on the edges as the sun began its descent.
We would need more kindling for the cold night and morning ahead as the weather shifted again.
Though I hated the brutal feel of the axe in my hand, I’d learned the necessary skill after Jacob’s departure and preferred it to another minute in the kitchen.
“Let one of the boys do it,” Flora said as I pulled my coat off the row of hooks.
“It’s all right. Let them rest after a long day. I’d like the chance to be outdoors.”
Before either could protest, I disappeared into the hazy twilight. The crisp air nipped at my face and sunk into my skin, a welcome balm. A breeze rippled through the trees, swaying their branches in a dance with the leaves in their fall colors of red and orange. I breathed it all in.
For as long as I could remember, I’d loved dusk.
There was something magical about this time of day.
It became a physical place to me as a child, somewhere I could crawl into and hide away from the never-ending worries and panics that besieged me throughout the day.
Back home, I’d play the piano and disappear into selfish thoughts I otherwise never allowed myself to have, and found a space free of guilt, panics, and the all-seeing eye of the church.
I’d lost that time and beautiful place since my marriage. Now I longed for it more than ever.
I crossed the yard to the wood pile, soaking in this fleeting moment of freedom. Too soon, I’d be called back to my life, and to the choices that weighed too heavily in my chest.
Large logs lined up beside a heavy stump with the axe protruding out. My muscles hurt simply from looking at it, but I didn’t shy away from my task. Any excuse to stay away a little longer.
I set to work, my breathing growing heavy as I forced the axe above my head and slashed it back down again into the logs. Splinters flew like tiny knives. As I worked more vigorously, my mind settled into thoughts of another dusk years ago:
Elijah’s mouth pressed against mine while we hid among the trees of the orchard.
It wasn’t only the rush of love that I remembered, but the way I felt truly alive for the first time in my life that evening.
Like I could create my own world on my convictions and desires, not simply the one prescribed for me as the only path.
That I could be unburdened of the expectations to be perfect in order to be accepted, that I could allow every messy piece of myself to simply exist without the pressure to refine it.
Elijah was more than the man I loved—he was part of the world I selfishly wanted to build for myself. One that set me free.
My mind went quiet as I savored the memory.
The axe thudded against the stump, sending a shock up my arms. I tossed the last split log onto my pile and eased up, each bone in my back cracking.
The sun dipped out of sight, leaving only a golden dusting of light across the sky.
My window of liberty was closing quickly.
Glancing up at the gables, I watched the house shiver and expand.
Resigned, I adjusted my coat and readied to return inside. I bent down and piled the wood into my arms. Across the yard, the kitchen door watched me, ready to swallow me back into its depths.
Leaves crunched behind me.
“Hazel? Is that you?”
I froze. That voice. A sound my soul craved but had forced down deep to try to forget. The Devil himself come to torture me.
“Hazel, it’s me.”
I turned around slowly, my armful of wood suddenly heavier. My breath caught in my throat.
“Elijah,” I said. “You can’t be here. You’re … you’re not real.”
He laughed awkwardly, scratching at the back of his neck. Even after all these years, it still held a thrill like music. “But I’m here, alive and whole as you can see.”
“I can’t trust everything I see.”
“I’m glad you haven’t lost your imagination.”
A boyish grin cut across his handsome face, even as his cheeks pinkened. He dared a step closer, snapping a fallen twig beneath his boot heel as he tugged his hat from his head, revealing his untamed hair. He quickly brushed it back, shifting between his feet.
I studied him in silence, uncertain of what to say next.
He was here. This was real.
“But you can’t be here.”
“I’ve been desperate to see you.” His tone was laced with sadness.
“Don’t you remember what happened at the park months ago? Haven’t you already done enough to hurt me?”
I hated how I meant for my words to sting him.
“I hope you’ll let me explain,” he said softly, gripping his hat tighter against his chest.
“I don’t know if I want to hear it.”
I held the rough wood closer to my chest. Splinters drove into my soft flesh, but I only clutched it tighter, welcoming the pain as a reminder that all of this around me was real and I couldn’t give in to the urge to bury myself in his arms.
“You need to leave, please.” I glanced back up at the looming house, at the many windows anyone—or any ghost—could peer out of. “Before someone else sees you.”
“Can I help you with those?”
“No, Elijah. You need to go. We’re expecting someone.”
“Yes, the boarder,” Elijah said.
I frowned. “How did you know that?”
He replaced his hat, rubbing his hand on the back of his neck. “Because I’m him.”
I dropped the logs, which cascaded to the ground. My legs threatened to crumble.
Elijah was the new boarder?
I stood a moment, stupefied. When I made no move to regather my fallen logs, he sprang forward to collect them. His hand brushed against my boot.
“No, no, stop!” I shouted, my voice shaking as I leapt back. He couldn’t come this close to me, he couldn’t touch me—he couldn’t be here at all.
“What’s wrong?”
I dropped to the ground, snatching up the last pieces of wood. “You’re here as a boarder. And this is my husband’s house.” Jacob wanted to keep me here to control my wild emotions, yet somehow, they still found me here in the worst possible way.
Elijah recoiled, still holding his bundle. Guilt rippled through me at the way his face fell.
“I know.” His voice was clipped, but it wasn’t harsh.
I almost wished he would rage like a tyrant against me. That would’ve been easier to take than watching him kneel as though groveling at my feet.
The autumn breeze picked up and misplaced strands of my hair streaked across my face. He knelt so close to me. Warmth shot through my body and pooled in my center. Only one small movement and I’d be touching him. I blinked back a rush of tears and forced myself to lean away.
“Then why are you here, Elijah?” His name was a sweet poison on my tongue.
Elijah rose steadily with the bundle of wood. “I needed a room. I found work at a nearby farm.”
“Is that truly all?”
This was akin to torture. The man I once loved—still loved—had to come to plague me before I could bury him away in the past for good. He’d broken my heart and then dared to come to my house of tarnished rot. Nothing good would come of this.
Elijah’s face softened, the corners of his lips upturning. “Would it be truly so terrible if I came to see you as well?”
The hole I’d clumsily stitched up in my heart ripped open. Fresh lifeblood spooled out into my chest threatening to drown me. The overgrown ground beneath me was no longer so solid.
Elijah rejected me. His rejection and his father’s commands had brought me to this dreadful place. Now he came to be close to me—to be something I would always see but never touch. To plant roots in places within me that I’d forced to lay barren. Elijah was a temptation that would damn me.
And this house—this godforsaken manor—sent ghostly visitors with demands and no explanation. It brought nightmares of blood and held too many secrets. I couldn’t shake its grasp on me.
I controlled nothing of my own life.
Perhaps that nightmare was a twisted prediction of my own demise. In my mind, I saw myself prostrate on the floor of Jacob’s study in place of Abby’s body, sinking into a sea of crimson gore.
Elijah snapped his fingers. My face shot up from the pile of browning leaves I’d been staring at. He had remembered my mother’s old trick to ground me back in the present.
“You came to see me? After all you’ve done?” I choked out.
Anger coiled within me. He understood nothing of the games he played at, what was at stake if I stepped out of line. I reached out and grabbed the logs from his arms, my hands brushing up against his chest as I wrestled the bundle away. Heat drew up my arms at his touch.
“Still as sharp-tongued as ever, I see.” Only Elijah ever saw the truest depths of me, not just the quiet mask I wore. “Are you sure I can’t carry those to the house for you?”
“Yes, very certain. I’m grateful to see you’re well, but you’ll have to tell Sister Abby you changed your mind about boarding. I can call on you the next time I come into town at my mother’s house and you can give me your excuses for your behavior then.”
Elijah ran his long fingers through his tousled hair. My own fingers itched, recalling how those curls felt in my hands.
“But my job is out here and I’ve already paid for the month, Hazel. I understand you’re in need of the money too. Please don’t ask me to go back on my word and make the other women suffer.”
More frustration mounted within me. The children needed to eat. I wouldn’t deny them and my sister wives the opportunity for needed income, and he knew he could press this to his advantage.
I almost wished I could finally bring myself to hate him.
“And you’ll behave yourself properly? You must understand this situation is dangerous for me.”
“Of course, Hazel. I’d never do anything to cause you harm.”
I drew in a slow breath, then lifted my chin. “In that case, let’s agree to keep our distance and never speak to the others of our … our friendship.”
“If that is what you want, Hazel.” Sadness darkened his voice, but he offered a small smile.
“Now please go around to the front of the house to greet Sister Abby, as is proper.”
I hurried away without another glance back, though in my mind I could see almost perfectly how he looked staring after me, his beautiful face a mixture of confusion and satisfaction.
I glanced up at the highest window. A bright face stared back at me from behind the curtains. My chest cinched tight. Abby’s specter watched, her eyes burning, and then she was gone.
Abby’s voice echoed through the house as I deposited the pile of chopped wood by the fireplace.
Elijah laughed and my skin tingled as I pressed my back against the wall of the parlor and waited for them to move farther into the house.
The only way I would survive this complication would be to avoid him as much as possible.