Chapter 38
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
The light is long and golden like straw shining through the trees, casting strange angles and dust that shimmers.
My gran, Millicent, used to say that if you look closely, you can see spirits dancing in the woods every evening, keeping us safe.
I think of them now, caught in a sunbeam, waving hello.
Keep her safe, I implore them, knowing they’ll hear. Keep them both safe.
The cabin creaks around us as I walk back into Foxglove, settling as if it’s preparing. As if it knows what’s coming.
Upstairs in the loft, Ruth’s breaths are coming faster and sharper, more primal. She breathes through the pain like she’s done before, in that way that comes naturally to us all, the way our bones just seem to know.
Even from the kitchen, I can hear her. There’s a low rhythm to the groans. Wind picking up before a bad rain. It’s music—the sound of holding on and letting go all at once. The sound of body-breaking pain and elating anticipation. Birth always sounds the same, no matter how many times you hear it.
Hazel plays by the hearth. She’s only seven, but even in a tiny body, she’s both serious and clever.
She has the scene set—a neat row of the little wooden dolls I carved for her last Christmas.
She’s given them all careers, unconcerned that they’re women, and I admire that small act of rebellion already starting.
They are preachers and teachers, nurses and waitresses.
“This one’s Ruth, like Mama,” she says. “And Martha, like you. That one’s Tabitha, but she doesn’t care for it.”
“I think it’s a lovely name, Tabitha,” I say in my most tender voice, playing along. I’m grateful for the distraction, truth be told, as I wipe down the already clean table.
I must keep moving as the evening wears on. There are too many memories that live in stillness. Too many worries.
Hazel looks up at me then, her eyes dark as night like her mother’s, like mine.
“Gran, is it true Foxglove’s haunted?”
The question throws me, making me pause. I turn toward her, hand on my hip. “Haunted? Where on earth did you hear a thing like that?”
She gives me a deep frown. “Agnes said her father says she can’t come to Foxglove to play. She says he told her it’s haunted here. It’s not true, is it?”
I chuckle, crossing the room to kneel beside her. “You know, there are some people in this world who can’t sleep unless they’ve got something to worry about. Something to be afraid of. It sounds to me like Agnes’s father is just looking for something to help him sleep.”
She gives me a crooked smile, missing both front teeth. “What do you mean?”
“Well…” I lift her onto my lap, smoothing her skirt. “If you’ve got a name for your fear, something you can point at and stay clear from, it makes you feel safer, in a way. A ghost’s just one name for something you don’t understand.”
Her eyes narrow, and she looks away, thinking. Then she finds me again. “So…is that a yes? Or a no?”
A laugh bubbles out of me without warning.
She’s never been one to let me get away with nuance.
“It’s neither.” I bump my nose against hers, then pull back, rubbing her leg.
What can I tell her, really? “Here’s what I know.
This house has held a lot of women. A lot of love, yes, but a lot of pain, too.
Maybe the walls remember it all. The good and the bad.
Maybe that’s all a ghost is. A place that remembers. ”
Hazel is quiet, and I can see her mind processing, wheels turning. She looks at the wall, as if trying to see straight through it. “Are we strange? Agnes said her father says we’re strange.”
My smile softens, an ember of rage in my chest. I brush a lock of hair back from her brow, weighing my words carefully on my tongue before I speak. “Strange isn’t always a bad thing to be, I’ll have you know.”
“But I don’t want to be strange.”
“They say we’re strange ’cause we don’t sit quietly when we’re told to do just that. Wilde women have never listened to their rules, never had to. Foxglove gave us permission to be free. To learn. And because of that, we know things, remember things, they’d rather us forget.”
She mulls that over. “I know a lot of things.”
I chuckle and pull her to my chest, resting her head there.
“You do, Hazel girl, and don’t you ever let anyone make you feel less than because of it.
The world doesn’t take kindly to women who make their own way in it.
And…” I sigh. “I suppose, they see a name like ours, a name like Wilde and…well, they must reckon it means we’re just what we are. ”
She sighs, like the weight of the world is on her shoulders. “Wilde?” She says it like it’s heavy, and I guess it might feel that way sometimes.
I turn her head toward me, kissing her forehead. “Yes. Wild. And strong. Stubborn. Not easy to hurt or kill. Not easy to own. And some people—small-minded, simple people—they’re afraid of what they can’t own. What they can’t put a name to.”
She nods, like she’s filing what I’ve said away for later. Then she lifts her hand and runs it through the ends of my silver hair. “I like being a Wilde.”
Pride swells through me. “I do too, darling.”
Above us, Ruth cries out, and it’s different this time. Loud, lined with panic.
I’m on my feet in a second. “It’s time. She’s ready.”
Hazel means to follow me, dolls forgotten on the floor. “Can I help?”
I nearly tell her no. It would be easy enough to, but I stop myself. “Bring clean cloths to the washstand for me, could you? Then stand by the stairs. When I call you, you can come. Until then, keep quiet and pray.”
She snaps into action, running down the hall, and I can’t help smiling. We all have jobs to do tonight.
The stairs creak under my weight as I climb them. My knees remind me of my age with every step.
The loft smells of sweat and lavender, and I can feel her aching deep in my own bones. Ruth lies curled in on herself, forehead slick with sweat. Her hair sticks to her face, gown clinging to her back and belly.
She realizes I’ve entered the room and looks over, eyes as wild as an animal. As a mother.
“It hurts…” She groans. Pleads.
“I know it does,” I say, crossing the room and taking her hand. I crawl onto the bed with her and stroke her back. “I’m here. You know what to do. Breathe, my love. Just breathe.”
She lets out a deep cry from the depths of her gut, her lungs.
“Yes, that’s all right, too,” I say with a small chuckle, drawing circles deep into her muscles. “Howl if you must.”
Outside the window, the sun has nearly disappeared in the sky, casting all of Foxglove in shadows, and I think of the spirits then.
I’ll bet they’re celebrating. Tonight, the trees will whisper, and the flowers in the meadow will dance, just as they have for hundreds of years and hundreds of births before this one, announcing the news.
Another Wilde woman is on her way.
And someday our dear Foxglove—our home—will remember her, too.