4 Liney To Fight
Liney
To Fight
Elle sends me to collect debris that the storm might pick up and buffet against the lighthouse, bundling me up against the cold as she finishes supper. She forces me to promise that I’ll run right back before the dark clouds of the storm proper cross the harbor’s mouth.
I can finally breathe once outside. I comb the small field and the black rock beach near the lighthouse for stray nets, driftwood, and clotheslines.
I stop to check the kitchen window for Elle’s passing figure, but the glass reflects gray sky and treetops.
The lighthouse looms, a plain octagonal building, leaning toward me on a slight tilt.
Is it the never-ending wind’s influence?
Dirty white wood shingles surround the only door, once bright red but turned a well-chipped maroon by the time we showed up.
My shoulder aches when I lift anything heavier than a few pounds. Elle would’ve done a more thorough job.
How dare she, Chamomile says as I take a moment to regain my breath.
“It’s not her fault. It’s mine for being reckless.”
Chamomile kicks at a stone and passes through it. I’d laugh, but I’ll start coughing again.
It’s not your fault! She said it herself. You warned her! Chamomile crosses her arms. Now nothing from the mainland, all winter? Nothing bad happened!
“Elle is cautious.” I pick up a long sock that blew off the clothesline and snagged on the sharp edge of a rock. It will need darning. “I can’t fault her for taking our safety seriously.”
If she’d let you go—
“She won’t, Chamomile!” I shout. The wind whips my words into a small vortex of frustration and browning maple leaves. “It’s not always a person at fault, only a circumstance. Elle is a force but a natural one. We can weather her.”
One sister should not weather another.
Chamomile never knew Elle before. I’ve long suspected that whatever gave my sister her edge happened while I was locked in dress fittings and seating arrangements.
Elle wasn’t always fearful and brusque. Before Thomas quelled her, Elle played in the boundaries of our parents’ approval to keep me entertained. She never crossed the line with them around, but she was another person entirely with me.
Elle would try to make me laugh at church, pinching my side and making faces out of sight of our parents.
She was my light. I’d hang on to her dress and follow her everywhere.
Father joked that we’d never need a cat the way I skulked after her.
When night came and I was alone in a bedroom with tall walls and shadowy corners, somehow Elle knew I needed her.
She’d sneak into my room with a cup of tea and a leftover pastry the cook had made that morning.
She’d climb into bed with me, and we’d play a game: make a person.
One of us would begin an imaginary person’s day and trade off building their life until it became a tale of a fantastical hero or dastardly villain.
No wonder I conjured Chamomile out of nowhere. I’ve done it my whole life.
I used to watch Elle speak to others and wonder how she knew how to behave, which conversations to stoke and which to extinguish and all the intricacies of society life.
Most of my life was that of an invalid, barely allowed out in the garden for fear of an episode.
They worried I had consumption when I first showed violent symptoms at five years old.
A physician diagnosed it as asthma, a chronic condition of the lungs.
He suggested restricting me from activities that could cause intense emotion or shorten my breath.
My parents took this to heart. They locked me in the house save for mass and a few homes of close family friends—until there was a financial reason to do otherwise.
Elle gave me as much of the world as she could. She was my storyteller. Every festivity she was dragged to, she did with a wink that said I’d know the details later. I learned the world through her eyes, hanging on every description of ladies’ dresses and hum of her favorite songs.
Chamomile follows me along the edge of the water. I collect the few items that have found their way along our shore, either our own or flotsam from passing ships. The laps of the waves calm me. How can this gentle tide turn deadly in only a few hours?
It’s not your fault that you’re angry.
I spot something fluttering a few meters from the end of the trees near the dock. It’s too big to be a leaf, a tannish gray instead of brilliant red. I keep out of the dock’s view in case the man might still be nearby. But I don’t catch sight of his boat, which settles my pulse.
Closer, there’s a dark, intricate pattern—no.
Letters. It’s a sheet from a newspaper. I pluck it out of the branch’s grasp, careful not to rip it.
There are a few tears, but it’s otherwise intact.
Mr. Croxton was rustling through papers while talking to Elle; it must’ve flown out of his grip in his rush.
I glance up, not at the dock but the sky beyond. Layers of darkening grays have overtaken the predusk blues. There’s an acidic tang at the back of my throat. The storm won’t be long now. I should rush back into the safety of the lighthouse. Cower under the watch of its sturdy wood beams.
The problem is that the paper is in my hands, and I can’t be certain it will stay that way if I bring it back to Elle.
The masthead shows it’s from April. The sheet was placed deep in the paper from the tiny type of the articles and the (cont.)s that begin most of them.
Mr. Croxton must have picked the sheet specifically to add to his collection—why?
Anything worth reading? Chamomile asks, peering over my shoulder.
“We should go back,” I say, more out of habit than true desire.
It doesn’t stop my eyes scanning. The first side includes half a page of miscellaneous news and the other half a grab bag of advertisements.
News. Even if it’s old, it’s still months better than my last step on the mainland.
New Brunswick wool spinners sent six hundred yards by steamer to U.S.
troops. Maine has authorized female nurses to be employed in the Army.
A couple of Toronto investors found a hidden stash of gold in a shipment of Russian copper coins.
Halifax’s population has increased by six thousand in the past ten years.
I skim through the usual ads for teething syrups and blood-cleansing sarsaparillas alongside merchant tailors and law firms.
What is electric oil? Chamomile asks, pointing to an ad low on the page. The novel substance claims to cure no fewer than forty-two ailments, but I stop on one: asthma.
“Quackery. My mother bought bottles of the stuff from a medicine show after I was diagnosed. It coated my throat so thick I nearly choked.”
That sounds…detrimental to a lung condition.
“I can’t imagine it was any better at the other claims. Deafness, toothaches, and”—I squint at the small print—“felons?”
Infection of the finger, Chamomile explains. Not criminals.
How does she know that? I’ve never heard of such a thing.
Another ad catches my attention before I ask.
The Suffering of Women. It features pills that can heal stomach ulcers and produce healthy bile in women, specially formatted for our feeble bodies.
I roll my eyes at the wording. The fragile structure and acute nervous sensibilities of women sticks out.
Time away has sharpened the edge of words I didn’t used to think twice about.
Besides being insulting, it’s wrong. While my constitution may fit the bill, Elle’s surely doesn’t.
To consider half the world’s population so unilaterally weak is as logical as believing a concoction of sap and castor oil can cure anything.
I turn over the page. There are a few marriage announcements, full of family names and felicitations. Then a section simply titled Funerals. I skim through them until I come upon my own name.
Delayed funeral, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Forsyth (aged 56, 48), to take place April 7, 1862, at St. Mary’s Cathedral with burial to follow.
Highly respected and greatly lamented. Grief deepened by the loss of daughters Mary Eleanor and Caroline Anne.
Leaving many friends and business partners mourning.
The tension in my fingers rips the paper. I read the words again, but it’s not coming together. Delayed. Burial. Loss of daughters. Caroline. Me? No. Surely someone else. But the ages are right, the names, everything. Even our church is listed.
My parents are dead. When did it happen? A delay could mean anything. Over the winter perhaps? Burials are often delayed until spring. I focus on these details because I can’t stare into the void my family has become without my knowing.
“Read this. Is it real?” I turn to Chamomile, but she’s gone. Only the trees receive me. They rattle their leaves in the prestorm winds like the tears wavering at the edges of my eyes.
A crack of thunder sounds from the horizon, making me jump and nearly drop the paper.
It’s gotten darker since I started reading.
I look back to the dock, and to Halifax far beyond my view.
I’ve been picturing my parents there. Waiting for us.
How long has that been wrong? It’s October now.
The funeral was six months ago. Who attended?
What was the hymn sung over their caskets?
Was it the ancient priest with the bad ear who blessed them, or the younger one with the permanent sniffle?
Every detail I imagine makes it more real, but I can’t stop.
Focus on the tasks, that’s what Elle would do. Oh God, Elle! She doesn’t know. Soon it’ll be treacherous walking over roots and rocks. I must head back.
Everything is blurry. They’re dead.
Elle meets me at the door, the picture of our mother: efficient, meticulous, and overbearing. Our dead mother. The word echoes inside me. Dead, dead, dead and gone.