Chapter 6
August 5th, 1881North York Moors, England
Every day became a little easier. In a way, the gift of crutches had given Eva wings. Nearly six weeks after her accident, her ankles had healed enough to add pressure, and she quickly found herself moving around the farm with more ease.
Despite this newfound freedom, she still struggled. Carrying around two wooden crutches added an awkward heaviness to her frame, limiting her ability to carry out tasks. Often, all she could do was sit on a stool and wash laundry or chop vegetables for supper. Sometimes she tried to feed the ducks or collect herbs from the garden, but with two crutches and one semi-good foot, the task would elicit swear words and quickly bring on a wave of exhaustion. Phoebe would then come around to take the burden. This frustrated Eva. She desperately wanted to be useful without anyone’s help.
In the kitchen, Eva was folding laundry at the dining table. She smoothed her hands over a bedsheet hanging to dry and brought it to her nose. It smelled like the country air. Fragrant with earthy, floral tones.
The porch door swung open behind her and banged against the wall.
“Ma!” Abe shouted.
Eva jumped and shot Abe a look.
His chartreuse eyes were animated. Slumped over his shoulder was a white woolly bundle. Streams of blood had poured down his shirt from the lamb’s head, which lay crooked to the side. Eva’s annoyance at Abe’s loud entrance was replaced with horror.
Lewis came in running from the hall. He halted in his tracks and his eyes widened.
“Come look at what Mr. Barwick gave us,” Abe said as he leaned forward to place the lamb onto the dining table.
With a strangled gasp, Eva grabbed the sheets.
The lamb’s corpse fell with a loud thud against the tabletop. The fur around its fluffy white neck was matted with blood.
Horrified, Eva averted her eyes.
“What’s wr-wrong, Eva? Never seen a d-dead lamb before?” Lewis said.
“No, I haven’t,” Eva said.
Lewis nudged Abe’s waist. “See, I t-told you Eva was a rich lady. I bet she had her s-servants slaughter the lambs.”
“We don’t talk about those things, Lewis,” Abe said.
“Don’t talk about what?” Phoebe said, appearing in the kitchen holding a blanket. Brow raised, she looked at Lewis expectantly.
Lewis blushed and didn’t reply.
Phoebe gave him a look as if to say better watch your tongue, boy. She approached Eva. “Could you please put this sheet in the bucket outside? Ceci had another accident. That poor child. I’ll put away the fresh linens in the meantime.”
Eva swapped the clean sheets for soiled ones. Ignoring the dampness of the material, she propped a crutch beneath one arm and made her way outside. At the washing bucket, she placed the sheet into the water and stirred it with a stick.
“Did my s-sister have another n-night terror?” Lewis said.
Eva looked up from her work to see the timid boy standing with his arms behind his back. He balanced himself on the tips of his toes and stared at the reflection of the cloudy sky swirling in the water.
“I’m not sure,” Eva said. “I guess so.”
Lewis’s tiny mouth fell into a frown. It was clear by his reserved expression he was looking for advice on something.
Eva set the stick aside and settled on the wooden bench. “Will you sit with me?”
He strolled over and plopped next to her, his feet barely touching the ground. He slumped his shoulders and exhaled.
“Is everything all right?” Eva said.
“I s-s’pose.”
“You suppose? It’s a lovely day, and we’re having lamb for dinner. There isn’t a reason for a boy of your age to have any troubled thoughts,” Eva said, ruffling Lewis’s curly hair. “Did Phoebe scold you again for bringing mud inside? Or are you worried about your sister?”
“Ceci often d-dreams bad things,” Lewis said quietly.
“Does she tell you about her dreams?”
“Yes,” he murmured. “She d-dreams of mum.”
“It’s normal to dream of those you love. Family, friends”—her voice fell at the next word in her mind. Lovers—“especially if they are gone. Did you know I’m an orphan too?”
His eyes widened. “Really?”
“Really,” Eva said. “I lost my dad not too long ago and I never knew my mom. But, unlike you, I don’t have a sibling. You and Ceci are incredibly lucky to have one another.”
“What do I do when she is a-always afraid?” Lewis said.
“You have to be strong for her until the fear passes.”
“Will it?”
“Yes,” Eva said. “Fear will always pass, and now I’ve given Ceci back her doll, the fear will pass quicker. I’m pretty sure the doll holds magical healing powers.”
“But a s-stupid doll can’t heal my s-s-studder.”
Her heart clenched. “The doll may not have the power to heal that but maybe books can. Do you know how to read?”
“No.”
“Would you like to learn?”
“I am n-not sure,” he frowned. “What’s the use in l-learning when all I do is s-studder?”
She took hold of his little hand and placed it between hers. “A stutter is simply a speech impediment; it does not define you. Don’t think you’re any less because of your struggle to speak. If Ceci can overcome her night terrors, you can overcome your stutter.”
His lips tightened, and he looked unconvinced.
“I’ll even tell you a secret,” she said.
“What?”
“I’ve heard that reading slowly every day out loud will reduce the stutter. It may even stop it.”
He gasped. “Really?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Will you t-teach me?”
“Do you have any books?”
“Ph-Phoebe does,” he said. “She reads them t-to Ceci and me at bedtime.”
“Then it’s settled,” she smiled. “We start this evening.”
“I’m v-very happy to have met you, Phoebe and R-Rich.” His sweet boyish face lit up, but instantly fell. “Even if I sometimes miss m-mum. She d-died from yellow fever. If it were not for a man who gave us money, we w-would still be homeless.”
“A man gave you money? Did you meet him on the streets?”
Lewis peered at his hands.
She playfully nudged his shoulder. “C’mon, you can tell me.”
“Promise you won’t t-tell?”
“I promise not to tell anyone.”
“I s-stole his pocket watch,” he said in a hushed whisper. “But he t-took pity on me when I said I was c-caring for my sister and gave me money instead.”
Eva blinked. Why did that sound familiar? “You stole his pocket watch?”
“I did. I felt really b-bad because I dropped it and the glass sh-shattered.”
A chill settled into her core. A memory flashed of sitting with Henry at Bondieux House. He had just told her his pocket watch had been stolen by a child thief in London and had shattered in the altercation. Had Lewis been responsible or was this another weird coincidence?
Her chest ached at the revelation. That had to be a coincidence. Like Rosie the doll.
“Are y-you well?” Lewis said.
She looked down at him and attempted a smile. It felt wooden. “I’m fine. Perfectly fine. Could I ask you a favour? Please ask Phoebe whether there are more sheets to wash.”
Lewis gave her an odd look. “You won’t t-tell Phoebe about the man, w-will you?”
“Your secret is safe with me,” Eva said. “A promise is a promise.”
He nodded, slipped down from the bench and hurried to the kitchen.
As she stood, a gentle wind blew across the garden, sweeping her hair in a flutter of strands around her face. In the distance, she heard Lewis ask Phoebe for more linens. She kneeled before the barrel and began to stir.
Her reflection spun in the whirlpool. Circling clockwise with the stick, she spun the contents of the barrel faster and faster, as if winding up an imaginary clock. Once more, she was reminded of time travel.
And of Henry.
Whatever she did, it would always come back to Henry Asheford. She would never escape him. No matter how hard she tried to push him away, he would resurface in different ways, haunting, taunting, poking and prodding. One moment, he was the evil devil who had betrayed her, and the next, he was the kind soul who potentially rescued innocent children from a life on the streets. What was the truth? Who was Henry Asheford?
A thought hit her so hard, it whipped the air from her lungs.
Whatever she had with Henry was not over. Somewhere beneath all those ugly layers of heartache, betrayal and pain, a thin line connected them. If she focused hard enough, she could feel it, pulling her into the darkness, beckoning her to face the reality that they coexisted in one world and would forever coexist until she could get her hands on the time-travelling device again.
Haven’t you known this all along?Didn’t fictional Henry warn you that he would be with you forever until you met again?
Yes, she knew. And yes, he had warned her. But fictional Henry had been just that – fictional. It was nothing more than her mind hallucinating those words. She thought it was possible to move on without ever having to face him again. She let out a shaky exhale as her fingers squeezed the stick tighter.
In the end, whoever Henry was as a man did not matter. Good or bad, they were over and done with. If anything, this revelation solidified her next step. To become strong, she had to take a good hard look at her wounds –mental as well as physical – before their fates would cross paths again. Then, she would be ready to accept whatever came her way with the courage of a lioness.
***
The day Eva walked unaided for the first time since arriving at the Randall farm began morose and grey, the wind whipping fat raindrops against the small shed window.
She awoke and pulled the blanket off her legs. Planting her feet onto the hardwood floor and slowly standing, she had the impulse to walk. For days, her ankles had seemed better, but not wanting to risk further injury, she had continued using her crutches. Today was different. She felt stronger than usual.
She put one step forward, then another, and within seconds, she was at her dresser. Relief flooded her chest. What’s more, last week Rich had removed the stitches in her right palm.
She studied the large pink scar on her hand. Oddly enough, it didn’t bother her. It was a badge of the fight she’d won. Although, her stiff fingers were another problem. Ah, well. The stiffness was bound to go away with time. Having decided to work on her mental strength, she refused to be negative about her situation any longer. It was sabotaging her efforts to move on.
She opened the top drawer of her dresser.
On the right were her old clothes. A torn yellow dress, the very same she had worn back in June when she ran to the hotel in search of Henry. Beneath the remnants of the once beautiful gown were her undergarments, the silk mint-green set Henry had chosen for her. She had considered burning them in a bonfire weeks ago but could not go through with it. What if she needed them again? After all, they were her only pair of expensive undergarments, and she was certain she would need them again one day.
In the meantime, Phoebe had allowed her to wear pants around the farm. At first, it was a struggle to convince her since she was stern about keeping gender-specific customs. Eva did not understand why. They lived on a farm, far from others. Why did it matter if someone caught sight of Eva in pants on their property? Eventually, Eva convinced Phoebe it would be easier to heal uncorseted and without long dresses fluttering around her ankles. Besides, she knew Phoebe did not have the funds to buy new dresses, and even if she did, Eva would adamantly refuse to accept the generosity. She would buy her own dress with her own money as soon as she found a way.
Eva washed with a cloth and cold water. She dressed in a pair of thin ruddy-brown pants and a loose beige shirt. She tied her hair in a loose ponytail with a silk ribbon. Before leaving the shed, she looked at her reflection in the hand-held mirror on the top of her dresser.
Her face stared back, changed by the events of recent months. She ran a finger across the thin scars along her cheekbone. It was another badge of the fight she had won and of the pain in her past.
See? Things are mending. You will find yourself again.
She set the mirror down.
Excitement swelled in her chest. With one wide lunge, she strode to the door and opened it. A gust of fragrant summer air swept in, sprinkling her skin with a sheet of cool rain. Goosebumps pricked her skin as a familiar instinct urged her to raise her arms and run, like she would often do at the beach as a child. She stepped onto the gravel path.
The rain plummeted against her body, drenching her to the skin. As she walked through the garden for the first time without crutches, wet strands of grass brushed against her shoes and thorny bushes pulled at the material of her pants.
Just as she reached the pigpen, Abe came out of the house. He was carrying a bucket of overflowing slop with intense concentration as he darted toward the pig’s enclosure.
She laughed out loud, and he looked up.
“I finally beat you to the pigs,” she called over the rain pummelling on the ground.
His eyes widened. “Eva? Eva, my God, you’re walking. You’re finally walking.”
With a grin, she held out her arms by her side and jogged to him. He set the bucket of slop down with a splash. Laughing, they met in the middle of the path. Abe brought his arms around her in an embrace.
“I can’t believe it,” he said, spinning her in the rain. “You’re walking without help.”
“Yes,” she grinned. “I’m as free as a bird.”