Ghost Fire Read online

  The landlord wiped a tankard with a dishcloth. He would not meet Theo’s eye. “You may be new arrived, but you’ve made enemies quick enough.”

  “Enemies? Surely you cannot mean Mr. Claypole.”

  By now, the tankard was so bright Theo could have read a newspaper in its reflection. The landlord mumbled something about it not being right to talk of other folk, and how Theo’s business was his own.

  “If this is how you treat visitors, then it is a wonder you have any custom at all!” Theo exclaimed. He had seen only one other visitor at the boarding house, a furrier from Massachusetts. “I do not know what you intend to do with my bed, for you surely cannot need it for your guests.”

  But there was no reasoning with the man. Theo left that afternoon—watched, he was certain, by every pair of eyes in the township. He had little doubt that news of his going would reach Claypole before he crossed the town boundary.

  The next township was called Easton, some fifteen miles distant. Theo stayed for five days. The people were friendlier than in Bethel. His money was good, and in the evening, conversation could be had around the common table. Theo relayed the news from India and from London. In turn, he learned of the situation in the colonies. He was astonished to find out how two continents on opposite sides of the globe could weigh on each other. The battle at Fort Necessity, which had prompted the French to attack Madras, was a spark that had lit a long fuse. In Europe, King Louis XV of France and King George II of Great Britain had talked of peace, but in America the fighting had never stopped. Now the pretense of negotiations had finally broken down, and war had been declared.

  North America was the only place in the world where the British and French shared a land border.

  “The new prime minister, Mr. Pitt, says he will take the fight to the French anywhere in the world,” said one of Theo’s companions. “He calls it war, but really he wants their trade. He has sent ten thousand men from England, and more are coming from all over the colonies. There is a captain in Lexington, raising a new regiment of New Hampshire men.”

  The others nodded and agreed it would be a war like no other.

  “But will we win?” asked another man, glumly. He was a backwoodsman, with buckskin trousers and mud under his fingernails. Beer dribbled down his beard. “Easy for Pitt to give orders in London, but our frontiers are not the neat battlefields of Europe. It takes a different kind of fighting to win a war in the back country—and the French are past masters at it. Even before you count their Indian allies.”

  “An English redcoat is worth ten Indians,” said one young hothead. He wore lace cuffs and had just arrived from Boston.

  “They said much the same in Calcutta,” Theo said quietly. “And it cost many men their lives.”

  “And it will cost us here,” agreed the backwoodsman. “We treat the Indians as slaves, but the French treat them as men.”

  “And the French have a chain of impregnable forts right down to our border,” added another man.

  “No fort is impregnable,” scoffed the hothead.

  “Tell that to George Washington.”

  There was much laughter at that, which Theo did not understand. “Colonel Washington is a Virginian. He built a fort in the wilderness two years back named Fort Necessity,” his neighbor explained. “The French took it and destroyed it. Washington surrendered.”

  “I have heard of it,” Theo said tightly.

  “A year later, Washington returned with an English army to attack the French outpost at Fort Duquesne. The French and Indians ambushed them. We lost a thousand men, and Washington retreated again.”

  “If he is the best we can do, we are in for a hard war,” said the backwoodsman morosely. He looked at Theo. “You’re young and have seen battle. Will you enlist?”

  “Are you trying to make me take the King’s shilling?” Theo asked, in mock outrage. He drained his glass and pretended to examine the bottom. Unscrupulous recruiting sergeants had been known to drop a coin into an unsuspecting man’s drink and claim he had accepted enlistment when he fished it out.

  The laughter was free and easy, and the conversation moved on.

  Theo passed a few pleasant days in Easton. On the fifth afternoon, he left with a day’s provisions, a tin of worms he had grubbed from the soil, and a fishing line.

  •••

  Abigail told herself she was being foolish. She said it aloud that morning, milking the cow. She said it again in the afternoon, scraping the linen over the washboard. She thought it silently at supper, trying to avoid her mother’s piercing gaze. And she repeated it over and over to herself as she lay in her bed, fully dressed, waiting to be sure everyone was asleep.

  Before she went to bed she stared up at the stars in the pitch-black night sky. They were like diamonds on black silk, celestial messages decipherable only to those who could read their language. Ships could navigate from the stories the stars could tell, and Abigail read her destiny in the shimmering starlight. It filled her heart to bursting.

  Her hint about the fishing had been so subtle, Theo might not have understood. Or he had understood but did not want to go, or had not realized she meant him to come tonight, the night of the full moon. Perhaps he did not know where to find Shaw’s Pond, or was too frightened of her father.

  She had looked into his eyes, and seen a spark—a mirror of the desire that she had tried so hard to keep from showing in her own face. She had to believe he would come.

  And what if she was being foolish? It would cost her nothing but lost sleep, and damp shoes, and a beating if her father caught her.

  She rose and crawled across the attic floor, feeling her way around her sleeping brother. She descended the ladder on tiptoe, terrified the rungs would creak. Embers in the hearth cast a low red glow; the only sound was her father snoring in his bed.

  She did not put on her boots until she was outside. The night made her skin taut with cold. She wished she had brought a blanket, but she did not dare risk going back inside. What time was it? She had said midnight to Theo, but there was no clock in the house and she had no idea if she was late or early. What if he left because he thought she was not coming?

  She knew she was being foolish. She went anyway.

  The full moon lit her path. As a girl, she had ranged far and wide through the forest, often following Nathan on his foraging expeditions. When she had turned fourteen her mother had forbidden it, saying it was unbecoming for a young woman to be out on her own. But the trails had not changed. She flitted along them, never tripping. An owl hooted; a grazing deer looked up in surprise, then went back to its meal. Twice, she thought she heard a twig snap behind her, or the rustle of leaves. She waited, holding her breath. At this time of year, the Indians should have moved on to their winter hunting grounds, but you never knew who might be out in the forest.

  She was jumping at shadows. She hurried on.

  Shaw’s Pond was a pool in the river that flowed down from the mountains at the foot of a waterfall. The weight of water coming over the cliff had hollowed out a bowl in the rock, deep and clear and surprisingly placid. Stone ledges surrounded it, making it easy to scramble in and out. In the hot summer months, all the local children went swimming there.

  The moon shone on bare rocks and still water. The foaming falls glittered like a river of diamonds, roaring loud in the quiet of the night. The place was deserted.

  Abigail’s hopes collapsed. She had been a fool—a fool to come all this way for a dream of a man she barely knew. The night’s cold teeth sank into her bones. It would be a long walk home.

  A hand touched her shoulder, so unexpected she shrieked.

  •••

  Theo had arrived before sunset. He walked softly, watching for others on the path, but met no one. He ate his bread and drank the ale he’d brought. Then he settled down under his blankets, inside the trees where he would not be seen. He watched the sun set over the great river valley in a pageant of gold and copper. The forest stretched to the
mountains, and the mountains to the horizon. It was like no country he had ever seen or imagined, blank and untamed in a way that India, with its teeming multitudes and ancient civilization, never could be. He felt it deep in his soul, a fierce sense of belonging. This was where he could write his life.

  He did not have a timepiece, so he did not know how long he waited. Raised in distant cities, the night sounds of the forest were alien to him. Every bird and animal that stirred the undergrowth made him think she might be coming. Each time, he was disappointed.

  He was a fool, he told himself. He’d thought he had heard a suggestion in her tone when she described the pond, but he had been mistaken, inventing things he wanted to be true.

  Then he saw her.

  She glided out of the forest without a sound. She stood on a rock, and the moonlit waterfall made a curtain of light behind her. Her dark hair fell loose down her back, framing her face and her wide, longing eyes.

  He rose and went to her and put his hand on her shoulder. She shrieked with alarm and spun around, losing her footing. She stumbled forward. Theo caught her. He pulled her to his chest and wrapped his arms around her.

  “You came,” she cried. “I thought . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  “I read your meaning.” Theo grinned, and gestured to the fishing rod leaning against a rock. “You know I am a keen fisherman.”

  She could barely speak for happiness and relief. “I know this is wrong, but I thought I would never see you again and I could not bear it.”

  “Neither could I. But I am here now, and so are you.” He touched her cheek. “You are cold.”

  He took her hand and led her to the edge of the water. They sat, legs dangling over the silver pool. The moon cast a spell that made everything—rocks, trees, water—strange and magical. He wrapped the blanket around them both and held her close.

  “I heard you left Bethel,” she said.

  “I found I had outstayed my welcome.”

  “Father took against you. And I think Mother guesses how I feel. She gives me such spiteful looks—she would rather I were dead than thinking of you.”

  Theo squeezed her tighter to him. “She may have to get used to me. I am thinking of making my life here. Maybe as a fisherman.”

  “Do not joke about such things.”

  “It was no joke.”

  She shivered. “You do not understand. They will never let you stay. Father is an elder on the parish council, and you have seen how he can turn the township against you. They will hunt you out.”

  Theo took her hand in his. “Even if I am married to his daughter?” He was heedless of his impulsiveness. The emptiness inside him yearned for fulfillment.

  Her hand was like ice. She pulled it away.

  “Do not speak of marriage,” she whispered, so softly he barely heard her over the rushing waterfall. “I am already engaged.”

  A piece of granite seemed to pierce Theo’s heart. “I see.”

  “Mother arranged it for me. He owns the neighboring farm—recently widowed.”

  “Do you love him?”

  “No!” she cried. “He is a man in my father’s image. He never puts down his Bible, unless it is to pick up his gun. When we took tea with him to agree the betrothal, he gave me one look, as he might give a cow at auction, then talked to Father of land prices and theology.”

  “Then do not marry him.”

  “I have no choice.”

  A silence settled between them. A startled bird flew, squawking, out of the forest, but Theo did not notice. “Why did you bring me here?” he asked.

  “I wanted to see you again.”

  “So you could tell me you were betrothed?”

  “Not only for that.”

  She pulled away, so suddenly he thought he must have offended her. She stood and stepped back from him.

  “Did I—?” There was such a confusion of emotions in Theo’s chest he could not speak.

  Abigail put her hands to her neck and undid the collar of her dress. Her cold fingers fumbled with the laces. Theo didn’t move.

  She parted the dress and pulled it down to her ankles. She wriggled out of the white shift she wore underneath, then stepped away from the pile of discarded clothes. She stood on a rock overhanging the pool, entirely naked, her skin so white and lustrous she seemed to be made of moonlight.

  Theo gaped. Reverentially, his eyes traced the lines of her body. Her young breasts standing firm and full, the nipples hardening to the touch of the cool night air. The swell of her hips, the curve of her thighs and the darkness in between. Her bare feet on the mossy rocks.

  Yet her face was the loveliest of all. He looked up. Her eyes caught his and held them.

  “Don’t you dare look away,” she said.

  Theo obeyed.

  “I wanted to feel a man look on me with love. Not as some sinful object, to be treated with less care than he gives his livestock.”

  “You are beautiful,” Theo said simply. “The most beautiful woman I have ever seen.”

  He sensed she was waiting for something more. He stood. He hesitated, but she smiled, inviting him on.

  He put his hand on her breast, soft as silk. He let his fingers slide down her skin to the cleft between her legs. She gasped.

  Unbidden, he thought of her father carrying his long rifle. “If he finds out about this—”

  She put a finger against his lips, while her other hand undid the buttons on his shirt. “Do not speak of that. Please. For one night in my life, let me call my body my own.”

  They lay together under the stars, cushioned by the mossy ground. She cried out when Theo entered her, but only for a moment. Soon it turned to moans of pleasure, as she coaxed him ever deeper inside her. She wrapped her legs around his thighs and urged him on, agile and eager.

  They climaxed together, their bodies shaking in unison as he emptied himself into her.

  •••

  It was a cold night, but Jebuthan Claypole was snug under his blankets. When he heard Abigail stir, he wanted to believe it was nothing. A call of nature. Nothing to make him leave the warmth of his bed.

  But his mother had told him to keep close watch on Abigail, and he could not fail her. As soon as he heard the front door close, he slid down the ladder and went to the window—in time to see his sister vanish into the forest.

  It was the path that led to Shaw’s Pond.

  He dressed and followed her. The pathway was difficult to see and she moved quickly—it would have been easy to lose both her and the trail—but Jebuthan had grown up in the same woods, tracking and trapping animals for days at a time. Even so, she almost caught him twice, when he stepped on a stick or knocked a low branch. But he stayed stock still, and she was too eager to move on to pay keen attention.

  He slowed when he heard the falls ahead and crept the last few yards to the rocks that ringed the pool. Crouching in the shadows and the undergrowth, he saw everything—abominable things that even the fieriest preachers would only hint at darkly in their sermons. He crossed himself, reciting every prayer he could think of. It was hideous, the works of Satan as he had never imagined them. Yet he could not take his eyes off it.

  At last Theo and Abigail had sated their lust. Jebuthan ran back to the farm. His father woke in an instant, an instinct honed from living on the frontier. Two words were enough to make him understand the situation. He snatched the rifle off the wall.

  “Fetch the dogs.”

  •••

  Theo and Abigail lay in each other’s arms, naked and spent. Their bodies glowed with heat under the blanket he had pulled over them.

  “Is that the sin the preachers hate so fiercely?” Abigail said in wonder. “Surely such a thing cannot be wrong.”

  “Not when it comes from love.”

  The night was drawing on. Soon Abigail would remember her family, and the life they had waiting for her. Theo clung to her, pressing her skin against his, wishing he could hold her back from the world that wanted to
claim her.

  “Come away with me,” he said suddenly.

  “Do not say such things,” said Abigail. “If my parents find me gone from my bed, they will have me put in the pillory.”

  “Then why did you agree to meet?” Theo asked. “To taunt me with one night of bliss? I would rather you had never come than leave me to be tormented by this memory.”

  “One night is all I am allowed.”

  “Allowed by whom?” he demanded. “Will you let your life be governed by others? I lived that way for a time, doing as my guardian told me. All it brought was heartbreak. You must choose for yourself.”

  “I cannot.”

  But Theo could feel her heart beating faster against his chest. Was she softening? He stared into her eyes. “I would go to the ends of the earth to be happy with you,” he said. “If not in the colonies, then in England, or India, or even China.”

  “Those are only names on a map.”

  “They are real places. Some of them I have already been to. I can take you anywhere in the world, so long as we are together.”

  “You make it sound so easy.” She was on the verge of tears. “I have never been further than Easton.”

  “It takes only one step to begin a journey.”

  She lay still for a long time. Theo’s hopes faded. He had tried his best and it had not been enough.

  When her answer came, it was barely louder than the wind in the trees. Theo was not sure he had heard aright. “What did you say?”

  “Yes,” she whispered. And then, more confidently, “A thousand times yes.” She hugged him, her eyes sparkling. “As long as I am with you.”

  “I will never let you go,” Theo promised.

  He gave her a long, penetrating kiss. She responded eagerly, pressing herself against him.

  “Can you do it more than once?” she asked shyly.

  Theo was already stiff with desire again. He lifted her buttocks, angling her toward him—then paused.

  Abigail moaned with impatience. “What is it?”

  “I thought I heard a dog barking.”

  He sat up, listening hard. It came again—unmistakable.