The Sister's Tale by Beth Powning (e reader for manga .txt) 📕

blood was quite fresh. Cannot say if it was damp, but it was high-coloured and fresh…

“Why would he have left the axe?” Mr. Dougan began, his voice comfortable with the beginnings of the evening’s speculation. What he would have done, he would begin; and Ellen, then, would tell how she would have committed such an atrocity. They both seemed intent on proving their cunning, their devious natures, their contempt for the clumsiness of the murderer.

It was not real to them, Flora thought, only a story. It made her think of the time, crossing the Atlantic, when a storm had made the children cry out for parents who would never know of their terror. It made her wonder where Enid was, whether anyone was watching out for her safety, teaching her to avoid men, lock her door, walk with her face to the ground.

It was raining and the lily of the valley was in bloom. The cloying sweetness came in on the moist air. Maud appeared hesitantly in the doorway and asked if she might have a slice of bread and butter. She had not been hungry at suppertime.

“I’m sorry, Ellen,” she mumbled, glancing at Flora. Maud and Flora were the same age. “It was a lovely meal.”

Maud was fascinated with Flora but did not dare initiate conversation, nor ask questions, only listened, watched, was quick to respond if Flora spoke first. Where Lucy was built like Josephine, tall and slender, Maud was stocky, with reddish-brown hair and pale skin. She had been her father’s pet, Flora guessed, since her eyes filled with tears at the slightest reference to him.

Ellen buttered slices of oatmeal bread and arranged them on a plate.

“Here you are, Miss Maud, come back if you want more.”

After Maud left, Flora sat with ankles crossed and hands folded in her lap.

“What is it, Flora?”

I must have sighed.

“I was only thinking about my sister. Wondering if she is in Canada.”

Enid, Flora wanted to offer, to dispel the unspoken, the word like a bud; but she remained silent, seeing how Ellen shook folds from the paper, how Margaret rose to find her work basket. Distractions, to cover Flora’s pain.

She pulled a shawl around her shoulders.

Picturing.

After Ma died, she and Enid were like rabbits or foxes. Crouched, scurrying, crawling. Fingers scrabbling through dirt, separating baby potatoes from rootlets. Washing in icy river water. Kneeling beneath placid cows and milking into a cup. At night, they crept into the shuttered cottage, where Ma’s dress still hung on a hook, Papa’s straw hat on a nail.

A man came on the morning after the first frost. He held a felt hat over his nose and then fanned the air with it.

They stared dumbly as he told them to get whatever they wanted, for they would never come back here again—You are going to the workhouse; and she’d said—Ma told us never to go there; and he said—Did she, now, Missy, she’d be happy to see you there now.

Three years later, Matron came to the workhouse schoolroom and led Flora downstairs to a room where a lady waited. The lady was tall, with a long, thin nose and goose-glossy black eyes. Gold dress with lace at the neck; black gloves with lace at the wrist. Hair, a massed coil held by netting, pierced with tortoiseshell pins. Flora noticed the woman’s false patience—how her finger tapped as fast as Flora’s heart. She knew, too, that she was being tested, for the woman asked questions to which she already knew the answers. What did she do? (Felting, ma’am.) Did she have siblings? Were her parents alive?

Do you wish to better yourself? Do you wish to help your sister?

Like a hawk, circling the stubbled fields.

The day the green box arrived at the workhouse. Sent by the lady, filled with clothing for the trip. Flora took out a pair of mittens and slipped them on Enid’s hands. Brown wool, they flopped at the tips and Enid covered her face with mittened hands. Her arms, shadowed with grime.

No, Flora. She began to cry. Don’t go.

Later. In the yard. Enid, a thin little girl, knelt on the packed earth and played with the petals of blossoms that drifted down from an apple tree on the other side of the wall. She nested them, like piles of saucers.

And the day that Flora left.

Flora flung her arms around Enid, the little body more familiar than her own—silky hair, warm curve of neck.

Don’t go, Flora, oh, don’t go.

Matron’s helpers pried up their fingers, one by one.

Flora stood abruptly, flinging away the memories, like the shawl, which slithered to the floor. She bent and picked it up, hung it on the back of the chair. Mr. Dougan, too, stood and set his cup and saucer on the counter. Mary was scraping her pudding bowl with a spoon. Flora lifted it away.

“Wait,” Mary cried. “I didn’t get—”

“You did,” Flora said. “I hardly need to wash it.”

—

George came home for a short visit.

On the first morning of his return, he appeared at the breakfast table wearing a freshly washed shirt, with starched collar, and his best jacket.

“Why are you all dressed up?” Lucy asked. She offered him the teapot, which he waved away, asking Margaret for coffee.

“Because I am going to visit Grandfather.” Frowning. Lofty.

Josephine, watching the exchange, pondered how George bore his father’s death with conscious silence, pained if anyone invoked Simeon’s memory. He asked no questions, was uninterested in doings around town—the vandalism that had occurred on Main Street, the neighbour’s noisy new rooster. He brooded over his food, applying butter to toast with concentrated energy. Perhaps he felt himself as the man in the house and did not know how to behave under such a burden. Perhaps, she pondered, sipping her tea, he protected himself from grief, more easily quickened at home.

From her desk, later that morning, she watched him depart. The sky lowered, dark with clouds, over the budding trees. George strode down the lane. He carried Simeon’s umbrella, furled, touching down