One of Us Buried by Johanna Craven (year 2 reading books TXT) 📕

He stepped closer, pushing gently against my shoulder, urging me to face him.

No, I didn’t want to look at him. Didn’t want him to see this darkest side of me. I felt tears spring up behind my eyes.

“Because once you kill another, it never leaves you.” His voice was low. “The look in their eyes, it stays with you forever. It’s a stain you will never be rid of.”

I thought of Blackwell hunching beside the rebels’ graves. Thought of the heaviness that had hung about him when he had returned to the hut that day. How many ghosts haunted Adam Blackwell, I wondered? Whose invisible eyes watched him at night?

But he was wrong. There was a part of me that did want to kill Owen. To hell with the consequences and the ghosts and the unerasable stain. I wanted to look into Owen’s eyes and see fear. See the realisation that a woman held the power.

For those few precious moments I would be more than concubine. I would hold life and death in my hands.

“You don’t have it in you,” he said.

“Is that what you think?”

But I knew he was right. I had walked that path from obedient daughter to convict, but murderess was still beyond me.

Blackwell wrapped his fingers around mine, his hand dwarfing my own. “Please, Eleanor,” he said, “put the knife down.”

My fingers tensed around the handle. I couldn’t release my grip on it. What I would do with it now, I didn’t know, but it felt like all the power I had in the world. How could I let that go?

“Lottie’s going to die,” I coughed. “Just like Maggie. She’s going to die and no one will think twice on it. They’ll blame her death on the blacks and Owen will walk, just as he always does.”

Blackwell looked down at the knife. “So you will sacrifice yourself for her? Send yourself to the hangman?”

I felt my shoulders sink, as though the earth was tugging me down. I let him take the knife from my hand. He placed it on the ground between our feet. He slid the rifle from his shoulders and opened the chamber, setting the balls and cartridge on the table.

Inexplicably, the gesture made rage flare inside me. I thought of all the dominance, all the strength, men like him had over the rest of us, casually taking the shells from his weapon with a practised ease. And all I could see was him standing on the jury and letting Patrick Owen walk.

I swung at him suddenly, my blows pounding his chest, his shoulders, his arms. For several moments, he stood still, letting me take my anger out on him. But when I bent to pick up the knife, he grabbed my wrists, pulling me up to him and forcing me into stillness. His nose grazed mine.

“Wave that knife around and you’ll hang for it,” he hissed. “It doesn’t matter if you kill Owen or not. You’re a factory lass. Just carrying it will be enough to put you on the scaffold.”

I shook my head. “I don’t care.”

His hands tightened around my wrists. “I care.”

My tears spilled suddenly; tears of grief, of exhaustion, of frustration. And his arms were around me, holding me tightly.

I closed my eyes, feeling myself sink against him. I buried my head against his broad chest, so he couldn’t see me cry.

He slid his hand over my hair, holding me close. I could feel the warmth of his palm against my neck. Could feel his body rising and falling with breath. A little of the distress inside me began to still.

I wished for my old sleeping pallet beside the hearth. I wished for the sound of him breathing beside me in the night. Nothing more. Just that reassurance that someone was there to know, to care if this place swallowed me whole. I felt my fingers tighten around the edge of his coat. And with the gesture, he pulled away, his hand ghosting over the plait that hung down my back.

“I’m sorry, Eleanor,” he said huskily, “you need to go back to the farm.”

*

On Thursday, I made it a point not to step off Leaver’s property for a minute. I couldn’t bear to be out in a world in which Lottie was marrying Owen.

The next day I woke before dawn, lighting the fires and laying the table. Then I slipped out of the house and made my way to the river, desperate to catch Lottie before she sailed away on the morning barge.

I found her waiting on the riverbank beside Owen, a few other travellers clustered by the jetty. She stood with her arms wrapped around herself, staring across the murky plane of the water. Owen was pacing back and forth across the riverbank, hands dug into his pockets to keep out the cold.

He looked up, his face breaking into a grin. “Nice of you to come see us off, Nellie.”

There was a positive to their leaving of course; no more dead animals hung from Blackwell’s hut, no more rocks through his window. Perhaps in Sydney Town, Owen would learn to forget the anger he held towards the lieutenant. And perhaps with Owen gone, Blackwell could move out from beneath the shadow of Castle Hill.

But with Owen gone, Lottie would be gone too. And the thought of it made me ache.

I made my way towards her. I wanted to plead with her one final time, but I knew there was no point. The marriage permit had been signed, the ceremony complete. Instead, I just pulled her into my arms and held her tightly. I couldn’t shake the fear that the next grave I would be standing at would be hers. Her arms slid around me, pulling me close.

And here came the barge, gliding up