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

in her mind—Mr. Tuck with an axe; Enid, cowering; she saw the spurt of blood, like when she chopped off a chicken’s head but hideously magnified. She cried out, a wail into the heat of her hands. Mr. Fairweather patted her shoulder.

The moon was rising in the east. Fields spread away on either side; horse and carriage made the only movement, a beetle crawling across silk.

He tapped the horse with his whip. His voice jolted as the mare, startled, broke into a canter and then resumed a faster, swarming trot.

“It’s not too much farther. There’s a house and barn along here. The constables thought the house had been sold. Well, perhaps it has, but last time I passed by it was still empty. I used to visit an old man who was born and died on the farm. Lonely and a bit strange in the head.”

The mare laboured up a long hill, then down, into the flickering shadows of a spruce hollow.

“Just along here, now,” he said as they came out of the woods. “There. There it is.”

A house and barn. No lights. He turned the horse. They went up a long lane, lurching over ruts.

“What if he’s armed, Mr. Fairweather? What if he shoots at us?”

He patted his pocket. “I am armed, Flora.”

The horse drew up in front of the desolate house. They climbed from the far side of the carriage; ran, bent low. The lantern swung from Harland’s hand; he held the pistol in the other.

The door creaked on rusty hinges. Silence flowed from the house. The hallway smelled of lard, plaster, filthy fabric. The lantern’s glancing light touched oilcloth worn through to floorboards; animal scat; a dented saucepan.

Mr. Fairweather held the lantern high, inched into the front room.

Flora followed the lantern’s path, eyes wide yet not wanting to see.

No blood. No Enid.

Could have strangled her…

They went into all the rooms of the house, downstairs, upstairs. Mr. Fairweather went into the cellar through a rotten hatchway. He came back up, coughing.

“Nothing down there. Now, Flora, I’m going to explore the sheds and the barn. I want you to go back to the carriage and stay down.”

“But—”

“Please.”

She saw that it was for her sake that he wished not to state his reasons. Safety, sanity. She stepped out of the circle of lantern light. She went back to the carriage. Her skirt snagged and she tugged it, heard the rip of burrs. The mare shifted her front hooves. One, then the other. Her whinny was a ruffle, anxious.

Flora put her arms around the mare’s neck, breathed the scent of horse flesh, comforting as cornbread, cinnamon. She set her foot on the metal step, climbed up and huddled on the carriage floor.

Enid, hanging from a beam in the barn.

Enid, strangled and tossed into a shed.

She refused the images, seeing, instead, her own story: Enid’s little hand holding hers as they mounted the steps of the workhouse; Enid at the kitchen table in Nova Scotia—Are you really my sister?—a clean nightgown, peepers and the summer moon; the crackle of static beneath hairbrush. On it went, the river that should not stop, that must not, would not. She shivered against the boards, waiting for gunshot, a wail, shouting.

Footsteps. Mr. Fairweather climbed into the carriage and lifted the reins.

“There is no one. But they have been here. I saw a pile of fresh manure. He’d tried to hide it, kicked it apart. We’ll see if we can tell which way they went.”

The horse went back down the track. At the road, Harland and Flora climbed down. He swung the lantern.

“I can’t tell,” he said. “Can you?”

Hoof marks. Large, small, workhorse, pony, shod, unshod. Like ripples on a brook.

Harland stood, looking into the darkness, the lantern hanging at his side.

Enid was a hole in Flora’s heart, a rent into which anything could fall.

—

Harland and Flora drove all night, until at sunrise they found themselves at a small train station. The station master had not seen a man and a young girl.

He promised to watch for them.

—

Enid crashed down into sleep, woke in wet grass. Bewildered, she sat, absorbing the unfamiliar darkness and silence until she came fully awake. Mr. Tuck. She scrambled to her feet, unsteady but already poised to run. The moon was obscured by hills, now, and she came into a hollow and entered the woods she remembered driving through with Mr. Tuck, when she had thought her life was coming to an end. She shouted as she strode, the cape swinging, the hood sheltering her from the forest. She thought of buckwheat pancakes and maple syrup.

“I am a girl, you wild animals! I am not good to eat!”

Her voice jolted.

“I am Flora’s sister. I can read. I know my multiplication tables. I have crossed the Atlantic Ocean. I am Enid. I am Enid Salford who lives in Pleasant Valley, New Brunswick, Canada.”

She remembered the eye of the little duck and how when she had cleaned it with her finger it had seemed to know her, and be glad to be hers.

TWENTY-TWO Warning to Travellers

JOSEPHINE WOKE TO ELLEN’S cry.

“Oh! Mrs. Galloway! Mrs. Galloway!”

She ran down the hall in her nightgown, her heart a thick presence, racing. Dawn light touched the plaster walls; chill air wrapped her ankles, coming through the side door, standing half-open.

Enid lay on the kitchen floor, curled like a cashew. In the stove, a newly laid fire roared; Ellen knelt by the girl, her hands hovering, not knowing where to touch.

Josephine dropped to her knees. She felt along Enid’s body, frantic. Firm shoulders, ribcage, the shuddering rise and fall of breath. Bits of grass and fern in her hair. Eyes squeezed shut, fists pressing cheeks.

“Where were you, Enid? Are you hurt? Can you talk?”

She lay on the floor and curled against Enid, gathering her, soothing as she had comforted her own children in their illnesses. Waking, in the night, she had dreaded to think how Enid’s loss would