Daughters Unto Devils Read online

  “I am just fine.” It comes out with far more bite than I intend. “You do not need to worry about me, Emily.” I manage not to wretch up any bile, and before I know it the moment of sickness has passed. I load a plate for Pa and try to ignore how my sister watches me from the corner of my eye.

  “Joanna and Charles asked me to take them into the forest while Hannah naps,” she says, and clearly this means she has given up on pestering me for now, for which I am relieved. “I’d ask you to come along, but something tells me that this is going to be one of those days where you disappear into the woods for hours.”

  She is frowning as she speaks. In the past when I’ve met up with Henry, I’d tell Emily that I felt like taking a long private walk to gather my wits and enjoy the silence away from the baby. From the beginning she insisted that she understood and never questioned me about it, her own way of proving that she was ready to forget about the past, I suppose.

  I think about how Emily’s face looked when I promised that I wouldn’t hide things from her anymore. You are sure you’re going to be all right, Amanda? she had said with tears in her eyes after I’d finished telling her about the devil in the woods. You’re certain?

  Yes, I had replied, about a week or so before I went on the supply run to the settlement with Pa on a whim and met Henry for the first time. I swear it, sister.

  The thought saddens me so much that I seriously consider telling her about the baby for just a second. I refrain, of course. Emily carelessly tosses pieces of cornmeal cake and meat strips over the various plates, then pours some coffee for Ma.

  “I still think you’re hiding something,” she grumbles and makes her way to the front door of the cabin, plates of breakfast carefully lined over her forearms. I grab the last two plates and follow after her, my breath caught in my chest.

  Ma shuts the cabin door behind me, as softly as possible, and motions for me to keep my feet light as she nods to my baby sister. Hannah is still sprawled motionless on Ma and Pa’s bed, but any excess vibrations could wake her in an instant. Ma takes the plates from me and nods her thanks, just as I realize what’s about to happen. Sadly, the warning does not come soon enough.

  The burning vomit sprays from my mouth and nose before I even have a chance to turn, splattering over the plates and Ma’s arms and the wooden floor of the cabin. I cry out in horror and turn to push the door back open.

  “Amanda!” Ma nearly drops the plates as she follows me to the well outside. She peels the wet stinking sleeves of her dress down her arms. “Are you falling ill, my dear? It’s been too long for it to be the sickness from last winter.” The last bit ends up sounding more like a paranoid confirmation to herself, and I feel wretched for stirring up the memory.

  We get to the rain barrel, and I splash my face with the cold water. I swish some of it around in my mouth and spit into the bushes while Ma washes her arms.

  “I’m so sorry, Ma,” I finally manage after I’ve finished. I take a few sips of the water and it tastes terrible, sour and rancid. “Maybe I am. I feel well enough now, though. And I’m not feverish, so please do not worry. I will be fine.”

  The sound of Hannah’s off-key screams and yelps begin to pour from the open cabin door. Pa calls for Ma impatiently from inside. Emily emerges from the doorway with a clean dress on her arm for Ma and a rag for me. Ma dresses quickly as Hannah’s cries escalate, and the circles beneath her eyes look even darker than usual. She refuses to go back inside until I assure her three more times that I feel all right.

  “What is happening?” Emily asks me after Ma has retreated into the cabin. I take the rag from her and wipe my face, as well as the back of my neck.

  “The breakfast plates,” I say instead of answering. “Is there still enough food to go around? I don’t have to eat. And Joanna and Charles—”

  “—can share a plate without raising a concern.” Emily cuts me off impatiently. “But forget about the food. Sister, you’re ill!”

  “You just heard me say that I feel much better now,” I insist and take her hand. “Let it pass. I really don’t believe it’s anything to get concerned about.”

  “Your behavior is what’s to get concerned about,” Emily snaps. “You said you wouldn’t hide things from me anymore.” She crosses her arms over her chest.

  I’ve been sleeping with a boy you’ve never met, over and over, and you never even became suspicious about it. No matter how hard I try to say it, my lips remain closed.

  “Amanda,” Emily says again and steps closer. “You can tell me. Did it happen again? Are you starting to—”

  “It’s nothing, I said!”

  Hannah’s cries finally cease. The difference in sound is startling, and I take the opportunity to leave my sister behind so she won’t have the chance to break me down.

  “Amanda,” Emily calls after me, but I keep walking. Pa is about to depart, to hunt some furs to sell. He doesn’t ask me if I’m all right.

  The vomit-speckled plates are piled in the dirt next to the water trough just outside the cabin. Tiny winged bugs crawl over the shiny slime that coats the cornmeal cakes, and I plead with God in my head to let the water in my stomach stay down.

  When I enter the cabin, Ma is with Hannah on the rocking chair that Pa built for her as a wedding present. Everyone has finished eating already, and there is half a plate waiting for me. The smell of the meat is too atrocious for me to even consider it.

  The baby’s head is pressed against Ma’s neck while she hums an old hymn, a dwindling tune that creeps up and down the scales in a lazy, sweeping motion. The vibration of it against Hannah’s face puts her into a daze. The tune is an old one that I recognize from when I was a child. The baby’s jaw slacks open, and she makes low, flat hooting sounds.

  Thickened spittle oozes from the corner of Hannah’s mouth as she stares through me and through the rest of the world. It soaks into the shoulder of Ma’s dress, and I shudder at the knowledge that I wish her dead.

  Ma motions for Joanna and Charles to scram after the baby’s eyes finally begin to roll back in her head. Her eyelids have sunk into sleepy half-moons, a sure sign that she’ll be out soon. The children and I leave the cabin quietly, careful not to stomp our feet upon the hard wood of the floor panels. I set Ma’s Bible in her free hand before I go, and she mouths me a silent thanks.

  “Are you sure you’re all right, daughter?” she whispers again, but I wave her off with a small smile. Leave me alone, Ma. Nobody can help me now.

  As soon as I step outside and close the door, the forest begins to echo with the sound of the children’s excited yells as they chase each other through the trees. Emily calls out for Charles to be careful after he slips on a patch of pine needles and nearly collides with a mossy tree stump.

  I tell Emily that I need to do my business and make my way around the opposite side of the cabin. When I’m sure she’s stopped looking nervously after me, I loop around to an especially twisted tree trunk, once alive but now blackened and gnarled by a lightning bolt that nearly caused our cabin to burn down when I was ten.

  I lift a rogue shrub branch from its resting place at the foot of the tree. Sure enough, a peppermint-flavored candy stick is tucked beneath. Its shiny finish, perfect white-and-red swirls that drip down the length of the sweet beneath twists of waxed paper, is stark and brilliant against the dark, muddy earth. A red ribbon is tied carefully around its middle.

  Henry is already here, waiting for me in our secret place, no doubt with a blanket strewn over the dead leaves and needles of the forest floor. My hand finds itself over my lower belly before I even realize what’s happening. The very thought of telling Henry about the baby is staggering, but it’s something that I know I must do if I want him to consider marrying me.

  “Come here, sister!” Emily calls to me from the forest once I return from the dead tree, the sweet in my pocke
t. Her face is smiling, and her cheeks are rosy from chasing Joanna and Charles. “The children have decided that they want a new pet. We should find something furry and pleasant before they set their minds on a snake again!”

  I slide my hand into the pockets of my skirts and wrap my fingers around the peppermint stick. I cannot risk showing up too late and having Henry be gone already.

  I cannot make it another fortnight.

  “Apologies, Emily.” I make a vague gesture around my middle, then point to the trees behind me. “I think that maybe I will take a walk instead. Some fresh air, perhaps, for my stomach.”

  The disappointment shines in her dark eyes. The corners of her mouth turn down, and she crosses her arms. “Shouldn’t you feel like resting after what happened this morning?”

  “I feel well enough,” I say. “Just need to breath, I think. Enjoy the silence.”

  “Right.” Her voice is cold. She is upset that I would rather be alone than be with her. I wish I could tell her the truth. “See you when you return then, I suppose.”

  And she turns away.

  The idea that this is how it ends, this is the last conversation I will have with my sister before I run away to give birth like an animal in hiding, is more than I wish to endure. I want to hug her, promise her I’ll come back for her, lie to her that everything will be well and that I’m only going on a journey to find her a better dearest friend.

  I don’t, of course. Instead, I walk away from my sister without even saying goodbye.

  My meeting place with Henry is about a quarter mile from the cabin, and I trudge through the woods with my skirts gathered near my waist so I can move faster through the fallen branches and shrubs and tangled vines.

  The struggle to keep Emily’s face from my mind is terrible. She is going to be so very worried about me when I fail to return. She’ll likely torture herself for years with hundreds of different visions of possible ways to die during a walk in the woods, each one worse than the one before, until she’s finally forced to move forward and let me go.

  You know she never will.

  Still, though, one day I’ll simply turn up for her. I try to picture what her face will look like then, instead of how it did just now.

  It’s still early enough for the lingering mist of the mountain’s morning to swirl lazily around the trees and blur the edges of the world like a dream. Usually I take much more time with the walk, to enjoy the peace and beauty of the mountainside and savor the excitement over seeing Henry, but right now I can’t even bring myself to consider the spicy smell of wildflowers or the scattered flurry of squirrel feet dashing across the leaves.

  I am with child, I imagine myself saying to Henry. We are to be mother and father.

  Whatever it is that means.

  In my imagination, Henry rejoices at the news and promises to take care of us both. He tells me that he’s been hoping this would happen. He tells me that he wants to be married immediately. He tells me that God loves all his children, no matter how they come about, even if not under his holy matrimony.

  I pull out half of the broken peppermint stick from my pocket and begin to suck at the end of it. The sweet mint flavor is Heaven on my tongue, settling to my stomach, and also calms my nerves until I come to the clearing by the creek. When I emerge, I can see that Henry’s horse, General, is tied up against a tree near the water. He drinks it up in big, loud gulps, but Henry is nowhere to be seen.

  The blanket that we usually lie upon is settled over the dirt in the same spot as always. The memory of us entangled on the blanket, thrusting against each other and crying out in pleasure, causes my chest to flush with warmth beneath my calico dress. With the excited feeling comes the usual guilt, the automatic force that seeps into the good feelings and stains them like ink. Filth. Selfish filth.

  Have I truly been ruined?

  “Henry?” I call out softly. My eyes scan the woods behind General. “I have something to tell you, darling.”

  My heart startles at the feeling of his hands suddenly around my waist from behind, pulling me back into him, and the front of his pants is already bulging.

  “Hello, my love,” he whispers into my ear with that rough, eager voice. “I would be lying if I said I wasn’t envious of that candy in your mouth.”

  I need to be solemn, but the hungry manner of his speaking causes me to laugh. I cannot help it.

  “Oh, really?” I say and withdraw the candy. I spin around to face him, and now his bulge is pressed against my groin. His hands wander wildly over my backside. “Want a taste, then?”

  And he’s kissing me now, deep and long with sugary bursts of peppermint. I let him, to draw him in, to make this easier on myself. I need him to want me. His hands leave my backside and find themselves groping my sore breasts with vigor. I wince at the pressure.

  “Take this cursed dress off.” He pulls away from my mouth long enough to make the demand before he starts tasting my ear, my neck, my collarbone. “I cannot wait to have you today.”

  “It pleases me to hear such enthusiasm,” I say in a coy tone. I push away from him and sit on the blanket.

  “Why aren’t you undressing?” he asks after a moment and sinks down next to me. His hands fly to the buttons on his own trousers, but I stop him.

  “I need to ask you something.”

  I start sucking on the candy again, to calm my scorching nerves, and this time Henry doesn’t appear as excited about it. He waits without a word.

  “Do you love me?” I ask. “You say it every time we’re together. I just wanted to know if it is true or not.”

  “Of course it’s true!” he almost bursts, and starts fumbling with his pants again. He lets out a sigh of relief. “I thought you were going to ask me something serious.”

  “How would you feel if I told you that you are to be a father?”

  I say it with closed eyes so that I can be spared his immediate reaction. I hear him stop messing with his trousers, finally, and now his breath is quickening even more than it was when he was grabbing at me.

  “What?” he asks.

  His voice is pure panic. Not excitement, not joy. Fear. Confusion. Panic.

  “Because you are,” I finish, and I put my hand over my stomach on impulse for the hundredth time that day. “I am with child.”

  I observe his face carefully. It shows no emotion at all, but at least there isn’t a scowl.

  “You are—” Henry leans his elbows against his knees and runs his hands through his thick, straw-colored hair “—with child.”

  “I know it’s a shock,” I say and reach for his hand. I wrap my fingers around his palm, but he doesn’t return with any sort of squeeze. “I’m not ecstatic about it myself, exactly. But my family...they cannot find out, Henry. Not now, not before we’ve been wed. Do you have any idea what my pa would think about this?”

  “What do I care about your pa?” he snaps and looks at me, his expression cold. “And you won’t be able to hide it for long. I can’t do anything about that.” He doesn’t mention my comment about marriage.

  Perhaps he didn’t hear me.

  I think back to my fantasy about Henry’s reaction, and my stomach begins to feel queasy again. The sweet mint taste that coats my throat becomes metallic.

  “Unless...” I say and hold on to the last bit of hope in my heart. “Unless we go away together.”

  “What?” Henry cries and stands upright. “Are you mad, Amanda? I cannot care for an infant! I cannot care for a wife!”

  “Maybe you don’t think so now,” I say and get up after him. “But you could do it, Henry, I know you could. We could get married and—”

  “And what, Amanda?” His voice is raised now, birds are scattering around us, and he begins folding the blanket back up as if he has somewhere very important to be. “I didn’
t think this would happen. I didn’t want this to happen.”

  Henry has changed into a little child looking for a place to flee, and it fills me with such anger. How dare he act as if I’ve done it to myself? He looks around nervously and shoves his hands into his pockets before I step forward.

  “You wanted it whenever your parts needed a good tugging,” I accuse. “You never seemed to worry about it then.”

  My voice is dripping with poison, bitter and panicked and over-the-top. Who have I become? This is helping nobody, least of all myself. “Listen, Henry, let me apologize. I’m just— I thought you said you loved me.” My lip quivers, and now I’m a child just like him.

  “I did,” Henry says and drapes the blanket over the back of General’s saddle. “But I didn’t ask for this.”

  “Please, don’t go,” I cry and fall to my knees. I clasp my hands as if in prayer. “Please, Henry. Please, take me with you. My family cannot find out about—”

  “Your baby,” he says, more to himself than me, as he looks down at my streaming face and runny nose in disgust. “It’s your baby. You’ll just have to find a way to tell them.”

  “It is ours!” I bellow and get off my knees. I run up to Henry, start slapping his broad chest with my hands, and he grabs my wrists and fights me off. “Don’t you do this to me, Henry! Don’t you dare leave me here. I’ll be disowned! They’ll...they’ll...”

  “Stop it, Amanda!”

  “You said that you loved me,” I repeat over and over, and now I feel as though I’m watching all of this from the outside instead of being in it. “Why has your heart turned in such a manner?”

  “Listen,” Henry says. “I enjoyed you a lot, Amanda. You came into town with your pa that one day to use my post, and I couldn’t take my eyes off you. I would have continued doing this for as long as you wanted. I would have.”

  He mounts General in a smooth, sweeping motion, something that used to make him look handsome and strong and dreamy to me, something that now makes him look like a coward, a deserter of war. I try to hug General’s neck to keep him close, but Henry makes a small, urgent click with his tongue and leads the horse right through the creek. The cold water splashes over my ankles as they pass, but I hardly notice.