The Fallen Fruit, page 18
* * *
The next morning, before a haze settled on the dew-drenched grass, Reba hurried out of the house. Her children, like two obedient ducklings and one stubborn chick, followed.
With the sun peeking above the horizon, the relentless heat had yet to bake the farm. The well-beaten footpath connecting the pasture to the orchard loomed ahead. This early in the day, she expected to see men and women stacking boxes and baskets around the trees for the harvest, yet there was no one around. Only the familiar chirps of warblers bounced off the trees.
On the footpath, Reba paused briefly to gesture toward a small patch of blackberry bushes. A few had been picked clean, but one had a couple berries left.
“Jimmy, take a couple of blackberries for Luke,” she instructed.
From the orchard, their trek led them up to their destination. The cabin doorway was cracked open, and Reba heard shuffling footsteps. Thank goodness the family elder was home. A small dog’s head poked around the door. Clover ambled up to them with his tail wagging.
“Morning.” Jimmy grinned and scratched Clover’s favorite spot—right behind his left ear.
Georgie ran ahead of them and bounded inside. Annie followed shortly after.
“What do we have here?” Luke called out.
“Morning, Grandpa Luke,” Annie sing-songed. “Mama Bear wanted to come visiting.”
“Did she now?” Luke said with a chuckle.
When Reba slipped into the house, the small smile on Luke’s face faded.
“I’d hoped to see you sooner,” Luke said.
Her mouth twisted into impossible knots. How did one begin such a conversation? She had far too many questions. And what if he refused to answer? She trembled at the thought. To steady herself, she took in the cabin. The nearby pile of kindling had grown far too low. Crusty bowls had been left on the kitchen table and—based on the fetid odor—Clover had relieved himself in a corner instead of outside. Luke’s meager belongings, a chest, a bed, and a table, spoke of many years of use through the scuffs, nicks, and weathered wood. She struggled to imagine another Luke, a far younger one as tall as Herb who’d lived in this house with his wife, Addy, and their children. They’d had four strong boys and two pretty girls. That other family had gone about their lives, not knowing another tragedy would befall the Bridges.
“Have you eaten?” she asked.
“Ain’t hungry in the mornings,” he mumbled from his usual resting spot—a rickety chair next to the table. He tried to straighten his wrinkled shirt and breeches as if she were esteemed company.
“True.” She took the blackberries Jimmy had gathered and placed them in Luke’s wrinkled, soft hands.
“Thanks, child.”
Decades of work had eroded Luke’s joints, leaving him tethered to his bed or the stools on the porch. Usually, his grandchildren came by every couple of days to bring him food or attend to the chores around the house, but the disappearances must’ve spooked them.
Reba gathered the bowls without a word. Annie didn’t hesitate to sweep the porch and Jimmy hauled in firewood. Georgie remained rooted to the floor, drawing swirls in the dust peppering the floor. His head swayed as he sang a nursery rhyme to himself.
Reba drew in a cleansing breath before she asked in an offhand manner, “How have you managed lately?”
“Each day is like the one before,” Luke replied. “Well, until . . .”
She nodded, knowing what he meant as Georgie got up and tried to rifle through Luke’s chest by the bed. “George, stay out of there.” She shifted to intervene, but Luke shook his head, his hand rising.
“Leave the boy be. Ain’t nothing there he can hurt himself with.”
She edged closer to Georgie. The boy searched for trouble like chipmunks foraging before winter. With a mischievous laugh, he plunged into the depths of the chest and retrieved women’s garments. She gasped to see Addy’s dresses and stockings strewn over the floor. Jimmy scurried to fetch them.
“Little fella, why don’t you take a gander at this.” Luke ignored the clothes and tugged at a length of leather strung around his neck. Reba couldn’t make out what he held until her son spoke.
“What’s that?” Georgie asked.
“That’s a spool. You wrap spun wool from one end to another,” Luke explained with a twirl of his finger. “Come see.”
The boy’s tiny hands slid down the spool. It was no longer than the length of his index finger. “It’s so smooth,” he marveled. “Why do you wear it?”
Luke grinned, revealing a missing front tooth. Briefly, youth shined in his eyes and smoothed the wrinkles lining his cheekbones. “We all wear things important to us. Don’t you have a spool too?”
Georgie’s shoulders rose and fell.
“Your mama needs to get you one—or maybe someday you can make one too.” The old man gave him a slow nod. “All you need is love, patience, and a good whittling knife.”
The boy’s eyes brightened. “Mama Bear, can I have a whittling knife?”
“Ask your daddy.” The response always worked in her favor. Herb never agreed to such requests.
Didn’t matter though. Luke settled her four-year-old on the floor and taught him how to find the best wood for carving. Jimmy paused here and there while he shook out the old man’s bedding. Annie took her time. The same spot on the porch had to be clean by now.
Somehow little Georgie drifted off and his head rested against Luke’s knee. Perhaps it was the lilt of Luke’s voice. Soon only the whistle of the wind floated through the cabin and tugged at the threadbare curtains.
The quiet pricked at her. She never liked the silence. Too many bad things happened when she least expected it. She had to introduce another sound in the room. One that cleared the fog and allowed the sun to part the clouds.
“I need answers,” Reba finally breathed. “I want the truth.”
“The truth changes over time.” Luke’s head lowered until his chin met his chest. “I’d wanted to forget about what happened, but God won’t let me forget.”
“Then what is the truth?” She’d considered both sides over the past couple of days—from Luke’s stories to Ruth’s and Carrie’s rants. How could she protect her babies without knowing what she faced?
“It’s all in God’s hands. That’s the truth. And all this madness is bigger than you and me,” Luke said. “Right after I arrived home, my family tried to shun me, but my mama spoke.” His voice hovered above a whisper.
She leaned toward him. The swish-swish of Annie sweeping made it difficult to hear him.
“I never knew what she said to them,” he added, “until she came to me the next morning. She told me I could stay, but I couldn’t forget my place in time, my role I had to play. You see, she’d traveled through time too.”
“So it’s generational?” Fear coursed down her spine and her unborn child stirred. “Who else knows about your mother?”
“No one—who’d believe me?”
She wanted to believe him. “Did she tell you how to stop it?”
“There ain’t no stopping it. Like I said, it’s in God’s hands. We can only prepare.”
Any Bridge could be taken. Her husband. Her children.
“Prepare how?”
He pointed to a shelf on the other side of the room. “Bring me that.”
She strode up to it and plucked a foul-smelling box bound in oilcloth. “What’s this?”
With the utmost care, Luke unraveled the leather ties around the box to reveal an old Bible. “Mama told me we must never forget the stories. Folks won’t believe us, but we must never forget those who fell from time and those left behind to remember. She also said the Bridges will come to learn one child in each family will be lost if they are born from a Bridge man. After the child falls, their brothers and sisters’ll be safe.”
Each family? Her knees faltered at the thought. What did that mean for her children? Or even her husband if his brother had succumbed to the curse?
Luke placed the family Bible in her hands. “Every Bridge since 1760 is in here. This book is fragile, but a woman with schooling like you could create a new family record.”
The book weighed heavily in her hands before she gently opened the butterfly-thin cover. On the first page, she discovered rows of names and dates. Many of them faded. “I don’t know . . .” she whispered.
“You will know. Not today or tomorrow, but someday.” He gave her a wistful smile. “I used to always want to stand still—but time doesn’t stop. We’re all forced to accept the tide or flow with it. You’ll see.”
Chapter 19
Rebecca Raley-Bridge
September 1817
Two long days, with muted sunsets and sunrises, passed. Reba held Luke’s words close to her heart, but they brought no relief. If one of her babies was going to disappear like the others, she didn’t want to chronicle family births or even the disappearances. It was best for her to hide away the Bible, so she tucked the wrapped book among the precious heirlooms in her chest.
The family heard no good or bad news. The lack of any word from anyone pained them just as much. During that time, the storms retreated, but thick, dark clouds hovered like expectant mothers. Soon they’d give birth to thunder and lightning. New fallen branches would replace the debris they’d cleared away yesterday.
Reba used the dreary day to deliver bread and cheese to Carrie’s doorstep. Jimmy accompanied her, sullen and silent.
“I could’ve done this by myself, Mama Bear,” he grumbled.
She shook her head, having hidden long enough. Hadn’t Carrie chastised her for not doing her part? At her neighbor’s doorstep, they tucked the wrapped food behind a porch post. The fresh bread had left her hands warm. Beyond the closed door, she heard the soft pit-pat of the children’s footsteps. She reached for the doorknob.
“Don’t do it,” Jimmy whispered. “Last time I was here, she didn’t want me around either.”
“Did she hurt you?”
“No, Mama Bear.”
“If she ever says or tries anything, you come running home.” Reba had said those words firmly.
They made a trip to the woodshed and retrieved wood to pile next to the door too. With all the noise they made, she expected Carrie’s door to swing open and for the woman’s thanks to be nothing more than a grateful Get the hell off my property. But the door remained shut, and in a way, that was just as harsh. A couple of days ago, they would’ve politely nodded or talked about all the work they’d have to do after the harvest. Once in a while, and it was too rare now that Reba thought about it, she’d find George playing with the twins.
She drew her arm around Jimmy’s shoulders. “Let’s go home.”
“Should we leave them some water?” he asked. “I can run and bring some back.”
“Good idea.” Her boy’s kindness was a reminder she needed to do better too.
Jimmy fetched the empty bucket stowed away in Carrie’s woodshed, and they made their way to the well behind the house. Her boy walked faster as she hurried to keep up. He came to such a sudden stop that she almost ran into him. Then she spied what had slowed him down. A flat gray stone, about four feet wide, capped the well.
“Why is it covered?” Jimmy asked. “Did she do it because of the storm?”
“No.” The well had never been covered.
“Did Carrie do that?”
“I doubt it.”
Carrie was too tiny of a thing to haul a stone that heavy. The woman would break in two trying to lift it. Someone else had placed it there to keep her family out.
“C’mon.” Reba motioned to Jimmy.
“Shouldn’t we get the water, Mama Bear?”
Jimmy only knew they lived in a place where people helped one another no matter what, and she didn’t want to be the one to break it to him.
“Don’t bother,” she told her son. “We’re not wanted here.”
“Why?”
“Because.”
Jimmy didn’t prod further. He’d heard her many a time using that reply. He knew not to press her.
They returned home, their walk far slower and silent. Their arms brushed against each other, and she was grateful he didn’t add distance between them.
“Want me to go to the creek for water?” Jimmy finally asked.
“We’ll go together.”
Her son opened his mouth, then shut it again. He had to know why his parents didn’t trust him alone, but for now he held his tongue. After he grabbed a pail, they trudged around the barn—only to see two figures circle the outhouse.
“What’s Patience and her mama doing?” he asked.
“Quiet.” She pulled Jimmy back behind the corner.
Ruth held a rifle while Patience searched. The girl darted ahead of her mother, opened the door to the outhouse, scoured the interior, then they turned toward the barn.
Reba tugged Jimmy back harder.
“What’s wrong?” he whispered.
She pressed her fingertip to her lips.
She’d never been close to Ruth—she’d been to Carrie’s house far more often—but she could read a person’s eyes. Intent shined in Ruth’s. The woman marched with determination—like she intended to search every corner of Reba’s property, whether she was welcome or not.
“We’re going home now.” Reba grabbed the back of Jimmy’s shirt and ran around the barn to the house. Herb had already left for the day, so it was Mariah who stood in a rush.
“Is there a bear out there?” She still held her needlepoint.
“You could say that.” Reba glanced behind her, then strode across the room to pluck Herb’s rifle from where he kept it on the wall. Annie headed to the door, but Reba stood in the way. “Stay inside. Don’t go out, you hear?”
“What in the heavens?” Mariah turned to Jimmy.
“We saw Patience’s mother out behind the house—” he said.
“And she’s armed,” Reba finished. “Keep them inside.”
“Mama . . .” Georgie whispered, his face wrinkling.
Mariah reached for Georgie. “It’s all right.”
Reba shut the door behind her. She didn’t want to hear the rest.
Her unborn child fluttered in her belly, perhaps feeling the nerves shooting through her. The rifle was as familiar in her hands as any tool in the kitchen, but her sweaty palms made the weapon slippery, her grip uncertain. She sat on the porch stool and waited. Soon enough, Ruth and Patience arrived. She held still with the rifle in her lap as they slowly circled the front of the house. Step by step, eyes searching. Ruth paused, and Reba held her breath. Would her neighbor dare to cross her doorstep? Would the woman demand to search the house?
Reba clutched the rifle hard enough for her hands to go numb, knowing without a doubt she’d do the same if one of her children had disappeared, but this was her home. The place where she kept her children safe, and she’d be damned if she’d let a woman holding a gun go traipsing through. Even if she let Ruth search, what would her neighbor demand next? For all she knew, Ruth and Joseph had put that rock in place at Carrie’s behest. All that work to punish Reba’s family.
At a time like this, Mama Raley would say to be careful around women like Ruth, for they had splinters aplenty. “After you’ve lived as a slave, you’re never the same.”
Growing up with Mama and Papa, Reba had seen what she meant. How Mama often ignored or separated herself from them—the slaves who worked in Richmond. They had to be constant reminders of her past life. How Papa demanded that Reba speak eloquently. All those lessons had been shaped to divide Reba from the enslaved. Hypocrisy had saturated their childhood home.
Reba watched Ruth and Patience slowly march around her house with the same stare she’d used for Mama. This was how it was. She couldn’t forget that—she defended what her family had because she knew how treasured it was. And for that same reason, she hunkered down on that stool with that rifle until the two intruders departed.
* * *
Ruth was eighteen years older and far more aloof, but Caroline and Reba should’ve been the best of friends. Long before Charles had passed away two years ago, they’d gotten to know each other as two young Bridge wives. Through conversations at the well behind Carrie’s house, they’d learned that they’d been born less than two weeks apart. They were practically spring-born sparrows with the same memories of childhood droughts and harvests.
Over the summers to come, Reba had spent the hottest time of the day in Carrie’s home. Little Nelson was no older than four around that time, and Reba perched eight-month-old Jimmy on her hip. On a cooler day in early August, Carrie had flitted from her kitchen table to the pots where she boiled chitlins for supper. Hints of copper and the earthy reek of animal entrails lingered underneath the aromatic scents of onions and celery. She’d spent the morning butchering one of their fall sows, and after Reba’s arrival, she’d gone out into the heat again to salt pork portions for winter meals. She hummed a sweet melody while her bare feet whispered on the wood floors. No matter how much Nelson shouted or ran about, she embodied a strange sense of calm in the center of a storm. She tended to rise to anger with ease, yet she quieted just as quickly.
“Did you try the biscuit recipe?” Reba asked.
Carrie grinned, the tiny moles dotting her dark-brown cheekbones gathering together. “Mmm-hmm. I ain’t never seen Charlie empty his plate that fast—the man eats like a bird.”
That past spring, Carrie and Reba had exchanged family recipes.
“Herb loves it too. I can’t ever make enough.”
Suddenly, Carrie’s face scrunched up. She reached down and grasped her stomach. “This heat got me feeling something awful. The devil’s cookin’ the countryside.”
“Are you sick?” Reba stroked Jimmy’s back in small circles as he nursed.
“When am I not sick? I never ate well as a child. Tomatoes made me deathly ill—and I never could touch peppers or eggplants.”
“I haven’t seen you eat those lately. Are you with child?” she asked.
