The Fallen Fruit, page 25
They ventured north now, sticking to the shaded areas along the footpath connecting the glen to the orchard. Jason darted ahead.
“The ground is on fire!” He ran faster and his little brother squealed to hurry after him.
“Fire, huh?” Ceci said with a smile. “And I bet you’re safe under the trees?”
“Of course. Didn’t you play that game?” Winston winked at her.
“We knew better. We stayed in the shade and played in the trees.”
Soon enough, the orchard appeared. Many of the trees’ branches didn’t bear fruit. There were far too many limbs.
“Miss Cecily,” Lee Lee had said, “someone needs to come down here and prune them trees. Need to open it up to light and let all that heat out.”
At the time, she’d shrugged off his concern. Yet today, as they weaved around the first row, she wished she could’ve seen her family orchard in its heyday. Back then, the trees would’ve been shorter, and one wouldn’t have blended into the next.
The family discovered an opening to a field on the other side. The stilted breeze tugged at the tall grass and wildflowers. Not far from them, a husk of a home remained partially hidden through thickets and trees reclaiming the land. She hadn’t ventured here before, merely sticking to the main cabin.
“Where you wanna eat, Jay?” Winston asked.
“Right here.” Jason gave the spot a quick jump.
“Nice and shaded. Good job.” Her husband spread out the blanket. “Now, before we eat, I say you gotta pay the Tickle Monster.”
Jason broke into a wide grin and backed up. “Oh no.”
Lloyd knew the game and bolted. The boys squealed as Ceci and Winston raced after them.
“You’re fast, but you’re not fast enough,” Ceci called out, briefly catching Jason to tickle his back. They ran in circles around the field, in and out of the woods, and finally they circled the old cabin before collapsing on top of the blanket.
Ceci wrapped her arms around Jason. Her firstborn rested his head against her chest and murmured, “Love you, Mama.”
“I love you too.”
From the other side of the blanket, Winston grinned at them and handed out lunch. “You wanna eat, you need to sit up.” He gave the boys a stern glance.
“Can we play some more?” Lloyd asked. The boy had a history—even under Mama Davis’s watch—of grand escapes from the dinner table. No more than five bites into his hot turkey sandwich, Lloyd had wrapped up his meal.
“Can I go play?” He even wiped his hands on his pants and sat at the edge of the blanket.
“Don’t you wanna sit here with your mama?” Winston asked the boy.
Ceci reached for him, but he scampered off the blanket until the sunshine enveloped him.
Her eldest son inhaled a couple more bites of his sandwich and followed after him.
“You too?” Winston chuffed and stretched out his legs to rest his head on her lap.
“Are you comfortable yet?” She still held her food over his head.
“I will be as soon as you stop waving that thing all over the place.” He leaned up and snagged a dangling tomato slice.
She ate her sandwich with one hand and splayed the other across his cheek. Winston reached up with his free hand to run his fingers down her neck. He followed a trail of sweat across her clavicle down to the V between her breasts. His hand came to a stop when he bumped against the pouch she’d wrapped around her torso and hidden under her shirt.
The boys’ voices retreated as they slipped through the trees on the other side of the field.
Ceci stared after them, watching the children dart back and forth through the brush. A hush settled over the meadow, and a support beam in the cabin’s carcass collapsed with a thud. She couldn’t deny the chill down her spine.
“Who do you think lived there back in 1938?” he asked, pulling her out of the moment.
“Not sure. My grandpa Dennis owned all of it then, but he didn’t leave—” She swallowed the final word as a vision of Owen storming through the houses came to mind. She glanced away from the structure, but she couldn’t help but imagine her cousin pounding on the door. And when no one answered, Owen stormed inside with a gun in hand. Gunfire lit up the house’s interior as screams were cut short.
“You good, Ceci?” Winston tapped the hand she had rested against his cheek, then intertwined their hands again.
“Not really.” She swallowed against a dry throat. “This place was a haven for the Bridge family, but a lot of horrible things happened too.”
“Damn shame.”
“It is a shame. Their tragedy was wrapped up in overgrown trees and trapped behind cracked windows.”
“But you found it.”
“Yes, I did, but if I go, it’ll be lost again.” Her husband stiffened against her lap, but she kept talking. “I want you to continue my work on the Bridges. I mean it, Winston.” She chewed on her upper lip. “When the time comes, I need you to mark my name in the Bible.”
“You know how I feel about this.”
“I’m serious.”
“Can you hear yourself right now?”
She snorted. Reason had trailed after her, mocking every far-fetched theory until only the spectacular remained. “At this point, I want the unbelievable to happen so I can stop doubting myself. I’ve sat in that house asking myself if time travel could be possible within the bounds of what we understand.”
Ceci rambled on while Winston stayed silent.
“I don’t know,” he finally said.
Neither did she.
“All I do know is anything as big as this needs an observer,” she said. “One of my ancestors took on this task, and you’re the only person I trust to do the same for me.”
Her husband jerked his head in what she hoped was a nod. “I’ll think about it.”
An hour later, they packed up the blanket, the mood heavier and thick. The remains of the old dwelling loomed next to them, its shadow covering them as they departed.
This time Ceci and Winston returned to the cabin with a gap between them. Their boys walked ahead of them. She promised herself she’d spend the rest of the summer with her children. She promised herself she’d never mention the Bridges or time travel again. As she briefly turned back to the orchard, she promised herself she’d never regret her decision.
Chapter 29
Cecily Bridge-Davis
1911
Suddenly, night became day.
Tucked away in the quiet of her bedroom, Cecily fell from midair to the cabin floor. Her head hit first with a thud, followed by her back. Pain snaked down her spine as she squinted at the early morning light breaking between the cracks of unfamiliar curtains. Instead of yellow ones with daisies, the fabric was faded white. All four corners of the room remained the same, and yet one of the room’s occupants had defied the laws of science.
It’s happened.
Her mind screamed those words on repeat. She was one of them now, the fallen, those who’d time traveled. Gone.
Bile surged up into her throat, and she crumpled onto her side to purge her stomach. The bed she’d shared with her husband was now gone, replaced by a brass bed on the opposite side of the bedroom, with the doorway out to her left and the window to her right. The small form of the bed’s occupant snored, their head covered beneath a faded blue-and-brown quilt.
Ceci mewled and crawled toward the brass bed, her knees bearing the brunt of the wood floor’s knots. The air in the room was far too cold, and she felt naked and exposed in her nightgown. On her way to the door, she crept past a dresser that hadn’t been there before. The bed’s occupant—a woman, Ceci supposed by the chemises and housedresses strewn on the floor—coughed. Ceci’s nose rankled against the foul odors soiling the nearest dress that she picked up, which was a lot more than her half-dressed behind wore. She sniffed. The sour, sweaty aroma would’ve knocked out a grown man.
Wake up, Cecily. Get to the damn door.
She scrambled around crushed cigarette butts and an empty wine bottle to find her only way out. Dull footsteps approached the door. She stood, her heart racing. The steps halted outside.
The woman under the stained quilt coughed loud enough to shake the bed. Ceci stiffened. Where the hell would she go?
The woman on the bed cried out. Ceci waited for the stranger to rise, but she only sniffled.
“Oh, Lord,” she moaned, coughs shaking the bed again. “Please take me home.”
The sounds from the kitchen grew louder as someone shifted pots and pans.
“Bertie, come find me,” the woman begged.
The clinks and clangs diminished. The footsteps approached the door again, then a soft knock shook the white-painted wood.
“Ma, you hungry?” a girlish voice asked from the other side.
The woman whispered incoherently in response.
“Isaiah is making hotcakes, your favorite,” the girl added. “Want to come see?”
Isaiah?
The girl’s mother rolled across the bed to the edge. Ceci tensed, watching the woman’s shoulders for movement.
Instead of spotting Cecily and throwing curses her way, the woman faced the window.
It was time to get out of here. Now.
Whoever had knocked on the door had retreated, and soon enough, the voices of two people, a boy and a girl, withered away after the cabin’s front door swung open and shut. Ever so slowly, Cecily turned the brass doorknob. The tarnished metal squeaked, but the door opened without rousing the bedridden woman. Ceci slipped into the hallway before hurrying through the parlor. All the furniture in the rooms, from the parlor to the summer kitchen, had played a game of square dance. The built-in shelves weren’t yet built. Two armchairs now sat opposite the front door. They appeared utilitarian. The kitchen and the parlor’s end table held no clues. No notebooks, no newspapers, nor any hints as to the date. Simply a kerosene lamp here and there. From underneath the end table, she snagged a red, threadbare hardback. A quick peek at the copyright page for Eisner’s Ecology revealed a date of 1895. Based on the binding and faded text on the pages, the book could’ve been ten years old or more.
Damn it all to hell, she could be sixty years into the past.
She left the book on an armchair and opened the front door. A frigid breeze cut to the marrow of her bone. “Fuck.”
Winter had seized the pasture beyond the door, covering the nearby barn and chicken coop in bright yet sparkling snow half a foot deep. Footprints from Isaiah and his sister led northward toward the orchard. She needed to find a survival pack—but how? She needed better clothes.
Ceci glanced at the dress she still had in her hand. The thin fabric was useless. She dropped the dress and scrambled to find clothes. In the bedroom next to the room she had escaped, she put on a man’s shirt and trousers. Her fingers trembled as she buttoned up the shirt halfway. Keep moving, she kept reminding herself. A set of work boots next to the bed would have to do. They were oversized, but she didn’t bother to tie the laces. The Bridge siblings could return at any time.
She couldn’t find another coat in the room, so she settled for the quilt over one of the beds. Briefly, she considered leaving something of value for her thievery. She twisted her wedding ring on her finger, but now wasn’t the time.
Survival first. Restitution later.
With the quilt draped over her shoulders, Ceci hurried out of the house and followed the footprints leading to the orchard.
The map she had discovered, with its X’s for the locations of survival packs, came to mind with vivid clarity. She had to find one of the packs.
Breathless, Ceci shuffled through the snow, searching around the fourth tree in the second row. Nothing. She checked the third row. Nothing. Panic began to suffocate her senses. She darted to the fifth row, where she crossed paths with a lone woman, dressed in a long dark-brown coat and knitted cap at the far end.
Though excuses percolated inside her, Ceci could only emit a squeak. She retreated until her shoulder brushed against a low-growing branch. She twisted to cry out, but found no one there.
“It’s all right,” the woman said, extending a mitten-covered hand.
Cecily continued her backward march, clutching the quilt tight enough for her fists to go numb.
“If you just got here, you shouldn’t be outside. It’s too cold.” The middle-aged woman didn’t question her state. “I’m Ursula. You don’t have to speak, honey. I can take you to a safe place.”
This woman knew—she was a Bridge. Ceci had scribbled her name down before in her many notebooks. But this delicate woman, with her thin frame and large eyes, couldn’t be real. She would die in 1938, right along with her daddy. Ursula lumbered up to her as Ceci retreated.
“It’s all right.” The woman edged closer. “You don’t want to freeze to death, do you? I live nearby.”
Ursula carefully touched her cheek. Ceci shuddered. She had wondered what might happen if they touched—if Ursula’s hand could wrestle her awake from this nightmare.
“It’s all right,” Ursula murmured. “Come with me.” She took Ceci’s hand and guided her to the other side of the orchard. No more than twenty-four hours ago, Cecily had chased her children here, next to a dead house. More tears fell as she climbed up the fresh set of muddy wooden steps, numbly entered through a door painted in soft red. Cecily felt herself melting, falling away into disbelief. She’d imagined she would be strong. Every time, she’d played out a scenario where she marched to a pack and ran off. She’d never thought it might play out differently.
The inside of the house had a single door to a bedroom, along with a summer kitchen and parlor with chairs and a kitchen table. The home was a bit untidy, except for the messy kitchen. The clutter in the cooking area threatened to spill into the parlor. Smudges from soot and ash darkened the linoleum floor around the cast-iron Acme stove in the kitchen and the odor of rancid grease carried throughout the house. Faded copies of McCall’s magazine littered the plaid cushioned sofa and chair in the parlor.
Ursula tugged for her to follow. “Come sit.”
Her gentle hands drew Ceci to one of the chairs at the cluttered kitchen table. “You can warm up for now.” She smiled again, revealing a chipped incisor. “Don’t you worry none ’bout saying anything. I can get you fed with clothes and such.”
Ceci’s blurred gaze followed Ursula as the woman hurried to add a kettle of water to the stove.
She waited for relief. Yes, she’d wake up soon. Any minute now her body would lose all feeling and this reality would float away. The woman disappeared into the bedroom, leaving her to sag into the wooden chair. A bump on the seat poked her thigh—an all too real feeling, along with the faint scent of cinnamon from nearby. The kettle whistled sharply.
Ursula returned to set it aside. Then with soft eyes, she placed a pretty sweater and skirt in Ceci’s hands. “This belonged to my sister, Jane, but you look about the same size as she was. Stay right here.”
Jane Bridge. Born 1882. The facts came too quickly. She’d spent more time researching instead of with her own family.
“Don’t you worry. You can stay here as long as you need to.” Ursula wiped at her damp cheeks. “It’s okay to cry. God hears your pain.”
No one heard her pain. No one could make this better.
For the longest time, she cried at the table. A clock on the other end of the room struck nine. Then ten. She kept stealing glances at a newspaper on the other side of the table.
If she snatched it, she’d know the truth.
If she ignored it, perhaps she’d wake up.
After a deep breath, she reached across the doily-draped table and slid more McCall’s magazines to the side. From the bottom of the pile, she withdrew The Daily Progress she’d seen. One of the January 19 headlines read, “A New Novel by Miss Ellen Glasgow.” She blinked as she recalled watching the 1942 movie made from Glasglow’s award-winning book In This Our Life. Through her tears, the stencil blurred again and those four numbers, 1911, remained in the aftermath. Winston wouldn’t be born for another twenty-eight years. And if, if, she ever held her precious boys again, she’d have to wait nearly fifty years.
Fifty damn years.
The seconds, the hours, then the decades ahead punched the middle of her chest. She tried to inhale and stuttered.
So much lost.
Her right to vote, gone. And the Civil Rights Act that Lyndon B. Johnson would sign was also over fifty years away.
“Breathe, honey, breathe.” Ursula’s words bled through her din. “The good Lord saw fit to give you breath. Use it.”
What good would your breath do if you’d left your heart fifty years in the future?
Chapter 30
Cecily Bridge-Davis
February 1911
Ceci didn’t know how long she stared out the parlor window. She’d slept on the armchair with her neck bent in surrender, her eyes dried empty, and her soul scraped raw. Thankfully, Ursula passed through the rooms like a ghost. During their meals at the tiny table, the woman chatted about her day, but she never pushed Ceci to speak. Nor did she quiet Ceci when she cried again.
Meanwhile, the outside changed. The sun rose and set. The snow gave way to spring rains, then a summer heat wave. She would’ve welcomed rain rather than sunshine, but the swimming pool weather persisted, perhaps mocking her pain.
None of this could be real. The green-and-gold rug Ursula traipsed across every morning didn’t resemble the antique one from her aunt’s home. The two children who crossed the glen in front of the house weren’t Amelia and Isaiah Bridge. Those names were faded ink on a piece of yellowed paper. They were ghosts.
And yet here she remained as Ursula roused her from the seat. “Got to work for your breakfast this morning, Miss Meg.”
Ceci slowly shifted in the chair after hearing the name she’d supplied to Ursula not long after she’d arrived. Choosing the moniker from the heroine of A Wrinkle in Time seemed apt. She shifted again, her limbs creaking from the lack of movement. She ran her hands over her hair, finding the coarse curls matted and parched. Her host zipped from one side of the house to the other, opening the curtains in the summer kitchen.
