Truce
I woke in the midst of a nightmare early the next morning. It was a reoccurring dream that first came to me the night my mother died and had been exactly the same ever since. Dressed in no more than a white linen shift, I was floating on my back in a pool of dark water when a hand suddenly grabbed me from below and pulled me beneath the surface. As I tried to struggle free, the hand tightened, dragging me farther down until I became entangled in the long grass growing up from the muddy floor. Starved for air, my lungs expanded, flooding my nose and mouth with water and bringing me to the very brink of death. At this point the nightmare always withdrew, leaving me gasping for breath and fighting the bedclothes for escape.
The initial terror abated as I stared out at my room, the familiar objects barely discernible in the dark gray light. Getting out of bed, I pulled on a simple cotton dress, managing the laces the best I could with trembling fingers. After drowning in my sleep at least once a month for the past four years, it should have become somewhat routine, but each time felt like the first. Fresh air was always the best remedy to counter the dream’s residual effects, and luckily I had enough work to keep me busy outdoors for the next several hours at least.
A shadowy stillness pervaded the main house when I left my room and tiptoed down the stairs to assemble the necessary supplies. Hurrying to the kitchen, which was located in the newer wing with the servants’ quarters, I pushed through the heavy wooden door and stepped from the gloomy silence into an entirely different world. Karta was moving at a frenzied pace, preparing breakfast for a full table of servants and farmhands. Unaccustomed to my presence at so early an hour, their lively chatter stopped the moment I entered.
“Good morning,” I said cheerfully, pretending not to notice.
A small chorus of greetings followed in return. I didn’t like intruding on their personal time and meant to be quickly on my way when Evie burst through the cellar door with a fresh crock of butter. She gave a startled cry and dropped the clay pot to the floor where it broke into pieces, spattering both of our skirts with the sticky contents.
“Ye clumsy girl!” Karta hollered. “Jumping at yer own shadow again. Go fetch another crock and then clean up that mess before someone slips to their death!”
“Sorry, ma’am,” Evie squeaked, then fled back through the cellar door.
Good heavens! I’d never met another soul who suffered from such nerves. Grabbing a napkin from a nearby cupboard, I started to wipe the pale yellow bits from my gown.
Mary dutifully got up from the table to help with the mess.
“Don’t bother yourself, Mary,” I said. “Have your breakfast while it’s still warm. This dress will be soiled from top to bottom by the time I’m done today.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Mary said. “I’ll see to it this evening then.”
More than a dozen pair of eyes watched me as I grabbed two hardboiled eggs and a small jug of cider before continuing on down the corridor into the next room.
Small in comparison to the other rooms in the house, this insignificant space served as my private sanctuary. Most people referred to it as my apothecary, but the term fell short in describing all that it was for me.
A well-worn wooden table stood in the center of the room, on which rested a mortar and pestle, a set of scales, and numerous leather journals containing the recipes for remedies passed down from my mother and grandmother. Shelves lined one wall, holding all manner of jars filled with tinctures, decoctions, and finely ground herbs. The wall adjoining the kitchen was primarily taken up with a stone fireplace and an assortment of iron pots and kettles that ranged in size from a few cupfuls to one large enough to boil a bushel of licorice, pennyroyal and yarrow during the grippe season. Numerous bundles of healing plants, collected during the fall and this past spring, hung from hooks that Ben had nailed into the long wooden beams that ran along the length of ceiling. On the only exterior wall there was one good-sized window and a door that led out to my herb garden.
From under the table I fetched a large basket to hold my breakfast provisions along with a hand trowel, gloves and clippers. I then grabbed my straw hat, plunking it on my head as I went out the door. Ben had offered to give Henry a full tour of the property this morning, which was fine by me—I had other things to do.