“I’ll have it with him,” he said, and charged out the door.
Never mind that I had been in this house during many a stormy night. This night, terror struck me as I had not felt in a long time. Moments became hours. I lit candles, three upstairs and three down, to quell my fear. My heart beat so that everything I or the children said was muffled by the pounding of it. The storm began in earnest just as darkness drew in upon us. Though this house was not drafty, the wind came from a different direction, it seemed. An explosion of thunder came with a gust that snuffed every candle. It sent me back in time to being that small girl in the hold of a ship under cannons blasting away. Lightning flashed, for some seconds charging up the room with blue light, then blackening everything beyond what we expected. Benjamin began to cry, and because he did, Barbara and Gwyneth also cried. Brendan made a brave effort to keep his face still, but as I got a taper lit, I saw him turn away from me and wipe at his face with his cuffs. I cleaned the little ones for bed and sent the two older boys upstairs.
If Cullah were here, he would make them jolly, I thought. Cullah and Jacob would tease them and tell them God was beating bad angels with his fists, or blowing ghosts out of the trees. At last, seeing no other way to calm them, I called all the children in with me. Every time they heard thunder I bade them shake their feet to mimic God kicking bad angels out of heaven, and soon their tears became laughter. Grandan slept and soon Barbara did, too. The storm slaked, and the children calmed. The two oldest boys slept. Gwenny stared. “Close your eyes,” I said.
“Where’s Pa?” she asked.
“He’s coming with Grandpa.”
“When is he coming?” she pleaded.
I caught myself. It was as if she, too, knew something was amiss, felt that this strange night could be the end or the beginning of something dark. I smiled and said, “I am sure that with the storm, Grandpa said to him”—I mimicked Jacob’s accent, rolling all the r’s to great effect—“‘Cullah me boy, we shan’t go out on a colly-waddler of a night as this one. Just you sit by me fire while I tell ye about a real storm. Let’s see, that was in forty-three. Or was it twenty-three? Well, never mind. That storm was so bad, the wind blew so hard, it blew a stone castle all the way from Jamaica to Lexington. And you know what was in it?’” I paused, for Gwenny had heard the story before.
“A princess?”
“Yes. And do you know who she grew up to be?”
She said, “A knight’s lady, who maked her own clothes and those of her bairnies, jus’ like in the Bible, she work-ed day and night to do it.”
“You know all my stories,” I said, kissing my fingertip and touching her nose with it.
“Tell me again about the little girls running across the roof to see the ocean.”
“The widow’s walk was high up, on the tip-top of the castle. It had a staircase that went through a dark attic and came out on top where the sun was hot and seagulls turned cartwheels all day long.”
“Just like Brendan does?”
“Exactly. Though they were birds and had no such long legs. They put out their wings like this.”
Gwenny stretched out her arms and waved them about. “I want to fly,” she said.
I could not keep the smile in place. A quick image came to mind of all the little tombstones I knew, their carved baby faces couched by feathered wings above engraved names. “It is not in God’s goodwill for people to fly, Gwenny. That is for birds. People have something much more important to do.”
“What? Sewing and numbers and weaving?”
“Perhaps.” I heard the door open below.
Gwenny sat up and said, “Papa!”
I heard no familiar voices. In fact, no voices at all. “No doubt the door simply blew open. Keep quiet and let the other children sleep, now. You should be asleep, yourself. You stay here and I will go and help him and Grandpa off with their wet things. You keep my spot warm, all right?”
“I shall, Ma.”
“Good girl. Bless you, my Gwenny. I will be right back.” Then I left with a single candle, leaving one alight in the room over the heads of our dear little ones. I crept down the stairs holding my breath and trying to make no sound at all. At the foot of it I peered into the parlor. Two large figures crouched before my fire. I spoke no word. My hands trembled at my lips.
One of them straightened up. “Colly-waddler,” he said. “Pure colly-waddler.”
“Jacob?” I whispered, now mindful of the children.
The other man turned. Cullah. “Oh,” I cried, and ran to him, setting the candle upon the table before I flew into his arms. “I was so frightened.”
He smiled down at me, pulling off his cap and cloak. “Now, Resolute, I told you where I was gone. You didn’t expect me to trudge uphill in mud from one little house to my own in the black of night in the middle of a storm, did you?”