I returned with the cloak over one arm and a cup of hot tea with sugar in it to the cadence of August pointing to stars and telling how they guided him across the seas. Patience tilted her face to the sky and listened as if the words came from it, as I draped the cloak upon her thin frame.
She whispered again, “Bring me a cloak, Ressie. I am cold.” Her voice seemed unearthly, spectral, so very quiet and yet the words as penetrating as if she had shouted them in my ear. I fetched another, my warmest woolen cloak, and August and I dressed it about her shoulders. “Tell me which ones you would follow to the West Indies, little brother. What star leads to Jamaica?”
August began to explain, his eyes toward the sky. I put my hand upon his arm. “Brother,” I said. “She listens no longer. She is on her way there now.” Patience had slumped against the wall, and was near to falling off the bench. She was gone.
In a week, August sent word by way of the dark, chiseled-faced man, who had once brought him a message here, that he would be sailing on the next high tide under a full moon. That would be in only three days.
By October fifteenth, I began to weep and I could not stop. I had lost Lady Spencer and Patey to death’s dark cavern, America to marriage, and August to the sea, and still my men did not return. Jacob tried to reason with me but I would have none of it. I believed Cullah and Brendan had been lost in battle, or died of disease, or wounded, bleeding upon some rock. Why had I not left all and gone to them? Why had I not followed my men into war? Other wives did. I was bereft of my greatest love. I took no joy in anything, and though the sky was dark and gray, the mist heavy, I sat by a window and stared out into the mist for hour upon hour, hoping to make them appear. They did not.
This October seemed eternal. Daily snows and rains, first cold then thaw, icy storms and howling winds followed by false summers, ended with snows a foot deep. I had Jacob and Gwenny, Benjamin and Dolly, but my fears of losing Cullah and Brendan stretched beyond all reason. Gwyneth moped. She gave up on romantic notions about Mr. Hancock and she busied herself sewing and spinning, milking and leading Jacob about, giving him patient help when he could not fill his pipe or if he spilled food from the wide knife he used instead of a fork or spoon.
On All Hallows’ morn, we attended Meeting. Coming home the road was half thawed and muddy, treacherous for old Sam pulling. We did not get home until mid-afternoon. That day, I should have gone to the graves of my dear ones, dressed them with care for the following day, All Saints’. Patience’s stone was only just set there in place and had never been dressed for the holiday. I packed my basket with broom and hand rake, gloves and a jug of water, and several rags to clean the stones. But by the time we had changed our clothes, the sunlight was fading; there was little time. The children dawdled. Jacob seemed preoccupied with trying to get the door hinge to stop squeaking and of course the sun lowered every minute we hesitated. “Will you all hurry? I do not want to be so late there is not enough light! Children! I will give you a scolding you will not soon forget if you do not get your shoes on your feet and come to the door this instant! It will only take an hour or so. You can give that much to your loved ones.”
Jacob addressed me. “I will go with you but I tell you it is better to wait. Hear the wind? You have Miss Gwyneth and two small ones who need protecting. I am no use. Wait, I say.”
“Tomorrow is All Saints’ Day. It cannot wait. The day is the day and it comes whether we prepare or not.”
“I know it is.”
“I shall go by myself, then. I am not afraid.”
Jacob breathed slowly. “Feel the air? It is thick already with souls rising. The sun is lowering, too. It is dusk already. I can tell that much without an eye for the air changes its lilt. The souls walk the earth, Resolute, from now until midnight, drifting through the mist and fog here around the house. Why would you attend them at the grave? Better to bar the door and say some prayers. Open it to no one, no signal, even if they make themselves to sound like one of the children.”
“Will you not go with me, Jacob? I am determined.”
“Woman, I tell you, no.” The call of an owl, already hunting, flying low, came from the big tree by the house. “’Tis a spirit e’en now. You will be caught by them, taken to the dark world. How will I, a blind old man, ever get you back for my boy? It is almost never done, saving someone when they go down with the fairies. They’ll make you ride a flaming buck for all eternity. The Old Ones are about, I tell you. Stay. I am too old and blind to catch a horse or a hart with my bare hands and pull you from it. Stay, Resolute.”
“Meeting ran much too late. How will they know I prayed for them if there are no fresh signs of care on their graves?”