Addie hadn’t sought an audience with anyone other than her Elijah, and she told the man so.
“You must speak with me first. Long before your ancestors colonized this land, I was here. The North Star shone its light upon my face. From its people, I draw my power. This nation feeds upon itself. Such dreams! Such ambition! I, too, have dreams. Ambitions. I can taste your desires upon my tongue. Walk with me, child.”
Addie walked with the man in the stovepipe hat through woods where crows perched in trees like sentient leaves. Where he walked, the grass yellowed and curled up onto itself, brittle and dry. They came to the old graveyard on the hill. Elijah’s grave was not more than three months made. Addie’s latest bouquet wilted upon it.
“What would you give to see Elijah again?” the gray man asked.
“Anything.”
“Every choice has consequences. Balance must be maintained. For what is given, something else is taken. Think well upon your motives, Adelaide Proctor.”
Addie had thought upon her motives every night as she cried softly into her blanket so that her sister, Lillian, sleeping peacefully beside her, would not hear. At sixteen, Adelaide had lost the love of her life. The boy who should’ve been her husband and the father of her children lay six feet under the mocking sweetness of summer clover. She did not waver in her choice.
“Anything,” she said again, and the man in the hat smiled. “May I see him, sir? Oh, bring him to me, please!”
“You shall have your Elijah in time,” the man said. “Sleep. For you are young; your days are many. But know this: You belong to me now, Adelaide Keziah Proctor. When the time comes, I shall call upon the promise you make this day. For your patriotism to me.”
He pressed his thumb to her forehead and she tumbled backward through the grave, unable to stop herself from falling.
Addie woke to a great thirst and sweaty bedsheets. Her fever had broken. The moon was a faded wax seal against the pale gold parchment of dawn. But where was Elijah? The man had promised. For days and days, he did not come, and Addie began to believe her promise was nothing more than a fever dream.
Then came the signs.
She would find her diary open to a page about her love for Elijah. Warm winds blew through open windows, and with them came the sweet sunshine smell of him. On a moonlit night, she was sure she heard music coming from the tall grass of the field. It was the faintest whisper of a song Elijah used to sing to her. And the daisies: She’d find them on her side of the bed, lying across her hope chest, or beside her music box. Once, when she took her apron down from the hook, she reached a hand into the pocket and came up with a coating of waxy white petals. Only Elijah knew that daisies were her favorite. Her mother accused her of trying to call attention to herself, but Addie knew these small favors belonged to Elijah. Even in death, he remembered her. Her joy was boundless.
Fever visited the Proctor household once more, this time with a vengeance. When it finally took its leave a week later, it had claimed Addie’s father and younger brother, two servants, and the foreman’s wife and baby daughter.
Balance.
Addie attended their funerals mute and pale, fearful of what she’d done, of what might still come. That night, she heard her name whispered so sweetly that she woke with a fresh tear upon her cheek. Beyond her window, the moon bled bright behind passing clouds. A nightingale chirruped a warning.