The thread collectors, p.27
The Thread Collectors, page 27
The flame-haired girl regretfully handed back the ball to the other child. As the man returned to his work in the garden, he began singing to himself. “I’m in love with a girl with a heart of fire, she whom I adore. With her copper hair and white, bright smile...”
Lily froze in her tracks, unable to believe her ears. The man’s song was exactly the one Jacob had written for her; it was as if he himself were there singing it for her.
Lily willed herself to walk through the gates and approach the young man. “Excuse me,” she asked tentatively. “May I ask, where did you learn that song?”
“‘Girl of Fire’?” he laughed again. “Me and my brothers in the Corps d’Afrique sang that song on our way to Port Hudson. Man named Willie taught it to us.”
“Willie?” Lily could hardly contain herself.
“Yes, ma’am. Finest musician I ever heard. Could play any tune. From da classical stuff to a praise song. I just saw him the other day. He was out getting some stuff for patchin’ a leak.” He brushed off the dirt from his hands and stood up. “I’ve had that song in my head ever since seein’ him again.”
Willie had to be the musician Jacob had written about so often, the great friend he had made. If anyone knew of Jacob’s whereabouts, it had to be him. She forced herself to take a breath before asking what she knew was her final opportunity to learn anything about her husband. “By any chance, do you know where I can find Willie?”
“Indeed, I do, ma’am. He tol’ me he livin’ over there by Rampart Street, near St. Anthony of Padua Church.”
Her heart was racing inside her chest. “Rampart Street. Is that close to here?”
He was about to suggest she go inside and ask Miss Hollander to sketch her out a map. But Lily hadn’t stayed long enough for him to duck in. She’d already flagged down a coach and left.
65
The carriage let her off in front of St. Anthony of Padua. Its stucco archways looked like they needed an extra coat of paint, but the heavy central door was mercifully unlocked.
Lily hadn’t been inside a church for some time. The last time she could recall was for the wedding of one of her school friends and she’d also taken a tour with some of the women from the Sanitary Commission of the new St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue, before the war began and they stopped construction on it. She didn’t frequent religious sanctuaries often. The last time she’d gone to synagogue was for the High Holidays at Temple Emanu-El, where she’d sat quietly next to her father and looked longingly at the women who had been her classmates and now had babies in their bellies and their husbands safely beside them.
She pulled open the door of St. Anthony’s and stepped inside, a musky smell assaulting her nostrils. A young Black girl was on her knees scrubbing the floor, the pail of soapy water sloshing not far from a stand of flickering votive candles.
Lily walked deeper into the church, toward the altar with its carved crucifix of Jesus, a faint trickle of painted blood dripping from the wound in his side. In the past, the sight had always unnerved her, but Lily now gazed upon it and saw a young man in terrible pain who was sacrificed too soon. His anguish resonated within her on a more human level, one that transcended religion.
“May I help you?” A man in dark clerical robes approached her. “Are you here for Confession?”
“No,” Lily answered. “I’m hoping someone might be able to help me. I’m trying to find a musician by the name of Willie. I’ve been told he lives nearby.”
“Ahh—I assume you are not a local of our fair city,” the priest responded, having noted her accent.
“I left New York nearly two weeks ago in search of my husband, a soldier. I believe he served with someone who lives near Rampart Street.”
“Rampart?” His voice revealed his surprise.
“Yes. Supposedly he’s a flutist,” she said. “Like my husband, a skilled musician.”
“I don’t know of anyone who fits that description. It’s mostly women living in the cottages on that street.”
“But I was told there was a musician named Willie living mere blocks away from here,” she insisted, not ready to give up.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” the priest said, excusing himself. “I must prepare my sermon for tomorrow. I only thought you were here for the Confessional.”
As Lily began to make her way toward the door, her heart sank, knowing she had reached yet another dead end. The only other option was to knock on every door asking if anyone knew of a man named William. She prepared to start yet another search.
Just as she was about to exit, she felt her skirt being tugged by a small, gentle hand.
“Ma’am?” the girl in the apron asked politely.
Lily turned around. “Yes, my child?”
The little girl’s eyes met Lily’s, and she visibly softened upon hearing the sound of a Northern accent. “I heard what you was talkin’ ’bout with dat man,” she whispered. “I might be able to help you.”
* * *
Lily followed the little girl down Rampart Street, watching as she navigated every pothole, her apron strings bobbing up and down in the back. She made a sharp turn right, proudly directing Lily toward one of the last houses on the row.
“It’s this one,” she indicated, pointing to Stella’s door. “Miss Ammanee—she got me my job at the church—her sister live here. Her beau named Willie, he came home just last month.” She looked up at Lily triumphantly. “No one pays much attention when they’re talkin’ in front of me, but I’m always listenin’.”
“Thank you for trusting me with this. It seems not everyone around here is willing to be as helpful to an outsider.” Lily smiled. “I think that priest was holding something back.”
“Yo’ from the North. I know you bring no harm.”
Lily stood rigid at the porch step, her two fists balled in nervous anticipation, and also fear that she might be confronting another dead end.
“Just go on and knock,” the child urged. “Like my mama tells me all the time, sometimes you just gotta be brave.”
66
Stella had been up most of the night, nursing Wade and worrying about Ammanee’s fever. The sudden knock at the door immediately put her on edge, for she feared it might be Janie telling her that her sister’s health had grown worse.
Instead, she found a stranger. A redhead with paper-white skin stood peering out at her beneath her bonnet’s brim.
Stella’s face blanched. She had never met Frye’s wife, but could she have come looking for her, or even worse, for William or Wade? In spite of his service, Willie had no free papers. And Wade was the son of a slave.
Her protective instincts immediately rushed through her veins and she cupped Wade’s head in her free hand, drawing him closer as if to shield him. A paralyzing fear coursed through her, as this female stranger gazed at her and her baby.
Before the woman had a chance to open her mouth, Annie, the little girl that Ammanee knew from church, poked out from behind the lady’s skirt. “Miss Stella, this woman from up North. She lookin’ for Willie,” the child announced. With that, the girl darted away, her brown legs flashing as she ran back to the church.
“I am searching for my husband,” the woman started to explain. “His name is Jacob Kling and I believe—”
“Jacob?” Stella’s eyes widened at the name. “Please, ma’am,” she urged Lily. “Please come inside.”
* * *
The two women stood in the center of the parlor, staring at each other as though somehow they knew each other from the stories their men had shared.
Stella took in the tall, rather gangly-looking Lily, her dress smudged with a bit of dirt on her skirt, her boots scuffed from travel and her copper hair peeking from beneath her bonnet. These imperfections in Lily’s appearance made Stella feel less embarrassed by the messy state of her home. A pile of Wade’s clean nappies lay unfolded on the kitchen table. She’d left sassafras leaves boiling in the kitchen for a broth intended for Ammanee, and its anisette-like fragrance permeated the house.
“I’m sorry for the state of things. I wasn’t expecting anyone,” Stella apologized.
Lily was still in shock that she had finally reached a destination where she was not only welcomed, but that seemed to have a verifiable connection to Jacob. She looked at Stella—her beautiful child nestled against her, her warm brown eyes framed by the pale yellow cloth wrapped around her head—and her heart broke open.
“You have no idea how little any of that matters to me,” she sobbed. “I’m still struggling to believe how I have been led to this place, to you, to your William.”
“Let me go get him,” Stella said. “He’s outside fixin’ something. These last few weeks since he been back, he’s had to start usin’ his hands in a whole new way.”
* * *
Willie quickly followed Stella from the garden into the living room, where a White woman had just taken off her silk hat, a few tendrils of red hair falling out slightly from the center of her bun.
As Lily turned to face this man she’d read about so fondly in Jacob’s letters, her green eyes teared up with emotion. “William,” she uttered his name solemnly, like a benediction.
He did not answer her directly at first. Instead, he turned to Stella and whispered, “Go get the map.”
* * *
William shared the story of what happened to Teddy and Jacob that fateful Christmas morning in vivid detail. As she watched this woman learn what had happened to her husband, Stella’s heart ached anew.
When William got to the point of making his map, Lily’s eyes grew wide. “You made a map of how to get back to him?”
His eyes fell to the cloth folded in his hands. “I did it first on paper, but my Stella, she then made it even better with her stitchin’,” he said, then offered it to Lily so she could see how Stella had preserved the route through needle and thread.
* * *
In between her shaking hands, Lily gazed at the map. The careful black running stitches of the path, the red barn and yellow house markers toward what appeared to be a church marked with a cross. On the bottom the word I B Y R E E A was sewn.
“This will lead me back to him.” Her voice broke with emotion.
“I will need to come with you though,” William insisted. He did not see Stella’s eyes dart up at him like arrows. “You see dat map must be read a certain way. The cross don’t mark a church or anything like dat, but Cross’s General Store in Iberia.” He pointed to Stella’s letters sewn on the cloth. He spoke more rapidly as the plan he’d been making to get back to Jacob now seemed likely to come to fruition sooner with Lily’s help.
“I couldn’t ask you to come,” Lily said. “It’s far too dangerous. You’ve already endured so much, and you have your family to protect here,” she said, looking over at Stella. “And I’m sure I could make sense of what Stella has indicated with her careful hand stitching.”
William inched forward on his chair, his dark eyes growing serious. “Ma’am, I’m aware it’s dangerous. I know the risk returnin’ to hostile territory, ’specially as a Black man travelin’ with a White woman.” He stopped. “But we got but one shot to get ’im back. We can’t leave nothin’ to chance.” William’s eyes lifted and fell upon Stella, silently beseeching her to understand his predicament.
But Stella would not now offer him her blessing. Leaving her once again was one thing. But leaving their son, too, she would never approve that.
She had felt a respect for Lily when she came into her home, but now she hated her. Hated that she was taking her man away and bringing him back into danger. Her mind traveled to an even darker place, to a thought she knew she couldn’t possibly say aloud. With Jacob left in the wilderness somewhere, with a woman who William said wasn’t right in her mind... Was Jacob, at this point, even alive?
* * *
“I’ll arrange for a coach and pick you up tomorrow,” Lily told him. As many times as she stressed that William should not come with her, he insisted it was the only option. “But I will keep the map for now. So I may study it.”
“Yes,” he said. “Please, take it with you.”
But she had no intention of showing up the next morning. As much as she wanted to keep her word to Willie, who had done so much for Jacob, she felt bound by an even deeper covenant that existed woman to woman: you do no harm.
67
Stella felt a wash of relief come over her when Lily failed to appear the next morning at the pre-arranged time. She hated to see William pacing in the parlor, his eyes peeled to the window, hoping Jacob’s wife would return as she promised. But the woman had given her a gift by not taking him back into the wilderness.
“She’s not coming, is she?” William asked.
Stella remained quiet. She was well aware that anything she said would not be enough.
“No, she gone, and we got no idea if that map gonna make any sense to her.” He pressed his thumbs to his forehead. “And she don’t even know I left my flute there, either.”
“If she gets Jacob, he won’t leave your instrument behind.” That much Stella could say for sure.
He sat down and put his head in his hands. “I understand you didn’t want me to go, Stella. But livin’ with the knowledge I left him there... Right after I left Teddy under nothing but a pile of oak leaves and spruce needles.” His voice broke. “It’s like now I’ve let them both down.”
Stella pulled over a chair and sat beside him, taking his hand in hers. “This Lily did right by me. Keepin’ you safe while she go gets her husband. She’s a White woman. No one gonna be tryin’ to hurt her, like they would you—like they already did. You wanna put your neck out there when there’s a chance some Reb gonna string you up from a tree? Or some Union man gonna accuse you of desertin’ like the last time?” She held his fingers tight. “Lily know you safest here with me. And I like her a whole lot more now that she sees that. She not just takin’. She gets you’re precious to me. And to your son.”
William nodded reluctantly. “Just hope she can find her way with the map.”
“Miss Hyacinth once told me my maps are lucky.” She smiled. “I have a feelin’ that Lily’s got her wits about her. We sendin’ her off as good as we can.”
* * *
For as long as she could remember, Stella was the beneficiary of either her mother’s or Ammanee’s fine cooking. But now, with her beloved sister ill, Stella found herself behind the stove for the first time, as Janie nursed Ammanee. She knew how to make tinctures and certainly simple meals like grits or dirty rice, but not how to prepare the more sustaining vittles that she hoped would give Ammanee her strength back. She needed to remember what herbs and vegetables her sister had used from the garden to make broth whenever Stella was feeling unwell, particularly during her pregnancy.
The other women on the street pitched in, too, now that Ammanee couldn’t bring food back from work. Miss Emilienne brought some groats and Miss Hyacinth a jar of manuka honey that she swore would make Ammanee well again.
One day Benjamin arrived at Janie’s cottage, carrying a canvas sack with five chicken bones inside. He handed them over to Janie. “Thought the marrow would be good for her,” he told her.
“I’ll do it, Mama,” Stella offered as she took the sack and brought it over to the hearth to boil. She had watched Ammanee do this for her in the weeks just after Wade’s birth, when Stella was so tired she could hardly pull herself out of a chair. No one missin’ the bones, her sister said when she’d come home with them after work.
“Where she restin’?” Benjamin asked. Stella could see the deep lines of worry on his face. “I know I’m not s’posed to do anythin’ but run my errands in town and then turn straight back home, but I had to see her.” He looked over at Janie, hoping she didn’t mind him arriving unannounced.
“She’s in the back. We keepin’ her quarantined because I don’t know if it’s typhoid fever or somethin’ else. She’s in bad shape.” Her voice was flinty and staccato. Stella recognized the tenor, for it was the one her mother used whenever she was trying to steel herself for a storm.
“I gotta go see her, ma’am. Just want her to know I came...”
Janie lowered her eyes. “Stella goin’ bring her some more herb tea. Tried to tell her to go home and stop risking herself, but she won’t. You go in with her, but don’t stay too long.”
* * *
Stella guided Benjamin into the dim room. Ammanee’s small face looked even smaller now; her black eyes resembled two sunken stones.
“Ami,” he called out to her. It was a name Stella knew only the two of them had used, back when they were children together on the plantation.
Ammanee didn’t answer, but Stella noticed her eyes flicker at the sight of him.
“I missin’ you real bad. Brough’ yo’ mama something to make your blood strong,” he said as he brought her fingertips up to his lips and kissed them tenderly.
“Thank you,” she mustered.
“I’m goin’ leave your tea by the bed.” Stella walked it over, and a thin feather of steam lifted off its surface. “I’ll give you two some time by yourselves,” she said. “But not too long. We need to get your fever down and get you well again.”
68
As much as she knew his stewardship would have helped her, Lily only hoped William would understand why she could not possibly have taken him along. His responsibilities now lay with keeping Stella and their new baby safe, and she would never forgive herself if something happened to him. Her conscience had left her with no other choice. She hoped he would forgive her and not see her actions as a betrayal, but rather—in the spirit of the immense gratitude she felt for him—a release from any further obligation he might believe he had.
