Wild, Beautiful, and Free(9)

We padded softly on our bare feet down the hall and descended the back steps. When we reached the broad white door of Calista’s room, Dorinda didn’t knock but turned the knob slowly so it wouldn’t squeak.

Calista sat up in bed, one candle lit on the table next to her. Her hair, yellow like Madame’s, hung long and loose over her shoulders. Her blue eyes were swollen and pink from crying. I ran to her and climbed onto the bed. She clung to me. Dorinda stayed by the door.

“I’ll wait out here. Say what you gotta say, then come on. Don’t know when Madame might decide to go to bed.”

But for a few moments Calista and I had no words. We held each other and cried for the longest time. Finally, she took my face in her hands and looked at me hard as though she would examine me. “Your skin is cool, Jeannette. You have no fever. You are not sick?”

“No, not at all.”

“Mama lied. She said you were burning up like Papa. Oh, Papa!” Tears streamed down her cheeks. “What will we do without him?”

“I don’t know. He will look after us. We must believe that. But what happened to my room? Papa’s books, the maps of Catalpa Valley, my things are all gone.”

“She put Papa’s things back in the library. Your things . . .” Calista swallowed. “She said your things had to be burned. That you wouldn’t be needing them anyway.”

“Why is she saying I am sick?”

“I don’t know. Something’s changed about her. A man came to the house after Papa died, and she threw him out. She’s been like ice since then, stopped crying about Papa. I sit with him in the parlor all by myself. And she won’t tell me what’s wrong. But now that I know you are well, I will find a way to take care of you.”

I reached beneath the front of my dress and removed my locket. The metal warmed to my touch. I almost didn’t open it at first, but I longed to see my father’s face again. I snapped it open, and there he was. His whiskers, the glint in his eyes. He was on the left side of the locket, positioned so he was looking at my mama. She looked silent and resolute, as though she’d known all along this moment would come. I closed it and gave it to Calista.

“Papa said it won’t be safe for me to wear this anymore. Keep it for me. I know it will be all right with you until I can wear it again. But I don’t know, Calista. I don’t know when that will be.”

“Mama has to treat you properly. This land is ours, Jeannette. Papa saved Petite Bébinn for you. That must give us some rights. Papa always said the land is everything.”

“Yes.” I thought about the litany and agreed. I knew the land would save us.

Calista reached for the mahogany box she kept by her bed, a treasure box Papa had brought back for her from New Orleans on one of his trips. She opened it and removed a section that revealed a false bottom. She placed my locket inside and closed the bottom over it.

I put my arms around her again. “Are you afraid?”

She ran her hands over my hair and kissed the top of my head. “I was. Now that you’re here, I feel better. Mama wouldn’t let me see Papa after he got sick, and then I couldn’t find you.”

“I was hiding in Papa’s room.”

“Yes, Dorinda told me. Oh, Jeannette, how I wish I had been with you and Papa.”

A floorboard near the door creaked, and Dorinda entered the room. Her eyes burned with urgency.

“Madame! She’s coming.”

“Go, Jeannette, go!” Calista crushed me in an embrace, and I kissed her forehead. I climbed from the bed and followed Dorinda up the back stairs.

We made it to my room and heard voices. Dorinda and I realized Madame was coming to me, not Calista. I squeezed Dorinda’s hand and motioned for her to go away. I didn’t want Madame to find her there. Didn’t want her punished by a crazy woman.

I looked around the empty room and wondered whether I should sit on a chair or get in the bed and pretend to be asleep. It didn’t matter. Madame was going to do whatever she was going to do. I would be Jean Bébinn’s daughter, which to me meant standing my ground, ready for whatever she would bring through my door.

When she opened the door, that’s how I was, standing straight and strong on my own two feet. Madame jumped like she’d stepped on hot cinders.

“What are you doing?” She looked around the room, but there was nothing to be seen. “Why aren’t you in bed?”

“I’ve slept enough.”

She looked me up and down like she was trying to figure something out.

“Dorinda!”

Dorinda appeared at the door almost too fast. No way she could have made it back downstairs. I figured she’d been listening down the hall.

“Yes, Madame?”

“I want you to get some cloth and cover this girl’s hair.” She eyed my dress, grabbed it at the skirt, and rubbed the material between her fingers. The gray calico must have satisfied her, because she mumbled, “Plain enough,” and turned around and went back into the hall. “Bring her downstairs to Master’s office when you’re done.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

We waited until Madame was gone from our view, and then Dorinda hurried me down the back stairs.

“I got a bad feeling,” Dorinda said. “Madame working up something awful. Come on.”