Between Earth and Sky(104)

Her mother wheeled around, lips stretched thin across her haggard face. “Have you any idea what you’ve done? Not a decent family in all of La Crosse will receive my call. People snicker at your father when he goes into town. You’ve jeopardized the school, our livelihood, everything. This is how you repay our love?”

“Love? You never loved me.”

“I gave up everything for you.” She stormed toward the door, but Alma caught hold of her arm.

“Let me see my friends, please. Rose and Margaret, just one more time.”

A cruel smile spread across the woman’s face. “Why, don’t you know? It was Margaret who told your father of your wicked plans in the first place.”

All feeling left Alma’s limbs. That was impossible; Minowe would never tell. “You’re lying.”

“Even she could see you and that boy didn’t belong together.” Her mother strode out and slammed the door behind her.

It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be. She sank down onto her bed and stared at her wrinkled, dust-covered dress. After three days of wear, the layers of stockings and petticoats beneath her skirt clung stickily to her legs.

It was a lie. Her mother would say anything now to hurt her. She remembered the way Minowe had held her hand that first night in the woods when no one else wanted Alma to tag along, how they’d passed notes and whispered secrets during class and study hour, how they’d huddled close atop the roof and told stories of the stars.

And yet besides , Minowe was the only person who’d known of Alma’s plans to elope.

Her mouth felt suddenly dry. She crossed to her vanity and slurped down water from the washbowl. It tasted cold and stale and bitter with perfume.

No one else but Minowe had known. No one else could have told.

She splashed her face and let the water drip down her cheeks onto the collar of her dress. In the mirror, her face looked gaunt, her eyes a crosshatch of red, her lips pale and cracked.

Nindaangwe, her dearest friend, had betrayed her. Why? The water roiled in Alma’s stomach, threatening to rise. She thought back to the night she’d first confessed her love for to her friends. Even then Minowe had disapproved. Did she really care so much about the color of their skins? Did she really think telling Alma’s father would make it all go away?

Alma picked up the silver-handled brush beside the washbowl and threw it at the mirror. The glass cracked and splintered, distorting her reflection into that of a stranger, a monster, a Windigo, a ghost.

When Mr. Simms came to collect her for transport to the train station, Alma was too tired to resist. Nothing remained for her here anyway. The hallways of the great schoolhouse lay as empty as they had the first day she had skipped down them, waiting for the Indians to arrive. It was as if everything between that day and this one had been erased—the lessons she had learned, the friendships she had made, the love she had nurtured. She felt hollowed out, an empty shell that would soon weather to dust.

Her father watched her go from the doorway of his study. His beard was overgrown and the skin beneath his eyes blue and puffy. Several days of dirt and scuff marred his once-glossy boots. She met his stare, feeling her jaw tighten and fingers clench, even as her heart lurched. His glassy, reddened eyes were the first to look away.

She strode past him through the foyer to the front door. Her hand was on the doorknob when his voice stopped her. “Alma, I . . .” He cleared his throat. “I never intended for this to happen. Had you not taken things so far I . . .”

Behind her, the grandfather clock murmured through the seconds. The smell of roasting mutton and burnt coffee wafted from the kitchen. She even thought she heard the soft whisper of chalk against slate. Of course the schoolhouse was not empty as she’d imagined. Only she.

Her hand, still on the knob, twisted.

“Kitten, I’m—”

Without word or backward glance she opened the door and hurried to the landau. When at last she did look back, the school was only a red smudge through the tangle of trees.

Eventually the forest thinned and the road descended downward from the hills. Her heart pounded as the carriage reached the base of Grandfather’s Bluff. A rope still hung from the box elder’s branches, frayed at the bottom where noose and body had been cut free.

She sprang from the landau and rushed to the tree. Falling to her knees, she groped madly through the dirt and brittle grass. Not until her hand grazed the smooth beads of necklace did she realize what she sought. She grabbed hold of the broken strand of quill and beads just as Mr. Simms pulled her from the ground and back to the carriage.





CHAPTER 43


Minnesota, 1906



Not until she’d finished her story did Alma dare look up. Stewart stared at her with wide, flat eyes. Pallor had overtaken his cheeks and his mouth hung open like a broken hinge.

The silence pared her all the way to her bone.

After a moment, Stewart’s lips began to move, silently at first, then with the accompaniment of words. “But you weren’t . . . intimate with him.”

Tears dripped from her chin onto the collar of her dress. She didn’t bother to wipe them away. “We were.”

He stood and turned away from her. Both hands hung at his sides, one opening and closing, the other strangling the necklace.

“I’m so sorry I never told you. It happened long before we met. I love you and didn’t want you to think—”