Free The Mapmaker's Children by Sarah McCoy Page A

her skull into the greeting.
    â€œShe likes you,” said Freddy, their luggage weighing his arms down. “Gypsy doesn’t give the time of day to most, unless she doesn’t like them—in which case, she lets you know mighty quick.”
    â€œI’d welcome any newcomer who carried biscuits in her pocket, too.”
    â€œAy, the key to her allegiance,” said Freddy. “Pocket crumbs. As soon as you run out, she’ll snub you proper.” He winked again, and Sarahwondered if it was habitual or another cue that he knew more about her than she of him. In any case, she found it boldly unsettling.
    She turned her attention back to Gypsy, running her hand over the dog’s head.
I really do like you
, she thought, and she could’ve sworn Gypsy’s gaze glimmered understanding.
    Ahead, the door opened. Light splashed into the darkness, revealing an evergreen wreath with bright holly berries above the door lintel. It was Christmas season. Sarah had forgotten.
    â€œTidings, new friends!” called a girl’s voice, but Sarah saw no child in the threshold, only two silhouetted women of equal height.
    George kissed the one to the left. Mrs. Priscilla Hill.
    â€œWelcome to our home.” Mrs. Hill cupped both of Mary’s hands.
    Without any regard to etiquette, the other woman wrapped her arms around Annie’s neck.
    â€œPriscilla, Alice, I’m happy to introduce Mrs. Captain Mary Brown,” George began, making formal introductions, “Miss Annie Brown, and…” He paused for Sarah to take her stand with the trio. “…Miss Sarah Brown.”
    Alice released Annie and threw her arms about Sarah. They were doughy soft but strong and smelled like a peach left too long on the windowsill, cloyingly pungent. It reminded Sarah of Ellen after a day of play in the summer garden. Sarah wondered if Alice had been born this way or had come to it: through disease, like her own affliction, or by experience, like her mother’s. In either case, she liked the Hills even more for being forthright. It was a dangerous position for them. Harboring the family members of a convicted criminal and exposing their daughter to the scrutiny of strangers. Others might argue that Alice ought to be institutionalized. Sarah knew of such places.
    Freddy took their bags upstairs with Gypsy at his heels. George hung his hat on a peg beside the door, then offered to do the same with their coats. Their woolens were frosted. Shedding them was a weight lifted, and Sarah was warmer without hers.
    A brick fireplace crackled heat in the parlor. Alice stood beside it, fidgeting over a basket. The wooden floor creaked with Sarah’s approach,and Alice turned with a smile too animated to go unnoticed. She looked older than Sarah, older than Annie, too. But her countenance was that of a child. So unabashed as to make its recipient afraid—not of the girl but of a world that didn’t abide such forthright joy. A world of slaves and soldiers, wars and coffins. A world that shot Sarah’s brothers and would hang her father in the morn.
    â€œCome.” Alice beckoned with an outstretched fist. “For you. A gift.”
    The hearth cast an orange glow over her skin and lit her eyes to mystic embers. Into Sarah’s palm, she released a confetti of blue flower petals, each individually dried to a delicate crisp.
    Sarah had pressed tea roses between the pages of heavy volumes many springs ago; but she’d not marked which books and so had stood in her father’s library overwhelmed with frustration. She had a similar feeling when she tried to fathom time. She and Annie had once spent an entire day determined to mark every hour so as not to forget.
    They’d declared aloud on the strike of each hour, “I vow never to forget this hour on this day in the year of our Lord.”
    But they had forgotten. In fact, she hadn’t thought of that day in years, until now, and