The Rebel Wife by Taylor M. Polites

Author:Taylor M. Polites [Polites, Taylor M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: historical, Adult, War
ISBN: 9781451629514
Publisher: Thorndike Press
Published: 2012-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Thirteen

RACHEL SWEEPS OPEN THE bedroom door and startles me. She carries a bundle of linens in her arms—my chemises and undergarments, bed linens and pillowcases. It is morning. She must be ironing today.

“Miss Gus,” she says. She walks past the bed to the wardrobe and swings its doors open.

“Good morning, Rachel,” I say to her. It is late and I am still in bed.

“Mr. Buck Heppert is in the parlor to see you. I told him you were feeling poorly, but he wanted me to send word up to you.”

“Thank you, Rachel.” I turn to get out of bed. “Where is Henry?”

“He’s out back with Little John. My John is watching them.” Rachel shoves the linens in between the narrow shelves. She never pays attention to where things go, rather, pushes them into the empty spaces. I long ago gave up asking her why she bothered ironing things only to crumple them in the wardrobe.

My feet are on the floor. I have to turn my head to see Rachel over my shoulder. “I should see Buck. Can you tell him I’ll be right down? And come back to help me dress.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Rachel walks to the door. She won’t look at me.

“Rachel.”

She stops and turns, her hands on her hips. “Yes, ma’am?”

“It’s the sickness, isn’t it?”

She raises her eyebrows. “Ma’am?”

“That’s why you are in such a rush to go to Kansas, isn’t it? The fever.”

Rachel narrows her eyes and shakes her head at me as if I am a schoolgirl. “The sickness that killed Mr. Eli, ma’am?” she says. “No, ma’am. We’ve wanted to get out of Albion long before this sickness came. I don’t know what Mr. Eli died of, but I know I never saw anything like it. I know your white doctor never saw it, either. My mama was a mean old conjure woman, Miss Gus. She put a curse on Rooster Cobb after he whipped my daddy and put him in a box to die. She put a spell on him that burnt up his cotton and his house and gave him the croup that killed him. She knew everything there was to know about conjuring.”

Rachel’s eyes are wide and shining. She steps closer to me. I lean away, but I don’t know where to retreat from her.

“She comes to me when I call her now. Her spirit is in me, and her mother’s spirit that was in her. They are a part of me and they answer my questions, but they can’t tell me what this sickness is. I know it isn’t any sort of breakbone fever I’ve seen, but my mama told me once a long time ago about a sickness that eats at you from the inside until you sweat yourself away to nothing. An old sickness, ma’am. That blood that came out of Mr. Eli—when I saw it, ma’am, I thought, My God, that’s this man’s insides coming out. And it’s got to come out for a reason. That blood is what’s coming out of people all over, Miss Gus.

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