The Hidden Light of Northern Fires by Daren Wang

Author:Daren Wang
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

1862

LOST

Dear Mary,

I’m writing from a homestead in Iowa. They call this place the town of Amana, though for the life of me I don’t see any town. It’s flatter here than any place I ever seen, and there isn’t much in the way of trees to stop the eye, either.

I hid out in a tree in your woods for a while. When the rain got too much, I crossed over the creek and the Ebenezers let me stay with them. They are a strange little clutch of people. Most of them don’t speak English, but when they found me laid up and sick one day, they put me in a room with their holy woman until I got better. They call her a werkzeug. She prayed over me in German for a long time, though I don’t know what she said.

She speaks English sometimes, too, and told me that my heart was clouded and I needed to start new. She said I had too much sadness there and I should leave, so I hitched a ride with their next convoy out here. Now I’m here where even the dirt looks different. I should have probably just let the marshal hang me and get this over with, but I ran like a coward.

I think of you often, and your father. I hope he’s doing better. I spied him once or twice before I left. I wish there was something I could do to ease your way. I thought long and hard about it when I was still there, and nothing came to mind. Another fugitive would just make your life harder.

I feel like a weed that’s been pulled up and tossed in the barrow to be hauled away.

I fear that the marshal has my name posted all over the country, so I’m telling everyone here my name is John Bissell. I’ll be moving on soon. Forgive me the evil I’ve done. I never thought to kill a man. He falls from that saddle every night in my dreams.

It pains me that you see me that way.

YOUR FRIEND,

CHARLIE

Mary stood in the hallway, steeling herself. She could hear Katia and her father inside her father’s room, chatting and laughing.

Katia had made it clear that she blamed Nathan’s condition on Mary. In fact, she seemed to blame the entire war on her and the fugitives she’d helped. At the same time, she understood it was the girl’s constant attention that helped her father mend more than anything Mary had done.

When they had first brought Nathan home, Mary had been convinced that the way to cure him was to break him of his delusions. Each morning she would tell him that his beloved wife, Frances, was long-dead, and each morning she had to comfort him as if the news was fresh. The house would shake with his rage and confusion as he demanded to know what evil trick she was playing since she was, in fact, Frances herself.

It was Katia that convinced her to stop the hellish exercise.

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