blood from within), they got Anne to drink. When sweat promptly broke out all over her body, and her fever plummeted, they saw the effect.
I’d only meant to keep the poor woman from being poisoned by thegrim medical tech prevalent in those days—even if she’d been in London or Philadelphia, the treatment would have included blooding, calomel, and powder of lead. The result that I’d not foreseen was immediate belief, of everybody at the Kittredge Plantation, that Aurélie had a benevolent duppy, even if it came from overseas.
SIX
S O WHERE DO I COME IN? I kept wondering as the days melted together. No one was trying to communicate with me as they went about their daily lives. I thought longingly about Alec, hoping that time had somehow stopped at the moment I left. I missed him, but that was bearable if I could believe that he wasn’t tearing his hair out and searching every nook and cranny of Dobrenica looking for me.
Meanwhile, time blurred—it felt like a few minutes later when the news arrived of outbreaks of violence all over the island. It was on a morning so hot that steam rose off the ground outside the windows of Aurélie’s thick-walled Spanish house.
The household began speculating, some sure that the Jamaican violence was, in part, a response to the erupting troubles in Saint-Domingue to the east. Anne forced herself to rise and dress, with a fresh determination to send her daughter to safety.
One of Anne and Mimba’s workers entered the house, a stoop-shouldered, grizzled white man who still wore his hair in a long sailor’s queue. He came to the main room where the children sat in a circle on the floor taking turns reading verses from the Psalms, as Mimba coached them. Mimba said, “Is the carriage repaired, Noah?”
“Repaired, and we even laid on a coat of lacquer. Captain Anne’ll look fine as fivepence in Kingston, Guillaume having found a wig to puton as coachman. We used the powder of lead to make it fresh, as Captain Anne said we cannot use it more for the blotting of wounds.”
Anne appeared then, walking with care. I almost didn’t recognize her, with her hair pulled up under a straw hat decorated with ribbons and silk flowers. She had stuffed herself into a linen gown of cream-colored fabric, with a blue floral pattern copperplate-printed on it. The style was 1790s, the tight bodice coming to a point in front, a lace fichu tucked into the high neck, the long sleeves edged with lace.
“Do I look a proper
marquesa
?” she asked.
“It is the gown that Grandmère gave you,” Aurélie cried.
“It is indeed,
ma poule
. I’m off to Government House and thence the shipyard.”
She turned around, half-lifting her arms against the pull of the tight sleeves.
“Blast my eyes, how this binds,” she exclaimed.
“It looks very fine,” Mimba said.
Anne grimaced as Mimba straightened the hat then retied the hat’s bow under her chin. Then Anne marched out, the household following to where an old-fashioned open carriage awaited, hitched to a pair of horses, a handsome black man on the box, dressed in a skirted coat with shiny buttons. He wore a George Washington era wig on his head, and on that, a gold-edged tricorne. They looked splendid as they rolled and clattered out.
Mimba turned to Aurélie, and said sternly, “You see? Your
Maman
wears a gown. Now you must accustom yourself to gowns again, or should you like to return to Grandmère Marie-Claude instead?”
“No, no,” Aurélie cried.
“Then get ready for practice.”
Aurélie’s thin fingers flew to her skinny middle where, behind her smock, the Navaratna necklace hung. “Practice? But Nanny told me I must never do evil to another.”
Mimba bit her lip, then took Aurélie aside, under a tamarind tree, where they could speak alone. As always, anywhere Aurélie went, I floated after. “You are learning to defend yourself. This is why your
Maman
and I teach you the quick strike, and to run to safety.”
“So I
I’d only meant to keep the poor woman from being poisoned by thegrim medical tech prevalent in those days—even if she’d been in London or Philadelphia, the treatment would have included blooding, calomel, and powder of lead. The result that I’d not foreseen was immediate belief, of everybody at the Kittredge Plantation, that Aurélie had a benevolent duppy, even if it came from overseas.
SIX
S O WHERE DO I COME IN? I kept wondering as the days melted together. No one was trying to communicate with me as they went about their daily lives. I thought longingly about Alec, hoping that time had somehow stopped at the moment I left. I missed him, but that was bearable if I could believe that he wasn’t tearing his hair out and searching every nook and cranny of Dobrenica looking for me.
Meanwhile, time blurred—it felt like a few minutes later when the news arrived of outbreaks of violence all over the island. It was on a morning so hot that steam rose off the ground outside the windows of Aurélie’s thick-walled Spanish house.
The household began speculating, some sure that the Jamaican violence was, in part, a response to the erupting troubles in Saint-Domingue to the east. Anne forced herself to rise and dress, with a fresh determination to send her daughter to safety.
One of Anne and Mimba’s workers entered the house, a stoop-shouldered, grizzled white man who still wore his hair in a long sailor’s queue. He came to the main room where the children sat in a circle on the floor taking turns reading verses from the Psalms, as Mimba coached them. Mimba said, “Is the carriage repaired, Noah?”
“Repaired, and we even laid on a coat of lacquer. Captain Anne’ll look fine as fivepence in Kingston, Guillaume having found a wig to puton as coachman. We used the powder of lead to make it fresh, as Captain Anne said we cannot use it more for the blotting of wounds.”
Anne appeared then, walking with care. I almost didn’t recognize her, with her hair pulled up under a straw hat decorated with ribbons and silk flowers. She had stuffed herself into a linen gown of cream-colored fabric, with a blue floral pattern copperplate-printed on it. The style was 1790s, the tight bodice coming to a point in front, a lace fichu tucked into the high neck, the long sleeves edged with lace.
“Do I look a proper
marquesa
?” she asked.
“It is the gown that Grandmère gave you,” Aurélie cried.
“It is indeed,
ma poule
. I’m off to Government House and thence the shipyard.”
She turned around, half-lifting her arms against the pull of the tight sleeves.
“Blast my eyes, how this binds,” she exclaimed.
“It looks very fine,” Mimba said.
Anne grimaced as Mimba straightened the hat then retied the hat’s bow under her chin. Then Anne marched out, the household following to where an old-fashioned open carriage awaited, hitched to a pair of horses, a handsome black man on the box, dressed in a skirted coat with shiny buttons. He wore a George Washington era wig on his head, and on that, a gold-edged tricorne. They looked splendid as they rolled and clattered out.
Mimba turned to Aurélie, and said sternly, “You see? Your
Maman
wears a gown. Now you must accustom yourself to gowns again, or should you like to return to Grandmère Marie-Claude instead?”
“No, no,” Aurélie cried.
“Then get ready for practice.”
Aurélie’s thin fingers flew to her skinny middle where, behind her smock, the Navaratna necklace hung. “Practice? But Nanny told me I must never do evil to another.”
Mimba bit her lip, then took Aurélie aside, under a tamarind tree, where they could speak alone. As always, anywhere Aurélie went, I floated after. “You are learning to defend yourself. This is why your
Maman
and I teach you the quick strike, and to run to safety.”
“So I
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