The Giver of Stars

16

That’s the one trouble with this country: everything, weather, all, hangs on too long. Like our rivers, our land: opaque, slow, violent; shaping and creating the life of man in its implacable and brooding image.

William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying

The rain came late into March, first turning the frozen sidewalks and stones into skating rinks, and then, through sheer relentlessness, obliterating the snow and ice on the lower ground in an endless grey sheet. There was limited pleasure to be found in the slight lifting of temperatures, the prospect of warmer days ahead. Because it didn’t stop. After five days the rain had turned the unfinished roads to mud or, in some places, washed away the top layers completely, revealing sharp boulders and holes on the surface that would catch the unwary. Waiting horses stood tethered outside, their heads low and resigned, their tails clamped to their hindquarters, and cars bucked and growled along the slippery mountain roads. Farmers muttered in the feed store, while the shopkeepers observed that the Lord only knew why that much water was still hanging up there in the heavens.

Margery arrived back from her 5 a.m. round soaked to her socks, to find the librarians sitting with steepled fingers and fidgeting feet with Fred.

‘Last time it rained like this, the Ohio burst its banks,’ said Beth, peering out of the open door, from where you could hear the gurgle of surface water as it made its way down the road. She took a last drag of her cigarette and ground it under the heel of her boot.

‘Too wet to ride, that’s for sure,’ said Margery. ‘I’m not taking Charley out again.’

Fred had looked out first thing and warned Alice it was a bad idea, and though there was little that would normally stop her, she took him seriously. He had moved his own horses up onto high land, where they could just be seen in a slick, wet huddle.

‘I’d put them in the barn,’ he had told her, as she helped him walk the last two up, ‘but they’re safer up there.’ His father had once lost an entire locked barn of mares and foals when Fred was a boy: the river had flooded while the family was sleeping and by the time they woke only the hayloft was still above water. His father had wept in telling him, the only time Fred had ever seen that happen.

He told Alice of the great flood the previous year, how water had flipped whole houses and sent them downriver, of how many people died, and how they had found a cow wedged twenty-five feet up in a tree when the waters receded and had to shoot it to put it out of its misery – nobody could work out how to get it down.

The four of them sat in the library for an hour, nobody keen to leave, yet with nothing to be there for. They talked of misdeeds they’d performed as children, of the best bargains to be had in animal feed, of a man three of them knew who could whistle tunes through a missing tooth and add his voice to become a one-man orchestra. They talked about how if Izzy were here she would have sung them a song or two. But the rain grew heavier, and slowly the conversation ebbed away, and they were all left glancing at the door with a creeping sense of foreboding.

‘What do you think, Fred?’ Margery broke the silence.

‘I don’t like it.’

‘Me neither.’

At that moment they heard the sound of horses’ hoofs. Fred strode to the door, perhaps concerned it might be an escapee. But it was the mailman, water sluicing from the brim of his hat.

‘The river’s rising, and fast. We need to warn people on the creek beds but there’s no one at the sheriff’s office.’

Margery turned to Beth and Alice.

‘I’ll get the bridles,’ said Beth.

Izzy was so deep in thought that she didn’t notice when her mother took the embroidery off her lap and tutted loudly. ‘Oh, Izzy. I’m going to have to unpick all those stitches. That’s nothing like the pattern whatsoever. What have you been doing?’

Mrs Brady dragged a copy of Woman’s Home Companion to her lap and flicked through until she found the pattern she was looking for. ‘Absolutely nothing like it. Why, you’ve done running stitch where it should be a chain stitch.’

Izzy dragged her attention to the sampler. ‘I hate sewing.’

‘You never used to mind it. I don’t know what’s got into you lately.’ Izzy didn’t rise to it, which made Mrs Brady tut more loudly. ‘I’ve never met a girl more out of sorts.’

‘You know very well what’s got into me. I’m bored and I’m stuck here, and I can’t bear that you and Daddy have been swayed by an idiot like Geoffrey Van Cleve.’

‘That’s no way to talk. Why don’t you do some quilting? You used to enjoy it. I have some lovely old fabrics in my chest upstairs and –’

‘I miss my horse.’

‘He was not your horse.’ Mrs Brady closed her mouth and took a diplomatic moment before she opened it again. ‘But I was thinking we could perhaps buy you one if you think horseback riding is something you’d like to pursue.’

‘For what? To go around and around in circles? To make it look pretty, like a stupid doll? I miss my job, Mother, and I miss my friends. I had real friends for the first time in my life. I was happy at the library. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?’

‘Well, now you’re just being dramatic.’ Mrs Brady sighed, and sat down on the settle beside her daughter. ‘Look, dear, I know how you love singing. Why don’t I talk to your father about some proper lessons? We could perhaps find out if there’s anybody in Lexington who might help you work on your voice. Perhaps when Daddy hears how good you are he’ll change his mind. Oh, Lord, though, we’ll have to wait until this rain eases. Have you ever seen anything like it?’

Izzy didn’t answer. She sat by the parlour window, gazing out at the blurred view.

‘You know, I think I’m going to telephone your father. I’m anxious the river will flood. I lost good friends in the Louisville floods and I haven’t felt the same about the river since. Why don’t you unpick that last bit of stitching and we’ll go back over it together?’

Mrs Brady disappeared into the hallway and Izzy could hear her dialling her father’s office, the low murmur of her voice. Izzy stared out of the window at the grey skies, her finger tracing the rivulets that zigzagged down the pane, squinting at a horizon that was no longer visible.

‘Well, your father thinks we should stay put. He says we might call Carrie Anderson in Old Louisville and see if she and her family want to rest here a day or two just in case. Lord knows what we’ll do with all those little dogs of hers, though. I don’t think we could cope with the – Izzy? … Izzy?’ Mrs Brady spun around in the empty parlour. ‘Izzy? Are you upstairs?’

She walked down the hall and through the kitchen, where the maid turned from her dough-rolling, nonplussed, and shook her head. And then Mrs. Brady saw the back door, the inside slick with raindrops. Her daughter’s leg brace lay on the tiled floor, and her riding boots were gone.

Margery and Beth trotted hard down Main Street, a blur of hoofs and spraying water. Around them the unfinished road sent water sweeping down the hill and over their feet, while gutters gurgled, protesting against the weight of it. They rode with their heads low and their collars up, and when they got to the verges they cantered, the horses’ feet sinking into the boggy grass. At the lower reaches of Spring Creek, they split to each side of the road and dismounted, running to each front door and hammering on it with wet fists.

‘Water’s rising,’ they yelled, as the horses pulled back on their reins. ‘Get to higher ground.’

Behind them, a straggle of occupants began to move, faces peering around doors, out of windows, trying to work out how seriously to take this instruction. By the time they were a quarter-mile down the road some behind them had begun hoisting furniture to the top floors of those houses that were double-storeyed, the rest loading wagons or trucks with what might be protected. Tarpaulins were thrown over the backs of open vehicles, small, querulous children wedged between grey-faced adults. People in Baileyville had had enough experience of floods to know that they were a threat to be taken seriously.

Margery hammered on the last door of Spring Creek, water plastering her hair to her face. ‘Mrs Cornish? … Mrs Cornish?’

A woman in a wet headscarf appeared at the door, waves of agitation rising off her. ‘Oh, thank goodness. Margery dear, I can’t get my mule.’ She turned and ran, motioning to them to follow.

The mule was at the bottom of his paddock, which backed onto the creek. The lowest slopes, boggy on the driest of days, were now a thick slick of toffee-coloured mud and the little brown and white mule stood immobile, apparently resigned, up to his chest in it.

‘He can’t seem to budge. Please help him.’

Margery pulled at his halter. Then, when that made no difference, she placed her weight against him, trying to tug at a lone foreleg. The mule lifted his muzzle, but no other part of him moved.

‘You see?’ Mrs Cornish’s gnarly old hands wrung together. ‘He’s stuck fast.’

Beth ran to the other side and tried her best too, slapping on his rear end, yelling, and placing her shoulder against him, to no effect. Margery stepped back and looked over at Beth, who gave a small shake of her head.

She tried again with her shoulder against him but, apart from his ears flicking, not a part of the mule moved. Margery stopped, thinking.

‘I can’t leave him.’

‘We’re not going to leave him, Mrs Cornish. You got your harness? And some rope? Beth? Beth? C’mere. Mrs Cornish, hold Charley for me, will you?’

As the rain beat down, the two younger women ran for the harness, then waded back to the mule. The water had risen even since they had arrived, creeping upwards across the grass. Where for months it had been a sweet-sounding trickle, a sunlit brook, now it rushed in a wide, unforgiving yellow torrent. Margery slid the harness over the mule’s head and fastened the buckles, her fingers slipping on the wet straps. The rain roared in their ears, so that they had to yell at each other and point to be understood, but months of working alongside each other had granted them a shorthand. Beth did the same on the other side, until both shouted: ‘Done!’ They buckled the traces to the surcingle, then looped the rope through the brass hook at his shoulder.

Not many mules would tolerate a strap from their girth running through their legs but Charley was smart, and needed to be reassured just once. Beth attached her traces to her horse Scooter’s breastplate, and, in unison, each began to urge their animal forward along the less waterlogged ground. ‘Go on! Go on, Charley, now! Go on, Scooter!’

The animals’ ears flicked, Charley’s eyes widening uncharacteristically as he felt the unfamiliar dead weight behind him. Beth urged him and Scooter forward while Margery tugged at the rope, yelling encouragement at the little mule, which flailed, his head bobbing as he felt himself being pulled forward.

‘That’s it, fella, you can do it.’

Mrs Cornish crouched on the other side of him, two broad planks laid on the mud in front of his chest, ready to give him something to brace against.

‘Come up, boys!’

Margery turned, saw Charley and Scooter straining, their flanks shivering with effort as they dug into the ground in front, stumbling, mud clods flying up around them, and realized with dismay that the mule really was stuck fast. If Charley and Scooter kept digging down with their hoofs like that they would be stuck soon too.

Beth looked at her, her own mind already there. She grimaced. ‘We gotta leave him, Marge. Water’s coming up real fast.’

Margery placed a hand on the little mule’s cheek. ‘We can’t leave him.’

They turned towards a shout. Two farmers were running towards them from the houses further back. Solid, middle-aged men Margery knew only by sight from the corn market, in overalls and oilcloths. They didn’t say a word, just slid down beside the mule and began hauling at the harness along with Charley and Scooter, boots braced against the earth, their bodies at a forty-five-degree angle.

‘Go on! Go on, boys!’

Margery joined them, put her head down, placing her whole weight against the rope. An inch. Another inch. A terrible sucking sound, and then the little mule’s near front leg was freed. His head lifted in surprise, and the two men hauled again in unison, grunting with the effort, their muscles bulging against the rope. Charley and Scooter staggered in front of them, heads low, hind legs quivering with the effort, and suddenly, with a lurch, the mule was up, flipped on his side and pulled along the muddy grass a couple of feet before Charley and Scooter knew to stop. His eyes were wide with surprise and his nostrils flared before he stumbled to his feet, so that the men had to leap backwards out of his way.

Margery barely had time to thank them. The briefest of nods, a tip to a wet hat brim, and they were gone, running back through the deluge to their own homes to retrieve what they could. Margery experienced a brief moment of pure love for the people she had grown up alongside, those who would not see a man – or a mule – struggle alone.

‘Is he okay?’ she yelled at Mrs Cornish, who was running her weathered hands down the mule’s mud-covered legs.

‘He’s good,’ she shouted back.

‘You need to get to higher ground.’

‘I can take it from here, girls. You git on now!’

Margery winced suddenly at a complaint from some previously unknown muscle in her belly. She hesitated, doubled over, then stumbled towards Charley, as Beth unhooked the traces.

‘Where next?’ Beth yelled, hoisting herself aboard the skittering Scooter, and Margery, winded from the effort of climbing back aboard Charley, had to bend over a minute and catch her breath before she answered.

‘Sophia,’ she said, suddenly. ‘I’m going to check on Sophia. If this place is flooding, then Sophia and William’s will be, too. You head for the houses across the creek.’

Beth nodded, wheeled her horse around, and was gone.

Kathleen and Alice loaded the wheelbarrow with books, covering them with sacking so that Fred could push it up the soaking path towards his home. They had only one barrow, and the women would load it as swiftly as they could, carrying the books in stacks towards the back door, then following him laden with as many other books as they could fit into four saddlebags, knees buckling under the weight, heads bowed against the weather. They had cleared maybe a third of the library in the past hour but since then the water had risen to the second step and Alice was afraid they wouldn’t manage much more before it rose right over.

‘You okay?’ Fred passed Alice on the track back down. He was wrapped in oilcloth, and a trail of water ran from the side of his hat.

‘I think Kathleen should leave. She shouldn’t be away from her children.’

Fred looked up at the skies, then down the road, where the mountains disappeared in a blur of grey. ‘Tell her to go,’ he said.

‘But what will you do?’ said Kathleen, minutes later. ‘You can’t move all these, just the two of you.’

‘We’ll save what we can. You need to go home.’

When she hesitated again, Fred put his hand on her upper arm. ‘They’re just books, Kathleen.’

She didn’t protest a second time. She just nodded, mounted Garrett’s horse and swung round, cantering back up the road so that sprays of water shot out behind her.

They rested a moment and stood briefly in the dry of the cabin, watching her go, their chests heaving with the effort. Water dripped off their oilcloth coats into pools on the wooden floor.

‘You sure you’re okay, Alice? It’s heavy work.’

‘I’m stronger than I look.’

‘Well, that’s the truth.’

They exchanged a small smile. Almost without thinking, Fred lifted a hand and slowly wiped a droplet of rain from under her eye with his thumb. Alice was briefly stilled by the electric shock of his skin on hers, by the unexpected intensity of his pale grey eyes, his lashes soaked into shining black points. She had the strangest urge to take his thumb into her mouth and bite it. Their eyes locked and she felt her breath pushed from her lungs, her face colouring, as if he could read her mind.

‘Can I help?’

They sprang apart at the sight of Izzy in the doorway, her mother’s car parked haphazardly up against the rail, her riding boots in her hand. The roaring of the rain on the tin roof had muffled the sound of her arrival.

‘Izzy!’ Alice’s voice emerged in an embarrassed rush, too high, too shrill. She stepped forward impulsively and embraced her. ‘Oh, how we’ve missed you! Look, Fred, it’s Izzy!’

‘Came to see if I could help,’ said Izzy, blushing.

‘That’s – that’s good news.’ Fred was about to speak then looked down and realized she was not wearing her leg brace. ‘You ain’t going to be able to walk the track, are you?’

‘Not very fast,’ she said.

‘Okay. Let me think. You drove that thing here?’ he said, incredulous.

Izzy nodded. ‘Not too good on the clutch with my left leg but if I lean on it with my stick I’m fine.’

Fred’s eyebrows shot up, but he swiftly lowered them. ‘Margery and Beth have taken the routes nearer the south side of town. Take the car as far up to the school as you can and tell them on the other side of the creek that they need to get to higher ground. But go across the footbridge. Don’t try to drive that thing across the water, okay?’

Izzy ran for the car, her arms sheltering her head, and climbed in, trying to make sense of what she had just seen: Fred, cradling Alice’s face tenderly in his hand, the two of them just inches apart. She felt, suddenly, like she had done at school, never quite party to whatever was going on, and pushed the thought away, trying to smother it in the memory of Alice’s delight at seeing her. Izzy, we’ve missed you!

For the first time in a month, Izzy Brady felt something like herself again. She rammed her stick down onto the clutch, hauled the car into reverse, spun it round and set off for the far end of town, a determined jut to her chin, a woman once again with a mission.

Monarch Creek was already under a foot of water by the time they reached it. This was one of the lowest points of the county. There was a reason that this land had mostly been left to coloured folk – it was lush, yes, but prone to flooding; mosquitoes and no-see-ums were thick in the air through the months of summer. Now, as Charley clattered down the hill through the sheeting rain, Margery could just make out Sophia, a wooden box atop her head, wading through the waters, her dress floating around her. A pile of her and William’s belongings sat on the slopes of the patch of woodland above. From the doorway William looked out, his face anxious, his wooden crutch wedged under his armpit.

‘Oh, thank the Lord!’ Sophia yelled, as Margery approached. ‘We need to save our things.’

Margery jumped off the mule and ran towards the house, heading into the water. Sophia had rigged up a rope between the porch and a telegraph pole by the road, and Margery now used this to make her way across the creek. The water was icy and the current ominously strong, although it only came to her knees. Inside the house Sophia’s cherished furniture had toppled over; the smaller items bobbing in the water. Margery found herself momentarily paralysed: what to save? She grabbed for photographs on the wall, for books and ornaments, wedging them into her coat and reaching out for a side table, which she hauled to the doorway and out onto the grass. Her belly ached, the pain low in her pelvis, and she found herself wincing.

‘You can’t save no more,’ she yelled at Sophia. ‘Water’s coming up too fast.’

‘That’s everything we own in there.’ Sophia’s voice was despairing.

Margery bit her lip. ‘One more trip, then.’

William was moving around the flooded room, using his arms to support himself on the wall, trying to corral essentials – a pan, a chopping board, two bowls – clasping them in his huge hands. ‘That rain easing off any?’ he said, but his face suggested he already knew the answer.

‘It’s time to get out, William,’ she said.

‘Let me just fetch a couple more.’

How do you tell a proud amputee he can be of no help? How do you tell him the mere fact of him being in there is not just a hindrance but likely to put them all at risk? Margery bit back her words and reached for Sophia’s embroidery box, wedging it under her arm and wading outside, where she grabbed a wooden chair from the porch with her other, hauling them up to dry land, grunting with the effort. Then the pile of blankets, ported high above her head. Lord knew how they were going to dry those out. She looked down, feeling the sharp protest again from her womb. The water was now up to her crotch, her long coat swirling around her thighs. Three inches higher in the last ten minutes?

‘We got to go!’ she yelled, as Sophia, her head down, made her way back in. ‘No time.’

Sophia nodded, her face pained. Margery made it out of the water, feeling it drag at her, shifting and insistent. Up on the bank Charley shifted nervously, his reins taut against the pole, signalling his own desire to be far from there. He didn’t like water, never had, and she took a second to soothe him. ‘I know, fella. You’re doing so good.’

Margery placed the last of Sophia’s items on the pile, pulling the tarpaulin over them, and wondering whether she could move any of it further up the hill. Something fluttered deep inside and she was startled until she realized what it was. She stopped and placed her hand upon her belly, feeling it again, flooded with an emotion she couldn’t identify.

‘Margery!’

She spun round to see Sophia clutching at William’s sleeve. There appeared to have been some kind of surge and she was now up to her waist. The water, Margery saw, had turned black. ‘Oh, Lord,’ she murmured. ‘Stay there!’

Sophia and William had stepped down gingerly onto the underwater steps, one hand each gripping the rope, Sophia’s free arm tight around her brother’s waist. The inky water rushed past them, its force sending a strange energy into the air. William’s eyes were down, his knuckles taut as he tried to steer his crutch forward through the swollen river.

Margery half ran, half stumbled down the hill, her eyes on them as they made their way towards her.

‘Keep coming! You can make it!’ she yelled, skidding to a stop at the edge. And then – snap! – the rope gave way, sending both Sophia and William off their feet and flinging them downstream. Sophia shrieked. She was thrown forward, her arms out, disappeared for a moment and then, emerging, managed to grab hold of a bush, her hands closing tight around its branches. Margery ran alongside her, her heart in her throat. She threw herself down on her belly and grabbed hold of Sophia’s wet wrist. Sophia switched her grip to Margery’s other wrist and, after a second, Margery had hauled her up the bank, where she collapsed backwards and Sophia crouched on her muddied hands and knees, her clothes black and sodden, panting with the effort.

‘William!’

Margery turned at Sophia’s voice to see William half submerged, his face screwed up with effort as he tried to haul himself back along the rope. His crutch had disappeared and the water was around his waist.

‘I can’t get through!’ he yelled.

‘Can he swim?’

‘No!’ wailed Sophia.

Margery ran for Charley, her wet clothes dragging at every step. Somewhere she had lost her hat and the water sent her hair cascading over her face, so that she had to keep pushing it back to see.

‘Okay, boy,’ she murmured, unhooking Charley’s reins from the pole. ‘I need you to help me now.’

She pulled him down the bank and to the water where she waded in, her free hand out to the side to steady her, her boots testing the ground for obstacles. He stalled at first, his ears flat back and his eyes white, but at her urging he took a tentative step and then another and, huge ears flicking forward and back at the sound of her voice, he was splashing his way through, beside Margery, pushing against the torrent. William was gasping by the time they reached him, both hands on the rope as he scrabbled for purchase. He grabbed blindly at Margery, his face a mask of panic, and she yelled to be heard above the sound of the water. ‘Just hold him round his neck, William, okay? Wrap your arms around his neck.’

William held on to the mule, his great body pressed against Charley’s, and, groaning with the effort, Margery turned the two of them in the depths of the floodwater, back towards the bank, the mule protesting mutely at every step. The black water was up to her chest now and Charley, frightened, lifted his muzzle and tried to half leap forward. Another surge of water hit them, and as everything rushed around her she felt his legs lift and was filled with sudden terror, as if the ground would surely slip away from them all for good, but just as she thought they, too, would be carried away, she felt her feet touch the ground again, knew Charley’s had done the same, and she felt him take another tentative step forward.

‘You okay, William?’

‘I’m here.’

‘Good boy, Charley. Come on, boy.’

Time slowed. They seemed to move forward in inches. She had no idea what was underneath. A solitary wooden drawer of neatly folded clothing floated by in front of them, followed by another, and then a small dead dog. She noted them only with some distant part of her brain. The black water had become a living, breathing thing. It snatched and pulled at her coat, blocking progress, demanding submission. It was relentless, deafening, and made fear rise, like iron, in her throat. Margery was now blue with cold, her skin pressed against Charley’s chestnut neck, her head bumping against William’s great arms, all consciousness reduced to one thing.

Just get me home, boy, please.

One step.

Two.

‘You okay there, Margery?’

She felt William’s great hand on her arm, gripping her, and was unsure whether it was for his security or her own. The world had receded until it was just her and William and the mule, the roar in her ears, William’s voice murmuring a prayer she couldn’t make out, Charley straining valiantly against the water, his body buffeted by a force he didn’t understand, the ground slipping and sliding away from him every few steps, then again. A log whooshed past them, too big, too fast. Her eyes stung, filled with grit and water. She was dimly aware of Sophia reaching forward from the bank, her hand outstretched, as if she could haul the three of them up by force. Voices joined hers from the bank. A man. More men. She could no longer see through the water in her eyes. She could think about nothing, her fingers, now numb, wound into Charley’s short mane, her other hand on his bridle. Six more steps. Four more steps. A yard.

Please.

Please.

Please.

And then the mule lurched forward and upwards and she could feel strong hands reaching for her, pulling at her shoulders, her sleeves, her body a landed fish, William’s shaking voice, ‘Thank you, Lord! Thank you!’ Margery, feeling the river reluctantly relinquish its grip, uttered the same words silently through frozen lips. Her clenched fist, Charley’s hair still woven through her fingers, moved unthinkingly to her belly.

And then everything went black.