He cupped in perfect palms my girlish face
And said he loved me—loved me! I believed—
Surrendered all to him—my deepest place—
Of holies holiest—and he received
Or rather took, stole, gobbled greedily
Until a surfeit gorged his empty soul—
No sacrifice can sate so speedily
As flesh upon an altar, burnt to coal
Black as the emptiness behind his eyes
The day I knew myself unloved, deceived—
Grey day when he forswore my sacrifice
And offered me to other gods. Bereaved,
Bereft—my girlish face ashamed—I fled
His tabernacle, though my soul still bled.
~E.B., January 1818
Maggie lay on her back on a flattish patch of grass on the west slope of the hill. To her right, in the distance, she could hear the occasional bleat of a sheep. On her face, she felt the dimming heat of the setting August sun. It would sink over the far hills soon, and she would be in shadow. Her hands resting on her still-flat belly, she stared up at the blue bowl of sky, fleecy clouds shifting shape, and shivered. The sonnet she had read that morning had almost undone her. She had not had the courage to return to the attic to read the others, though she knew she would, in time.
Something cold and wet touched her cheek, and she sat bolt upright in surprise and fear—only to find herself looking into the gentle, smiling face of a collie. She grinned back at the animal.
“Now, Floss,” said a man’s thickly accented voice, “I know it’s not every day we find a lass lying on the hillside, but that’s no cause for being so forward.”
Maggie looked up at him, backlit by the sun; she could see only his silhouette. He extended a hand to help her up, but she ignored it and scrambled to her feet without his assistance.
“I’m sorry Floss startled you,” the man said. His accent wasn’t English. Welsh, perhaps? She took a few steps down the hill, to get the sun out of her eyes, and to see him more clearly. She didn’t like looking into a person’s face only to see a shadow.
The man extended his hand again. “James MacKinnon.”
This time Maggie shook it. “Maggie Lowell.”
“Ah!” James smiled, and Maggie realized he wasn’t as old as she had at first thought, maybe thirty. “Lowell. You must be Helen’s family then?”
“Yes. She was my great-grandmother.” Maggie nodded and waved in the direction of the stone house whose roof was just visible over the crest of a hill to the northwest. “I’m staying with my grandmother for a few months. She inherited the house from Helen.”
James nodded. “Kezzy told me she’d met you.”
“Yes,” Maggie said again. “She brought over some lettuce and beans and tomatoes yesterday. And an apple pie. It was very kind—and delicious. We ate the beans for dinner, the apple pie for breakfast, and the lettuce and tomato on sandwiches at lunch today.”
“She’ll be glad you enjoyed it. She always grows more food than we or the neighbors can eat. Most folks lock their doors when they see Kezzy coming with a basket of food.” He grinned, which made him look still younger. “She sells some of it in town, but even so, there’s always extra. She used to give it to Helen, but she never ate much, so I know she’s glad to have new folks to foist it onto.”
Maggie grinned back. “Well, please tell her that Gram and I are more than happy to have fresh produce foisted upon us anytime.”
James laughed. “Be careful what you ask for or you’ll find yourself drowning in zucchini.” He began to move across the hill toward the sheep, and Maggie fell in step beside him.
“I like zucchini,” she said stoutly. “I like most vegetables. And I never tasted any tomato as good as the one I had on my sandwich today.”
“I’ll tell Kezzy that. It’ll make her happy. You can always come by and pick whatever you like. Stonewold is just over that rise,” James said, pointing to the south. “She wouldn’t mind your just harvesting for yourself.”
“Really?” Maggie said. “That’s awfully generous.”
“She’s a generous woman.”
Maggie’s curiosity got the better of her. “How are you related to her? Your aunt?”
James shook his head. “No relation, not by blood. But she and Bill have been good friends to me these past five years.”
“Bill?”
“Her husband. You won’t see him much. Keeps to himself. The man’s the definition of taciturn. But he’s as generous as she is, in his way. He used to stop by to see Helen every day, load up her wood bin, do any odd job she couldn’t manage. Days he couldn’t come, he’d send Kezzy or me.” He grinned again. “Helen didn’t like that much. Not at first anyway. She thought I was a daft fool, and Bill a dafter one for taking me in. I’d be bringing in her wood to stack on the hearth, and she’d be sitting in that big chair of hers, like the queen on her throne, wrapped in a quilt or a shawl. ‘Put it over there,’ she’d say, pointing imperiously with her spectacles. ‘Not there, James MacKinnon, you great lummox. There!’” He laughed. “I took it for awhile, but one day, I turned to her and said, ‘Helen, you’re as tart as a lemon, and I’ve had enough lemon today. So if you’d like to stack your own wood, be my guest.’
“She didn’t miss a beat, just laughed right out loud and said, ‘Today’s the day I finally like you, James MacKinnon. I’ve been waiting nearly a year for you to say something ornery to me. I do believe there might be Scottish blood in your veins after all.’ And she hauled herself out of that chair, took me by the shoulders, and nipped me on the chin.” He grinned at the memory.
Not Welsh, Maggie thought. Scottish. She wondered how he’d ended up here in the border country. She didn’t ask. Instead she said, “I wish I’d known her. I only met her once. She came to Spokane—that’s in Washington State, where I grew up—when I was six. I barely remember what she looked like.” Then she grinned. “I do remember that I was a little bit afraid of her. I guess she must have been sharp-tongued then, too.”
“No doubt. People are like sheep. They—”
“Maggie!” A voice called from the far side of the hill, wavering in the distance.
“That’s my Gram,” Maggie said.
“Maggie!” The voice called again. “Maggie, where are you?”
“I’m here, Gram!” Maggie called back.
But apparently Gram did not hear, for a moment later, she called again, a note of anxiety in her voice. “Maggie!”
“She sounds worried.” Maggie grinned. “Probably afraid I’ll be trampled by one of your sheep.”
“Maggie!” The anxious tone had increased.
“I’d better go,” Maggie said. “It was nice to meet you.”
“Likewise.” James touched the brim of his hat, a gesture Maggie found both amusing and appealing.
Gram appeared at the top of the hill. Maggie waved at her. “Mary Magdalene Lowell!” Gram called to her in exasperation, waving for her to come.
“Oh dear. I’m in for it now,” Maggie muttered.
James gave her a quizzical smile and raised his eyebrows in a question.
Maggie was tired of answering that question, so she pretended not to understand. “She only uses my full name when she’s upset.”
James nodded, but the quizzical smile remained. “Mary Magdalene?” He pronounced it Maudlin, the way Gram did.
Maggie said, “Maggie’s short for Magdalene,” and then, as if this explained everything, “My mom’s a New Testament scholar.”
James nodded, but she could still see the question in his eyes and the smile on his lips, as if he thought it were funny. It was the laughing question in almost everyone’s eyes when they learned her full name. Especially men’s. Not for the first time, she resented her professor parents’ making her name a teaching moment for everyone who met her.
“Magdalene?” James said again. “Like the—” He broke off abruptly and looked away.
But Maggie knew the next word, even though he hadn’t said it. “No,” she said icily and gave him a withering look. Then she turned on her heel, and stalked up the hill toward Gram, angry at the world, at men in general, and at James MacKinnon in particular. What is wrong with you? It’s not like that’s the first time some ignorant yokel has asked that question. But she knew exactly what was wrong. For the first time in her life, that question hit too close to home. At least prostitutes get paid for sex. I did it for free. Tears sprang to her eyes. She wiped them fiercely away with the back of her hand. The more fool me.
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