Chapter 3: The Hinterland Tree
The hierarchy of southern towns is a strange and sometimes brutal phenomenon. Assuming they can dodge the deteriorating effects of scandal and corruption, the oldest and wealthiest families are often viewed as royalty. Waterford is like this, but with some exceptions. The usual attributes that come to mind when one thinks of monarchs such as indisputable power, glittering heirlooms, decorum and behavior of utmost propriety do not apply here. An outsider looking in on our little kingdom would likely wager the Martins to be court jesters rather than kings and queens. Then again, it would not take long for any visitor to catch glimpses of their influence. Their presence is ceaseless, unwavering like a bout of contagious laughter and there is good reason for that. Because of the Martin Family, Waterford is considered a carefree place, a haven for the rustic and the absurd.
Despite their prestige, they are the warmest and most compassionate people that you could ever wish to meet. Despite our past, I love each one of them with all that I have and all that I am. It took mere days for my strained acquaintanceship with Benny Martin to bloom into friendship. I suppose it was only a matter of time before I found myself standing at the steps of his home. I can tell you now that it is hardly fit for a king. Just a salmon pink foursquare that is barely taller than our old bungalow. His modest neighborhood lies on the farthest side of Waterford City Park and the only bragging rights that Benny has ever claimed about his little house is that it is within walking distance of every ride whenever the carnival comes to town.
He answers the door with his usual gusto. Even at this hour, he is dressed in work attire. Namely, a neon green t-shirt which reads "Twist of Skate" in pink bubble letters across the chest. Let us not forget his famous bell bottom jeans. The flair on them is almost wide enough to conceal his roller skates- which I now have reason to believe never come off.
"Tavs!" He draws Marigold and I into a wobbly embrace. Tommy strides past him, downing the remainder of his Big Gulp-sized cappuccino. "Ah, so you've given my spawn caffeine and now you're dropping him off at home, I see! I'd be angry, but I can already tell that Giselle is going to do the same with your little one! Congratulations, by the way! If I haven't said so before! If I have, congratulations again and one more time to grow on!"
Marigold smiles graciously, giving Benny a second hug just as I have broken free from the first one. "Thank you so much! We're both beyond excited! Oh and if its any consolation, there's more sugar in that butternut mocha than there is espresso. And Tommy is pretty much a walking sugar high already. I assume that eventually everything will just cancel out and he'll crash."
"Eat me, I'm a cookie!" Tommy yells from down the hall.
"Thomas! That's disgusting and weird! Sorry about him. He's-" the noise of something fragile breaking rings out from down the hall. "Excuse me for one moment."
We look at one another as Benny glides away from us with ease. A strange sight that must be all too common here. The laminate floor at the entryway, the patches of carpet in the living room and the hardwood floorboards reaching outward to form a hallway all bear the scars from years of wearing skates indoors. What follows is indisputably the most epic chase between wheels and stinky sneakers in the history of slapstick comedy.
"If you aren't playing Yakety Sax in your head right now, you're sleeping on the couch for a month."
"You never have to doubt that I hear that infernal tune in my mind every time I see that little brace-face'd terror! It's practically his theme song!" I take her hand, giving her slender fingers the gentlest squeeze. "What do you suppose they're doing?" A second crash, louder than before fills the air and Tommy dashes into the room, holding a tiny book above his head triumphantly. A thin, flat item tumbles out from between the pages and fractures as it makes contact with the ground. "Blast!" I drop to my knees and begin to collect the broken bits.
"Man, that sucks! Good thing you guys wanted this and not whatever that is." Tommy lisps, passing Marigold the field book. He feels especially proud of himself, the flirtatious smirk spread across his pimpled face tells me so.
Benny rolls in not a moment later and joins me on the floor. He locates one of the larger pieces, goes to hand it to me, but stops. He sees something in that glass, something that holds him captive. The nearby clock begins to strike one o' clock, cutting short his concentration on the silver shard. "It's getting late. Marigold has been reunited with her little piece of, "his brow creases and he blinks, meditating almost solemnly on what he is about to say next "her little piece of the past. Yes. You two should head home before the roads ice over." I watch Benny, waiting for him to pass the broken piece to me. No such action transpires. "Thomas, will you see Miss Ca- Mrs. Tavington out? William and I need a moment alone." After a few seconds of uncomfortable silence the two exit, leaving us alone. Face to face.
"Let me assist you," I offer, stepping away when he rejects my hand and stumble-rolls to his feet without help.
"I've known about this busted mirror for a while. It shows me scenes and images, most of them are head-scratchers. But not the one that I saw just now. No, sir. I am more aware of our past than I might let on. I can't forgive you for what you haven't done to me directly. Tommy and I love you and Marigold... but the animosity that you have towards my son. It bothers me. Would you mind explaining to me why it has lasted so long?"
"What did you see?" I ask.
"You and Thomas. I looked away before you fired, but I know, William. I know what you did to my family all those years ago."
"That wasn't me. That man might look like me, might speak like me, might even act like me under certain circumstances. But I am as much that William Tavington as you are that Benjamin Martin. This is our reality. Right here, right now and I would do anything to prove that to you."
"Even let me keep this?"
I watch as he slides the coveted bit of mirror into the patchwork pocket of his bell bottoms. "If that is what it takes, Benny, then yes."
"You really have changed, haven't you?"
"We aren't ghosts," my eyes meander throughout the room, cluttered with kitsch, sleeveless records and busted pinball machines. Lying to another man's face was once so effortless for me. Now it seems impossible. "We are people, living and breathing in the present time. The past is always there but it doesn't have to dictate our future. I would take a bullet for you and for your son any day of the week. Don't you doubt that for a minute."
He glances at the window that Marigold and Tommy are standing against, chatting. About kazoos, most likely. "Little brace-faced terror?"
"Respectfully, Sir, your son is in love with my wife. You can't expect me to be comfortable with that."
"He's just a boy."
"For two more years, yes. But then what? It has lasted this long. Who's to say he isn't going to carry a torch for her well into his twenties?"
He crosses his arms, almost defensively. "Thomas knows his place. He knows Marigold's, too. He has some growing to do certainly, but I like to think that I am raising him to know right from wrong. He'll do the right thing and move on some day. Until that time, it is my responsibility to protect him."
"I know. It is only natural for a father to look out for his son. But you have my word. You are like family to us, both of you."
"You came here for this, didn't you?" He pats his pocket. "Not for Annabelle's book. I shouldn't call it that. I know better. It was yours, wasn't it?" On my word, he asks me to stay put and glides into the kitchen. I can see him grab a whisk broom and a plastic arcade cup from atop the refrigerator. He dumps a wad of tickets and a handful of jingling quarters across a nearby counter in the process. "You know, history belongs to us all," he says, sweeping every piece of mirror into the vessel and adding the one from his pocket with just a hint of reluctance. "Please don't think ill of me if in the future I ask you if I may see this little relic again."
This time, he lets me help him to his feet. As he passes me the cup, we exchange a warm grin. "That is the first rule of friendship, is it not? That which is mine is also yours."
...
There is a tiny yellow bureau that once stood at the threshold between our kitchen and living room. No matter where Marigold moves it inside the farmhouse, the little furnishing seems out of place. I know that she holds onto it for sentimental reasons; just like the old crate from Coffee n' San-tea which housed her first collection of records and that now sits without purpose on our dining room floor. Last night, I found a use for the bureau, as a holding place for the bits of mirror, all of which we now have in our possession. It was an easy enough puzzle to solve. Now those pieces reside in the hallway, inviting all who pass by to stop and stare into them for a while. Though they call to me in a voice louder than I care to disclose, the rooster's caw invites me to tend to my chores.
What a charming concept, especially in this modern day and age! A crisp January morning on the farm. Marigold goes to check on her winterized bees on the other side of the property while I retreat into the stables. I tend to the horses with diligence, cleaning every stall and brushing every coat to only the most pristine standards. I love being around them. I love the clap of their hooves against the flooring, their grunts and groans, the musky fragrance of their tails and manes. What's more, I know that my Marigold has the same love in her heart when she is around her brood of honeybees. We are finding joy here, little by little, day by day.
We reunite for lunch, as was customary when she was teaching and I was working at the cafe. She asks in passing while her chamomile steeps if Giselle can join us for dinner. Then we throw suggestions back and forth for what we might serve. All the while, I feel a peculiar sense of uneasiness, as though I am once again standing at the cusp of change. The mirror's presence weighs on us both, haunting us, robbing us of our peace. I know that Marigold can feel it, too because this time, she is the one to succumb to its draw, its silent siren song. She stands over it and her golden waves unfasten, forming a veil over her face.
"It's you," she says, raising her head just long enough to throw a beautiful smile in my direction, "my handsome soldier."
"Darling, please. Come have your tea."
"What? I can't admire you? You do look much happier these days, though."
"I am! I have all that I ever wanted back then. Especially that which I was too cowardly to admit my yearning for." I go to her with the intention of gently dragging her away. Perhaps into the kitchen or back into the living room to put on a record and dance a while. "Come, my beautiful one. Let us waste away no more in the past."
"Do you see that man?" She points to the image of one of my dragoons.
"Who him? The one who I am riding alongside? Well, yes, that's Captain Bordon."
"Captain Bordon? As in Boris Bordon? You're kidding!" Her expression is as much joyous as it is complex. "He was a friend of Henry's! And a very good friend of mine."
"Is that so? I suppose that would stand to reason, he and John Andre were... well... it's not my place to gossip. Decent fellow, decent soldier, remarkable singing voice."
"Oh, I know! He's still a local legend to this day ever since that one karaoke night!" She heaves a gentle sigh and steps away from me, towards her cup of chamomile. "Can I confess to something, William?"
"Yes, of course."
She sits on a large, unopened box, pulling on the string at the end of her tea bag. "If it weren't for him, this Captain Bordon fellow, I don't believe the two of us would have ever met!"
"Is that so?"
"Yes!" Her happiness subsides. In part at first. Then it melts away like snow in direct sunlight. "Giselle dropped out of my life for a while after Henry left. I know why now, but at the time, I thought it was because she saw another relapse coming. They happen most when people leave and I know for a fact that she was getting tired of pulling me out of that hole. She was right, of course. This time it was worse than ever before. It was so bad that over half of the hair on my head fell out. They even told me that it was so far advanced that I'd never be able to have children. How good it feels to have proved them wrong! They also told me that my heart would be damaged for the rest of my life. I was so alone. I had no one, except for Boris. You might think it's crazy, but it almost feels like now I have reason to believe that he saved me so I could save you. So we could have Mabel. I never even got to thank him. He moved to New York and just disappeared entirely from my life. No address, no phone number, nothing. Someone who cared for me when everyone else in the world would not, just vanished into thin air. Like an angel or something."
I take her tea and place it on the windowsill before wrapping my arms around her. "I'm sorry, Marigold. I had no idea. If I have learned anything these last few months, it is that we live in a spectacular time and place. Everything is possible now and nobody is ever truly gone. Not really."
"I hope so. It would be nice to see him again, if only just to thank him."
Of course, I am troubled. Between Giselle arriving in five minutes and having to rein Moxie in, I find myself mildly aghast at Marigold's secrecy. Mind you, I am in no position to be envious. I should be just as thankful to Captain Bordon as she is. In nearly every way I am, but there remains a second impulse, a darker one, which has made me bitterly jealous of a man who I have not seen in ages and will most likely never see again. I toss the salad and pour three glasses of lavender lemonade. A taste of summer in the dead of winter. Giselle arrives exactly three minutes after she was due and I am thankful for the lack of barking in our home for but a moment longer. We aren't three bites into the bruschetta chicken casserole that Marigold prepared on a whim when Giselle notices what we have felt all day.
"What's going on?" She inquires, tossing a bit of scorched chicken to the collie beneath our table. "Trouble in paradise?"
Marigold casually drizzles a bit of vinaigrette on her salad, "I don't know what you're talking about."
"First fight? Raging hormones? Oh, no! Your bees! Your bees didn't freeze, did they?"
"Her bees are properly insulated," I say, tapping Marigold's foot with mine.
"Uh, huh." Giselle must have caught the wink that I just gave my wife because she quickly abandons her little interview. "So, shocking news- Tommy Martin got suspended again! The little booger brought a fifteen pound bowling ball into the band room after hours and went bowling for instruments and music stands. He must have done pretty good, too! Cost the school over nine hundred dollars in damage! I'm chaperoning the drama club's trip to Broadway this year and convinced Ballard to let him go, anyway. He'll never thank me. Or if he does, it will be by way of a whoopee cushion. Weren't you supposed to come along, too?"
"I threw my name in the hat a couple of years ago when I was still part of the faculty."
Giselle goes after her salad. Well, the yummier bits of clustered fruit and lemon pepper croutons. "I'll put in a good word for you. It's next month, so you should be able to fly without morning sickness getting in the way. Plus, the flight to New York is a pretty quick one."
I excuse myself, making up a halfwitted fib that one of the horses escaped. In reality, I am fuming as I stand on the front porch. Jealousy is a foolish thing to resort to, certainly but the feeling that Marigold is sliding through my fingers like sand is growing stronger by the minute. I am happy to relieve myself from all this talk of Captain Bordon, New York and Tommy Martin. I inhale a stream of the frigid winter air, exhaling a breath of spiraling steam from my lips. It dances across the dark horizon, hanging above the field and haunting every sleeping flower that it passes by- the breath of a spiteful ghost.
When I return, the dining room is empty and I hear their voices from down the hall. The newly vacated envy in the depths of my heart is suddenly replaced with fear and distrust. Whether by persuasion or as a means of distraction, Marigold is showing the mirror to Giselle. I run in, terrible as it sounds, to supervise them and find that I am already too late. Giselle's heavily sequined hot glue gun is plugged into the wall, oozing strands of melted adhesive, thin as hair. I can see the drying clumps between each broken shard. I slap my hand over my mouth, stifling any words that I would later come to regret.
"Whattaya think, Billy? I fixed it up, good as new!"
I glance at Marigold. Like her harebrained friend, she appears to be happy with herself. That is, until she sees the distress in my eyes. "Sorry we didn't ask first, Darling," she confesses, "it just kind of happened. Besides, it might work better now and it won't have to stay on the dresser all the time!"
"Why must the pair of you turn everything into an art project?" I spit, forgetting for only a moment to mind my temper. "How will you feel if it's ruined, Marigold, hm? It is the one item in this entire house that was truly my own and now its as good as destroyed because you two simply couldn't help yourselves?"
"Don't you dare take that tone with my bestie! This wasn't her idea. Hell, she didn't want to do it, so-"
"So why didn't you stop her," I continue to close in on my wife, already knowing the answer, already knowing exactly what she is going to say. We have had this conversation before, only under different circumstances and I was always the first to defend her. The only difference this time around is that I want her to suffer for what she has done. I want her to feel bad, if only for a few horribly satisfying seconds, because she is at fault. "You need to start standing your ground or everybody is going to walk all over you."
"Is that really what you want?"
"Yes!" I all but scream. "I think we would all love to see you be less of a pushover! For once in your life!"
"Kay, cool," she stammers, looking down at her feet. "You want me to stand up for myself, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to spend the night in Waterford with Giselle. I'll be back tomorrow afternoon and we can talk this through like adults because frankly, I want nothing to do with you right now," she turns and heads towards our room, gathering her things in a huff and retuning after five excruciating minutes. This time, I can see the dampness of smeared tears across her face. "And another thing, William. I like being a softie. You know why? Because it takes strength to be soft. A whole lot more than it takes to be cruel. I thought you understood that. That's why I married you in the first place. See you tomorrow."
"I love you," those are the only words that I can find for her as she leaves.
...
I sit alone, surrounded by overwhelming silence. It is the kind of silence that I scarcely imagined could ever fill our home. What if our marriage was fractured from the beginning and all it took was a simple shift in time and place for the cracks to begin showing? Until now, I believed that Marigold and I could get through anything together. Now I do not know what to believe. All that I know now is this darkness, this emptiness, this earth-shattering peace. Now I wallow in regret while that damned mirror mocks me from across the way. I have not checked it. The bonding must have dried hours ago and still, I refuse to look for fear of what I might find. It was my father's desire for it to be in my possession. Or was it? What if the mirror has already served its purpose? What if it was the sign, the compass that she needed to direct her to New York and away from me?
All of these thoughts, these terrible notions eat away at me until the early hours of morning. The hour is four when I finally succumb to temptation and in the dim light, return to the counsel of that phantom mirror. It is adhered to the bureau's top, I push it gently with my thumb and it is freed with a faint crunch and crackle. The image is black, vacant, as empty as the lonesome corridors that surround me. I storm away from it. Suddenly, as though possessed by some inner call, I retrieve a ream of paper and fountain pen from the kitchen and scribble a note to my wife. It is a reiteration of our deepest, our most sacred promise to one another. I then pull on my riding boots and step out into the cold.
Memories of our first morning together flood my mind as I ride, aimlessly through the blackness. I miss who we were before. When she was that innocent child catching fireflies in her apple tree and I was a mysterious redcoat watching her in the woods. Our future was spelled out before us, it could only end in tragedy. Would tragedy still be our fate, even now, even after marriage and conception? I choose to meditate instead on our child, the sole reason why I am once again riding towards those haunted woods.
I will not remain in the farmhouse. The forest and its mysteries frighten me, but staying there without Marigold, with only her words of fury hanging in the air, I prefer the company of different ghosts on this strange and lonesome morning.
I find that little has changed since the last time I rode here. Any trace of sound has been wicked from the lowest bramble to the highest branch, kissing the low-hanging moon with its skeletal fingers. The dead are restless tonight. I cannot see them, but I can feel them lurking from all around me. I venture deeper this time, down the forking pathway and into the most isolated spit of wilderness in Old Santee County. With every breath, I dare Father to reappear and lead me to some secret place like King Hamlet's ghost. No such apparition comes and so, I press onward. Walls of fog roll in from the sea. They weave throughout the maze of trees like ribbons made entirely of cloud. My horse senses that we are lost and tries to break into a trot, but I restrain him. The confidence within me wears thin. I swallow my fear or rather, choke it down. I have ridden here before, many years ago. It is strange to think that I was something of a terror in these woods before meeting my foil. Now I am a broken coward, lost in the mist.
There is a clearing several hundred feet ahead. It is at a high enough elevation that the fog gathers and spins around it like ocean waves lapping against the edges of a tiny island. At its center, a tree stands. Although the tree is small and mangled, the forest itself seems to have placed it on a pedestal. For it is the only tree of its kind and undoubtedly the oldest living thing for miles around. I dismount and tackle the incline by foot. Upon closer inspection, I discover at least two dozen apples hanging from its limbs, coated in sparkling frost.
I pluck and pocket two of them, tossing another to my very uninterested horse. I can see him in my periphery, pushing it away with his fuzzy nose. Something else attracts my eye. In fact, I feel foolish for not noticing it first. A lovely piece of fabric, the loveliest I've seen in all my life hangs in a tangled mess on the other side of the apple tree. It appears to be silk with a mosaic-like pattern which almost seems to move without the influence of a passing breeze. I move closer and reach for it, if only to spare the lovely thing from the elements. Right as the contact is made, a crippling chill shoots through my bones. The fog barrels towards me like a ravenous beast, submerging me, drowning me in white. My flesh freezes over. It is so cold, so indescribably frigid. I feel as though I am boiling, melting, on the verge of combustion. It is so cold that the cold has set me on fire. I have felt this sensation once before. Mere moments after death, where the merciful find peace. It was my final waking experience before I was torn from virtuous Annabelle's side and condemned to eternal anguish. It is within this perpetual chill that ghosts reside, moaning in pain, trembling with the death which follows death.
In desperation, I clutch my chest as my eyes dip to the ground, searching for my boots. There is motion beneath me. Soon, the noise produced from that motion crowds my ears. It is a roaring sound, fierce and swift like the banging of a hundred-thousand drums. Traces of the stark fog remain, all others fall away and quickly change into the darkest shade of blue. There are reflections sketched across the churning ocean before me. I trace the longest one to its source. My heart nearly leaps overboard as I behold the spires of Liverpool. It is a sight that I never intended to see again, even after my career had ended. A groan resounds from within the hollow belly of the ship as she bounds across the waves, towards home. The fabric of the sails clap against the wind, high above my head. I turn to see them in all of their majestic glory, but a firm hand on my shoulder barricades me.
"She is yours if you so desire," Father's lip curls into a sneer. His was a face which hardly seemed built for smiling. Still, I see sincerity and perhaps even love in his cold blue eyes. "Oh, what is the use? Your mind is already made up. You are far too ambitious, William."
"Sir?" I ask, trying to place the scene which I have found myself thrust into.
"It is a fine color on you, to be sure," he wipes a bit of dust from my shoulder and immediately, I understand. This was the voyage from Grenada where I met the man who recruited me. This was where I signed my life away and sealed my fate. Father continues to examine my attire, almost dolefully the way a caring parent might. "But I must request that you stash it before we see your mother. You know how she is. Weak of heart just as she is of mind, that one!"
I hold my tongue. The lovelessness of my parent's marriage was a burden that my brother and I refused to bear. Assuming my placement of this time is correct, I now stand at the dawn of my final months in England. It is a wicked hour in my life, filled with moments that would be torturous to repeat. In my heart I know that the only way out of this dreaded dimension is through it. So I cling to the one trace of comfort that Father has unknowingly offered me. "Mother," I say lowly, "I have missed her so!"