They arrived just before dusk, the pair of them. He saw the Federal uniform first. Revulsion swiftly rose within him, an automatic reaction to the stain of blue as it spread before his line of vision. The feeling disappeared as quickly, replaced by apathy that comes when too many strong emotions cancel out one another. The woman held back behind the soldier, shrouded in stunted branches and stubs of blood-red autumn leaves that lined the path from Valley Mill Road to his decaying Virginia cabin.The man spoke to him, his voice cutting across the crystal clear cool of the October afternoon. “Captain Peyton? Captain Bolling Peyton?”
The blue of the uniform mingled with the cadence of the words, and Bolling was transported back to that other time, always lurking beneath the surface of his foggy present. It was a time of war when his name was shrieked in pain, and bore the echo-marks of hundreds of men—his men in gray—as they clamored over a rise to face a hailstorm of Union shells; his men, as they huddled behind twisted tree trunks watching blue uniforms surround them; his men as…
He felt the touch of the small hand invade the landscape of his nightmare, the small hand that settled on his arm as softly as a butterfly rests on a dew-stained leaf.
“Uncle Bolling? Are you all right?” Her fragile voice floated toward him, the voice of Amanda, his goddaughter.
He heard her concern and worry, and those emotions resonated with him, with the need to please the sweetest presence in his life. He wrenched himself from the battlefield of his memory and looked down at the ten-year-old girl. He attempted to smile, to reassure her, then frowned when he saw the blue uniform out of the corner of his eye. It was standing closer to him, now.
“You are Captain Peyton?”
“Once I was, yes,” came Bolling’s tired voice. “But, no longer. You and yours took care of that by accepting our surrender at Appomattox Courthouse.”
He looked past the uniform to the woman standing behind it. She was older than the soldier, in her fifties, probably. With soft brown hair and soft brown eyes. It was the gentleness in her eyes that demanded his attention, gentleness that merged with the sweetness of his little Amanda, and together, threatened to exorcise his dark memories and burst through his lethargic shell.
He heard his dead voice continue. “I ended any official business I might have with your kind last April, when the war ended. I mean you no disrespect, sir, ma’am, but I’ve made it a point of avoiding all contact with the military these last six months. I’m asking you to leave me in peace.”
The woman’s eyes were compassionate, now, and searching. She opened her mouth as if to speak, but the next words he heard rose from above the blue uniform.
“We have business with you, Captain…Mr. Peyton.”
Something in the clipped tones, the assured security that comes with victory, pierced Bolling’s numbed indifference. He felt fury build and grow in his gut, starting as a tiny whisper of discontent and fueling itself until it was an anguished roar that demanded voice.
“Get off my property,” he growled.
He saw the woman shrink away from his harsh words. He noticed that she wore the clothing of mourning, that the mark of death and loss rested heavily on her. He inhaled sharply, ordering himself to calm down. Out of respect for her loss.
“Sir,” the Federal officer’s words were clipped, an efficient use of vowel, consonant, and breath. “I mean you no distress, and we apologize for having disturbed you by appearing at your doorstep unannounced, but, we’ve had trouble finding you, sir. And, we’ve traveled a long way. The fact is, we have a matter of utmost importance to discuss with you.”
Bolling said in a calmer voice, “I signed your Oath of Allegiance months ago. And that was it. I signed and then I washed my hands of the lot of you. Now, please get off my property.”
The soldier and woman looked at each other. The man sighed and pulled an envelope from his breast pocket, the crisply pressed blue uniform rustling at his touch. He extended the white envelope towards the ex-Confederate officer.
“This explains the nature of our business. I would ask you to review its contents, sir. You’ll be contacted in a day or so, in case you’ve had a change of heart and will agree to talk with us after all.”
Bolling sank into his porch rocker, and made no move to take the paper from the man’s hand. Instead, his trembling fingers dropped to the worn gray trousers stretched paper-thin across his thighs, and stayed there. His eyes followed the movement of his fingers, mesmerized by the sight of his pale white flesh splayed against the bleached-out gray, the remnant of a uniform he had worn proudly. When he looked up, the soldier and woman had disappeared.
“Uncle Bolling?” came the frail voice, and he looked over to see Amanda’s beloved face. Her eyes were large, filled with questions she was too wise to stuff with sound.
Such sad eyes, Bolling thought. Sad eyes in a pale face drawn tight and strained from prolonged illness. Before the war, she had been a chubby-cheeked five year-old, rosy and round, full of energy and the joy of each day. But, the legacy of four years of deprivation, malnutrition, destruction, rested heavily on her gaunt shoulders. Living in the heart of the most contested piece of ground in the country had exacted a heavy price. And Amanda, like the lower Shenandoah Valley around her, had suffered cruelly on the sidelines as men from the north and south had rained bullets around her home, trampled her father’s wheat fields, ripped to shreds the fabric of her family’s life.
His melancholy thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Amanda’s cough…ever-present, dry, starved of energy. She’d never recovered from influenza she’d contracted the year before. The same disease that had killed her mother. Now, he feared that the hand of consumption was beckoning to her.
“You should take this, Uncle Bolling.” Amanda clutched the white envelope in her delicate hand.
“Put it down, honey.”
Amanda set the paper on the seat of a camp chair next to her and turned back to face him. “Are you going to open it?”
“I don’t know, Amanda.” Bolling stroked refugee strands of her dull brown hair back into place with a soothing hand. He smiled at her, forcing his stiff, white, bristly whiskers to follow his tan-hardened skin as they obliged the moving muscles around his lips. “I’ll think about it. But, right now, I need to see you home, before your father wonders what happened to you.”
Amanda nodded, pulling at cotton strings that were attached to a sunbonnet bouncing against her back. She settled the hat on her head, and smoothed her faded brown-striped dress with delicate fingers that seemed to flit over the worn fabric, caressing and tender. The dress had belonged to her mother, the washed-out cotton cut down to fit her rail-thin figure by a neighbor lady.
Bolling held out a hand to her, and she grasped it, trusting and eager. The pair set off through the wire grass, toward the nearby farmhouse where Amanda and her father lived. Fading sunlight glowed bright yellow and red around them as it reflected the leaves of poplars and beeches. These were the trees that had survived exploding shells screaming from soldiers’ rifles and axes of desperate civilians scavenging for firewood. Just beyond the trees was the wheat field Amanda’s father and Bolling were attempting to induce back to life, its rich limestone soil still rock-hard after four years of trampling by thousands of marching boots.
A slight movement in a tangled mass of dead branches strewn on the ground to their right attracted Bolling’s attention. He looked over to see a tiny white kitten struggling to climb out of an object lying among the wood. As he drew closer, he saw that the kitten was being held prisoner by a tattered kepi cap—part of the debris left to the Shenandoah Valley by troops who had swarmed over the land, part of the legacy of a war they had brought to the civilians’ doorsteps.
Amanda dropped to her knees next to the helpless animal and freed the quivering body from the frayed cap.
“This has got to be one of Betsy’s kittens, Uncle Bolling! So new to this world, it hasn’t even opened its eyes.” As she stroked it, the kitten nuzzled into the palm of her hand, seeking warmth and security, its face crinkled tight, bunched around eyes clamped shut.
“You’re right, dear. It’s probably only a few days old. Newborns are a helpless lot, especially animals like cats who are born blind. Good thing they grow into their eyes. Can’t live in the world very well if you can’t see what’s around you.”
She turned to look at him, concern crossing her face. “It’s too young to be off on its own. I hope Betsy’s close by.”
Bolling smiled down at her. “I’m certain she is. I wonder where—” He broke off and pointed to a laurel bush. At its base, an enormous white cat was hunched, watching them patiently. “There’s Betsy. She’s probably moving her kittens and is just waiting for us to leave before she continues on her way.” He took Amanda by the arm and urged her forward.
After the pair had walked a few feet, Bolling motioned behind them. “Look, Amanda. See? There goes Betsy with the little one. All’s well.”
The pair lingered for a moment, watching the mother cat with the kitten dangling out of her mouth trot across a plot of scorched earth.
“Where’s she taking it?” asked Amanda.
“From her direction, I’d say she’s probably keeping her babies in the old mill.”
“Why in that place? It’s nothing but a heap of rubble.”
“It still offers her protection from the elements.”
“Our house would have been a better choice,” Amanda said, her disappointment obvious in her voice.
“Want to see where she’s going?”
Amanda nodded, her haggard face bright with excitement.
The two began following the mother cat. Around them, remnants of war were ever-present. Tree trunks were chipped and stripped clean of bark after being battered by shells. Tin plates, battered cups, scraps of gum blankets lay in haphazard profusion, along with shreds of weather-bleached uniforms, cap boxes, haversacks, all partially hidden by the season’s growth of wire grass and wildflowers.
Ahead of the pair, sitting along the bank where Abraham’s Creek met Mill Race, stood the charred skeleton of a woolen mill. The marks left from angry licks of fire had paled over the two years since the building had been torched by the Federals. A blackened brick chimney rose above a dense profusion of ferns and wild violets that had flourished in the rich soil since the war’s end, bursting through wide spaces between the few blackened floor boards that had survived scavengers. Vines climbed and entwined around rusted fragments of machinery…a contorted mass of metal that had been tortured by the intense heat from a wartime inferno.
“There she goes.” Bolling pointed to the heart of the mill as a long white cat tail disappeared underneath a wood plank. “See? She and her kittens will be snug and warm under those boards.”
“I suppose so. Do you think we’ll see the kitten again?”
Bolling tweaked her nose, grinning at her. “Now, you know Betsy’s never more than a few feet behind you most of the time. She’s just waiting for her babies to grow up a bit before she makes her introductions.”
He nodded towards a farmhouse disfigured by shot and shell, just visible through the stand of trees. “Come on, honey. I need to get you home before you’re late for supper and I hear from your father.”
He waited at the edge of the trees until he saw the frail figure disappear inside the house, then returned to the tranquility of his front porch. Settling heavily in the cane-bottomed rocker, he reached for a book in the chair next to him. His movement disturbed the envelope Amanda had placed there, and it fell to the sagging floorboards. As Bolling retrieved it, a calling card tumbled out. He picked up the black-bordered paper and read, ‘Mrs. Claire-Marie Dandridge.”
His female visitor, he thought. Dandridge. That name…Dandridge…was familiar to him. Somewhere, it resided in the dark recesses of his memory.
He stuffed the card and the envelope into a fraying pocket of his ancient frock coat and turned his attention back to the book. Cradling the soiled leather tome in one rough hand, he stroked its pages with callused fingers, his eyes caressing the magical words printed there. It was the only survivor of his prewar days, this book of Wordsworth’s poetry. The only clue of the life he’d lived before, when he’d taught poetry at Winchester Academy.
That life was over for him. Winchester Academy was closed. The war had sealed its fate in the early years of fighting. His modest rented rooms in the town of Winchester had gone up in smoke thanks to the Federals. After the First Battle of Winchester, they’d retreated through the streets of the town and torched Coontz’s foundry as they went. Bolling’s rooms were nearby and had been engulfed in the resulting fire.
He’d accepted the demise of his comfortable bachelor life through a numbed fog. He had no heart to return to teaching, had no energy nor motivation to do much of anything anymore.
He felt self-derision swarm over him like a mass of honey bees disturbed from their hive. The Oxford-educated teacher, the literary scholar…that was what he had once been. And then, the War of Attempted Secession had transformed him into a dutiful soldier who had become nothing more than a killing machine for the Cause as he’d served the Army of Northern Virginia in the Stonewall Brigade. He’d given the Confederacy all he had to give. Now, after the war, he felt hollow and empty inside. Used up. Existing in a sea of gray and muffled sound only punctuated with Amanda’s color and laughter.
In fact, the only element of his life that seemed real was the friendship he shared with Amanda and her father. What would he have done without them these last six months? They had offered him shelter and a meager subsistence on their ravaged farm outside Winchester, Virginia in exchange for his help with the work. Amanda’s father had suffered an injury to his leg at Cold Harbor that had never healed properly. Now, the man was unable to use the leg for sustained periods of time and walked with a pronounced limp. Bolling’s presence on the farm was not charity. It was necessary for the survival of the family. Bolling had accepted the responsibility gratefully.
His thoughts returned to Amanda—his goddaughter, his best friend’s daughter. How much longer could she cling to the silken thread that connected her to life? He prayed to God she wouldn’t share the same fate as many of their neighbors who had fallen into consumption. But the telltale signs of the condition were there—the growing weakness, chronic cough, the fatigue and distinctive pallor.
Still, a healthy diet of plentiful nourishing food would make all the difference. She could live a happy long life with the right food. Unfortunately, food was in short supply where money was scarce, even six months after the war. The first postwar harvest had been woefully meager, hampered by compacted ground, a decimated workforce, and little seed money…another legacy of war and the scorched earth policy adopted by the Federals in the Valley.
“Black Dave” Hunter and Phil Sheridan had implemented the barbaric policy, ordering their men to strip bare the once-verdant region. Their soldiers had carried away or destroyed every resource that would have enabled the Valley’s civilians to resume their livelihoods after the war. The precious contents of homes, barns, smoke houses, orchards, gardens, spring houses…all gone. Most trees had been cut down or burned; orchards decimated; barns, outbuildings and mills torched; snake fences broken up; livestock stolen. Every sight on which the eye rested represented that malicious waste and evil intent. A black force of destruction, it had been…a plague, an epidemic that permeated the ground, seeped into the soul, ravaged the spirit.
His mind flickered on the Bluecoat who had invaded his world earlier that day. He couldn’t even summon the hint of curiosity about him or the woman. Let them go back from whence they came and leave him alone to struggle in the fractured, tortured peace their kind had manufactured for him and his loved ones.
* * * *
The next morning, as the first light crawled up the wooded sides of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Bolling plunged into the cold fog that shrouded the valley floor and followed the dreary routine of his day with a weary salute to the bare demands of civilized regimen. He was biding his time until he saw Amanda’s smiling face appear at his doorstep.
When he finally laid eyes on the delicate, drawn little girl coming down his path, it was a not a smile that greeted him. Instead, she looked distracted and contemplative. Deeply entrenched lines of weariness crossed her face.
As she settled next to him on the top step of the porch, he said, “Are you having a bad morning, little girl?” He placed a gentle hand on her bare head. “And where’s your bonnet?”
She shrugged her shoulders, taking a shallow breath. Bolling winced at the labored, wheezing sound of her.
She gave him a swift glance, then looked away. “They came to visit us, last night, Uncle Bolling.”
“Who did?” he said more sharply than he had intended.
“The Yankee and the woman who were here to see you, yesterday.”
“What business did they have with your father?”
Amanda turned back to him, her wispy eyes studying him, intently. “You didn’t read the paper they left you, did you?”
“No, honey. I’m not even certain what I did with it.”
“Well, sir. Their business is you.”
Amanda leaned toward him, and Bolling could feel the gentle warmth of her sweet breath brush across his face. Her words came out in a rush of pent-up nervousness. “Please, Uncle Bolling. Please don’t be cross with me for talking to them. I know you didn’t like them. But…well…I thought they seemed quite nice. Even the Yankee. And, they were very polite to Father and me. They’re not here to do anything bad. I’m sure of it. They just want to speak with you, Uncle Bolling.”
“Did they ask you to talk to me, Amanda?”
Her eyes dropped away from his face, and he got his answer. Bolling got up from the step and walked across the porch, seeking to quiet the anger and sense of betrayal that surged through him.
“They…they said it’s very important,” he heard her whisper behind him.
“Important for whom?” Bolling’s bitter voice bit through the crisp air.
“I think they meant for you, Uncle Bolling.”
He turned to look at her. Her eyes were upon him, filled with earnestness and pleading.
She wants you to talk to the Federal and the woman, he chided himself. Is that such a difficult thing to do? For her?
Amanda had been watching his face, reading his expression, and he saw her delicate features broaden into a wide, delighted smile. She came at him in a rush and flung her arms around his waist.
“I knew you’d agree.” She beamed up at him.
And so it was that later that day, Bolling sat on his rotting porch, in the creaky rush-bottom rocker, and watched the Federal and the woman approach the foot of his porch steps once again. This time, he rose, ramrod straight, and gestured to two wooden camp chairs with a stiff jerk of his arm.
“Sit!” he commanded through numbed lips. He kept his eyes on the uniform, watching it invade the perimeter of his home, his refuge, his sanctuary.
The soldier leaned toward him carefully, as one would approach an invalid in precarious health. He opened his mouth to speak, but the woman laid a hand on his arm. It was a gesture restraining him, asking him to remain silent.
“I’m Mrs. Claire-Marie Dandridge, Captain,” she said in a voice as light and gentle as an early spring rainfall. “This is my son, Major Fitzgerald Dandridge. We’re family of the late Captain Asa Dandridge.”
The woman dropped her eyes, and Bolling could feel waves of pain radiate from her. He felt her emotions pull at him, beckon to him. It was if she was able to reach into the deep heart of him that still struggled and chafed to make sense of the carnage of his war experience, the core that always threatened to disrupt the delicate equilibrium he had constructed so he could stumble through his days.
She was speaking to him again in her soft voice. “You…did you read the documents we left last night?”
He shook his head.
“Captain…Mr. Peyton, do you remember my son? Federal Captain Asa Dandridge?”
“I’m sorry ma’am. Should I?”
“Well, sir, I’d have thought you might.”
“Mrs. Dandridge, except for the obvious possibility that your son and I faced each other across the no-man’s land of a battlefield, why would I know him, in particular?”
“May 5, 1864, Captain. The first day of the battle at the Wilderness. You made the acquaintance of my son, then.”
Bolling could hear the pleading in her voice. Please try to remember, her voice begged him. Think back. Open your heart to the memory.
Her voice was joined by the gentle touch of Amanda, who had stepped to the side of his chair and now placed her hand on his shoulder. Please remember, her nearness begged.
And Bolling did. With the name of Asa Dandridge drumming a steady tattoo in his consciousness, in a monumental struggle of will, he marshaled the ragged fragments of his courage and forced his mind back to that awful time…the killing time when the world drowned in a sea of blood and grew deaf from the hellish cacophony of brothers destroying brothers.
South of Virginia’s Rapidan River, hard by the Orange Turnpike and Orange Plank Road, across the trampled stubble of Saunder’s corn field and in the tangled mass of trees and shrub, thousands of boys in blue and gray lay in states of mutilation and death on the afternoon of May 5, 1864. Fires brought on by shells exploding amidst dry wood had flashed to life, adding to the horror of the scene as they roasted the fallen bodies. The stench of burning flesh mingled with the fetor of blood and the pungency of gun powder. Smoke swirled, pressing down in heavy layers, adding a cruel mystery to the scene.
The two sides had been struggling to find each other’s northern flank throughout the afternoon. As Stafford’s Louisiana Brigade stretched the Confederate line northward, it had become separated from the Stonewall Brigade…Bolling’s unit. The gap between the two brigades had widened and Union Colonel Henry Brown’s New Jersey men had rushed into the midst of the Confederate position, volleying heavy fire into the Virginians’ front and flank.
Under blistering fire, Bolling’s commander, General “Stonewall Jim” Walker had reorganized his men to meet the onslaught, receiving point-blank volleys in the process. The Brigade’s 4th Regiment had stopped the flank attack, and for the better part of the last two hours, Bolling’s 2nd regiment, along with the 33rd , had held against the Federal onslaught.
Captain Peyton had hunkered behind the breastworks with the rest of the Stonewall Brigade, watching soldiers from “Uncle John” Sedgewick’s 6th Corps stumble toward them across the brambly, bloody Saunder’s field. The Federals were attempting to crack the Confederate position, again.
The fighting intensified and the air around Bolling was thick with sheets of iron as the men in blue surged toward the Confederates on a frenzied tide. Wave after wave, they rode, only to dissolve before the withering fire Bolling and his men threw at them.
Suddenly, one of the Federals broke from the jagged formation and started advancing toward Bolling. Somehow, the infantryman dodged the rain of shells spewing at him from Peyton’s company. On he came, ever closer, his Spencer rifle fixed on Bolling.
Peyton found himself mesmerized by the Yankee’s eyes, those pale gray eyes. Wild and wide, they were, flecked with fear, fury, panic. Resignation. It was as if the Union soldier had stepped inside Peyton, himself, and had plunged into Peyton’s own sea of anguish and misery. Those eyes could have been his own. The war had never been so close, so personal to Captain Peyton.
The battle clashing around him…the roar of thousands of rifles, shrieking shells, yelling men…receded until it was a distant echo. In its place, Bolling heard the mournful refrain of a fighter’s dirge. And before his mind’s eye, strutting in formation to this martial lament, marched the ghosts of all those soldiers whose lives he’d taken. It was a long parade, tramping through blood that had spilled at his hands. He looked down, and he could see the blood flowing toward him, threatening to drown him. He could feel the warm moisture coursing around his ripped Jefferson boots, climbing slimy and thick up his tattered trousers, oozing in thick rivulets across the jagged plane of his conscience.
He shrank away from the vision, focusing again on the Union soldier’s eyes, seeing that the man shared his nightmare.
Bolling felt himself rise above the breastworks until he stood at full height. He lowered his rifle before the man. The Union soldier did the same. They would not shoot each other. They would not shoot a kindred spirit, a man with whom each had shared such intimate feelings. These men would not die at each other’s hand this day.
Bolling reached out to the man. His enemy. His soulmate.
And then, as Bolling watched, the Federal’s eyes disappeared before him, dissolved into bloody pulp as the lead from the Confederates’ rifles around Bolling met their mark. The man dropped before the breastworks, his torso draped over the gummy pine logs. Even as the man fell forward, the memory of his gray eyes dangled before Bolling. Gray eyes now dissolved red.
He reached out toward the soldier again, seeking contact, meeting nothing but murky dense air. The soldier had slipped away, disappeared into the smoke beyond the battered breastworks.
Vaguely, behind him, Bolling became aware of an order to move out. Under a blizzard of lead, Stonewall Jim had decided to move his men to a stronger position seventy-five yards to the rear.
While Bolling’s comrades moved back in good order, Bolling, still reeling from the image of the Federal he’d faced across the breastworks, lost his bearings for a brief moment. Blurred ghostly figures swirled behind him, then dissolved into the thick air as his men disappeared into the folds of the Wilderness. He shook off his confusion and began to maneuver toward his line, threading his way through stands of stunted evergreen, dwarf chestnuts, and hazel trees.
He struggled forward in this fashion for a short time, making steady progress in the tangled mass of foliage. At one point, as he paused to chop through a thick wall of grapevines coiling before him, he heard an anguished cry coming from the area immediately to his right. He felt drawn to the sound and without questioning his actions, he turned toward it.
Pushing through thick white smoke that coiled around the sultry air, heavy and lazy, Bolling almost tripped over the Federal soldier. The man was crouched against the thick trunk of an oak tree, his arms embracing the slimy wood as a child grabs for the security of his mother’s skirts. Bolling raised his Enfield, prepared to take the Union captain as prisoner. The man raised a blackened face toward Bolling, staring ahead of him with wild, unfocused eyes. He gave no indication that he saw Bolling standing within a few feet of him.
“Someone…someone help me!” he cried in a panicked voice. “Don’t let the fires burn me alive. Good Christ! I can’t see them! Where are the fires?
“There’s no fire near you at present, Captain,” said Bolling.
“Where…? I can’t see you. God almighty! I can’t see at all!”
Bolling crouched next to him.
“Are you…are you there?” The Union soldier’s arms thrashed wildly in front of him.
Bolling grasped the man’s arm, steadied him, then released him. “What happened to you? You don’t look injured.”
The man pulled himself up alongside the tree. “Flash of gunpowder. Some Reb’s powder bag exploded in my face back there. Saw crimson and gold all over everywhere. Then, nothing. Just black.” He raised trembling blackened fingers to his eyes. “I…I can’t see a thing. Who are you? Listening to you… You’re a Reb, aren’t you? Part of that brigade we flanked earlier this afternoon.”
“Yes.”
Bolling watched the frenzied soldier push off from the anchor of the tree, flail through the bristling shrubs, and crash to the ground. He brought the man back to his feet, feeling the pressure of the Federal’s weight as the blinded soldier leaned on him, seeking clear ground upon which to stand. Bolling knew that he should take this man back to his lines. Now. As his prisoner. But, as Bolling watched him struggle for equilibrium in a world suddenly gone dark, the Confederate captain was flooded with another image—the Union soldier who had charged his line moments before, eye sockets flowing blood as his body was pummeled with Confederate lead.
As the image of those empty sockets lingered before his mind’s eye, Bolling knew that he’d been given another chance to save a life. And by so doing, save the tattered fragment of soul that still clung to him.
Bolling wrapped an arm around the Captain’s back, bracing him, urging him forward.
“Where…where are you taking me?” The Federal’s voice was steadier now. It was the voice of a man preparing himself to become a prisoner…or die.
“Back to your own people, Captain,” Bolling said in a gruff voice.
“Why? Why are you doing this?”
Bolling didn’t speak immediately as he slipped into the heart of the manic confusion that clamored around them, concentrating on skirting the shadowy figures of soldiers passing by. Minie bullets snapped and tore through tree limbs next to them. Splinters flew into their faces. Still Bolling moved on, seeking the densest swirls of smoke, the thickest trees, the jungle of switch that rose twenty feet around them. Using these natural obstacles as cover.
Bolling spoke into the Federal’s ear. “I’m doing this because I need to, I guess. I need to help you. Can you understand that?”
“I thank God for you. What’s your name, soldier?”
“Captain Bolling Peyton, 2nd Virginia, Stonewall Brigade. And you, Captain?”
“Captain Asa Dandridge, 3rd New Jersey, Brown’s Brigade.”
Bolling has been maneuvering east toward the Federal line. Now, as a patch of clear air swept away the swirling smoke for a few seconds, he could see a thick body of blue uniforms ahead of him. The Union soldiers were heading in his direction.
“Well, Captain Dandridge, this is as far as I can take you. Your men are approaching.”
“Captain Peyton, there aren’t words to express my thanks to you. I owe you my life.”
“Not yet, you don’t. But, I did what I could. Pray God it’s enough.”
As Bolling eased the Federal to the ground by a clump of pine trees, he could see the captain flinch as shells exploded in the ground a few feet away from him.
“Jesus, I can’t even see the lead coming at me.” Dandridge’s voice quivered. “I’m totally helpless. Once you leave me, Captain, I’ll be at the mercy of fate. Blind fate.”
“You’re in the path of your comrades. They can’t miss you. And then, you’ll be as safe as is possible in this mess.” Bolling started to walk away, aware that with every second he lingered, he was risking capture by the approaching Union soldiers. Still, he hesitated, looking back at the shaken, terrified man. Bolling couldn’t leave him that way. So alone, with nothing to comfort him.
Reaching inside his tattered frock coat, Captain Peyton pulled out a small silver cross. It had been a gift from his mother just before she died, a momento of her love, her faith, her conviction that as long as he carried it, he would be protected from harm.
He placed the cross between Dandridge’s shaking fingers. As he turned to leave, he saw the Union soldier clutch the cross against his chest and lower his head in prayer. And then, Captain Dandridge disappeared from Bolling’s sight in a spiral of scrolling smoke.
Seventeen months after Captain Peyton left the blinded soldier crouched on the ground waiting to be rescued, he looked into the face of Asa Dandridge’s mother, shaking off the painful memories.
“Was he…was he ever found by his men?” Bolling asked Mrs. Dandridge.
She nodded, her eyes filling with tears. “Thanks to your heroic efforts, he was rescued and taken to a field hospital. Unfortunately—” She broke off with a sob.
Fitzgerald Dandridge placed a comforting hand on his mother’s shoulder, saying, “The field hospital was shelled the next day. Asa was wounded. He never recovered and died in the depot hospital at Fredericksburg a few days later.” The Major looked at Bolling with eyes draped in heavy grief. “But not before he was able to write us a letter, telling us what happened. How you saved him. What you did for him.”
Claire-Marie Dandridge fumbled in her reticule. “He wanted us to find you and to give you these things.” She held two envelopes in her hand. She handed Bolling one of them. As he opened it, she said, “This is returned to you with Asa’s gratitude and deep thanks. And ours.”
Bolling pulled out the silver cross he had given Asa on the battlefield. He cradled it in his hand, watching the sunlight skim across the lustrous surface, radiating waves of shimmering light. He felt its warmth and the love of his mother course through his hand, up his arm, and through his body. He placed it in his vest pocket and nodded his thanks, not trusting his voice to support words.
The second envelope was thrust into his hands. He shook his head in confusion. “I didn’t give your son anything else.”
“You gave him more than you could ever know,” Asa’s mother said, nodding toward the envelope. “That’s a copy of what we left with you, yesterday. You’d be honoring us if you’d look at it, now.”
Bolling pulled out a sheet of paper. It was an account statement from a bank in Baltimore. He stared at the dollar amount. It was a fortune. Enough money for several lifetimes. All in his name.
“There must be some mistake. I can’t accept this.”
“The money is there for you,” said Fitzgerald Dandridge. “And will remain there for you. Asa wanted you to have it. And so do we. What you choose to do with it is your decision.”
Bolling’s eyes bore into the sheet, its neatly printed columns of figures marching before his eyes. Yankee money. Probably accumulated during the war at the expense of rebel blood. No, he thought. The price was too high. He wanted nothing from the Union but to be left alone.
“Maybe the money would make you happy.” Amanda’s words wafted across the ledger sheet toward his heart.
“Make me—”
“You’ve been so sad since you’ve returned from the war, Uncle Bolling. If this money would make you happy, you should accept it as the gift it’s meant to be.”
He looked over at Amanda, her pinched face pale and glowing. In her eyes, he saw the ravaged fields, ransacked home, torched barn, empty larder.
With the wealth represented by those impersonal figures printed on a sheet of paper, he could buy nourishing food to strengthen her, materials to rebuild her home and farm buildings, and tools to work the fields properly. How high would be the price if he didn’t accept the money?
He turned towards Fitzgerald and Claire-Marie Dandridge and slowly nodded his head.
“Thank you,” he said to them.
As soon as he uttered those words, Bolling was infused with a sense of redemption and rich purpose. And a heightened awareness. Before his mind’s eye a vision of crystal clarity escaped the confines of the ledger sheet and beckoned to him, inviting him to look at the blessings his actions had wrought.
It danced in front of him, its graceful steps showing him the path toward a future of sustained health and fulfilled potential for his loved ones. And, when he stumbled over its promises, it set him upright, guaranteeing those things on the blood of an oath made by an enemy in the grip of terror and thankfulness, at the heart of a battlefield in the wilderness.
© Laura Abbott
Mist everywhere. Thick. Suffocating. She reached out to it, trying to catch hold of that which had wrenched her out of time and place. Waves parted and the chaotic space before her clarified, assembling its colors, ordering itself. She was looking down upon a valley, its two ridges piercing remnants of the murk still lingering in her mind’s eye. As the fog receded, she could see gray uniforms snaking across one crest. On the other side of the valley, lines of blue-clad figures fanned out into battle formation.
And then it was gone. Her vision vanished along with the mist. Dizziness swept over her. Nausea twisted and clenched her stomach into a knot. She grabbed for the porch post. Traces of the spell remained, hovering over her like a shroud. She clung to the post’s slick wood, trying to ground herself in its comforting banality, yank herself away from the spectral scene, from the warning.
She jammed her mind into the present. Uncle Barton just painted this porch, last week. You helped him. It had been a hot Tuesday afternoon. She opened her eyes to the brilliant sun. Saw the cloudless sky and felt the smothering heat plastered against her skin. No unfamiliar ridges, no soldiers, no battle. Just a June morning in Winburg, Virginia in 1863—the third year of the War Against Northern Aggression.
Relief flooded through her. She was back in her own skin, in her own space. The Presence had left her. Praise God.
Just as she took a deep breath to steady her stomach, anvils of damp grayness pummeled her with no warning. Her knees buckled under their weight. She crumpled to the floor, her fingers splayed in front of her as she tried to find an anchor to hold her in the immediacy of the moment. The mist consumed her, and she was lost in cascading scenes portraying events yet to be.
She could see the rises more clearly. The Union line formed the shape of a fishhook. The hook began at a hill studded with white markers. A cemetery. Among the white monuments glittered the brass of artillery. Shining sheathes of bayonets marked infantry. Defining one boundary of the sacred ground stood a handsome gatehouse with the graceful sweep of a grand archway at its heart. The shank of the military formation ran along the ridge down to a pair of hills, one larger than the other.
The gray line mirrored the shape of the blue fishhook as it moved out, rippling across the wooded high ground, beginning to snake its way down the gentle slope toward the valley floor. Burnished gold gleamed as a rising sun seared through fog to reveal ripened wheat fields. The Confederates plunged into the midst of the grain, brushing aside the fat stalks, forming rivulets in their wake. Onward they waded toward the enemy, who clutched bristling rifles with tight hands.
The scene blurred, its images running together as if a hand smeared the colors on a canvas before the paint dried and set. She reached out, seeking a reference point, and the cavorting colors froze.
She looked at steeply sloped ground forming the shorter of the two hills she’d just viewed. It was a heavily timbered stretch with craggy granite outcroppings punctuating its sides, and jagged rocks and boulders littering its base. Southerners fought to gain a foothold on the treacherous landscape as enemy muskets blasted from the hilltop.
The blue line stretched thin at the hill’s crest, its left flank vulnerable to assault. As the Confederates pressed through the boulder-strewn woods, the line bent back upon itself until it almost formed a right angle with the colors at its point. Suddenly, bayonets rattled against rifle barrels, and Union soldiers charged the men in gray, their steel weapons piercing the mantle of fire and smoke.
The Southerners recoiled, swept down the hill by the savage and unparalleled gall of the Union men. Blood ran thick and free along the hillside and stood in puddles on the rocks. It seemed to stream into her eyes until she was blinded by a screen of red.
She fought for air, praying for release from the crimson sheets binding her. When the bloody shackles dropped away, she saw a different scene. A wave of Confederate gray emerged from a long stand of trees. The men, deployed in lines of battle, marched with perfect parade-ground order toward a low stone wall. Behind this wall waited Federal muskets, battle-ready.
The tide moved on, an endless surge of regiments and brigades, an ocean of gritty-eyed men, shoulder to shoulder. Their enemies opened fire. Solid shot plowed huge lanes in their columns, shells burst into their compact mass. Blasts of canister mowed them under like last season’s weeds and still they advanced toward the Federals with battle flags flying.
As the first line fell, the second wave of gray took over. It neared the stone wall. At its head ran a figure, brandishing a sword high in the air. A slouch hat had been jabbed into the tip of the saber. It sailed aloft, symbol of unrivaled courage, leading the men over the stone wall and into the carnage-strewn wreckage of a Union battery. The hat faltered and fell. Federals swarmed their attackers. Some Southerners threw down their arms and surrendered, others retreated over a field thick with the dead, the torn, the mangled.
Her last vision was of General Robert E. Lee, watching his men return to him in defeat. She heard him say, “All this has been my fault . . . it is I that have lost this fight.” As the scene dissolved, she heard a different voice lament, “I wish to God we’d never heard of this place called Gettysburg.”
She was aware of her body grabbing hold of the porch post, rising, and stumbling to a wicker chair. Her focus lingered in the other world, gathering fragments of her consciousness from the remote corners of her psyche.
It was a familiar experience. For all her twenty years, Regina Christine Page had coexisted with the Presence. Waves of presentiment invaded her life at unpredictable times, and she was unable to stem its tide. Like a diamond, the Presence had many facets. She’d managed to limit her acquaintance to its positive, glimmering surface. But the dark edges were always there, waiting in the vastness of a space that knew no boundaries and respected no limits. They flourished in the realm of the forbidden and foul, whispered to her of elements so evil, only a miniscule corner of her understanding could grasp it. Always, the invitation to plunge into their omnipotent depths danced before her.
She declined one more time.
With ferocious will she wrenched herself into the fullness of her present. Experience told her the shadowy presage bestowed upon her by the Presence had completed a tale which could become reality, or could be altered if the right steps were taken in time. Now, she must grapple with the knowledge she’d been given.
As she stepped to her desk and began writing a note, she stifled the rebellious anger she felt toward the Presence and the force it funneled into her. She’d put her volatile second sight to good use since the War had begun. Her forecasting had served the General well, especially after he had assumed command of the Army of Northern Virginia. Three crucial battles he’d won with assistance from her premonitions. Second Manassas, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville. But now, there was a place called Gettysburg. She had to warn her old family friend, Robert E. Lee. Because she knew with a certainty borne of a lifetime shared with the Presence, if Lee’s army went to Gettysburg, the Confederates would lose more than a battle. They would lose the war.
A hand settled on her shoulder. Regina turned to see her aunt hovering behind her.
“There’s news about Camponel,” Margaretta Page said in a fear-choked voice.
“He’s really claiming the town?”
The older woman nodded. “Colonel Camponel’s advance guard is within a day’s ride of Winburg, with the rest of his Federals a day behind them. The last of our brave boys are preparing to ride out. The town’s in a panic.”
“I never thought he’d make it this far into the Shenandoah Valley.” Regina stared at the letter cradled in her fingers. “It won’t be easy for me to get to the General. Captain Weintraub’s going to have his work cut out for him setting up the meeting.”
“Weintraub…you’re sending word to the General’s man? Then, you’ve seen something new!” The older woman threw up her hands. “No. Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. The Good Lord gave you a heavy burden when he bestowed second sight upon you.”
“What makes you think the Lord gave it to me?” Regina couldn’t keep the bitterness from her voice. She paused, her thoughts racing. “Do you think Cousin Martha would mind if I stayed with her a few days?”
“Of course not.” Margaretta studied her face. “What are you thinking, Regina?”
“I need to leave Winberg before Camponel arrives and seals the town. Weintraub could escort me to my meeting with the General from your cousin’s house. It’s so far from here—it stands a good chance of escaping the Federals’ notice.”
“I hate to see you put yourself at risk. It’s really so important you talk to Lee?”
“It really is. I’m going to change this note and have Rory leave with it, immediately. I’ll make my way to Martha’s as soon as I’m packed.”
“But the General’s ordered you to always wait here while Rory relays instructions from Weintraub.”
“I think he’ll understand why I altered the arrangements.”
“As long as you get out of here before Camponel’s Federals swarm over us.”
* * * *
Blistering wind whipped down the town’s main street, inciting dust into a frenzied funnel resembling a coiled snake. Bursting through the gauzy air, columns of blue uniforms strutted past the residents of Winburg, Virginia. Six regiments they numbered, each with a brass band blasting out its own version of “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” The clamoring notes, gaudy and dissonant, assaulted the good Confederate citizens with insolent bad taste.
At the edge of the din, he rode. Alone. Out in front of the cavalry.
Federal Colonel Deon Phillipe Camponel officially seized the town in the name of the Union. He and his men had materialized suddenly, two days before expected.
In spite of the sultry June day, a chill clutched Regina as she watched the approach of the commanding officer, his pet hound trotting next to him. He was a block away from her, and yet she felt him near, looming inches from her. She tried to breathe, her lungs benumbed as if assaulted by a blast of ice crystals.
“It’s the devil’s own in our midst,” her aunt said in her ear.
The devil’s own. The words rapped a grim tattoo in Regina’s head as Camponel and his black hound came ever closer. His reputation had preceded him. Winburg had become a prisoner of war camp with his arrival. He’d launched his tyrannical reign with an order forcing all residents out to the streets to watch his victory parade. Regina never had the chance to begin her trip to Cousin Martha’s.
She looked up as Camponel’s hooded eyes bore through her. Regina felt as if her body was slamming into dead space. Tentacles of airless shadows clawed at her throat, their fiendish energy threading inside her. They skittered away as his eyes passed over her to the others in her small group—her aunt and uncle, and their neighbors, the Baxters. He halted his horse. The hound slunk toward them.
As the animal sniffed at the toes of her shoes, Regina felt its scalding breath radiate to her feet, scale her legs. She stumbled back, seeking distance from the mutt. A low whistle pierced the fuming air, the dog lurched to its master, and the sinister procession moved on.
* * * *
The summons arrived later the same day. Just as Regina was preparing to sneak out of the house and attempt to reach Martha Page.
Camponel’s orderly stood in the doorway of Barton Page’s home, booted feet apart in a swaggering pose, smirk plastered across his face. Late afternoon sunlight glanced off his gold lace and epaulettes as he bowed to Margaretta in a derisive gesture.
“The Colonel presents his compliments. And requests your presence at his headquarters. Immediately, if you please.” The soldier sneered as the elderly woman swayed on her feet. Regina ran to her aunt’s side.
“What’s this all about?” she asked, then gasped as she looked over the orderly’s shoulder. Behind him, her Uncle Barton and the trio of elderly Baxters huddled, hemmed in by Federal soldiers.
She saw the orderly’s malignant smile, heard his soft voice say, “Don’t bother to pack anything, miss. It all belongs to us, now.”
Regina and her aunt joined the group as the plaintive cry of a whippoorwill soared over their heads. As she looked back at the beloved home she’d shared with her aunt and uncle since her parents’ deaths years before, Regina saw soldiers pouring through windows and doors, blanketing it like maggots feeding on a festering wound. Similar scenes confronted her as she and the others were marched toward Mayor Brice’s home—now Camponel’s headquarters.
The peaceful, prosperous town of Winberg had transformed into a tableau from hell. Shops, shuttered after word of Camponel’s approach had reached town, were gaping wounds of smashed glass through which soldiers carried away their plunder. Crowds of townspeople, turned out into the streets, clutched whatever they could grab in the few minutes they were given to vacate their homes. Cavalry horses ground to dust once graceful expanses of grass and gardens. Fruit trees stripped of their green crop began to wither in the unnatural heat.
Heavy-booted soldiers overran the town. Throngs of them lined the pavements, massed onto doorsteps, filled front yards. All the time, their menacing eyes watched Regina’s party with impudent curiosity.
Regina heard her aunt cry out, and she followed the older woman’s line of sight to see soldiers mauling the Powell’s home with axe and hammer. Portions of the roof shuttered and groaned under the attack, while half of the house lay exposed to the elements where the roof had already succumbed to the wrenching crow bars.
“Those folks annoyed the Colonel,” the orderly said of their longtime friends. “Camponel won’t put up with any of it, no sir! Best you remember it.” He turned into the front walk of the mayor’s home and saluted a pair of guards posted at the front door just as a band marched by. The rousing opening chords of the “Star Spangled Banner” accompanied the party into the house, a symbol of their capitulation in the face of military might.
Tears pricked at Regina’s eyes as she saw the ugly transformation the proud mansion had suffered in a handful of hours. Images of gouged wood paneling, a dismantled mahogany sideboard, tattered draperies rushed past her as the orderly herded her and the others into Mayor Brice’s study.
Camponel stood silhouetted by hot light streaming through a paladin window at the far end of the gracious room. His power seemed to impale her, rendering her helpless. Despair rose in her as she wondered if Rory had reached Captain Weintraub, then realized Lee’s liaison would be hard-pressed to get to her in the middle of an enemy camp. And yet, the imperative to warn the General was no less dire. She had to find a way to tell him of impending doom. With or without Weintraub’s help. And then her mind went blank as all thoughts were swatted aside, her focus shackled to the bullying force radiating from Camponel.
* * * *
Who is it? Which of these miserable wretches is the one?
With ruthless eyes, Colonel Camponel inspected the group of six. He was so close. He’d felt the Tide sweep over him as soon as they’d entered the room. The undercurrents from the Other Side flooded his senses, and euphoria rose within him.
The hound lying at his feet stiffened, snapped her head erect and growled. He snarled, “Quiet, Lilit!” She slumped, cowering before him.
One by one, he eyed them. Probing. Filtering out the trivial, sifting through the mundane.
He honed in on the vibration. It coursed pure and lush around the lovely, raven-haired girl. She possessed what he sought. He flicked a hand at the useless ones around her. “They can go back to their homes. Except for the young lady. She stays with me.”
He turned away, ignoring the sputters of protest, the anguished cries as they faded in the hallway. Elation arched through him. That which had been denied him would now complete him. His journey to the lands beyond the Abyss could begin.
Nana, are you proud of me? The memory of his grandmother, the Grand Dame of the Ancient Ones, warmed him. He’d worshipped at her feet. Learned her lessons of blood and flame, bone and ashes.
He remembered the flickering licks of fire reflecting off the Mississippi River. The May night in ’49 when St. Louis had burned. It had been so easy to manipulate the angry, pathetic wretch who’d lost his job on the steamboat, White Cloud. Only needed a whisper floating through the vacuous brain to ignite the mattresses piled on the ship’s deck. Camponel had incited the winds to complete the job, goading them to hurl the fickle sparks onto the wooden wharf and down the cramped city streets. Block after block had burned. Until the captain of the Missouri Volunteer Fire Brigade had engineered a fire break.
Camponel felt his fury surge as he remembered how the man had snuffed out the fire’s progress. Fool had saved much of the city. And while the youthful Camponel had floundered, slow to seek revenge against the man, Nana had acted. She’d blown up the idiot with his own explosives. Then unleashed her wrath onto the City, whipping a cholera epidemic into a fine fettle, ensuring that death incinerated those who had been saved from the inferno’s path.
She’d finished that lesson for him. Showing him once again that for all his scholarly excellence, he’d been able to grasp only traces of her Knowing. As grains of sand slip through netting and vanish, the fullness of her Ultimate Power had always eluded him.
She had joined with the Beast and journeyed through the Abyss without him. He lusted to follow in her footsteps. To pass into the Forbidden Realms, the unknown lands never charted by a map. To unite with the demons from a time before time. To dance with those who lay in wait beyond the boundaries of the world. And while the carrion birds shrieked his name as they flew into the marrow of Eternal Night, it was not enough. He would not be whole until he’d consummated his odyssey.
He knew how to fill the hollow place. The girl cringing behind him would give him the capacity to do it. He’d sensed her ability for months, tracking it like his dog works the ground to scent prey. He’d employed his arsenal of trickery to do it—bewitching his superior officers and his men. Pawns in his diabolical game, they’d aligned the pieces on the playing board of War to his specifications. Now, he was free to absorb the fullness of her Gift.
“No need to be afraid,” he said, his voice sweet and syrupy. He turned, arranging his harsh features into a gentle smile as he saw her nervous fingers grip the back of an armchair. “I know. I have quite a nasty reputation, don’t I?”
She nodded stiffly.
“Don’t worry, my dear. I mean you no harm.”
“My family… The Baxters…”
“Returned safely to their homes. I’m posting guards outside their houses to prevent my more…spirited men from bothering them in the future.” His smile widened, and he gestured for her to sit.
“What do you want from me?” she whispered. Fear fluttered in her eyes.
“I’d like to get to know you,” he purred. “We’re kindred spirits, after all. Please, make yourself comfortable.”
“What do you mean…kindred spirits?” She lowered herself onto the seat cushion as if it were embroidered with jagged glass.
“I know about you. The unique talent you possess.”
One delicate hand flew up to smooth the thick curls of hair gathered at the nape of her neck.
“I’m talking about your ability,” he cooed. “How long have you possessed it?”
“Excuse me?” Her voice was tremulous.
“Your Sight.”
She turned pale, gathering her periwinkle cotton skirt into bunches on her lap.
“Please relax, my dear,” he soothed. “I’m here to help you. Now then, I was asking you about your visions, I believe.”
“How could you know about—?”
“As I said, we’re kindred spirits.” He sat near her, Lilit settling against his immaculate riding boots with a contented sigh. “You can talk to me about it, you know. I understand how difficult it is to live with the extraordinary.” He saw turmoil churn in her cobalt blue eyes, and he stifled a smile. She was trying to decided whether or not to trust him. He had her exactly where he wanted her.
“You…you do?”
“I have similar talents.” He leaned toward her, adding in a confiding voice, “It’s more a curse than a blessing, isn’t it?”
She dropped her eyes. “Sometimes.”
Her power burdens her. She fights it off.
“I could make it easier for you.” His tone gentled her.
“I don’t understand.”
“Relieve you of your burden. I could help you to live a normal life. Which is what you’ve always wanted, isn’t it? To live like everyone else, like regular folk. In the here and now.”
She nodded.
“I have the capacity to remove the Power from you. So your wish will come true.”
“But I use it…to help people…”
“But it isn’t all good, is it Regina? You sense the other dimension of it. You avoid the darkness, don’t you?”
As tears welled in the corner of her eyes, he felt elation building. He was winning her over. She’d surrender without a fight.
“I refuse that side.”
“But it’s always there, frightening you. It doesn’t have to, you know. Not any longer. Not if you allow me to shoulder it for you.” He was at his seductive best. He gloated as he saw temptation shining in her face. Then, he saw her eyes cloud over.
“But I help people. It’s important for me to help…” She stiffened and swiped at her eyes with a defiant hand. “You don’t understand how crucial it is. As long as I can do good …” Her eyes began blazing. Regina straightened, and he saw her spirit swirl around her. Intense, potent. Building. She would resist him, after all. If given the chance.
He sensed her superior talent and knew he couldn’t allow her to tap into her potential. He had no choice but to break her in body and will, and take her Gift by force. Throwing himself out of his chair, he kicked the hound out of his way and stalked to the door. “Flournoy!” he bellowed. “Get her out of here.”
* * * *
Stygian air enveloped Regina, robbed her of perspective. She waved a hand in front of her to avoid running into a stone wall as she paced the windowless, tiny room. She’d lost all sense of time after Camponel had moved her from Mayor Brice’s house to the abandoned cottage outside of town. She remembered the moldering place from her childhood, wrapped in brooding sadness, with a hint of tragedy wafting about it…as if some festering evil infected it and anyone foolish enough to penetrate its unspeakable mysteries.
The door flung open and a crimson glow invaded the room. The light pierced Regina’s eyes, sending a shaft of pain blading through her head.
“Come.”
She strained to see in the unearthly light. She’d heard Camponel’s voice but saw only his hound outlined in the doorway. The dog turned and she followed it into the heart of the cottage.
He sat in an immense ebony chair, swathed in a black robe, red light pulsing around him. Her aching eyes glanced off his swarthy face and landed on a large metal staff he held in one hand. Intricate patterns danced around it. Her eyes stuck to the patterns, pinned in place by an influence she could not fight. A wave of blazing heat assaulted her, and a stench of unbearable intensity oozed up her nostrils.
“I see recognition in your eyes,” said Camponel. “Somewhere in the deep recesses of your Awareness, you feel something stirring, don’t you?”
She ripped her attention away from the glimmering surface and watched the hound stretch and yawn before the blazing hearth at the opposite end of the room. The cur turned over on her back, legs dangling at her sides, and fixed a baleful eye on Regina.
She turned back to him. “When will you release me? You must let me go!”
Camponel sighed. “You are such a disappointment.” He walked to a window and flung open wooden shutters. Dank night air streamed into the room. He lifted his arms toward the full moon and Regina saw a spear of moonlight strike the staff. The engraved symbols glowed, pulsing a rhythm known to her. Fear shot through her as she felt cloying currents streaming from the rod.
“That’s energy from the Other Side,” Camponel whispered.
“I’ve sensed it all my life,” she stammered. Vibrations snaked into Regina’s chest, up to her head. They lashed at her eyes and constricted her mind. Her fear had turned to terror.
Camponel’s steely eyes raked over her. “You know more than I thought.”
The stench grew stronger in the room. Regina choked.
“Behold!” His voice lashed at her as he pointed to one of the symbols on the staff.
“The Mark of the Shroud,” she whispered. “The last warning seen by the Cursed before…”
“Before what?”
“Before they die,” she heard herself say. Horror overwhelmed her, and she sank to her knees before him.
“And this!”
“The Sign of Erubus. God help me, it’s the Sign of Erubus, the key to the Threshold of Hades.”
“Very good.”
“Please… I can’t stand this!”
“Poor dear. Your own fear is breaking your will before my very eyes.”
“I…I can’t control it. I’m seeing…too much…”
“Yes, you are. You can’t close the door to the Other Side once it’s opened. Now then, the third sign. Tell me.”
“No.”
“Tell me!” he roared.
“The Stamp of the Amber Wraith.”
“Who is the Amber Wraith?”
Regina’s hands covered her head, her thick hair escaping its confining rolls to stream through her twitching fingers.
“Who is the Amber Wraith?” he pressed.
“He’s sent by the Elder Ones. To keep vigil over the dying.”
A bottomless void unfurled before her and she was soaring over it. She looked down, realizing she had passed beyond the familiar surface of the Presence.
Camponel’s voice floated to her: “You are in the Hell of the Black Edges.”
She plunged toward the screaming abyss, miasmal vapors wreathing around her.
“It can destroy you, Regina.”
Closer she dropped, the heat unbearable. The chasm beckoned to her.
“I can destroy you.”
She flung a hand in front of her face, attempting to block the sight. Seeking a way to resist Camponel. To reach the General.
Crimson light blinded her and she fell into a deep sleep.
* * * *
She awakened in the tiny room. A wave of hopelessness washed over her as she recognized the squalid surroundings. She felt limp and spent. Only her mind moved.
Think! There has to be a way out of this place. Some way to escape Camponel and find Weintraub.
She sat up, cradling her head in her hands. Perhaps Weintraub would rescue her. If he could find her. If he could elude the Federals.
A howl erupted outside the room, digging spikes of pain into the air around her. The sound died, swallowed by a silence, thick and deep. The door flung open and sunshine flooded the mean space. Weintraub stood before her.
“I don’t believe it,” she whispered. “Are you a dream?”
“I’ve no time to explain. We have to get out of here before Camponel gets back. Can you walk, my dear?”
She staggered toward him. His strong hands steadied her. Over his shoulder, Regina saw Camponel’s hound lying in a pool of blood.
She pulled back and looked at Weintraub. “The dog!”
“It was guarding your room. I had to kill it.”
Regina shivered as she stepped over the dead animal, keeping her eyes focused on the open cottage door through which a stand of sun-drenched trees was visible. Once outside, she inhaled deeply, enjoying the sensation of fresh air filling her lungs. Turning to the older man with a smile, she stopped in her tracks, staring at his attire. “What—?” He wore the uniform of a Union captain.
“The General’s at Culpeper, and he wants to talk to you directly. Which means we have to travel through country crawling with Federals, without being noticed. This”—he gestured to his garb—“is our best chance of accomplishing the feat.” He hurried Regina toward a pair of horses tethered in the woods, scanning the area as he did so. After he’d settled her in the saddle, he asked, “Can you shoot?”
“I’ve been handling guns since I was a child.”
“Good girl!” He handed her a pistol. “Keep this out of sight. I hope we won’t need it but…”
As the pair threaded their horses through thick tangles of Virginia trees, Regina fired questions at him. He answered them with gentle tolerance.
Rory had reached him in record time, safe and sound. Once Weintraub realized Regina was not at her cousin’s house, he’d used his Federal identity and a handful of gold pieces to locate Camponel’s lair.
“Your aunt and uncle are well. They’re waiting for you at home,” Weintraub concluded. “Seems all Camponel really wanted was you.”
“But now, since I’ve escaped him—”
Weintraub turned in the saddle and looked at her with sad eyes. “We talked about it, last night. They understand the importance of your work, Regina. They send you their love and support.”
Just as Regina began to relax, shots exploded over her head. Three mounted Federals crashed out of the woods and blocked the path with guns drawn.
Regina only saw Camponel’s scorching eyes.
He mocked her with his salute, then trained his pistol on Weintraub. “If you would be so kind as to divest yourself of your sidearm, sir!”
The weapon hit the parched ground with a thud.
Camponel grinned at Regina. “So sorry, my dear. But, you didn’t really think I’d let you get away, even though you and your friend did give it a good try.”
“How—?”
“Never underestimate me, Regina. I always get what I want.”
Camponel slashed Weintraub with furious eyes. “You didn’t have to kill Lilit. That hound was a better being than any human I’ve ever known. You will pay for what you did.” He cocked his gun and pulled the trigger.
The dull click resounded through the woods as the weapon refused to fire.
Weintraub whipped a small pistol from his boot top, shouting, “Regina! Get the one on the right!”
Two shots rang out in rapid succession. The men on either side of Camponel fell from their horses.
“Now your sidearm, sir!” snapped Weintraub, his pistol cocked, ready. “You will stand down and surrender to me.”
“I will never surrender in this lifetime!”
A gun fired. The shot left a small dot of red on Camponel’s chest. It blossomed as his lifeless body fell from his horse.
The scream came from Regina’s throat. The festering horror of all she’d experienced let loose. She thought it would rip apart her throat.
Weintraub helped her down from her horse as a storm of tears broke across her face. He wrapped comforting arms about her. “It’s over, Regina,” he said through her sobs. “Come now, girl. You did what you had to do. Pull yourself together. The General is waiting.”
She took a shaky breath, looking up to thank him.
And screamed again.
From Weintraub’s eyes oozed a red-hot pus that pulled at their corners, tugging until they gave way and disappeared into the steaming stream. Skin covering his forehead followed the fiery course, lapping over the empty eye cavities, sealing them shut. The nose caved into his skull, a savage hiss erupting as flesh and bone fused into sizzling energy.
His mouth twitched and struggled to form sound. She heard a stuttering gasp before the tender lips, ignited by the primeval current, shriveled. And vanished.
The horrific effluence ceased its destructive course and a new face took shape.
Camponel.
His savage eyes sparkled at her as the last remnants of Weintraub vanished and Camponel’s completed form loomed over her. Foul light from the Opened Gate emanated from him.
She found herself clinging to the brink of the Abyss, her mind screaming.
He was shot. He should be dead.
* * * *
Camponel smoothed the collar of his robe and sat back in the ebony chair, eyeing Regina. She lay in a heap before him, encased in a black robe. He saw her stir, open her eyes, and labor through her terror. He smiled, delighted at her frail attempts to stand. He’d left her unattended in the tiny cottage room for days. Starving her. Denying her water. She fell back onto the stone floor, too feeble to move.
“I trust I’ve made my point,” he whispered.
At the sound of his voice, she jerked her head upright, as if a wire had pulled it. “Weintraub…” She stared at Lilit, who lounged next to him. “…the dog’s death… None of it was real.”
“Nothing is real in this flimsy existence.” He stretched lazily, yawning. “Think of the experience as an object lesson, my dear. Now you understand the magnitude of my will.”
“I tried to fight you. I thought I’d won. I thought I’d killed you.”
“Silly to waste your stamina resisting me.”
“You really are the Devil’s Own.”
He smiled. “Ah yes. Those were your aunt’s words.” His smile widened at her look of surprise. “Of course I heard her,” he crowed. “I’m capable of many things, as you’re learning.” He reached down and scratched Lilit behind her ears. The dog leaned into his touch.
“Why can’t you let me go? What have I ever done to you?”
“My dear, you grow tiresome.” He added in a conspiratorial tone, “Now, if you surrender your Gift to me, I might consider setting you free.”
He waited for the look of hope to spring into her eyes. Instead, a whisper of rebellion drifted across her trembling flesh.
“The General has to know…”
She still puts up a fight, pathetic and puny though it is.
He turned away, dismissing her. She hadn’t even been a worthy opponent.
“There’s nothing more you can do for your precious general. I’ve weakened you so you can no longer reach him without help. And there’s no one to help you, my dear. Weintraub is dead.”
The silence greeting his words felt unnatural, foreboding. He shrugged off his uneasiness, chuckling at his imagination, convincing himself the sensation coursing through him was anticipation of his long-awaited triumph.
The roar crashing through the still air behind him told him otherwise. He started in fear as the sound gave way to tangles of crimson light curling into the space before him, cavorting in an unholy, gleaming dance. From the bowels of the lucent glow he heard a moribund voice: “I have enough left for you. And you’re not beyond my reach.”
The words flashed across the room, twisting into the heart of his Knowledge.
He turned and looked into febrile eyes festering with an unearthly glow. Her eyes.
Even as her broken body remained still, her spirit rose, seeming to gather strength with each passing second. She glared at Lilit, who crept into a far corner of the cottage, whimpering. The witch-light cascaded over her robe. It fused with the Sacred Spiral, and the two gyrated around her.
Her cobalt eyes insulted him. He heard his own voice stream from her mouth: “You can’t close the door to the Other Side once it’s opened.” She continued in her own voice. “You told me that. Remember?”
“This can’t be. I destroyed your body. Used your own fear to break your will. No one in your condition can summon the Source this quickly.”
“Yes, you were well on your way to break me. That I’ll grant you. But you’ve continued to push me. Play with me. And my desperation has led me to seek corners of my being I never knew existed until now. Suddenly, I realized that going to the End Of It All can’t be worse than what you’re doing to me. You’ve impelled me to see the magnitude of my power. Now, you must face the consequences.”
“I don’t believe you. I won’t be bested by the wretched likes of you.” He floundered through rising panic, intent upon capturing the fullness of her Gift, only to find himself flailing in empty phosphorescence.
Raven hair streamed down her back as she flung back her head and howled in unison with the clamoring voices from the Other Side.
“But, you’re afraid of your Power.” He shrank from the scalding mantle of the Ancient Ones flanking her dying form.
“You’ve destroyed my chance to use the Knowledge in the Positive Realm. You’ve destroyed my physical being. I have no reason to fear the blackness, now. And nothing to lose. But you do. Handle me, if you can.”
The Power rushed toward him, glittering like a gem. Its infinite edges slashed and cut the air, and he became mesmerized by their exquisite beauty. They invaded him, their razor-kiss ripping into his core, thrusting, stabbing. He was engulfed in mind-numbing agony, unable to withstand their piercing splendor.
Crimson light turned to blood-filled tears. The Gate to the Forbidden Realms slammed shut before him and he clawed at its freezing surface. He called upon the throne of the Elder Gods, begged for help at the Center of the Beast. He beseeched the Grand Dame of the Ancient Ones, shrieking her name with soundless desperation.
They taunted him with profound silence.
Only Regina’s voice reached him with devastating finality: “You are doomed to live with that for which you’ve always yearned. Your fate is sealed. I may not be able to help the General, now, but I can save the Known World from you forever.”
He found himself trapped in the Abyss, shackled by pain, blinded by an insight too brilliant for him to absorb. He ceased struggling and surrendered to her.
* * * *
The black hound stumbled to the pair of cold robes, collapsed onto them, and breathed her last. The empty stone cottage shuddered and was still.
Miles away, Lee’s Confederate troops prepared to move north. Within days they would cross the Potomac, enter Pennsylvania.
And fight a battle in a town called Gettysburg.
© Laura Abbott