DEIRDRE
1881
Deirdre pulled her cotton wrapper over her shift and sat on the hope chest at the foot of her bed, carved of cedar and decorated with circular, multicolored hexes. Her mind spun with everything that had happened since yesterday. Gentry and his healing. The sudden flood. Her strange vision in Sutter’s holler. None of it seemed to fit together.
Downstairs, her parents were arguing, Mama’s voice rising and falling in waves. “You’re blind to her ways, Jakob. She’s been willful while you’ve been away.” Mama knocked a spoon handle against a pot for emphasis. “She’s help to me when her mind’s not addled with that Cash boy, but you’ve spoilt her.”
“She’s not a little girl anymore, Nola. You were younger than she when we married. It’s fitting for her to want her own life. Suitors.Robbie Cash may not be to your liking, but if he comes to me and asks for her hand, I’ll give my blessing.”
Deirdre smiled. Pa approved of Robbie! It was all she needed to hear.
“The women talk about what he gets up to.” Mama hissed the words low, but Deirdre still heard them. “Don’t you want better for her?”
“Mountain biddies talk when they’ve nothing better to do. My concern is with that preacher you let on the place. A man like that would bring Deirdre worse than heartache, just like he brought my mother. His kind don’t fit well with our own.”
“A minister? Surely a man of God ...”
“He’s no man of God,” Pa said with a finality clean as a postal stamp. “We need to hide Deirdre away. Protect her.”
“To soothe your mind, we could send her to the Bledsoes’ for a spell, to help Mrs.Bledsoe and the new baby,” Mama said softly. “Hannah likes Deirdre and would be glad for the help.” Mama sighed. “You and I need time to ourselves, besides. I’ve missed you, husband.”
Pa whispered something too low for Deirdre to hear, and a girlish giggle bubbled from Mama’s throat. Deirdre’s face blazed with indignance. Mama had used her wiles to sway Pa into doing her bidding once more. But going to Hannah’s would give Deirdre the chance to be out from under Mama’s watch, and she could earn money of her own to put toward her wedding. She’d seen a fine bolt of ivory satin at the mercantile she could fashion into a gown.
Deirdre would finally have everything she wanted now that Pa was home.
A few moments passed, then Pa’s footsteps echoed down the hall. He climbed up the ladder with a book clasped against his chest and sat beside her on the trunk, his eyes weary.
“I heard you and Mama,” Deirdre said quietly. “Heard you say you’d give your blessing if Robbie asked for it.” She clasped Pa’s callousedhand. “Oh, Pa ... being Robbie’s wife is what I want more than anything. We could have the wedding this summer—by June, even, if we make things official now.”
“There’ll be time for wedding talk later, Deirdre Jane. There are more important things we need to talk about first.” Pa opened the strange book carefully and placed it on Deirdre’s lap. It was old, worn around the edges, with fragile pages made of pressed wood pulp and leather parchment. It smelled of musty leaves. She had no idea Pa even owned such a thing.
“What is it?”
“Your Oma’s grimoire. HerZauberbuch. It’s a book of knowledge. Recipes and secret charms. My Opa Friedrich brought it over from the old country. His mother wrote all her wisdom on its pages and sent it with him. She knew he would have a daughter someday who might learn from it. My mama studied it and carried on the tradition herself, so that you might haveherknowledge when the time came. If I’m not mistaken, it’s time.” He studied her, narrowing his eyes. “You must learn as much as you can from this book, Deirdre, so that you might guard yourself from those who would seek to beguile or harm you. You must always come to the book with clear intentions. Asyouwill, the book provides, for good or for ill. Seek always to do no harm.”
Deirdre carefully turned the pages of the grimoire, her fingers trembling. Some of the writing was in German, some in English. There were recipes for herbal cures and poultices, as well as illustrations of animals and the human form. Deirdre’s breath caught in her throat when she turned to a page with a drawing of a locust tree, its branches in flame. She traced it with her fingertip. A strange warmth seemed to radiate from the paper. “It’s that tree by your old home place. The one they burned her on.”
Pa’s jaw clenched. “You saw something down in the holler, didn’t you, Deirdre?”
Deirdre nodded. “Yes. I’ve been having visions for a long time, Pa. But this one was different. There was a woman. They burned her, just like the stories people talk about. Did that really happen? Back then?”
“It did. That woman you saw—Anneliese—she was my mother. Your Oma.”
Deirdre shuddered. Pa had never told her how his mother had died. He’d barely even spoken of her. Deirdre had only ever known Oma Elizabeth, who had raised Pa.
“Why did they kill her?”
Pa scrubbed his hand over his face. “I was only five years old. I remember only a little. The nightmares, mostly. Oma Elizabeth told me more, over the years, once I got to an age where I could understand it. A preacher came to town from out east. He took a shine to Mama and started calling on her. She was taken with his ways. At first. And then he changed. Grew mean.”
He rose and went to stand in front of the open window. The breeze flicked at the curtains and brought the murky scent of wet earth. “That preacher—Nathaniel Walker—saw the way Mama charmed people and wanted what she had. He wanted her land, wanted her healing gifts for his ministry. Wanted her for his wife. When she spurned him, he grew angry. Turned the townsfolk against her. Claimed she was a witch—the devil’s own mistress. He came up the mountain that spring with his mob. She hid me away, in that trunk you’re sittin’ on, and made me promise to give you her book, when the time came, because she knew he would come back for you, too. The spirit that’s inside him ... has long stalked our kin.”
“You’re saying Gentry’s the same man? How can that be, Pa?” With Gentry’s youthful looks, he couldn’t be older than Pa. It was impossible.
“Maybe he is, and maybe he’s not. There are strange things in this world. I can’t seek to explain them all. All I know is, I’ve been dreaming of Mama lately. Felt a strong pull home. I’ve always had a knowing—the smallest measure of her gifts, but you have the wealth of them, Deirdre.The gifts in our family are passed from grandmother to granddaughter. With those gifts comes danger. I’ve known you’ve had the healing touch since you were a girl. Do you remember Millie?”
Deirdre nodded. Millie had been their redtick coonhound, her constant companion when she was a girl. “Yes, I remember her.”
“She was in labor with her first litter of pups and having a hard time of it. Nearly died. You laid down next to her, put your little hands on her belly, whispered in her ear, and eased her way. She brought four puppies, all of them hale and hearty.”
