“Mrs. Cowley said the face wasn’t recognizable.”
“No,” Sally agrees. “But a mother knows her own child.”
“It won’t work,” the man says. “It’s too complicated to arrange, and to what end?”
Sally begins to argue, then stops herself. Maybe he’s right. Who would want to know that her child suffered for two long days, surrounded by strangers? Perhaps it’s better for all these mothers to think that their daughters died instantly, that they didn’t suffer?
“Do you have anyone else for us?” the man asks as they arrive back on the porch.
Sally thinks of Margaret upstairs. “No one,” she says firmly.
She watches the men carry the girl down the steps and into the throng of people moving toward the theater’s ruins. The girl gets smaller and smaller, but as Sally watches her disappear into the crowd, something in her snaps.
Without stopping to think about what she is doing, she dashes down the steps and into the procession, cutting and weaving her way through the mourners, until she catches sight of the girl once more. She follows her all the way to the theater site, where the procession comes to a halt.
In the center of what was once the pit, a wide hole yawns open, and the men lay the girl down beside a few other bodies, a pair of oversized mahogany coffins, and an assortment of urns. Reverend Buchanan, who is leading the service, urges the mourners to come as close as they can, and those who can hear him do as they’re told. “We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” He begins to read Psalm 39, but Sally doesn’t hear the words. All she can do is stare at the small white bundle laying on the edge of the abyss and wonder at a Lord who would give the women in the theater neither the capacity to protect themselves nor the ability to articulate the barbarousness of their experiences. This poor girl’s story—and that of so many others—will be buried with her.
After Reverend Buchanan has given his homily, the pallbearers use an ugly system of ropes to lower the boxes and urns into the oversized grave. Sally has a hard time watching the scene unfold, but she forces herself to remain where she is and to confirm that the girl has gone in the ground. When the body has disappeared into the gaping hole, Sally bows her head and says a private prayer. Then she immediately turns to go.
“Excuse me,” she says quietly as she slips through the crowd and retraces the same path she took three days’ prior—across the green—to Mrs. Cowley’s.
In Margaret’s room, the old woman keeps vigil.
“How is she?” Sally asks.
“No better, no worse.”
Sally offers to sit with her, and Mrs. Cowley stands to go.
“Have you some paper and a pen?” Sally asks as her hostess prepares to take her leave.
“Of course.”
And because Sally feels she owes her some explanation, she says, “I was thinking I might write my own account of the fire. While the details are still fresh in my mind.”
“For theEnquirer?” Mrs. Cowley asks, doubtful.
Sally sighs. “There is no chance Mr. Ritchie will publish it.”
“I would have been surprised.”
“No, it will have to be enough to write it for myself. And for Margaret. For Margaret’s children. And perhaps, if I am very lucky, my own.”
CECILY
Are you about ready togo?” Samuel asks Cecily after he has hitched the chaise to a horse.
Cecily looks around the barn, to be sure she has left no trace of herself behind. The free papers are on her person, and the remnants of her old life—her dress, her socks, her boots—are packed away inside Louisa Mayo’s valise. In her pocket, she carries the bird her papa carved, hopeful that it will bring her luck. “I’m ready as I’ll ever be,” she tells Samuel as she rubs the bird’s wings with the tip of her crooked finger.
Samuel walks around to the side of the chaise’s coupe and opens the door, like he’s a footman and she’s some fine lady who’s used to being helped into and out of carriages. He takes her bag, then offers her his hand so she can climb up into the seat. It’s trickier than the ladies make it look—managing her skirt and the tiny little footstep at the same time, all while wearing such ridiculous shoes. When she is seated, he hands her the bag and she clutches it to her chest.
“I was going to tell you to keep the curtains drawn, but I think that, in the middle of the day, that might draw more attention to you. So, just sit low in your seat, and keep your bonnet down.”
“I can do that.”
“Of course, if we’re stopped, I want you to sit up straight and tall, and act like you got every right in the world to be there.”
Cecily smiles. “I can do that, too.”
