Read Online Dawn on a Distant Shore by Sara Donati - Free Book Online Page A

away from her face with the back of
her hand. "What was what?"
    Confused, Elizabeth
settled back into the rocker. "I heard something. Perhaps I was dreaming."
    "About my
father," Hannah concluded.
    With a yawn she could
barely hold back, Elizabeth pulled the pillows that supported the twins closer
to her. There were longer pauses now between gulps, and soon they would be
asleep. Elizabeth thought of the cradle and her own bed in the other room, but
she was simply too weary to move, and she let herself drift back toward sleep
just where she was. For three weeks now she had never had as much as three
hours of continuous rest; it was no surprise if she was beginning to confuse
waking and sleeping dreams.
    Hannah looked worn
down, too. All day long she worked, she and Liam with Curiosity's help, to keep
the household running, food on the table, the firewood stacked, the hearth
cleaned. Seldom did Elizabeth miss her girlhood home, but she found herself
thinking more and more these days of Aunt Merriweather's legions of servants. At
Oakmere, little girls had been free to be little girls.
    As long as they
weren't overly interested in the contents of the library, she reminded herself.
    Voices outside, coming
closer. Liam and Curiosity, and perhaps one of Curiosity's daughters or Martha
Southern, up from the village to bring a covered dish or a pound of butter, for
they kept no cow here on the mountain. She had good neighbors; they did what
they could to help. Elizabeth knew that she should rouse herself, put the
babies in their cradle, her clothing to rights, comb out her hair, wash her
face, make tea, help with the corn bread, the endless laundering of swaddling
clothes, the mending. The ash barrel, the candle box, the spindle, the mortar
and pestle--they all called out to her. But the fire crackled peaceably and the
babies were so heavy, pinning her down to her chair, to the earth itself: it felt
as if she would never be able to stand on her own two feet, to move
unencumbered, ever again.
    And still, and still.
She could not look at them without having her throat close with tears that were
equal parts exhaustion and joy: Mathilde's round cheeks working rhythmically
even in her sleep; Daniel's small hand spread out on the white skin of her
breast.
    Voices closer still;
Hannah listening now, too, her head cocked to one side, plaits swinging free to
her waist. Curiosity must be in the middle of a story. She had so many of them,
but the children were always asking for more. They were all storytellers, these
people who carved out lives for themselves on the edge of the frontier. It
would be years before she had heard all of Nathaniel's.
    With her husband's
image foremost in her mind, Elizabeth finally let sleep claim her, thinking of
the stories he might bring back with him from Montréal, and wondering how much
longer it would be before she would hear his voice again.
    Deeply asleep, she did
not see the flush of excitement and pleasure on Hannah's face at the sound of
steps on the porch. Her chores forgotten, Elizabeth and the babies forgotten,
Hannah flew across the room as the door opened for the travelers: her aunt Many-Doves
with a wide smile and a cradleboard peeking over her shoulder; Doves' husband, Runs-from-Bears,
grinning at her as he swung a willow carry-frame to the floor; and Falling-Day,
wrapped in a mantle of fisher pelts the same deep color as her eyes and hair,
so much like Hannah's own. With small sounds of welcome, of relief, of joy
beyond bearing, Hannah flung herself into her grandmother's open arms.
     

5
     
    The Somervilles'
basement kitchen was as deep and dim as a cave, but there was nothing cool about
it: the combined heat of hearth and ovens had set even the walls to sweating.
From a remote corner where they were supposed to be waiting to resume their day-long
card game with Martin Fink, Nathaniel and Robbie watched the man scramble to
send course after course up to Giselle and her guests.
    She hadn't lost