River

Margaret

It has been days now that I have been Mrs. Stephen Duncan, yet each morning it still takes me by surprise. I am filled with love, with bliss, with joy, and in the nighttime, I am filled with him.

I smile to myself. That would have made me blush a week ago. Now it only makes me wish for more. Mama told me that my husband would want it on the wedding night, but she never told me how much I would want it too. The more I have it, the more I crave his body. It is astonishing to consider that this rapturous act would be considered a sin were we not married to each other. Apparently we get to enjoy it just as much as we please without fearing for our souls, even though it does feel sinfully delicious.

“What are you thinking about?” I hear him murmur in my ear from behind. He has caught me again, dreaming of him, as I lean over the rail on the keelboat watching the banks of the Mississippi river drift past on our way to New Orleans. His hands reach around me, wrap my shoulders in his embrace, and I lean back against him.

“You.”

He laughs, throaty and low. “I hoped that was what it was. You had the most wicked little smile on your face.” I feel his fingers moving my hair aside, and a line of kisses being placed along my neck. I close my eyes and revel in the sensation.

I’m no longer embarrassed by this public display of affection. The crew of the boat pays us no mind. I believe that they often ferry honeymooning couples south to New Orleans, and they are not scandalized by our actions.

I’m glad, because I would never want this to stop.

Ayola’s

My beloved’s life has transformed in the past few days, but she accepts the changes with an eerie calm. The trauma of seeing her mother injured is tempered by the comfort of being in the home of her beloved Woosh. They have spent a great deal of time together, touching each other, and often combining to touch Dalila as one, their powerful Seer souls amplifying each other to make the extraordinary healing energy of their touch even more effective.

This has tremendously accelerated Dalila’s recovery. The lash wounds have closed and faded, leaving lines that will scar her body for the rest of her life, but the physical injury is healed. Even the aftereffects of the miscarriage have been mostly healed, her body restoring itself after the trauma that she suffered.

The emotional effects are more subtle, but those too are responding to the touch of the Seers. Dalila will carry with her always not only the scars on her skin, but the sorrow in her heart. However, it begins to fade already.

Gregor learned earlier this year that the touch of a Seer has healing properties. This is something that his mentor had demonstrated, but Gregor never previously much attempted to utilize the skill. It was for the benefit of Rosalind that he had made a specific effort for the first time, and again in the wake of the turmoil at Ellis Cliffs.

It surprises him how naturally it occurs now that he has started focusing on the phenomenon. He touches a person in need, and a healing energy flows forth. It did not help Mrs. Ellis, so he surmises that there are some illnesses too severe for his touch to be effective. But otherwise he grows confident in his previously ignored ability.

My own little Seer follows his lead. She has always instinctively used her touch to comfort her mother, and this appears no different to her, only more frequent and focused.

She begins to grow and develop in an accelerated way, the longer she spends in Gregor’s company. Wolk and I have often discussed the comparative abilities of our two Seers. Some aspects are clearly instinctive, and apparently universal to Seers, such as the healing touch.

Some appear more individual. Ayola has an empathic sense which Wolk has told me that Gregor’s mentor seemed to share. She literally senses the emotions of her mother. But Gregor himself, although conscious of the emotional state of others, does not appear to feel this as keenly and instinctively as does Ayola. His primary motivation appears to be more a matter of secrecy and self-preservation than simple empathy. When he focuses on the needs of others, he does so deliberately and consciously, rather than by a mechanism over which he has no control.

It will be interesting to observe as Ayola grows older to see how her empathic trait will influence her life.

In the meantime, her basic human skills are precociously developing as well. She is 13 months old now, still essentially an infant, but her vocabulary has expanded to the point that she is nearly holding conversations. She understands almost everything that is said around her, and she follows along with Gregor’s speech. And, of course, with mine.

We have both told her that her current stay at Gregor’s home is only for a brief visit. She understands that she and her mother will be moving to a new home soon. It makes her sad to think of leaving Woosh, but he has assured her that he will visit frequently. He intends to visit Homochitto at least one or two times per week.

He is not sure this is really even something under his control. Ayola is not the only one who longs for his company. He might not plaintively ask for “Woosh” as she has done in his absence, but the more time they spend with each other, the more entangled they seem to become.

Wolk and I believe there will come a time when they cannot be parted from each other at all.

How will this impact their lives? Only time will tell.

Nadine

It is a real project, trying to mend this dress. I was able to get the stains out eventually, after numerous tries with scrubbing and soaking. But it wasn’t just torn. It looks like the entire bodice was rent clean down the middle, and I have been hard-pressed to get it back into decent shape for her. She has just been wearing the light shift from Rosalind, but she will need something more substantial to wear when she goes home.

Gregor comes in to the kitchen from the side door, where I am working on the dress at the table while everybody else is busy with other things.

“Can I get you something, Gregor?” I ask him, moistening the end of the thread with my mouth so that I can push it through the eye of the needle.

“Nah, I’m just passing through.” He stops and looks at my project. “What are you working on there?”

“I’m just trying to mend Dalila’s dress for her.”

I am surprised to see an expression of horror cross his face. “Oh, god!” he exclaims.

“What’s wrong?” I ask him, alarmed.

“The dress that she was wearing when she suffered would be better relegated to the trash heap, don’t you think?”

“Well,” I say practically, “I don’t see any reason to waste a dress that can be repaired. I’m almost finished with it.”

He shakes his head. “I tell you what. You can go ahead and complete it, and give it to her to keep if she wants it, but for her to go home in, can you please just go to the mercantile and buy a replacement for her? You can tell the size, right? From the measurements of the one you are working on?”

“Yes, of course, but -“

He cuts me off. “I want her to have a new dress. Do you have time today to go to the mercantile? You can take Moses with you to carry things if you have a list of other items as well. Just put it on my account.”

“Very well, Gregor, if you insist. We can go this afternoon.”

Moses

Dalila has healed remarkably well in the few days that she has been here. She likes to spend time in the garden, next to the tiny gravesite where they buried the baby that she had lost. Again, Gregor and his wife are the most unusual people I have ever met. Who else could have imagined having a little funeral service for the unborn baby of a slave? But I am sure that it was one of the things that has helped her find healing here.

She has also begun to spend time with me, often sitting in the garden and watching while I tend the vegetables there, her little girl held in her lap as they sit on a bench nearby. We have started talking, telling each other tales of our childhoods.

The vegetables remind her of the garden that her mother grew at home, although the vegetables that grew in her village were different. She carries with her so many sorrows, not just what has been done to her, but the longing that she will ever feel for her childhood home.

Her gentle voice, with her soft, lovely accent, is the most beautiful sound in the world to me. I would be quite happy to do nothing all day long but listen to her quietly speaking.

It seems the last few days that is most of what I have been doing, and I worry that Gregor might think I am neglecting my duties. But yesterday he told me, without my mentioning it at all, “Thank you for being kind to Dalila, Moses. It is helping her, and I appreciate it.”

I begin to dread the day that she will leave here, and go to live at Homochitto. I do not want to be parted from her.