Chapter Sixty-Four

That evening Carina ate with them at the dinner table, wearing the dyed dress, even though the iron salts had left it stiff and uncomfortable. After dinner, Amalia trimmed Carina’s hair, trying to make the ragged edges presentable. Tasha cut a swath out of the old velvet dress and added a black band to one of Carina’s straw hats, then deftly turned a few remaining strips into pretty hair bands. Amalia found a faded black wool cape among their mother’s old things and Carina was ready for the journey.

“I’ll pack your makeup for you,” Amalia said. “All that black makes you look even more pale than you already are.”

“I don’t care what I look like,” Carina said, but remembering her promise, she added, “Thank you for offering, though.”

“You don't need makeup,” Donovan said, looking up from where he was stringing the last of the chiles with Will. "A week in the fresh air ought to put some color in your cheeks."

“I suppose it will,” Carina had been examining the straw hat and now handed it back to Tasha. “You did a nice job." She sat on the sofa and picked up her knitting needles.

Amalia went in the other room and returned with her unabridged Shakespeare. She read for a bit from one of the histories until Tasha and Will began nodding off. Then she set the book aside and picked up her Bible from where she had left it on the table the night before. She adjusted the lamp and flipped through the tissue-thin pages. “We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed,” she read. “We are perplexed, but not in despair.”

Carina shifted uncomfortably and kept her head down, feigning absorption in her work, even though she could count stitches by touch.

“Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed...”

Carina felt Donovan’s eyes upon her, and looked up. What she saw in his face startled her and she dropped her attention back to her knitting without bothering to move the needles. After a few minutes she rubbed her eyes as if she had a headache. She glanced up again. He was still watching her in the same fascinated way a man might watch a dying fire.

“For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.” Amalia closed the book.

“That was nice,” Carina said. She picked up her lamp and walked slowly from the room, as if it was her joints and not her soul that ached.

Donovan looked after her. “Do you think she meant that?”

“No,” Amalia said, shaking Tasha awake. “But she’s trying. That’s all I asked of her. If she keeps going through the motions, eventually the feelings will follow.”

She picked Tasha up and started toward the hallway, Donovan following close behind, herding Will in front of him. Amalia expected to put the kids in Carina’s room again, so she was surprised to find the door shut. She deposited Tasha in the children’s room and returned to Carina’s closed door. She opened it a crack to find Carina sitting on her bed, examining her new velvet hair band in the dim light of the lamp.

“Are you going to be okay in here tonight?”

Carina nodded. “You don’t need to stay with me. You should sleep with Donovan. We’ll be gone a long time, you know.”

Amalia hesitated.

“Go.” This time her voice was firm. “I need to be alone, and you need to be with him.”

* * *

It was still dark when Will and Donovan hitched the team to the market wagon and brought it around to the house. Everything they needed had either been packed the day before or staged near the kitchen door, so they had the wagon ready to go almost before Amalia could finish preparing a special breakfast of apple cinnamon pancakes.

"I put an extra map inside Carina's Bible, in case you lose the one I gave you," Amalia told Donovan.

"It's okay. I've already got it memorized."

"The Trés Ladrones Pass is tricky. Rockslides are pretty common and I don't know how recently someone has been through to clear the road. You'll have to be on the lookout for road hazards and things falling from above, but it's the best way to avoid a chance encounter with Feds."

"It'll be all right."

She looked at Carina. "Maybe you can stop with the Sanchez family along the way, or drop in on that nice Williams couple."

"Maybe," Carina said, toying with a scrap of pancake.

"It would save you a night in the open, and everyone likes to see a veterinarian."

"I know."

"You don't need to worry about us," Donovan said. "If anything, I worry about you. I wish you'd reconsider about getting someone to stay with you."

"Will and Tasha are all the help I need."

"I'm more worried about raiders coming by again."

Will looked up. "I'll shoot them if they come back."

Amalia glanced fondly at both children. "I think we've proven ourselves pretty resourceful. It's only for a couple weeks, and we'll be so busy we'll hardly have time to miss you."

Will nodded, enthusiastic about his first opportunity to be man of the house. Tasha was a little less certain. "I'll miss you," she said, turning her large eyes on Donovan and Carina in turn.

When Amalia started clearing the table, Tasha jumped to help, too. While they pumped water into the sink to soak the breakfast dishes, Carina went to her room to get her cloak, and when she returned, she paused in the kitchen doorway until Amalia couldn't help but notice her.

"Are you ready?" Amalia asked, with an attempt at a cheery tone.

"Maybe I shouldn’t go."

"Are you not feeling well?"

"No worse than before. It's just..."

Amalia understood. "It's not going to be any less real if you don't go, although if you've changed your mind..."

Carina squared her shoulders. "I just wish I could do it without having to do it, you know."

"You want things to fix themselves by magic." Amalia offered her an arm to lean on. "It won't be completely painless, but you'll feel a little better once you're on the road."

They found Donovan stroking Goneril's neck while he had a last minute talk with Will over chores that needed to be done while he was gone. He smiled when he saw Carina, but she turned away and allowed Amalia to help her onto the seat. "It's going to be a pretty sunrise," he said, motioning toward the faint light in the east.

"Yes," Carina agreed, without bothering to look.

Amalia went to Donovan, feeling suddenly awkward in spite of the bond between them. "Be careful out there."

He took one of her hands in his, then changed his mind and gave her a hug. "It's only two weeks."

"Of course. And you have your papers."

Donovan patted his side where he wore the papers in a leather pouch close against his body. "They stay with me at all times."

"Okay." She cast about for something witty or profound to say but could come up with nothing. "Have a safe trip." She threw her arms around him. "I love you."

He kissed her in answer, then hoisted himself onto the seat beside Carina, who had been pretending to be absorbed in the horizon while she twisted a handful of skirt between her fingers. Unable to muster the strength of will to wish her sister farewell, she pulled up the hood of her cloak to hide her face and set her eyes resolutely on the road. Donovan slapped the reins against the jennies' backs and the cart lurched forward.

The children ran after them as far as the gate, but Amalia stayed by the courtyard wall, watching the cart bump over the rutted drive. She looked toward the east where the sun was streaking the sky with gold. It would be a pretty day; a good day to get a lot of work done. As she leaned against the wall, watching the wagon recede into the distance, she resolved to work hard while they were gone. Very hard. She wanted to drop into bed each night too tired for worry or grumbling, too exhausted to miss having a man next to her. She hoped to make every muscle hurt so much that the physical pain of even ordinary tasks would distract her from the fact that her suddenly-single sister was on a long journey with the man they had both grown to love.

The children were ambling back to the house, covered in dust. There was no time to lose. "Come," she told them. "We've got a lot of work to do."

END OF PART ONE 

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