Chapter 46

C HAPTER 46

Until you have loved, you cannot become yourself.

—Emily Dickinson

Marigold felt a strange sort of painful numbness—she didn't actually feel her knees give way, but she was sinking and Cab was there, steering her into one of the kitchen chairs.

She latched on to the only solid fact. "You're my mother."

Ma is always going on about you.

"Ayuh." Sophronia's admission came on the merest whisper, as if she too were holding herself in dread.

But Marigold was too numb to account for anything more than plain fact. She took refuge in logical deduction. "And Daisy is Esm é 's and Harry's daughter, isn't she?"

"Ayuh." Finally, a tear rolled down Sophronia's cheek. "When she was born, Hatchet stole her away." Her voice broke. "And gave you to them instead. Took one and left the other as punishment and reminder of my sin."

My darling changeling. It was all so painful and unfathomable all at the same time. The heat in Marigold's throat was unbearable. Her chest felt hot and tight.

But if Sophronia had suffered even half of Marigold's current pain, it was no wonder she was so brittle and broken. "That must have been … devastating." The word could not possibly be adequate. "I am so sorry."

"Wasn't your doing." Sophronia sniffed and wiped her eyes on her shawl. "You were but a babe. But to never look upon you until you came—" She drew in a sharp breath. "It has been an awful penance to pay. Knowing when I finally saw you that Esmie never got to do the same—that she died not knowing her daughter's face."

The ache within Marigold grew. "I am so sorry," she said again, even though she knew the sympathy was inadequate.

"So am I. So am I." But Sophronia seemed a little relieved, finally, at the telling. "It is the curse and the blessing of motherhood that you're only as happy as your saddest child. But I never knew if you were sad or not—I only knew I was." She reached for Marigold's face with a shaking hand, exactly as she had that first night—as if she were afraid to touch her. "I couldn't allow myself to imagine what you looked like for the longest time. Wouldn't let myself wonder if you looked like your brother."

Oh, but she had wondered, hadn't she, with her strange collection of photographs of Seviah as a child, dressed in the old-fashioned genderless dresses of the time.

"Do they know, Seviah and Daisy?"

Sophronia shook her head. "There's only three people alive who know. And we're two of them."

"Great-Aunt Alva?" And where had the old besom disappeared to? The chair she had languished into was now empty.

"Ayuh. Knows it all, she does. About my babies and Esmie's. About Lucy. And about other things, too, I reckon. Who knows what else that evil old woman is keeping to herself with her blackmail and her curses and her forbiddings? She said I had to forget. But I never forgot you. Never." There was a sort of pleading desperation in Sophronia's voice. "Wasn't a day that went by that I didn't think of you. Look for you in Seviah's face. And hope that she was loving you the way I would have wanted to."

What had Marigold said to Isabella all those weeks ago? They loved me in their own way.

But Sophronia needed forgiveness, not just reassurance. "She was very loving, Esm é —if, I see now, a little baffled. Much the same way you seem to feel about Daisy?"

"That's another punishment, you see," Sophronia acknowledged. "Trying to love another's child. I did try, for your sake. God knows, I tried. But all I could see in her face was my betrayal of poor Esmie. I never was as good as her. So I thought the best thing would be to leave the poor child to herself, not to burden her with my sorrow and regret, and just make sure that Hatchet couldn't plague her. Let her free to be herself without his interference."

"And she is an admirably independent spirit—seizing her change to take her happiness and letting no one stand in her way. I hope you'll be happy to learn she's eloped with her Mr. Thaddeus Endicott. She's run off to be married."

At that news, Sophronia's stoic veneer cracked. She turned away, blinking and swiping at her eyes with the cuff of her sleeve. "She's safe, then, from Hatchet's plans. That's what I wanted—why I wrote you. I've done my duty."

"Why, what do you know?" Wilbert let out a relieved chuckle. "Little Daisy went and got herself married."

"You did that," Sophronia said to Marigold. "You gave her the confidence I couldn't give."

"If I did, then I'm glad. And proud. But I hope you are proud too—she is the woman you let her be."

But pride went before the fall. The truth was, if Marigold hadn't come and meddled in their lives, Ellery Hatchet would likely still be alive. "Why did you not simply tell me when I arrived? Or sooner? You could have written all this in your letter."

"Didn't know how. Didn't think you'd believe me."

"Of course I would!"

"Maybe. Maybe not. I feared you'd be like me, maybe, beaten down by the sorrows in life. But you're so like him, that Harry. You've got his way of making obstacles disappear. Of seeing the best in people." She shook her head in wonderment. "You've got such force of life." Sophronia drew something from her pocket—the painted tarot card of the woman seated on a throne with a scale in one hand and a sword in the other—the same card Sophronia had shown Marigold late that night. "Justice," she said. "Always the same card for you. Even in the very beginning. Justine, I named you, before Esmie called you Marigold. I should have trusted you'd bring justice."

Had she brought justice—or only retribution? All Marigold felt she had proven was that even good actions, taken for the best of intentions, could have awful, unforeseen consequences—consequences that could have been avoided. "Why didn't you come get me? Why didn't you take Daisy back to them? Why didn't they come get Daisy?"

"I prayed they would come, but they didn't. Mayhap they didn't know where to look. Mayhap Black Harry didn't know whose child you were. Mayhap there were others besides me—he was no saint. Or maybe he didn't want to break poor Esmie's heart a second time and never let on. I'll never know. As for me, I didn't have the courage," Sophronia admitted. "Couldn't leave my boys. Had to hope Esmie was doing better for you than I could do for Daisy. She did—just look at you. But Daisy seems to have found her own way—or did with your help."

"We'll need to tell them, Daisy and Seviah, eventually."

For the first time in her telling, Sophronia turned squeamish. "They're already gone on to better things. Why tell them now?"

"Because it is the truth."

"Be it on your head," Sophronia warned. "I've said what—"

"—you've said and you'll say no more." Marigold had to laugh. "Hardly. But I don't mind telling them," she declared. "Frankly, I think they'll both be relieved to find they aren't related to Ellery Hatchet." Which also made her sadder for Wilbert, who had no such reprieve.

But Wilbert, who looked just as astonished as she at the revelations of the day, had other compensations—there was the remaining share of some Mexican-minted silver dollars to be collected from the cellar and counted. But first, there was still a murder to be solved. And Minnie's probable murder as well. Something Sophronia had said was tickling at the back of Marigold's brain.

But Ellery had been poisoned before he drowned. Poison, the popular wisdom said, was a women's weapon—so that ruled out Wilbert, Seviah, and Old Cleon, she supposed. Marigold, for her part, also ruled out Sophronia as well as Bessie—who, if they had really wanted to see Ellery Hatchet dead, might have done so years ago, with no one the wiser. Instead, Bessie had taken her small revenge in the return of Ellery's body—though Seviah and Samuel had actually done the deed with the scarecrow.

So why had he been killed now, when so many years had passed? What had changed that made killing Ellery Hatchet necessary? Was it true that nothing would have changed had she not come to Hatchet Farm?

Officer Parker, whom Marigold had frankly forgotten about in the midst of all the familial revelations, was thinking along the same lines. "This is all very heart stringing, but what I still don't know is which one of you confounded people actually killed Ellery Hatchet. Which one of you poisoned him? And stabbed him? And drowned him? Well, I guess we know he sorta drowned himself, with Cleon there's help."

"I only do what I'm told," Cleon objected. "Only speak when I'm spoken to. And Ellery, he told me to put him in the water, just like Alva told me to—"

He cut himself off before he said anything more, but Marigold heard something different in his recitation this time. "Cleon," she pressed. "What else did Alva tell you to do?"

Cleon was hesitant to answer, looking at the ground and away so as not to meet Marigold's eyes. "I'm not supposed to say," he finally whispered.

"Cleon?" she asked again in her kindest, softest tones, because the old fellow was a lot of things—gawney, superstitious, buffle-headed, very dirty, and very likely deaf—but he was not a liar. At least not a good one. "Did she tell you not to say?"

He nodded obediently. "Ayuh."

For such a tiny woman, Alva Coffin Hatchet had certainly cast a very long shadow over Great Misery Island. But Marigold was determined to shed light on every single shade. "Are you not supposed to say anything about the foxglove?"

"Pretty plant for a pretty lady, I always said."

"And did she ask you to plant it in my garden while I was away from the island?"

"Ayuh." He turned his rheumy eyes to her in appeal.

"So how did Ellery take the foxglove, Cleon? He left immediately after he declared his intention to go. Wilbert, you rowed him over—I thought he took nothing but his Bible?"

"He took a satchel with his things," Wilbert said. "Cleon brought it out—"

They all turned back to the old man, who looked at them with wild eyes, like a dog that knows it's about to be whipped. "I only do as I'm told."

"Yes, you're very good in that way." Marigold made her voice gentle, just as if she were talking to that frightened dog. "But what did Alva tell you to do? Did sister give you something to put in the bag?"

"Ayuh. Said it were a tonic that would make him want to stay home."

Officer Parker stepped forward as if he might arrest Cleon, but Cab intervened. "Cleon?" Cab asked slowly, as if he were reasoning it out. "Was Mrs. Alva Hatchet present when Ellery Hatchet came here and spoke to you the night you took him down to the shore?"

Cleon was misery itself. "Ayuh."

"And where is Alva now?" Marigold asked.

"Gone back into her room, I reckon," was Wilbert's answer. "And good luck getting her out. She won't come willingly now."

Cab looked back at Sophronia. "I take it your mother-in-law's door is locked? And who has that particular key?"

"Not I." Sophronia was succinct. "Mother Hatchet's the only one with all the keys, except for my little padlocks and my stillroom. I've kept those from her, no matter her threats."

"Or her curses?" Marigold was beginning to realize that Great-Aunt Alva's malevolent presence had loomed as large as she had imagined.

"Sister only said we'd be cursed if we tried to leave Great Misery," Cleon said. "Old 'Lijah cursed her first, but she said it was like the water, surrounding us all. Keeping us here so's we wouldn't drown like old Elijah."

Another person drowned? The newspaper had stated that Captain Elijah Hatchet had passed away at home. And who would have told them that? "But you came across the water to fetch me," Marigold reminded him. "And you didn't drown."

Cleon shook his shaggy head. "Sister said I wouldn't, because I was supposed to drown you."

Marigold felt the same sort of chill she had experienced that first cold spring evening crossing Salem Sound. She saw the scene before her with new eyes—Cleon fumbling when he had tried to strike her overboard.

Horror rose like gorge in her throat. "To think I almost joined Minnie."

"What does Minnie Mallory have to do with this?" Cab asked.

"I'm not sure," Marigold answered. "But it feels as if it must."

"One dang thing at a time, if you please." Officer Parker hitched up his pants before he gestured to Wilbert. "I want to talk to Alva Hatchet, even if I have to break down the door. The rest of you"—he especially fixed Marigold with his eye—"stay here."

They did. But only until the sounds of Wilbert knocking at the door had been followed by thuds and ended in a splintering of wood.

"By jeezum," Parker exclaimed.

"Would you look at that," was Wilbert's contribution.

Marigold—and Cab and Dr. Oliphant and Sophronia—immediately dashed down the hallway to see what lay behind the formerly locked door, into the chaos that was Great-Aunt Alva's room.

The lair was a veritable rabbit's warren of old, tattered furniture of a previous era, piled high with stacks of paper, old clothing, and assorted ancient and unidentifiable items the old woman had somehow accumulated over the years—the physical manifestation of her darkly twisted mind. The comparison to Miss Havisham had been apt indeed.

Someone threw back the tattered drapes to let in more light, making dust motes dance across the room but revealing Alva herself in the middle of a massive old four-poster bed piled high with dingy linens.

The old woman smiled at them, her thin grimace shiny with the drink she clutched in her hand. "I always said the only time I'd let someone into my room was over my dead body."