Thirteenth Child Read online

  Then, barely a week before Diane’s wedding, Frank turned up one afternoon looking serious and insisted on seeing Mama privately, at once. They were holed up in Aunt Tilly’s second-best parlor for an hour, and then Mama called Diane in. The aunts were all buzzing, wondering what it could be about. Aunt Freda thought something dreadful must have happened to Papa, but Aunt Tilly said no, there hadn’t been a telegram, and that was how such news always came. Cousin Marna said Frank could have gotten the telegram, couldn’t he? Aunt Tilly sniffed, and everyone started choosing up sides. They were in such a tizzy they didn’t even think to send me out of the way.

  When Mama and Diane and Frank finally came out of the parlor, Diane looked like she’d been crying. Mama was pale and stiff-faced, and all I could think was that Aunt Freda had been right. Then Mama took a deep, shuddery breath and said, “I’m afraid I have bad news.”

  The room went so still you could hear the elms outside the window rustling in the wind. “You know my daughter Rennie—” Mama’s voice broke. She closed her eyes and went on after a minute, “My daughter Rennie stayed in Mill City, planning to come East with my husband in a few days.” She paused again, and swallowed hard. “It seems she won’t be coming.”

  A little shiver ran through all the aunts and cousins, but nobody quite had the nerve to interrupt to ask why. Mama raised her chin and finished.

  “She eloped with Brant Wilson the day we left Mill City.”

  CHAPTER 14

  THE NEXT FEW DAYS WERE MISERABLE FOR EVERYBODY. NONE OF THE aunts or older cousins wanted to take time to explain to us younger ones just what had happened. We had to figure things out on our own, as best we could. And when the aunts caught us hanging over the banister listening, they relieved their feelings by scolding fiercely—or at least they scolded me. Nobody quite dared to scold Lan, no matter how annoyed they were with him.

  So Lan did most of the listening, and we eventually pieced the story together. Papa had never changed his mind about Rennie staying. She’d only said that so she could take her trunk and the money for her train ticket and go off with Brant, without anyone being the wiser. She and Brant had planned it all out. Papa thought she’d come to Helvan Shores with us; Mama thought she’d stayed home with Papa. No one would have known better until Papa arrived for the wedding without her, except that Allie had forgotten to pack her new gloves, and Mama wrote home to have Rennie bring them.

  When Papa got that letter, he knew something was wrong, but he didn’t want to worry Mama until he knew what it was. So he telegraphed Frank to find out if Rennie was in Helvan Shores. When he found out she hadn’t arrived, and that everyone thought she’d stayed in Mill City with him, he started looking for her.

  It didn’t take him long to find out where she was. She’d been so sure that no one would miss her for a solid month that she hadn’t tried to hide at all. She’d planned to be out at the settlement by the time anyone found out, with no chance of having to face any of us. She ended up having to face Papa, right enough, but it was too late. Rennie and Brant had already gotten married.

  That was all that everyone agreed on. Aunt Mari thought that Rennie should be formally read out of the family and never spoken of again, though she certainly spoke plenty about Rennie every chance she got. Aunt Janna said it was a family disgrace, and just what you’d expect from bringing a girl up out in the Western borderland, especially when there was family history. She only said that once, because Aunt Tilly threw her out of the house for “raking up the dead past.” Aunt Ellen pointed out that Rennie was only twenty, so Papa could have the marriage declared void. Several of the other aunts thought he should do just that. I couldn’t see the point. Rennie would be twenty-one in September, and as stubborn as she was, she’d run off and marry Brant all over again, and make the talk even worse.

  What I couldn’t understand was why she’d done it. Even if she thought Mama and Papa would object to having their daughter marry a Rationalist, she could have waited a few months and not spoiled Diane’s wedding. And it would have been just plain sense for her to wait until she was legal age. It wasn’t until much later, when I thought to count back from when their first boy was born, that I understood why she’d been in such a fearsome hurry, and why Brant had gone along with her.

  After a day or two, when the uproar began to settle, everyone started wondering what would be done about John and Diane’s wedding. Nobody was quite sure how to ask, and there wasn’t much opportunity because Diane spent most of her time in private with Mama. Finally, Aunt Mari took it on herself. She caught me taking a cup of tea up to Mama and followed along. When Diane came out to collect the tea, Aunt Mari asked her point-blank what her plans were.

  “Of course, you’ll put off the wedding,” Aunt Mari told her. “So you really ought to notify the guests officially as soon as possible.”

  “Put off the wedding?” Diane repeated, staring.

  “Oh, dear, hadn’t you thought of that?” Aunt Mari said. “But I’m sure you see how it is. You don’t have to decide now how long you’ll wait; indeed, I think it will be better if you don’t, just yet. Give people time to forget this unfortunate event before you announce a new date. Three months might be long enough—it’s not as if that girl ran off from Helvan Shores, after all.”

  “Three months?” said Diane on a rising note. “Aunt Mari, whatever gave you the idea that we were going to put off my wedding?”

  Aunt Mari stiffened. “It’s the obvious thing to do. With all this talk, and your father stuck in Mill City dealing with the matter—”

  “My father is not stuck in Mill City, and he’s already done as much dealing with things as can be done,” Diane said tightly. “I am not putting off my wedding just because my brat of a younger sister, whom I haven’t seen in eight years, has behaved like a selfish little tramp.”

  “I sympathize with your feelings, I really do. But my dear, you can’t have thought—”

  Diane glanced back toward the door of Mama’s room, and lowered her voice. “I’ve thought of nothing else for two days, nearly. And I’m not postponing my wedding because of Rennie.”

  “I suppose a small, quiet ceremony would be all right,” Aunt Mari said with visible reluctance. “Though there will be talk.”

  “There’ll be talk whatever I do,” Diane said flatly. “Rennie has seen to that. Well, I don’t care. I’m not putting off my wedding. I’m not having a small, quiet ceremony. I haven’t done anything to be ashamed of, and I’m not changing a single thing that I don’t absolutely have to change.”

  “Have you considered your Mr. Brearsly’s feelings about this? I can’t believe that he will like such an arrangement.”

  Diane’s expression softened for a moment. “John agrees with me. I’ve already asked one of my friends to take Rennie’s place as bridesmaid, and Frank has telegraphed back to Mill City to tell Papa.”

  “You actually intend to embarrass the family like this?” said Aunt Mari.

  “I’m not the one who has embarrassed the family, and I’ll thank you to remember it,” Diane snapped. “If you don’t like it, don’t come.”

  As Aunt Mari stared at her in stunned disbelief, Diane turned and almost ran into me. She looked down at me and the teacup for a second as if she’d forgotten who I was. Then she opened the door and whisked me into Mama’s room ahead of her and closed the door again right in Aunt Mari’s face. I spilled half the tea, but I didn’t care. I was just glad to get out of that hallway before Aunt Mari got her voice back and went looking for someone to take things out on.

  When the rest of the aunts found out what Diane was planning, they were more upset than ever. Aunt Janna even said that Aunt Mari must have misunderstood. She was so sure that she nearly convinced some of the other aunts, until Diane came down and straightened them all out. Aunt Tilly was the only one who seemed to think that it was all right for Diane to go ahead with her wedding just as she’d planned it.

  Papa arrived two days later. He looked tired, and
he went straight in to Mama and stayed there until the next morning when he and Mama came down to breakfast. It was the first time Mama had been out to see the family since she’d made the announcement.

  After that, things sped up considerably. Whether the aunts approved or not, there was still a passel of wedding work left to do, and they weren’t about to let Diane’s friends take over. So Aunt Tilly’s house was busier than ever for the next few days. If I poked my nose out of my room, some aunt would pounce and send me off on an errand, thirteenth child or not. I didn’t mind much, because it made me feel that I was finally part of the preparations, but Lan took to running off with the older boys right after breakfast.

  Despite everything, Diane’s wedding was beautiful. She had it in our old church, that the Rothmer family had been going to since the day Grandfather first moved to Helvan Shores years and years before. It was a tall stone building with a square tower for the bells. Charlie told me the congregation had sent all the way to Albion for those bells, which he thought was a great waste when they could have got them easier from Philadelphia or New Amsterdam. Inside, the church was like an enormous cave, cool and gloomy even on a hot summer day with all the candles lit.

  Diane looked lovely in her pale gray wedding dress, with the bridal wreath on her head. The wreath had taken Allie and Nan and three of my cousins most of the previous day to make. The pincushion flowers kept falling out between the rosemary and love-be-true, or ending up in the wrong order. Bridal wreaths are important to get right, because everything in them means something magical.

  After the ceremony, we all went from the church to Uncle Gregory’s house, which was the only one that had a lawn big enough for everyone. I don’t know what we would’ve done if it had been raining—what with Papa’s brothers and sisters and their children and children’s children, we’d have filled up two or three houses, easy, and all Mama’s family was there, too. I’d forgotten I had so many relatives. And on top of all of them, there was John’s family, and the people from the traveling orchestra, and all sorts of friends from town. Even Uncle Gregory’s enormous back lawn barely had room.

  At first, it seemed that everyone had forgotten about Rennie eloping and our family being disgraced. Everyone laughed and talked while the hired girls brought out the roast chicken and the jellied clams and the new bread and wine and all the other good things my aunts had been fixing for the past two days. John’s best man made a toast to the bride and groom—health and happiness, I think—and everyone clapped and drank. Then Papa made a toast, and John’s father made one, and after that I lost track.

  Once the speechifying was over, I started to feel uncomfortable. They’d put our family at a special table up front, next to where Diane and John sat, where everyone could look at us. And from where we sat, facing everyone else, it was easy to see the sidelong glances, the people whispering together and the headshaking. Nobody had forgotten about Rennie, not really

  As soon as I finished eating, I left the table. Uncle Gregory had collected lawn games from all my other relatives, to give the childings something to do while the adults finished eating and got ready for the dancing. I didn’t try to join any of the games myself. I just wandered from one to the next, looking. I was watching some of my cousins-once-removed play wickets with John’s younger brothers and sisters when a hand fell on my shoulder. I looked up and froze. It was Uncle Earn.

  “So here you are, after all,” he said. His face was red, right up through the thin white fringe of hair and across his bald head, as if he’d been out in the sun too long. “Aren’t you satisfied yet, hellspawn?”

  “S-satisfied?” I could hardly speak for terror. I’d gotten so used to being in Helvan Shores and not seeing Uncle Earn, and so taken up with Diane’s wedding, that it’d slipped my mind that I’d have to avoid him afterward.

  Uncle Earn gave me a hard shake. “Humiliating everyone like this. Wasn’t it enough that that girl ran off with her lover? But no, you had to make sure that all this—” he waved a hand, taking in all of Uncle Gregory’s yard, the older people still sitting at the tables or moving slowly from one to another, the younger folk gathering around the musicians setting up for the dancing, the children running in and out of the crowd “—that all this went on, instead of being delayed a decent interval until the talk died down.”

  “I—I never—”

  “Liar!” Uncle Earn shook me even harder. “I heard the whole thing from Mari. If you hadn’t been there, Diane would have agreed to wait, like a sensible person.”

  “I didn’t say anything to Diane!”

  “You don’t have to say anything. You’re bad luck, wherever you are. It was your influence, you snake-in-the—”

  “Earn!” Papa’s voice came from near to hand, startling both of us. Uncle Earn let go of my shoulder so fast that I lost my balance and sat down hard on the grass. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Seeing to the well-being of this family,” Uncle Earn said. “You certainly won’t! I expected you to learn a lesson from having that other girl of yours run off, but no, you still let this demon child run loose. And see the results!” He waved again, so extravagantly that he staggered.

  Papa glared at Uncle Earn, and for a minute he was very still. Then he said in a careful, controlled tone, “This is Diane and John’s wedding, in case you’ve forgotten, Earn. It’s nothing to do with Eff.”

  “You’re blind,” Uncle Earn said flatly. “It’s her fault, that misbegotten thirteenth child of yours. Open your eyes!”

  “I think you’ve drunk a few too many healths to the bride,” Papa said. “You’d best go in and lie down for a while.”

  “Oh, you’ll find any excuse to ignore my advice,” Uncle Earn snarled. “You think you’re better than the rest of us because you’re a seventh son. Well, I’m not drunk and I’m not letting you off so easily this time. It’s time you heard a few home truths, like it or not!”

  Right about then, I pulled myself together enough to scoot back out of the way and look around. Papa and Uncle Earn were facing each other like a couple of prizefighters, and a ring of guests had collected around them. The cousins had stopped their game of wickets to listen, and I could see people hurrying over from farther off. Uncle Earn was ranting on about Papa being too proud of being a seventh son, and being so stubborn about having a seventh son himself that he’d gotten a thirteenth child, and then running off West with his double-seventh son, just when he’d finally gotten well enough known to do the family some good. I got a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach just listening to him.

  Then I felt magic gathering around us, and I heard Lan’s voice say “Uncle Earn,” just as cold as the air the day the steam dragon fell on Mr. Stolz’s feed store, and I felt even sicker. I didn’t think Lan was going to pull the magic in and let it go this time. He was going to let loose, and there was no telling what the result would be. My legs were wobbly, but I struggled to my feet, just as Uncle Earn turned toward Lan and opened his mouth.

  “Uncle Earn,” I said, loud and clear as I could. “If it’s me you have a grudge on, it’s me you’d ought to be talking to.”

  Uncle Earn whipped around and stared at me, and I looked at him, and suddenly, I was madder than I’d ever been in my whole life. Because this time I didn’t see the frightening oldest uncle who’d tried to have me arrested when I was five. I saw a selfish, pompous, ignorant old man, who didn’t even think about how he was ruining Diane’s wedding worse than ever Rennie had. He didn’t see that Papa and Lan were just before doing something dreadful because of the things he’d been saying. And he was certain-sure to blame me for everything, when he got around to noticing the consequences of what he’d done.

  Well, if he was going to blame me anyway, I decided that I was going to give him something to blame me for. At least I could try to keep Lan from cutting loose—no matter what I did, I figured it couldn’t possibly be as bad as a double-seventh son letting go of his temper.

  “Uncle Earn,�
�� I said again, before anybody could get over being surprised, “if I’m such a dangerous person, why did you let my cousins pick on me all that time? And why do you keep egging everyone on to badger me?”

  Uncle Earn just gaped at me, and the anger inside me grew. I saw that he’d never even thought that plaguing me might make things worse, and he wouldn’t have cared if he had thought of it. He’d only ever cared about showing everyone he was right.

  “If I was going to do evil to someone, it wouldn’t be to Papa and Mama or my sisters, who haven’t ever done anything bad to me,” I said. Then I thought about some of the punishments Mama and Papa had handed out, and about some of the pranks my sisters and brothers had pulled on me, and I added conscientiously, “Well, they haven’t done anything bad out of pure meanness, anyway.”

  I looked Uncle Earn straight in the eye, and my anger nearly boiled right over. And then along with the anger, something else woke inside me, something that was already just as strong as the anger that had been building up for all my life. Magic.

  “If I was going to do evil,” I said slowly, “I’d do it to those who’ve troubled and tormented me, over and over.” I couldn’t help smiling as I spoke, because it felt so good to say what I’d been thinking for years. “I’d do it to you, Uncle Earn,” I told him. And then the magic and the anger swirled together and exploded out of me, right at him.

  CHAPTER 15

  MAKING MAGIC IS NOT AN EASY THING. IT TAKES FOCUS AND CONcentration, on top of years of study to know the exact right combination of words and objects that will do just what the magician wants it to. If you get one tiny thing wrong, the spell can fizzle like a wet firecracker, or worse yet, turn back on the magician in some unexpected way. Or tear into the people standing around nearby.