Part 26

      I bring him the elephant, tucking it under the blanket beside his curly head. He smiles, and brings his hands up to cling to the little thing. He moves the towel back from his forehead, and opens his eyes to look up at me. His eyes look just like his father's, the same color and the same penetrating stare, and the resemblance startles me – but then the eyes soften and blink slowly, and I see the innocent tenderness and trust that suffuses them, so different from the cold cynicism of his father's eyes.
      "Thank you..." he says quietly, closing his eyes and pulling the elephant close against his cheek.
      I smile gently down at the poor kid, reaching out a hand to stroke the damp curls. I wonder what's wrong with him? I've heard from others that he was generally a sickly child, bedridden at some point? Maybe there's something wrong with his legs, as well as whatever this flu-like thing is he has now. His lungs sound like they're in rough shape, at least just now, that cough sounded so painful... His breathing is still raspy, even while he's laying still and quiet.
      The scene wavers in front of me a moment, and I'm back in the silent garden, alone under a gray sky. There's no trace of the bed left here...
      But a single blink of my eyes, and the room is back. Calvin is seemingly asleep, his breath still rasping, just as it was before. Looking around, I have no idea if it's been a few seconds or a few weeks to him, since I left. I doubt if much ever changes, in this silent little room... I can't bring myself to wake him, and I do want to find out more, though I know he's too weak - and possibly too young - to answer many of my questions.
      So, I slowly open the bedroom door, and slip into the hallway beyond. But I get no farther than a step, into a corridor paneled with some rich, red wood, with a glimpse of vivid floral paintings on the walls and deep, plush carpet on the floor, when I'm frozen by the sound of approaching footsteps. I glance quickly up and down the hall, and see that to the left, it turns a corner maybe a dozen feet away – and it's from that direction that the sound is coming. So I haven't yet been seen, but I will be any second! And though I know I would never do any harm here, nobody else has any reason to know that, and I'd be pretty freaked out if a person in totally inappropriate clothing was lurking in the hall outside my kid's bedroom.
      Anxiously, I look up and down the hallway, but the few other doors are closed – I have no way of knowing if they're locked, if they're no more than closets, or if other people are behind them. I duck back into Calvin's room, and glance around for a place to hide. The wardrobe might be big enough? I open its doors and find that it is, indeed, big enough to hide in, so I step up and into it – and taking a cue from the Narnia books, make sure that I don't close one of the doors quite all the way. (I do hold it closed, so nobody catches a glimpse of me, but I don't let the thing latch.)
      A few moments later, I hear the bedroom door swing inward.
      “Calvin? Are you awake?” The voice is quiet and sweet, and I wonder if it's Cora. I wonder if she's much older than she was when I saw her that day by the honeysuckle...
      The boy whimpers weakly, his breathing loud and labored.
      “Oh I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to startle you... But Mother said to be sure you got some medicine this afternoon. She has a meeting in town, you know, and the servants are all trying to get the place in order before he comes home.” There is a slight hesitation before the “he”, as if the speaker is catching herself about to say something else in place of it. The voice doesn't sound all that old... I force myself to wait until I hear the footsteps cross the room, and then stop, presumably by the bedside. Then I allow myself to open the wardrobe door just the tiniest sliver, and peep through.
      The figure at the bedside is slim and beautiful, in a dress of pale aqua and soft white. The fabric shimmers a bit as she moves, but I'm not sure what it is. The skirt brushes the floor, looking all the more dramatic in contrast to the absolutely tiny corseted waist of the woman. The sleeves are puffed out from shoulder to elbow in a way that would look totally ludicrous, were the woman not apparently totally at ease with them. The fabric is layered, an aqua bodice that flares a little like a jacket, over an aqua overskirt that stops halfway below the knee, a layer of white covering the rest of the distance to the floor. The puffs of the sleeves layer in the same way, with soft cream-colored fabric blossoming out from underneath a layer of light aqua. All along the edges of each layer is a trim of dark brown lace, adding a graphic geometric edge to all the flowing lines of soft shimmery fabric. Her hair is bound in a low knot on the back of her neck, tied with a wide ribbon of the same light blue-green as the dress.
      Her hair is a soft brown, almost auburn where the light catches it, and a few wisps of curls escape from the knot to brush against her ivory skin. When she turns to reach for the water glass, I catch sight of her face---
      And I'm still not sure who it is. She looks very, very much like Cora, but there are a few differences. The eyes are a little wider-set, the nose a different shape. (I spent so long comparing the photo of the older Cora to the woman I saw in the garden, as well as the time spent drawing her, that I'm quite familiar with her underlying facial structures.)
      It couldn't be Evelyn. Could it?? The woman is... it's hard to guess at her age. The face is young and fresh. But there is a gracefulness in all of her motions – even something as simple as lifting a glass is somehow made incredibly elegant. Far more poise than any teenager I've ever seen, but there's still a sense of innocence about her that seems far more childlike than any teenager either. Maybe fifteen or sixteen? If I could see her face better, I might be able to tell if it's Evelyn, or just some visiting cousin or something...
      She pours some liquid into the glass from a bottle in her hand, then sets the bottle on the bedside table. Holding the glass in one hand, she sits gently on the edge of the bed. A small hand slips out from under the blankets, and rests on her lap, but there is no other motion from Calvin.
      “Cal, darling... it's all right. It may taste awful, but medicine will help, if you'll just take a little sip... won't you do that, for me?”
      “Ev... it hurts...” The voice is so faint, I can barely hear the words. His hand looks so pale! But he called her “Ev”... it must be Evelyn, after all.
      “Shh, I know, dear, I know... but you'll feel better soon. And we can play in the garden all you like. I'll go and bring you some fresh flowers right now, if you'll just take a little sip, for me? Please?”
      He whimpers again, but turns his head toward her. She slips an arm around his shoulders, lifting him a little, just as I did... five minutes? hours? weeks? ago. She holds the glass to his lips, and he takes a tiny sip, then sputters and begins to cough violently, his whole body shaking.
      Evelyn gasps, dropping the glass to the floor and putting both arms around him, holding him in a sitting position to keep him from choking. "Cal... oh Cal, I'm so sorry, are you all right? Cal!"
      But his coughing continues, I can't imagine how his tiny body can sustain such a powerful retching as that. Something flies from his mouth, and Evelyn cries out, pain in her voice. I let the door open farther, squinting toward the bed, torn between staying hidden and rushing to try and help... but it's Evelyn, she knows me, I can't just sit here and watch!
      I fly from the wardrobe, the door slamming back to hit the wooden paneling, and cross the room in a few steps. "Oh Evelyn, what can I do? What's wrong?"
      She glances up, startled, but far more concerned about her little brother than my sudden appearance. "Kimber! Oh Kimber, I don't know! He hasn't coughed so badly in months, and---" She glances down at the quilts, and I see what I couldn't from across the room: bright crimson drops of blood.
      Calvin's body is shaking violently with every cough, and I look desperately around the room, trying to think of some way to help. The glass has shattered on the floor, but I grab the pitcher and bring it to the bedside, pouring water into my hands, trying to hold it near him... but he can't stop coughing, and the water slides away between my fingers, his body too far out of his control to let him decide on any of its actions.
      “Oh Kimber, Mother's given him this medicine for weeks and it hasn't done anything like this! We thought it was helping, he seemed so much calmer, and the fever was finally gone... oh, what can we do?” she cries, looking up at me in desperation. But my mind, though racing, only comes up blank.