The Visitor

Chapter One

"Tell me about it again, Emma."
I smiled down at my cousin Alice. "I've told you everything I can remember."
"Please?" she begged. "Tell me about when you and Peter snuck out, I like that one."
"Well, we would wait until my mother, your Aunt Elizabeth, was asleep and-"
"None of that, please," Aunt Violet called as she swept into the kitchen. "I don't want my daughter getting any ideas. It's bad enough with Walter gone, I my daughter running off too.
"I would have gone with him if I were old enough," Alice said defiantly, tossing a flaxen braid over her shoulder.
"Then it's a good thing little girls are not allowed to join the army."
I chuckled, "oh, you've done it now." If there was anything Alice hated, it was being called a little girl. At ten years old, she was convinced that she was nearly grown. Aunt Violet smiled, obviously trying to get Alice's goat.
"I'll be at the dry goods store if you should need me," she said, tying on a bonnet and grabbing a crumpled list from the counter top.
Once her mother was safely gone, Alice turned to me again. "Would you have gone? You were seventeen when it all started, you would have been old enough."
My hands stopped kneading the soft bread dough for a moment. "Seventeen isn't old enough. And besides, women aren't allowed to fight," I said, studying the bowl and I continued to work the dough.
"But would you have?"
I shrugged.
Alice cracked an egg into a large ceramic bowl and began to mix, glancing at me every once in a while.
"What is it?" I asked.
"What's what?"
"You. You keep looking at me like you're hiding something. Come on, out with it."
      "Mama misses Walter quite a bit, doesn't she?" Walter, who had been nineteen when the war began, had been gone with the 83rd Pennsylvania since the spring of '61.
     "Yes."
     "Do you think he'll die?"
     Her question forced my mind to freeze. I couldn't explain to a nine year old girl the realities of war without terrifying the already anxious girl. "No he won't, Alice, don't think that way." Gideon stomped mud from his boots as he entered the kitchen, allowing the door to slam behind him.
      "Get those boots off, I just cleaned in here," Lydia seethed upon arriving into the now crowded space with a basket of laundry resting on her hip.
      "Lydia it's just a little-!"
      "Shh!" I hissed. A clanking sound was growing from outside, followed by a dull roar of excited cheers. An eerie, high pitched wail wound its way thinly through the air. Wiping my hands on an apron I rushed to the window in the front room. I felt Lydia against my shoulder as she peered around from behind me.
      "My God," she said, "so the rumors were true."
      I nodded, wordless with shock. Column by column, Confederate soldiers dressed in gray and butternut brown marched by. They were withered, on skinny horses, with frayed clothing, not two dressed alike and the majority without shoes. One or two grinned at us, infuriating Lydia enough to slam and latch the shutters.
      She put her back to the windows, as if her weight against the shutters would keep them at bay. "They'll fight here, then," she murmured grimly, staring at nothing with unsettlingly serene face.
      "What's going on?" Gideon snapped.
      "The Rebs are outside!" I nearly yelled, my eyes wide with fear.
      "They're just rumors, Emma. Don't be such a girl, we have no reason to be afraid."
      "See for yourself!" I snapped back, holding Alice away from the windows.
      Gideon undid the shutters and shoved up the sash to see farther. When he pulled his head back in he too stared at nothing for a moment, his brows twitching as he thought.
      "What are we going to do?" Alice asked, her eyes becoming mostly white with fear.
      "Nothing," Aunt Violet had appeared behind us, bonnet on and list still in hand. "We will not let these men think we fear them."
      "But Mother-"
      "But nothing, Lydia. Get back to work. Emmeline will help you." Her round face was red with anger and worry.
      I took that as my cue to leave, my hands shaking as I collected the basket of laundry.
      "Are you afraid?" Lydia asked.
      "No," I lied. "We have nothing to fear from a small band of underfed soldiers." As I said that, there was a loud banging on the door.
      "Leave," I heard Gideon say threateningly. "I've got a good musket here, and I'm not afraid to use it on Rebel trash like you."
      "Please, son-" a soft, mournful voice said.
      "Don't you dare-"
      Before I even knew what I was doing, I was standing in the doorway. "Sir?" I said as pleasantly as I could, wedging myself between Gideon and the man on our doorstep. He was as scrawny as the others had been, shoeless with pants so patched I wondered what the original fabric had even been. He removed his crumpled, gray slouched hat and clutched it to his chest.
      "Miss, may I please have something to eat? I uhm...I ain't  had nothing to eat for some days now."
      I stepped aside, motioning for him to enter, "please."
      "Thank you, miss." He stepped through the door and unfit he sitting room tentatively, his eyes darting about.
"Gideon, if you would be so kind as to get more kindling for the fire, I would be very grateful."
Gideon glared daggers at me, but for all his bravado and tall stature, he wasn't terribly threatening. I glared at him with equal ferocity, forcing him to turn from me. The back door slammed, followed by the angry sound of the ax on firewood.
"Sit," I said in my best hostess voice.
"Thank you kindly, miss." He sat in a wooden chair beside the fireplace, stiffly perched on the edge like a bird ready to flee. I nudged open the kitchen door and cut a few pieces of bread from a fresh loaf and placing an apple on the plate as well. Alice stared at me wide eyed from under the table.
"Why are you helping him?" she asked. "Aren't all rebels bad people? Gideon says they all eat babies and beat the colored folks."
"Don't listen to Gideon. He doesn't know anymore than we do. And if we help this nice man, then maybe some kind southern lady will do the same for Walter and Peter." She nodded, but stayed under the table. I took that as my cue to leave, and swept back into the front room. The soldier was pulling at his greying, unkempt hair and beard nervously, his tired eyes darting about the room. "Here," I said gently.
"Thank you, miss," he leaned to see around me. "Hello," he said with a soft smile. Alice stood shyly behind me; so quiet I hadn't even heard her follow.
"Hello," she said cautiously.
"Would you like to sit with me? I promise yuh, I don't bite. Tentatively, Alice stepped forward and settled into an adjacent chair.
"What's your name?" she asked.
"Jonathan Homes. What's your name, miss?"
"Alice Wilcox."
"That's a right pretty name."
"Thank you, sir. Where are you from?"
"South Carolina." A comfortable silence settled over the pair.
"I'm sorry if I frightened you, Miss Wilcox," Jonathan Homes said, addressing Alice.
Alice raised her chin defiantly. "I wasn't scared, in fact, I don't think you Rebels are bad people at all."
Jonathan's weary eyes turned up in a smile. "Thank you, miss. I hope we leave you kind folks real soon, so ya'll can go back to your daily lives."
"I hope you can go back to South Carolina soon."
Mr. Homes patted her hand gently. "Thank you, Miss Alice. You and your family have done a great kindness to me." He stood and placed his hat back on his head and slung his musket across his back. "Thank you miss-?"
"Emmeline."
"Thank you Miss Emmeline."