Upon arriving, Magnus drew water from his well into a wooden bowl. He took the bowl into his house, and placed it upon a table alongside one of the three items given to him by the Kincannons, a small mirror on a pedestal. He angled the mirror upward so that he might see his own face.
How did I get to be who I am? he asked himself. And the better question: where does my river lead me, from here?
He recalled what Matthew had said, about his situation: I say remake yourself, beginning with a bath and clean clothes. Wash and trim your hair and your beard, take your emeralds and bottles to town and see what can be done. You might find your craft much in demand, and yourself as well by several ladies who are worth much more attention than Pandora Prisskitt. But…if you prefer this solitary life way out here, then by all means sink your roots deeper. Sink them until you disappear, if you choose. It’s your life, isn’t it?
“Yep,” Magnus said to the black-bearded face in the mirror. “My life.”
Only…it didn’t seem like so much of a life anymore. It seemed like a place to hide from life. To curl up and count your woes and plan vengeance upon people who cared not if you lived or died, because you meant nothing to them. It seemed to Magnus that for a long time he’d been waiting to be ready.
And now he was.
Maybe it was the death of the beautiful and kind-spirited Sarah that had unlocked his dungeon. Maybe also the loss of Matthew Corbett had made Magnus decide to throw away the key. For Magnus thought life was too short and fragile to waste as a hermit, shunning all people and thinking all could be painted with the same tar brush. But now he thought that people might be more like the sand and powdered colors that went into his bottles; you never knew what they were going to become, until you woke them up by giving them a breath of opportunity.
Magnus wished for a difference. He wished for his own opportunity to be newly born, as if he were one of his own bottles. And maybe…he could recreate himself, just as Matthew had said, and find his own way in the world that lay beyond his house. He wouldn’t start too large or expect too much…but he intended to start.
With a deep breath that indicated his resolve of purpose, he began to use the second implement he’d received from the Kincannons. The sharp scissors hacked away his thick black growth of beard, and maybe a flea or two did jump out. Goodbye, my brothers, Magnus thought. He continued to work the scissors until the beard was cut short enough to be handled by the third implement, a straight razor. By that time Magnus’ hand was sore; he’d had no idea how long and tangled and dirty he’d allowed his beard to become. He remembered telling Matthew that his Pap and Mam had said it made him handsome. No…it just made him appear more the wild and ragged beast that at heart he was not. And as Magnus soaped his face and began to scrape the razor over the contours of jaw, cheeks and chin—carefully, carefully, for this had long been forgotten territory to him—he saw the emergence of a new man, much younger-looking, and really—if he wished to be a little jaunty about it—somewhat kind of handsome.
He would wash his hair and wear his best and cleanest clothes to give his respects to Sarah. He would give his respects to Matthew Corbett by searching for him tomorrow, but he doubted the body would ever be found. It was a strange thing: he might have imagined that beyond the crack of the door Quinn Tate was hiding Matthew in that house, if the young madwoman had not invited him in for tea, soup and corncakes. But if Matthew had really been in the house, then why hadn’t he proclaimed himself?
Going out on the river tomorrow, Magnus told the younger and handsome man in the mirror. Going out and look for Matthew, one last time.
And then what? What about the day after tomorrow?
That would be the day Magnus Muldoon would take his green stones and some of his bottles to Charles Town, and he would present himself where he needed to be presented along the shops of Front Street, and maybe he would never be a true gentleman like the problem-solver from New York because he would always have too many rough edges that resisted smoothing, but still…
…it seemed to Magnus that any man who had come back alive from the River of Souls had somewhere else to go. Somewhere important, a destination not yet in sight, hidden around many further bends and twists. Like Quinn had said…everybody has to take their own journey, and square up for it.
He was ready for the first step out into the world. And day after tomorrow, he reckoned his journey would begin.
Twenty-One
When Quinn Tate closed the door and latched it, she went to the hearth and ladled out a bowlful of corn soup. To this she added a small corncake. Then she opened the door to the second room, where the bed was, entered it and sat down on the bed beside her man.
“Daniel?” she said quietly. “I’ve brought you some food.”
He didn’t stir. He’d been sleeping a lot. He was badly injured, of course. A bandage was wrapped around his head, his swollen face a dark blue mottled bruise, his black stubble growing into a beard. That was as it should be, for Daniel had always worn a beard.
“Can’t you eat anything?” she asked him.
He’d been awake a short time earlier, if only for a few minutes, but now it seemed he had slipped back again into the heavy depths. He was breathing all right, though. She had removed his sodden clothes before helping him into bed, and yesterday morning had cleaned the arrow wound on his shoulder with wellwater and applied a dressing made from crushed onions and ginger to draw out infection. She would be very attentive to that wound for the next few days, as some yellow pus had collected there.
As for the condition of his head and the regaining of his senses, she didn’t know. He had been mostly dazed and silent on their journey through the driving rain, and several times his legs had given way and they’d had to rest in the shelter of the trees.
But her Daniel was going to be all right, Quinn thought. Yes. He hadn’t come all this way to leave her again.
She set the bowl on a table beside the bed and stroked his unruly hair, which stuck up from the bandages like a black rooster’s tail. For awhile she sang a song to him in a quiet, clear voice, the verse being:
“
Black Is the Color of my True Love’s Hair,
His face so soft and wondrous fair
,
The purest eyes and the strongest hands
,
I love the ground on which he stands
.”
Daniel would soon be standing. Quinn was sure of it. He would be up and about and back to himself. It would take time, and healing, but he had returned to her from the gates of Heaven and she would guide him with a gentle hand back to her heart on Earth.
For the next few days she was patient. She went about her work of accepting clothes from her neighbors to darn and sew, for that was her way of bartering for food. No one need know about Daniel’s rebirth yet, she decided. No one had seen them return in the downpour of a dark night, and no one yet needed to know, for she feared someone might come and take him away from her again. She had feared so with the man named Magnus Muldoon. She had thought he sensed that Daniel was in the house, in that bed in the other room, and so she had decided to offer him entry and food thinking that if she did not do so, he might know for sure. But the man had politely declined and gone on his way, and that was the last she’d seen of him.