Chapter 20

© Copyright 2009 by Elizabeth Delayne



She was scarred.

Not just by the lingering fear that Shatler would return.

Not just by the panic, the nightmares.

Rachel stood in front of the mirror that hung over the water basin in the room that she had shared with Lauren in the last school term. For now, Lauren was sleeping elsewhere, the Petersons granting Rachel privacy during the night. She was restless, more often than not. She couldn’t sleep. Nightmares woke her.

It wasn’t something Lauren could really understand.

And still it was the physical scar that plagued her the most.

The scar ran down her cheek, to her chin. It was red, jagged. She still had stitches in the top and bottom. Her face was pale, her eye, so close to the wound, was swollen as if she’d spent a day crying from that one eye.

She hadn’t been able to cry at all.

She closed her eyes and turned from the mirror and wished whole heartedly that the scar would disappear. Wasn’t it enough that people talked about the ordeal, without being reminded of it every time they saw her?

Wasn’t it enough that she could still see Shatler there, his scar a fierce line against his skin, the sun at his back?

She wanted to live.

Why had he picked that train, that day ... when things were so full of hope?

Her family was arriving on the train—had already arrived on the train in Cartersville. They were coming to Lenox because for one hopeful moment after James had rescued her, she’d accepted his proposal. Love had overwhelmed her. Even as she wrote her parents, the fears had started to grow.

And now? She hadn’t even been allowed to accompany James and the Reverend to Cartersville to pick up her family. She had been relieved to stay home. She was too easily noticed. The town had too many places for a lawless group of men to hide.

It was safer—but she had to wonder: how long would she need to be kept safe?

How long would she live ... scarred?

Now she was hiding away in a borrowed bedroom.

She turned and with a trembling hand, she picked up the note from James. A small card, really, the handwriting comforting in its familiarity. Turning, she headed out. Left the room.

And nearly started to run.

* * *

James lowered the trunk to the floor of the Peterson’s parlor and cast a nervous glance toward the ceiling. Rachel had been increasingly quiet over the last week. In the last day she had grown more and more agitated.

With her family coming to town, it wasn’t something he had expected. He’d thought it would help her heal. He’d thought that God ...

He felt Matts hand in his own and he looked down, saw the question in his son’s eyes.

Where was Rachel?

Mrs. Patterson set a hand on his arm. “She just walked out a few minutes ago. I’ll—“

”I’ll go,” Rachel’s mother stepped forward, “just point me in the right direction.”

James looked at Mrs. Patterson. Neither of them knew what to say. “She’s taken to going off by herself since ... we’ve tried to honor her wish to ....”

“She just needs a little time. Some quiet, sometimes,” Mrs. Patterson murmured. “But she doesn’t want ...”

“She goes to church.”

Everyone in the room—Rachel’s mother, father and Rebecca, the Pattersons and James looked down at Matt.

“She likes to go sit in the church. She lets me wit with her. She doesn’t want to talk. Not out loud. She said she doesn’t know what to say. But God knows , doesn’t he, Pa?”

James swallowed against the lump in his throat. “Yes.”

Rachel’s mother stepped forward and held a hand out to Matt. “Show me.”

As James watched the two walk out of the parlor door, he struggled over a prayer himself. He’d thought he’d got to Rachel in time. He wasn’t prepared to lose her. Not like this. Not when Rachel had been turned into a walking ghost of the woman who had helped bring him back to life.

He’d been the ghost, the shell of a man. That life wasn’t for her. She was too vibrant. Too ... full of heart.

And he didn’t know how to bring her out of it. He didn’t have her vibrancy—her fight—that God had used to draw him out.

He felt a hand on his arm. Turned to find that Rachel’s father had stepped over. Behind him, Rebecca, nearly a mirror image of Rachel in some ways, stared out the window, to where the church could be seen in the distance. No one said anything.

But they waited together.

* * *

Everything was nearly in place for a wedding.

As Rachel sat on the back pew of the church, she tried to think about the wedding. Wasn’t that what brides were supposed to be focused on? She had the most perfect groom. She rubbed her fingers over the card that James had given her, and wished, really wished that she could feel the hope in the words he’d written for her.

She had a dress, she reminded herself, a dress that somehow seemed perfect—almost made for her, even though it wasn’t. One of the ladies at church had approached her so humbly, offered to let her wear it. The dress was so beautiful, with simple lines that ran from the bodice to the floor. The only detail was the almost whimsical ruffles at her neck and wrists. For a moment, just for a moment, as she stood on the stool and a team of women from the church gathered around pinning and preening, she’d felt like a princess.

Then the feeling faded. She’d felt the tender pang of her scar.

She’d nearly panicked in front of them all. What would they say if they knew she was ready to run away?

James had given her a pearl necklace, the pearls tiny and oddly shaped. Seed pearls, she thought they were called. It looked amazing with the dress.

She really did have the most perfect groom. Shouldn’t she be able to tell him her fears? All of her fears?

She ran her fingers over the pearls, thought of him, wondered if it was really fare to him to go through with the wedding. Reverend Peterson had talked to both of them in preparation for marriage. She’d felt like the air was slowly being sucked from her lungs. There was wisdom in what he said, and honesty in how she answered his questions.

And yet, there had been things she’d wanted to say, that she hadn’t said. Questions she wanted to ask. Fears she wanted to scream.

And she didn’t trust the man she was pledged to marry, nor the man over her church, to be honest with her. Was she really ready—now—for marriage?

She was scarred. Couldn’t they see?

It was all bubbling inside of her.

“Rachel?”

Slowly, as if it took a moment for her to recognize her own name, Rachel turned her head.

“Mother.”

She didn’t move. She couldn’t. She couldn’t even managed to really look her mother in the eyes. Slowly, she dropped her own and glanced back at the card in her hand.

Why didn’t the words stick?

“You were right, you know. I think Matthew is perhaps the most delightful little boy that I have ever met. Its no wonder he was immediately part of your heart”

Rachel had to tell herself to smile, to acknowledge the statement she should have wholeheartedly agreed. It was forced. She couldn’t help it.

Her mother sat down on the pew beside her and reached out for the card.

“May I?”

As her mother took the card, Rachel folded her hands, and felt suddenly very empty.

“How priceless is your unfailing love,” her mother read from the card. “Both high and low among men find refuge in the shadow of your wings.”

Love ... Rachel repeated the word in her head.

“The writing looks very familiar, like certain letters you received over the summer. James?”

“He said ...” the words came out rusty and she stopped, bit down on her lip as it started to tremble. She couldn’t say what she wanted to say. No one seemed to understand.

“What did he say?” her mother reached out and gently turned Rachel’s face toward her own. Her eyes followed the scar—the long length of it. Her fingertips, brushed over it, like wings of a butterfly. So gently ...

And with a little fear.

“My darling. This man who did this. He’s taken so much.”

“He ...” Rachel blinked against the sudden tears. “Mama. I can’t marry James. I can’t be ... what he needs me to be.”

“Honey.”

“Look at me, mama.”

“I am. I only see my beautiful girl.”

“You should be careful who’s face you mock.”

Rachel looked over, saw Rebecca standing in the doorway. Her words echoed through the church. It was so wrong for her to be bothered by her sister’s beauty, by the elegant perfection of her unmarred face. But she was. Rachel didn’t even have it in her to push back the jealousy.

Rebecca stepped forward, placed a hand on their mother’s shoulder.

“We’ve got the same face, you know.”

“Not anymore,” the words came out harsh. Bitter.

“Nothing’s changed. Nothing important, unless you let it.”

“You don’t understand.”

“I understand that the man that picked us up from the train station knows more about how you feel than you’re letting yourself believe. You remember this summer, how we read those letters over and over? How much joy you felt? You remember how you talked about the struggle, and how you watched him heal. How there was discovery in his healing?”

“It’s different.”

“Your love for James, or what you see in yourself?”

“I’m not even me anymore,” the words simply tumbled from her. “I’m not the same. We’re not the same.”

She was no longer talking about James. Rebecca understood. She always did.

“We never were. Not exactly,” Rebecca moved around, sat on the pew in front of Rachel and gently took Rachel’s face in her hands. “You are what he needs, Rachel. You were then, you are now. More importantly, James is what you need—now more than ever. Don’t let that man. That ... horrid man take that from you.”

A tear trembled and fell, slid slowly down her cheek. “I don’t think I can help it.”

“What did James say?” Rebecca asked. Rachel furrowed her brow, frowned as she tried to understand her sister’s question.

Rebecca nodded toward the note in their mother’s hands. “You started to say something that he said to you. Whatever he said to you ... whatever it is, is being held away from your heart. Let it in, Rachel. Let what he said in.”

“I—“

”Say it.”

“I ...” her lips trembled. “I can’t.”

As Rachel looked away, Rebecca turned her head back, and again looked her in the eye. For a moment they sat there, as sisters, as twins, as best friends ... that connection between them, that had always been so alive and strong, was still there.

Rachel trembled.

“Say it.”

“He said ... he said the words were in his head. Helped his mind stay clear. He could have gone back in his head–gone back to nothing, gone back inside of himself,” the sob cracked open, rough as she fought to hold it back. “And this verse was like a fence. It kept him sane ... It kept him from the darkness.”

A fence, she thought, like the one that was holding her back. The verse acted like a fence for James, to keep him from tumbling back into the dark place he’d lived since Anna’s death.

And here she was held captive inside the dark.

A fence.

Maybe he did understand.

“And?” Rebecca prompted. Her hands had dropped, her voice had softened.

Rachel slowly licked her lips, feeling suddenly very tired. “He said when he got home he realized that he saw that ... in me. But ... that was ...”

“Before.”

“What he saw in me was before. I’m so scared I won’t be able to be that for him anymore.”

“Honey, you’ve got to give yourself time to heal. Besides, you weren’t completely that to him to begin with, he probably felt the love from you that was so priceless because you were letting God shine through you. I know you, and I know how much that light has always shinned in you. Let God heal you. Give yourself time.”

“Answer me this,” Rebecca continued “... if it weren’t for the scar. If you felt like you did the day when you left Charleston just a few weeks ago. Would you marry him?”

“You know I would.”

“Have you really changed that much?”

Something inside of her had somehow opened, just enough. She thought of Matt, the bond that had seemed so strong between them from the beginning. The way he would come, sit down beside her on the back pew, and simply hold her hand. If she talked, he listened.

But he didn’t push.

He was just a little boy. He didn’t understand.

But he didn’t need to. He just loved her.

She thought of James. She reached up, ran her fingers over the pearls.

“I love them both so much ...”

“Because their love is just as priceless for you.”

* * *

James stepped out the back door. Rebecca and her mother had returned inside. Rachel was waiting of him.

His hands shook on the door handle as he pulled it closed. He stepped down the steps, stopped in front of her, and resisted the urge to take her hands.

She was trembling.

It ripped his heart out.

“I don’t know if ...” she bit her lips together, blinked against the tears. “I don’t know if I can marry you.”

He pushed back the panic—it wanted to rise in him, like a strong wind across the prairie that threatened to knock him down. How often over the last few weeks had that wind, this helplessness? He’d prayed. He’d turned his fears over to his Father, or tried to, each and every time the fear—that he was losing her—nearly overwhelmed him.

“I want to. I want to, so badly ...”

He did reach out then, take her hands in his. The storm he’d watched brew since he’d found her was now swirling. “Are you asking for time?”

He really didn’t know how the words came out, sounded so calm. He wasn’t calm at all.

“I ... yes.”

“If we have to marry after your family leaves ... then we’ll do it. We’ll wait,” he took a deep breath, said the words he’d been afraid to say until right now. “And if you need to return to Charleston, if you need your family to heal, then Matt and I will follow you.”

“James ...”

“What you need, Rachel.”

“You ... are my family.”

He smiled, took a chance and gently drew her into the fold of his strong arms. As he gathered her close, he felt at peace.

“Let’s just see how this week goes, then.”



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