Down Jasper Lane (Amherst Island Trilogy)

“Yes, sir,” Ellen said and bobbed a half-curtsey before letting herself out the back into the kitchen yard.

Another wail, almost ghostly in its sound, rose up from the barn, now shrouded in darkness. Ellen hesitated, and then, without thinking too much about what she was doing or why, she crossed the dirt-pecked yard and slipped into the shadowy barn.

It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the soft, sweet-smelling darkness; barns had a smell Ellen liked, hay and animal and old leather. She turned a corner and saw Jed kneeling by his dog, the glow of a lantern creating a halo of light around the pathetic scene.

Ellen hesitated, feeling as if she was intruding as much, or more, as she had been in the farmhouse. She was tempted to leave before Jed could see her, and had already half-turned away when he lifted his head.

“What are you doing here?” Jed’s voice was as surly as ever, and Ellen twisted her hands in her apron.

“I... I heard...”

He shrugged away her words, one hand reaching down to stroke Maggie’s matted coat. The dog thumped her tail once and whined, a terrible, tiny sound, Ellen thought. It sounded like a plea of mercy. “Raccoon ripped her belly open,” Jed said in a low voice. “Pa says she won’t last the night.” For a moment his features twisted with grief, and Ellen took a step towards him.

“Oh, Jed, I am sorry.”

He hunched a shoulder, his expression closed and sullen. “It’s the way things are,” he said. He paused, and stroked the dog again. “But she was—is—a good dog.” The silence stretched on as Ellen searched for something to say, yet no words of sympathy seemed enough.

Then Jed looked up suddenly, and Ellen saw a spark of anger in his eyes. “What are you doing here, anyway?” he demanded. “Aren’t you needed somewhere—back where you belong, Miss Bossy? Although where is that, I wonder?”

Stung, Ellen took a step back. “I was just—” she began, but Jed had already turned back to his dog, and feeling far more hurt than she knew she should be by his unkind words, Ellen turned and ran out of the barn.

By the time she reached the McCafferty farm, the moon was a lonely crescent in an inky sky, and the lights twinkling from the farmhouse windows were a welcome sight.

Ellen pushed her jumbled thoughts about Jed to the back of her mind, and as she entered the comforting chaos of the McCafferty kitchen, with several children eagerly pulling on her sleeve, she forgot about him completely—almost.

One afternoon at the end of October, Ellen took the children for a tramp through the woods, down to the pond that separated the McCafferty land from the Lymans’. It was a cool, clear day, with the leaves in full crimson and gold glory, some of them drifting lazily down.

Ellen tucked her sketchbook and pencils under one arm. She’d been so busy settling into her new life, dealing with children and school and the unfamiliar bustle of a large family, that she had yet to set pencil to paper, and she ached to draw the many scenes dancing through her head, from her first glimpse of wild-eyed Peter to the sunlight glinting off the lake.

The children danced around her as they made their way across the fields to the woods, the leaves crunching under their feet, the sunlight filtering through the branches and filling the meadow with a hazy light.

Ellen watched them with a strange sense of satisfaction, as if she were somehow responsible for this happy little troop. Peter forged ahead, batting back saplings and brush with a switch he’d made from a fallen hickory stick. Caro was determined both to catch up with him and not to care when she couldn’t. Behind Ellen, Sarah was wandering slowly through the long grass, weaving a wreath of yellow birch leaves and humming to herself, as dreamy as ever.

A small hand slipped into Ellen’s, and she gazed down at Ruthie’s bright, button-like eyes. The little girl leaned her silky head against Ellen’s side, and something in her heart filled and then swelled.

She was happy, she realized. Happy. More than surviving, more than content, even. Happy. The thought made her smile, and then she even laughed aloud.

Ruthie glanced up at her, her little forehead furrowed. “What’s so funny, Ellen?” she asked.

Ellen smiled and shook her head. “Nothing,” she said, “and everything.”

They were soon settled by the bank of the little pond, with Peter and Caro setting about making a den out of some fallen pine boughs. Sarah and Ruthie were given the chore of collecting leaves and twigs for a make-believe dinner, everyone busy and industrious.

Ellen leaned back against a stand of birch trees, their pale yellow leaves casting a golden shade. The sunlight was warm on her face, and after a moment of simply enjoying the beauty around her she turned to her sketchbook.

The cover of the sketchbook was thick and stiff, the pages creamy and blank. Uncle Hamish had given her a new book as a going away present, slipped to her on the sly when Aunt Ruth wasn’t looking. Now Ellen ran her fingers along the first blank, perfect page and felt a small, surprising pang of homesickness for Seaton, for what perhaps could have been if she’d stayed.

Since her arrival on Amherst Island Aunt Ruth had written once every week, long, information-filled letters about all the goings-on in Seaton so Ellen was completely up to date on Orvis Fairley’s toothache and Hope Cardle’s failed piano lessons. Artie Dole’s mother had had a sixth baby and the Presbyterian church was getting a new organ. Ellen knew she should appreciate her aunt’s letters and yet somehow they still somehow smacked of duty. Even Aunt Ruth’s signature, ‘Your loving aunt’, made Ellen bite her lip and try to suppress her uncharitable thoughts. Aunt Ruth had rarely seemed so.

Sighing now, pushing the thoughts away, she reached for her pencil and began to draw. She made sure not to lose herself so completely in her work that she couldn’t keep an eye on the children, and every few minutes she would look up to check that they were all playing happily in their newly constructed lodge.

Yet as soon as her head was bent once more, she lost herself in the lines upon the page, and the fire they ignited in her imagination. It felt so good to draw again, to feel the pencil firm and strong in her hand, the images that had been dancing through her mind now finally put to paper and given life in quick, sure strokes.

Her head bent over her sketchbook, Ellen was unaware that anyone had approached until a shadow suddenly fell over her, and she looked up in surprise to see Jed gazing down at her with his usual surly glare. Still nursing a bruised pride, she hadn’t spoken much to him since seeing him in the barn several weeks ago; Lucas had told her that Maggie had died in the night, just as their father had predicted. Jed had buried her in the field behind their barn, where she’d liked to hunt.

“What have you got there?” he asked now, jerking a thumb at her sketchbook. He was wearing his farm overalls, a cap jammed low on his head, his expression the same as ever, something between a smirk and a scowl.

Ellen shielded the sketchbook with one hand. She didn’t want to show h