Alias Dragonfly Read online

  Papa had tears in his eyes. I’d cried so hard earlier mine were nearly swollen shut.

  “We’ll make it through, Maddie. Somehow. Find your strength.” Papa curled up in a big, overstuffed chair, and I fell exhausted into a small spindle bed. My feet hung over the end.

  The last thing I remember before sleep finally came was Nellie’s chicken, struggling to right itself and run away.

  Four

  Raucous cries of “Knives for the lady! Pots fine! Rags and bones, ashes too!” jolted me awake. I peeked through the window over my bed and saw a crush of carts and carriages, mules and soldiers all massed in the street below. I thought about our tiny, quiet cabin on the riverbank and Mama dancing like a fairy princess in a patch of sunlight on the grass.

  I splashed water on my face and tried to run a comb through my tangles of hair. I saw two dresses lying across the chair in my room. One was a pale, yellow homespun with a high white collar and a wide skirt. The other was a lightweight spring frock, faded brownish, sewn by a careless hand, uneven stitches up the bodice and down the front. A stiff petticoat and a small hoop with metal scaffolding sat like a collapsed pumpkin beside it. A corset with cotton laces, a pair of scratched leather high button boots, a tan porkpie hat and green bonnet completed my new wardrobe. My black dress and stockings were jammed into the drawer of an old wooden wardrobe. That was okay. I never wanted to see them again. I hated wearing black for Mama. She was all brightness, like my own sun.

  But I guessed—rightly, I might add—that even though it sounded like I’d be a mere scullery maid in that house, Aunt Salome wanted me to look like something resembling a lady.

  My father was still sleeping. I gave him a quick kiss on the forehead and went behind a tattered dressing screen to change out of my high-necked sleeping gown into my clothes.

  I put on the yellow dress, the petticoat and hoop skirt, that was too short for me. I’d never worn such garb back in Portsmouth. Mama said hoops made folks look like they might tip over in a light wind.

  “Besides, darling,” she’d say, in her lilting Irish brogue, “the mark of a fine lady lies not in her hoops, but in her manner and mind.”

  I peeked at myself in a looking glass that hung on the wall. The color made my face pale, and my freckles looked like deep brown dots rampaging across my nose. The boots pinched my feet worse than my black, scuffed up ones. I sighed, and like a sailing craft pitching on a rough sea, I went to find my aunt.

  Her boardinghouse had three stories and ten rooms: an entrance parlor, six bedrooms and a sewing room. Of course, Nellie’s room was the tiniest, just off the kitchen. There was a small door I’d seen when Papa and I were there I imagined led to a cellar.

  The furnishings were a hodge-podge of white, wooden chairs and tables, two old mahogany buffets, and an assortment of over-stuffed divans backed with tattered lace. Paintings of plump cows hung next to biblical scenes of Jesus on the cross, and devils wielding pitchforks at frightened children.

  I went back upstairs and found my aunt having a cup of tea in the parlor. A hat stand with carved lions’ heads loomed over her.

  “Thank you for the clothes, Aunt Salome.” I said, not meaning a word of it.

  “We dress respectable here,” she said, watching as I tipped forward in the stupid skirt nearly upending a table full of knickknacks.

  “And try not to topple over, Madeline.”

  My aunt held out a blue-veined, long-fingered hand. “See, I did find my ring. It was just where you said. My dear departed husband would offer a thank-you. But I thought it was mighty peculiar that you noticed it at all. By the way, I lock my money in a safe.”

  Did she mean she was suspicious of me because I found her darn ring? I should have kept that to myself!

  “Now, give Nellie a hand with the wood for the dining room hearth.”

  While I was helping drag logs from the alley to the kitchen, and I sure didn’t need to wear that awful yellow dress to do that, I spotted a newspaper lying on the ground. It was the New York Tribune. After I’d cracked eggs and put bacon on the iron skillet, I laid the paper on the chopping block and read. Aunt Salome came up behind me, yanking most of the paper from my hand.

  “Those Yankee papers burn well,” she muttered, crumpling them up and throwing them on the floor. She rang a rusty bell by the door.

  “Nellie! Come clean up. Can’t have folks think we live in a slave cabin, all littered and filthy.”

  When she’d gone, I grabbed up a page of the newspaper and began to read quickly. There were headlines about all the troops arriving in the city to repel a Confederate invasion, if necessary. Down the page was a particular column that caught my eye. It seemed to be written like someone was talking, not the usual reporting of numbers of soldiers or the puffed-up talk of politicians. It was the voice of a stranger in a strange place, just like me.

  I’ve copied out all of these special dispatches throughout my story. You’ll see why. Here is the first one I read:

  New York Tribune

  Special dispatch from Washington City

  I am alone here in a city like no other, in a time like no other, where an Illinois justice seeker named Lincoln leads our nation in a war like no other. I’m a young stranger in a capitol brimming with chaos.

  Where I settle must remain anonymous, as must I. Even though On to Richmond! is the call heard all around, and though many, including this reporter, think it is premature to urge unseasoned troops forward, I am here to swear the South must be defeated, for the slaver still auctions and the slave is still sold. That is what Mr. Greeley, the publisher of this fine paper, believes as well. But many here do not.

  As it is a time when supposed traitors, scoundrels, and plotters are locked tight in prison, I ask this: What is loyalty? Is one man’s patriot another man’s traitor? Will brother face brother, each willing to die for a cause they believe in?

  I am here to find out.

  So I will roam and use the wondrous new telegraph machine known as “The Lightning” to send my dispatches back to my paper.

  I sign herein, and forever after as

  PAN

  I slipped the page into my bodice, feeling pity for the writer who called himself PAN—a name I remembered from Greek mythology, a god of shepherds and wind. Or was it pity for myself, knowing my father would be leaving that very day?

  “Mrs. Salome don’t take kindly to reading business from the outside, Miss,” Nellie said. “Except her holy scriptures, the Washington Intelligencer where she puts in her ads for boarders, and the paper that favors the Rebels: the New York Herald. You got that?”

  “Yes,” I answered, somehow knowing I would find and read those Tribune dispatches whenever they appeared.

  I clutched my father’s hand at the breakfast table. The thought of his departure was making it hard to swallow. The johnnycakes and bacon stuck in my throat as Aunt Salome introduced us to her one boarder, a very old man called The Colonel, who had long, wispy white hair. He held his fork with a trembling hand. Clutched in his other was a small revolver. He pointed it at my father in his uniform and whispered, “traitor.”

  “We’re not enemies at this table, sir,” my father said, reaching over and gently removing the gun from the old man’s hand. I noticed a tiny Confederate flag on the Colonel’s lapel.

  The Colonel opened his mouth but only hissing sounds came from his throat. All his teeth but one were missing. He grabbed my hand and pressed it to his dry lips.

  Then, the poor man’s head fell forward and crashed into a china tureen that held the remaining eggs. His hands were limp.

  “Oh, Lord, my good china!” Aunt Salome picked up the cracked tureen, cradling the pieces in her hands. The Colonel lay still.

  “Nellie!” my aunt shouted. “Come get the Colonel.”

  Nellie bustled in and, lifting the old man in her arms like he weighed nothing, carried him upstairs.

  “Usually he faints away after the table is cleared,” my aunt said, shaking h
er head disapprovingly and mopping up the spilled eggs with a napkin.

  The meal went on as though nothing had happened. I felt like I was going to scream. I stood up.

  “Remain at table, Madeline,” my aunt ordered. My father pulled me back down to my seat.

  Nellie came to the table, a pitcher of milk in her hand. “I’m afeered the Colonel has passed on, Missus Salome,” she said.

  My father got up from the table.

  “Shall I help with the body?”

  “No, sir, I got hold of it,” Nellie said. “I’ll wash him up so when the cemetery cart come, he’ll be fit to meet Jesus sure.”

  Just as I was saying a silent prayer for the Colonel, the door to the dining room opened. A young man walked, or rather limped, to the table at a tilt, as though blown sideways. He was tall and burly, with a shock of black hair that curled about his starched collar.

  “Last to come, Mr. Whitestone. Was your sleep disturbed?” Aunt Salome asked, an unusual note of kindness in her voice.

  “Yes, ma’am. The newness of it all, I suppose,” he said, shooting a quick glance around the table, his eyes resting lastly on me. He had bright green eyes, a strong chin with a cleft in the middle, and suddenly, my cheeks were burning hot. I reached for a tumbler of water, accidentally spilling it over the tablecloth, and wiping clumsily at the puddle.

  “Sorry,” I said, looking down at the pooling liquid.

  Aunt Salome forced a smile, “It’s only water, not blood.” This comment brought another rusty chuckle to her throat.

  Whitestone’s eyes met mine. He was hiding a smile behind his napkin.

  I looked away. My cheeks burned. What was happening to me?

  “Madeline! You’ll starve to a rail,” Aunt Salome snapped, shoving my plate even closer.

  My father whispered, “Just to please her, take some bites, Maddie. I have to go now. My camp isn’t far. I’ll come back soon.” He whispered again, “I’m leaving the Colonel’s revolver in your trunk upstairs, Madeline. The war, it seems, is all around us.”

  Good, I thought. Papa had taught me to shoot, and I was good at it. As long as you don’t kill a living thing, Maddie, he’d said when we were deep in the forest as I shot at rocks lining an ancient, crumbling wall.

  My father got up from the table, straightened his uniform jacket, and headed for the door. “Thank you, Salome,” he said, “for taking care of my precious Maddie.”

  My aunt nodded. “Godspeed, brother,” she said, rubbing her eyes. Was she about to cry, the hard old thing? “Don’t worry over her, hear?”

  My breakfast came up in my throat. I jumped up from the table and fled toward the kitchen, nearly toppling Nellie as she struggled through the door with a huge bowl of applesauce. I knelt down, my breath coming in gasps. I was heaving, but nothing came up. Saying goodbye to my father filled me with dread.

  Behind me, I heard the dragging of one foot behind the other, like someone was limping. It was Mr. Whitestone.

  “May I offer some assistance, Miss? My name is Jake.”

  I didn’t answer. I just kept staring at the floor.

  “It’s hard saying goodbye, isn’t it?” He knelt down next to me.

  I looked away. “What do you know about it?” I snapped, my voice gruff and low.

  How could he know what I was feeling, or what was hard for me?

  I stood up to get away, but I was unsteady on my feet, and I fell right against Mr. Whitestone. I jerked away as though I’d been stung by a bee. I stepped clear of him.

  “You don’t know anything about us,” I whispered.

  “That’s true,” he said. “But I know this. Your father is in Mr. Lincoln’s army. My father is a Rebel.”

  I was listening, then. I finally looked at Mr. Whitestone. His face was so sad.

  “Your father is true to the cause and willing to die for it. Be grateful,” he said, giving a little bow to me, and leaving by a small side door that I later learned led to a street through the alley.

  I was stunned and confused. What was Mr. Whitestone doing here? Did his bad leg keep him out of the war? Was he a coward, or maybe he was a Rebel like his father? It seemed like everyone was suspicious. Oh, how I wished Papa were there, so I could talk to him about all this.

  Through that same window, I watched Papa mount a horse and ride away. I wanted to race out and tell him how much I loved him, but I just stood there, wishing like crazy that I could go with him.

  Wishes are fishes. You are here now. Heaven help you.

  To fight away my sadness, I fixed my mind on the young man I’d just met. Was I a gibbering mess because he was so handsome? Bosh!

  I opened the door, not to follow Jake Whitestone or my father, mind you, but to get some air, and untangle my brain. Although I didn’t realize it then, I started spying when I was there in that alley. I found myself out in a high-walled enclosure with broken cobblestones, a tangle of thorny vines and rambling ivy-covered brick walls. A rat skittered between my feet; a crow, something large and shiny in its beak swooped overhead and then, I heard voices. Loud voices from afar, like after I had my accident and every sound was turned up.

  “Man up, private, and stop your blubbering!” a man said.

  “Jeez, I want my mama,” another cried out.

  “Man up. Fool! We muster in the morning.”

  I looked all around me. I was alone in the alley.

  I couldn’t see beyond the walls, so I headed toward an opening at the end of the alley. I stepped into the street and was nearly run down by a newsboy racing ahead of a milk wagon.

  “Extra!” the boy shouted. “The Rebels march in Virginia! Might Washington City fall?”

  I stood gaping at five soldiers across the road. They were laughing and stumbling, dragging a weeping man by the collar.

  “Mama, Mama!” he sobbed. “I don’t want to die.”

  I’d heard his voice all the way back in the alley, I realized.

  One of the soldiers stopped when he saw me and beckoned me to come closer.

  “Whoo-ee! Come to me, sweet thing!” he said with a leer on his face.

  I looked him in the eye like he was a wild boar in the woods, steady and hard, without blinking.

  “Excuse me, Miss,” he said, backing away.

  A Negro woman with a wash basket on her head deftly swerved between the drunken soldiers. She was very, very tall, with a brightly striped yellow and red bandana around her neck. Or was it a woman? There was something strange about her. Somehow, she moved like a man.

  I stepped further into the street. I didn’t get far. A strong hand grasped my elbow. I whipped around to see who was there. It was Nellie, her face set in a scowl. She wrapped my arm firmly in hers.

  “Bad sorts, Miss, that’s what’s out there.” She steered me back though the alley toward the boardinghouse door and into the kitchen.

  “You set right down. I’m making a pineapple upside down cake. Seeing as you is just that, upside down, I’m meaning, maybe you’ll have a bit and you’ll be right-ways.”

  She stretched a quilt with blue crisscrosses and a steamboat wheel embroidered on it over the top of a window glass on the door.

  “Now you won’t be peering out to them sorry sights,” she said.

  “I was just taking it all in.” I said, and told her exactly what I’d seen; the soldiers, the washerwoman, everything.

  “You caught all this in the wink of time you was out?” she said, shelling her peas so fast that a bunch fell to the floor.

  “I remember things,” was all I answered.

  “Umm-hum,” Nellie murmured, a worried look on her face.

  “Do you have any family, Nellie?” I asked, hoping she wasn’t alone here in this hard city.

  She dumped the peas into a heavy pot and hung it over the fire.

  “Just my son, Isaac,” she said, glancing down.

  “Does he work for my aunt, too?”

  With one hand Nellie poured water from a pitcher; with the other she wip
ed her brow on her bandana. It was the same color and pattern the washerwoman in the alley was wearing.

  “Isaac ain’t in these parts. Got to set the waiter out to boil. Then them ham hocks, see, goes on top.” Nellie kicked up the fire under the pot with a poker.

  I handed her the plate of ham parts.

  “That door, with the heavy latch, where does it go?” I asked, pointing to the small door the back of the kitchen.

  “That goes to the cellar, right, Nellie?”

  “It goes nowhere, nowhere,” she said, her voice raised. “There’s bugs and spirit-devils down there, so stay clear of it.”

  Of course I decided then and there to explore it if I could.

  There was a small, scraping sound outside the alley door. Just then, Nellie doused the lamp that lit our small corner of the dark kitchen.

  “Get on with you now, Miss,” she said, getting all firm again, taking my arm and steering me from the room.

  “Is something wrong, Nellie?” Her complete change of mood and her sudden dousing of the lamp shocked me.

  “Miss Madeline, leave me now! Git!” Nellie picked up a rolling pin, and moved toward the door. She brandished the wooden roller like it was a weapon.

  It was the letter from my father the next day that fixed me in a plan.

  Maddie-mine, he said, I’m settling in, and oh, my daughter, I hope you are all right and minding your aunt.

  My camp is like an Eden lying in a sprawl of oaks and pines on the grounds of a mansion owned by a Mr. Gales. It is about four miles from where you are now, so I’m hoping to get a pass to see you real soon. I promise.

  There are some good fellows here.

  I’ve never been in close company with men, and truth, Maddie, I like it fine. But I sure am itching to fight.

  Keep me and Mama in your heart. Remember we’re always with you.

  Love, and love again,

  Papa

  I found a map of the city in my aunt’s parlor and memorized it. I saw just where he was, out on Bladensburg Road, right before the Maryland border, and the street route that took him there. I decided to find him, and join him no matter what.