This story is set in the 1800s. It is the story of a woman of privilege who forms a relationship with a poor child of Irish immigrants. It is a story of a woman who overcomes grief of the loss of a child. It is a story of a child who sacrifices for family and embraces and falls in love with a new identity.

Chapter 1
“Slow down child, I can’t keep up,” the elderly woman said to a young girl carrying a rose in a small family cemetery.

“Come on, grandma, we’re almost there!” the young girl said as she ran between the headstones.

“Well mom, she’s excited about placing the rose on her great-aunt Emily’s grave,” a younger woman said, walking with her arm linked with the older woman.

“I know Kathryn,” the older woman said. “She just has to realize I’m not as young as I used to be.”

Carrying the rose to great-aunt Emily’s grave on her birthday was a family tradition.

“You were that way, Kathryn, when me and your grandmother used to come with you to put the rose on Emily’s grave.

“I think I always looked forward to the cake we always had after I put the rose on her grave,” Kathryn said. “But Emily loves doing this because she wants to share the rose with the girl she was named after.”

“Well, Emily Windham was a special girl,” the older woman said. “I wouldn’t be here, and neither would you without her.”

“I know,” Kathryn said. “It was because of grandma’s love for her, she adopted you.”

“Yes,” the older woman said. “I never really understood that love until I adopted you.”

“What took you so long?,” the impatient girl said as the two women arrived at the grave.

“You’re grandma’s old, she doesn’t move as fast as you,” Kathryn laughed.

“Can we wish aunt Emily a happy birthday now?” the young girl said.

“Yes we can, sweetie,” the older woman said. “After that, we can get some cake in the parlor.”

The trip to the grave always began with a happy birthday. Little Emily always liked singing to her. It always ended with grandma leaving a small note.

“Thank you for the life you gave me, love your sister, Claire.”

“Okay, who wants some cake?” the older woman asked after the ritual ended.

“I do, I do,” the young girl shouted.

“See there, mom, she’s still a lot like me,” Kathryn told her mother.

“That, she is,” the older woman said.

The young girl helped bring life to the stately Windham manor. It was a well-kept place. It was the envy of high-society people in town. The older woman felt it was her mission in life to keep the manor in good order, worthy of the Windham name.

She also remembered a time when the manor was not so stately, a time when the place was in disrepair.

She couldn’t blame the lady of the manor for allowing the home to run down. That woman, a lady she would come to call mother, was heart broken, dealing with the death of a child.

*****

“You boys slow down,” the red-haired woman said, watching her sons run down the street.

“Charlie O’Hara! You and Robert come back here!” the woman shouted as they were returning home from the market.

Charles John O’Hara was the second of five boys in the O’Hara clan. He was 12, a little more responsible than most boys. He helped his mother struggle to keep her household together.

She sometimes kidded him that he was the “daughter” she never had. But she also knew he was perhaps stronger than any in the family. He also did a good job keeping her brothers in line, especially Robert, who for 10 was somewhat rambunctious.

The woman suddenly saw her two boys stopped at the iron fence that served as the border of the neighborhood with Windham manor.

“What are you two looking at?” the woman asked.

“The graveyard,” Charlie O’Hara said. “Robert believes he saw a ghost. But it was only a woman dressed in black carrying a rose.”

The young woman stopped and looked with her sons.

“Who is she? Why does she look so sad?” Charlie O’Hara asked his mother.

“That is Mary Windham,” his mother answered. “She is the richest woman in town. Why is she so sad? I hear her daughter died of the fever in the winter. She was probably about your age, from the talk that I hear.”

The woman didn’t seem to notice the three spies looking at her through the iron gates.

She placed the rose on the grave and walked back toward the manor.

“Well boys, we’ve got to get home,” the woman told her sons. “Your father will be home from the mill soon. He’ll be wanting supper.”

Home, that wasn’t what Charlie called it. It was more like a crowded apartment.

As for his father, Walter O’Hara, he spent more time at the saloon than he did at work or home.

When he was home, he made life miserable for Charlie’s mother, Meggie. He also picked on Charlie a lot for helping his mother do “women’s work” even though his wife surely needed help around the small few rooms they had.

When they returned, well the place was a mess. Lucas, Charlie’s older brother, was in charge. The two youngest boys had the run of the apartment.

“Get the broom, then come in and help me in the kitchen,” his mother told him.

Charlie went straight to work. He swept up and helped put things away while Lucas just sat in his chair.

“Robert, carry Eli and Samuel into our room,” Charlie said before walking into the kitchen to find his mother sweating over the stove.

She handed him a knife.

“Help me with these carrots and potatoes, would you love?,” she said as they went about preparing the meal.

Just then, his father staggered into the room, with liquor smelling from his breath.

“What meal have you prepared for us tonight, my dear Meggie and little Charlotte?” He said.

“Walter, you’re drunk,” his wife snapped back. “And do not call Charlie Charlotte. You know how that hurts his feelings. And somebody has to help me around here. I don’t have a daughter to help me out.”

*****

How does one escape misery? That was what Charlie thought about his life.

His parents came from the old country to have a chance at a better life. Life in Ireland couldn’t have been any worse than this, he thought, as he walked the family dog.

He was just happy to get away. And walking King George was the only way to do it.

King George was a mutt they found one day. His father didn’t want them to keep it, but his younger brothers kept begging, so his mother relented.

They could barely feed the family, much less a dog. But they kept him anyway.

“Come back here, King George!” Charlie yelled after his dog managed to wrangle out of the rope around his neck.

“I am in big trouble,” he said when the dog ran between the bars and onto the property at Windham manor. The gate leading in was chained shut.

Charlie looked at the bars and figured he could squeeze through. It was a tight fit.

“Now where did that mutt go?” Charlie thought as he looked around.

He looked behind every bush he could find. Still no sign of King George.

Suddenly, he felt a strong hand grab him by the back of his coat.

“Just what do you think you are doing on this property?” than man asked.

Charlie froze. He was frightened.

“I’m….trying to find….my dog,” he stammered.

“Maybe I should take you to the police,” the man said. “They’ll lock you away for trespassing.”

Charlie didn’t know what he feared most, the police, or the beating he would receive from his father for getting in trouble.

“Myron, let loose of the boy!” a woman shouted.

Charlie looked at saw a young woman standing on the porch of the home. It was the same woman he saw dressed in black at the graveyard.

“Bring him to me,” she said.

Charlie shook as the man escorted him to the woman.

“Bring him inside and take him to the parlor,” the woman said sternly.

“I can’t believe she’ll let someone as dirty and ragged as you sit on her furniture,” the man said.

Charlie sat down in one of the chairs in the room and waited for the woman to walk in.

The room was almost as big as his family’s apartment.

“Why are you on my property young man?” the woman asked.

“I came to get my dog,” Charlie said. “He walked between the bars when I was walking him.”

“And how did you get through the gate?” she asked. “They are chained shut.”

“I squeezed through the bars,” the boy said.

“You are pretty skinny,” the woman said. “I take it they don’t feed you very much down at the river.”

Charlie didn’t answer. He didn’t want pity.

“So what is your dog’s name?” the woman asked. “I will have Myron find him.”

“His name is King George,” the boy answered.

“Okay,” the woman said. “Myron, see if you can find King George. And Mirilla, get us some tea.”

Mirilla was the maid. She was amazed that Mrs. Windham had taken such an interest in finding the boy’s dog.

Charlie was amazed the woman asked so many questions about his life.

She knew his parents came from Ireland. She asked about the conditions of the apartments down by the river, whether his parents were making it alright.

She was amazed to find out that he helped his mother with the chores around the house.

“Madame, I’ve found the dog,” Myron said after he returned to the parlor.

“Good,” she said. “Myron will escort us to your home with the dog.”

“You’re coming with me?” the boy asked.

“I need to get out,” she said.

Mirilla was amazed. Mrs. Windham had not left the property since her daughter died.

Charlie and the dog hopped into the carriage as they rode down the road on the way to what best could be called the slums.

Mrs. Windham looked Charlie over. He seemed to be a gentle looking child with black hair.

She smiled.

“How old are you?” she asked.

“I’m 12, Ma’am,” he said.

“You don’t look big enough to be 12,” she said as she noticed his dark eyes and long eye lashes. She knew several woman and girls who wished they had eyes such as his.

“Here we are,” Charlie said as they arrived at the apartments.

His mother was a bit shocked by the company. Fortunately, his father wasn’t there to cause any trouble.

“So seven people live here?,” Mrs. Windham asked.

“Yes, Ma’am,” Charlie’s mother replied.

Mrs. Windham was shocked to see the clothes that the O’Hara children wore. But she didn’t judge.

“Charlie tells me he helps you around the apartment,” she said.

“Yes, Ma’am, he does,” his mother replied.

“Is he very responsible?” Mrs. Windham asked.

“Yes, ma’am he is,” Mrs. O’Hara said.

“I’d like to make a proposal,” Mrs. Windham said.

“If Charlie can cook and clean, he might be a good helper for Mirilla,” she said. “I can also teach him to help me with my garden. I will pay him a good wage, if you’ll let him come each day.”

Charlie and his mother were shocked by the proposal.

“Well, I would hate to lose his help around here,” his mother said. “But we could use the extra money.”

Mrs. Windham offered to pay Charlie more than his father made at the mill.

“But Charlie, it is up to you” his mother said.

Charlie didn’t take long to decide. He enjoyed getting away from the river, even if it meant hard work.

“I’d like to do that, Mom, if it won’t be too hard on you,” Charlie said.

“Well, that settles it,” Mrs. Windham said. “I’ll send Myron to fetch you each morning at 8.”

Chapter 2
The sound of the rooster came a little too early for Charlie.

He eased between Samuel and Eli on the bed. He tried not to wake them, but he saw little Eli’s eyes open. He kissed his brother on the forehead.

“Go back to sleep,” he whispered.

He quietly got dressed. He looked over and saw Lucas and Robert. They were sound asleep.

He knew the routine. He walked out to the chicken coop, joining his mother as they gathered eggs for breakfast.

“How are you doing this morning, love?” she said.

“I’m doing fine ma,” he said as he gathered enough eggs for his basket.

“Are you excited about going to Windham manor?” she asked.

“Yes, ma, I am,” he said.

“I can’t blame you,” his mother said. “I know Mrs. Windham will work you hard.”

“I do not mind work, ma,” he said.

“I know that you don’t,” she said as they walked into the kitchen. Charlie helped his mother cook the eggs and helped get the get the bread out of the oven. He helped set the table before going into the room to wake his brothers.

“There is a mister fancy pants at the door,” he heard his father say as they finished their breakfast. “It must be for you little Charlotte.”

Charlie rolled his eyes. His mother chastised his father for picking on his son.

“Let me get a look at you,” his mother said as Charlie prepared to leave the apartment.

“You look fine,” she said, giving her son a hug. “Put in a good days work.”

“You know I will, ma,” he said, hugging her in return.

The mister fancy pants was Myron, who waited patiently for the young boy to climb into the carriage.

“I suppose I could give you a hand,” he said as he lifted Charlie into the carriage. “I am still very surprised by this. Madame Windham has been very withdrawn. I don’t know why she’s taken a liking to you.”

Charlie smiled. He didn’t know either. He had no idea what was ahead of him. Maybe Madame Windham was a taskmaster. Maybe she was his guardian angel, a way out of the slum life. He was treating it, as his mother told him to, as an adventure.

The journey was a short one out of the neighborhood. He could see the other neighborhood children watching him as he rode by in what could be best described as a majestic carriage. He didn’t feel as his father described, just as a hired hand.

He felt more like royalty.

The servants opened the gates to Windham manor as the carriage approached. Charlie paid attention to nearly every detail of the place. It didn’t seem quite as majestic as the carriage.

There were weeds growing up around the place. The once white paint on the home seemed more of a touch of gray. It looked like a somber place, one of great sadness.

Waiting for them as they arrived was Mirilla.

“Come this way young lad,” she said as she led him into a bedroom that seemed as large as the small place where his family dwelt. Charlie couldn’t help but notice the dresses on stands. There were very elegant dolls on the dresser and on tables around the room. But most were covered up.

“Madame wants you to put these work clothes on and join her in the garden,” Mirilla said.

Laying on the bed was a pair of trousers and a shirt. There was also a pair of gloves and a straw hat. Mirilla slowly closed the door behind her. The work clothes actually seemed nicer than the ones he actually wore.

He put them as he was told and was amazed by how well they fit. He then looked at the room before he walked out the door. Like the house, there seemed to be a touch of sadness to it.

He imagined there was a time when that wasn’t so. There had to have been a princess living in this room, he thought, much like the ones in the fairy tales his mother told him about.

“There you are,” Mirilla said, interrupting his train of thought.

“Follow me,” she said, leading out of the house into the back of the estate. The yard was grown up, but the actual garden itself seemed more like a jungle.

Toiling away was the woman Mirilla and Myron called “Madame” Windham. She was dressed in a fashion that didn’t seem to go well with a woman of that stature. She wore a dress similar to the ones he’d seen his mother and other woman wear down by the river while they worked.

“See Mirilla, I told you the clothes would fit him,” Mrs. Windham said.

“Are they comfortable?” she asked Charlie.

Charile nodded.

“Good!” Mrs. Windham said. “My Emily was about your size. I knew you probably needed some work clothes. My guess is the clothes that you wore here were about all you had. I hope I didn’t just embarrass you.”

Charlie nodded to the affirmative. The clothes he wore that day were the only ones he had. And he was also embarrassed that was the case.

“Well, you’re lucky,” Mrs. Windham said. “I bought those clothes for Emily to help me out here. Girls aren’t supposed to wear trousers, so it is the only pair she had. I couldn’t see you out here wearing one of her work dresses, wearing a bonnet like mine.”

Charlie laughed and blushed.

“When I help my mother sometimes outside and it’s really hot, she makes me wear a bonnet to protect my head,” he said. “But I don’t have to wear a dress, Madame.”

Mrs. Windham smiled. She took a finger and tapped his nose.

“You’re almost too pretty to be a boy,” she said. “Sometimes I think a dress would suit him better, isn’t that right, Mirilla?”

Mirilla nodded in agreement. Charlie again blushed.

“Now, we’ve got a lot of work to do,” Mrs. Windham said.

She wasn’t kidding. One could hardly tell the flowers from the weeds. Charlie spent the better part of the morning helping Mrs. Windham clear the overgrown weeds away. He was amazed to see how many flowers still grew amidst all of the chaos.

“Believe it or not, this was once a very beautiful garden,” Mrs. Windham said. “It was the envy of the town. But after my dear Emily died, I couldn’t bear to come out here.”

Charlie wondered what made her change her mind. He wasn’t the only one. Mirilla, Myron and the other servants were also very curious in the change of attitude in the lady of the manor. They were equally intrigued with her interest in Charlie.

“It is almost as if she is talking to Emily out there,” Mirilla told Myron as they watched from the porch.

“It doesn’t matter to me,” Myron said. “As long as she’s happy. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen her laughing like she is right now.”

Most of the servants on the property took note of the laughter coming from the garden. It didn’t interrupt the work. Charlie helped “Madame” as he began calling her helped her pile up the weeds and the brush that they managed to clear.

Mrs. Windham spent part of the time making fun of Charlie’s Irish accent. Each time, she corrected his poor grammar and tried to get him to speak properly. Charlie didn’t seem to mind.

He suddenly came to a complete stop.

“What’s wrong?” Mrs. Windham asked.

Smack in the middle of the garden was a beautiful fountain, one that could not be seen from outside the fence before they started their labor.

“Oh my gosh, that is so beautiful, Madame!” he said. He didn’t mean to blurt it out.

“I think so, too,” she said. “It was also my Emily’s favorite place on the whole property. She used to come here by herself and read her favorite books. Do you read, Charlie?”

“Only the Bible, Madame,” he said. “It is the only book we own.”

Mrs. Windham stooped down and picked a yellow flower.

“That is something we’ll have to change,” she said as she took the straw hat off his head.

She placed the flower in his head.

“My dear Charlie,” she said. “You remind me of this garden, this fountain and this whole estate. Underneath the dirt, there is so much beauty to uncover.”

Charlie smiled and blushed. He was somewhat embarrassed. He was really perplexed.

“We’ve done enough work for today,” she said as she put her arm around Charlie. “We’ll get you cleaned up, get something to eat and get you home.”

Get you home were not the words Charlie wanted to hear. But he knew the day could not last forever.

He was surprised by what came next.

Getting him cleaned up included a lot more than he was expecting. Getting cleaned up in the O’Hara household meant getting a bucket of water and a sponge and washing off.

“Mirilla, take the tub into Emily’s room and draw Charlie a bath,” were the words Mrs. Windham spoke that caught Charlie by complete surprise. “And get Helen to draw mine in my bedroom.”
*****

“No ma’am, I can’t do that,” were the words Mrs. Windham heard coming from Emily’s bedroom.

“Is there a problem in here?” she said as she peeked through the door.

“I told him to give me his clothes and then I will help him get in the tub and bathe him,” Mirilla said.

“She can’t do that….ma’am, she’ll see me naked!” Charlie stammered.

“Nonsense!” Mrs. Windham said as she tapped Charlie again on the nose. “Give her your clothes. She’s seen children naked before. She used to bathe Emily!”

“But Emily was a girl!” Charlie protested, but then he complied, rangling out of the filthy work clothes.

“Give me the clothes Mirilla and I will take them to Helen on my way to my bath,” Mrs. Windham said.

She winked at Charlie as Mirilla helped him into the tub and then departed from the room.

There were no more protests from Charlie. The water was warm. It reminded him of the baths his mother told him about that rich ladies take. There were bubbles. The water smelled like perfume.

He didn’t seem to mind as Mirilla scrubbed every speck of dirt off his skin.

He relaxed and didn’t want to get out when Mirilla picked up a towel off the dresser.

“Step out,” she ordered.

He complied and stepped into the towel that she wrapped around him. She then led him and sat him down at a chair in front of a mirror.

“Shouldn’t I be getting dressed?” he asked.

“Just a minute,” said Mirilla as she pulled a brush from one of the drawers. “Got to brush your hair first.”

“Brush my hair?” Charlie asked.

“You don’t want me to?” Mirilla asked. “It’s something I used to do with Emily.”

Charlie thought about saying “Well I’m not Emily”, but said “it’s okay.”

He didn’t want to admit it, but he actually enjoyed the pampering. He didn’t protest as she helped him into his longjohns and his clothes.

“Don’t you look nice!” Mrs. Windham said as he came down to dinner, which compared to what he normally ate each day was a bountiful feast.

Mrs. Windham continued to ask him about his home life as they ate. It seemed she wanted to know everything about him.

“Goodbye, you worked very hard today,” she said as he hopped into the carriage. She gave him a bag of coins.

He looked inside. It was more wages than old Walter O’Hara would make in a month when he actually worked.

His heart sank as the carriage drove closer and closer to the slums he called home.

He knew how Cinderella felt after the ball, after the clock struck midnight.

Chapter 3
“I hope the thunder doesn’t wake the boys,” Meggie O’Hara said as she lit the candle on the table.

“I know ma, but I like it when it rains,” Charlie said. “It sounds so soothing when it hits the roof.”

His mother smiled.

“Let me look at your handywork,” she said, admiring the socks Charlie was knitting.

Charlie loved knitting time. He and ma would settle down in the family’s two rockers, both brought from Ireland. Robert, Samuel and Eli were always sound asleep.

Lucas and pa were working late at the mill. If pa knew Charlie and his mother still had “knitting time”, he would be furious. He didn’t want any of his sons doing “women’s work”, although he allowed Charlie to help out his mother doing her chores.

“That’s very good,” she said. “Grandma Sullivan would say you’ve inherited the family the family gift.”

His great-grandma Sullivan had a dress shop in Dublin. Each mother in the family felt like it was her duty to pass down the talent to her daughters. It was that way for generations.

“I have no daughter, so I’m passing it down to you,” his mother said. “I want you to pass it down to your own daughter, so the chain will not be broken.”

Charlie blushed. He loved hearing about family history, especially the women of the family. He didn’t want to admit it, but he felt some kind of connection to them.

And knitting time was also a time Meggie O’Hara liked to talk about “woman things.”

“You are the only one in this family who appreciates such things,” she told Charlie.

She enjoyed listening to Charlie talk about his first-day adventure at Windham manor. She told him she wished she had a garden like the one he and Mrs. Windham worked on.

She also told him she was envious of the bath he took.

“Most women here would kill to have a bath like that,” she said. “You’re father would have been furious to have smelled the perfume you had on.

Charlie blushed again.

“Ma, am I different?” he asked.

“What do you mean?” she said, although she had an idea what was going on in his head.

“Well, pa calls me little Charlotte because I like to help you with your chores,” he said. “I like knitting time….I liked the bath at Madame Windham’s and she said I was almost too pretty to be a boy. And I don’t know if I really act like a boy.”

His mother at first didn’t know what to say.

“Come here,” she said. She led him to her bedroom. She pulled a trunk out from underneath the bed.

He knew the trunk contained her personal belongings, most of which she brought over from Ireland.

His eyes opened wide when she opened it.

“Beatrice!” he said, pulling a doll out from the trunk. “I thought you threw her away!”

He hugged her close. Beatrice was his mother’s doll. She made the journey across the ocean. Charlie played with the doll when he was little. He loved her.

But his father didn’t want him to play with it. He ordered his wife to throw the doll away, which was something she could not do.

“Are you different?” she said with a smile. “No, I’d say you’re special, Charlie John O’Hara. God made you a beautiful child, inside and out. You are my son, sweet boy, but at times, I think of you as my daughter.”

Charlie was stunned. He didn’t quite know what to say.

“Are you angry at me for saying that?” she said as she brushed his hair out of his face.

He shook his head no. She had never forced him to like women’s things, or to do women’s work, as his father called it. It was something that seemed natural to him.

“I’m glad you don’t,” she said. “That was the reason I passed the knitting skill down to you. It is the reason that everything in this trunk must be passed on to you.”

It contained a locket and her diary that he didn’t know she had. It contained jewelry that had been passed down from generations.

She put the locket around his neck. In it were portraits of his grandmother and his mother when she was a little girl.

“Wear it under your clothes so your father won’t see it,” she said. “You know how he is.”

Charlie hugged Beatrice before placing her back in the trunk. His mother smiled when Charlie gave the doll a kiss.

*****
“Is something bothering you? You seem a little distracted today?” Mrs. Windham asked Charlie while they worked in the garden.

“No ma’am,” he said as he hoed the dirt row. He couldn’t possibly tell her of his conversation with his mother the night before. But he couldn’t get the thoughts out of his head.

“What is that beautiful thing hanging from your neck?” she asked, noticing the locket.

“It’s a locket my ma gave me,” he said as she grabbed it to look at the portraits inside.

“It’s too beautiful to be wearing when we’re out here with all of this dirt,” she said. “Go take it to Mirilla and tell her to put it up for you.”

“Yes ma’am,” he said as he ran up to the house.

“I’ll put it on the dresser in Emily’s room,” she said. “You can put it back on after your bath.”

“That didn’t take you very long,” Mrs. Windham said after Charlie ran back to return to his work.

He enjoyed listening to Mrs. Windham’s plans for the garden. She talked about constructing a gazebo and hiring a band to play concerts for the community near the fountain.

Charlie liked the idea. No one in town really knew what beauty lied within the gates of her state.

“Well, I guess we are finished for the day,” she said.

Charlie was disappointed. They were finishing way too early. He wasn’t ready to go back to the slum.

“Charlie, take those flowers, will you?” she said. “And follow me.”

They walked over to the family graveyard. She had him place some of the flowers on her late husband’s grave. They placed the rest on Emily’s grave. He looked at the dates. His mother was right, she was his age when she died.

“Emily Windham, March 23, 1850-May 1, 1862. Beloved daughter and angel.”

“She must have been very special, ma’am,” he said.

Mrs. Windham smiled.

“Yes she was very special to me,” she said. “Just as I know you are to you’re mother and to me.”

“To you?” he said. He couldn’t help but think he had only known her a few days.

“I think an angel led King George through those gates,” she said with a laugh. “Because the angel knew you would follow him.”

“I never thought of it that way,” Charlie said.

She grabbed his hand as they walked up toward the house.

“Charlie, what do you want to be when you grow up?” she asked him.

“I dunno,” he said. “I thought about being a soldier. My uncle John is in the Irish Brigade fighting against the rebels.”

“You might make a good soldier,” she said. “Hopefully, the war will be over before you are old enough to join.”

“My pa said I will work at the mill like he and Lucas,” he said. “But I don’t want to do that. But my pa picks on me. He says I’m going to be a dressmaker like my great-grandma Sullivan.”

“And what’s wrong with being a dressmaker?” she said. “They make a lot of money in New York, Boston…or Paris.”

“I dunno, I never thought about it,” he said. “But my ma says I have the family gift.”

He went on to explain how he and his ma have their special knitting night.

“Emily and I had nights like that, too,” she said as they entered the house.

“His bath is drawn ma’am,” Mirilla said. “Helen has yours drawn, too.”

*****
“I’m glad you’re not giving me any trouble this time,” Mirilla said as Charlie handed her his work clothes. He felt a little chilled as before he hopped into the tub. But once he crawled in, he felt nice and warm.

“I swear, you got dirty today,” Mirilla said as she scrubbed his behind his ears. She made sure his neck got a good scrubbing. Then came his arms. He was a bit surprised as she worked on his hands.

“Those gloves must work pretty good,” she said, admiring his hands. “Your hands are as delicate as a girl’s hands.”

Charlie blushed again.

“I didn’t embarrass you, did I?” she asked.

“Oh, maybe a little,” he said.

“We’ll work on those feet when we get you out of the tub,” Mirilla said.

Charlie was even more embarrassed when Mrs. Windham walked into the room wearing a house coat as he crawled out and before Mirillia could place a towel around him.

“I want you to put this on our little urchin,” she said, handing Mirilla a bottle of lotion.

“I bought it in Paris,” Mrs. Windham told Charlie. “It’s supposed to make your skin feel soft and smooth. We both need it after working in the garden. It also smells good.”

She then reached into the closet and pulled out a sailor suit.

“I was wrong when I told you the work pants were the only trousers Emily wore,” she told Mirilla. “I had forgotten about this. Put it on Charlie and have him meet me in the parlor.”

Charlie giggled as Mirilla lotioned his body and then put powder on him.

“Oh no ma’am, I’m not wearing that,” he said as Mirilla pulled some of Emily’s undergarments out of the closet. He didn’t know what it was called, he just saw it once in a catalog. His mother called it “rich girl’s undergarments.”

Mirilla laughed.

“Your longjohns will look silly under the sailor suit,” Mirilla said. “This will be under the sailor suit, so no one else can see.”

He stared at himself in the mirror with Emily’s undergarments on.

“Lucas and pa would be really mad at me now,” he thought.

Mirilla also gave him what appeared to be a pair of white stockings. She was right. The undergarment was hidden under the sailor suit. The britches were a little “poofed” out, he thought and came down only to his knees. That’s why Mirilla gave him the white stockings.

She also pulled out a pair of shiny black shoes with buckles and told him to put them on.

“There,” she said. “You look like a prince.”

Charlie felt more like a princess as she walked him to the parlor, where he sat until Mrs. Windham finished getting dressed. She walked in looking really fancy. She was carrying a straw hat and a book of poetry.

She placed the hat on his head and grabbed his hand. They walked onto the porch and down the walkway to the garden. She handed him the book as they sat down at the fountain..

Inscribed were the words: “To Claire, with love, mother.”

“My grandmother gave this to my aunt Claire,” she said. “We’re going to use it to help you learn to read and speak properly.”

Mirilla brought them both lemonade as Charlie struggled to read the poetry to Mrs. Windham.

*****
Charlie stared at the nice French dress as he was about to get back into his old clothes. He hadn’t taken off Emily’s undergarments yet. Truth be known, he dreaded putting back on the longjohns and his old rags.

The door was shut. The temptation was a little hard to resist.

“Who will know?” he thought as he pulled the dress on over the “rich girl’s undergarments.”

He stood in front of the mirror. He liked what he saw. It was a very beautiful dress, one his mother had told him about many times that rich girls wore.

He didn’t notice the door slide open.

“Oh my!” were the words he heard Mrs. Windham say.

He was frightened. He didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t run out of the room, so he ran into the closet and sat down.

“I’m so sorry,” he cried, tears rolling down his face. “I won’t do it again! I know you won’t let me come back!”

“Charlie, my darling, open this door!” Mrs. Windham said.

Mirilla rushed in, wanting to know what was the matter.

They both picked Charlie up and placed him on the bed. Mrs. Windham pulled out a handkerchief and wiped the tears from his face.

She smiled and hugged him. She tapped her finger on his nose.

“Do not apologize,” she said, trying to reassure him. “I think it looks very beautiful on you. Unfortunately, you’ve got to get your clothes back on. It’s time to take you home.”
*****
The carriage ride was a quiet one back home. Charlie was still very embarrassed by what had happened.

Mrs. Windham tried to reassure him there was nothing wrong, that she wasn’t. She rode home with him and held his hand most of the way.

“You won’t tell anyone?” he asked.

“Of course not, darling, your secret is safe with me,” she said.

Chapter 4
“You are really quiet, poppet, is there something wrong?” Meggie O’Hara asked her son as they dressed Eli and Samuel.

“Nothing is wrong, Ma,” Charlie said as he pulled the nightshirt over Eli’s head and then grabbed his younger brother’s shirt.

Meggie knew better. She knew something happened at Windham Manor. She just couldn’t figure out what it was.

“Did Mrs. Windham hurt you?” she asked. “Was she mean to you?”

Charlie shook his head no.

“She’s been good to me, Ma,” Charlie said.

Meggie did not want to pry. She knew Charlie would eventually open up. It wasn’t like him to keep a secret from her.

“We need to put the food up before your father comes home,” she said. “We’ll have to make him and Lucas something to eat or they’ll be grumpy. Robert, will you watch your younger brothers while Charlie helps me in the kitchen?”

Charlie hoped his father wouldn’t come home drunk. He also hoped Lucas wasn’t going to be bossy like Pa now that he was working at the mill.

His greatest fears were realized when he heard singing coming from outside. Suddenly the door burst open.

“Have the women of the house made us anything to eat?” Walter O’Hara said with the smell of whisky on his breath.

“What have you made us, little Charlotte?” Lucas said. He was almost as drunk as his father.

It was too much for Charlie to bear. He lunged at Lucas and landed on top of him. He pinned his older brother down and started swinging. He hit his brother in the face several times.

“That’s it Charlie!” his father yelled. “We’ll make a man out of you yet!”

Lucas was a little too strong for his young brother. He flung Charlie off his chest and lunged at him and punched him a few times in retaliation.

“Walter O’Hara, aren’t you going to do anything to stop them?” Meggie O’Hara cried.

“Absolutely not, woman!” Walter O’Hara said. “This is the first time I’ve seen Charlie act like a boy. He needs to act like a man and come to work with us at the mill!”

“He’ll do no such thing!” she yelled back. “He already has a job. He makes more than you two combined.”

“As what?” Walter O’Hara said. “As Mrs. Windham’s maid? I swear you are making a woman out of him, Meggie!”

He then pushed his wife against the wall and told her to stay out of the fight between their two sons.

Charlie managed to free himself from Lucas and flung himself at his father.

“Don’t you ever do that to Ma again!” he shouted.

Old Walter, all he did was laughed. He was a strong man and flung his son easily across the room.

“That’s it Charlie,” he said. “I’ll make a man out of you yet! You’ll be a regular fightin’ Irishman.”

“I don’t want to be a man like you!” Charlie shouted, and ran out the door.

Meggie went running after her son. She found him sitting down by the chicken coop weeping.

“Why does he have to be that way?” he asked his mother.

“I don’t know,” she said. “He’s not the man I married, anymore. He used to be kind and gentle.”

She pulled out a handkerchief and wiped away the tears and the blood.

*****

Charlie hoped Mrs. Windham wouldn’t notice the fat lip or the little black eye as he walked onto the porch and into the parlor at Windham Manor.

“Madame wants you to get dressed in the sailor suit this morning,” Mirilla said as she led him to Emily’s room.

On the bed was the sailor suit with a pair of pantaloons…or was it pantalettes? He forgot what Mirilla called them.

He put them on, curious as to why. They weren’t going to be doing any serious work in the garden, not with him dressed like that.

“Well, don’t you look nice?” Mrs. Windham said. “What’s wrong with your face? It looks like you’ve been in a brawl.”

Charlie remained silent. He wasn’t about to tell her about the fight he had with his brother or his father.

“Come here,” she said as she grabbed his hand. She led him to her room.

“This should cover it up,” she said as she put a little makeup over his eye. “There’s nothing I can do about the fat lip.”

“So what are we doing, today, Madame?” Charlie asked.

“We are going to do some traveling today,” Mrs. Windham replied. It had been since Emily died since she really had been away from Windham Manor. “I have some men working on the gazebo in the garden, getting it ready for a Fourth of July celebration. We can’t do any work there until they are through.”

“I’m glad she’s getting out of the house,” Mirilla told Charlie as Myron helped Mrs. Windham into the carriage.

After everything that had happened — being caught in the dress, getting in a fight with his brother and father — Charlie was actually glad to be getting out of the house as well.

It was a very nice day for a carriage ride. They rode through a part of town Charlie had never seen before. It came to a stop at very nice house.

Myron helped Mrs. Windham and Charlie out of the carriage. They were greeted on the porch by a woman who appeared to be the maid.

“The other ladies are already in the parlor,” the woman said.

The women in the parlor were all knitting. Some were knitting blankets. Others were making bandages. Others were knitting socks.

They were part of the “Sanitary Society”, if Charlie remembered the name correctly. Madame Windham said they made blankets, socks and medical supplies to send south to Union troops fighting the Confederacy.

“Mary, it is so good to see you!” a woman said. “We’ve been so worried about you since Emily died. And who is this young lady with you?”

“Young lady?” Charlie thought. He knew the sailor suit wasn’t the most “manly” clothes to wear, but he didn’t think he looked too much like a girl.

He gave Mrs. Windham a curious look. He wondered what she would say. He didn’t know what would be worse: having to make everyone believe he was a girl…or being embarrassed if Mrs. Windham announced that he wasn’t.

She winked at him and smiled.

“Thanks for the welcome, Lydia,” she said, winking again to Charlie. “This is my little niece….Claire. You’re going to have to excuse her. She’s a little unrefined. But she’s an excellent knitter.”

“Splendid!” the woman named Lydia said. “She can sit with Rebecca, so she’ll have company her age.”

Rebecca was Lydia’s daughter. Everyone else there were either Mrs. Windham’s age or older.

“You can call me Becky,” the young girl said to Charlie. “We’re working on a blanket for a soldier.”

“Nice to meet you, Becky!” Charlie said, trying not to over do it as a girl, but not act like a boy, either.

He sat down in a rocker by his new friend and went straight to work. He was fascinated by the discussions going on in the room. Some of the women had actually gone down south to deliver supplies.

Some also worked as nurses with a woman named Clara Barton. He couldn’t believe the horrible tales some of them were telling.

“I have an uncle in the army,” he whispered to Becky.

“I hope he’s okay,” she whispered back to him.

A woman named Helen read accounts from the latest battle from the New York Times. It was about a battle called Chancellorsville.

“That’s in Virginia, isn’t it?” one woman asked.

“Yes it is,” Mrs. Windham said. “I heard Myron tell one of our workers that our soldiers were humiliated by General Lee and Stonewall Jackson.”

The Times story mentioned that the Stonewall person had been wounded. His arm had been amputed.

“Eww..!” Becky said.

“Rebecca would not make a very good nurse,” Lydia laughed.

Charlie was fascinated that women took an interest in war. He and his brothers used to play “war” outside of their apartment in the slums. He never really thought it was very much fun.

*****

“So what did you think of Rebecca?” Mrs. Windham asked Charlie as the carriage took them to their next destination.

“She’s really nice,” Charlie said. “She’s really funny, too. And really beautiful.”

“Yes, she is,” Mrs. Windham said. “Lydia’s done a good job raising her. Her father has been away at war, so it’s just been the two of them. Lydia wants to bring her over to play with you. Would you like that?”

Charlie was stunned. Yes he’d like that, he thought. But there was one really big problem. She thought he was a girl.

“Of course, that would mean you would have to be Claire, again,” Mrs. Windham said.

Deep down, Charlie wanted to be Claire again. He just didn’t want to admit it.

“Well…if I must,” he said, rolling his eyes.

Mrs. Windham laughed at him.

“You can be so funny sometimes, Charlie O’Hara!,” she said…”or is it Claire Windham?”

Charlie acted really feminine in a funny way…”Why it’s Claire, of course.”

“Of course,” Mrs. Windham said.

“Can I ask you a question, Madame?” Charlie said.

“Why of course,” Mrs. Windham replied.

“Why the name Claire?” Charlie asked.

“Well, I named Emily for my mother,” Mrs. Windham said. “Her sister, my aunt, was named Claire. I’ve always said I’d name my next daughter Claire if I ever had one again.”

If I ever had one again were words that suddenly rattled in Charlie’s head.

Their next stop wasn’t too as pleasant of a place. The Plainview Orphanage was appropriately named. It was a very plain place, if not somber.

Mrs. Windham, Charlie and Myron gathered the fruit, vegetables and clothing from the carriage and took them inside.

“Why Mary Windham! What a surprise!,” a gray haired woman said. “We haven’t seen you in ages.”

The woman, Charlie was told, ran the orphanage.

“If I had known you were coming, we would have really cleaned the place up,” the woman told Mrs. Windham.

“That’s okay,” Mrs. Windham said. “I know you have a lot to do here without having to get the place looking nice for me.”

Myron explained to Charlie that before Emily’s death that Mrs. Windham was known for her charity work. She worked with the Sanitary Society. She donated food and clothing to the orphanage.

She helped out with the war wounded at the town hospital. She even took supplies and food to the prison camp up the road for the poor unfortunate Southerners captured in battle.

“She is a remarkable woman, Charlie,” Myron said. “It was like someone ripped apart her soul when Emily died. You’ve seem to be the magician that’s brought her back.”

“Oh no, I’m not a magician,” Charlie said. “I’m just a boy…”

Or a girl. Charlie admitted he was becoming a bit confused these days.

Charlie thought he had it rough living in the slums. Just a walk around the orphanage made him feel very fortunate. He at least had a mother — or now it seemed two mothers — looking after him. He also had his brothers.

Most of the children at the orphanage didn’t have anyone. Most had clothes worse than his. Very few had toys.

He was in for a little surprise. There was a little girl, who couldn’t have been as old as six, who had a doll that looked just like Beatrice.

“I had a doll just like that one when I was your age,” he told the girl.

She smiled.

“You had one like Molly when you were a little girl?” the girl asked.

He looked at Mrs. Windham and nodded his head yes.

He found out that he and the little girl had more in common than just the doll. Her parents came over from Ireland as well. Her father, like his uncle, had been in the Irish Brigade, but was killed at a place called Fredericksburg, Her mother died of a sickness over the winter.

It was a sad story. But it was one of many sad stories at the orphanage.

*****

There was one final stop to make. Mrs. Windham was planning a trip to Europe and wanted to pick out a nice dress to carry with her.

They stopped at the nicest dress shop in town. Charlie knew it was the nicest because he and his mother walked by there one day a couple of years before on a rare day away from the slums.

He saw his mother look at the dresses in the window with envy. He thought they were pretty, too, but didn’t venture the thought about wanting one.

“Well Mrs. Windham, here is the one you picked out last year,” the woman in the shop said. “We need to make some alterations. Come with us.”

“Come along, Claire!” Mrs. Windham said as they went into a back room.

Charlie didn’t know what to say. He knew she would be changing. Perhaps she forgot that he was a boy.

But amazingly, he wasn’t embarrassed as she stripped down to her undergarments and put the dress on. They made quite a few alterations.

“That is so beautiful,” Charlie whispered to her.

“Would you like to pick one out for your daughter?,” the young woman said. She was new in town. She did not know about Emily’s death.

Charlie had a really embarrassed look on his face. He wondered what Mrs. Windham’s reply was going to be.

Mrs. Windham smiled.

“Yes, bring her some,” she said winking at Charlie. “I believe her clothes are getting a little ragged. She may be in the need for some new ones.”

Charlie — or is it Claire now? — laughed. He dropped his guard. He enjoyed being Claire and relished every moment in every dress.

“Oh my, that one would look very good on you in Paris,” Mrs. Windham said of one that was of a French design. “We’ll take that one!”

Look good in Paris? Charlie wondered if she were serious.

Chapter 5
Two different worlds, that’s what Charlie lived in.

He wasn’t two different people. Charlie and Claire — they were one and the same inside.

The two worlds? One was the world of Windham Manor. It was the stately world that Claire was spreading her wings in. It was the world of endless possibilities.

Claire could see herself as a dress designer whose clothes were acclaimed by the world. She could see herself as an angel of mercy — much like the Clara Barton the women of the Sanitary Society talked about.

She could see herself fighting as a suffragist, fighting for the right to vote. She saw herself as a famous author like Jane Austen, or a physician or a scientist, roles she was told women weren’t supposed to play.

Her mother in this world was Mary Windham, a woman she considered her mother rather than the “madame” she once worked for.

Mrs. Windham’s lessons in the garden and in the parlor taught her about what proper lady was supposed to do. She learned from her and her new friend Becky about famous women like Cleopatra, Elizabeth and Catherine the Great, who were powerful leaders.

She also learned from Mrs. Windham that it was okay to be different. She told her about a Duke of York wore women’s clothes. France’s greatest king, Louis XIV, was one who seemed to blur the lines between genders.

In her time at Windham manor, there was no longer a question of what her gender was, body be damned.

The world of the slums was quite different. Charlie O’Hara was a prisoner in a world he could not escape. He could not be the person he was inside. He felt as much like the doll Beatrice, who made a journey across the Atlantic and brought one little girl joy, but condemned to stay locked inside a trunk because she brought joy to another little girl who was different.

The world of the slums was the one that seemed to condemn Charlie to a life of hard work with little pay at the mill. A life where he would be looked down because of the country his parents came from and because of the fact that his family had very little wealth.

It was also a world that condemned his true kinswomen to a life of servitude to both family and the upperclass..

There were parts of the world of slums by the river Charlie did appreciate. There was his birth mother — Meggie O’Hara — who seemed to bring out the Claire long before Charlie knew Claire even existed. He admired and enjoyed her presence. It was her gentleness, grace, beauty that Charlie sought to emulate.

There were also Eli, Samuel and Robert. They were the sweet cherubs that Charlie — or is it Claire — doted on with maternal instincts much like Meggie O’Hara. Like Meggie, he wished for a better life for them than the one they had.

The difference between the two worlds was as wide as the Atlantic. The world of Windham Manor had been a place of sadness and darkness because of a death of a child. But it was now springing to life because of another child who was more and more calling the place home.

It was a place of flowers, sunlight and education. The slums by the river were a place of dirt, darkness and ignorance.

*****
“Now where did that hoop roll to?” Claire giggled as she looked through the flowers near the fountain at Windham Manor.

“Have you found it, yet?” Becky laughed. “It couldn’t have rolled that far!”

“Oh I am just horrible at playing Games of Graces!” Claire exclaimed to her friend of a game the two were playing. They were trying to catch hoops with sticks. Becky said the game was all of the rage at the finest schools on Long Island.

“Nonsense, you’re just learning how to play!” Becky said. “I think you’re doing great. I can’t believe you’ve never played before!”

“Well, I am just a poor Irish lass,” Claire exclaimed. “Wait, there it is, right in the middle of momma’s roses!”

“Poor Irish lass, you’re really funny, Claire!” Becky said. “My mother said you’ll be the lady of Windham Manor one day.”

That was something Claire hadn’t heard. The story among the high society of Eden Hills was that Claire was a cousin of Mary Windham whom she considered her niece. The story circulating around town was that Claire’s mother had married an Irish immigrant, which accounted for Claire’s accent and “unrefiness.”

“Must have been quite the scandal in the Windham family,” one of the ladies of the Sanitary Society said.

The story also said Mary Windham intended to adopt Claire. It was a story Mary Windham made little effort to refute, if at all. Claire, for her part, didn’t either.

Mrs. Windham didn’t mind at all that Claire no longer called her “Madame.” She at first called her “auntie”, but that didn’t sound quite right either. It evolved into “momma”, which Mrs. Windham didn’t mind either.

She preferred Claire call her that. She didn’t tell Claire that Emily once called her that, too. She went out of her way to make sure Claire understood that she had no intentions of turning her into Emily.

There were similarities between the two, but Mary Windham did not point those out to Claire. Rather, she kept those things to herself, in her delighted heart.

Mrs. Windham bought Claire some of her own clothes and her own toys, although there were times that that Claire wore some of Emily’s clothes and at times played with one of her dolls or two.

Mrs. Windham enjoyed sitting by the fountain with Becky’s mother Lydia watching the girls play.

Becky was eager to teach Claire every game she knew, including another one where they chased a larger hoop. They also played marbles in the dirt, although they tried not to get that dirty and be as lady-like as possible.

“I was wondering Mary if you intended to send to send Claire to school at Cottings next year?” Lydia asked. Helen Cottings School For Girls was where most of the wealthy in town sent their girls to school.

Emily was once a student there until she took ill.

“I am thinking about it, Lydia,” Mary Windham said. “But right now, I’m tutoring Claire on my own.”

“I know you want to shelter her,” Lydia said. “Considering her background, that’s probably best right now. And I know it also helps you after you lost Emily. But you can’t shelter her forever. A girl needs an education if she’s going to make it in the world.”

Mary Windham understood. But she knew Lydia didn’t understand the challenges she faced.

Much like some haunting fairy tale, Claire’s world at Windham Manor ended shortly after sundown.

She turned into a poor, gentle Irish boy who lived in the slums after that. Only it didn’t take magic to do it.

*****
Mary Windham held Claire tight before she changed clothes and “became Charlie” again.

They both wept, as did Mirilla. All of them wished for a world in which Claire stayed at Windham Manor. The only change was that Claire wished for one way to spend time with his other mother — Meggie — and the little ones.

She wished for a way they could all escape the life of the slums. It would take the work of a magician, Claire thought, to make that happen. Little did she know that perhaps some magic would eventually be at work, even if it were being done by an evil magician.

She — or he — huddled in the back of the carriage, shielded from the outside world, as they made that somber journey back to the slums.

Myron helped Claire — or was it Charlie now? — from the carriage. Waiting at the door was Meggie and the little boys.

Meggie held Charlie tight and kissed “him” on the cheek. The only good thing about the journey back “home” was the fact that Walter O’Hara and Lucas were busy at the mill. They wouldn’t be home for hours.

That gave Charlie a chance to have supper in peace with his mother and three younger brothers, who had no idea about Claire. It was just his secret he shared with Meggie.

After he fed King George and helped his mother put his brothers to bed, it was “knitting time.”

It was at that time he shared with Meggie about Claire’s adventures. Claire lived a life Meggie only dreamed about.

“Someday, you’ll really get to live that life,” Meggie said. “Oh you’re father will be very angry, but someday you’ll be able to break free from here.”

“But I can’t leave you here,” Charlie said. “Or Robert, Eli or Samuel.”

“Don’t talk like that, Claire!” Meggie said. “It’s your destiny to break free from this life.”

It was the first time she ever called “him” Claire directly. It was usually in the third person when they talked about “her.”

Claire — or was it Charlie — gave her mother a strange look.

“You don’t think that I know that you’re really Claire inside?,” she said. “It’s as much my dream for you to live as Claire as it is yours.”

*****

Charlie didn’t mean to cause a scene. All he was doing was correcting Lucas’ language, that’s all.

“Do you think you’re better than us since you’ve been spending your time at that uppity woman’s home?” Walter O’Hara said before he slapped Charlie across the face.

“No!” he said, fighting the tears.

“I don’t care how much she’s been paying you, you are no longer to go there, do you understand?” he said.

“Don’t say that!” Meggie O’Hara protested. “You cannot forbid him from going!”

Her words brought a slap across the face from her husband.

“Don’t you dare tell me what I can or cannot do in this house!” Walter O’Hara said. “I’m the man of the house! If I say he can’t go, he can’t go. He thinks he is better than us, but he is not!”

“I do not think I’m better than you!” Charlie shouted before lunging at his father in defense of his mother.

His father grabbed his shirt and shoved him across the room.

“I’m tired of you acting like little Charlotte!” he said. “Tomorrow, you are coming with me and Lucas to work at the mill.”

Lucas was laughing.

“Now, you’ll understand what real work is about, little Charlotte,” Lucas said.

Charlie became enraged. He lunged again at his brother. His brother kicked him. He grabbed him by his shirt.

“Don’t you ever come at me or dad ever again!” he said. “Do you understand?”

He shook his head no. His mother came to his defense, but this time Lucas slapped his mother.

She protested to her husband.

“You deserved it for encouraging Charlie!” he said.

Angry, upset, Charlie slipped through his brother’s grip and bounded out the door.

“Where do you think you’re going?” an angry Walter O’Hara shouted.

His “son” didn’t answer.

Walter O’Hara and Lucas gave chase, but were unable to catch Charlie, who ran deep into the woods. He ran so deep into the woods, he had no idea where he was.

He sat by a tree, cried, and tried to catch a breath. But he heard Lucas calling in the distance. He started running again, but couldn’t tell where he was going.

It was dark. He — or was it she? — had no idea he was close to the river until he slipped down a mud covered cliff. He grabbed onto a log before slipped into the water.

He clung to dear life as the log carried him down stream.

*****
Meggie O’Hara ran as fast as she could. She kissed Robert and told him to look after Samuel and Eli as she slipped out the door. Walter and Lucas were too busy trying to catch Charlie to notice

She ran to Windham Manor. It was a long run and she was completely out of breath when she came to the iron gate. It was chained shut. She kept slamming the chain and rang a bell at the gate to get someone’s attention.

“I’m sorry ma’am, I can’t let you in” a guard sternly told her.

“What’s his name, I need to see him,” she said, trying to remember Myron’s name. “…I need to talk to Mrs. Windham.”

“I doubt Mrs. Windham would have anything to do with you at this time of night,” the guard said.

“I need to see Myron!” Meggie O’Hara said, finally remembering the name of the man who would pick up Charlie — or Claire — and take her to Windham Manor. Yes it was “her.”

Meggie was fighting for her daughter’s life. She wasn’t talking about a son.

“Okay, I will go get Myron,” the guard said. “But if he doesn’t know you, you will have to leave.”

He was gone for only a few minutes before he reappeared with a tired Myron who had only moments earlier been in deep sleep.

“Mrs. O’Hara, how can I help you?” he asked. “Is there something wrong with Charlie?”

“Claire is gone!” she shouted. “I need to see Mrs. Windham.”

“It’s alright,” Myron told the guard. “Mrs. Windham will want to see her. Take her to the parlor while I go wake Madame.”

Meggie O’Hara tried to remain calm as she told Mrs. Windham what happened.

“Get every one of the men together,” Mary Windham said. “Have them carry every light you can find. I want Claire found. I want her brought back here, do you understand?”

“What about Mr. O’Hara?” Myron asked.

“Use whatever force is necessary,” she ordered. “Find some reason to have him thrown in jail, I don’t care. I want my daughter back here, safe!”

She hoped she didn’t offend Mrs. O’Hara.

“Take some men with you,” she told Mrs. O’Hara. “You bring your little ones up here to stay the night.”

She then realized she was giving her orders. She also called Claire her daughter in front of her.

“I hope you will accept my apologies,” she said as she tried to get things organized.

“You have no need to apologize,” Meggie O’Hara said. “She’s my gift to you if we can find her!”

*****

No one saw Charlie as he clung to life on the log. He — or she — found himself clinging to life in the middle of the Hudson River as it drifted more and more down stream.

He was wet. He was cold. He also knew he didn’t want to go back to the life he lived in the slums. He no longer wanted to be Charlie. He no longer wanted to be a boy.

He didn’t want a hard life at the mill. He no longer wanted to live life as Walter O’Hara’s son.

He wanted to be Claire. He wanted to be a girl. In fact, he felt he was a girl. And if she couldn’t live life as Claire and had to go back to life as Charlie, then perhaps life was no longer worth living.

She reached the point where she no longer had the strength. She reached the point where she no longer had a will to survive, that slipping off the log into the river was more acceptable than life in the slums.

She made up her mind to let go.

A voice stopped her. It was a girl’s voice, one he didn’t recognize.

“Don’t let go Claire!” the voice said. “Hang on. You don’t need to do this. I’m sending help.”

Chapter 6

Am I dreaming? Am I dead?

That’s what Claire thought as she was walking through the woods. The area was foggy, but the moon lit up the trees.

“Over here Claire!” was the voice she heard. It was the same voice she heard as she was clinging to life on the log going down the river.

The light lit up a path. The leaves appeared almost golden. As she walked down the path, she had the feeling she was in a very familiar place.

Is this Windham Manor? That’s crazy. It wasn’t near the river. In fact, she didn’t remember leaving the river.

Was she rescued? She no longer felt wet, or cold.

“Claire, I’m waiting!” the voice said.

“I’m coming as fast as I can!” she replied. “And why are you calling me Claire? Don’t you know I’m Charlie?”

She finally came to a clearing. In the middle of the clearing was the garden at Windham Manor. In the middle of the garden was the fountain, lit up in golden glory. Sitting on the edge of the fountain was a girl about her age dressed in white. She had a ribbon in her hair.

“Who are you?” Claire asked. “Are you an angel? Are you a ghost?”

The girl laughed.

“I’m your sister!” the girl said.

“I don’t have a sister!” Claire said. “I have four brothers, Lucas, Robert, Eli and Samuel. I don’t have a sister.”

“Stop being silly, Claire!” the girl giggled. “First you say you’re a boy named Charlie. Then you say you have no sister.”

Claire was confused.

“I want to be Claire, but I know I’m Charlie,” she said. “Can’t you see that?”

“You are Claire, you are a girl, can’t you see that?” the girl replied.

“Stop teasing me!” Claire said.

“I’m not teasing you!” the girl said. “Come here, I’ll show you.”

Claire walked up to the girl, who took her hand. The girl led Claire to the fountain.

“Look there at the reflection!” the girl said, pointing to the water.

Claire looked. She could not believe her eyes. She saw two girls’ reflection in her water. They were wearing identical white dresses. They had the identical bows in their hair.

Claire looked at her clothes. She wasn’t wearing the boys’ rags she wore when she ran away from the slums. She had on the white dress she wore in the reflection.

“You look really confused Claire,” the girl said.

“Why am I here?” Claire replied. “Am I dead? Am I dreaming?”

“You’re not dead,” the girl said. “That would destroy momma. That would ruin my plan.”

Destroy momma? Ruin your plan? Claire was more confused than ever.

“I was very sick,” the girl said. “I had to go away. Momma was sad. I knew my sister was going to come. She needed to come. I knew your name, but I didn’t know where you were until that day you and that boy Robert saw momma at my grave on my birthday.”

Saw momma at your grave? Claire thought.

“You’re Emily?” Claire asked.

“Silly Claire!” the girl giggled. “You are so funny! Of course I’m Emily! Don’t you know your own sister?”

“You’ll have to excuse me,” Claire said, feeling a little annoyed. “This is all really new to me. I’m really confused.”

Emily smiled.

“I’m sorry you’re confused Claire,” she said. “I didn’t mean to tease you. You’ve been lost your whole life. You even thought you were a boy. I’m just glad I found you. I’m glad I led you here.”

“How did you lead me here from the river?” Claire said.

“I wasn’t talking about leading you from the river,” Emily said. “I was talking about the day you were walking King George. I knew if I could get King George to come through the fence, you would have to find your way home to momma.”

*****

The O’Hara home was full of weeping. All of the families of the slums took part in the search, but Charlie’s body could not be found.

“I am afraid he’ll never be found,” the sheriff told Walter O’Hara. “We did all that we could.”

Meggie O’Hara stayed one night at Windham Manor. She and her three youngest sons moved into a cottage owned by Mrs. Windham. But she returned to the slums to make funeral preparations. She appreciated at the well wishers, the mourners.

She wore black as a woman who lost her son should.

“It is all my fault,” her husband said. “Can you ever forgive me?”

“I don’t know if I can ever forgive you Walter for what you did to my son,” Meggie O’Hara said. “I will never come back to you. And I don’t want you to come near the cottage. I don’t want you around my youngest sons.”

She walked up to Lucas, who had a sad look on his face.

“You are welcome at the cottage,” she told Lucas as she touched the side of his face.. “You are my son. I cannot shut my children out of my life. But the only way I will let you come around is that you remember your place. I am your mother. You disrespected me once. It will never happen again!”

She and Walter O’Hara then met with the parish priest to go over the service. It would be held at St. Paul’s Catholic Church, a modest church where many of the Irish immigrants worshipped.

“That would be wonderful Father Joseph,” Meggie O’Hara said when told there would be a grave marker for Charlie in the church cemetery. Most of the immigrants ended up burying their dead in a pauper cemetery.

“Don’t thank me,” he said. “Mary Windham donated it along with a very generous gift to the church. It was rather an unusual gift from a Protestant. She felt the grave stone was the least she could do.”

The entire town of Eden Hills heard about the death of the young Irish boy.

“It was a great tragedy,” one of the ladies of the Sanitary Society said. “I hear his father beat him to death and actually disposed of the body.”

It was amazing how many rumors spread about Charlie’s tragic death.

“How do they come up with those stories?” Mary Windham asked Myron as she watched the funeral procession go from the slums to the church.

“I don’t know where Mrs. O’Hara gets her strength,” she told one of her friends, who was also watching the procession. In fact, many in town came out to watch the procession, more out of curiosity.

“Is it true the boy used to work for you?” another friend of her asked.

“Yes, and he was such a delightful worker,” she said. “He really helped me in my garden. I will miss him a lot.”

The service, according to the Eden Hills Recorder newspaper, was a beautiful one. The newspaper sent a reporter to the service. None of the Irish immigrants protested.

“The mother seemed to be a tower of strength,” Mirilla read to Mrs. Windham. “The father wept continually.”

“That is the great tragedy of all of this,” Mary Windham said. “He didn’t care about his son while he was living. He cares now that his child is gone? No, he will never truly know how it feels to lose a child. I really wonder if it is all just an act.”

*****

Weeping. That’s what Claire heard as she was waking from her slumber.

She slowly opened her eyes and saw her “ma” — Meggie O’Hara — sitting by the right side of her bed, holding her hand. To her left was “momma” — Mary Windham — sitting on the left side. Both women were crying, neither aware she was waking.

She was in the most comfortable bed she’d ever slept in in her life. She was wearing a girl’s nightgown and had an old fried — Beatrice — cradled under her right arm.

“Momma” she whispered groggily as she squeezed Mary Windham’s hand.

“Claire!” Mary Windham shouted. “You’re awake! Meggie, she’s awake!”

The two women hugged Claire and showered her with kisses.

“How do you feel?” Meggie O’Hara asked her.

“My head feels hot,” she whispered meekly. “My throat is sore.”

“That’s understandable, sweetie,” Mary Windham told her. “You were in the water for several hours. You’ve been sick for several days. I want you to take it easy.”

“I guess we won’t be working in the garden today,” Claire whispered and smiled.

“It will be a while before you are going to be up and around,” Mary Windham said.

Claire looked over at Meggie O’Hara and asked about her brothers.

“Robert, Eli and Samuel are doing fine,” she said. “Your mother has hired a woman to watch them so I could be here with you.”

“My mother?” Claire whispered. She called Mary Windham “momma” but she didn’t know if Meggie was comfortable with her mother-daughter relationship with another woman.

“This is where you belong,” Meggie O’Hara said. “This is where you’ve always belonged. I told Mrs. Windham that you were my gift to her. But in reality, you are her gift to me. I gave birth to Charlie. She’s the one who really gave birth to Claire.”

Claire was still a little confused, just as she was when she was with Emily during her — dream?

“There is a lot we’ve got to talk about,” Mary Windham said. “But right now you need to build up your strength.”

Two more familiar faces walked into the room with smiles on their faces — Mirilla and Myron. Mirilla carried tray with a nice hot bowl of soup and a glass of tea.

“It’s time for you to eat something Miss Claire,” Mirilla said.

Miss Claire? That was something it would take Claire some time to get used to.

“You don’t have to call me Miss Claire, Mirilla!” Claire said.

“Nonsence!” Myron said with a laugh. “Mirilla, I think little Miss Claire was in the water too long. Miss Claire, you and Madame are the ladies of the manor and will be addressed as such!”

“If you say so Myron,” Claire said with a laugh.

She dipped her spoon into the bowl and sipped the soup.

“Oh Mirilla, this is so wonderful,” she said as the soup soothed her throat. “You were all so very good to me!”

*****

Claire couldn’t believe all of the pampering she received. It was another week before she was well enough to leave the bed.

“You’re getting too used to Mirilla and Myron waiting on you hand and foot,” Mary Windham told her daughter. “Pretty soon you are going to have to learn how to do things yourself!”

Her mother wasn’t kidding. The first day she was well enough to leave the bed, she just stared at all of the clothes in her room — not Emily’s room as it was once known — until Mirilla came in.

“Need some help Miss Claire?” she asked.

“Oh Mirilla, I don’t know where to begin!” she said staring at all of the dresses and petticoats.

Before the night Charlie ran away from the O’Hara’s, Mirilla and momma had always picked out the clothes for Claire to wear. Mirilla always helped her dress.

“Well, you and Madame are going to be working in the garden today after breakfast,” she said, pulling out a work dress, bonnet and gloves.

Claire laughed.

“This was so much easier when I was a boy!” she told Mirilla.

“Do you wish you were Charlie again?” Mirilla asked.

“Absolutely not!” she said.

“Well, then you’re going to have to learn to dress as a lady,” Mirilla said. “But I’ll be here to help you. So will Helen and so will Madame.”

Claire appreciated the reassurance. She was learning how to do a lot of new things. It was a bit scary, but also so very exciting.

*****

“Did you get enough to eat?” Mary Windham asked Claire as they walked down the path to the garden.

“Oh momma, Mirilla can really cook,” Claire said. “I’m afraid I wasn’t very lady-like when I ate.”

Mary Windham laughed.

“I’d eaten like that too if I had been sick as long as you and only had soup the whole time,” she said. “We’ll work it off in the garden.”

Claire marveled at the gazebo once they reached the garden. She didn’t remember seeing it when she was with Emily during her dream. Or maybe she was so caught up with the dream she didn’t notice.

That is if the dream were really real. At least it seemed it seemed like it was real.

She thought about telling momma about the dream, but she didn’t know if the time was right.

“The gazebo looks really nice momma,” Claire said.

“The men did a really good job,” Mary Windham said. “It will be really nice for the Fourth of July celebration.”

While Claire didn’t think the time was right to tell her mother about the dream, Mary Windham felt the time was right to tell Claire about the night at the river.

She told her about Meggie O’Hara coming to the manor. She told her about sending out a search party.

“I think half of the town was out looking for you that night,” Mary Windham said. “I sent Myron and the rest of the men looking for you, but I just couldn’t stay here.”

Claire laughed when her mother told her about how she and Mirilla hitched the horses to the carriage. But Claire became serious when her mother told her about the rest of the events of that night.

Some of the men brought Meggie O’Hara and her little brothers to the manor. It was hard for Meggie to stay away.

“We were scared because we thought we might not see you again,” Mary Windham said.

She told Claire about the search in the woods.

“There were lanterns every where,” she said. “I saw Walter O’Hara and gave him a stern look. Then Mirilla and I went further down the river. I told Myron I wanted him and some of the men to rough him up and find someway to have him put in jail.”

“But he didn’t end up in jail?” Claire asked.

“No,” Mary Windham said. “I was very furious after what he had done to you and to Meggie. But I had pity on him. I don’t know why.”

Claire smiled.

“I would have wanted him put in jail, too,” she said. “But you’re a compassionate person. I hope to be that kind of woman when I grow up.”

Mary Windham gave her a hug.

“If I raise you to be that kind of woman, I will have done a good job,” she said. “But Meggie O’Hara has also done a very good job raising you already.”

She then continued her story. It took a very serious turn.

“Mirilla and I went a little further down the river than we intended to,” she said. “It was pitch black. We were further down river than of the searchers. There were no lanterns. We were about to turn around when I heard a girl weeping…I swear Claire…it sounded like…it sounded like…”

“Emily?” Claire asked.

“Yes!” Mary Windham said, stunned. “It sounded like Emily. How could you have known that?”

Claire shrugged, pleading ignorance, asked her mother to continue the story.

“I told Mirilla we needed to go toward the river. We lit a torch and walked through the woods to the riverbank. And there you were, lying on a log. You were clinging tightly even though you were unconscious. The log you were on was tangled with a fallen tree.”

I’m sending help. Those were the words Claire remembered hearing as she hung on to the log.

“Mirilla and I pulled you off the log,” Mary Windham said. “You were so cold. I thought you were dead, but then a felt a pulse. Charlie’s clothes were soaked. They clung to your body. Mirilla brought a knife and we cut them off your body. Mirilla threw the clothes back in the river while I wrapped you in the blankets we brought from the carriage.”

Mirilla drove the horses as hard as she could as they returned quickly to town.

“I held you and rocked you the whole time,” she continued. “We raced past the search area and the slums. I made the decision then not to tell anyone we found you.”

Reaching Windham Manor, Mary Windham cradled Claire in her arms.

“Mirilla was amazed at my strength,” she said. “I told her I lost one of my babies, I wasn’t going to lose another. I put you to bed. Myron was surprised when he came back from the search to find out we already had you hope. He sent for Doctor Blakely. He didn’t examine you fully, thank God. I told him you were Claire and that you became sick when we were searching for poor Charlie.”

Claire was shocked when she was told of the decision to have everyone believe Charlie drowned.

“It was Meggie’s and my decision,” Mary Windham said. “I told her we found you right after we put you to bed. We felt it was the only way to keep anyone from connecting you to Charlie. They found Charlie’s coat by the river the next day. The sheriff called off the search. They didn’t believe Charlie could have possibly survived. They don’t believe his body will ever be found.”

Claire was even more stunned to find out about the funeral.

“Who all knows?” Claire asked. “Meggie, Myron, Mirilla and Helen are the only ones who know besides me. No one else can ever know, that’s the hard part. That includes Robert, Samuel and Eli. When you visit Meggie, they are not to know that you were once Charlie. For the time being, she’ll visit you here at the manor. She doesn’t want the boys to see you until you’ve changed enough to fool them. They are too young to know what harm it could do if others found out.”

“I understand,” Claire said. “I love them and miss them deeply. But I understand.”

Chapter 7

“Don’t you think they look so handsome in their uniforms?” Becky asked Claire as they watched the soldiers march down Main Street.

A band played. The soldiers sang. It was incredible sight to see. They wore clean uniforms. Their buttons and pieces of brass glistened in the midday sun.

“They look so strong and so brave,” Claire replied to her friend. “I wonder where they’re from.”

“Oh sweetie, they’re a regiment from New Hampshire marching south,” said Mary Windham, who squeezed her daughter’s hand. “You girls be careful and not step out in the street, you might get trampled.”

The soldiers attracted a crowd. Towns people cheered them on as they marched.

“Go get those rebels, boys!” shouted Jonathan Marks, the town’s banker.

The whole town was on edge, Claire heard her mother tell Becky’s mother Lydia that the Confederate army under Robert E. Lee was marching north.

“I hear they’re headed for Pennsylvania,” Becky’s mother told Mary Windham.

“I’m sure we’re safe in New York,” Mary Windham replied. “It’s too far for them to travel. Their supply lines would be too stretched.”

“Why Mary, I didn’t know you knew so much about military strategy,” Becky’s mother replied.

“I read the papers, Lydia,” Mary Windham said. “If Mr. Lincoln’s army doesn’t defeat them, our whole country may fall apart.”

Mrs. Windham did her best to keep the spirits of the town up. She threw herself into getting ready for the Fourth of July celebration. That’s what brought them into town. There was so much to buy, so much to prepare for.

But it didn’t distract her from tending to what she called “Claire’s needs.”

She spent much of the morning devoted to lessons she prepared for Claire, whom she found to be a quick study.

“She has made great progress in mathematics,” she told Lydia. “She loves to read and sing. I’ve even brought in a music teacher to teach her to play the flute.”

“How are her flute lessons coming?” Lydia asked.

“Very well,” Mary Windham said. “She does a very good job reading sheet music. I’m hoping she can do a solo at the celebration, but I don’t want to put too much pressure on her.”

She also brought in a tutor, Amelia Mims, to teach Claire “the social graces.”

“Why Miss Claire, you must learn to walk and talk properly!” Claire said in a mock immitation of Mrs Mims.

“You do that so very well, my dear,” Becky said giggling, also mocking Mrs. Mims. Her own mother sent her to Mrs. Mims’ charm school. “Why Miss Claire and Miss Rebecca, you both are so…unrefined.”

Although Claire and Mary Windham felt Claire had so much further to go in her lessons, Becky was impressed with how her friend no longer had a pronounced Irish accent. That took a lot of work on Claire’s part.

There were activities Claire found she really enjoyed. Becky laughed as Claire described her riding lessons. Her mother bought her a yellowish gray mare named Collette to ride. Becky laughed when Claire told her that Myron was trying to teach her how to ride “side saddle.”

“I told him it would be so much better if Mirilla, Helen or momma taught me to ride,” Claire giggled. “It is so funny watching Myron teaching me to be lady-like.”

Her mother would teach her to ride, she said, but Myron was an expert horseman. Mirilla, well she was afraid of horses. That’s what made the night of the search by the river for Charlie even more remarkable to Claire.

“Mother, can Claire and I go to van Husan’s Mercantile to get some candy?” Becky asked her mother.

“Yes, that’s fine,” Lydia said. “But do not be gone too long. We don’t want anything to happen to either of you. There is also too much we have to do.”

The two girls skipped down the street until they came to the store. The store was owned by Willem van Husan, whose family was among the original Dutch settlers who settled the area. Becky had become friends with his daughter Willa.

“They’ve had a hard time since her mother died two years ago,” Becky said. “Willa has tried to play matchmaker for her father. He’s been really lonely.”

“So what can I get you girls?” a middle-aged, short, overweight, balding man said.

Claire thought he was a very delightful, cheerful man.

They pointed to several jars of candy and wanted a sample from each one.

“Meggie, can you take care of these two young ladies?” he said.

Claire was surprised to see Meggie O’Hara emerge from a room in the back. She wore a new dress. She almost didn’t look like the woman who raised five sons by the slums.

“How are you doing Miss Windham?” she said in a cheerful Irish accent.

Claire did her best to not call her “ma” in front of Becky and Willa van Husan, who also came up from the back.

“I’m doing just fine, Mrs. O’Hara,” Claire replied, almost as if Meggie were a casual acquaintance. It was very awkward.

“Do you have money or should I put it on your families accounts?,” Meggie O’Hara asked.

“Oh, we have money, ma’am,” Becky said as the two girls pulled coins out of the two little purses they carried.

“Didn’t her son Charlie used to work for your mother?” Becky asked.

“Yes, he did,” Claire answered.

“Isn’t she very charming?” Willa asked Claire and Becky. “Papa was taken by her at almost the moment she walked through the door asking her for a job.”

“Doesn’t she already have a husband?” Becky pried playfully.

“Some brute down by the river,” Claire replied, still trying to get Walter O’Hara out of her mind.

“Well, papa says she is trying to get her marriage annulled,” Willa said. “Papa thinks she should go ahead and get a divorce and not worry what people of the town think.”

“Why Willa, you talk as if your father is in love with her,” Becky said.

Claire blushed, but tried not to make things obvious.

“Oh he is,” Willa said. “I told him I’d think she’d make him a good wife…and a good mother for me. She has these sweet, three little boys that she brings over to the house with her.”

“Wait until our mothers hear about this,” Becky whispered to Claire. “I’m sure they would really be interested in this news.”

This wasn’t going to be the only secret family reunion for Claire. Much to her horror. Walter O’Hara walked into the mercantile.

“Meggie O’Hara!” he yelled. “You come here!.”

Meggie looked at Claire and motioned for her, Becky and Willa to hide.

“I hear he can be very mean,” Willa said as she, Claire and Becky hide behind some clothes.

Claire hoped Walter O’Hara didn’t get a good look at her. If he did, she hoped he would not recognize her, She was overcome with fear. Willa, she thought, had no idea how mean he could be, especially when he was drunk.

And he was very drunk now.

“I can’t believe he is this drunk this early in the day,” Becky whispered to Claire.

“Who said that?” Walter O’Hara shouted.

“It’s just three young girls!” Meggie O’Hara said. “Please leave them out of it.”

Just then Mary Windham walked in, along with Lydia Randolph, Becky’s mother.

She immediately saw the knife in Walter O’Hara’s hand.

“Lydia, go get the sheriff,” she whispered to her friend.

“But what about the girls,” Lydia replied.

“I’ll make sure the girls will be safe,” Mary Windham said.

Lydia went running out of the mercantile and down the street to the sheriff’s office.

“Walter O’Hara, put the knife down,” Mary Windham said.

“What, are you so rich that you think you can run the whole town?,” Walter O’Hara said angrily.

Mrs. Windham wondered if she just made things worse.

“All I want is my wife,” he said. “That is all I want.”

“Well, I’m not coming with you!,” Meggie O’Hara said.

“You are my wife!” Walter O’Hara said. “It is your place, woman!”

“Can I help you man?,” Willem van Husan said as he walked through the door in the back.

“You butt out of it fatty!,” O’Hara said. “I’m here to take my wife home.”

“What if she doesn’t want to go with you?,” van Husan said.

“Then I will take her by force,” he said, pushing the Dutchman. He stabbed him and reached for his wife.

Claire couldn’t watch. She held Becky and Willa tight. She closed her eyes. All three girls prayed.

“Bang”. She heard the loud noise of a gun rattle the mercantile.

*****

One man layed in a pool of blood face down on the wooden floor of the mercantile.

Another man stood over him with a gun. He bled too, in the chest, but was otherwise okay.

Clair clung to Mary, Becky to Lydia and Willa to Meggie. All were in tears as the sheriff tried to sort things out.

Walter O’Hara stabbed Willem van Husan and grabbed for his wife. It turned out to be a big mistake.

“Fatty” as he called van Husan was more than just a short, balding store clerk. He was a decorated veteran of the Mexican War. He knew how to use a gun.

When he heard Walter come into the mercantile, he went back to the drawer in the back room of the store and picked up a pistol. He put it in his right pocket, but hoped he didn’t have to use it.

He’d seen plenty of men die. He had no choice. When Walter O’Hara stabbed him and reached for Meggie, he pulled the gun out of his pocket.

He knew he had to protect Meggie. He knew he had to protect Willa, Claire, Becky and Mrs. Windham.

It may have been only a split second from when Walter O’Hara stabbed him that he reached for the gun and fired.

It was over that quickly.

The sheriff asked only a few questions. Meggie and Mary assured him it was self defense. He didn’t really need their testimony to figure out what happened.

“Mrs. O’Hara, will you make sure Willem sees the doc about his stab wound,” the sheriff said. He looked at Mrs. Windham and Mrs. Randolph. “Willem is a tough old bird.”

Claire began to weep. She shook. She was very much in shock.

“Let me take you home,” Mary Windham said to Claire.

“Okay, momma,” she said, grabbing her mother’s hand. “Lydia, we’ll drop you and Rebecca off at home. Meggie, Willa, I’ll send a couple of men over to clean up the floor if you would like.”

“That would be nice ma’am,” Meggie replied. “We’ve got to get Willem to the doctor.”

*****

Mary Windham had Mirilla and Helen draw Claire and her baths in her bedroom when they both returned home. She instructed them to fill both tubs with bubbles and soothing minerals.

She undresseded Claire and helped her into her tub before disrobing herself and being helped in her own tub by Helen.

They both needed nice, hot baths to calm their nerves.

“Momma, I was really scared,” Claire said. “I didn’t know what to do.”

“I know, sweetie,” she said, trying to reassure her daughter. “I was scared, too. But I wasn’t going to let him hurt you, Rebecca or Meggie.”

“I was scared he was going to find out who I was,” Claire said. “I was scared he was going to kill me, Meggie and you.”

“Well, God was looking out for us,” Mary Windham said. “He sent Willem. Willem knew what to do. Now Walter O’Hara isn’t going to harm you or Meggie anymore.”

God sent Willem, Claire thought.

“Do you think God sent Willem to Meggie?” Claire asked. “I mean to look after her?”

“I don’t know,” Mary Windham said. “He’s been very lonely. Meggie’s been mistreated and deserves to be loved. So maybe he has been sent by God. But, of course, towns people will talk since Meggie started to work for Willem before she divorced Walter O’Hara.”

“She couldn’t have divorced him,” Claire said. “The church won’t allow it.”

“Well, I don’t think Willem is Catholic,” Mary Windham laughed. “I don’t know if he belongs to any church. But he’s not the type to worry about what the town thinks. He’d probably live with Meggie in sin if he had to, if he’s really in love with her.”

Claire giggled.

“Ma would not have been the type to live in sin!” she laughed.

“Well, good for her!” Mary Windham said. “I don’t believe we are that type either, Claire Elizabeth Windham!”

Claire gave her mother a puzzled look.

“Do you think God will send anyone to you, or to me, especially since I’m a special kind of girl,” she asked.

“Such a deep question from such a young girl!” Mary Windham said. “I don’t know about me. I was loved by my first husband. He was a lovely man. I’m sure he has a plan for you, but Claire, you are too young to worry about such things! I do know this, sweetie. God sent you to me when I was lonely. And now I have my hands full with you to worry about any man.”

Claire giggled. Maybe that was true. She hated to admit it, but she enjoyed having her mother’s attention.

The words God sent you to me also had her thinking about her dream. Emily told her practically the same thing.

She wondered if she should mention the dream to her mother. But she still didn’t know what to make of it.

Was it real? Or was it just a dream, a part of her imagination?

Chapter 8

Claire tried to rest in bed. The medicine she took eased the pain just a bit.

“She should be herself in a few days,” the physician told Mary Windham.

“I don’t want any word of this to get out,” she told the Frenchman standing at the foot of Claire’s bed.

Jean-Claude Robert was a respected physician who was at a conference in New York. He had performed the “procedure” a few times before Europe, but never in America. He had performed more of the operations during visits to the Ottomon Empire.

“Here are the medications and herbs she will need,” he told her. “The effectiveness of the medications, if you ask European physicians is theoretical, but the Islamic physicians I’ve talked to say they can be very effective if taken for most of her life.”

He assured her of absolute secrecy.

“If word gets out I perform such a procedure, I could be ruined Madame,” he said. “It is as important to my reputation is it is yours that this does not get out.”

“I will make sure your research institution receives a very generous contribution,” Mary Windham said. “I look forward to visiting when Claire and I travel to Europe.”

“Your previous contributions have been most helpful Madame,” Dr. Robert said. “It is helping fight diseases we only dreamed of being able to cure just a few short years ago. We look forward to showing you and Miss Claire our facilities during your visit to Paris.”

“Well, I appreciate you coming her at my request,” Mary Windham said. “I know it was an unusual request for you to perform.”

“If it makes Madamoselle Claire’s life a little easier, I’m glad to do it,” he said before departing south for New York.

“How are you feeling?” she asked Claire after the doctor departed the house.

“I feel a little numb,” Claire said as she hugged Beatrice tight.

“I will make sure Mirilla brings you some nice hot soup, my darling,” Mrs. Windham said.

*****

Claire held her breath as Mirilla tied the corset a little tight. It helped give her body a little more shape before she got into the dress.

It was a special occasion. It was the first time she’d ever worn a hoop skirt before with a petticoat, the whole works. She walked gingerly down the stairs to the parlor, where her mother, Becky and Becky’s mother were waiting.

“Don’t you look beautiful,” Lydia Randolph said.

“I think Becky looks beautiful, too,” Claire said.

All of the women did. Myron complimented them as they walked outside to the carriage. Myron helped each one of the ladies into the carriage before their short ride to Eden Hills Methodist Episcopal Church.

Waiting outside were Willa van Husan, Robert, Eli, Samuel and Lucas. Standing with them was a young soldier dressed in a clean uniform.

“I think it’s wonderful that Ross was able to make it,” Lydia Randolph said.

Ross van Husan was Willem van Husan’s son. He was an officer in a New York regiment of the Army of the Potomac.

“With the army in Pennsylvania, he was able to secure a short pass,” Mary Windham told her friend.

Claire worried that Eli, Samuel, Robert or Lucas would notice who she was. Her mother assured her that she had changed so much, her hair was different, and her clothes, that perhaps only Meggie would know who she was.

Her mother was correct. Claire tried to be as polite as could be when Willa introduced the younger boys to her.

Much to her surprise, Lucas was well mannered and polite as well. He had actually moved into the cottage with his mother before his father’s confrontation at the mercantile.

He had shown his mother nothing but respect after moving back in. Willem van Husan had a remarkable influence on him. According to her mother, Lucas was considering joining the army in a few months.

“It would be good for him,” Mary Windham said. “He needs the discipline.”

“I’ll bet Meggie will be afraid he will get killed in the war,” Claire said.

“Claire, you are to call her Mrs. Van Husan in public,” Mrs. Windham said, making sure Becky and her mother heard. “You need to show her nothing but your utmost respect.”

“I will momma,” Claire said.

Her mouth dropped when she walked into the church. Her ma — Meggie O’Hara — stood near the alter in a beautiful dress that Claire and Mrs. Windham bought for her.

“Doesn’t she look lovely momma?” Claire whispered to Mary Windham.

“Yes she does,” she replied. “We have good taste.”

Willem van Husan walked out wearing his old uniform he wore during the Mexican War.

“He looks very nice,” Lydia Randolph said.

“Mother said he practically had to starve himself over the last couple of weeks to get into the uniform,” Becky whispered to Claire.

Rev. Andrew Harkness was the pastor of the church. He was what Mary Windham called a “circuit riding” preacher who also pastored two other churches nearby. She was concerned he would come in all dusty from his riding, but he wore his best.

The wedding ceremony was a simple affair. Rev. Harkness prepared beautiful vows and it was a beautiful ceremony. But Meggie having been Catholic and Willem having not attended church much at all, they wanted to keep it simple. They didn’t want too much talk in town.

With the exception of the presence of the Windhams and the Randolphs, the wedding was hardly a high-society affair.

Rev. Harkness agreed to hold the ceremony after a generous contribution from Mrs. Windham and Mrs. Randolph. Both of their families were charter members of the church. Meggie and Willem also agreed to start attending the church.

“We appreciate the carriage ride to our honeymoon,” Willem van Husan said to Mary Windham.

“You’ve been good to me through the years, Willem van Husan,” she replied. “I hear the Catskills are lovely this time of year.”

“Yes, and we have a very lovely country inn picked out,” the Dutchman said.

“Why Claire, you look very lovely,” Meggie van Husan said as she hugged her.

“You look very beautiful, too, Mrs. Van Husan, Claire whispered back. She realized it sounded very, vary awkward.

But she was glad the young woman from Ireland was finally finding happiness and the comfortable life she looked forward to when she and Walter O’Hara boarded the ship for America those many years ago.

*****

“The noise sounded like it was coming from the stables,” Claire told Becky as they ran down the path at Windham Manor.

Claire picked out a lantern and went into the dark building. She checked the horses, including Collette. They all seemed to be there and healthy.

“You can never be sure, there may be horse thieves,” she whispered to her friend Becky.

“Horse thieves?” Becky said. “Why Claire Windham, you sure have a big imagination.”

“Well, you never know,” Claire said as they continued to search the barn for anything out of place.

“Becky, come here!” she said as she stood in front of what was supposed to be an empty stall.

“Oh my!” Becky said as they looked at a woman and two small children. “Do you think they’re runaways?”

“They have to be runaway slaves,” Claire said. “Don’t hide, we won’t hurt you. We’re here to help you.”

She whispered to Becky to go get Myron.

“He will know what to do,” Claire said reassuringly.

Myron and the two girls led the woman and her children up to the house. Mrs. Windham welcomed them into her home.

“Mirilla, go get them something to eat,” she said. “Myron, contact the Freedmen’s Society.”

She went and picked out some clean clothes for the woman and her children. She took the woman into her bedroom and called for Claire.

Claire was shocked at the sight. The woman’s back had stripes from where she had been whipped on the plantation where she had been a slave in Virginia.

“I am surprised they made it this far north,” she said. “This is why we’ve got to win this war.”

She told Claire that Windham Manor was a discreet stop on the Underground Railroad, a point where escaped slaves could stay on their way to freedom. Mary Windham had been a silent supporter of the abolitionists’ cause, which made her property an ideal spot for runaways.

Because she was not vocal in the movement, Southerners seeking to return slaves to their owners under the fugitive slave law didn’t have a reason to believe Windham Manor was a stopping point for runaways.

“We haven’t had as many since the war began,” she told Claire. “They are the first we’ve had since before Emily died.”

The family would stay at Windham Manor for the night. Members of the Freedmen’s Society would come by in the morning to help them find a more permanent place to stay.

It seemed to Claire that her mother was good at taking in refugees. She remembered that she took in Meggie O’Hara and her little brothers on a fateful night not long before.

She also knew how the runaways felt. She once felt trapped herself, like a slave in the slums next to the river.

She was just beginning to understand what freedom really felt like.

*****

“Stop fidgeting, Claire!” Mary Windham said as Claire sat for a portrait.

It wasn’t easy to do for a 12-year-old girl, especially when your best friend was making faces at you.

“Rebecca Randolph, stop making faces at Claire,” Mrs. Windham said. “I’ve paid good money for this artist. He’s come a long way. I want a good portrait of Claire.”

“Yes, Mrs. Windham, I’m so sorry,” Becky said.

Claire and Mary Windham were walking the hallways one day, looking at portraits of members of the Windham family, including Mary Windham, Emily, her mother Emily and aunt Claire. There was one of Mary Windham and her mother. There was also one of Mary Windham and Emily.

It dawned on Mary Windham there was no portrait of Claire. And none of her with her second child. So she hired an artist from Albany, the same one who painted Emily’s portrait and the one of her and Emily.

Claire did her best to keep still. It wasn’t easy. A fly landed on her nose. She tried to blow it off her nose while still looking dignified. She was relieved when the fly finally flew off and out of the window.

“Your doing fine, Claire,” Mary Windham said.

She picked out the dress that Claire wore. She also picked out the bouquet of flowers that Claire held as the artist went about his work.

“It’s going to be a very good portrait,” Mary Windham whispered to Becky.

Claire was just hoping the artist would hurry up and finish the job. Unfortunately, there would be other sittings before the portrait would become complete. Then she had to sit for a portrait with her mother.

She was thankful when the sitting was finally completed. She and Becky went out to the garden to play Games of Graces and a few other games.

They were out of breath from all of the fun they were having and decided to take a break and sat on the edge of the fountain.

“Have you told your mother about seeing Emily?” Becky said. She was fascinated about what Claire told her about her “dream” meeting with her “sister.”

“Maybe she’s a ghost,” Becky said. “Maybe she’s out here now.”

Claire giggled. “Yes, and I’m sure you’re going to try to call her to come and appear to us.”

“Seriously, I don’t think she’s a ghost,” Claire said. “She didn’t appear to me when I was conscious. She didn’t appear to be…what does Myron call it?…an aber…rition? She looked to have a full body to me. She also doesn’t have any unfinished business. And Myron said most ghosts have unfinished business.”

“Maybe she has unfinished business and we don’t know about it,” Becky said.

Claire jabbed her with her elbow. “Now you’re being silly!”

“Well, maybe she’s an angel, then,” Becky said.

“Well, we like to think people that we love who die become angels,” Claire said. “But Rev. Harkness said people don’t become angels when they die. They just go to heaven or hell. But Catholics also believe people go to purgatory.”

Claire told Becky she still wasn’t sure the dream was real.

“It felt so real,” she said. “And there have been so many coincidences.”

“Well, my friend, I believe I know what you’re going to be when you grow up,” Becky said.

“And what is that?” Claire asked.

“Claire Windham, the great philosopher,” Becky laughed.

*****

Whoever came up with the idea that ladies should wear hoop dresses should be shot, Claire thought as she tried to walk and negotiate her way through tight spaces and doorways.

“Come on, little miss slowpoke,” Mary Windham laughed. “We’ll be late for church.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t go,” Claire said.

“Very funny!” her mother said. “Rev. Harkness is looking forward to your flute solo and you, and Rebecca and you singing.”

Claire put on her hat and grabbed parasol before they stepped into the carriage. It was a beautiful day for a carriage ride, even if it was a little hot.

“Let me help you down, ladies,” Myron said after they arrived at church. Mirilla also accompanied them.

The church was a bit crowded, but the Windhams had their own pew, which had plaques bearing the names of the Windham family. Sitting in the pew right behind them were Becky and her mother.

Other women in the Sanitary Society were also there. Sitting in the back was the van Husen family, there as Willem promised.

Meggie winked at Claire as they walked by.

“Doesn’t she look radiant, Claire?” Mary Windham said.

“She looks very happy,” Claire said.

The service was a traditional, but a lot different than the Catholic services the O’Hara family used to go to. The people were more well-to-do.

Rev. Harkness sometimes preached fire and brimstone sermons. That took a little getting used to.

Rev. Harkness asked for prayer for members of the church who were off at wore. They sang several hymns.

“Now we have a treat,” Rev. Harkness said. “Young Claire Windham is going to play a lovely tune for us on her flute. Then she and Rebecca Randolph will sing a song for us.”

For Claire, it was really her introduction to high-society even though she had been coming to the church for a few Sundays.

She did her best to play a worshipful tune, a new one, but one that was becoming a church favorite, “Nearer O God to Thee.”

She and Becky also tried to raise the roof while they sang “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing!”

“It is so angelic,” Mirilla told Mary Windham, who was in tears.

Claire noticed both Mary Windham and Meggie van Husan in tears.

“It is so very beautiful,” Meggie told Willem.

There was a time when she regretted giving up her child to Mary Windham. She no longer regretted giving her up.

In giving her up, she realized that she set her free.

Chapter 9

“Bang.”

The noise woke Claire for a long slumber. Her heart was pounding.

She wondered what could have caused such a loud sound. She sat up in her bed and saw her bedroom window open and curtains fluttering in the breeze.

“It’s only the wind,” Claire thought as she crawled out of bed to shut the window.

She felt the chill as the wind blew through her nightgown. It reminded her how warm the long johns were that she wore when she lived in that drafty of an apartment down by the river.

She looked out her window and down on the fountain in the garden. It was lit up in gold by the moonlight, very much like the “dream” she had when she saw Emily.

She looked out, perhaps expecting to see Emily skipping in the garden. She nodded her head when she didn’t see Emily.

She shut the window and was about to crawl in bed when she saw a glow coming from the hallway. Gingerly, she walked out of her bedroom to see what it was.

The origin of the light wasn’t in the hallway. She followed it to find that it came from a candle in the parlor, sitting on a table. She saw her mother sitting in a chair, reading a book.

“Shouldn’t you be in bed sleeping young lady?” Mary Windham said.

“The wind opened my window,” Claire said, trying to explain herself. “The window slammed against the wall. It woke me up. Now, I can’t go back to sleep.”

Her mother smiled.

“Well, come here, poppet,” she said, motioning for her daughter.

Claire crawled up in the chair beside her mother. Mary put her arm around her daughter and pulled her close.

Claire felt the warmth coming. She pulled her head over her mother’s chest and listened to her heartbeat. It made her feel closer to her mother.

“Momma, what was she like?” Claire said.

“You mean Emily?” Mary Windham said. “She was a sweet child, and beautiful just like you. She was adventurous and rambunctious, more than perhaps a young lady should.”

“Am I adventeruous and rambunk….shuss?”

“Rambunctious,” Mary Windham giggled. “Yes, you are. You’re very much like Emily in that regard.”

“Do you miss her?” Claire asked.

“I do, sweetie, yes, I do,” Mary Windham said. “I don’t think a mother ever gets over losing a child. I hope you don’t ever have to find that out.”

“I can’t have children,” Claire said sadly. “Mirilla told me that. Since I used to be a boy.”

“First of all, Claire, you’ve never been a boy,” Mary Windham said. “Yes, your body has challenges. You won’t be able to give birth. But that doesn’t mean you won’t become a mother. I didn’t give birth to you, but you are just as much my child as Emily. Some day there may be a special child who needs a mother. You’ll be able to give that child a mother’s love.”

Claire smiled.

“Do you think of me as Emily’s replacement?” Claire asked her mother.

“Why Claire, where did you ever get that idea?” Mary Windham asked.

“Becky thought I might be,” Claire said. She didn’t mention to her mother about the “dream”, and the possibility that she might have been picked by Emily herself.

“No, you are not Emily’s replacement,” Mary Windham said. “I miss Emily deeply. It crushed my spirit. The day you ran away from Walter O’Hara and no one could find you, I felt those same feelings. I wished I had both of my girls here with me, but that’s not possible. You’re a lot like Emily, but you are not Emily. I don’t want you to try to be Emily. You’re Claire. That’s who I want you to be.”

Claire hugged her mother tight and kissed her the cheek.

Mary Windham returned the kiss and stood up.

“Thank you poppet,” she said. “We’ve got a big day ahead.”

She spanked her daughter once on the rear.

“Now get to bed!”

*****
“Wow! She’s so beautiful!” Becky whispered to Claire as they watched the yellow colored horse gallop in the field.

“I know, momma bought her for me,” Claire said as the two girls laid on the ground under the rails of the fence watching the stable boy exercise the Windham horses. “One of these days I’m going to ride her.”

One of Claire’s favorite things to do was to watch the horses gallop in the field on the Windham estate. She loved to see the wind blow through their manes.

Of course, Becky loved to watch the stable boy, who like Claire’s birth parents, was from Ireland.

“You’re mother would never let you marry him,” Claire teased, sounding snobbish. “He’s not from a proper family.”

“I know, my dear,” Becky said, trying to sound snobbish in return. “But like the horses, he is so beautiful to look it.”

Both girls burst out laughing.

“Claire Windham! Rebecca Randolph! A man’s voice shouted.

“Myron!” Claire and Becky both said at the same time, their eyes rolling.

“It isn’t very proper for you young ladies to be lying on the ground,” he said. “It’s time to head back to the house. Miss Claire, we’re having company. Mirilla will have to clean up you up.”

Company, Claire had almost forgotten. She was having so much fun with Becky, she’d forgotten.

“Who’s coming over?’ Becky asked her friend.

“The Stensons,” Claire said. “They’re coming to stay with us through the Independence Day celebration.

The Stensons were old friends of Mary Windham. Martha Stenson was her best friend. She and her husband Joseph had known her since childhood. They were among the few people who knew about Claire’s “secret.”

They had a son a year older than Claire named Lawrence. Claire had heard Lawrence could be somewhat of a brat.

“So, Larry’s coming,” Becky said inquisitively.

“What about Larry?” Claire asked.

“You mean, you don’t know?” Becky asked her friend.

“Know what?” Claire asked, really, really interested in what Becky meant.

“Rumor has it that the Stensons wanted an arranged marriage between Larry and Emily,” Becky said. “Maybe they want an arranged marriage between you and Larry.”

“Oh, Becky, you are so silly sometimes!”

*****
“Claire, how can you get so filthy!” Mirilla said as she pulled Claire’s dress over her head.

“Well, Becky and I were just having fun,” Claire said.

Claire stared at the iron tub she was about to have to climb into.

“Mirilla, when will I be big enough to give myself a bath?” Claire asked, not looking forward to the scrubbing she was about to receive.

“Well, Helen still bathes your mother,” Mirilla said. “So I reckon I’ll be bathing you until you and I are old and gray.”

Suddenly Mirilla stopped, stunned at what she saw as she pulled Claire’s undergarment over her head.

“What is it? Is there something wrong?” Claire said with a frightened look on her face.

“Helen!” Mirilla shouted. “Get Madame!”

Helen and Mary Windham rushed into the room.

Claire had a look of panic on her face.

“What’s, what’s wrong?” Claire asked.

“Look at her chest,” Mirilla said to Mary Windham and to Helen.

“Is this the first time you’ve noticed?” Mary Windham asked.

“Yes, it is,” Mirilla said, while Claire’s mind spun with what the two women might be talking about.

“Madame, I did not think that was possible,” Helen said to Mary Windham and Mirilla.

“Neither did I,” Mirilla said. “Maybe some of that medicine that Dr. Robert gave you really works.”

Mary Windham shook her head, muttering “Amazing, absolutely amazing.”

Claire had gone from a state of fear to a state of shock.

“Momma, what’s wrong with me?” she said as she started to weep.

“It’s a blooming miracle, if you asked me,” Helen said.

Mirilla and Mary Windham laughed at Helen’s words.

“I would say blooming is probably the right word,” Mirilla said.

Mary Windham held Claire’s bare body tight and gave it a look.

“My dear, nothing is wrong,” she said shaking her head almost in wonderment. “Most girls get them a couple of years before you do.”

“Get what?” Claire said, still very shook up.

“Breast buds,” Mary Windham said. “The fact that you’re got them at all is simply amazing. Wonderful and amazing.”

*****
Mirilla brushed Claire’s hair. She was amazed how soft it was, even getting dirt in it during Claire and Becky’s time in the field watching the horses.

Claire sat silent as Mirilla hummed and worked magic. She placed a flower in Claire’s hair.

“Mirilla, does it mean I’ll be getting breasts like you, momma and Meggie O’Hara?” she said, breaking the silence.

“Well, your mother is going to get Dr. Robert to examine you, but it looks like you’re well on your way,” Mirilla said. “Are you happy about that?”

Claire smiled. “Momma said my body has many challenges. Maybe it’s trying to become what it’s supposed to be,” she said.

Maybe so, Mirilla said.

It still very much defied logic.

She helped Claire put on one of her finest dresses and put a bow in her head.

It wasn’t long before chatter could be heard in the parlor.

The Stensons had arrived.

“And this must be Claire!” Martha Stenson said as Claire came down the staircase, followed by Mirilla.

“Why Mary, she’s so beautiful,” Martha said, looking Claire over from head to toe.

Claire, Mary and the Stensons stayed in the parlor and talked while Mirilla and Helen prepared supper in the kitchen.

“She is amazingly proper,” Martha whispered to her husband Joseph. “You would never know she used to be a poor Irish child. Why she could be an heiress, descended from royalty.”

Joseph Stenson nodded his head in agreement. They were amazed the most — but didn’t say it to each other — that Claire had once been a boy. They would have never, ever have known if Mary had not told them.

Claire did some observing on her own. Larry, as Becky called him, was somewhat chunky. He was a little chubby and red headed. But still, she found him to be a little cute.

“Claire, why don’t you show Lawrence your bedroom?” Mary Windham said. “Now Joe, what’s this I hear that our forces are engaged in Gettysburg?”

Claire led Lawrence up to her bedroom, although she wanted to hear about the battle that had just started in Pennsylvania.

She showed Lawrence her doll collection, her books and her fancy dresses. He seemed bored. She couldn’t blame him. Boys were simply not interested in girls things.

“My mum says you ride horses,” Lawrence asked.

“Yes, I have one I’m allowed to ride now,” Claire said. “I have one that momma just bought that I hope to be able to ride.”

She was amazed they found something interesting to talk about. Poor Larry, she found out, had never ridden horses, but wanted to ride one. He did, get to drive the carriage they owned in Boston.

He liked playing sword fighting and playing war. He wanted to “whip” the rebels, he told her.

Claire tried to break the subject. She asked Lawrence if he was interested in doing some waltz steps she had just learned.

She was surprised to find out that he knew how to waltz. He actually led her in a few steps.

Then he did something that completely shocked Claire. He gave her a kiss on the cheek.

She pulled away. She blushed. She didn’t know what to think.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Lawrence said. “I should have asked you first.”

“It’s okay,” Claire said. “It was very sweet.”

Chapter 10

“Hurry up, Claire! Over here!.”

Claire tried her best to keep up, following Emily through the garden.

Was it a dream? Was it real?

Claire again could not tell.

All she knew was she enjoyed her time with her “sister” in the garden lit up by golden moonlight.

Emily was inquisitive, wanting to hear about Becky and the cute stable boy. She also wanted to know what Claire really thought of Lawrence.

“Are you going to marry him some day?” Emily asked.

“You know, you’re beginning to sound like Becky!” Claire said, not nearly as amused.

“Actually, Becky said his parents wanted him to marry you,” Claire said in matter-of-fact way.

“But I think he likes you,” Emily said with a sheepish grin.

“I dunno,” Claire said, deciding to change the subject.

“Tell me, Emm,” Claire said…”are you a ghost? Are you an angel or some other kind of spirit?”

Emily laughed as they sat on the edge of the fountain.

“Why Claire, I’m your sister, silly!”

Claire seemed a little annoyed. This was the second time Emily appeared to her…and Emily seemed to be avoiding the subject.

“I don’t really think you’re real” Claire said.

“Maybe I’m not real,” Emily said. “Maybe I’m just a dream of yours. Then again, maybe I’m not.”

I must really be crazy, Claire thought. Maybe I’ll wake up soon.

“So Claire, what do you think of the gift you’ve been given?” Emily asked.

“Gift? What gift?” Claire asked.

Emily touched Claire’s chest. She then slapped Claire on the rear and laughed.

“You’ll figure it out soon,” Emily said. “If you haven’t already.”

Then in a flash, Emily disappeared in the midst.

“Wait, Emm, come back!” Claire said. “We’re not done!”

“We are for now sis!” Emily shouted back in the distance. “It’s morning. It’s almost time for you to wake up!”

Then, this really is a dream, Claire thought.

*****

Claire didn’t like the probing and the prodding. She didn’t really care too much for the measuring, either.

Most of all, she didn’t like being undressed as Dr. Robert examined her. She felt like some freaky experiment on display.

Of course, the physician wasn’t the only person in the room. Watching the proceedings were her two mothers __ Mary Windham and Meggie O’Hara van Husen, as well as Mirilla and Helen.

“There is no doubt about it, they are breast buds,” Dr. Robert said. “Claire is developing breasts.

“I thought you would be interested, Meggie,” Mary Windham said.

Meggie shook her head. She was as amazed as anyone in the room.

“You know, she’s beginning to look like my sister Marnie when she was Claire’s age,” Meggie confided in Mary.

Dr. Robert then measured Claire’s waist and hips. He wrote down numbers on his pad.

“There has been some growth in her hips,” he told the women in the room. “There is no doubt about it. With the exception of her genitalia, her body is developing like a female’s should.”

He tried to come up with some medical explanation. Maybe some of the medicines he prescribed were causing it.

“But to be honest, I’m just not sure,” he said.

Mary Windham shook her head.

“Maybe the child has received some form of gift from heaven,” Mary Windham said.

Claire looked straight at her adoptive mother.

“What is it child?” Mary Windham said.

A gift from heaven. Maybe Emily was right. Maybe her body developing the way it should was a gift.

Did that mean the dream she had the night before was real?

Claire wondered if she should tell anyone.

“Thank you Dr. Robert,” Mary Windham said. “We appreciate you coming.”

Claire admitted relief when the doctor left. She felt embarrassed being undressed in front of him, the first time she ever remembered being embarrassed about being undressed in front of a male before.

Things were changing for her in more ways than one.

*****

“Why Lawrence Stenson, that is very sweet!” Claire said as she held the porcelain doll. “It is very beautiful.”

She gave him a kiss on the cheek. She smiled as he appeared to blush.

“My mother helped me pick it out at van Husen’s Mercantile,” he said. “She told me you liked dolls.”

Claire did. She was building quite a collection. She inherited Emily’s collection. She also had Beatrice. She was also building a pretty good college of her own, especially dolls from foreign countries.

“There you two are!” shouted Becky. “You know the music is about to start.”

The three ran as fast as they could to the gazebo. They didn’t want to be late for the Independence Day celebration — the there was much to celebrate.

They heard the adults talking. There war was beginning to turn toward the North’s side. The battle in Pennsylvania ended the day before. The Union boys whipped the Confederates in a town called Gettysburg, or at least that is what Claire remembered her mother telling her.

Her mother didn’t appear to be as happy as the other people in town.

“Both sides lost a lot of boys,” Mary Windham told Claire. “I’m afraid people won’t be as happy once the casualty list is posted.

Claire also heard that Vicksburg, a Confederate town on the Mississippi River had fallen to the North as well.

“Maybe this war is about to end,” one of the Sanitary Commission ladies told her mother.

“I fear it is still a long way from being over,” Mary Windham told her daughter.

Still, Mary Windham seemed as happy as many of the townspeople. And the celebration went on as she had planned.

The band played several tunes that were beginning to become familiar.

“I absolutely love Lorena,” Claire told Becky about a song that was popular among the boys in both armies.

Claire and Becky wore their best dresses. Both had red, white and blue ribbons pinned to their dresses and in their hair.

They were as much stars of the celebration as the orchestra. They sang a duet of songs that were becoming popular. They sang as song called “Rally Around the Flag” that they were told was popular with Union troops.

They also sang a new song called Battle Hymn of the Republic, which Mary Windham told Claire was sung to a hymn called John Brown’s Body, which wasn’t a song she’d ever heard of.

The crowd applauded loudly when the two girls finished their singing.

“Claire has a lovely voice,” Madilyn Wilkenson, told Mary. “She is turning into a very beautiful, very proper young lady. It’s hard to believe she was once the daughter of one of your poor relatives.”

She was, as Mary told Claire, one of the town’s high society women.

“Why thank you, Madilyn” Mary Windham replied. “Claire has worked very hard. I’m very proud of her. She and Rebecca practiced for several weeks on the songs.”

Claire and Becky made their way through the crowd. They joined some of the other girls in a game.

“Would you like to dance?” Lawrence asked Claire as he approached the group of girls.

“Why, yes, Lawrence, that would be nice!” she said as they waltzed to a few of the sounds the orchestra played.

“I think Larry likes Claire,” one of the girls whispered to Becky, who giggled and nodded her head.

“Miss Rebecca, would you like to dance,” Robert Wilkenson said. Robert was dark-headed and a bit skinny. Mary Windham once described him to Claire as being rather “sickly looking.”

“But he’ll probably grow out of it,” Mary Windham once told her daughter. “His father and his brothers are rather pudgy.”

Becky didn’t refuse the dance, even though she would much rather be dancing with “the stable boy.”

She loved dancing and it gave her a chance to join her friend as they danced to peppy music of the orchestra.

Soon several people, both adults and children, gathered in a circle around the two young couples. They were clapping to the beat of the music..

“They can dance as well as sing,” another lady told Mary Windham and Lydia Randolph.

The two mothers nodded, beaming as their daughters seemed to be having a good time.

“Thank you gentlemen for the dance,” Claire said when they finished. She and Becky were sweating and very much out of breath. So were the boys.

“Lawrence, will you and Robert be dears and bring us some lemonade,” Claire said, winking to Becky. She tried to sound as proper as she could.

Lawrence and Robert were happy to comply.

“Mother said Robert would be quite a catch,” Claire giggled to Becky. “He is heir to a railroad fortune.”

“Why Miss Claire,” Becky giggled back. “You are becoming quite the snob.”

“You are quite right,” Claire said to her friend. “Shall we go look at the horses and a certain stable boy?”

*****

It had been a busy day. Claire was happy to strip down to her petticoat and then get ready for a nice hot bath.

“Mirilla, you need to pack Claire’s clothes,” Mary Windham said. “We’ve got a long journey ahead tomorrow.”

“We’re going somewhere momma?” Claire asked as she climbed into the tub.

“Yes, my naked child,” Mary said. “We are accompanying Dr. Robert to Gettysburg.”

“Gettysburg?” Claire asked.

“They are in need of doctors and nurses,” Mary Windham said. “They are also in need of supplies. The town is overrun with wounded and dying.”

“Is that a proper place for a young lady like Claire, Madame?” Mirilla asked.

“Dr. Robert didn’t seem to be thrilled with the prospect of either of us going.” Mary Windham replied. “But father took me to Mexico with him when I was Claire’s age. We helped with the wounded there. It was educational for me. I’m sure it would be for Claire.”

“I’m just worried it would be traumatic for her, Ma’am,” Mirilla said. “I’m sure Myron would agree with me.”

“Nonsence,” Claire said, not knowing whether she should butt in or not. “Momma wants me to go. I want to go.”

Claire was looking forward to the adventure. She had heard so many stories about the war, especially when she lived along the river. Although Mary Windham tried to make sure she knew exactly about the horrors of war, Claire also remembered Meggie telling glorified tales of her uncle fighting in the Irish Brigade.

“When we return, Mirilla, you and Helen are going to have to get all of our clothes together,” Mary Windham said. “We will be going to Europe in a few weeks.”

“Now Europe, that will be an exciting, romantic place for a young woman like you,” Mirilla said as she began to scrub Claire’s arms.

Chapter 11

“Tell me more about Emily!,” Becky begged as they were pushing a cart through town.

“I told you all I really know,” Claire said as they collected clothing, blankets, bandages, food and medical supplies for their trip to Pennsylvania.

Claire knew better than to tell Becky about her newest “encounter” with Emily during her dream.

“Are you going to bug me the whole trip?” Claire asked.

“You know I will,” Becky said.

Claire rolled her eyes. Deep down, she was glad Becky and her mother would be accompanying them on their trip. It was somewhat of a surprise, since Becky didn’t particularly like the sight of blood, which Claire’s mother was sure they would see in the hospitals once they reached Gettysburg.

“Well I promise not to bug you too much about it,” Becky said. “But I do want to know more. I think Emily’s real. I think it’s wonderful she’s trying to contact you.”

Again, Claire rolled her eyes.

“Well, okay, but we’re not going to do any sey…ances, or whatever you call them,” Claire said.

Meggie once told Charlie O’Hara about people back in the old country who tried to contact the dead. And her mother also told her about Mary Lincoln, who she heard held sey…ances in the White House to try to contact her dead son Willie.

“It’s very sad,” her mother told her. Her mother once wrote President and Mrs. Lincoln sending her condolences. She also knew how they felt dealing with grief after Emily’s death.

She still remembered her mother being sad sometimes when she thought of Emily.

But she didn’t dare tell her mother about Emily’s appearance to her when she was Charlie hanging for dear life on a log…or when she was sleeping the other night.

“Mother said you’ve never ridden in a train before,” Becky said, changing the subject.

“Nope, never have,” Claire said. In fact, she’d never left the town before.

Sure, she felt like she’d left another world. Mirilla told her she was lucky to have lived two lives, for she felt it gave her a more down-to-earth perspectives, something she felt was lacking in most wealthy families.

And her perspective was quite unusual. She lived the life of a poor Irish lad, a son of immigrants. Now, she was, in Mirilla’s words, now on her way to living life as a spoiled heiress, the daughter of the most prominent woman in town.

But changing a life from poor to rich, from male to female, only moved her a few blocks from the river, to Windham Manor. This time, she was leaving the only place she’d ever call home.

*****

Claire marveled at the railroad car. It was the fanciest on the whole train. She, her mother, Becky and her mother, were sharing it. Dr. Robert had a nice one too.

Claire and Becky had the run of much of the train and enjoyed meeting the passengers. Many were from most walks of life. There was another doctor and his family. A man who owned a mercantile like Willem van Husan’s. There were a couple of soldiers who were returning after leave and both felt lucky not to have been in the fight. There were farmers and business people.

There were also children aboard. Claire and Becky enjoyed playing with them too. They played games with tops and marbles, although it was hard because the train was moving.

They also stopped in towns along the way in the mountains of New York and Pennsylvania. Claire was amazed how beautiful the country was.

Most of the time, Becky and Claire were seated together across from their mothers. They read books and knitted yarn.

Becky loved to ask questions, including what life was like for Claire as a boy and if she liked being a girl.

“Of course I do, silly, it’s what I really am,” Claire said.

Becky was horrified when Claire recounted her life as Charlie and all the things Charlie went through living along the river. Claire was glad Becky had known her “secret” as did her mother,

She and Becky were two peas in a pod, They were as much sisters as Claire now felt she was with Emily.

“You know, Becky, I’ve almost forgotten what it was like being a boy,” she said, although seeing the younger boys on the train did remind her a little of what life was like rough-housing with Lucas, Robert, Eli and Samuel.

But she had now began to think of Charlie O’Hara as a totally different person, the boy who tragically drowned in the river.

The only times that seemed real were the times Charlie spent at night with Meggie during what really felt like mother-daughter times. She felt the same way about the time she spent now with her adopted mother, Mary Windham.

She was reminded of that when she saw mothers on the train sitting with their little girls. She like to think of her times with Meggie as times between a mother and her little girl, when she first learned to sew and first rocked Beatrice and “mothered” her doll.

Becky and her mother were amazed by Claire’s transformation. They never saw the beginning, when Claire started off wearing girls clothes as Charlie, but no one had to teach Claire to be a girl. There was no transition, even Mary Windham recognized that.

That was what convinced Mary that Charlie was really Claire inside. The real transition was transforming from the child of Irish immigrants to a proper lady, and Claire seemed to take to that like a fish to water.

After only a few weeks, no one could tell Claire was once a boy at the river, but a proper young lady. Oh she still needed to work on the refining part, but so did Becky. But that was part of their charm, Mary thought. She didn’t want them to be porcelain doll snobs like some society girls were.

As the train made its way south, Mary Windham wondered what life had in store for Claire. She admired her young daughter’s amazing beauty considering how her life’s journey began. Claire was smart and confident, but even with the amazing body transformation, Mary Windham knew things would never be entirely normal for her daughter.

Would she marry? Sure, the Stensons knew Claire’s secret. And Lawrence seemed smitten with her. Their marriage would please his parents and perhaps him at first, but what if things changed?

She tried to assure Claire that she would become a mother. But she knew her child would never be able to bear a child. She wondered if that opportunity to adopt a child in need would indeed come to pass.

But she tried not to worry herself too much about the uncertainty of Claire’s future. Claire brought her happiness. Whatever trails Claire would face, she would be there at her daughter’s side. She was sure Claire would be able to overcome them.

“Ma’am, we’re going to continue on through the night,” the porter told Mary Windham. “We should be pulling into Lancaster in the morning.”

“Lydia, I know of a wonderful dress shop in Lancaster,” Mary Windham told her fried. “I’m sure we can find some pretty ones for Claire and Rebecca.”

Claire and Becky were excited about the chance to try on new dresses. Their faces lit up.

“I guess it is time to bed down for the night,” Lydia told Becky.

The railcar had two compartments in which to sleep. Becky and her mother would share one. Claire and her mother would share the other.

The girls and their mothers put on their bed clothes. Their mothers brushed their hair before they climbed into the compartments.

Claire pulled Beatrice from her bag. Becky pulled a doll from hers. The smiled at each other. Sure, they were supposed to be getting a little too old for dolls, but they didn’t care.

Claire slid in the compartment beside Mary.

“Momma, will you hold me tight?” Claire whispered as she felt the train rumble down the tracks.

“Why sure, poppet,” Mary Windham replied.

She clutched on to her daughter. Claire felt the warmth. She also smelled her mother’s perfume. It comforted her. She clutched Beatrice and dozed off to sleep.

*****

Claire marveled at the narrow, cobblestone streets in Lancaster. They saw soldiers marching. There were plenty of farmers’ markets, where the people of the community sold fresh produce.

She and Becky were fascinated by the “plain people” of Lancaster. They were religious people, the mothers told them, called Mennonites and Amish. Some of the men had strange beards. The women wore black and white or dark colored dresses with bonnets.

They stopped by a candy shop on the way to the dress shop Mary Windham wanted to visit.

“Wow, momma look at those!” Claire said when they finally reached the dress shop. There were some very beautiful dresses in the window.

“That’s why I wanted to come,” Mary Windham said as they entered Mabel Rinehart’s dress shop.

“This one would look good on you, Rebecca,” Lydia Randolph said.

“Mary, Mary Windham, is that you?” a silver headed woman said.

“Mabel, why yes, it’s me,” Mary Windham replied.

“We haven’t seen you and Emily here since before the war,” the woman replied in a German accent. “My, how she’s grown!”

Claire blushed. It took Mary by surprise.

“Mabel, this is my adopted daughter Claire,” she said as Claire curtsied and said “How do you do.”

Claire, Lydia and Becky felt Mary explained things pretty well to her old friend. She told her that Emily died of an illness. She explained that Claire was the daughter of Irish relatives that she took in as her own.

“We’ve come to see if you had some dresses for Miss Claire and Miss Rebecca,” Mary Windham told her fried. “I want some nice ones for Claire. She and I will be going to Europe after our trip to Gettysburg.”

“I will see what I can find Mary,” the woman replied. “What business do you have in Gettysburg, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“We are caring supplies,” Mary Windham said. “I also have some experience as a nurse. We hear they are need of as many supplies and help as they can find since the battle.”

“Yes they are,” Mabel Rinehart said. “I went with my husband and some friends of ours. It is truly a dreadful place. Churches, businesses and homes have been turned into hospitals. The armies are gone, but they’ve left thousands and wounded and dying soldiers. It is more than they can handle.”

She then changed to a much more happier subject.

“Girls, I have some really nice dresses in the back to show you,” Mabel Rinehart said. “Come along with me.”

The girls eyes lit up when they saw what seemed to be racks of endless dresses in the room in the back of the store. Mabel Rinehart brought several for them to try, which they did.

They returned to the front of the store and modeled every one of them before their mothers, who spent a lot of money that day increasing their daughters wardrobes.

“I was thinking about buying a dress for Meggie,” Mary Windham told Claire. “Do you think she’d like one?”

“Oh yes!” Claire said. “I know they have some nice ones at the Mercantile, but none as nice as the dresses here.”

Claire and Mary picked out one they thought would suit Meggie at church. It helped that Lydia was about Meggie’s size.

“Mabel tells me there are several Southern dresses that were big sellers before the war,” Mary Windham said. “She can’t give them away right now.”

“Maybe after the war,” Lydia said. “I’ve always like the fashions the women in the South wear.”

The girls carried parasols as they left the store, skipping as they went. They really protected them from the July heat, which seemed to rise off the stones on the streets.

“We’re to meet Dr. Robert at the train at 5,” Mary Windham said. “I’ve asked him to dine with us tonight. I hear they are preparing a really big feast.”

The ladies enjoyed their afternoon in town. Claire and Becky were not looking forward to getting back into the train. But their journey wasn’t far from being over. They would be in Gettysburg by morning.

“Did you enjoy your day in town ladies,” Dr. Robert said as they returned to their car.

“Why, yes we did,” Lydia Randolph replied as they took their seats at a nicely prepared table.

“The girls enjoyed their time at the candy shop and the dress shop,” Mary Windham said. “We also spent some time at a few farmers market buying some food for our journey.”

Dr. Robert spent much of his time making sure there were enough medical supplies once they reached their destination. He also recruited two other physicians for the trip.

“I want you ladies to be prepared for what we’re going to see,” the Frenchman said. “I have been to many battlefield hospitals in Europe, Asia and North Africa and here since this war began,” he said. “But the physicians I talked to today said they’ve never seen conditions like they’ve seen in Gettysburg.”

Forever Claire, Chapter 12

Mary Windham wanted to teach her daughter to be charitable. One day Claire would inherit Windham Manor and the fortune that went with it.

That was one of the reasons she drug her adopted daughter from their nice little New York town to this small, rural, southern Pennsylvania town in the middle of a horrible war. But even she was taken a little aback by the conditions of the town of Gettysburg in late summer.

Wounded and dying were everywhere. Churches, schools, libraries and stores became hospitals. Families of men on both sides of the battle journeyed to the town in search of loved ones after the most horrible battle anyone could ever remember. For Mary, Lydia, Claire and Becky, the war became more than just something they read in the papers, more than something to rally around, march and make speeches.

Mary tried to protect Claire from most of the horrors during their hospital visits. They brought blankets, bandages, clothing and food.

But even Mary wasn't prepared one a young soldier from the Irish brigade summoned Claire to his bedside.

"You look just like my sister when she was little," he said. "You look like she did when we boarded the boat from Ireland. What is your name, child?"

"It's Claire, Claire Windham," Claire stuttered, trying hard to not let out much of an Irish accent that was leftover from her life as Charlie O'Hara.

"Mine is Jimmy Sullivan," the young soldier said.

Claire knew the name. It was her uncle Jimmy, her real mother, Meggie O'Hara's younger brother.

"Hold my hand, please," the young man said, with tears running his cheek. Doctors and nurses had been treating for weeks, trying to keep him alive. But even Claire could sense he was slipping away.

"Where are you from?" the young man said.

"From New York," Claire whispered.

"My sister, Meggie O'Hara, well she's re-married now," he said. "She lives in a small town in New York. If you ever meet her, will you tell her that I love her."

"I will," Claire cried. "I'm sure she's very proud of you."

The young man tightened his grip on Claire's hand, then slipped away from life as if falling asleep. Claire put her head on his chest and wept.

Mary reached down to pick up her daughter.

"We will tell Meggie," she said to her daughter. "I just want to tell you how proud I am of you. You were very strong."

She picked her daughter up and walked her outside of the hospital. The fresh air did them both good.

"We've done about all we can do here," she told her daughter. "I'll tell Lydia that we'll leave for New York in the morning."

Claire couldn't wait to find Becky. Becky was helping make bandages. The two of them found time to play with children who were there with their mothers searching for their families.

"I'm glad they are playing," Lydia told Mary. "I want them to be children again, and to only worry about things children need to worry about."

"I know," Mary said. "I thought this would be an educational trip for them. I wonder if they've learned a little too much."

#####

Claire screamed like a banshee as she woke from a dream in the railroad car.

"What is it child?" Mary Windham asked her daughter.

"It was horrible, just horrible" Claire said.

It was a nightmare about all that she'd seen. She couldn't wait to get back to Windham Manor. The adventure was a bit much. She'd seen a lot of blood. A lot of soldiers in the hospital without arms and legs. She'd heard them moan and groan. And in a passing moment saw someone she knew, an uncle Meggie had always talked about die. He was a person Meggie always used as an example of goodness when compared to Charlie's father.

She also couldn't wait until she saw Meggie again. She couldn't wait to show her the dresses that they bought in Lancaster, including one for the mother of Charlie O'Hara. She also couldn't wait to see the boys. She saw so little of them now that she was living with Claire. She also couldn't wait to tell her about her brother Jimmy. She knew Meggie would be sad about his passing.

She also couldn't wait to see Mirilla or Myron, or to play with Becky in the garden.

She also wondered if there were ever going to be any more meetings with Emily at the fountain, whether they were dreams or some cosmic visits. She had a lot on her mind and Emily seemed to comfort her in those times.

She seemed comforted as she looked outside at the sight of the mountains as they headed north. They were a sight that seemed to softly whisper they were close to him.

She looked over at Becky, clutched Beatrice, and dozed off to sleep.

Forever Claire, Chapter 13.

The sound of a bang awoke Claire out of her long slumber. It frightened her, but it only took her a minute to realize what it was. Her bedroom window blew open and hit the wall. She could feel a breeze coming through the open window.

"Oh, it's only you, Emily," she said with a sleepy whisper. She slowly crawled out of bed and went to the window. The moon once again lit up the garden and the fountain. It made it look golden.

Claire pulled a shawl over her gown and quietly walked down the stairs. She didn't want to wake her mother, Mirilla or Myron. Some of the wooden boards on the floor creaked. She slowly opened opened the door and walked down the steps. The ground felt cold and damp on her bare feet as she walked toward the garden.

"What took you so long?" a young girl asked as Claire reached the fountain.

"I came here as fast I as I could," Claire replied. "I'm still sleepy."

"I'm glad to see you Claire, I've missed you," the girl replied.

"I missed you, too, Emily," Claire said, still wondering if she were dreaming, or if she were addressing some kind of ghost or spirit. Claire wasn't going to bother to ask, because Emily never seemed to give a direct answer.

"So, are you excited about the trip to Europe?" Emily asked.

"Oh, yes, but it's kind of scary," Claire answered. "I've never been on a boat before."

"Oh you will love it," Emily said. "Mother only travels on the nicest ships. They will pamper you on the journey."

Sounds much better than the ship Meggie O'Hara used to tell Charlie about on the trip over from Ireland.

The two girls skipped around the fountain. Claire told Emily about the trip to Gettysburg and the horrors she'd seen. She told her about meeting her uncle and holding his hand before he died.

"Mom, Mirilla and Meggie told me he is in a better place," Claire said. "They said I should be proud of him and the sacrifice he made for his country."

"He is in a better place," Emily said, trying to reassure Claire. "And you should be proud."

This nightly visit came to a close when the two girls walked up to a rose bush in the garden.

"Promise me you won't forget me," Emily said.

"I promise," Claire said. "I promise you'll get a rose from this bush for your birthday every year, just like the one mother brings you. You're my sister. How can I ever forget you?"

*****

Claire still felt a little tired when Mirilla woke her up the next day.

"What did you do, get up in the middle of the night?" Mirilla asked as she helped Claire put on a dress over her undergarments.

Claire didn't know what to answer. She didn't know if the visit from Emily was real, or a dream. She could never really tell.

"I'm glad you're up," Mary Windham said. "We've got a much busy day."

"I know," Claire replied. "We've got to pack for our trip."

Claire didn't realize how much of a job that would prove to be. She, her mother, Mirilla and Myron loaded trunk loads of clothes.

"We've got to pack so much," her mother said. "We're going to be gone for three months."

It was to be a journey of a lifetime, Claire was told. Their first stop, ironically, would be to Ireland, almost retracing the steps of the O'Hara family.

"I'm almost envious," Meggie told her a few days before. "It's green and beautiful. I'm sure you'll only see the beautiful parts of the island, the castles."

They would also be journeying to Scotland and England before crossing the channel into France, Prussia, Austria and Italy. Mary Windham talked to her about seeing the Alps she learned about in books, the palace at Versailles, seeing great works of art and ancient Roman ruins.

But still, Claire thought about those she would miss. She would miss Meggie and the boys. She'd miss Myron and Mirilla, who would be looking after the place in their absence. And she would miss those trips to the garden, real or imaginary.

It helped that Becky and her mother were coming along for the trip. They were going to have such an adventure together.

****

Lawrence and his family came over before the carriage ride to New York City. He brought a bouquet of flowers and proposed marriage.

"Oh how sweet," his mother replied.

"We're much to young," Claire said as she climbed aboard the carriage. "But I'll think about it when we're in Europe."

She and Becky laughed because Lawrence seemed to take her seriously.

There were actually a train of carriages journeying to New York. One carried Claire, Becky, their mothers and Mirilla. Myron rode in the carriage carrying their trunks for the journey. Another carriage carried the van Husens. Meggie wanted to make sure she had a chance to say goodbye.

"My that is a big ship," Meggie told Claire after they reached the port. She locked arms with Claire as they stood on the dock. "It's much nicer than the one I came over on."

She couldn't help but smile as she saw Claire clutching onto Beatrice. The old doll made the first journey across the ocean. It would be making the second as well.

Claire gave the boys a hug before she locked arms with her mother Mary and walked up the ramp and into the ship.

****

The older woman warmed herself at the fireplace as the young girl ate her cake.

"Oh grandma, tell me more of your stories," the young girl said.

"I'm getting a little too tired," the woman replied. "It's past your bedtime. It's also getting past mine."

"You know mother, she really loves your stories," the younger woman said.

"You enjoy them, too Kathryn," the older woman said. "You also really use to enjoy the ones your grandmother Windham used to tell."

"Emily, you must make me a promise," the older woman told her granddaughter.

"What is it, grandma?" the girl replied.

"You must promise me that you'll never forget your great aunt Emily," the older woman replied. "Always make sure she gets a rose for her birthday."

"From the bush in the garden?" the young girl asked.

The older woman nodded.

"I won't forget, grandma, I won't" Emily said.

The older woman hugged the young girl and her mother before they left the parlor.

The older woman went upstairs to her bedroom. She opened up her window and looked down on the garden. Again it was lit up by the moon. It looked golden as usual, especially when the light reflected off the water in the fountain.

"Well sis, I've kept my promise to you," she said. "Thank you for bringing me here."

The end