Alma Katsu - The Taker

“You’re right. There’s no one I can confide in, except you.” Jonathan turned his handsome face from me, embarrassed. “It’s Sophia-you’ve guessed that much, I’m sure, and I know hers is the last name you wish to hear-”

“You’ve no idea,” I muttered, tucking a fold of my skirt into my waist to lift the hem from the ground.

“It’s been a happy enough union between us, Lanny. I never would have guessed as much. We are so different and yet I’ve come to enjoy her company immensely. She has an independent mind and isn’t afraid to speak it.” He spoke, oblivious to the fact that I’d stopped dead in my tracks, mouth agape. Hadn’t I spoken my mind to him? Well, perhaps I hadn’t spoken my mind plainly to him on all matters, but hadn’t we conversed as equals, friends? It was maddening that he thought Sophia’s demeanor so singular and remarkable. “It’s all the more extraordinary considering the family she comes from. She tells stories of her father, that he is a drunkard and a gambler, and beats his wife and his daughters.”

“Tobey Ostergaard,” I said. It surprised me that Jonathan had not known of Tobey’s poor reputation, but it only went to show how sheltered he was from the rest of the village. Ostergaard’s problems were well known. No one thought much of him as a father or a provider. A poor farmer, Tobey dug graves on the weekends to earn extra coin, which he usually wasted on drink. “Her brother ran away a year ago,” I said to Jonathan. “He fought with his father, and Tobey hit him in the face with his gravedigger’s shovel.”

Jonathan seemed genuinely horrified. “This rough upbringing has toughened Sophia, and yet she has not become hardened and bitter, not even after her grievous marriage. She regrets very much having agreed to the match, especially now that…” He trailed off.

“Now-what?” I prodded, fear rising in my throat.

“She tells me she is pregnant,” Jonathan blurted out, turning back to me. “She swears the baby is mine. I don’t know what to do.”

His expression was a sheet of terror and, yes, trepidation that he’d had to tell me this. I would have slapped him if it weren’t so plain that he truly didn’t wish to hurt me. Still, I wanted to throw it back in his face: he’d been carrying on with this woman for weeks, what did he expect? He’d been lucky that it hadn’t happened sooner. “What are you going to do?” I asked.

“Sophia’s wish is plain: she wants us to be married and to raise the babe together.”

A bitter laugh burst from my lips. “She must be mad. Your family would never allow it.”

He gave me a quick, angry look that made me regret my outburst. “What is it,” I tried again in a more conciliatory tone, “that you wish to do?”

Jonathan shook his head. “I tell you, Lanny, I do not know my own mind on this matter.” I wasn’t sure I believed him, however. There was a hesitancy in his tone, as though he held thoughts that he didn’t dare speak. He seemed much changed from the Jonathan I knew, the scoundrel who’d planned to remain unfettered as long as possible.

If he only knew how conflicted I was by his dilemma. On one hand, he seemed so miserable and helpless to see his way clear that I was moved to pity. On the other hand, my pride stung like newly flayed skin. I paced around him, a knuckle pressed to my lips. “Well, let’s think this through. You know as well as I that there are remedies for this sort of predicament. She needs to make a trip to the midwife…” I thought of Magda: surely she would know how to deal with this calamity, an eventuality in her line of work. “A tincture of herbs or some procedure, I’ve heard, will take care of the problem.”

Face flushed, Jonathan shook his head again. “She won’t. She means to have the baby.”

“But she cannot! It would be madness to flaunt her wrongdoing so.”

“If such behavior would be madness, then she is indeed not in her right mind.”

“What about… your father? Have you thought of going to him for advice?” The suggestion wasn’t completely ridiculous: Charles St. Andrew was known for chasing his servant girls and had probably been in Jonathan’s position once or twice himself.

Jonathan snorted like a shying horse. “I suppose I will have to tell old Charles, though I don’t look forward to it. He will know how to deal with Sophia, but I fear what the outcome might be.” Meaning, I guessed, that Charles St. Andrew would make his son break all ties with Sophia and, baby or no, they’d not see each other again. Or worse, he might insist Jeremiah be told, and Jeremiah might demand a divorce from his adulterous wife and start proceedings against Jonathan. Or he could extort hush money from the St. Andrews, agreeing to raise the babe as his own if he was paid for his silence. What might happen once St. Andrew stepped in was anyone’s guess.

“My dear Jonathan,” I murmured, my mind scrabbling for a piece of advice to give him, “I am sorry for your misfortune. But before you go to your father, let me think on it a day. Perhaps a solution will come to me.”

He looked over his shoulder at my sisters, who were now obscured from us behind a pitched stack of hay. “As always, you are my salvation.” Before I knew what was happening, he clasped me by the shoulders and pulled me to him, fairly lifting me to my toes to kiss me. But it was no brotherly peck; the forcefulness of his kiss was a reminder that he could conjure up my desire at will, that I was his. He held me tight to him and yet he trembled, too; we were both panting when he released me. “You are my angel,” he whispered hoarsely in my ear. “Without you, I would be lost.”

Did he know what he was doing, saying such things to someone desperately in love with him? It made me wonder if he had meant to set me to take care of this unsavory business of his, or if he had merely come seeking reassurances from the one girl he could depend on to love him no matter what he did. I liked to think that a part of him loved me purely and was sorry to have disappointed me. I cannot honestly say I knew Jonathan’s true intentions then; I doubt if he himself knew. After all, he was a young man in serious trouble for the first time; perhaps Jonathan wishfully believed that, if God would forgive him this indiscretion, he would mend his ways and be satisfied with one girl who would love him completely.

He climbed back in the saddle and nodded politely to my sisters before turning his horse in the direction of home. And before he had ridden to the edge of the field and disappeared from my sight, a thought came to me, for I was a clever girl and never more focused in intent than when it involved Jonathan.

I decided to visit Sophia the next day and speak to her in private. I waited until I had shut our chickens in the coop for the night, so my absence wouldn’t be noticed, before setting out for the Jacobses’ farm. Their property was much quieter than ours, mainly because they owned fewer livestock and there were no children to help tend to all the chores. I crept into the barn, hoping I would not run into Jeremiah, and found Sophia penning their three raggedy sheep in a stall for the evening.

“Lanore!” She started in surprise, hands flying up to cover her heart. She was lightly dressed for being outside, with only a woolly shawl over her shoulders instead of a cloak to ward off the cold. Sophia had to know of my friendship with Jonathan and God knows what he might have said to her about me (or perhaps I was foolish to believe that he gave a thought to me once he’d left my presence). She gave me an icy look, undoubtedly worried about why I’d come. I must have seemed a child to her for being not yet wed and still living under my parents’ roof although I was only a few years younger.