The Price

Sleep would not come to Isabelle that night. No matter how she lay, her bones ached against the hard, cabin floor after working so hard all day. She looked across the room at her husband, Seth, sleeping comfortably, albeit drunkenly, in their bed . . . a bed she couldn’t bring herself to share since she had come back home after seven years—years that she had thought her husband dead from the hand of privateers. She had been taught since she was a little girl that marriage was until death, no matter what. Isabelle groaned within as she tossed thoughts around in her head, remembering their joyful marriage and the birth of their twin girls . . . that is, until the privateers had burst into their cabin that day seven years ago and stolen their happiness.

Her thoughts went to Sam—strong, reliable Sam. His warm, loving voice broke into her thoughts as she recalled how he daily for the past several months openly displayed his love for her and for her daughter, Rachel. Softly, patiently, he revealed layer after layer of love for them.

“Is it wrong to walk out on this sham of a marriage after seven years that I thought him dead?” she asked herself.

Rachel stirred in her sleep next to Isabelle. “At least one of us is able to sleep,” Isabelle murmured to no one.

As Isabelle looked at Rachel sleeping, she continued her thoughts. “And what about you, Little One? How is all of this affecting you? He belittles you, taunts you. He doesn’t even recognize you as his own daughter or love you as a father should. He destroyed your most precious treasure: the flute Sam carved for you. Maybe I should get you away from this place.”

Isabelle propped herself up on one elbow and, with a single finger, traced Rachel’s face. She pushed a couple of errant curls away from her eyes. She could not help but smile at the beautiful child who had come into her life—twice—first at the birth of her and her twin sister, Susanna, and again when she had been discovered seven years after her kidnapping. Yes, she was so grateful!

“However,” she wondered, “am I being the best mother for you if we continue to stay here with him?” Isabelle lay back down.

“I don’t know what to do!” She shuddered as she thought the words. “Miraculously, I found you, my precious daughter, whom I thought I had lost forever. You are so very fragile. I was taught to stay in a marriage no matter what. I’m so torn! I just don’t know what is right anymore!”

Isabelle’s mind then drifted to the scene outside with Seth earlier that evening.

“If he ever grabs me like that again, I’ll . . . I’ll . . .” she started to say to herself.

Just then, Isabelle’s eyes darted to the corner of the cabin near the door where she always propped the rifle Sam had procured for her to use for her and Rachel’s protection. She kept it in that corner to be quickly at hand if she ever needed it. It was gone! When Seth had threatened to sell or trade her gun for rum, she had not taken him seriously. She thought he was only trying to goad her into an outburst. Evidently, he had been serious. She needed that rifle to provide food and for protection, not only against Seth, but she also believed it was the only protection she and Rachel had against any danger . . . and now that protection was gone!

Isabelle became even more furious! Hopefully, he had not already sold it but just hidden it away to retrieve later for a trip back into the village. Isabelle quietly arose and grabbed a lantern. She stealthily lifted the door latch and let herself outside. The stars twinkled brightly in the wee, early morning hours, and the air was brisk and fresh. A slight breeze ruffled her hair. The full moon lit up the yard sufficiently that she did not need to light the lantern. She stopped for a moment to think.

“Where would Seth hide the gun?” she mused.

She chewed her lower lip. Isabelle believed he would not attempt to hide the gun in the cabin as she would most likely have seen him do it. It would be so easily discovered there that, surely, he would have chosen a place outside the cabin.

“Possibly it is in the tool shed,” she whispered to herself.

Isabelle trotted down the path to the tool shed. As she tugged on the door, the hinges let out a loud squeak. She hoped Seth had not heard. Quickly, she lit the lantern and held it high. The shed wreaked of mildew and dirt. Isabelle put her sleeved arm over her nose to soften the shed’s smell to a tolerable level. As her eyes adjusted to the light and her nose to the smell, she found a nail on which to hang the lantern at a level that would facilitate using both hands to sift through the rubble.

Isabelle put on an air of dogged determination to sift through every last bit of the shed if that is what it took to try to locate her missing gun. Seth would not be selling it for a jug of rum if she had anything to do with it!

Grabbing a pile of what appeared to be old, worn-out blankets, Isabelle almost recoiled at the feel of the oily, gritty mess. As she attempted to move the pile, a cloud of dust billowed upward into her nostrils. She dropped the pile, which further grew the cloud of dust, and began coughing and sputtering. Her eyes teared up. She wiped at them with the back of her hands. Her hands already smelled dreadful.

“Ugh!” she said half aloud as she smeared the dirt from her hands down the front of her skirt. “How awful! Why would anyone keep this trash?”

She decided to take one item at a time and remove it outside where she could later burn it. Tediously, carefully, trying to mitigate the roils of dust they emitted, Isabelle carried item by item outside. After carrying out eight or ten of what appeared to be musty, threadbare blankets, Isabelle grabbed what she thought to be the last blanket in the pile. She turned to take it outdoors to join the fate of the others when her eyes fell on a wooden chest with leather straps that were almost decayed away. It had been mostly covered by the pile of degenerated blankets.

Isabelle had never seen the chest before, although the condition of the chest suggested it had been there for more than the seven years she had been away from home. She dropped the last blanket in her hand and knelt before the chest. She repeatedly wiggled and pulled on the chest, which was heavier than it first appeared, to free the opposite end moored by a pile of old, broken-down tools; buckets; harnesses; and what-not. Finally, it came free; and Isabelle struggled to pull it closer.

Picking up a discarded blanket, she used it to dust off the top of the chest. The leather straps were fastened by brass buckles which fell apart as she attempted to unbuckle them. Finally, the chest lid was free. Slowly, so as not to completely break the brittle leather hinges upon which the top opened, Isabelle lifted the lid. She gasped as her hand flew to her chest when she realized she was actually gazing on the price of her twins’, Susanna’s and Rachel’s, lives.

The chest was about half filled with Spanish gold coins. On the bed of coins lay several bolts of expensive cloth, now darkened and streaked with age. Isabelle recalled Seth coming home from a “fishing trip” from time to time with a new bolt of cloth under his arm for his new bride, but Isabelle never gave thought from where it might have come.

Isabelle forced her mind back to the chest. On top of the bolts of fabric were wrapped bars of soap, a real luxury. She brought one to her nose. It still smelled of wildflowers. She moved the soap aside, and there were candles upon candles. She picked up a tin and opened it. The strong smell of coffee greeted her. Another tin produced a store of tobacco.

She noticed a small, maroon-colored, velvet box in one corner. She picked it up and carefully opened it. It revealed a beautiful necklace with a large emerald as its centerpiece. Isabelle snapped the box shut quickly. It was almost too extravagant to look at. She quickly tossed it aside as if the soft velvet burned into her hand.

Isabelle then noticed two smaller boxes, identically shaped and covered in black velvet. She picked one up and opened it. Inside was a lovely child’s locket. Isabelle’s heart constricted. Hesitatingly, Isabelle recovered the matching box and opened it. As Isabelle had guessed, the box held an identical locket—two identical lockets for two identical girls . . . their girls.

Seth, in his now chronic drunken stupor had undoubtedly forgotten his extravagant store that he had somehow managed to keep hidden from the privateers when they came looking for it. Isabelle now remembered that the privateers who broke into their home; ransacked and destroyed it; murdered their tiny daughter, Susanna; and kidnapped Susanna’s twin, Rachel, had demanded repeatedly that Seth turn over the coins he had supposedly taken. However, Seth spoke not a word. The privateers turned over every inch of their cabin, searching for the coins and finally resorting to threatening to harm the children before making good on that threat. Seth had been murdered . . . or so Isabelle thought . . . in the brawl that ensued. The privateers left with Rachel, and Isabelle ran as far away as she could in terror.

Curiously, Isabelle’s eyes landed on a small, black leather book. A soiled ribbon of some indiscernible color tied the pages and cover together. As Isabelle pulled on the ribbon, the loose pages fell open. Isabelle began perusing the pages, a sordid list of gold coins, expensive fabrics, soaps, candles, and much more.

Tears coursed down Isabelle’s face as she read. Suddenly, she threw the book as far from her as she could. She trickled a few gold coins through her fingers.

“So, this is the price of our daughters’ lives, Seth. This is the price you were willing to pay,” she whispered before suddenly rubbing her hands hard against her dress as if trying to extricate the dirt the coins, the book, and the treasure had deposited on her hands. Placing her hands on the edge of the opened chest, she lay her head on them and sobbed.

“I wonder where you buried Susanna,” Isabelle asked into the air, already forgetting about the gun for which she originally had been searching.

Suddenly, Isabelle replaced all the items in the chest and shoved it with her feet partially back into the hole of junk that had previously had a hold on it. She took the last discarded blanket and plumped it up on the exposed end of the chest to keep it concealed. She wanted it destroyed . . . just as it had destroyed her family!

Isabelle stood up and smoothed down her smudged dress. She quickly scanned the inside of the shed. She glanced upward. There! Lying across two boards of the rafters was her rifle. Standing on a pile of junk to reach it, Isabelle grabbed the gun and jumped down. She snatched up the lantern, quickly slid out of the shed, and returned to the cabin. Ever so quietly, Isabelle re-entered the cabin and lay back down next to Rachel, her rifle lying next to her body between her and Rachel.