But they fell under Ephram Korban's spell, the menfolk who were after the jobs he promised, the women who came calling on him while their men were out clearing trees or sawing firewood or laying stone walls. None of those women were able to resist him for long. Even the children were drawn to him. Whenever Korban got a few of the young ones together, he would throw a penny on the ground just to watch them scratch and claw each other as they fought over it.
Sylva's mother had resisted Ephram. At least that's what she always told Sylva. But Sylva herself, she went to work in the manor when she was just fourteen. Daddy made her. Said you was never too young to learn the pain and glory of a hard day's work, that there was no reason to laze around the house while he had to get up before the roosters and mix sulfur-and-lime solution to spray on the apple trees.
She started out keeping the manor's fireplace ashes swept up, then was put in charge of the laundry as well. Her spine ached with the memory of hauling those big woven baskets a quarter mile down to the creek, where a barrel of lye-water would be waiting. She'd let the clothes soak a while, then drag them dripping and heavy up to the top of the washboard. Up and down, over and over, while the alkaline ate away at her skin. And heaven help her if she got a cut. That soapy juice burned like a slice of hellfire.
Sylva looked down at her knotty fingers, at the burls of her knuckles. The scars still wove among the blue road maps of her veins. These same hands had betrayed her, all because she had to touch the fire.
Ephram always had to have a fire blazing. The men were ordered to keep the firebox in the back room full at all times. One hired helper was assigned to the furnace room downstairs to make sure the main chimney stayed stoked around the clock. But all the other fireplaces had be lit, too, even in the summer. And, as one of the house girls, Sylva was responsible for the fireplaces on the second floor.
That meant going into the master bedroom. She had always hated the room, especially at night when, as her last and most dreaded chore, she carried an armful of heavy oak and ash and white pine to the fire. She would rest the logs on the hearth, then pile them stick by stick on the bed of embers. She tried to concentrate on her work, but she couldn't help looking around at all the fine things, the oval cut-edged mirror over the bureau, the velvet drapes that plunged from the top of the windows like lush purple waterfalls, the soft silk lace rimming the edge of the poster bed.
She had touched that lace, of course. She knew the fabrics of the master bed better than anyone. She had seen the secrets written in the stains of sleep, and her job was to scrub them away. To erase all hint of corruption.
Sometimes the mistress would already be in bed when Sylva came in. Margaret would watch her without speaking, a little smile of triumph on her face that she tried to hide behind the books she pretended to read. Sylva mumbled "yes'm" or "no'm" if Margaret said anything.
Ephram himself was never in the bedroom during her nightly stoking. She called him "Ephram" in her secret heart of hearts, but she wouldn't dare call him that aloud. No, he was "master" or "sir" or, in a pinch, "Mr. Korban." She had wondered if he ever slept. Some of the help said he paced the widow's walk, especially when the moon was near full. They said his shadow stretched two miles across the mountains in every direction. Even then, the whispers had started.
But young Sylva didn't believe the rumors, of how he laughed whenever one of the horses threw a rider, how he made the hog and cattle butchers save a pail of fresh blood in the springhouse, how he burned black candles in the dark of the basement when the only sound in the sleeping manor was the whisper of the grandfather clock's pendulum. They said that if you passed him in the dead of night, his eyes changed colors, gold, red, then yellow, the shades of fire. But that was what the men said. The house girls said other things, which Sylva equally refused to believe.
Until the night his fire went out.
Sylva had been late, her mother had a fever and Sylva had to feed her little brother and sister. Daddy was gone overnight, taking a wagon load of apples down the narrow trail that was really just a long scar in the side of the cliffs. So Sylva had whipped up some porridge, splashed it out into two bowls for the children, then changed the herb poultice on her mother's forehead. By that time, the fingers of dusk were scratching at the frosty November ground.
Sylva ran the half mile to the manor, holding her skirts high, her breath silver in the twilight. The briars whipped at her knees and her long hair tangled in the laurel that lined the trail. She knew the way well enough, but she felt as if she were slogging through molasses. The manor seemed to be slipping farther away from her, as if the snake-belly trail had gained new curves.
Sylva finally reached the house, her heart lodged in her throat and her pulse hammering. She quietly gathered some logs from the firebox and crept up the back stairs. She remembered that Margaret was away on a trip somewhere, to a place called Baton Rouge, fancy-sounding. If only Sylva could hurry, maybe no one would notice her tardiness.
The bedroom was dark. She was afraid to light a lantern because, if any guests were visiting, one of them might look in. Sylva closed the door behind her, hoping the embers still cast enough glow for her to see. But the hearthstones were cold and the room was filled with the pungent stench of the spent fire.
Kneeling, she put the wood on the floor and groped for the newspapers and the tin box of matches that she kept beside the poker. Even sheltered from the cold night air, she felt smothered as if by the waters of a deep dream, and the smallest movement took a great effort. The matches rattled when she knocked over the container. She balled up some pages of the newspaper and stuffed them under the fire irons. As she did, a harsh, low sound came from somewhere in the room.
She struck a match and it flared briefly and died. In that split second of light, she had seen movement out of the corner of her eye. Trying to hurry, though gravity worked against her, she struck another match. A winter wind blew across the room and extinguished the flame before she could touch it to the paper.
She wondered why the windows were open. Ephram never allowed the windows open in his room. Her fingers were like water skins as she fumbled for another match. The low sound came again, a rattling exhalation followed by the unmistakable creak of the poster bed. She squeezed her eyes closed, even though the room was pitch-black, and concentrated on the match that she wanted to scratch across a stone. The dark had never frightened her until that moment.
A voice came, muffled and desperate and everything but dead.
"Fuh… fire," it said.
Sylva's heart gave a jump like a frightened rabbit. Ephram Korban was in the room, in the bed. She dared not look in his direction, but the same power that seemed to be weighing down her limbs made her neck turn slowly toward the bed. She opened her eyes and saw nothing but blackness.
"Spell me," he said, a little more forcefully, almost angrily, but still muffled as if speaking through blankets. She nodded slowly, though he couldn't see her in the dark. Nor could she see him. And yet…
As she looked at the bed, its form taking shape in her mind from the memory of it, she could picture Ephram lying there, his face stern and his hair and beard flowing onto the pillows. Handsome Ephram, who had never been sick. Ephram, who stayed young and strong while the workers and natives had faded away with their wrinkles and stories and tired, failing breath. Ephram, who was said to never sleep.
Two small dots of light hovered in the darkness of the bed, weakly glowing, the only thing in the room she could see. She tried to turn her head away, tried to strike the match, even though she had now been pulled from mere waking sleep to a helpless awareness. She knew which side of the bed was his. The dots expanded, hovering in the area near the headboard where the pillows were. Where Ephram's eyes should be.