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1
Iwassixyearsold when I realized I was not like the other children.
My sisters came down with a pox, from Jane down to baby Lydia. So did Joseph the stable boy and nearly all the tenants’ children. I was the only one not covered in itchy, painful sores. Jane’s fever was dangerously high, and Lydia was so bad, the apothecary told my parents to prepare themselves, for she likely would not live more than a day or two. My mother wept and wept, sobbing so loudly she could be heard in every room of the house.
My father was also ill—only my mother had had the pox as a child and remained untouched—so I offered to hold the baby that she might rest. As the only healthy child, I had been rigorously quarantined for a week. I had overheard the apothecary say they should keep me far from my sisters, so that if the worst happened, they would not be entirely childless. My mother had gasped and my father had looked very grave. When he saw me lurking in the doorway, he sent me away with a stern look.
After I snuck into my mother’s room, I convinced her to let me hold my sister and settled into the chair by the fire. It was proof of her exhaustion that she allowed me to do so. She handed me the squalling baby and watched us carefully as Lydia settled down and quietened.
That was the other strange thing about me. Babies stopped crying when I held them, or played with them, or stroked their downy hair. At first we had thought it was only Kitty, but it was the same with two different tenants’ babies, young Maria Lucas, and now Lydia.
I promised to wake my mother if the babe fussed even a little as she wearily lay down on her bed; she was asleep within moments. A few hours later, after I had hummed every song I knew to my youngest sister, my mother woke with a start.
“Lizzy, how is the baby?”
“She is well, Mama. You may go back to sleep.”
My mother looked at me suspiciously and rose from her bed to investigate my assertion. She gasped when she saw Lydia.
“See. I told you she was well.”
My mother’s face was pale and her eyes wide. “Give me the baby, Elizabeth,” she said, her voice shaking.
I did not understand what she was so upset about. Lydia was sleeping peacefully. She had not cried in nearly three hours, and her skin was no longer the angry red it had been before.
As my mother took the babe from my arms, she had a pained look on her face. I could not understand it. Was she not happy Lydia was no longer suffering? Her expression changed to shock when she brought the babe closer to her face. Then she placed a hand on her chest.
“She breathes!”
“Of course she does. I told you she was well.” My mother did not always speak sensibly.
“But she is so pale…”
I could not understand what she was going on about. “She only looks pale because she was so dreadfully red before. She is a normal color now.”
My mother looked at me strangely then, as if she were trying to understand me, and began to examine the baby. She checked her arms and legs, her torso, her neck. She changed the napkin and continued to exclaim her wonder.
“It is extraordinary!”
“What is, Mama?”
“Lydia. Her spots are completely gone. As if she never had them! I have never seen the like.”
“It has been like that for a while.”
She looked up at me quickly. “It has?”
I nodded.
“When did her spots begin to fade?”
“I do not know, but you had not been asleep long. You had not begun snoring yet.”
“I do not snore.”
I wisely remained silent.
“Well.” My mother took a deep breath and stared harder at my sister. “So curious.”
