Excerpt: Hiding Upstairs

“Elizabeth, wake yourself!” I sat up groggily.
“Wha…?” She smacked me.
“Elizabeth, the British are coming. You can’t stay.” The panic I had so carefully quenched when she first shook me surged back.
“I must leave?”
“No, not really…oh, I will explain. Later.” She swept away from the bed, over to the clothes press. “Quickly! Grab your things, make it look like only Francis slept here. They must not know…Hurry, girl! This is no time to waste time!” Still disbelieving, I was slow to respond. Mother pulled my dresses and under things and hairpins and jackets and stockings out of the closet into the washbasin she had lugged up to my room. Ruth was there too, sweeping books and jewelry from the dresser into a bag. Their faces were pinched with worry. Realizing there was something very wrong, I leapt out of bed and began to help them, folding sheets into a bag, carefully concealing Francis’s letters and diary.
“Mother, what is happening?”
My darling mother simply shook her head. “No time, love. Hurry. Hurry! They’re coming!”
Finally, they seemed satisfied, more or less, and pushed me out of my room.
As my head cleared, I could hear cannons booming and shouts from outside. Mary stood in her door, pale face tight and scared. I took in the sights from the windows and doors as we swept by, Mother relentless, like a hunting dog found a scent. I was frightened.
“Mother!” I tripped on the stairs – the stairs to the attic. Mother glanced around, frightened, and merely pushed me on, hurrying me along, helping me up the stairs as we ran. When we reached the attic door, she unlocked it and pushed me in. I was followed by the washbasin and Ruth’s bundle, myself clutching the bundle of sheets and paper.
My hands were shaking. I stumbled into the attic. When I turned to ask Mother what was happening, I saw her slam the door and lock it.

**********
I re focused my gaze on the empty rooms. There were, according to Ruth, two Captains, three Colonels, and one General. Imagine that! A British general having Head Quarters at our American patriot home! It would have been far more funny if I wasn’t stuck in the attic at the time.

**********
“Clin ton’s off his bonker, Colonel…”
“Halland! About face!”
“Yes sir.” Colonel William Halland turned away from O’Malley just as the General Clin ton himself walked up, his face slightly pinched to see his two least favorite Officers who he thought should be kicked out of the King’s army. O’Malley, because he was Irish and didn’t even like the King. O’Malley agreed – he would prefer to just be home in Ireland, laughing about King George the III’s lunacy and criticizing him left and right. Colonel Halland…well, neither of them really knew quite at all why Clin ton didn’t like him one bit, almost less than O’Malley or Captain Van Der Dyke Berg. Course, no one liked Captain Van Der Dyke Berg, including the little girl…what was her name?...peeking up from under the stair rail at the moment. Will winked at her, and her eyes popped open, big blue eyes, and she disappeared.
General Clinton look intently at him angrily. Will almost winked at him, the way he had the little girl, but reluctantly refrained. What was the point? It would only cause Clinton more enmity towards him, and since he had already cut Will’s rations, enmity was not something the Colonel and the General needed more of between them. At all. Ever. Although, it could be funny to make Clinton very mad…especially when Madame Motte was in the room – watching the General get hollered at by a fault- finding old housewife, and have it actually bear fruit, was one of the more gratifying parts of Colonel Will Halland’s day.
Suddenly, he had an idea. What if…he glanced up towards the attic door.
His eyes met two glittering dots of light – they looked charcoal black, they did, then green, then blue, then violet, then all the colors again, then charcoal gray, then charcoal black…they sparkled at him. Were they eyes? Or marbles. Did they belong to someone, or were they in someone’s face? And was it a pretty face?
The eyes disappeared, and he heard a tiny thump of a noise. A muscle in his cheek twitched, and O’Malley elbowed him.
Should he tell? Should he wait, and investigate at a later time? After musing it for a few seconds, he firmly decided not to tell. He was not entirely quite sure why, but if those were eyes, they were very helpless eyes.
He glanced at the door one more time before following the other officers and the General down the stairs. Why hadn’t they noticed? It was locked. And there was something – someone – up there. And he was going to find out who.
Preferably before General Clinton deported him to the Spice Isles with black paint on him.