Hester(28)

“Your husband went around looking for investors. Talking about an elixir of life and other notions that drive men to greed. I put the blame on him if I have to guess.” I don’t confirm her suspicion, nor do I deny it.

“All I know is that I must have a way to eat and earn my keep. I have no family here, and now I have no money.”

I stop at the sound of a footfall on the path. It’s Zeke. He’s carrying a heavy feed sack on his shoulder as easily as I might carry a bit of cloth.

“We don’t get many visitors this way.” He looks at me from head to toe. He doesn’t seem happy to see me either.

Mercy juts her chin at me. “I got squash and melon seeds for planting. Still early enough for pole beans. You plant them on your land where the light is good and you can have half of what you grow.”

“Half?”

“You got money for seeds?”

“No.” I can smell the singe of Edward’s burning papers in the air.

“Then you’ll pay me back in food or coin, whichever you choose is no matter to me.”

It is a start, and more than she owes me. I agree.

“Is that pennyroyal in your yard?” I ask.

She crosses her arms. “What do you know of it?”

“My husband is an apothecary. I have his reference book in my cottage. I think it’s used to make salves for cuts, burns, and rashes.”

I don’t say I’ve noticed the cuts and scratches on her arms from farmwork and chickens, but I know the salve will be useful to her.

She nods. “You take some and make an ointment for me, that’s fine.”



* * *



I HAVEN’T WORKED in the dirt since I was a girl. At first it’s hard lifting the soil and laying in seed, but when Zeke comes with his hoe the work goes more easily.

“The soil’s hungry,” Zeke says.

“For what?”

“Chicken scat. Ash. Eggshells. You work them into the dirt—I got plenty in my coops.”

He trudges up to his clearing and carries back a foul-smelling bucket, which he dumps and works into the wet ground.

By afternoon we’ve planted two rows of squash and pole beans and I am covered in mud. The one o’clock dinner bell in the distance reminds me I haven’t eaten since yesterday morning, but then sweet Ivy comes down the rise carrying half a stewed chicken for our dinner. She holds the pot on her shoulder the way Zeke carried the feedbag, and despite the mud, her dress is clean.

“Mama says you’re hungry.” The color of Ivy’s words are soft melon—round and almost fragrant, stoked with deep green.

She dips bread into the gravy and gives it to Zeke. We eat standing, without talking, and I realize it’s the first meal I’ve shared with anyone since Edward left.

When we finish, I send the two of them back to Mercy with my thanks, and vow that I’ll make something pretty for Ivy. I stir the ashes of Edward’s burnt clothes in the hearth and pour them into the garden soil. Ashes to ashes, they will feed the seeds. It feels like witchcraft, but I don’t regret what I’ve done. And when my bleeding comes later, so that I know I do not carry Edward’s child, I do not terribly regret that, either.



* * *



IN THE MORNING I put on my iris dress and go directly into town. It’s too cold to wear anything but my red cape; I tie it about my shoulders, fasten the hook across the bosom, and tuck my mother’s wedding gloves into my basket. If there’s no gold to buy yards of fabric and embellishments for fancy dresses, then my plan must be to decorate something smaller and much more affordable.

I pass the stagecoach office and stables, and a print shop and storefront for the Salem Gazette. The stagecoach offices are empty, but the Gazette is lively. Shoeless boys wait on the boardwalk out front, and a man comes out with a stack of newspapers piled in his arms.

I fish two precious pennies from my basket and trade them for a copy of the warm paper.

On the front is a poem by Percy Shelley and below it a silly poem about a girl named Charline and her beau, Tom. Inside are half a dozen pages of advertisements for everything from French muslin capes and collars to British ginghams, leghorn bonnets, broadcloths, cashmeres, buttons, handkerchiefs, cravats, black Italian crepe fabric, and more.

I note three shops that advertise fine clothes of silk and wool and another two that have just gotten in a shipment of gloves. Then I set off.

At the door marked Mr. Isaac Newhall, Importer and Proprietor, I climb a narrow set of stairs into a room filled with piles of fabric, crates of books, paper, kitchen supplies, tools, and many unusual knickknacks I’ve never seen or imagined. A tall, ghostly man in steel spectacles is writing in his ledger book.

“Good day. Would you be Mr. Isaac Newhall?”

He seems to stretch himself two inches taller before he speaks.

“Who is asking?”

I rush to answer before I lose my nerve.

“My name is Isobel Gamble, and I wish to embroider two pair of gloves for your shop. My work is exceptionally fine, sir. You may see it and decide for yourself.”

Newhall is scowling.

“Women in Salem do their own needlework,” he nearly shouts, his pale face coloring. “The days of foreign opportunists in Salem have been gone since the embargo.”

He lifts an arm as if to sweep me out of his store, and I cower away.