Hester(31)

I stare back until he gives the slightest squirm. His hands, I notice, are splattered with blue ink today.

“And what about your writing—have you finished your story about the poor red-haired girl? I hope you’ve decided to let her live.”

He gives a glance toward the stagecoach office and begins to walk alongside me.

“I’ve put it aside and finished a strange little tale of an old married couple instead.” He leans closer as we thread through the street. “I’ve sent it to an editor in New York who’s reading two other stories of mine this week.”

His eyes are shining now, a moonlight glow to match the red and gold of his words. “And Mrs. Gamble, I’ll ask you to please keep my confidence as well.”

“But when the stories are published, your secret will be out.”

“No.” He shakes his head. “I publish anonymously—no one knows they’re mine.”

“Ah, like Walter Scott.”

“You’ve read Scott?” I’m pleased by the expression on Hathorne’s face—as if I’m a prize student and he’s just discovered that I can do sums in my head.

“I spent many evenings with his stories back home, long before we knew he’d written them.”

“And who’s your favorite of his heroes?”

He’s testing me, but I don’t mind. I’m more grateful than ever for the hours Pap spent teaching me to read.

“I always loved Rebecca,” I say. Rebecca is a healer who’s tried for witchcraft in Ivanhoe; I dare to say her name and put the subject of witchcraft squarely between us again. “But Ivanhoe saves her, and so he’s my favorite hero.”

Nat gazes at me as if I’m a puzzle he wants to understand. And he is the same: puzzle and intrigue. Handsome, too. There’s a small chip on his front tooth I never noticed before, and he flicks his tongue upon it.

“Ivanhoe is grand and brave,” he agrees. “If I could write a book about a noble knight, I’d do it. But my stories are dark and sometimes tragic.” He pauses, considering me. “Bloody, even.”

He glances at my hands and I’m thankful for the gloves covering my torn cuticle.

“Your handkerchief is clean,” I tell him. “I’ll bring it to you now that I know where you are.”

We turn onto the wharf street and he bends again so that only I can hear.

“Would it be an imposition to ask you to stitch some decoration on the handkerchief for me? My sisters don’t take to needlework, and I have no one else.”

I’ve read enough of Scott’s romances to know that a knight who asks a lady for a token of herself—a lock of hair, a snippet of her lace, a sample of her needle—is wooing her. I know I should put him off. Yet I’ve been lonely here, and no man has ever spoken to me with such intelligence and curiosity. There is something of a fallen nobleman in him, some yearning that strikes a tender chord in me.

“Perhaps a monogram of your initials?” I offer.

His face lights.

“And a sprig of hawthorn blossoms?”

I laugh at his invention. “There’s no flower with a name so close to your own!”

He pushes his hair behind his ears and describes a low, wide tree with curled, gnarled branches. “In England I believe they call it the May tree—”

“We have the May tree in Scotland,” I blurt out. “It’s where they say the faeries live.”

“Here we call it the hawthorn tree.” He pauses and waves his fingers across his eyes, then recites from memory: “‘How sweetly bloom’d the gay, green birk, / How rich the hawthorn’s blossom.’” He gives a funny wave. “Your own Robert Burns wrote about it in the poem he calls ‘Highland Mary.’”

“My pap said the May tree is magical—if you fall asleep beside it you might wake in the world of enchantment and never get back to your life,” I offer.

“There’s a tale like that about our May trees in Salem—they say if you wander off the path beside them you can be lost for days in a world of enchantments.” He seems to lose himself, but then he blinks and his face clears. “You know, that’s what I strive after. To live only in my imagination, only in a magical world.”

We’ve reached Water Street, and the wind blows salty tears into my eyes.

“But the faerie world isn’t for men.” I remember my pap’s warnings. “Faeries and demons are jealous creatures. One can become dangerously lost in their enchantments.”

“Perhaps,” he says. “And yet I’m ever trying to get there and stay as long as I can.”

We stop at a little bridge near the top of Mill Pond.

“I daresay the Scottish wish for enchantments, too, Mrs. Gamble. Isn’t that why you weave magical creatures into your clothing and make little amulets to carry in your pockets?”

“Not I.” I am quick to deny it, although I have ever been drawn to the world of enchantments. “I carry a needle in my pocket. My imagination is practical.”

“Well then, will you put your practical imagination to my cause? Will you stitch my initials?” He smiles, and I can’t help but smile back. “And the hawthorn blossoms, too?”

There is so much I want to ask about the magical world he seeks and the things that happened here in Salem. And about him. There is much I want to know about him.