Hester(41)

* * *



Just before dawn on the morning of February 21, Mary Sibley slips across the frozen ground to the Reverend Samuel Parris’s kitchen door and whispers to Tituba.

“You must make a witch cake.”

Tituba has heard of such things in the Georgia Sea Islands, and she hates to see the girls suffer. She does as instructed and mixes the girls’ urine with rye meal, shapes it into a cake, and cooks it in the fire ash.

“Now you feed it to the dog.” Goodwife Sibley points at the brindled mutt that lurks about the Parris cottage. “This will reveal the true witch in our village.”





THIRTEEN





The camel-hair shawl Nat suggested for the ball is far more costly than I can afford, and no amount of bargaining at Blackwell’s lowers the price enough.

As I count out the last of my coins and watch the clerk wrap up a plain cotton shawl with a small fringe, I silently seethe at Edward. More than ever my husband seems weak and cruel in comparison to Nat’s goodwill and intelligence; more than ever I wish to be free to make my name and have my dreams and a dress shop—and money—of my own. I will be bold and fearless, just as Nat once said I am.



* * *



I’M HEADING TOWARD the Common to study the ladies’ Saturday morning calling costumes when I hear a sharp peal of laughter that spins my head. Across the lawn a girl and her beau are leaning beside a wide sycamore. I cannot see their faces, but there’s a gentle curve of their figures as they lean toward one another. She laughs, and he laughs.

Their hands touch and the man pulls the girl’s hand to his lips. He does it slowly, and I am lost in a shock of desire: I want Nat to put my hand to his lips just like that.

When her hand reaches his face, the church bells ring twelve. A dog barks behind me, and a man shouts a name. The enchantment is broken. The beau drops the girl’s hand and hurries away. The girl jumps up, grabs at her basket, and rushes across the pebbled walk. Her feet churn like butter paddles; stones skid from the bottoms of her shoes as she runs.

At the edge of the Common, she jigs to cross the street. A bundle falls from her basket, but she does not realize.

“You dropped something,” I call, but a carriage in the road drowns out my voice.

I retrieve the bundle and cross the street just as she enters a black iron gate at the rear of a great house. When she pulls down her hood, I recognize the yellow curls of the Irish servant girl I met at the Cranford shop.

“Nell!” She turns when I call her name. I wave the package.

“Isobel,” she cries. “I’m so very happy to see you again. I’ve wanted you to call on me—why haven’t you come?”

“You dropped this on the green.”

She takes the package and gives a startled cry.

“This was made special for the captain.” She shows me a razor and strop, a mother-of-pearl brush for shaving powder, and a copper shave bowl inside the velvet sack. “They’re very dear—it would have cost me more than two months’ wages to replace them. I can’t thank you enough.”

I’ve noticed the Silas house on my walks: handsome brick with a painted yellow door and a freshly hoed garden, a carriage house, and two horses in the yard. I hear a goat, and voices coming from open kitchen windows. A door opens at the back of the house, and someone waves a cloth over the rail.

“You’re an honest and kind friend.” Nell’s words are the same earnest, cheerful green as on our first meeting. “And your work is very fine.”

I’m wearing the dress trimmed with irises at the sleeves and hem. Nell runs a hand over the stitches. “Mrs. Silas needs someone who can keep her tongue and do good work for her—someone who can keep a confidence. Someone we can trust.”

She’s so openhearted, I want to take her face in my hands and kiss her cheeks.

“I owe you a true and proper thanks,” she says, and then, as if she has decided something, adds, “Wait here.”



* * *



IT’S NOT LONG before the kitchen door swings open and Nell latches on to my arm.

“If Mrs. Silas agrees you’re suitable, you’ll be asked to work on a dress for Miss Charlotte.”

“The Silas daughter?”

“Hush, no questions. You must meet the mistress first.”

Nell leads me through a large kitchen to a narrow staircase at the back of the house, then up a flight of stairs. It’s my first time inside a grand Salem home, but the rooms go by so quickly I barely see the papered walls or rich window trims.

“Mrs. Silas will ask you questions, and you must answer honestly,” Nell tells me as we climb a second, narrower set of stairs. “If you don’t say the truth, she’ll know it. I don’t know how, but she does.”

We reach a small landing beneath the slanted peaks of the rooftop. It’s very warm, and the air is stale, but a tiny window reveals a view of the bright blue sky and a slice of the ocean beyond.

“Remember, Mrs. Silas is an important lady in Salem,” Nell says.

She goes through a single open door and closes it behind her. I hear muffled voices, and when the door opens, it is Mrs. Silas.

The lady’s back is stiff, and she walks as if she has been sitting for a long time. She’s wearing a simple day dress and a white apron, as if she’s a cook and not the mistress of a great house.