Hester(68)

For a moment I feel as if I’ve fallen through time. My mother is telling me the story of Isobel Gowdie, snow is falling outside the window of our cottage in Abington, she’s warning me to never reveal my colors. But it’s too late. I’ve already shared them with Nat.

“That’s my ancestress Isobel Gowdie,” I whisper. “She wasn’t a witch, but the men believed she was, and they were frightened of her.”

I tell him the tale and he listens raptly.

“A witch who escaped and lived. Isobel, even if I didn’t conjure you, surely you were meant for me to find.”

The first time he said this, I felt flattered and desired. But now I’m standing before him with a life of my own and a heart that is my own. I’ve told him my secrets and shown him my passion, and he’s made a deep mark upon me. And still, he looks at me and sees only himself.

“I’m more than your invention. Nathaniel, I think of you—” All the time. I don’t dare to say it. “I think of you, Nat, and what might happen if Edward didn’t return—”

“If he doesn’t return? He will return, Isobel.” He puts his cape on the ground and pulls me to him. “The ship will be here in just a few weeks—perhaps sooner. And I’ll have to say goodbye to you, although it will hurt me more than I can bear.”

His words aren’t red and gold but black like newsprint—not the color of his voice but the color of his stories written with pen and ink.

I should tell him about the captain’s letter. What he desires is forbidden, and what’s forbidden, he desires. But it needn’t always be so. I should tell him now. But I’m afraid that when I say it, everything will change. And I couldn’t bear it now, for my bleeding is late.





Scotland, 1710


The infant opens her mouth and mewls like a kitten.

“Mama, she’s hungry.”

Isobel’s hair is gray now, and she wears it in a long braid curled around her head. Long ago, when she woke beside the river and her child was gone, Isobel was sure that she’d lost her true heart forever.

But she did not. The proof is in her arms now, a wee babe with red fuzz on a scalp that smells of snow and the scent of winter trees. Tomorrow she will leave a pot of pine ointment beneath the May trees to thank the faeries who came to her that night on the river so long ago, and brought her to the Wood Witch.

Isobel has never known if her first child died of the torment or if the faeries took the babe’s life as payment, but either way, they kept Isobel alive long enough to see her granddaughter.

“We’ve named her Isobel,” her daughter says. “For you, Mama.”

Isobel Gowdie closes her eyes and blinks back silvery tears. She remembers her first husband and the reverend’s wife, who helped her escape, and the Wood Witch who said she belonged in the world of men. Isobel does not know if the Wood Witch was right, for the world of men is filled with laws that she has never understood. But Isobel is certain that she belongs in this moment, where she is a red-haired woman in a chain of red-haired girls weaving backward and forward through time. Where she is holding a granddaughter in her arms.





TWENTY-TWO





It’s the last Sunday in June, when all of Salem goes to church meetings. Today is the day I’ll tell Nat I’ve missed my bleeding and that Edward isn’t on the ship.

I tie up my hair with a green silk ribbon, put on a fresh petticoat and bloomers, and tuck sprigs of lavender in my chemise. In a straw hat adorned with periwinkle and pale pink tea roses, I walk out to the boulder where we left our tokens of affection. From there I go north through the forest until I reach an old, wide sycamore that divides the path in two.

You’ll know it by a bull’s-eye carved into the trunk, Nat wrote in a note left at my doorstep yesterday, as promised. My uncle and I threw knives there when I was a boy.

I go left, as he instructed, and soon Nat appears on the narrow path with his long, listing stride. I fall into step beside him and he’s careful, putting out a hand for me, holding back branches as we climb through bramble and rock. Summer has come early and crickets are calling. The forest is thick with pine and the smell of sap; we haven’t gone far when he puts out a hand to show me a wild turkey with two chicks in the shrub.

The path rises, and I see the blue-and-green water dancing between the trees.

At last, he stops at a thick stand of hemlock. He draws back the branches and opens a passage.

“You first,” he says.

The pine needles fold around me. I’m in darkness for one moment and then I’m stepping into a cove. The foliage closes behind us and we’re in a hidden inlet by the sea. A blanket is spread upon the rocks near the water, waiting. Nat has been here already and prepared for us.

He unties a sack from a low tree branch and soon we have a picnic of bread, cider, and boiled chicken. I can’t remember the last time I’ve eaten. I’ve forgotten to listen for Ivy and Abraham. I’ve forgotten about food.

Nat uncorks the cider and hands me a chicken thigh.

“It’s enough food for three—did you pack all this?”

I’m nervous. The sea and sky seem to separate from one another; my voice sounds as if it belongs to someone else.

“My sister Louise is always trying to feed me—she thinks I forget to eat.”