Hester(79)

Two whistled notes, low to high, slice through the window in a bright pink sound.

“It’s Ingo,” she says. “You rest now.”

She stays outside a long time. As their voices move away from the cottage, I open Mercy’s black sack and unfold a trio of shawls.

One is stitched with flowers, one is decorated with ships, and one has a wide tree like the sycamore near the secret cove where I swam with Nat. In each of them I see a word that I could not see if it were not for my colors—FREE—stitched in overlaps of the same-color thread, visible to me because of the way the letters stand out against the cloth. F a burnt orange. R a purple red. Es a deep forest green.

When Zeke came down the path in his cart that day near the sycamore, I knew he was hiding something; when Mercy was running through the night it was as if her life depended on it. I knew something wasn’t right. I have long suspected they are smuggling something, and now I wonder if that something is slaves running to freedom.

Mercy is strong-willed enough, and she has spoken to me about moving through places unseen.

Yet it would mean she is at great risk, and the children are, too. I don’t believe she would risk Abraham’s and Ivy’s lives. Yet the word is there, undeniable to my eye. FREE.



* * *



I FALL IN and out of sleep and when I wake, Mercy is back in the cottage stitching a sash. Her black bag is gone. Her hands are steady and there’s a warmth about the room that’s been missing since Nat stopped his visits.

I must let a small sob leave my throat, for Mercy looks up as if she’s heard something. Her face is flat and smooth, a polished surface.

“All right,” she says. “It will be all right.”

Her words are neither yellow for truth nor the elderberry I have come to trust.

“Did Ingo tell you what happened to Edward?” I ask.

She comes to sit by the bed, her hand warm on mine.

“Seems your husband bought up a good amount of poppy and other herbs and used them all on himself.” She speaks as if she’s telling a story about a stranger, her voice matter-of-fact. “He was wild, wouldn’t get on the ship. The captain went around and repaid his investors here in Salem yesterday. Darling won’t tell you, but a woman should know what she’s up against.”

Mercy’s face was closed off to me when we met. Now she is a friend. I must know now if she and the children are in danger.

“I’ve seen the words in your work,” I say. “And I’ve been to the forest and seen the wide sycamore with the faded bull’s-eye in the trunk. I saw Zeke there, and I’ve seen the tree embroidered on your—”

“What were you doing way up by the sycamore?” Her question has a bite, as if she suspects me of something.

It takes a good deal of effort, but I get up to rummage through my basket until I find the gloves with the leopard. Nat’s gloves.

“I was making these gloves, far away from everything and everyone.”

I hold them out for her to see. This is as close as I can come to telling her the truth of that day, when Nat said that slavery is not his concern. When I told him I loved him and he said nothing in return.

“For a man who don’t deserve them,” Mercy says.

She knows.

A cramp grips me round the belly and I start to shiver.

Mercy puts an arm around my waist and helps me back to the bed. I breathe her air and she breathes mine. She smells of hard lye soap and lavender. I put my cheek on her shoulder and rest it there. Mercy may know more than I wish her to, but I have seen some things, too—I have seen things, and the full picture is almost visible to me— Checking on the maple trees, Zeke had said when he came down the path that day.

“Something is happening beyond the sycamore,” I say. “Up near the sugar house.”

Mercy is still, like a cat.

“Sugar and maple syrup,” she says. “Sap and kettles for brewing.”

“Something else.” I’m struggling for my words, spent from what’s been said and from what’s been held back.

Mercy’s face clamps shut.

“You don’t worry about that,” she says. “You forget about anything that don’t make sense to you round here, and I’ll tell you something I know for sure—Nat Hathorne will never be a father to this child.”

“But it’s his,” I choke out.

“No.” She grips my chin and lifts it so that I’m looking into her face. “This is your child. Your mam’s grandbaby. You hear? This child is yours.”

The words are clear. I hear them, but I do not want to.

And then I see them, hard yellow like a winter sun.





TWENTY-SIX





I’m not strong yet, but when the captain comes to my door wearing the jacket I embroidered with knotted rope and seashells on the sleeves, I smooth down my hair and step into the yard. It’s the first I’ve ventured outside since Mercy found me choked on my own sickness.

“My God, it’s good to have my eyes on you.” Darling holds me by the shoulders and peers into my face, and I let his cloudy sky-blue words bloom over me. “Let me have a look at you—”

Captain Darling seems calm and proud in the summer light, as sure as the carved lady at the prow of his ship. I put my arms around his neck and he wraps me in his. Darling is shorter than Nat but taller than Edward. He’s sturdy, and when he lifts me off my feet I feel buoyant and frail.