Hour of the Witch(86)

It had been years since she had sat on a horse. She couldn’t recall the last time she had ridden with Thomas. Had her family remained in England, she might have learned to ride alone there. She might have had her own horse, one very much like Sugar.

Eliot’s animal was a massive black gelding that the minister called Jupiter, and the creature moved at a clip that compelled Mary to hold on tight to the grips of her seat. Only when they reached the woods did the animal slow. There it picked its way carefully along the path, clomping through the fallen leaves that coated the ground like a carpet. It was wide enough in some spots that two horses could have ridden side by side, and even a wagon could have passed. But then the path would narrow, and both Mary and the pastor would have to duck beneath a branch.

“Remember, Mary: the Hawkes were excommunicated for a reason,” Eliot said, breaking the quiet. “They still live largely in darkness. They may not be slaves of Satan, but they are unschooled.”

“And the children?”

    “They are more like their mother than their father. Quiet. Intense. I’ve no idea what lurks behind their eyes.”

And then, suddenly, she saw light beyond a great copse of pine and understood it was a cornfield, the crop long harvested and the stalks cut. She heard the sound of a river and knew they had arrived at the farm.



* * *





They paused before a thatched cottage with a massive chimney at the rear, a plume of smoke curling into the sky. Behind it they saw a small barn and beside it the square where Esther kept a kitchen and herb garden. There was neither a stone wall nor wooden fencing, because no one lived near the Hawkes.

“Is it what thou expected?” Eliot asked.

“I had no expectations,” she said.

A woman emerged with a baby in her arms, and two girls running about her legs: a toddler and a girl Mary supposed was four or five years old. They disappeared quickly behind the cottage, but Mary could hear them giggling.

“Edmund has two sons from his first marriage. They’re older. The three of them are likely hunting,” Eliot murmured. “But this is Esther.”

The woman’s dress was frayed and her apron badly stained. Great tentacles of unkempt red hair fell from beneath her bonnet. She was slender but not to the point of gaunt.

Eliot urged the horse forward, dismounted, and then took Mary’s hands—pausing briefly when he reached for her left hand, but she nodded that she was fine and he should proceed—and helped her climb to the ground. She had a satchel with the two books over her shoulder, and it bounced against her hip when she landed.

“I have brought a new friend with me today,” he began. “This is Mary Deerfield. Mary, meet Esther Hawke.”

“Art thou risking thy soul, too, visiting the likes of us on the way to the praying Indians?” Esther asking, appraising Mary as she spoke.

    “My soul is at peace,” Mary said.

“And she’s not joining me,” Eliot added. “She’s not coming to the village.”

“I was hoping to visit with thee and thy children while the reverend is with the Indians,” Mary told her.

“Well. Aren’t we blessed,” said Esther.

The two little girls reappeared and started trying to tag each other, treating their mother as if she were a tree they could use as a shield. Eliot was looking at Esther, and Mary couldn’t decide if he was frustrated by the children’s lack of discipline or fearful that they would behave immodestly. And so Mary knelt and smiled at them. “Is this not why I have come?” she said to Eliot over her shoulder.

He nodded vaguely. The older child ran her hands over Mary’s cowl and her flannel gloves, still swanskin white, a little awed.

“Ah, thou art a governess,” Esther said. “The First Church has decided I need assistance and generously sent me a servant. Art thou my indenture, Mary Deerfield?”

“Oh, Mary is married to one of Boston’s most successful millers and the daughter of one of our most important merchants: James Burden,” Eliot explained. He couldn’t have missed the derision in Esther’s tone; it seemed he had chosen to ignore it in the interest of harmony.

“But I am here to be of help, if thou wouldst like that,” she said.

“With the washing or the cooking?”

She pulled Spiritual Milk for Boston Babies from her bag and showed it to Esther. “I know thy history, and I know thou art alone.”

“Alone? Verily, I crave solitude some moments!”

“Thy family is alone. Forgive me. But thy point buttresses why I have come. I meant it when I said I can help thee.”

Esther looked at Eliot. “Since when does the church want anything to do with us?”

He chuckled. “The church doesn’t. But Mary feels a calling rather like mine.”

    “We are thine heathen, Mary Deerfield?”

“Oh, I have a feeling, Esther, thou art going to teach me far more than I could ever teach thee.”



* * *





After Eliot had left, Esther brought Mary inside the cottage, where there was a long, sturdy table, a spinning wheel, and but one rickety chair. The floor was dirt. But the fire was strong, and it was comfortable inside. There was a second room where Mary supposed everyone slept, but Esther wasn’t offering a tour, and so she sat with the girls on blankets while Esther began to nurse the infant, who had started to fuss.