Red Clocks(62)

Mínervudottír saw a narwhal come to breathe at one of the holes cut in the ice near the ship, for quick water in case a fire broke out. He was soon joined by others, their helical tusks spearing the air. The sailors watched the fire holes too and would shout “Unicorn!” when a whale appeared.





THE BIOGRAPHER


From narwhals she moves to notes on the Greely Expedition. In August of 1881 the American explorer Adolphus Greely and his team of twenty-five men and forty-two dogs arrived at Lady Franklin Bay, west of Greenland. They were to gather astronomical and magnetic data from the Arctic Circle and to attain a new “Farthest North” record.

The second summer, the expedition waited on the supply ship that was scheduled to bring food and letters. It never appeared. (Neptune had been blocked by ice.) The third summer: no ship. (Proteus had been crushed by ice.) Between 1882 and 1884, several vessels went in search of Greely and his crew—at first to restock them, then to save them.

Each time she types the word “ice,” the biographer thinks trial.

Boots. Parka. Gloves. Rain has rinsed the frost from her windshield. Instead of driving down the hill toward school, she drives up: toward the cliff road and highway, the county seat. If Fivey tries to fire her, she’ll hire Edward to contest it.

She has been in a courtroom twice before, in Minnesota, for Archie’s possession charges. “How can you tell when a lawyer’s lying?” he turned to whisper. “When he opens his mouth,” she said, dismayed by how obvious the joke was.

Fiveys at the front; Cotter from the P.O. behind them; Susan in a middle row; Mattie and Ash at the very back. Mattie looks haggard and dazed. Having never needed to terminate a pregnancy, the biographer doesn’t know how long it takes to recover. A hard little glass splinter in her hopes the girl is miserable.

The new laws turn the girl into a criminal, Gin Percival into a criminal, the biographer herself—had she asked for Mattie’s baby, forged its birth certificate—into a criminal.

If not for her comparing mind and covetous heart, the biographer could feel compassion for her fellow criminals.

Instead she feels a splinter of glass.

In the witness box Gin Percival sits absolutely still. Expression flat as a knife.

PROSECUTOR: Ms. Percival, on Monday we heard sworn testimony from Dolores Fivey that you caused significant injuries to her. That you gave her a powerful drug that you claimed would terminate her pregnancy but which resulted in her falling down a flight of stairs and— EDWARD: Objection. Is there a question hidden in there?

PROSECUTOR: Withdrawn. Did you administer a mixture of colarozam, fenugreek, lavender, lemon, and elderflower oil to Dolores Fivey?

GIN: No.

PROSECUTOR: I’ll remind you that you are under oath, Ms. Percival. A bottle containing traces of those ingredients was found in Mrs. Fivey’s home, with your fingerprints all over it.

GIN: That was my bottle. Oil for scars. Only the last four things. Not the first thing.

PROSECUTOR: Sorry, Ms. Percival, you’re not making much sense.

EDWARD: Objection.

JUDGE: Sustained.

PROSECUTOR: Ms. Percival, tell me: are you a witch?

EDWARD: Objection!

PROSECUTOR: It’s a reasonable question, Your Honor. Goes to the defendant’s proficiency with herbal medicines and to her state of mind. If she self-identifies, even if delusionally, as a health-care provider— JUDGE: I will allow it.

PROSECUTOR: Are you a witch?

GIN: [Silent]

PROSECUTOR: How long have you identified as a witch?

GIN: [Silent]

JUDGE: The defendant will answer.

GIN: If you knew about the real powers, if you knew, you’d be— EDWARD: Your Honor, I request a short recess.

PROSECUTOR: Your Honor, I demand to finish my line of questioning.

JUDGE: “Demand”? You are in no position to demand anything here, Ms. Checkley. We will adjourn for thirty minutes.



Accused witches in the seventeenth century were dunked in rivers or ponds. The innocent drowned. The guilty floated, surviving to be tortured or killed some other way.

This isn’t 1693! the biographer wants to yell.

She shakes her head.

Don’t just shake your head.

While she hid out in Newville, they closed the clinics and defunded Planned Parenthood and amended the Constitution. She watched on her computer screen.

Don’t just sit there watching.

While she hid out in her book, imagining the nineteenth-century deaths of Nordic pilot whales, twelve sperm whales perished, for reasons unknown, on the Oregon coast.

She looks for Mattie, but she and Ash and their coats are gone.

“Hey, Ro,” calls Susan from the aisle.

“Hi,” says the biographer, engrossed in her ancient flip phone, which can’t even go online. She doesn’t want to talk to Susan the non-criminal, the good adult.

Out in the marble-floored hallway she sees Mattie come out of the women’s bathroom and head for the exit.

“Wait!” The biographer jogs after her.

Mattie doesn’t stop. “Ash is getting the car.”

Snow is flurrying down. On the courthouse steps they stand blinking at the little wet stars.

“How are you feeling?” says the biographer. “How was the procedure?”

The girl pulls on blue mittens. “I have to go.”