Susannah Morrow (10 page)

The fear I felt now was like that. Prickly and exciting, but there was a danger to it that was different. The Indian had been
only make-believe; this was something different, something real. Yet it was…compelling.

Mary moved over on the bench, and Betty moved too, though I thought reluctantly. “Last week, Abigail swore she saw a man fashioning
a spinning wheel. We think her husband’s going to be a carpenter. Come and join us.”

Slowly I went over. When I sat on the bench between them, I saw that bowl of water on the table, the candlelight reflecting
upon the surface so it looked like a bowl of molten gold. The fire was blazing in the hearth, not far away, and though I felt
its warmth against my back, I was cold.

Mercy Lewis leaned forward and closed her eyes, so her bony face went almost soft, and the girls around the table went still
and quiet.

“Show me my husband,” she said in a hushed voice. “Show me my love.”

That was how it all began.

A
FTER THAT DAY AT THE PARSONAGE, THE WORLD FELT DIFFERENT
, as if everything had shivered and gone still, waiting for something. It was turning colder day by day; winter had decided
to settle in. The hoarfrost in the mornings was thick and hard; in the lee were spots that often stood frozen the whole day
through. Trees were bare and black against skies the color of lead. Even when the sun dared to break the clouds away, there
was no warmth in its rays, and people were beginning to talk in soft dread about long winters and signs of cold—heavy stripes
on caterpillars, beaver dams walled thick.

I reassured myself that was all it was, though there was a part of me that knew the day at the parsonage had changed things.
But it wasn’t until Pope’s Night that I understood. It wasn’t until then that I knew to be afraid.

When we came home from the Thursday lecture, the cannon booms from Salem Town echoed like faraway thunder, the faint glow
of the bonfires lit the horizon in a soft golden sunset. We did not attend the celebration in town; we never had, though I’d
heard tales of the revelries. Most of the villagers agreed with my father that Pope’s Night was frivolous; there was too much
work to be done. ’Twas in the bigger towns like Boston, and now Salem Town, that sailors and strangers gathered to burn the
effigies of Guy Fawkes and the pope and the Devil on the shores near the wharves, and fired the cannons that echoed into the
night.

I would have liked to go. Betty had once attended with her uncle when he went to pay a call in town, and she’d told us all
about it. But I had to be content with watching the bonfires’ distant glow. When Father sent me to fetch the cow from her
foraging in the clearing behind the house, I went eagerly, anxious for the chance to spend a few minutes on my own, imagining
that I would somehow be able to see something more of the celebration if I stared long enough at the horizon.

I hurried around the corner of the house, already straining to see past the clearing. Our land was on a small rise, and I
knew if I stood on a stump at the crest of the hill and leaned out a little, I could just see the expanse of the Crane River
stretching nearly to the North-fields of Salem Town. The river was quiet now, with a gray glow like buffed pewter. I could
not see much beyond its banks; even as barren as the trees were, the woods were too dense for that. But my imagination leaped
to the muddy streets of Salem Town lit by bonfires and torches, the smell of fire and burning straw, the dodging shadows of
dancers. Things a godly girl should not be dreaming of. I remembered last year, how I had watched from my bedroom window as
Sammy streaked across the darkness, sneaking out to dance at the bonfires, and how I had longed to go with him.

Behind me, Buttercup snapped a twig, and I turned to see her disappearing already in shadow—the colors had faded, and the
world was blue and black and gray. I heard the early hoot of a screech owl—not the barred owl that lived in our oak, but another
bird, one I did not know, and the air changed the way it had that day at the parsonage, as if it were gathering in force,
too heavy to bear, swirling with expectation.

There was someone behind me. I felt the presence as surely as if I’d been on a street in the middle of town. It was Father,
I thought, come to fetch me back, but I knew even before I turned around that it was not. I knew it before I raised my eyes.

She was there again, my mother’s specter, trailing her winding sheets, pale as mist. She held out her hands to me imploringly,
and I froze, alarmed at the pure agony in her face. I did not see her speak, but her voice was loud in my head.
I cannot go. I cannot go. Beware.
…

I had never heard my mother so anguished, and it frightened me. I stared at her in horror, unable to look away or to move.
’Twas as if she held me fast. “I-I don’t understand,” I managed. “Mama, I don’t understand.”

Beware,
she said again, so loud I put my hands to my ears, though I could not mute the sound. Then, before my eyes, she vanished
into the trees, into shadow. But I felt her all around me, touching me; I heard her crying in my head. With an overwhelming
grief, I longed for her to come back. I had wanted so badly to see her again, to know her, to hear her advice, and now here
she was. But she was in a pain that was unbearable, a pain I knew instinctively I could ease if she would only explain to
me, tell me.…I heard a moan—my own sound. “Mama, come back. Come back.…”

Then I heard Buttercup lowing, and suddenly the safe twilight sounds were back: the scatter of a squirrel across a tree branch,
the pound of my father’s hammer from behind the barn, the gurgle of the creek just beyond.

The pasture was empty, the specter gone. There was nothing to remind me of it, yet the terrible anguish or my mother’s specter
lingered, her warning. Suddenly I understood. ’Twas as if a veil had been lifted from my eyes, and I knew what she was trying
to tell me. My mother’s spirit would not rest until Susannah was gone—and I must be the one to banish her.

I was the only one who understood what she was. I must protect my family. That was my mother’s warning. But ’twas a task so
big I did not know how to manage it. As I led Buttercup into the barn, I was shaking.

When she was settled, I hurried back to the house. Susannah was at the hearth, and Jude was working with her hornbook, and
neither of them looked up as I went inside. My aunt was putting the pottage for supper back on the crane to heat. As she did
it, I heard the muffled
boom
from a cannon, and her feet did a little step—something I couldn’t quite explain, a shifting of toe to heel, the twist of
her hips—so her bright russet skirts twirled about her ankles, barely missing a tongue of flame shooting from the fire.

’Twas as if the other things in the room simply faded away. I saw only her, and the fire in the hearth became a fire shooting
sparks and cracking branches, roaring before me. She was a shadow dancing before it, her dark hair loose and falling over
her shoulders, twisting and laughing while her skirts tripped over her legs, and she held out her hands to a man dancing beside
her. A man so black and shadowed no light touched him.

When the fancy left me, I felt weak, and my mouth was dry. It had only been my imagination, but it lingered in the firelight
reflecting off the kettle and the pewter tankards on the table. I backed away, moving to the window, drawn to it, though I
could not have said why.

I saw my father coming from behind the barn. I watched him take off the long canvas frock he wore over his clothing and shake
the sawdust from it. He glanced up, frowning when I met his gaze through the thick, greenish glass of the window. I resolved
then to say something to him about Susannah. The thought made me so nervous I was twisting my skirt in my hands before Father
even reached the door.

“Is supper ready?” he asked as he came inside.

Susannah barely turned from the fire. “’Twill be a minute more. I’ve just put the kettle on.”

He went to the tableboard to pour a noggin of beer. He swilled it in three or four gulps and then poured another, sitting
on the bench with a heavy sigh. At the end of the table, Jude kept her nose buried in her hornbook, and I waited in the shadows.
I think I might have waited all night had he not looked over his shoulder at me and said, “What ails you, child? Is there
nothing you can do to help your aunt?”

“She’s fine as she is,” Susannah said. “The lights from the celebrations are a rare entertainment. She should watch them if
she can.”

I winced. My father wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and frowned with his thunderous brows. “Charity.”

I stumbled in my haste to come away from the window. “I-I wasn’t watching the bonfires. I wasn’t.”

He ignored me. He looked at Susannah. “God designates days of thanksgiving and humiliation. Any other holidays are only excuses
for wasteful frivolity.”

“Even God cannot expect a man to eschew sport completely, Brother,” she said, and I did not miss the slight smile on her lips,
as if she were teasing or playing a joke.

“We’ve the Sabbath for that,” Father said.

“Aye, ’tis a restful day, indeed.” Susannah turned back to the fire, and her words lingered a little. Again I searched to
find ridicule in her meaning, but I could not find it. My father did not look away from her, and in the dim light his expression
was hard to read, but I told myself he’d heard it too, the tacit criticism, the words that didn’t mean quite what they said.

This was the moment, I thought. He was suspicious of her, I was sure of it. I should touch his shoulder, I should say that
I had something to tell him. I went up behind him and reached out my hand—

“Have you a head for numbers, Sister?” he asked my aunt.

The question seemed to come from nowhere. He was intent on her and had not seen me at all. I let my hand fall back to my side—the
moment was gone already, so last. I realized he had missed the criticism I’d heard in her voice, and I could not believe it.
I was unsure suddenly, and so I stepped away from him to watch his face.

Susannah looked at him over her shoulder. She wore no cap, and the darkness of her hair glimmered red in the firelight. “Some.
Judith had the genius of it, I’m afraid.”

My father nodded and sighed. “Aye. I left it to her, and she was too good at it to change. But now…I can barely read her hand.”

“I’ll take a look at the account books if you like. I’ve been reading my sister’s letters for eighteen years. I’ll be able
to decipher it, at least.”

My father looked into his beer, and for a moment, he looked so sad that my own heart sagged with him. “I would be grateful.”

Susannah turned fully from the fire. “I don’t want your gratitude, Brother. If I am to stay here, I expect to do my share.
I’ll earn my keep.”

Father looked up again. There was something in his eyes then, though he was not looking at me directly, and it occurred to
me that this was a conversation the two of them had had before, though I could not imagine when. “’Tis not an easy life here.
This is not London.”

She laughed; it was not a happy sound. “I’ve no wish for London.”

“There are no niceties here.”

“My sister lived without them for years. ’Twill not be a hardship for me.”

“You should think well on this,” my father said. “Judith would not have required you make such a sacrifice.”

My aunt looked oddly wistful, an expression that confused me until I remembered how tricky the Devil could be. “I’ve had months
to think on it,” she said. “This is what I want. Do not tell me you could not use some help with the children.”

“But I’m here for that,” I said before I thought. They both looked at me in surprise, and I braved on. “I’m not a child. You
needn’t stay for me. I’m old enough to care for Jude and Faith.”

“Charity, quiet,” Father said. “Your mother hasn’t been gone a fortnight. Do you think she would countenance such impertinence?”

“N-no, sir.” I dipped my head, my fingers trembling. “I-I’m sorry, F-father. I…I didn’t think—”

“Aye, you don’t think, Charity. That is the problem.”

Tears blurred my eyes, and I dared not look at him. My tears would only make him angrier, I knew, and I could not explain
them away. I could not say to him that Susannah was dangerous, that she fed the disobedience in my nature, that we should
send her away. He would not believe me. I had to somehow tear away his blindness; I had to make him see.

“Apologize to your aunt,” he said.

I swallowed. “I’m sorry.”

“Charity.”

I did what he wanted. I looked up at her, into her face, so I could speak with the sincerity he expected, and suddenly my
tears were gone and there was a coldness in my soul. She was watching me with a careful look that was as clear to me as the
gentle eddies of Crane Brook where it bent past our farm. In her eyes, I saw her heart, and there it was: the Devil’s smile.

She was dangerous. I knew to resist the pull of her and yet I felt it still. I knew what she was and yet I wanted her comfort.
Satan knew me too well; he knew the things I craved, the things I longed for.