by Lara Parker
On the way down the bank, Miranda stumbled, then fell. Peter Clothier, the jailer, took her arm and lifted her to her feet. Her hands were bound by the long rope which they would use to pull her up, lifeless and no longer breathing. Because they had removed her shoes, her skirts dragged the ground, and the sharp rocks tore the soles of her feet. Nevertheless, she held her head high and dared any of the townspeople to look her in the eye. A glowing red oval hovered in the back of her mind. She saw it clearly: a round reddish light in the murky darkness.
Michael Griswald had brought his battered skiff, and he hovered over the oars, keeping the boat near the shore with a gentle nudge now and then from the edge of a frayed blade. His eyes were a mossy green and his beard a reddish brown; he was a strong man and a farmer newly sprung from Scotland, whose deepest wish was to see an end to this madness. He longed to return to work his land in peace. Miranda was glad that he was her boatman; she knew he was reasonable, and she wondered for a moment whether she could have been happy as the wife of such a man. But he was God-fearing and loath to challenge the Elders. Like all the citizens of Salem, he feared the witch trials might come to his door.
Reverend Fowler began his intonation. “O Lord, sanctify the water in this pond. Give aid if she shall plunge into the water, being innocent, and, as Thou didst liberate the three youths from the fiery furnace and didst free Susanna from the false charge, so, O Lord, bring forth this woman safe and unharmed, after it be seen that she not float but fall into the depths and be embraced by the unblemished deep. But if she be guilty and presume to plunge in her body, the Devil hardening her heart, let Thy holy justice deign to declare it, and lift her to the surface, that Thy virtue may be manifest in her body and her soul be saved thereafter by penitence and confession. And if the guilty woman shall try to hide her sins by the use of herbs, or stones, or any magic, let thy right hand deign to bring it to no account. Through thy only begotten son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who dwelleth with thee.”
Miranda looked back at the crowd. With their flowing robes they resembled a flock of huge crows fluttering and pressing together for some rare bounty of seed. Andrew was far off to one side and she glimpsed the dark fear in his eyes. When he caught her look, he nodded; then, as if he could bear the sight no longer, he turned, and she watched his tall figure cross over the stream and move towards his little house in the woods.
Her gaze wandered over to the rise that separated the stream from the pond. Once, years ago, a beaver had dammed this water, and now the high intervening hill stood thick with grasses. Near the close end of the barricade she could just make out a bulge that had once been the beaver’s den.
Reverend Fowler gave the Benediction of the Water: “I bless thee, O creature of water, flowing from the stream and the hills beyond, by Him who summoned thee forth from the rock, and who changed thee into wine, that no wiles of the Devil or magic of men be able to separate thee from thy virtues as a medium of judgment; but mayest thou punish the vile and the wicked, and purify the innocent, through Him whom hidden things do not escape and who sent thee in the flood over the whole earth to destroy the wicked and who will yet come to judge the quick and the dead and the world without end. Amen.”
And the congregation echoed, “Amen.”
At Peter’s urging, Miranda climbed into the boat, scraping her shin on the gunwale and, when the bottom dipped under her weight, she fell heavily against the side. The boat rocked beneath her as she tried to balance, and, with her bound hands, to gather her skirts around her knees. Once again she looked to the old dam, gauging the distance. She could see it was too damaged to house a den. Winters and summers had come and gone and collapsed it in upon itself. She shivered, her feet cold from the water sloshing in the bottom of the skiff; her heavy petticoats clung to her ankles, and the skin of her face tightened from the sting in the air. She waited, focusing on the reddish orb she could see clearly behind her eyes, while her mind fell prey to direst dreads.
Endlessly, the Reverend droned on and she could hear but snatches of his words that fell on an empty heart, for she knew no God such as the one they spoke to, no jealous or vengeful God. As her chest rose and fell with the pain of her breathing, her eyes filled with hot tears. The only gods she knew were the spirits of the forest who spoke to her often when she was with them.
She tried to hear the words for the first time with her heart and not her mind.
“O God, pour down the virtue of thy benediction that this woman may be imbued with thy grace to detect diabolical and human fallacies, to confute their inventions and arguments, and to overcome their multiform arts.”
Amen, she thought, Amen.
The last face Miranda saw was that of Judah Zachery. Anguish clouded his eyes. Drained of blood, his haggard visage loomed above his black coat like the mask of death.
“Let not the innocent, we beseech Thee, be unjustly condemned, or the guilty be able to delude those who seek the truth from Thee, who art the true Light, who sees in the shadowy darkness, and who makest our darkness light.”
“Who sees in the shadowy darkness,” she whispered. The boat bobbed in the shallows of the pond and nudged the mud near the shore. The congregation looked on in silence.
“O Thou who perceivest hidden things and knowest what is secret, show and declare this by Thy grace and make the knowledge of the truth manifest to us who believe in Thee.”
“Who perceivest hidden things. . .”
Michael began to paddle slowly to the middle of the lake, and Miranda wondered if there was a prayer of her own she could speak, some invocation to the mysteries of the forest, but none came to her.
“Untie me, Michael, I beg of you.”
“Nay, lassie, I canna do such,” he said, but after a pause he added, “The knot be not tight. Lean back into the boat, and rub your wrists against the ribs.” She did as he bid her but was unable to free herself, and she sat up once more, straight as a sapling.
“Wilt thou jump, child?” Michael’s voice was low.
“Aye . . .”
She clung to the rope as the boat moved further and further from the dam. Her head was spinning and the thought of drowning came clearly into her mind, the breathing in of water, the pain of flooded lungs. Her heart pounded in her ears, and she shivered from the cold.
Looking back at the trees, strong sentinels lining the bank, she tried to draw their strength into her body. As she watched, they blurred to flaming clouds and began to vibrate. A breeze wafted over the water, fragrant with moss and mold. Faint at first, and tentative, the gusts grew increasingly forceful, gently thrusting the boat away from the shore. She leaned back against the bow once more and rubbed the knot with renewed vigor until she felt it loosen, and she was able to wrench one hand free. Grasping the rope, not speaking, not breathing, she stared into the water, seeing her murky form in the surface, and watched Michael’s oars dip and swing, creasing over and over the mirror that held the sky.
Now the wind rose and she heard it moan. Tiny ripples fluted the surface of the water, and she looked back at the seething trees. They shuddered with a sudden blast that rocked the boat, caught the side like a sheet, and forced it towards the dam. Confused, Michael looked back at the townspeople for some sign, but they were dumbstruck as well by the sudden wind that blew grit in their faces and tossed their robes to sails. Miranda stood up in the boat, rocking it slightly, placed one foot on the gunwale, drew in one great gulp of air, and jumped.
With a thundering clap in her ears, she went straight to the bottom, and the icy cold rushed under her skirt. A shower of noisy bubbles tumbled over her head. She began to rise with the air still trapped in her clothes, and she struggled to free her skirts. Down, she must stay down. She doubled up, tore off the rope which snaked around her, and dug for the mud, found roots of trees she knew had been waiting there for years. But her lungs burned with the need for air and, although she forced herself to release only a few bubbles at a time, the pain grew unbearable and she knew she would s
uck in the murky water and that breath would be her last. She tried to swim towards the dark shape, darker than the surrounding gloom, but she could not bear the pain, and she clawed to the surface and gasped.
If they saw her, she did not know it, and if they shouted, “She rose! She is a witch!” she never heard their cries. She saw Michael’s boat looming, and she reached for it for a moment until she could ease her aching lungs, saw his startled face staring down at her, and then she dove again, and swam, kicked, squirmed deeper into the twisted and tangled masses of sticks and trunks slimy with moss and algae. Her chest ached again with a pain like a vise. Frantically she searched the dark expanse for some opening, and she beseeched the trees so long in their grave of mud to give her a sign. Where is it? Where? Is it there still? Until in the blurred water she saw the dancing circle of light softly beckoning. Then all the roots and twisted branches opened for her, loosened and made a path, and she swam, her vision growing fainter, her chest splitting, through the brackish water, the weeds and rushes, towards one pale glimmering moon. Just before her mind went blank, her head broke through the jagged hole, and she gasped, and gasped again, clung to the twigs and ooze, and before she fell into a swoon, saw the ancient weaving, knew that she was hidden in the beaver’s den, abandoned but still intact, and that she was saved.
As she hovered there, she saw in her mind’s eye the confusion on the shore where the townspeople stared out in disbelief. Michael paddled wildly in a circle since the wind had died now, and his boat was his to master. But nothing rose to the surface, not one lone bubble, until her skirt floated up like a dark wing. There were shouts of, “There! She is there!” but when Michael pulled it into the boat it was empty as a shroud.
Judah Zachery was dumfounded. Where had she gone? Murmurings around him hinted that they had made a mistake, that she was not a witch at all. But he alone knew better, he who still bore the burn from the cherrywood switch on his palm.
It was hours later, long after the chastened and penitent townspeople had returned to their homes, and a moon had risen and danced upon the lake that held the sky, that a shivering and dripping figure climbed out of the willows. Miranda, dark with mud and the lake’s benediction, appeared like a phantom at Andrew’s door.
TWELVE
Boston—1971
AS BARNABAS SAT pretending to drink his Turkish coffee in the warehouse of the Boston rug dealer, he could visualize the rocky hillsides, the dull yellow sand, the women in head scarves bent over the warps of their wooden looms. But, such colors! Surely autumn must have been their muse. Yet how could that have been possible in the treeless wilderness of the Iranian plateau?
Now that he was dealing in Persian carpets, Barnabas saw Maine’s rolling hills reflected in the rugs he purchased. And the rugs themselves were like fields flowering with the patterns of the woodland. Here in this cavernous room, a king’s ransom of Oriental carpets—some of which hung on the walls, and others lay piled on the gleaming hardwood floors in masses that rose to the ceiling—pulsed with the energy of the thousands of fingers which had woven them. They wafted odors of mothballs, sheep’s wool, and dust.
He watched the two Iranian boys pull back the rugs from one pile for his inspection. One by one, they unfolded those rich designs that had made the Persians the rug weavers of sultans. Barnabas was excited. He had driven to a fine shop in Boston since, through serendipity, a business card had been left unexpectedly in his door. He had come to find a carpet, one that would be the perfect replacement for the fraud in Antoinette’s drawing room. With every mile he traveled, he had become ever more convinced that he had found the precise means to make amends. How could she have chosen such an ordinary rug, so inconsistent with the flawlessness of her other selections? He was baffled by her blunder. However, it afforded him an excellent opportunity to set things right. If he could find her a Tabriz—one that was two hundred years old, worn but still lovely—he would present it to her as a gift. Already he was imagining the light in her eyes when she saw it.
He waited eagerly as the boys unfolded the rugs. Every so often a pattern made his heart swell with admiration, but he had not yet found the treasure he was seeking. Medallions and tiny birds clustered on the Shiraz, stylized dragons and deer played on the fields of the old Chinese. The curlicues and leaflets drew him into visions of delicate trees arching over a pond; he saw pale pieces of sky, a sprinkling of snow, the blue-black indigo of branches, and always the wine blood color of the backgrounds. Each rug was unique, like a dream.
Barnabas could see the boys were bored. Young and still in school, they worked at the shop just as they would have at a bazaar in Isphahan or Heriz. He assumed they were sons or nephews of the owner, brought to America to supplement their education. The rugs were heavy and Barnabas watched as the two leaned in, one at each corner, and lifted back a specimen, pulled it flat, and waited patiently until he shook his head. One boy was hefty, with a fleshy face and small eyes peering out from under a wedge of black hair. The other was more attractive, lithe, his eyes shadowed with some sort of pain. His chiseled cheekbones and carved lips bore the beauty of his ancestry, an ivory complexion dipped in ashes and mauve.
Had Barnabas been on the watch for victims, either might have served. He toyed with the old memory of pursuit, lingering until dark when the shop closed and he could venture out, a stealthy tracking along the alley behind the store where they would approach the necessary black Mercedes, the family car. Then one, perhaps the slender boy with delicate features, would remember something he had forgotten, a jacket or a phone number, and return to the back entrance where the bare bulb above the heavy steel door was burned out. While he hesitated, fumbling for the lock with his key, Barnabas would leap from out of the shadows, the cape fluttering over the white neck, the cry stifled in the throat, the panic and the ensuing struggle, and the slow release of resistance, as predator melded with prey and the life force flowed from one into the other.
“Have you found anything to your liking?” Nassar Khalili entered with a new pot of coffee. After setting the tray on a small inlaid table beside Barnabas’s chair, he chose a place on the sofa and looked on.
“No, nothing,” Barnabas answered. “I want a Tabriz, an old one, preferably worn to the nap, and blood red.”
“And nothing like that has appeared?”
“Sadly, no.”
“A calamity, to be sure.” Nassar was small and neat. He wore wire spectacles that teetered on the end of his nose. His suit was cut flawlessly to his slender form, and gold cufflinks glimmered in his starched cuffs. Barnabas noticed with dismay that the rims of his own shirt sleeves were soiled, and he tugged on his jacket to hide them.
“What about your private collection?”
Nassar’s eyes lit up. “Do you have a price?” Barnabas could tell that he was balancing in his merchant’s mind the forfeit of one of his treasures against the lure of profit. Carpets that had been in the family for generations were kept in a back room and rarely shown. They were not for the uninitiated public whose banal remarks could be painful. These were the family jewels, rare and irreplaceable.
“Let’s just say . . . the right rug . . .” Barnabas left the sentence unfinished.
“Perhaps a trade?”
“Show me what you have.”
Barnabas prepared himself for the contest that was to follow. For dealers of this caliber, pleasure lay in negotiation. Barnabas knew from experience that buying a fine rug was a creative enterprise, one in which the dealer always held the upper hand. As the ultimate connoisseur, Nassar alone knew the true value of the rug. However, as a tradesman, he was so enamored of the trade, he might be tempted to sacrifice rather than not make a sale. That alone gave Barnabas a possible advantage.
Nassar leaned back and crossed his legs, allowing a well-polished wingtip to protrude from his perfectly pressed black trousers. He was swarthy, but his skin shone, and lustrous black hair curled at his ears and forehead. As he lifted the small cup to his thick lips
, Barnabas saw his eyes narrow behind his glasses and his body tense, revealing both anticipation and wariness. Barnabas felt a peculiar thrill at finding himself the victim for a change.
“I have a rug of this type,” he said, “but it is not for sale.”
“Then I do not wish to see it. I would be heartbroken.”
Nassar leaned over and whispered to one of his boys, and they left the room. An indigo Boukhara with scarlet medallions lay opened on the floor, and, squinting, Barnabas could see crimson leaves scattered on black mulch, florettes dancing on decay.
“Is the Boukhara red madder, or cochineal?” he asked innocently, although he knew the answer.
“Cochineal. Very rare. Not used these days with the onset of chemical dyes.”
“That’s a beetle, isn’t it?”
“No, no, not a beetle. Not at all. It’s dactylopius coccus, a scale insect that sucks from a cactus. And only the unfortunate females are crushed to make the dye.”
“Such a radiant hue, and from an insect. It’s hard to believe.” Barnabas was content as he sat back to listen, knowing he had loosened Nassar’s lips.
“I myself, when I was a boy,” said Nassar, “would carefully brush the insects from the cacti into a special container. It was my job. Seventy thousand tiny bugs to make one pound of dye. They were killed by exposure to heat or, of course, sunlight, then crushed. And after mixing with henna or saffron, there it is: carmine, crimson, orange, and lake.”
“Far brighter than madder?”
“Yes, madder is a duller hue, without the vibrancy of cochineal, which is like new blood flowing from the vein.”
Rug after rug was laid out on the floor. Emotions and responses were choreographed so that neither participant would appear to benefit from the transaction. Barnabas was aware that his knowledge of the rugs, their history and quality, recognition of the knots per square inch at a glance, all were indispensable tools of bartering. What’s more, he would be expected to quibble and procrastinate when he saw the rug he wanted. Finally he rose up and began to pace the room, feigning impatience.