His gaze went down the hall to the door Marina had entered and not exited from. He had to wonder if hatred was what drove John or if it was Marina. If she was the reason John was still in Salem Village.
“Hickman emerged from the smallpox epidemic unscathed and the wealthiest man in the village, which made him want more,” William said. “His daughter, niece and her friends started accusing women of being witches. Of afflicting them with illnesses and uncontrollable fits. The village doctor found nothing wrong with the girls, but their strange behavior and outbursts of gibberish didn’t stop.”
Richard shook his head. “The entire village believed these girls? Children? Forgive me, but there isn’t a community in the entire world that holds the word of children above that of adults.”
“Hickman saw to that by proclaiming the girls had been bewitched. They started out by accusing spinsters and widows, those with property no one else could claim, but it’s escalated. There are now entire families in prison. Wealthy merchant families from Salem Towne. The very families the church elders have been feuding with for years.”
Richard let everything settle in his mind. As an outsider looking in, someone who, like him, had nothing to gain or lose, William saw clearly what had happened. He felt no need to intervene, no desire for recourse. That was where the difference lay. Richard desired recourse. For his daughter. For the injustice placed upon him for falling in love, or simply lust, with a woman he couldn’t have. Not wholly. Although he’d accepted that and separated himself from it, this time he wouldn’t.
“Hickman’s not the only one who has profited from all this,” William said. “The church elders have, too. Property and possessions have been bequeathed upon them as payment for their devotion. They have formed a tight sect that no one can penetrate. They are the ones sitting on the newly formed court and they don’t want it to end.”
“Surely the new governor—” Richard started.
“Was handpicked by a Puritan minister,” William interjected. “Matthews may live in Boston, be the president of Harvard University, but he owns farmland near Salem Village. So does his family. His brother-in-law is one of Hickman’s closest allies, Abner Hogan. The witch hunt has spread faster and wider than the pox did. There’s hardly a community that doesn’t have a jail full of accused.”
Richard made the connection of how the man in town had claimed Hickman attended Harvard but chose to hold that within. “Of being witches, whereas in truth, there are no witches.”
“I didn’t say that,” William quickly replied. “I’ve known a few in my lifetime. Real witches. You gotta watch out for them.” He leaned closer and whispered, “A real witch would never have allowed themselves to get arrested.”
The wink William provided before he picked up his mug sent Richard’s nerves ticking again. His gaze also shot once more down the hall that was still empty. When he turned back to the table, both John and William were looking in that direction with smiles on their faces.
The tingling of his spine had him turning toward the hall one more time. His breath caught somewhere between his lungs and his throat. Marina stood there, with Grace in her arms. Surely he’d have seen her leaving the room or walking up the hall moments ago. For that matter, he should have heard her footsteps. But he hadn’t. It seemed as if she’d appeared right out of thin air.
“Look who is awake, Captain,” she said, carrying his daughter closer.
Though soft, he heard her footsteps and the rustling of her skirt as she moved and had to brace his shoulders to keep them from quivering.
“Your arrival has made a great difference,” she said. “Gracie is feeling much better.”
He turned his focus on his daughter as Marina set her on the floor. Rather than the oversize nightdress, Grace now wore a blue dress covered with a white pinafore. She also had shoes on her feet, and there was color in her cheeks.
Twisting in his seat, he held his arms out in an invitation for her to come closer.
“That is a lovely dress you have on.”
“Thank you,” she replied softly. “Marina made it for me.” As he scooped Gracie onto his lap, she added, “Blue is her favorite color.”
“It is?” he replied. “What is your favorite color?”
She shrugged.
“I’m afraid Grace hasn’t been taught her colors yet, Captain,” Marina replied. She was near the large hearth again, stirring that pot.
“Not taught her colors?” That confused him. Colors were everywhere. One didn’t need to be taught them, did they? He couldn’t recall. Then again, he couldn’t recall being taught all five languages he spoke fluently. It was just something he’d learned along the way. Things he needed to know. Questioning all that in his own mind, he asked, “What else hasn’t she been taught?”
“That really doesn’t matter, does it?” Marina asked. “You’ll see to her education going forward, won’t you?” There was not only a challenge in her eyes, but a hint of hope.
“Yes.” Touching the tip of Grace’s nose, he vowed, “I’ll see you learn to read and write, to decipher numbers and name all the colors of the rainbow.”
“I shall like that,” Grace said.
“So shall I,” Richard responded, looking at Marina. For some unknown and unfathomable reason, he wanted her to fully understand his daughter would be denied nothing from this day forward.
Her response of a gentle, serene smile struck him in such a way his heart started beating faster. What was it about her that caused such reactions? He wasn’t the type of man to save damsels in distress. Had never contemplated one way or another what happened to most people he encountered. It wasn’t that he was uncaring, just busy. Keeping the hulls of his ships full and his investments profitable didn’t happen without a lot of work and commitment. Yet here he was, determined to see that Hickman got his due. Why? Because of the daughter? She was his responsibility, one he accepted, and he would forever protect her, but would he still be here if it had been the old crone in the woods who’d contacted him to come and get Grace? He doubted it. Just as he doubted Grace’s recovery was due to him. It was almost miraculous.
An eerie sensation had him glancing at Marina again.
Her smile was even more serene than before.
“You sure look pretty, Gracie,” William said, reaching a gnarled finger across the table to flick the end of Grace’s nose. “Maybe I should have Marina sew me a dress like that.”
Until this moment, Richard had never known how the giggle of a child could fill the air and affect everyone around.
“You can’t wear a dress,” Grace told William while still giggling. “That would be silly.”
“I think you are the silly one,” Richard said, gently tickling her side. “Look at how you’re laughing, you little magpie.”
“What’s a magpie?”
“A bird,” Richard said. “A beautiful little bird that chatters and giggles.”
“Where do they live?”
“All around the world,” he said. “I’ve seen many kinds of birds, colorful ones. You shall, too. I’ll show them to you.” He picked her up to jostle her slightly in the air and hear her giggle again. “And monkeys who swing from tree to tree by their tails.”
* * *
Marina wasn’t completely sure what supplied her with the unusual bout of happiness but chose to accept it. Grace was certainly on the mend, and her squeals of delight were the sweetest sounds she may ever have heard. The little girl’s eyes were shining and her cheeks pink. It appeared as if the arrival of her father had been pivotal in her healing. Richard looked happy, too, teasing his daughter as he was.
A tightening in her chest forced Marina to turn her attention back to the hearth. Her father had once been the most important person in her world, but she’d lost him. Lost her entire family. She didn’t want that to happen to Grace and certainly didn’t want the child to experience a setback, but that chance might have to be taken if it meant getting her away from Salem Village sooner th
an later.
A person knew when evil was about to knock upon her door, and Marina was sure the pounding would soon start. Whether they were completely healed or not, she had to find a way for all of them sitting around the table to escape safely. A fair amount of sun still filtered in through the windows, but evening would soon fall, bringing darkness in which all sorts of things could hide.
That thought, or maybe the idea of being left here alone, made her hands tremble. The spoon clanked against the wall as she hung it on its hook. “I shall go milk Nellie, and then we’ll eat.”
Her statement quelled the giggling and teasing that had consumed the room.
“I’ll milk for ye,” John said.
“No,” Marina replied. “It’s best if you remain inside the house.” Berating herself for speaking so swiftly, for bringing an end to the bout of happiness that none of them had experienced for a long time, she added, “Thank you, though.” Glancing her uncle’s way, she stated, “I won’t be long.”
His eyes, even clouded with age, told her what she needed to know. He’d not shared her story with Richard and wouldn’t. Relief filled her. It was fleeting, for whether or not Richard knew of her past, her future was still set. All of a sudden, that saddened her deeply. Grabbing the milk bucket, she dashed out the door.
Richard might know she was a witch, but just like Uncle William, he wouldn’t approve of what she had to do. Nor would he believe she could accomplish it. Men were like that. Other than her father. He’d believed in her, and she wouldn’t disappoint him. Dead or alive.
Nellie was standing contently in her stall. Richard’s horse was there, as well, and for a moment, she contemplated being an animal. Having no worries of where your food would come from and no repercussions from past happenings. No families to mourn when separated.
She retrieved her stool and entered Nellie’s stall. The simple lives of animals. Humans were the dumb ones, not animals, as so many declared. People were never satisfied, never happy. They carried hate around like bags of luggage.
“It would be an awfully dull existence, don’t you think?”
Marina closed her eyes at the sound of Richard’s voice. She’d assumed he’d stay inside with Grace, but nothing she’d assumed about him had been correct since his arrival.
“Awfully dull,” he repeated.
Sighing, knowing he couldn’t just disappear into thin air, she asked, “What would be?”
“Standing in a stall all day, waiting for someone to come along and milk you or feed you or, once in a while, lead you out into the sun.”
How he’d known what she had been thinking about made her think of kindred souls, but that couldn’t be. Thoughts of animals had simply entered his head when he stepped into the barn, no different than how they’d crossed her mind. “I don’t know,” she said. “There would be a lot less to worry about.”
“It must be like living in a jail cell. Being in a barn all the time. No freedom. No hope. If you ask me, there’s a lot to be said between existing and living.”
Marina pinched her lips together to ward off the shiver racing up her spine. She hadn’t thought much about jail cells but would soon. The only way to save those already imprisoned was to join them, be put before the council. “No one asked you. Nellie certainly didn’t. She’s not worried about what you think about her barn, either.”
“I’d agree with that. Nellie doesn’t worry about anything. Unlike you. Tell me. Have you always worried about others?”
Milk had begun to stream into the bucket and she continued a steady rhythm with both hands.
“I’ve witnessed how you take care of your uncle and Grace, and your worry about John.”
She’d witnessed those same things about him but wouldn’t admit to that. “I won’t deny I care about others,” she said. “It’s the way I was raised.”
“In Maine,” he said.
She pinched her lips together. Turning the conversation on her was not her intent. “You’ll learn to care about others, too,” she said. “Children have a way of making that happen.”
“You don’t believe I already care about others?”
“I don’t know you well enough to know if you do or not.”
“But because I didn’t give up my life as a sailor to live with my wife and child, you assume so. Isn’t that correct?”
It most certainly had been, but he had no way of knowing that. “I’m no one’s judge or jury.”
“Then you are the only one in this community to think that way,” he answered.
“Perhaps,” she agreed, switching her hands to begin extracting milk from Nellie’s other teats.
“I didn’t know much about Puritans before I met Sarah and her family,” he said. “I can’t say I knew a lot about them afterward, either. I had no intention of getting married when that voyage started, and I’m not proud to admit that I have wished many times it hadn’t happened.”
Her hands stalled as she turned to look his way, rather shocked a man would admit such a thing. “Then why did you?”
He shrugged. “It just happened.”
“Marriage doesn’t just happen,” she said, turning back to her milking.
“It did in my case,” he said. “That’s the truth. I’m not a man who lies. I don’t like being lied to, either. Nor do I appreciate when someone attempts to pull the wool over my eyes.”
The trembling of Marina’s hands interrupted her ability to coax milk from Nellie. He may have been speaking of Sarah, but Marina had the distinct sense he was talking about her.
“That happened to me once before,” he said. “Sarah and her family, along with several others who boarded my ship, had every intention of arriving in the New World with babies in their bellies.”
There wasn’t as much anger in his tone as repulsion. Marina let her hands grow idle. “Why?”
“Because the New World was no longer theirs. The utopia they’d created was drawing newcomers of different religions and beliefs far faster than the Puritans could reproduce. I didn’t comprehend that at the time, but I do now.”
Marina had no difficulty in believing what he said. Puritan girls far younger than her already had two or three children. She also concluded Nellie had given up all the milk she would today. Gathering her bucket, Marina stood and picked up her stool by one leg. Richard stepped aside as she exited the stall.
Once she’d set the stool down in the corner, she turned to face him. Curious, she asked, “Didn’t you miss them? Sarah and Grace?”
“It’s hard to miss someone you don’t know.”
“But—”
“Sarah and I barely knew each other when she became pregnant, and I only saw Grace once, when she was a tiny infant. That was when I refused to stay. Sarah’s father told me not to return. That I wasn’t welcome here—however, they never refused the items I sent.”
“What items?”
“Furniture, yard goods, seeds, candles, dishes. Any items I thought they might need. I may have been absent from her life, but I never forgot I was responsible for Grace’s livelihood.”
Marina wasn’t sure how to respond or what to think. Uncle William had never mentioned that Richard had provided for his family from afar. No one had. Not even Anna’s mother, who at one time had gossiped about everyone. When Elizabeth had been arrested, Mrs. Pullman vehemently accused others, and soon she was arrested, too. Marina could understand the Goodwife Pullman’s behavior. Parents tried to protect their children no matter what. That was how it had been at her house. Right to the death.
The images that formed in her mind had her squeezing her eyes closed.
“Marina?”
She drew in a rattling breath and opened her eyes, hoping to chase aside the memories.
“What is it?” Richard asked.
“Nothing,” she said quickly. “Nothing.”
He reached out and took the milk bucket in one hand and wrapped the other around her elbow. “Your face is as white as your cap.”
Lift
ing her chin, she swallowed a lump and stepped forward. “I’m fine.” It wasn’t the past she needed to be frightened of.
Chapter Eight
Marina’s gaze slipped past Richard and locked on the open barn door. The dark veil of night was already slipping downward and turning everything a muted gray. She liked having the doors locked and the curtains drawn before night completely fell. Richard’s hand remained on her arm, and she made no attempt to pull away. The reassurance she wasn’t alone was something she hadn’t had in a very long time.
“I’ve been hoodwinked once, Marina. It will not happen again.”
The warning in his voice couldn’t be ignored or mistaken. “Who do you believe is attempting to hoodwink you?”
He let out a rather wicked chuckle. “Who other than you, Miss Marina Lindqvist?”
“Me?” Marina stopped in her tracks and, while shaking off his hold, took a step back. “I, Captain Tarr, am not attempting to hoodwink you. Nor have I done anything that would allow you to assume such a thing. A matter of fact, I’ve told you exactly what I want, but you didn’t listen.”
“Ah, yes, for me to leave. That obviously isn’t going to happen, so let’s forget about that one, shall we?”
No, we shan’t, she wanted to shout but bit her tongue instead. The softness that had been in his eyes moments ago completely disappeared.
“Am I supposed to believe you rescued my daughter by proclaiming yourself as a witch, the very thing that others are being hanged for, purely because you care about others?”
Already sorely tempered, Marina let out a tiny growl. Put that way, it did sound a bit improbable. Still, she insisted, “That is the truth.”
* * *
Richard was tempted to grab her with both hands and give her a good shake. He was tempted to give himself a good kick in the hind end, too. Confessing his regrets about marrying Sarah had not been why he’d followed Marina into the barn. Her uncle may have told him what had been happening around Salem Village, but not a word had been mumbled about Marina or her past. That “bit of a mishap up in Maine” William had mentioned earlier today stuck with him. Richard wanted to know exactly what that mishap had been. Leveling his eyes with ones that still held the shimmer of fear, he asked, “I’m supposed to believe that is the only reason you were willing to sacrifice your own life for that of my child?”
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