Susannah Morrow

by Megan Chance

  “I don’t want to. But I-I’m afraid.”

  “You must pray for reassurance, child. God has not abandoned you. Think of that when you are afraid.”

  She nodded, yet hesitated, and I remembered something Susannah had said about the girls Charity had once called her friends. ’Twas now, when her faith was so fragile, that Charity most needed guidance. Those girls, with their mischief, could only confuse her. Carefully I said, “The Devil has many guises, Charity. Be careful who you trust and what you believe.”

  Her eyes went wide. I saw knowledge in them, a surprise that brought satisfaction. I had been right to say something. ’Twas indeed her friends filling her head with doubts.

  “I have heard that you continue to see those girls, despite my admonitions. I have no choice, I’m afraid, but to forbid you to have anything more to do with them.”

  She looked alarmed. “But, Father—”

  “’Tis for the best,” I said firmly. “Your mother believed they were leading you astray, and I find that I must agree.”

  She was silent, but I saw her struggle. “You will find other friends,” I said. “Ones who do not court wickedness. Am I understood?”

  Her lips pressed tight together, but she nodded.

  “Very well. Now go to the hearth and pray. I feel sure God will grant you the reassurances you seek.”

  I watched as she moved from the bench to the settle, kneeling before a fire that I had only just built up. She bowed her head, and I saw her lips move with prayer. I felt a calm come over my own soul. My child had reminded me of God’s grace, and for the first time in weeks, my heart was still and quiet. I would come in early tonight, I vowed. We would spend the evening in prayer and scripture until her fears, and my own, were gone.

  As I was turning to go, I saw a movement on the stairs. When I looked up, I saw Susannah there, half hidden in the shadows, watching Charity.

  Whatever calm I had managed disappeared. She glanced at me, and for the briefest of moments, our eyes held. Then I turned away and hurried out the door.

  I did not pray with Charity that night. I forgot about her fears and my own reassurances. I stayed in the barn until very late, until I could no longer see through the dimness half lit by the faltering lamp, until my fingers were too frozen to move—as if cold could calm my soul.

  Chapter 16

  FOR THE NEXT SEVERAL DAYS, I WORKED UNTIL LATE INTO THE evenings, coming inside only for supper and for evening lessons, then retiring early. I surrounded myself with published sermons and a well-thumbed Bible, pounding God’s lessons into my heart.

  It had become a routine I took peace from, a measure of sanity and control, and I did not like it disrupted. So when I came in one evening after supper to see Charity sitting pale and tearfully distraught at the table, darting venomous glances toward Susannah, I was irritated. I did not want to be involved in their squabbling. I was not good at such things.

  Then I realized that Susannah, who was at the settle with Jude, going over a sampler, seemed unaware of Charity’s distress. For a moment I was relieved—there had been no quarrel—then I remembered the last conversation I’d had with Charity. With the memory came a stab of guilt that I’d neglected her since. She needed my guidance still; it had only been two months since Judith’s death, and the two of them had been close.

  I went over to her. “Have you done your lessons for today, child?”

  She wiped quickly at her eyes. “Aye.”

  “Tell me. Isaiah fifty-five: seven.”

  She swallowed. “‘Let the wicked forsake His way, and the unrighteous man His thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,” saith the Lord. “For as the—”’”

  I held up my hand to stop her. She had recited the text perfectly, yet there was a distance in her gaze that alarmed me. “What meaning take you from this?”

  “’Tis as you said, Father. God will pardon even the most wicked, should he turn to the Lord.”

  ’Twas as I’d taught her. Still…“Have you taken comfort in the words?”

  “Aye.”

  “Then why the tears?” I touched her cheek, and she leaned her face into my palm as if she ached for the warmth of my hand. That alarmed me too, such longing, so I drew away again. “There is wool to be spun,” I said gently. “Or was it only in my imagination that you and your mother carded every day this fall?”

  Charity blanched. “I won’t…I cannot spin.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because…because I-I hurt my hand.”

  “Ask your aunt to put some salve on it.”

  “I would do it myself.”

  Her dislike of Susannah was hard in her tone. I sighed. “Your mother would not like your distrust of your aunt. ’Twould be better if you could accept things as they are.”

  My glance fell upon Susannah, who looked up at the same moment. I commanded my daughters to the settle for their nightly lessons. ’Twas all I could do to stumble through the sermon I’d planned out for them.

  Finally I could stand it no longer. I said a final prayer and sent my daughters to bed, trying not to feel despairing as I watched how slowly Charity went up the stairs, trailing behind Jude with burdened steps. When they were gone, I went quickly to my own room without a word to Susannah.

  In the parlor, my bed was shadowed and cold, the curtains half drawn. A small fire had been lit, but the wood was wet, and it only smoked and smoldered and gave no warmth. I went to the window and looked out at the bare black trees and the snow glowing in the faint light of a crescent moon.

  I was confused and afraid. I had lost my way these last weeks since Judith’s death. There were currents in my own house that puzzled me; I did not understand the dislike between Charity and Susannah, or why Charity was so inconsolable. My well-ordered household was suddenly foundering, and I could not think of what to do. All I knew was that I could not rid myself of the nagging feeling that Susannah was to blame.

  I prayed until the night passed into the small, dark hours, searching for answers, for reassurance. Finally I undressed and went to bed, drawing the green harrateen curtains all around before I crawled between cold sheets. They still smelled of Judith: strong soap and mint, the herbs she’d nestled among our clothes. I stared up at the darkness, at the bunches of horsemint and chamomile she’d hung at the bedposts to softly scent our slumber, and one of her sayings came to me: God will provide. In my exhaustion, the words were comforting. Aye, the Lord would show me the way. I had not kept my faith. With that reassurance, and the thought of Judith full upon my heart, I fell asleep.

  I’m not sure what it was that woke me; one moment I was deep in dreams, and the next, wide awake, startled and confused, my own breath filling the dark around me.

  At the foot of the bed, the curtains opened, pulled aside by an unseen hand. Though there was no light, not a candle, not even the moon shining dimly through the window, I saw her standing there as if it were day, so bright was she.

  Susannah.

  Her face was luminous, her dark hair down around her shoulders. She wore a red bodice—the same she’d worn the day of Faith’s baptism, too bright for common folk, too scarlet for anything but vanity. It seemed to glow as she came toward me, through the curtains that fell shut behind her as she crawled over the headboard, up and up until there was scarlet all around me, the bed rug, her bodice, that terrible glow.

  I felt her weight on my feet, my shins, my knees, up to my thighs, where she stopped and settled heavily upon me. I could not speak; ’twas as if my throat had closed. I could barely breathe as she straddled me.

  “Wh-what are you doing?” I managed finally, though my voice sounded strangled, hardly there.

  She smiled wickedly and leaned slowly forward, until she lay upon me with her full weight, her breasts upon my chest, her pelvis cradled against mine. Her hair spun and caught on my
stubbled cheeks. I could not move, speak, or stir, though I tried. The temptation of her dizzied me. Can yon bear to be alive half an hour in fire, and if not, how can you bear to live in Hell for all eternity?

  The words of the sermon came to me like a message from God, and with them, my strength. “No!” I shouted, and I pushed at her shoulders. She sat up easily and laughed as her hands came down around my throat; squeezing, choking, she possessed a most unholy strength, one that held me where I lay. A mere woman, holding me still with only her delicate hands, but there I was: a prisoner.

  Her weight grew heavier and heavier. Then, when it seemed I could not bear it another moment, she said to me, “I will have you” in the softest of whispers, a mere tremor of breath.

  She was gone.

  She left me that suddenly; there and solid one moment, vanished the next; my body my own again, my movements no longer controlled by her. I put my hand to my throat, thinking that I would still feel her there, that the press of her fingers must surely be branded on my skin, but there was nothing. I could breathe again; I could move. There had not even been a shiver of the bed curtains.

  I snapped awake, gasping for breath, shaking in terror. ’Twas a dream, only a dream. I tried to reassure myself, but it had been so real I could not tell it from this moment now. I could not stop myself from pushing aside the curtains, scanning the darkened room for a sign of her. Naked, I padded across the floor in the frigid cold. The window was open—yet it had been latched since the end of summer. The freezing air came inside, blown by a sudden night wind. Dark clouds scudded across the sky, wisping across the frail outline of a thin moon. Snow crystals brushed my face.

  I yanked the window shut, hard enough that it thudded and shook against the sill. I latched it with shaking hands, and then latched it again to be sure it was stiff, hammered it into place with my fist. Then I stumbled to my desk, shivering, my fingers stiff with cold as I grabbed the Bible and let it fall open to Psalms, the last marked place. I murmured the words aloud as a talisman against evil. “‘There is none upon this earth that I desire beside Thee. My flesh and my heart faileth, but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion forever.…I have put my trust in the Lord God, that I may declare all Thy works.’” When I’d said them so often the words ceased to have meaning, I mumbled vague prayers instead: “Dear God, help me, guide me. Protect me from temptation.…I am but a poor servant, my Lord.…”

  When dawn broke, I was still at my desk, cold clear into my bones, shivering. I could no longer feel my hands as they skimmed the pages; my throat and tongue were dry from the feverishness of my prayers. My skin felt touched with ice. Yet I did not move, not until I heard the creak of the crane at the fire, the unmistakable sound of Susannah awake and tending to breakfast.

  Hurriedly I went to pull on my clothes, my numb fingers fumbling with buttons and ties, my feet like cold blocks inside my boots. Last night had been a dream only, a temptation sent by the Devil, no flesh-and-blood woman. My logical mind knew it.

  I had only a single thought: I was bowing beneath temptation. Last night had been proof of it. In spite of all my reasoned arguments over why she should not go, I no longer had a choice. Soon—today—I would have to tell my wife’s sister that she was no longer welcome in my home.

  It wasn’t until that night that I found the courage to do it. I came into the house, girding myself for the task, and stopped short at the sound of voices and laughter. The unmistakable laughter of Hannah Penney. It should not have been a surprise. Hannah came over often now, bringing Faith to visit, but I had not expected her so late.

  Jude was near the hearth, churning, while Charity scrubbed pewter at the washtable. Hannah was at the tableboard, and Susannah sat across, dandling Faith on her knee.

  I stood quiet beside the door.

  “Shall we play matrimony?” Susannah asked Hannah. I saw that in her other hand, the one not holding Faith, there were cards.

  Hannah shook her head. “George would put me out if he heard I did.”

  “We won’t gamble, then,” Susannah urged.

  Hannah seemed to hesitate. Then Faith began to fret, and Hannah looked over at her and saw me.

  She froze for a moment. Then her eyes grew large in her pale face, and she shook her head vehemently and said, “No, not that. George only allows whist, and we need two more for that.”

  “Whist?” Susannah said. “Such a boring game—”

  Hannah shook her head. “Even your brother cannot disapprove of whist, can you, Lucas?”

  I came fully into the room, though I was afraid to come too close. “I cannot approve of cards at all,” I said with feigned calm as I took off my gloves.

  Susannah set her cards on the table and turned, grabbing Faith close to her chest as if afraid I would take the child from her. “You would disapprove of something Queen Mary does herself?”

  “The queen does not dictate morality to me, madam,” I told her. “Only God can do that.”

  “I don’t remember God saying anything about cards—or is that in a Bible I’m not familiar with?”

  “I cannot say what Bibles you are acquainted with, if any. But ’tis clear He does not countenance gambling.”

  “Ah.” She smiled. “So God gives us whist for our pleasure, but not matrimony.”

  Hannah chuckled softly at the jibe. Susannah bowed her head in acknowledgment of her cleverness, and more—I had the sense that ’twas me she was mocking.

  I reached across Susannah and grabbed the cards lying there, and then I strode across the room and threw them in the fire. The gilded edges curled, and then the flames caught and leaped, too high for such little fodder, high enough that I backed away and Jude jumped a little at the churn. I heard Charity’s gasp.

  Susannah said, “Those cards came all the way from London.”

  “There are more to be had there, I’m sure,” I said, still angry, not thinking. “When you return, no doubt they’ll be waiting.”

  There was silence. I had not meant to say the words, not that way. I knew what Susannah heard in them, and I expected anger, perhaps, or resignation. I did not expect her stillness, or my sense that she was afraid.

  For the first time, it occurred to me that she might have as much reason to want to come here as I had to send her away. I had not bothered to ask why she’d made the journey now, at this time of year. The waters were treacherous; few traveled in the late fall and winter if it could be helped. I knew that Judith had asked her to visit us many times before, but Susannah had never come. Not until now.

  “Do you plan to return?” Hannah asked quietly. “I’d thought you meant to stay.”

  Charity jerked around. In the corner, Jude stopped her churning.

  ’Twas as if the lack of sound stirred Susannah. “Go on, Jude, don’t let it sit. Charity, keep scrubbing.”

  “You aren’t going back, are you, Auntie?” jude’s voice was thin; I heard the fear in it. When I glanced over, her dark blue eyes were wide, her thin hands, clutched on the dasher so hard her knuckles were white.

  “She must go back Sometime.” Charity’s hopeful expectation was almost uncomfortable in its intensity.

  Jude ignored her. She said accusingly to Susannah, “You said you weren’t going back.”

  “You must let her return if she chooses to, Jude,” I said, more sharply than I meant to.

  “Do I have a choice, Brother?” Susannah asked softly.

  Hannah Penney was glaring at me; Jude seemed as if she might cry; Charity’s anticipation was painfully sharp. Susannah had pinned me neatly. I knew what she was doing: clearly naming me the villain. If I told her to go, there would be no way to mitigate it, not with Hannah sitting there, listening to every word. She would have it to her husband, who would tell Tom Putnam, and he would then tell Parris. ’Twas an uncharitable thing I meant to do; now the whole village would know it in fact, instead of merely speculating on whether I had told her to go or she went of her own free will.

  Yet the
memory of last night was still close; it rushed through my consciousness like a fevered delirium. I had no choice. I opened my mouth to tell her so.

  Faith began to cry. As if she sensed what I was about to do, she set up a wailing so loud and hard it was impossible to bear. Susannah began rocking the babe against her breast, but I stepped forward. “Give her to me,” I said coldly, thinking that I should learn to comfort the babe if I meant to send Susannah away.

  Susannah hesitated only a moment. Then she gave me Faith. The child was squirming and beet-faced, squalling in a high-pitched scream that pierced my ears. She was warm and heavy, and her little cotton-capped head fit nearly in the palm of my hand I felt again as I had in the church during her baptism, overwhelmed and helpless. I Jiggled her in my hands, and she threw up her arms and clenched her little fists and commenced to squall harder. “Come, come,” I murmured to her, afraid to hold her tightly, afraid not to. I tried tucking her into the crook of my arm, where she did not want to stay.

  “Try her against your shoulder, Lucas,” Hannah suggested, but instead I looked into my daughter’s squinted eyes. Even in the deformity of her anger, she looked to me like Judith, the shape of her face, her determined little jaw. I wrapped her in my arms, trying to hold her still, bouncing her as I had watched Judith do countless times when Charity and Jude were babes.

  I turned my back to the others and went to the hearth. I would calm this child of mine if it took me all afternoon. I kept bouncing her, though the movement was not enough. “Come now, Faith,” I said again. “Quiet now.”

  Suddenly I felt Susannah behind me. She leaned around me, and said in a soft voice, “You should talk to her, Brother. ’Twould help, I think.”

  “I have been talking to her.”

  She laughed lightly. “She is too young to understand your sermons, and ’tis not what she wants now.”