by Megan Chance
“’Tis lovely still,” she said in a hushed voice.
I glanced at Jem, at the way he was looking at her, the way he looked to me. I held out my hands again and gave a little shake of my chains. He jerked his head at Pru to tell her to go. She slipped out, and when he bent close to unlock the manacles, I said, “What do you think she’d give you, Jem, for a bodice like this?”
Jem went still.
“Jemmy, can you hurry?” Pru whined from the hall.
“Quiet,” he said over his shoulder. “Be quiet a moment, will you?” He turned back to me. “What’re you saying?”
“Think how pretty she’d look in it. She’s more buxom than I, but ’twould fit her well, I think. Imagine how she’d look in nothing but this—”
“Enough,” he said. His voice was rough, his breathing rougher. “Give it to me.
I yanked it away again. “No, no. ’Tis not yours for nothing, Jem, my boy.”
“Jemmie?” came the voice in the hall.
Impatiently he said, “All right, then. What d’you want for it? A bottle? Fresh beer?”
I met his gaze. “I want to ransom Lucas Fowler.”
Jem glanced to where Lucas slept on the bed.
Quietly I said, “How hard would it be, to turn your back some day, to let him just…slip out? You won’t find a bodice like this in all of New England. And think what your pretty Pru would do for you, how appreciative she would be.”
“’Tis a risk for me,” he said uncertainly.
“What risk? You’re the jailkeep. How can the council expect you to keep prisoners for free?”
“Oh, I’ll be paid.”
“With what? By whom? Lucas has three children, none of them adults, two but infants. There’s no other family, no one to pay his jail fees if he is convicted. They’ve already taken his property for the crown. I’m a confessed witch—I will surely hang, and no one here cares enough where my body lies to redeem it. If he was to hang too—’twould be a loss, then, for both of us. Every day he stays costs you money. Why not take what you can now?” He hesitated.
I looked down at the fabric. “’Tis a beautiful color. ’Twill add pink to Pru’s fairness. And she wants it, Jem. Did you see how she looked at it? I think she would give anything to feel it against her own skin.”
He swallowed tightly. “Aye,” he said quickly, as if afraid he would change his mind. “Very well. ’Tis an even trade.”
“You’ll let Lucas escape?”
“Tomorrow,” he whispered. “In the evening, when the crowds are gone.”
“The chains?”
“Have him feign illness. I’ll unchain him and take him upstairs to tend to him. Once we’re there, I’ll turn my back, and he can…do as he will.”
“The bodice for his freedom, then,” I said.
“Jemmy, will you hurry?” Pru cried.
“Give it to me,” he said.
“When ’tis done,” I told him; though I saw he wanted to protest, Pru called again, and he was gone.
I went back to where Lucas slept. “’Tis your last night here, my love,” I whispered. I watched him sleep for a long time.
Chapter 37
I LISTENED TO THE MOANS OF THE OTHER PRISONERS, THE CON-stant talk, the sound of crying from another cell. This place was never quiet; ’twas like a living tomb, bodies buried alive. I didn’t dare think beyond tomorrow night, when I would be here alone again.
I watched as Lucas and Giles Corey spoke quietly in the corner, and then I saw them laugh together before Lucas made his way back to the pallet and settled in beside me. ’Twas all I could do to keep from telling him outright what I’d done.
“What were you talking about?” I asked him.
“Ah…nothing,” he said, leaning his head back against the wall. “A time several months ago, when we were hunting together. ’Tis of no account.”
“You like Giles.”
He shrugged. “’Tis a small village. ’Tis better to like than not.”
I asked, “Have you been happy here, Lucas? In this village? Has your life been what you hoped it would be?”
He looked at me oddly. “Such a question.…You have been in a strange temper this evening.”
“Thoughtful, more like,” I said.
His thumb moved over mine, a soft caress. “Have I been happy here?”
“You loved Judith,” I said. Before he could answer, I said quickly, “No, do not tell me. There is not an answer you could give to that question that would make me glad.”
He was quiet. His eyes, when he looked at me, were such a burning blue I saw their color clearly in the shadows. “What of you, Susannah? Were you happy in London?”
“I have ever been a wanderer,” I told him honestly. “If not by journeying, then at least in my own heart. Satisfaction has always…eluded me.”
“And this…between us…Is this another journey?”
“It has felt to me as if we have always belonged to each other. I would not have wished it so, and yet…I cannot deny it. And I can promise you: I have never felt such a way before.”
He squeezed my fingers. His expression went bleak. “Aye.”
I spoke in measured tones. “There is no future here. Not in the village.”
“The village may not exist when this is over.”
“But if it did, if all was resolved; if you had the chance to leave it—”
“Judith is buried here, and our children,” he said slowly. “But ’tis time, I think, to find a different world.”
“You would leave then.”
“Aye. If we ever escape this place.”
“Lucas, you must promise me that you will go. If you have the chance, you will take the girls and go as far from the village as you can.”
He made a puzzled frown. “Why do you speak so? They’ve not even set the trial date—”
“But if…if they find you innocent, do not wait for me. You must promise me that you will go.”
“And leave you to a hanging?”
“Aye, if it comes to that.”
“I would do what I could to convince them otherwise. I would not leave you to face death alone.”
“You must,” I said. “’Tis not me who matters, Lucas, but your daughters.”
I had chosen the best argument, I knew. He loved his daughters. In the end, he would do what was best for them.
“I’ll promise it,” he said finally, “if you promise me something in return.”
“What is it?”
“If there comes a way out of this, you will take it as well. You are no witch; don’t let them hang you for it. If I promise to leave you, then you must promise the same.”
“Aye. I promise it.”
He leaned back again, satisfied. “’Twill be over soon. It must be over soon.”
I nodded, and laid my head upon his shoulder. “What will you do with your future, Lucas?”
“I have thought lately of New York. I can find work there, I think. There is the war to consider—’tis not as safe as Boston, but ’tis not New England, either. We would be safe enough, and I have thought…for us…There are places where laws do not bind us.”
“And your own heart, Lucas, how does it reconcile what we are to each other?”
“I would not lose happiness,” he said simply. “I have lived without it too long.”
The next morning, I berated myself for trusting Jem—he was but a jailkeep; how had I dared to trust him? When ’twas Richard who brought us breakfast, I could not eat for the curses that filled my soul. I was short-tempered and distracted.
“What ails you?” Lucas asked me several times, and I could only shake my head and move away.
As the hours passed, I was increasingly apprehensive. When I finally heard the turn of the key, and Jem calling out that he’d brought our supper, I nearly fell to the floor.
Jem did not meet my eyes as he came inside bearing a large pail stinking of soup. He handed out the shallow, cracked wooden bowls—only six; the res
t of us would wait until those bowls were empty, and Jem could use them again. He stood back to wait. Then he glanced up at me and inclined his head to Lucas; I knew ’twas time. I went to Lucas, who sat on the edge of our pallet, waiting his turn. In a low voice, I said, “You must feign illness. Now.”
He frowned at me. “What?”
“You must feign illness. Jem will take off your chains and bring you upstairs. When he turns his back, you must go out the door. As quickly as you can. ’Twill be unlocked. Then you must flee, Lucas. Take the girls however you can, and leave this place. You talked of New York last night. You must lose yourself there. Do not let them find you.”
He was staring at me.
“I have bought your escape,” I said urgently, quietly. I felt the teats come to my eyes, and did not try to stop them. “’Tis your chance for a better life.”
“You’ve bought escape,” he said in bewilderment. “How?”
“’Tis of no matter.” I glanced at Jem, who waited impatiently. “You must go, Lucas. Quickly.”
“I will not go without you. It must be the both of us, or not at all.”
“It cannot be the both of us.” I looked over my shoulder at Jem, who was frowning; I grabbed Lucas’s hand and called out, “Oh, Lucas, what is wrong?”
Lucas wrenched away. “Not without you.”
“Don’t be a fool,” I whispered. “There is Charity to consider, and Jude. There is Faith. Think of what we spoke of yesterday. There is one chance. You must take it.”
He hesitated, and I bent closer. “You promised me, Lucas. Last night, you promised you would go if the chance came—”
“I thought we were talking of improbabilities,” he accused. “You knew of this then. I did not.”
“What goes on over there?” Jem called out.
I raised my voice. “He’s ill! Jailkeep, I think he’s ill. Can you not do something?” I turned back to Lucas and murmured, “You must groan. Do something.”
“I cannot in good conscience—”
I leaped to my feet. “Jailkeep, please!” I called out, and Jem came rushing over. Lucas looked up at me. I was crying—cursed tears.
“I will not—” he began.
“He’s got a fever, I’m sure of it. ’Tis this wretched place. You must fetch a doctor.” Then, for Lucas’s ears alone, I whispered, “The children, Lucas. The children.”
He hesitated, and then he doubled over, groaning. Jem unlocked the manacles, and they fell clanking to the ground. He grabbed Lucas’s arm, pulling him to his feet.
Lucas grabbed my wrist hard, his grip so tight that I had no choice but to stumble behind him. Jem said, “Not her,” and pried Lucas’s fingers loose.
Lucas twisted back to me. “Susannah-—”
“You’ll be fine, my love,” I called to him. “Jem will see to it.” His face was anguished as Jem pushed him out into the hallway, and then the door shut again, and I sagged onto the pallet, still warm from Lucas’s heat. Alone, in darkness, with my fellow cellmates scurrying around the pail of rancid soup like insects, and Giles Corey’s eyes too dark and knowing where he sat watching on the bed above mine.
I waited for Jem to bring him back, to see Lucas stumble into the cell again, his chains clanking as the jailkeep sneered at me in contempt. When that did not happen, I waited for them to catch him. At every moment in the hall, every sound, every flicker of light, I sat up on my pallet, waiting to see him again. I did not sleep that night—no more than an hour. The cries of the suffering woke me, as they had not done in weeks and weeks. Each time, I woke expecting to see him lying beside me, and I was disoriented until I remembered that he was gone.
They did not bring him back that night, nor did they the next day. Giles Corey said to me suspiciously, “How ill Lucas must be, that they do not return him here,” and I nodded and looked worried. ’Twas not hard to do; my mind was in constant turmoil about his escape. By the third day, no one asked questions of me, though I sometimes saw Martha and Giles talking low and urgently among themselves—talk that stopped when I turned. I kept my ears open, but heard no gossip except that Goody Osborne had died in the Boston Jail, her already frail constitution mortally weakened by her imprisonment. After I gave Jem the bodice, he assiduously avoided my gaze whenever he came to the cell, at least for the first week, and then he was as he always was, and I knew he’d forgotten Lucas.
The prison seemed even more like the very bowels of Hell—even the upper cells were filled now, and the sound was as one low, long swell that never eased. I heard nothing of Lucas, or of Charity, not until ten days had passed, not until the day that Richard announced to us all that the Massachusetts General Council had met and instituted a Court of Oyer and Terminer—a temporary court meant for extreme and unusual circumstances—to try us.
These last days, I had thought so much on Lucas that I had not had time to think of myself, or what I had confessed to. I had no hope that my life would last the summer. They would keep me alive long enough to condemn others—I knew this—but then ’twould be my turn, and I would hang.
’Twas in this mood that, an hour later, I looked up to see Jem unlock the door for Hannah Penney.
At first, I did not realize it was her. I saw her pause inside the door, and then she caught my eye and I knew her. She was not carrying baby Faith.
“Hannah!” I called. My chains banged against my legs as I moved; her eyes went to them, and I remembered—the last time I’d seen her, I had not been wearing them.
“Dear God,” she murmured, and I saw her lips move in a quick prayer before she said to me, “The Lord has truly seen fit to punish you here.”
I knew she was not talking about the cell itself, but of me. In these last weeks, I had formed an interest in my bones. For the first time in my life, I could see them in my skin, and they were fascinating to me, their knobs and valleys, their ridged definition. The ones at my wrists were so sharp that the manacles had rubbed the skin raw over them, sores that never healed; I almost expected the bones to come bursting through. I could feel hard edges in my face now—my jaw, my cheeks—there was no softness over them for my fingers to press into. Yet this was not frightening to me; here in this cell, we were all the same. In constant view of each other, we turned into skeletal horrors slowly and easily; there was none of the suddenness that must shock Hannah now.
I did not try to reassure her. “Have you news of Lucas?” I whispered.
Her gaze came back to me. “Aye,” she said reluctantly. “’Tis why I’ve come.”
“Is he gone? Please, tell me he is gone.”
“Aye. Days ago now. I would have been here sooner, but there is such madness—”
I gripped her arm hard, shaking her a little so my chains rattled. “Tell me,” I demanded, pulling her as far as I could from listening ears. “Tell me everything.”
“He came one night to take Jude and Faith. I warned him the babe was not yet weaned.…He will have trouble with her, I’ll warrant. I told him my sister once fed a child on cow’s milk and sugar, though who knows—”
“Aye, aye. What else? What of Charity?”
Hannah glanced past me to the others, and then lowered her voice. “She was staying at Ingersoll’s. You know she was sick. Wasting away, I heard, though I did not see her. She’d been abed, poor thing. Couldn’t even speak her name, they said. Then, one morning, when they went to bring her breakfast, she was not there. No one found a trace of her. ’Twas as if she disappeared into the air. But if I had to guess—Lucas and Sarah Ingersoll were friends, and Charity was gone the morning after Lucas came to get the others from me. Sam Nurse has been tight-lipped about it as well. He knows something, I’m guessing, but he won’t say a word.”
“You’ve not said a word to anyone, have you? Have you told them you think ’tis Lucas who took her?”
She looked at me as if I were a fool. “Susannah, what should I say? ’Tis well known that he escaped, and Jude and Faith are gone from me when everyone knows they were put
in my care. I’ve said nothing, but everyone suspects I saw him.”
“Will they follow him, do you think?”
“Follow him where? No one knows where he’s gone, except perhaps…you.”
“Me?”
“Aye. Lucas bade me tell you: He’s gone to the place you talked about. Those were his words.”
The place we talked about. New York. “Have you told anyone this?”
“Not even George, though he’s asked. ’Twas a message for you alone; I see no reason for me to tell.”
“Thank you.”
Hannah sighed. “They are not happy about his escape, I’ll tell you. Perhaps they will try to find him, but my guess is ’twill not be for some time. There are so many others. You yourself confessed there were twenty or more. With so many witches, how can they risk the village to find only one? What is a single man in light of such evil?”
“I thank you for bringing me his message. It cannot have been easy for you.”
“I welcomed the task,” she said simply. “I have been praying for your soul, Susannah. I had wanted the chance to pray with you. I am relieved at your confession—such repentance can only help ease your way toward God’s forgiveness. How tormented you must have been. When a soul longs so for Christ’s salvation, ’tis an easy mark for Satan.”
“Aye,” I said, turning from her.
She clasped my arm tightly. “But the Devil can be conquered. Surrender to Christ is the only way.”
I looked around to her again, to her pleading gaze, and I said, “I have surrendered already to too many things, Hannah.”
“Pray with me.”
I hesitated and looked down at this woman who had been my friend. If praying with her would give her peace, then I would oblige.
“Very well,” I said.
She smiled and clasped my hands. “Those chains are not what keep you prisoner. Let us find God’s grace together.”
She prayed, and I closed my eyes and listened to her words. Yet ’twas not of God I was thinking, but of Lucas, of three girls bent close together in joy and fear as their father led them from Salem Village, slipping onto an empty road, where shadows were sharp against a bright spring moon.