Witch Child Read online

  Jonah and Tobias are lodging with us, along with Rebekah and her family. We have all found a place at the house of Widow Hesketh. She welcomed us in readily enough and sat us down and fed us, but she is of the unsmiling type and her hard life shows in her face. She’s no beauty, that’s for sure, I heard Jonah whisper to Tobias as they went up the stairs, and I’m afraid he’s right. She is spare of build, tall and angular, with red raw hands as big as a man’s. She lives with her son, Ezra. Together they keep an inn in the town.

  Her husband died soon after their arrival. She told us the story of it soon after our own arrival.

  ‘He’s yonder in the burying ground,’ she said with a jerk of her head. ‘Along with a good few others. Weren’t nothing here when we came, and our ship arrived late in the season, too late for planting.’

  It was after dinner and we were all sitting round the fire. At those words, John Rivers glanced up with a look of unease. We are late for planting.

  ‘Terrible crossing we had. Held up by storms, sickness on board. We arrived with precious little food left and many of our party weakened beyond recovery. Winter carried ’em off. The Lord took ’em to Him, including my Isaac.’ She paused in her telling, and looked down at the kerchief twisted in her hands. ‘We didn’t have it as bad as some, but we’ve had our starving times, that we have. The town’s changed since then, mind. No-one goes hungry now.’ She leaned from her settle to stir the fire. ‘No telling what it’s like up country. Wilderness land. What you don’t take with you, you can do without. Check your provisions is my advice. Buy more while you can. If you can’t plant you need enough to tide you over until the crops come in next year. Winters are cruel harsh here.’ She fixed John Rivers with her hooded eyes. ‘Look to your bairns, your wife, they’ll not get through a winter here with empty bellies.’

  Entry 30

  John Rivers has followed Widow Hesketh’s advice and gone with Tobias and Jonah to examine the goods that they brought from England. Anything spoilt on the voyage must be replaced and anything that we may have forgotten, and any extra supplies, must be purchased before we leave the town and go into the wilderness.

  Today was a market day and the town was thronged with people, settlers and those just in from England, all come to buy needful things. Martha stayed to help Widow Hesketh, so Rebekah and I went together. It seemed that everyone from the ship was there. There was an air of merriment about, a feeling of gladness at being safe delivered. Relief at being on dry land again, at having a chance to bathe and rest, to wash dirty ship-worn clothes and shake out the things that had been kept to wear on arrival. We were stopped every yard, or so, by people enquiring of Rebekah how baby Noah does, and about her mother.

  ‘She does very well, thank you,’ Rebekah replied in her grave, quiet way. ‘The baby, too.’

  Few spoke to me. They look in my direction and then quickly away. Even after all the weeks at sea, they still do not accept me as one of the Congregation. Not that it matters. Martha, Jonah and Tobias are all the family I need, and since the birth of Noah, Rebekah and I grow closer, like sisters. When we first met, I thought her unfriendly, but I have learnt better since then. Her reserve does not come from hostility. It comes from shyness, an awkwardness towards those she does not know well.

  She is hardly a chatterbox, but that is just her way, she only speaks when she has something to say. She is careful of the feelings of others. She does not pry into my past, I do not ask about hers. That is not unique to us. I have a feeling that the same is true of many here. They have crossed an ocean to make a new life and are content to allow the past to dwindle and fade behind them, like the last sight of land.

  Not all the traders were Puritans. There were packmen and peddlers about. Deborah Vane, her sister Hannah and their friends Elizabeth Denning and Sarah Garner were busy rummaging through the wares of one such, out to discover forbidden fripperies, when one of them looked up and saw us.

  I know them by sight from the ship. They spent the first half of the voyage groaning from seasickness. When recovered enough to go up on deck, they spent the rest of the time flirting with the sailors, or huddled together, talking about sweethearts and weddings, wanting to be goodwives before they have left their girlhood. Today they were dressed in their best, out to impress. Their clothes were still creased from the hold and not properly aired so that they gave off a faint smell of mildew and mould. Their mothers do not have Martha’s way of spreading sweet-smelling lavender between the layers of clothes.

  Deborah and Hannah Vane. They are aptly named, at least Deborah is. She is their leader. Near to Rebekah in age, she has a certain plump prettiness and today her cheeks were pinched to pinkness, her lips bitten to cherry redness. Her collar was livened with a breath of lace at the throat, her dark bodice trimmed and edged with silk. The ornamentation is subtle, carefully judged to fall just short of disapproval. Likewise, her rusty red hair contrives to escape the confines of her white cap, spiralling down to frame her face in suspiciously perfect ringlets.

  Her sister, Hannah, is younger, and shorter by a head, with sharp, weaselly features. The redness in her hair is diluted to a sandy hue. It escapes her bonnet also, but springs in wiry spirals, like unravelled rope. Her eyes are brown, like her sister’s, but dark and shiny, like chips of coal. Any beauty to be had fell to Deborah.

  The sisters are always together, Hannah’s face perpetually screwed round, looking up in puppy adoration, hanging on every word Deborah says. Elizabeth Denning and Sarah Garner defer to her, too. She rules the crew. They are ever in each other’s company, giggling and whispering. I do not like them. On ship they gave me black looks for no reason, talking about me behind their hands. Today they ignored me altogether. It was Rebekah they wanted as they beckoned us over, but their interest was not in her mother, or her baby brother. They wanted to know about Tobias.

  ‘How does Master Morse?’ Deborah asked. She kept her face perfectly straight, but there was a gleam deep in her brown eyes and her question pitched the others into fits of giggles.

  ‘Older or younger?’ Rebekah enquired, although she knew well which one Deborah meant.

  ‘Younger, of course, you goose!’ Hannah exclaimed in a fresh explosion of giggles, this time at Rebekah’s expense.

  Rebekah’s jaw tightened. She did not like being taken for a fool by one with less sense than a chicken.

  ‘He does well enough.’

  ‘Not with you today?’

  ‘He has other business. With my father.’

  This brought fresh snorts of laughter.

  ‘His father, too. They look to our future –’

  ‘Together?’ Deborah enquired with a smile. The other girls could hardly contain themselves. Rebekah fought to seem indifferent, but her pale skin began to colour in the face of Deborah’s insolence.

  She has said nothing to me of the matter, but an understanding is developing between her and Tobias. Nothing as clear as courtship; it is still at the stage of looks and smiles, but of late the two of them have been much together. That has not been lost on Deborah and the others. Deborah’s smile thinned and one glance from her quelled the other girls. The gleam in her brown eyes had hardened to something else. Tobias would make a good husband for anyone. He is handsome and well-set, a strong young man and a carpenter, a skill highly prized in a world built of wood. Rebekah has a rival.

  Suddenly Hannah shrieked and started back, clutching harder on Deborah’s arm.

  ‘What is it?’ Deborah tried to shake off the younger girl but her grip tightened. ‘What is the matter?’

  ‘Look! Look yonder!’

  Hannah pointed a wavering finger into the crowd. The other girls followed the direction of her stare, their own eyes widening, pupils dilating as if something wild and dangerous had left the forest to stand right in front of them. Others were looking also, many drawing back with a hissing intake of breath.

  The crowd fell away on either side as two of the native people came walking through the marke
t. Settlers paid them no mind, as if their presence were an everyday occurrence, but those new off the ships stared in awe and wonder.

  ‘Savages!’ Hannah shrieked. ‘They’ll kill us where we stand!’

  Deborah squealed like a silly young sow, an animal she resembles not a little, and clapped her hand on mouth. Elizabeth and Sarah clung to each other, dumbstruck with terror.

  ‘They will not harm you!’ Rebekah rapped out, her hazel eyes dark with contempt. ‘Hush! They’ll hear you!’

  If they did, they showed no sign of it. They were bare-chested and bare-legged, save for soft skin leggings fringed to the knees. They were not wearing trousers or breeches, but short leather aprons hanging fore and aft from a narrow beaded belt; perhaps this is what caused Deborah to squeal. They were shod in soft leather bound with thongs and each wore a sleeveless open vest made of skins. The boy’s was faced by what looked like quills, dyed in bright colours, red and blue, and arranged in chevron patterns. Their clothes were scant, but practical. They do not sweat in the heat like the Englishmen.

  They were both tall and well-knit, clean-shaven, handsome-looking men with striking features. They favoured each other enough to be related, although one was much older than the other, perhaps grandson and grandfather. They are dark-complexioned but their skin has no redness to it, despite what white men call them. Rather it is the deep brown of well polished wood and speaks of a life spent out of doors, little encumbered by clothes. Their hair fell long, past their shoulders; the young man’s shining black with a green blue sheen. He wore it loose and shaved on one side. The old man’s hair was greying with a distinctive wide white streak growing from the side of a deep widow’s peak. He wore his hair long also, braided back in a thick plait with feathers and beads worked into it.

  As they moved though the crowd, the people around them fell hushed and silent. They walked in a pocket of stillness and it was difficult not to stare. Jonah has told me about the Rarities he has seen. Curiosities, strange and precious things brought from all over the world for people to look at and marvel. It was as if an exhibit from Mr Tradescant’s collection displayed in the Ark in Lambeth had suddenly come alive and begun to walk about.

  I did not squeal like Deborah or hold on to Rebekah but, like the rest, I could not help staring at them. They moved with silent grace and as they passed I caught the clean scent of pine needles and woodsmoke, quite different from the rank stench of sour sweat, of bodies too long in unwashed clothes, which clung to my fellows.

  The young man stared straight ahead, not looking to right or left. The old man surveyed those on either side, but his gaze was incurious, as if the crowd was made up of inanimate things, or creatures beneath his interest. His eyes were set deep, dark as damsons, in a face criss-crossed with lines, heavily creased at nose and mouth. His glance flickered to a halt; suddenly his eyes were alert, piercing and sharp. His gaze held mine for a fraction of time, then shifted on, ranging over the crowd again, distant, indifferent, as if he could see right through them.

  Entry 31

  Rebekah’s father is concerned. We have been a week in Salem and nothing is decided. We cannot delay much longer, not if we are to build shelters before winter. It is already too late for planting. He is going to the Meeting House this evening to talk with the other Elders. He means to tell them his thoughts on the matter. If we are to go, it must be now. We could stay here, although most of the good land hereabouts is taken, and Jonah is of the opinion that the townspeople are anxious for us to move on.

  Widow Hesketh squinted at Martha. ‘You’re a useful body and I’ll own you’ve been a help to me.’ She paused. ‘It’s not my business, of course, and I dare say you’ll be ruled by kin and conscience, but you have a place with me. The girl, too.’ She nodded in my direction and looked back at Martha. Her hooded eyes were dark and unreadable, like the old Indian’s. I felt a message pass between the two women without a word being spoken. ‘Girl her age can always make herself useful. You say she’s a good needlewoman?’ Martha nodded. ‘Town’s growing, folk need clothes.’ Widow Hesketh cackled mirthlessly. ‘Some’s even getting back a taste for finery. No shortage of cloth coming in on the ships. You could make yourself a nice little business.’

  ‘It’s worth considering, I’ll own that.’ Martha looked down at the pieces she was seaming. ‘A life already set, as opposed to one to be carved from the wilderness.’

  I looked at Martha in surprise, she’d never expressed that opinion before.

  ‘But they are my people,’ Martha snapped the thread with her teeth and started on a piece of darning. ‘And I look to join kin, by blood and marriage. We’ve come this far on the Lord’s path together, now’s not the time for me to fall by the wayside.’

  Widow Hesketh greeted Martha’s decision with a slight nod of the head. ‘May God be with you, then. It will be a long journey, and a hard one.’ She shivered a little even though the night was hot and the fire was roaring before us. ‘Not one I’d take, neither.’

  ‘Why’s that, Mistress Hesketh?’ I had moved my stool to the far side of Martha’s settle, to get away from the heat of the fire, now I moved it nearer in.

  ‘There are precious few roads, m’dear, and them that’s laid don’t advance you far into the forest. It’ll be not much more than animal tracks you’ll be following, and paths made by savages. The forest is no place for a God-fearing person. They do say ... ’

  ‘Do say what?’ I asked.

  ‘That there’s spirits in there. In particular, a black spirit in the shape of a man. The Indians worship him ... ’ She shivered again, drawing her shawl round her. ‘Nonsense, no doubt, but there’s some swears they have seen it, and folk don’t like to get caught in the forest. There’s beasts o’ course, and savages, but that’s not what afears them when the sun goes down. That’s not what has them spurring for home fast as a horse can gallop.’ She leaned forward to stir the pot over the fire. ‘It’ll be a hard journey and you’ll get little help from the folk of Salem.’

  ‘Because they’re afraid of boggarts?’

  She gave her bark of a laugh again. ‘Not entirely. There’s another reason. The Reverend Johnson and his crowd, they left here under a cloud. It weren’t because of lack of land, there was plenty and to spare round here then. No,’ she shook her head. ‘It weren’t because of that.’

  ‘Why was it, then?’ I asked.

  ‘They were encouraged to depart, so you might say. The Reverend Johnson himself is a very difficult man. Almost as soon as he arrived he began disputing with the other ministers. A good preacher, but argumentative, troublesome; stiff-necked and arrogant, that’s what they called him, inclined to put his beliefs above all others, and that’s not Salem’s way. Thought too much of himself, that’s what they said, almost to the point of blasphemy.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘There’s a sight of difference between preaching the words of the prophets, and thinking you are one. He behaved like a prophet new come, and his Congregation hailed him. That was too much for the other ministers. They declared his beliefs dangerous, accused him of falling into error and taking his people with him. Repent or go, that’s what they said. So he upped and left, taking all his flock off into the wilderness, driving their beasts before them, just like the Israelites.’

  ‘Where did they go?’

  ‘He chose paths untrod. Ways unknown. Trusting that God would guide ’em where they wanted to go.’

  ‘But they settled somewhere, surely?’

  ‘They founded a settlement deep in the wilderness and we’ve scarce heard from them since. They rarely come here. Now you arrive, bent on joining them.’ She turned troubled eyes to Martha. ‘Truly, Mistress, I caution you against it.’

  Entry 32

  We are all called to the Meeting House. The whole Congregation and anyone who might have a mind to join them, like myself, Jonah and Tobias. We will be asked to choose whether we wish to stay or go. Martha will go, the Rivers too, but I’m not sure
about Jonah and Tobias. Jonah likes it here. He wanders the town and the docks, exchanging gossip with townspeople and sailors, swapping news and gleaning information. He is even doing a little business, selling his pills and potions. I have heard him speak his doubts to his son.

  ‘What do you know of farming? Or I, for that matter? You a carpenter, me an apothecary? We could make a good living, right here in Salem. Or try our luck in another town – Boston, maybe. I’ve heard it thrives –’

  ‘They are good people.’

  ‘Good people? Aye. With the zeal of the Lord in their eyes. And what of these others they go to join? We know nothing of them. We are strangers. They may not welcome us. Would it be wise to join them? What do you say? Do we go? Or should we stay?’

  Tobias did not reply. He just stretched his long legs before him and drank his ale.

  Entry 33

  Two men stood at the door as tellers: Deborah’s father, Jeremiah Vane, and her uncle, Samuel Denning. We filed in and took our places, strictly according to rank. Elias Cornwell stared down from the pulpit. There was to be no discussion. The Reverend Cornwell did not even sermonise, he merely bid us bow our heads, instructing each to pray in silence, to humble ourselves before the Lord and ask for His guidance. The time had come to decide: to stay here, to go elsewhere and join one of the other towns springing up, or to follow Reverend Johnson’s lead into the wilderness. The Elders had already decided. They were all in a row at the front, John Rivers among them.

  One by one, the head of each family moved from his place to join them. Then Sarah, Rebekah’s mother, moved to her husband’s side, leading her children by the hand, Rebekah following, carrying baby Noah in her arms. Although I share some of Jonah’s doubts, when Martha went, I went with her.

  The families ranged round the sides of the room, leaving just the outsiders sitting down. Jonah bowed his head deeper, whispering to Tobias out of the side of his mouth. His son shook his head, as if to rid himself from flies, straightened his shoulders and stepped forward to join the others, taking Jonah with him. Rebekah watched Tobias walk to his place. Across the room, Hannah leered up at her sister and Deborah scowled. I looked over at them and smiled. Where she goes, he will follow.