Susannah Morrow (13 page)

When we got downstairs, Father was already there, pulling on his boots. He stood by the door, as if he could hardly wait to
go outside, though the frost was heavy on the windows, and the hall was so cold our breaths froze.

“Good morning, Brother,” Susannah said in her soft voice.

He jerked as if she’d frightened him, though we had been talking all the way down the stairs, and he had to have heard. He
barely looked over his shoulder at us. “Good morning,” he said. He put on his hat but not his cape, and I knew then that he
was only going to the barn. It was strange that he would go like that before he ate breakfast.

I hurried past my aunt to the samp mill above the mantel, and pulled it down. “I’ll make breakfast quickly—”

He shook his head and waved me away. “I’ve eaten,” he said abruptly, and then I saw the half-empty tankard of cider on the
table, the crumbs left from a hurried meal of bread—without butter, because we had still to churn some. Then, before we could
protest, he opened the door and stepped out, and I had the fleeting impression of ice-washed trees and frost-gilded ground—the
whole world in translucent white—before the door closed again and he was gone.

I stood frozen with my hand on the samp mill. Since I’d told him my suspicions about Susannah, he had dismissed every task
I’d tried to do for him, as if my presence troubled him. He would not even look at me now. I poured corn into the samp mill
and turned the crank, grinding my despair with every turn so vigorously that I saw my aunt look over at me in surprise as
she skinned eels for our dinner.

I made my plans as we ate. As I sped through my other chores, I watched Susannah as she stirred the steeping malt for the
beer. It was a careful task, one Mama had never let me have the care of. If the malt got too hot, the beer would sour; not
hot enough, and there would be no flavor. Susannah went about it with her usual competence, and I resented her for that too,
that she should be so good at everything. ’Twas as if she’d been born to this life. Before long, the hall was filled with
stinking steam that sent my fine hair straggling from my cap and raised a sheen of sweat on jude’s cheeks as she rocked the
dasher of the churn. Susannah never looked anything less than fresh and beautiful, and as I saw the way the curls of her hair
escaped the hidden pins to dangle against her cheek, just so, impossibly beautiful, my resentment grew into a hatred so powerful
I was nauseated with it. It seemed she sensed that too, and that she enjoyed the power she held over me, because she smiled
when she gave me another task, and then another, as if she knew my plans and hoped to thwart them: Get the canary wine and
the hops from the cellar, fetch a pumpkin and slice it up to boil for dinner, scoop some yeast from the old beer barrel, and
get enough for the eels too.…

I was sweating and trembling from sheer anxiety as I put the last of the pumpkin into a kettle of water, and my mind was racing.
My father would be in soon for dinner; perhaps I could appeal to him, perhaps there was some chore he could give me that would
take me into town—

“The butter won’t come,” Jude complained. “I’ve been churning for hours.”

“’Tis cold,” my aunt said. “It may take a while today.”

“Not this long. My arms are tired.”

Susannah looked over her shoulder. “Try this, Jude. ’Twill make the time go faster. Sine: ‘Come, butter, come. Come, butter,
come. Peter stands at the gate, waiting for a buttered cake. Come, butter, come.’ ’Tis a bit of magic, you’ll see.”

Jude sighed. “‘Come, butter, come—’”

“Jude!” I jerked away from the kettle. “You can’t say such a thing. Why, ’tis a spell!”

I knew at once that I’d given myself away. Susannah turned to me, and that turn was quiet and slow, as if she knew I would
wait all day for her to look at me. Her expression was kind, but I saw past the surface to the lie.

“There’s no harm in it, Charity,” she said. “Let her be.”

“I won’t!” I said. “You’ve given her a spell!”

“’Tis a rhyme, nothing more—”

“It’s come!” Jude shouted. “Look, Auntie, it worked! The butter’s come!”

I spun from the fire in horror. “You see!” I cried. “It
is
a spell!”

“Charity,” Susannah said. “Charity, don’t be such a fool.”

I saw that she was going to tell me another lie—one to reassure me, to silence me, and I knew then that I could not stay.
I left the pumpkin boiling, and I ran upstairs to our bedroom, ignoring her calls to come back. I slammed the door shut behind
me and waited to hear her footsteps on the stairs, trembling in terror lest I hear the sound.

Susannah did not come after me. I hardly knew what to make of that, but I didn’t hesitate. I went to her trunk and threw open
the lid, listening for any noise on the stair. Her clothes were neatly folded inside, and for a moment, I stared, srunned
by the colors I saw, the sheer brilliance and richness of the fabrics. But then, I didn’t tarry. I rifled through the trunk
until I found the red paragon bodice, and I pulled it out and laid the other clothes on the top and hoped she would not be
able to tell. Then I shoved the bodice beneath the bed and closed her trunk, and I sat there, waiting, and heard…nothing.

Finally, when my heart had calmed, I went to the crack in the floorboards and knelt beside it, leaning down to see through.
I saw Jude and Susannah at the tableboard, and Susannah was kneading the butter in a bowl of clear water, speaking slowly
and patiently to Jude. I wondered how I could leave them together, how long it took the Devil before he could claim a child’s
soul, and knew I had no choice but to leave things like this today.

It seemed I waited a long time, but finally Susannah patted the butter into a firkin and wiped her hands on her apron. Then
she said something to Jude, and I saw her move toward the cellar door. I heard the creak of it opening, and then its close.

It was my chance. I reached under the bed and grabbed the bodice, shoving it beneath my skirt, and then I went as fast as
I could. The stairs creaked as I came down them, and Jude looked up from the table and said, “What ails you, Char—”

“Sssshh!” I hissed. “Quiet!”

“But—”

I came close to her, a mere inch from her face. Jude started to back away, but I grabbed her and held her firm. “I’m leaving,”
I said, catching her glance and holding it. “If you say a word about this to anyone, I’ll beat you within an inch of your
life when I get back.”

“But, Charity—”

“I mean it,” I said. “Especially, don’t tell
her.
”

I wanted to wait until I saw assent in jude’s eyes, but I didn’t dare. I had no choice but to trust that she would keep quiet.
I gave her my most threatening stare, and then I hurried to the front door and crept out, staying in the shadows for a moment
until I was sure Father was not coming from the barn. Then, as quickly as I could, I ran down the pathway to the road beyond,
clutching the bodice beneath my skirt, breathing easy at last.

T
HEY WERE ALREADY GATHERED AT THE PARSONAGE WHEN
I
AR
-rived, but Tituba was nowhere to be seen. ’Twas Abigail who opened the door when I knocked, who looked me over with cold
gray eyes before she motioned me inside. “We’ve not much time, and you must be very quiet,” she told me. “My uncle’s gone
only to visit Sergeant Putnam’s, and my aunt is sick upstairs.”

I glanced toward the darkness of the stairs. “’Tis just as well. No one knows I’m here.”

“Did you sneak out, then, Charity?” Mercy Lewis spoke from where she stood at the entryway of the hall, a clever look on
her thin and bony face.

“Aye.” I let her think what she would about it. At this moment, I cared for little but the task at hand. “Where’s Mary?”

Mercy stepped back, and I went past her into the hall and saw them all huddled around the table again, but this time there
was no bowl of water on it, and Mary and Betty and Mary Warren were whispering and laughing quietly among themselves. Young
Betsey Parris sat at the end of the long bench, looking pinch-faced with worry her blue eyes huge. The little Parris boy played
with a wooden spoon near the fire. He banged it in an indifferent rhythm, on the settle, and then the floor, and then on an
upturned trencher, and the different sounds rang hollowly in the room:
bang bing bong,
over and over again.

I glanced back at Abigail. “Where’s your servant?”

She shrugged. Her pale eyes looked eerie in the dimness of the room. “You mean Tituba? She’s somewhere.”

“Oh, there you are, Charity!” Mary called out from the table, and there was a false heartiness in her greeting, and then
a faint needling when she said, “I wondered if you would be here today.”

“I said I would, didn’t I?” I went farther into the room, the bodice heavy against my legs, seeming to burn my skin where
it was crumpled beneath my skirt. “Did you really think I would not?”

“I wasn’t sure.” She came over to me. Her gaze went to my skirt. “Why, Charity, what are you hiding at your belly? At least,
I hope you’re hiding something, and there’s not some other reason for there to be a lump there.”

Mercy laughed. I flushed and reached under my skirt to pull out the bodice. “Here,” I said, holding it out to her. To my
dismay, my hands were trembling. “Take it.”

Mary smiled. She took my aunt’s bodice into her hands with a gentleness I’d never seen in her before; she caressed the double
camlet with special care, turning it so the silk and wool weave shimmered softly in the candlelight. “Ah, ’tis as beautiful
as I remember,” she said quietly. “Where do you suppose she ever got such a thing?”

“In London,” I said. “She has more clothes than I’ve ever seen.” I stepped close to her and lowered my voice so none of
the others could hear. “Mary, now I’d ask a favor—”

“Ah, how beautiful that is.” Mary Warren had come from the table to look over Mary’s shoulder.

Mary held the bodice to her breasts and twirled around, “what do you think?”

“It makes your eyes look brown,” Mercy said.

Betty nodded. “The red is perfect for your skin.”

“Do you think he’ll notice me in this?” Mary asked.

“If he does not, he’s blind,” Betty assured her.

“Mary,” I said, “if I could have a word—”

“Who is blind?” Abigail pushed past me. “Who are you talking about?”

“Mary’s enamored with Robert Proctor,” Mercy teased. “Such an old man as that!”

Mary blushed. “He’s hardly old. Why, he’s just thirty.”

“And set in his ways. I don’t think he’s even looking for a wife.”

“He may not be looking, but I expect to show him what can be found.” Mary made a little prancing step, and laughed with a
low, delightful chuckle that reminded me how pretty she was, how I’d once been jealous of the way Sammy looked at her, and
that made me think of everything that had led me here, and I was desperate to get her attention. But she was paying me no
mind. She was laughing with the others while Mary Warren said thoughtfully, “’Tis true, Master Robert’s handsome enough.
And he’s not so old. He doesn’t get along well with his father, though. I think ’twould be hard to have John Proctor as a
father-in-law.”

“No, you’d rather have him for a husband,” Mercy joked, and Mary Warren flushed.

“Well, Robert’s the eldest son,” Mary said, smoothing the bodice again—’twas as if she could not stop touching it. “And…Goodman
Proctor
is
nearly sixty.”

Betty laughed. “Aye. You’d have him in the grave tomorrow. I can see you’ve already set your sights on all that property
in Ipswich.”

“’Twould get me out of this tiny village,” Mary snorted. “Don’t tell me the rest of you don’t want the same.”

“I wouldn’t marry an old man for it,” Abigail said. “Can you imagine him touching you with those dry hands—”

“I imagine you’d learn to tolerate anything for the right to be called ‘Mistress.’”

“Anything but that.” Abigail shuddered.

“You’re young yet yet,” Mary told her. She glanced at me, and her smile was knowing and clever. “There will be a time when
it won’t seem so bad. It might even be fun. Isn’t that right, Charity?”

I could not give her an answering smile. “’Tis what I’ve heard,” I managed. I wished she would stop talking, that the others
would go back to their fortune-telling and leave me the chance to have a word with her. I wished she would put the bodice
away. It only reminded me of the urgency of my task and the risk I’d taken in getting it for her. It didn’t help that whenever
I looked at it, the bodice seemed to shiver and gleam as if it had a life of its own. I could not help thinking of my aunt
Susannah standing at the table in Ingersoll’s Ordinary, her face glowing with her special light. I imagined ’twas the same
light I saw now on that bodice, and I shivered at the thought that there was something of her here, watching me, haunting
me.

Mary looked at Mary Warren. “You’re sure Robert’s at the tavern today? He did come down last night from Ipswich?”

Mary Warren nodded. “He’s there. You should have heard the row he had with his father last night. I thought he would return
today for certain. But I heard him say he would stay until tomorrow.”