Where Bluebirds Fly (2 page)

The giggly girl’s gaze narrows; her eyes are black and beady. Dead, like a doll’s.

“
You
seem a likely witch, Verity. Your looks are so odd! What
be
wrong with your eyes? One green as the sea, and one brown as dirt. Why don’t they match?”
 

Heat floods my cheeks as rage reddens my sight. I suck in a breath. “You—”

The crowd roars, and we all three turn, transfixed once again.

“I said
,
examine her for the witch’s mark, man!”
 

Constable Corwin spins Rebecca Nurse ’round, and with one practiced slash, rips open her dress.
 
Goody Nurse’s spine, curved and bent with age, is visible through the gaping fabric. I jam my eyes shut, cringing in mortification.

“Look there! It is the suckling mark!” The constable’s finger juts at her lower back.

I spin back to giggly girl. “What be his meaning? The black freckle?”

She stares, eyes narrowing.

“Why, I have one here.” I lift my sleeve.

“That is not unexpected, Verity.”

Giggly girl’s eyes darken with malice, her expression turning grave. “That be where the familiars come to suckle.”

I yank down my sleeve. “Surely, you do not believe that claim?”

But it’s certain from her rapt expression, she does. As does the daft one beside her. Not only do they believe it, they
revel
in it.

“I have seen evil in this world, but I do not think it takes the form of that kind, old woman? Who heals the sick?”

A more horrible revelation hits my ears.

“That boy be a witch, too!”

John.

The fear trickles down my thighs, pooling in my knees, buckling them. My heart trips in irregular patterns, knocking against my ribs.

I search the crowd for his face.

No fear. Show no fear.

I shove my way through the gape-mouthed throng. My eyes dart frantically from one grouping to the next.
 
Finally, I see him and an exhale of relief escapes my lips.

He’s easy to pick out. Every now and again, his arms and legs startle as if he’s frightened. His limbs twitch as if each has an individual mind lodged inside.

He’s like a puppet on a string, really. No control.

The familiar pain mutilates my heart; I press my lips tight and they tingle with the pressure.

They hate my brother, because his body disobeys his mind.

John tries unsuccessfully to blend with the crowd-his gangly arms and legs sprawling out like a newborn colt. He is all awkwardness as he sits alongside his painting and his liquid brown eyes widen in fear as the fat goodwife barrels down on him.

“I ask you, is it normal for the village imbecile to sketch like an Italian master? He’s in league with the dark one, who grants him talent! The black master who afflicts the Parris children!”

My legs tense, yearning to seize him and run.

Fate suffocates me.
Where would we go?
We are captives to Salem Town.

I meet the fat Goodwife’s gaze headlong.

She sees it as a challenge. Her meaty hands wring together, like a pugilist ready to brawl.
 

“And
you
! You have always been odd, I care not that you work for
the Putnams
!” She spits the name like a malediction. “Have the two of you been witches since your poor parents died in the Maine raids? They would be so ashamed, Verity Montague! You shame your father’s house!”

White-hot fury incinerates my self-control at the invocation of my parent’s name.

“Goodwife Churchill, you well-know my brother is sane as you. He is as innocent as the child unborn.”

“Yes, that be what every accused proclaims.”

The crowd’s whispers rise. Snippets pop in and out around my ears.

“She is odd.”

“Her eyes don’t match.”

“Why
do
his hands shake, so?”

Panic threatens. I long for my father.
 

The crowd is shifting from Rebecca Nurse, toward us, the new theatrical spectacle.
 

I search the crowd for support from someone,
anyone
,
but I only find faces of fear or spite. All stare at John’s drawing of Ingersoll’s Ordinary. They wrongly assume the painting of the town watering hole is the source of the ruckus.
 

It’s because he’s damaged. I’m damaged.
 

“G-goody Churchill,” John says, brown eyes filling. “I was only drawing, as I do every day when my chores are complete for the Putnams. M-might I gift you this one?”
 

“See! The imbecile tries to bribe me, to silence my accusations! I’ll be having none of your tainted wares! Who knows what darkness lurks inside that painting? I’d sooner burn it than hang it on me wall. Call Corwin. Examine
both of them
for the witch’s mark!”
 

My mind hums. We must escape before the shackles go on.

Fat Sarah Churchill whirls toward me again, as if sensing my plan. “Behold the girl’s eyes! I have never seen eyes as opposite as day and night.”
 

She sticks out her bosom and paces before us, relishing the attention.

“Look at her—an orphan, no one to speak for her! No prospects, her life be doomed. And her i-idiot brother to care for!” Goody Churchill mocks John’s stutter.
 
“Of course she’s taken up with the Dark Man. What other choice has she?”

A protective inferno rages. My fists ball, begging to pummel sense and bloody the nose of this
cruel, stupid woman,
who dares to taunt a soul like John.
 

“I did not take up with anyone! Or sign any book. I can’t help the way I look.” I shake my red, spiraling locks at them. “I was born this way!”

She shrugs and mocks, “Perhaps you were cursed from birth, Verity.”

I force my hands down, twitching against my sides. The result is a shaking as wild as Johns.
 

John’s hand squeezes around mine and I rally.
 

His eyes flick up and remind.
 
Do not show weakness; they smell it, like timber-wolves.

I raise my voice, but it cracks, betraying me. “You are an orphan as well, Goody Churchill. Have you no compassion?”
 

John searches my face. A twitch flutters his eye. I smile at him. “As for my brother, I daresay this boy has more integrity in his big toe, than you possess in your entire person!”

The crowd rumbles at my challenge. A few laugh—anxious for a fight.

And then I see it
.
 

My condemnation, flying toward me through the air.
 

A bright bluebird.
 

The creatures will not leave me alone. They find me, wherever I am. It is completely against nature.

I’ve not done magic;
I know not
why they come. I am no spell-caster.

They shall be our undoing.

The bluebird circles, dipping into the crowd, trying to land on my shoulder. I duck and it misses.
 

People gasp, lurching out of its way as it swoops and dives.
 
I hear more of them, calling to their comrade from the cornfield.
 

The circle tightens.
I cannot breathe
. The colors of their clothes blur, and I smell the man next to me. It’s a musty, dank odor; like rotting greenery…or the prelude to death.
 

My mind screams and I crush my lips together to keep the terror in.
 

I hear footsteps.
They are come
. Corwin.

The bird manages to land before me, pecking the ground, hopping onto my boot.

Another goodwife speaks. “It’s a bluebird. You know they be a symbol of goodness. Of hope; perhaps all is not lost?”

“Ha!” Goodwife Churchill scoffs.

This be our chance.

With one hand I grasp John’s painting, flipping it under my arm, the other grabs him by the scruff.

“Goodwife Putnam is expecting us. Come John.”

The bluebird leaves my boot, but hovers above, too close to be natural.

I avert my eyes and push John through the crowd. No one moves to stop us, but the murmuring recommences.

“Keep moving,” I whisper into his ear. After a few, long minutes, I glance back. My breath whistles out. No one has followed us. They are too focused on poor Goody Nurse.

She’s saved us once again.
 
A lump forms in my throat.
 

The raised voices are fading as we move out of the town limits. The bird takes flight, across the cornfield. I know it will be back, though.
 

I whirl on John. “Do you not remember what I told thee last night? That queer times are afoot in the village? That only yesterday the little Parris girl was acting oddly, as was her cousin Abigail. People are twisted tight as overwrought mattress cords, what with the smallpox, taxes, land disputes….”

John’s eyes squint as his attention dims. His gaze flicks to the forest and my patience wanes.

I know his mind recoils to a kinder, gentler place. But today…today he
must
listen. I understand his need to escape.

I often wish I could live in the stories I tell myself.
 
Nevertheless, this world…is all we have.

“Are ye listening to me?”

“Hmm, yes. Smallpox. Dreadful.”

I grip his shoulders, spinning him more roughly than I intend. It has the desired effect, however. His eyes focus, staring at me; his concentration renewed.

“You need to draw somewhere
alone.
Do not call attention to yourself in any way. And our secret—”

“Yes, you mean—”

My hand shoots over his mouth. “Speak of it to no-one. Since the girls have been working mischief with Tituba—”

“The Parris’s slave girl from Barbados?”

“Yes, her,” I say impatiently. “The girls have been having fits.
Convulsions, contortions
—seeing visions of people flying, perched on the beams of the church, and a man in black, urging them to sign his book. Mercy Lewis vexes me constantly for not going to meet with Tituba—but I refuse. She supposedly predicts the future. It’s playing with fire, that is, in more than one way.”

John’s eyebrows dip in question, as they always do when I ‘speak doubly’.

“You know that vexes me. At times, I can’t discern plain speech, let alone when your thoughts have two meanings, side by side.”

A wintry gust blasts our faces, and I shiver. I glance down, noting that John needs new boots.

Old man winter has come early this year. Redness glimmers in the night sky as the sun descends to bed. Spots of snow glisten in its amber cast, and a blustery crosswind from the north arrives with a cold that cuts to my marrow.

 
We automatically pick up our pace. We will catch it for being out so late. I see the Putnam’s cornfield, now. The house is just on the other side.

A sound to my left. I stop dead, listening.

The corn rustles again; like a dog shaking off water.

The silky tops quiver as something picks its way through the rows. An animal?
The something is large.

“What be that?” I step closer to the stalks.

“What? I did not see anything.”

“Something moved in the corn. It was for but a moment.” My legs halt as if my feet have rooted in the soil.

An overpowering urge hits. Like a compulsive hook behind my navel, tugging me forward. “Let us go see.”

John’s eyebrows rise in vexation and surprise. “Verity, we might catch a switch already, we are so late? What’s come over you? Keep walking. I be the troublemaker, not you.”

I wrap my arms around my waist, trying to fend off the feeling. The tyrannical urge grips my throat, and it tightens.
Like needing a drink when you are parched.

The Something in there wants me.
Is it the infernal birds?
 

“What were you saying about the girls and Tituba-the witch slave?”
 

I start at his voice and rip my eyes from the field. “Witchcraft be not a game. I care not who I will marry, for I know the answer already.”

John takes my hand, hauling me away from the rows.

The urge weakens with every step away from the cornfield. I suddenly feel the cold seeping above my boots and shiver.
 

John shakes my hand.

“Who will you marry, Verity. How can you know?”

I sigh. “I shall never marry. Too many women, not enough men. And I’m…different. And we’re so very poor, John. What have I to offer? I’m already eighteen. Many girls my age have two children already.”
 

John’s expression is wistful, his eyes churning with turmoil. He quickly brightens. “Momma always said you were special, not odd. I believe Momma.”