Nils retrieved the bucket of water and we ate a slender, unhappy supper by the glow of our campfire. Marnie ate nothing and sat in a motionless daze until we put her to bed.
“Maybe she’s subject to seizures,” I suggested.
“It was more likely watching the child being beaten,” said Nils. “What had she done?”
“Nothing except to talk to us and be shocked that Marnie should be in her nightgown in public.”
“What was the paper the mother posted?” asked Nils.
“Exodus, 20:12,” I said. “The child must have disobeyed her mother by carrying on a conversation with us.”
After a fitful, restless night the first thin light of dawn looked wonderful and we broke camp almost before we had shadows separate from the night. Just before we rode away, Nils wrote large and blackly on a piece of paper and fastened it to the wall near our wagon with loud accusing hammer blows. As we drove away, I asked, “What does it say?”
“Exodus, Chapter 22, verses 21 through 24,” he said. “If they want wrath, let it fall on them!”
I was too unhappy and worn out to pursue the matter. I only knew it must be another Shalt Not and was thankful that I had been led by my parents through the Rejoice and Love passages instead of into the darkness.
Half an hour later, we heard the clatter of hooves behind us and, looking back, saw someone riding toward us, waving an arm urgently. Nils pulled up and laid his hand on his rifle. We waited.
It was the anxious man who had directed us to the campsite. He had Nils’s paper clutched in his hand. At first he couldn’t get his words out, then he said, “Drive on! Don’t stop! They might be coming after me!” He gulped and wiped his nervous forehead, Nils slapped the reins and we moved off down the road. “Y-you left this-” He jerked the paper toward us. “‘Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him-’” the words came in gasps. “‘Ye shalt not afflict any widow or fatherless child. If you afflict them in any wise, I will surely hear their cry and my wrath shall wax hot-’” He sagged in the saddle, struggling for breath. “This is exactly what I told them,” he said finally. “I showed it to them-the very next verses-but they couldn’t see past 22:18. They-they went anyway. That Archibold told them about the people. He said they did things only witches could do. I had to go along. Oh, God have mercy! And help them tie them and watch them set the shed afire!”
“Who were they?” asked Nils.
“I don’t know.” The man sucked air noisily. “Archibold said he saw them flying up in the trees and laughing. He said they floated rocks around and started to build a house with them. He said they-they walked on the water and didn’t fall in. He said one of them held a piece of wood up in the air and it caught on fire and other wood came and made a pile on the ground and that piece went down and lighted the rest.” The man wiped his face again. “They must have been witches! Or else how could they do such things! We caught them. They were sleeping. They fluttered up like birds. I caught that little girl you’ve got there, only her hair was long then. We tied them up. I didn’t want to!” Tears jerked out of his eyes. “I didn’t put any knots in my rope and after the roof caved in, the little girl flew out all on fire and hid in the dark! I didn’t know the Graftonites were like that! I only came last year. They-they tell you exactly what to do to be saved. You don’t have to think or worry or wonder-” He rubbed his coat sleeve across his face. “Now all my life I’ll see the shed burning. What about the others?”
“We buried them,” I said shortly. “The charred remains of them.”
“God have mercy!” he whispered.
“Where did the people come from?” asked Nils. “Where are their wagons?”
“There weren’t any,” said the man. “Archibold says they came in a flash of lightning and a thunderclap out of a clear sky-not a cloud anywhere. He waited, and watched them three days before he came and told us. Wouldn’t you think they were witches?” He wiped his face again and glanced hack down the road. “They might follow me. Don’t tell them. Don’t say I told.” He gathered up the reins, his face drawn and anxious, and spurred his horse into a gallop, cutting away from the road, across the flat. But before the hurried hoofbeats were muffled by distance, he whirled around and galloped back.
“But!” he gasped, back by our wagon side. “She must be a witch! She should be dead. You are compromising with evil-“
“Shall I drag her out so you can finish burning her here and now?” snapped Nils. “So you can watch her sizzle in her sin!”
“Don’t!” The man doubled across the saddle horn in an agony of indecision. ” ‘No man having put his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom.’ What they’re right? What if the Devil is tempting me? Lead me not into temptation! Maybe it’s not too late! Maybe if I confess!” And he tore back down the road toward Grafton’s Vow faster than he had come.
“Well!” I drew a deep breath. “What Scripture would you quote for that?”
“I’m wondering,” said Nils. “This Archibold. I wonder if he was in his right mind-“
“‘They fluttered up like birds,’” I reminded him, “and Marnie was floating.”
“But floating rocks and making fire and coming in a flash of lightning out of a clear sky!” Nils protested.
“Maybe it was some kind of a balloon,” I suggested.
“Maybe it exploded. Maybe Marnie doesn’t speak English. If the balloon sailed a long way-“
“It couldn’t sail too far,” said Nils. “The gas cools and it would come down. But how else could they come through the air?”
I felt a movement behind me and turned. Marnie was sitting up on the pallet. But what a different Marnie! It was as though her ears had been unstopped or a window had opened into her mind. There was an eager listening look on her tilted face. There was light in her eyes and the possibility of smiles around her mouth. She looked at me. “Through the air!” she said.
“Nils!” I cried. “Did you hear that! How did you come through the air, Marnie?”
She smiled apologetically and fingered the collar of the garment she wore and said, “Gown.”
“Yes, gown,” I said, settling for a word when I wanted a volume. Then I thought, Can I reach the bread box? Marnie’s bright eyes left my face and she rummaged among the boxes and bundles. With a pleased little sound, she came up with a piece of bread. “Bread,” she said, “bread!” And it floated through the air into my astonished hands.
“Well!” said Nils. “Communication has begun!” Then he sobered. “And we have a child, apparently. From what that man said, there is no one left to be responsible for her. She seems to be ours.”
When we stopped at noon for dinner, we were tired. More from endless speculation than from the journey. There had been no signs of pursuit and Marnie had subsided onto the pallet again, eyes closed.
We camped by a small creek and I had Nils get my trunk out before he cared for the animals. I opened the trunk with Marnie close beside me, watching my every move. I had packed an old skirt and shirtwaist on the top till so they would be ready for house cleaning and settling-in when we arrived at Margin. I held the skirt up to Marnie. It was too big and too long, but it would do with the help of a few strategic pins and by fastening the skirt up almost under her arms. Immediately, to my surprise and discomfort, Marnie skinned the nightgown off over her head in one motion and stood arrow-slim and straight, dressed only in that undergarment of hers. I glanced around quickly to see where Nils was and urged the skirt and blouse on Marnie. She glanced around too, puzzled, and slipped the clothing on, holding the skirt up on both sides. I showed her the buttons and hooks and eyes and, between the two of us and four pins, we got her put together.
When Nils came to the dinner tarp, he was confronted by Marnie, all dressed, even to my clumping slippers.