Sun, dappled by the branches of a tree, warmed my left side, as my right side felt the bumps of grass and earth, scattered twigs, knotty roots. As my consciousness adjusted to the new environment, I noticed an absence of the constant ambient noise of modern civilization. In its place was tremendous birdsong and the buzz of insects.
A whizzing noise droned over me, barely overhead, like a huge insect, and terminated in a thunk. I looked over to see an arrow that had just embedded itself in the protruding root of a huge tree. Its fletchings of grey feathers were just a vibrating blur. It would have hit me if I hadn’t toppled over.
Immediately the hazy sun was blocked by a tall figure looming over me. Naked, dizzy, and unarmed, I could not protect myself from him. Erszebet had just sent me to my death as surely as she’d sent General Schneider. What fools we’d been to think otherwise! He stepped directly over me, standing astride me, as if I were not there, his long robes covering my naked middle. A minister? A chieftain?
But the figure shouted in a woman’s voice, deep and stern: “Samuel! Hunting is not for rabbits, you must trap them. We have told you so already. Save your arrows for the deer and do not shoot them so close to my house.” A native English speaker, with a lilt almost Appalachian or Irish. A distant voice, a boy’s, plaintive, giving her some back-sass.
“Samuel, you saw no such thing, it is your devilish fancy getting the better of you again. You are disobedient. Go in to your mother.” A pause. “Go in to your mother, I say. You may fetch your arrow back later. It is easy to find—in the root of the tree.” And then, a whisper in my direction: “Do not move until I tell you to.” And back up: “Samuel! Now!”
A long pause, as I began to collect my wits. Massachusetts Bay Colony. August 1640. The village of Muddy River, someday to be more attractively renamed Brookline. Yes, it was coming into focus now.
Finally, the woman stepped back from me, and I could see her clearly. She was a Puritan, in a fitted dark blue top and long skirt, and a simple white cap. A large white collar covered her throat and shoulders. I had expected her to look like this, and yet seeing it was dizzying. She was not wearing a costume, she was simply wearing her clothes. I was here. It was happening.
I would judge her to be about forty years of age, but I knew her from our research to be closer to thirty. She gave me a critical look. “Why have you come?” she demanded. “This is no place for us. How thoughtless of you, to appear where anyone may see you or harm you. That arrow would hit you another time. And the boy saw you. You have made me a liar to say he didn’t. If he calls us out, we’ll both be hanged.”
“I . . . I’m sorry, Goody Fitch, I . . .”
“Stay down,” she said, completely unsurprised that I called her by name. “I will get something to cover you.” She turned and walked out of my view.
I raised my head a little. The silence and birdsong continued their counterpoint, and in the distance now I could hear, and smell, a river. The still air had the clinging, heavy humidity of high summer. I was a stone’s throw from a small wattle-and-daub house with a thatched roof, a small door, but no windows on the back wall. A hundred paces away in either direction, barely in view, were similar dwellings. The land had mostly been cleared, with big axe-scarred tree stumps still protruding from tilled ground here and there, but a few huge old trees, too much effort to chop down, remained scattered about. I was beneath one such, a sugar maple.
Behind the house was a fine, verdant kitchen garden, and beyond that, a forest, densely leafed, mostly oak, some pine. The boy whom Goody Fitch had scolded had been to the right of me—to the south, I realized, superimposing the map of Muddy River over what I could see. That meant it was the Griggs family. Samuel Griggs . . . the name was not familiar, but I hadn’t memorized the whole village, just enough that I could passably seem to be familiar with it. Perhaps he would die before he reached maturity.
It was a settlement of fewer than two hundred souls, so of course I could not convince anyone that I belonged here. But these lots were large—a dozen acres or more—and so it should have been easy to arrive unnoticed. That had been the intention: I was to arrive on the property of someone we believed to be a witch, out of sight of prying eyes. A fine scheme if there were no complications.
Dear reader: there are always complications. Every
Goody Fitch returned with a thin dun-colored woolen blanket and offered it down to me. “Come inside quickly,” she said. “We are about the same size, I will clothe you. And then you must leave quickly in case Goody Griggs comes here, set on by her son.” A pause, as I gathered the blanket around my shoulders and carefully got to my feet. She did not offer a hand to assist, just stood watching me, evaluating. “But before you go, you will tell me why you are here.”
“I’m here on an—”
Her eyes flicked sideways, noticing some distant movement. “Inside.”
Her caution seemed extreme; we were in the middle of the wilderness. But I pursed my lips closed to reassure her and followed her around the house, past an axe resting on a pile of recently split firewood. Rosemary bushes grew to either side of the door, flanked by chamomile plants. A remarkable coincidence: Rebecca East-Oda’s cellar hatchway was framed by the same set of plants.
The atmosphere in the house was far more pleasant than I’d expected. The floor was pounded dirt, and therefore both cool and cooling. There were glowing coals on the hearth but the room was not hot, as the southward-facing door stood open. Two windows—one east, one west—were unglazed, so a very feeble breeze could move through the space. Beside the hearth was an open doorway into a back room, where I saw beds.
This main room was uncluttered and unadorned, every item in it neat and practical and made of wood: two small benches, a stool, one central table and another along the wall; two chests.
“Sit,” said Goody Fitch, gesturing toward the stool. She disappeared into the back room and returned a brief moment later with clothes draped over one arm: a sleeveless white linen smock, a reddish skirt and matching waistcoat, a simple decorative collar, and a long apron (somewhat stained). In her other hand, she held a linen cap, a small drawstring bag, and a belt.
“Of course I have no extra stays,” she said. This I knew to be the equivalent of a corset. “This is the best I can manage for you. My extra petticoats are wrapped away, so you must do without them, or stockings. I have an extra set of boots, tattered but useable. They are by the door.”
“Thank you,” I said, taking the clothes she offered. I began to put on the smock. “So you know, I am not a witch. I was sent here by a witch to fulfill a task. Would you consider helping me?”
She tch’d without responding directly, making it clear this was an imposition. “Are you hungry?” she asked, as if to avoid the topic of magic. “Thirsty? I have ale, and there is also some meal I can cook. I cannot give you any wheat as my husband will notice the absence, but he does not pay as much attention to the maize.”
“The maize is more plentiful and therefore less dear,” I said deliberately, fastening the smock closed at the neck.
“Yes.” She crossed her arms and stared at me. “Are you from elsewhere in the colony, that you know that?”
“No. You are . . . historical to me,” I said. She nodded, understanding. “Let me tell you my errand?”