I hurried down the path. I prayed aloud, at first in English but then French, and then Latin, walking faster yet, for those were the prayers drummed into my head, I knew them by rhythm, by chant, even more than I knew Ma’s or Jacob’s old Gaelic charms. “Sancte Michael Archangele, defende nos in proelio; contra nequitiam et insidias diaboli—” I broke into a run, gasping the rest, saying, “Satanam aliosque spiritus malignos,” as I got to my house. The wee ones had gathered in the parlor, with Gwenny and America, and I stilled my face against the wooden door before I turned around and greeted them with a smile.
After that time, I could not visit the graves of my children. I remembered Cullah’s saying that oft, when he needed most to pray, all that would come out was a scream. When the memories of that brush against the black cloak came to me, the only prayer that came with it was a terrified scream that played against the ribs surrounding my heart. I decided to say the Rosary and to beseech Michael the Archangel every day for my husband and my son. I would also beseech the old charms against fairies and say the Protestant prayers, as well. Let someone tell me a woman may not think of her son and husband in battle with any prayer she can, and they will have a williwaw on their hands.
CHAPTER 27
October 2, 1755
Not long after that, I carried my flax wheel up the stairs to the parlor to work; America worked at embroidery, Gwyneth sat at the woolen wheel. Jacob snored before the fire in a settle. I saw my daughter as if for the first time since the babes had died. She was a child no longer, fully as old as I had been when I came to Lexington town, as old as America had been when she came here to apprentice. Her figure was slender as a willow branch but filling. “Gwenny?”
“Yes, Ma?”
“Have I ever told you the charm against evil from the old ways?”
“I do not say it for it is thought to be witchery to know those ways.”
“The old ways are merely old, not witchery. I learned it from my mother and she was no witch. Goodwife Boyne knows a hundred more.”
“She is quite odd.”
America chuckled. “She is at that.”
I said, “Gwenny, you are old enough to go out to a house.”
She brought her wheel to a stop and looked up. “Would you send me away?”
“It is thought best for young people, to see how others may keep a house. To learn and make up their minds for their own way. You do not have to if you do not wish it.”
“I do not wish it. With Pa gone, and Brendan, too, you and America would have too much to do. It is hardly kept together now. What would you do, bring in a boy as apprentice gardener? Grandpa cannot teach him. A boy would be worthless.”
I smiled and straightened my back then dampened my fingers yet again as the thread sought each drop of water and stretched itself as if it were a living thing onto the spindle. “The women in this house have a way of speaking their minds that may not be thought well of by society.”
“I care not a whit about society.”
“Perhaps you have not met the right society. I wondered if you thought of going out.”
“What could I learn there that you have not taught me here? Was I not also attending you at the birth of Dorothy Ann? What more is there to learn?”
I took a deep breath. “There are secrets of this family, of this place.”
“I told my friend Elijah that I knew a story about a castle in Jamaica and he said it was foolishness.”
“Then you need more intelligent friends, Gwyneth.” I talked to her about trust. About hiding things, about knowing things that others may not know or might even ridicule her about. She seemed to take it all in with little expression.
Gwyneth said, “Ma? Why are you saying these things? It is true what Pa said? Will the Indians come here and try to kill us? I know about the cupboard in the kitchen.”
I let my wheel stop. After a while I said, “There are many reasons why you may want to hide. Some traveler demanding entrance. Soldiers demanding billeting.”
America said, “If your mother had not hidden me, I would be dead by now.”
“Why?” Gwenny asked.
“Because the soldiers here wanted to abuse me. I would have killed myself.”
“Those fellows? Why, I thought they were so merry. They made me a swing on the big tree out front. One of them carved me a wee dog from a block of wood. He was one that died, though.”
“You were a child,” I said. “Thank heavens that they were not completely depraved and harmed you not.”
In the morning, I showed Gwenny the other stairs and the hiding places that I had showed America years before. This time, the room above the loom held nothing but spiderwebs and Cullah’s empty chest. When I saw it, I sighed. In the years since first showing it to America, Cullah had lined the room with fragrant cedar, and now it held shelves on which to store bolts of wool. I smiled. Better to be prepared.
Gwenny put her arm through mine and said, “Ma? Do not weep. Pa will return, I know it. Brendan will, too. We will be together again.”
*