The air split apart as if rent by two great hands with the sound of a piercing scream. The cry was so violent it took my breath out of my body. The scream came again, and unusual smoke rose beyond the roof of the Haskens’ house. The whole crowd ran toward it. Two men thought to carry buckets of water as the black smoke rose ever more ominously over the house.
With no one to watch her, Lonnie had fallen into the coals. Her gown had caught fire, and though she still breathed, there was not one place of whole skin upon her. Allsy, dead and pocked with pustules, was not so nightmarish as what lay smoking and moaning before us. She wailed, her air rasping and dragging in and out as she suffered upon the floor. They placed a wet blanket upon her to soothe the burns. Voices around me rose in prayer, simple, anguished supplication for an end to agony. Rachael threw herself down next to her little sister and wept, claiming it to be her fault, beating her chest with her fists, tearing at her hair until Reverend Johansen had to raise her and take her away.
In the midst of all the people gathered, talking and weeping, I was felled by the breaking of a stick across my back. Birgitta picked up another and laid her art across my shoulders with such fury I soon curled up on the ground as she cried out, “You were supposed to watch her! Because of you we had to come to the common. This is your doing, you wretched devil!”
I hardened my face to the burning behind my eyes and did not shed a tear. Someone stopped her, but not before she had brought me to a place where I wished to die. I groaned as hands lifted me to my feet. I held the pocket in my grasp. Lukas’s father said, “There will be no more beatings today. You will sleep this night at our house. We will not weary our Lord with needless cruelty for which we will surely repent on the morrow.”
Patience took my hand and, following the Newhams, led me to their home. She put me into her bed and, after everyone else slept, held me close and cradled me like a babe. I did not cry. I felt neither sad nor hurt. I did not know then that I could not cry.
“Ressie?” she whispered. “Take heart. Try to be brave.”
“Patey, let me sleep. I will be good tomorrow.”
“You are good, now.”
I awoke snuggled next to Patey, so sore I could not move. She slept amongst barrels of provisions and boxes of implements. It was not luxurious but it had no goats. As I lay there, she slipped from the bed and tipped to the window where a little opening separated this room from the next, lifted the latch and pulled in the shutter. I saw Lukas lean his head through the opening and kiss Patience right on the lips! Not only did he kiss her but she kissed him in return. They kissed each other, murmuring, their faces touching or almost touching when they spoke, their lips all but nibbling at each other as a horse would search your hand for sweet carrots. I had seen Ma and Pa kissing in such a way, but any boy that I chose to love would have to settle for holding hands, and even then only if his were washed. Patey lay back beside me.
“Do you love Lukas?” I asked in the softest whisper I could manage.
“What are you doing awake?”
“I could not help it. Why were you doing that? Do you love him?”
“Kissing him keeps other things at bay. I promise and yet fend him off.”
“Does he want to marry you? Does he have enough money to get us home?”
“His parents own me. I could no more become his wife than I could fly.”
“Did he want to see up your skirt?”
“Where did you learn such a thing?”
“The women on the ship said that a fellow might give a girl something for a glimpse under a farthingale.”
“I think you should go back to sleep.”
“Are you going to kiss him again when I do?”
“Not tonight. I tossed a pebble at his sister so she will be watching; he dares not be caught. His parents would have him flogged. He burns with lust in his private chamber. Go to sleep.”
It was not difficult to follow her order. I closed my eyes, imagining Lukas feeling remorse for kissing Patience. I smiled. It was good that he should suffer for love.
*
We buried Lonnie, the first of our dead, in a place beside the church house. After that, the reverend marked off a place and called it consecrated, where others would lie beside her in days to come. It did not take long for a second grave to follow. Four days after Lonnie fell into the fire, Goodwife Fischer was found having gone to her eternal rest one morning. Goody Fischer had been a frail, toothless woman who came with one of the families though she was no relative of theirs. No one cried for her.