My foot hit a rock, and I stumbled. I fell to the ground, only the snow breaking my fall.
“Kendra!” James screamed behind me. “Kendra! Are you all right?”
Then he was beside me, gathering me up me into his arms. He lifted me toward him.
“Tell me you are not hurt.”
“I am not hurt,” I whispered, leaning into him. I felt his warm breath on my face, and I longed to be closer to him, to have not even my thin coat between us. To have him kiss me.
He did. He kissed me. He kissed me.
He kissed me.
Finally, he stopped.
“I have been wanting to do that since I first laid eyes upon you.”
I laughed. “Why?”
“You are lovely. Is that not reason enough?”
I shook my head, no, for I knew there was more, and I wanted to hear it.
“No, then. I wanted to kiss you for we are the same. We are alike, clever and full of mischief, and have been through the same things and will be through the same experiences. We have both lost everything yet lived on. And on. And because you are beautiful.”
“Better.” I struggled to my feet. I wanted him to kiss me again, but it was probably not fitting to allow him to kiss me on the ground, especially in those deserted woods.
He pulled me toward him. “But you must leave Salem, Kendra.”
“Must I?” I stared at him. “First, you kiss me. Then, you say I must leave?”
“Yes. It is not safe. There are more murmurings. Your performance at the shop did not help. They are closing in.”
I thought of Ann, Ann with the wolf. He was right, I knew. But still . . .
“I do not want to leave . . . not alone.” I willed him to say he would go with me. “I have finally found a place where I am comfortable, with the Harwoods and . . .”
“And what?” Even in the darkness, I could tell that he was smiling, laughing at me.
“Do not make me say it.” The wind chilled my bones. “With you.”
“Would you leave with me?” He moved closer. “Would you?” He whispered it into my hair.
“Yes,” I whispered back. “Yes.”
“Then you must go tomorrow. Leave Salem. Go to Boston and find lodgings. I will follow.”
Was he asking me to marry him? He must have been, because it would not be proper for us to travel together otherwise. I would say yes. Though we had known each other but a short time, such brief courtships were commonplace. We had forever to become acquainted. “Why can we not both go now?”
“For us both to leave in the night would excite suspicion, especially since suspicion has already been excited about you.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Putnam girl is speaking of you.”
I drew in a sharp breath. “How did you . . . ?”
He took my wrists in both his hands and pulled me toward him. “Wait in Boston but a few days, Kendra. I will say I have an urgent matter at home, and I will follow. I will follow, and we shall be married there.”
It was all I wanted. “Yes, yes. I will.”
“But now, the sun is about to rise. Fly only as far as the edge of the woods, then walk home and get into your bed before the Harwoods find you missing.”
“Yes.” I did as he said. We were to be married! I flew, happily as a lively sparrow, then fairly ran the rest of the way home. But when I reached the Harwoods, men were there, waiting for me. One had a warrant in his hand.
It was as James predicted. I was arrested as a witch within the day of seeing Ann Putnam and Betty Parris in town. I was taken to jail with another woman, an old woman named Martha Corey.
In jail, they stripped us naked and examined our bodies for witches’ marks. I felt the jailers’ hands groping at me, at my legs, my breasts, taking far too much time and too much pleasure at their task. They searched the pits of my arms, my nostrils, the undersides of my eyelids, every cavity of my body. Every cavity. When they found nothing, they examined me again. But, of course, they found no mark, no scar, no scab. My body was young, and it was perfect. I was a witch, so I made it so.
Martha Corey was not one, and she was old, her skin spotted with age, so the jailers found numerous marks upon her.
“What is this?” they asked her with each new discovery.
“’Tis a mole,” she said each time. “You have one yourself. On your cheek. With a hair growing from it.”
I wished there was some way I could have removed her marks, made her skin as clear and young as mine, but that in itself would be suspect. She was a tart old woman, though, and seemed little disturbed by what was happening.
Finally, they threw us back into the jail cell. I knew that elsewhere in the jail were others who had been arrested weeks earlier. It must have been near dawn, and we were very briefly alone, lying on a pallet of straw on the cold jailhouse floor.
“Are you frightened?” I asked Martha.
She laughed, a hard laugh. “Why would I be frightened? I am no witch.”
I nodded, knowing that to be true.