Except an offer of generosity. Clearly all the men who had been eyeing me today could tell from my posture that I was unfettered beneath my waistcoat. That accounted for their unsettling looks. Now that I understood this, perhaps I could use it to my advantage with the ferryman.
Although there was his younger brother to consider. The younger brother had not eyed me—perhaps he didn’t go for girls, or was nearsighted, or was a fierce Puritan. In any case, he was in the way.
I went directly to the older brother. “I’m here for my return trip,” I said with a smile.
He flushed slightly, so I knew I had him in the palm of my hand. “Good day,” he said, and held out his hand. “Your fare.”
“I thought the earlier fare I rendered was for a two-way trip,” I said.
He shook his head slightly. “Who told you such a falsehood?”
“’Tis how the service worked in my town back in England. I’m new to America and I made a rash assumption,” I said. “If I had known to ask it, sure my master would have given me more for the fare.”
“Your master should have known the toll without you asking,” said the young man. His eyes strayed very briefly to my clothed but uncorseted torso, and then back up to meet mine. “I do not like how your master treats you,” he said quietly.
I made myself blush. (I did not know I could do that until that moment.) “It is my lot, for now,” I said. “I erred grievously in not establishing what I would need for the ferry toll, but I pray you let me across this one time. Next time I shall be prepared.” I gave him what I hoped was a doe-eyed, damsel-in-distress look, feeling ridiculous and very glad Tristan was not there to tease me for it.
The ferryman considered me a moment and then moved his oar away, so that I could enter the boat. “Go on, then,” he said, both kind and grudging. “I’ll make excuses to my brother. But see that your master does not see fit to try to cozen us again.”
“Cozen you?”
“He knows what he is doing, sending out an underdressed female servant as a . . . commodity.”
I blushed even more deeply, this time sincerely. “I am astounded to hear you say it. I will speak to the minister about him.”
He nodded approvingly . . . and then gave me the same shy smile I’d enjoyed earlier in the day. How very charming: he could only allow himself to ogle me if he was certain to receive no satisfaction for it.
The trip back across the Charles was uneventful, and so too was the long, hot walk back along the road I’d taken the cart ride on this morning. I met not a soul. The sun was starting to lengthen the shadows when I wearily returned to Goody Fitch’s home.
The witch was in the front room of the house, settling an iron pot over some covered coals in the hearth. It smelled mostly of vegetables and slightly of mutton, and not at all of seasonings. There was a girl, perhaps eight years old, sitting by an open window, spinning yarn with a drop-spindle and looking bored. Her eyes lit up when she saw me.
“Mama, is this the woman?” she said.
Goody Fitch looked over her shoulder. “Yes.” And to me: “My daughter is as I am. I told her about you.”
The girl, dressed almost identically to her mother—or rather, identically to me, since she was not yet corseted—put her spinning down and came to me with a wide-eyed unsmiling look of reverence. “Where have you come from?” she asked.
“Somewhere else,” said her mother almost tartly. “Children listen, Elizabeth, they do not speak.”
“Perhaps she would like to listen to me tell you about squaw-vine,” I said, eager to fulfill my part of the bargain so that she might fulfill hers by sending me home.
“Yes. But more than that. If you be willing to tell us more about what you are doing, we want to help you in a greater way than just this day’s work.”
“Really?” I asked, pleased but astonished.
She gestured to the stool, now situated in the center of the room to catch the faint cross-breeze. Gratefully, I sat on it. “I have been meditating on this matter all day,” she said. “I am a settler, a pioneer: I know the importance of planning with a mind to future generations. My daughter is gifted, far more subtle with her skills than I was so young, but she will never be allowed, in this place, to show herself as she is. If you can use her, and the ones that come after her, then our coming here will perhaps have served some purpose, even if not the one I intended.”
The girl plunked herself at my knees and looked up at me with an almost imploring look. “Hello, Elizabeth,” I said. “I am Melisande.”
“I know,” said the girl. “You already told me.” I grimaced in confusion, having no memory of such a thing, and her mother frowned at her. “I did not mean that,” said the girl, but she sounded uncertain, as if she were following a prompt that did not make sense to her. I was very fatigued and could not think about this peculiar moment with any depth.
Given this remarkably happy development, I stayed with them for the next two hours, explaining (in terms that would not bewilder them) the fundamental essence of DODO. Goody Fitch, once again, fell into gales of laughter at the claim that this small-minded enclave of religious extremists could ever blossom into a force that influenced the whole globe—but all the same, she insisted her daughter listen to me. Somewhere inside, she took my descriptions to heart. We pledged mutual benevolence and peace, and as the sun came in at a blinding angle through the southern window, I prepared myself to be Sent home.
Diachronicle
DAY 323
In which we learn quite rudely that nothing is ever simple
I WAS IN THE ODEC. As before, the sudden severing of my connections to the world of 1640 Boston left me disoriented, and obliged me to sit down. As I got my wits about me I had the presence of mind to grab for the oxygen mask, just in case the chamber was full of helium. But I was naked, and soon shivering with cold. Glancing down at myself, I was delighted to see that I had brought back with me none of the dirt and dust and grime of 1640. Even the splinter from the rough-hewn shovel handle had stayed behind, although my skin was still angry-looking. My clothes—T-shirt and jeans—were nowhere in sight.
I slammed a big red button that cycled the door. During the weeks of preparation for this day, the Maxes had come back in force and made a number of improvements. No longer did test subjects have to be released from the ODEC by outside helpers wearing oven mitts. Now the door opened automatically. For a moment my nakedness must have been hidden from view by a cloud of vapor—long enough for me to snatch a blanket from a hook by the door and wrap it around me.