Dark Sisters

Prologue 1750

I died once before.

At thirteen, the river water rushed into my lungs. Hungry. Insistent. My older brother had been there to pump it from me and command my heart back into life.

“You stupid girl,” he said, but there were tears in his eyes. “Your place is at home.”

But I was tired of caring for the little ones Mama left behind after her death.

She had taught me the hidden magic of the natural world.

How a root might be ground into fine powder and used to heal a cough.

How the wind and water bent to no power but what they held themselves, and how if you were still enough, you could let that same power enter you.

I had no use for the confinement of a house.

For the tug of a babe at my skirts with its always hungry, screaming mouth.

So when the accusations began in my thirty-fifth year, in whispers that warned of violence, I marveled at how one could cheat death twice in her life.

Once, I’d faced it without fear, but now, it coiled through me, hot and slick as oil.

I saw its poison everywhere. I felt it in every muscle as I hurried home, my cap pulled down to cover my face as much as possible.

I was not the first accused. There were two others before the rope’s shadow fell over me.

Women who courted more suspicion than I by virtue of their lack of a husband.

Unmarried with a little coin outweighed my small ministrations to the sick.

A poultice for a wound that would not heal or a tonic for a cough were small compared to what could be gained from a woman with property who’d refused marriage.

We’d all been there to see them tried. Every woman turned her face toward heaven as she watched her neighbor or friend garble a final prayer before the rope did its work. Mercy dying on our lips as we made ourselves small so that terrible, holy eye might not swing toward us.

But my mother had taught me how quickly a whisper can turn to a scream, and I knew there was little time to do what was necessary.

A few days. A week at best. I could draw no suspicion that I understood the shadow fallen over my doorstep.

To do so would only hasten the end. And there was no promise Reverend Brenton and his men would not come for me in sunlight.

Such things were typically done in darkness, but when those who deem themselves favored by the Lord discover a witch, a delay in punishment is akin to the profane.

The morning sun clung to the leaves and grass, already verdant and lush with the start of summer heat.

The birdsong that typically cheered me sounded to my ear as nothing more than a dulled sort of noise.

The natural world with its heart beating above and below held no joy, and the houses with their thatched roofs carried only threats rather than comfort.

I went quickly past them, hoping anyone who happened a glance outside would not see the panic blazing from my every movement.

I was only a woman carrying water for the washing.

They could not have known how I’d planned my path.

How it carried me directly to Benjamin Gillett as he drove his cows to pasture the way he did every morning.

How it afforded me but a moment of greeting.

And then a request of the man who was soon to become my son-in-law.

“Mrs. Bolton. A blessing to see you this morning,” he said as he removed his cap to reveal a tangle of dark curls.

“Indeed. I must beg forgiveness to be so brief. The red cow has escaped her pen again. It seems my attempts at securing the lock are a series of failures. Florence hunts her even now.”

There were ways of drawing a man in. A lowered voice. A demure gaze. The suggested need of a savior. I had no want of any of it, but I had to do it all the same. It was the only way to ensure our safety.

“I’ll see to it this afternoon.” He offered a lopsided smile. The one I knew had drawn my daughter to him and then kept her there with its warmth. Its gentle kindness. Florence had chosen well. Knowing she had done so pained me all the more.

“We would be most grateful. And I know Florence would be happy to see you,” I said. He had the piety to blush. It would have been better if he reached through the thin cage of my chest and tore out my traitorous heart.

“I trust she knows I feel much the same.”

I kept my gaze trained on the earth. “We’ll look for you then, Benjamin.”

I did not look back lest I, like Lot’s wife, turn to a pillar of salt, but hurried on, ignoring the sharp ache of every rock against my thin leather shoes. I passed no one else on the road, save for Edward Harrison’s sow, who spared me a single glance before resuming her rooting. A small blessing.

I slowed only when the path bent toward our cottage.

The farmland stretched away with its darkened soil and sprouting barley, and the end of the path marked the boundary of Edward Harrison’s land.

There was no proper path to our cottage, but there was a worn line that led to and from our door.

There were no other houses beyond, only the vast wildness of the forest. The dark and the devil so close I could sense him if I believed in such nonsense.

Perhaps this lack of belief was what Reverend Brenton could see within me. That while I was in attendance every Sabbath, Florence beside me with her devout prayers and service, I had no use for his god. Or his devil.

Above me, three vultures circled, and death’s heavy sweetness flooded my nose. The handkerchief I kept tucked in my pocket did little to dampen it, and I breathed through my mouth. Tried not to think of that scent on my tongue.

Hidden in the deep grass, a rabbit lay still, its scarlet viscera shimmering in the light. A light meal for such carrion. Shivering despite the warmth, I could not help but interpret the rabbit and those creatures of death for what they were. An ill omen.

“I’D NOT THOUGHT it was already so warm out.

Your face is flushed.” Florence held a cool hand to my cheek, and I leaned into her touch.

My daughter. The only love I carried in this life since her father went into the earth when she was still barely walking.

I’ve often considered it a blessing she did not know him well.

That she did not have to live each day of her seventeen years with that unhealed wound inside her as I did.

She’d grown into his likeness with her wild ebony hair and dark eyes.

The only part of myself I’d ever read in her face was her mouth—the curving upper lip that gave the appearance of mischief or a secret that desperately wanted told.

She’d stood beside me during the hangings.

Averted her eyes and winced when their necks mercifully snapped.

Gripped my hand with a strength I didn’t know she possessed when they had not.

I knew it didn’t matter how devout Florence appeared.

Reverend Brenton and his men would not suffer her to live.

She was my daughter and tainted by my blood.

My teachings. The fear that threatened to consume me was not for my own life.

It was for hers. Her flesh was tender. They would see her as a morsel worthy of their teeth.

An image of their fingers pressed against her shuddered through me, and I stumbled.

Florence took me by the arm and settled me on the stool beside the hearth. “Here, Mother. Rest for a moment.”

I kept my eyes closed as she fluttered about me, smoothing my hair and pressing a damp rag to my cheeks and neck.

“There was no sign of the red cow as far as Mr. Pulferd’s fields.

I’ll go out again after I’ve started supper.

Perhaps she’ll have stumbled into someone else’s pasture.

It would be a blessing if it were that simple. ”

It was as I planned. Every moment falling precisely as I’d hoped. And yet I could not keep myself from hesitating. From wondering if my daughter would listen to reason and see the truth in my fear. We would be accused of witchery and there would be no mercy or allowance for her constancy.

Despite all I’d taught her of the magic flowing through the natural world, she was the town’s daughter.

Born to its teachings and the beliefs Reverend Brenton poured in her ear every Sabbath.

Florence would not begrudge me my tinctures, but I knew she worried after my soul.

Saw the deception of it. How it wore one face to cover another.

But I was also her mother. She would not publicly condemn me for such duplicity, for she saw how I cared for those who came to me with their illness and pain and how I helped in the ways I could.

She saw the depths of my heart. How it held multitudes.

Perhaps there was a chance yet.

“Florence.” I reached for her hand and held it still. How small—the delicate bones beneath her skin something so easily crushed. “You have seen the swiftness with which a single word leads to a hanging.”

“I have,” she said.

“They will find us next.”

She snatched her hand away. The warmth of it still spread through my palm, and I watched as heat tinted her cheeks and neck. “They won’t, Mother. We are covenanted. In the meetinghouse every week. They’ve no reason to bring such things to our door.”

“Reason has little to do with what’s happening. You must see that, Florence. We’ve no more time to hope for it. There could be merely hours separating us from being named, and there will be no stopping that blade once it is in motion. We must go. With haste.”

I watched as her body went rigid. The silence between us growing like some immutable beast. My own heart was leaden, laboring through its beats.

Often, I wondered if it would be easier if it stopped of its own accord.

My body taken back into the dirt. But it carried on.

I would not leave this world without knowing my daughter was yet safe within it.

“I would not flee like someone carrying guilt on her soul. Not when I have nothing to fear.” Tears threatened, but she blinked them furiously away.

“I would not abandon the only life I have ever known—to be Benjamin’s wife, to have a family—for an imagined threat.

” She squared her shoulders, and even as dread pulled at me like the river water that had tried to claim me as a girl, I was proud of the fire in her. Proud of the woman she’d become.

I nodded even as I wished I could sob. Or scream. Anything to lessen the pain of knowing what I must do to guarantee our safety.

“All will be well,” she said. “God will see to it.” She smoothed her skirts and cap. “I’ll be starting supper then. And then the cow.”

I watched her go, and only when I was certain she would not return did I rise and hunt out the carving knife. I’d taken care to sharpen it the night before, and I folded it carefully into my apron.

Outside, the air smelled of grass and wild onion and the woodsmoke from the cooking fire Florence had built. There would be stew that night, but I knew I would have little appetite.

As I approached the hen house, the hens went quiet. It was strange that I would come at this time of day. I’d already collected eggs that morning, so there was no reason for my presence. They watched with bright eyes as I undid the latch and reached inside.

“Hush now,” I said as I lifted the largest black hen into the air. She squawked and set her wings flapping, but I only gripped her tighter as I knelt and withdrew the knife.

“Let all that will hear and all that will see attend me now. For blessed are those who know the earth and her wants. Blessed are those who would provide offering.” I drew the blade across the hen’s neck, the blood warm against my hands as I let it flow into the dirt.

“A blood exchange that I might know strength. For a heart that would not bend or break.”

The knife slid easily through the meat, cutting along the breast until the heart lay exposed, slick and pinkish among the blood.

It was a sacrifice even Reverend Brenton would understand, for hadn’t his god bled for the good of his people?

I was no less than he. In the end, we all wear our brutality like beautiful cloth in the name of love.

I pressed the organ to my mouth. “So it is spoken, and so let it be.”

I bit down.