Interlude 1750
I took care not to stain my apron as I gobbled down the heart.
I would be able to rinse my hands and arms at the well, but there would be no time to change before Benjamin’s arrival.
Nowhere to hide a bloodstained garment where Florence would not find it.
If Florence asked after the missing hen, a fox would serve as justification, but I hoped we would be gone by then.
That all threads binding us here would be dissolved and our freedom growing with every step.
By the time I cleaned myself and buried that small, broken lump of feathers, the day’s shadows had lengthened into afternoon, and I knew well that the bitter taste that lingered on my tongue had naught to do with the blood but more to do with guilt.
Even though I hurried, my steps back to our cottage felt weighted, as if my feet wanted to root themselves into the very earth I dared to flee.
There were a few things yet to pack, but I found myself unable to focus as I settled once more before the hearth, a bit of stitching in my hand as an illusion of industriousness. My attention focused only on listening for the sound of Benjamin’s horse and the gate’s squeak.
But when the clatter of hooves finally sounded there was little relief in it.
Only a sense of duty and a bright rush of heat in my throat.
A reminder of the blood I’d taken. The oath I’d given.
And beneath it all, the steadying rush of my own yet-beating heart.
That ancient cadence that had carried me and my daughter this far and, I hoped, would carry us so much further.
I waited, eyes closed, and then rose and went to the door.
“Benjamin! You are good to come,” I called as Benjamin dismounted and looped his reins across the garden gate.
“No trouble. I only hope I can be of some service.” He strode lightly, his hand cupped over his brow to block the sun’s glare. “Florence has not yet found her, I trust?”
“She has not. She’s still out, even now. But come in, come in. I cannot send you off without some refreshment.” I waved him inside, a spider to a fly, and he came easily. Eyes open and bright as I let the door swing closed behind him.
“There is fresh bread. Pickled egg and butter,” I said.
“I would not turn down fresh bread.” He removed his hat and held it before him, and I could see a spot on his jaw that still bled.
He’d shaved then. An effort to make himself presentable for Florence.
I hardened myself against that sweetness and focused on the bread.
How, in the cutting of it, it did not bleed.
For, in that moment, it seemed it was not the loaf I baked the day before lying before me but instead the hen with its rotting neck.
I spoke with a joviality I did not feel. “I cannot think of many who would.” I cut two large slices and spread them thickly with butter. I could afford to be wanton. There was no need for any stinginess when I knew whatever remained of our larder would only go to waste.
He finished the first slice in three bites, his eyes closed as his jaw worked. “If Florence is half as good a baker as her mother, I am a lucky man indeed.”
I did what was expected and flushed with pleasure. “That is kind.”
“This is a bread that will keep a babe hearty. Grow him into a strapping lad. Poor Florence will have her work cut out for her keeping them fed!” He laughed and bit into the second slice.
There should be no ice in the air, but I felt it curling against me. Felt it knitting itself to my bones as I let my body drift into stillness. As I let the blood do its work.
I did not bother keeping my voice light. It was necessary that Benjamin feel the weight behind it. “Keeping them fed?”
He paused, his brow wrinkling, but then went back to the bread. “Of course. A house full of sons. Though I would not be opposed to a girl or two.” He laughed, but I did not meet it. Rather, I held every part of my body still. Soft. As if it pained me beyond measure to speak what came next.
“Oh, Benjamin. I thought you knew.” I laid a hand over his arm and squeezed in maternal sympathy. “Florence cannot bear a child.”
The lie, aided by the heart I’d eaten, slipped from me easily, and I watched as the devastation took Benjamin apart.
His face twisted into first confusion, then anger, then grief, as I hoped beyond measure this dishonesty would hold.
That it would break apart what had been promised in whispers so I might still save not only myself but Florence from certain persecution and death.
“I cannot think why she would not have told you. She took ill as a girl. The doctor said that with her fever…” There was no need to offer any further details or legitimizing evidence of Florence’s falsified illness.
Benjamin wouldn’t question them. Not with the shock and betrayal of Florence’s secret still roiling through him.
No respectable man would question anything related to the mysterious inner workings of a woman’s childbearing organs.
Even the most tolerant among them found other things to do when the midwife came calling.
He would only hear what he wanted, and I would take advantage while I could.
“It is certain then? She cannot provide a child?” He clenched his fists, the tendons along his forearm corded as he looked up with a hopefulness that almost broke me.
I touched my tongue to the back of my teeth, a reminder of the blood I’d taken, and let it settle my aching heart.
I was stronger than their bond, and this was the only way.
Florence would not leave so long as there was any remaining tie to Benjamin.
“I’m so sorry, Benjamin. It was not my place to tell. It would be better if Florence did not know I spoke of it.”
He rose and wiped a hand over his mouth, ridding himself of any lingering crumbs from the bread and forced a tight smile.
“It is a natural thing to speak honest. No good man would find fault in it.” He turned to the door.
“Thank you. For the bread. I should get searching before the day is out. Perhaps I’ll find the red cow and Florence both. Bring them each back home to you.”
I heard the finality in his voice. An underlying truth he was only coming to understand.
That Florence would not belong to him. She could not.
She was not the woman he thought her to be.
Not the woman he wanted. The future he’d planned so fully for himself was an illusion.
One he believed my daughter purposely kept from him.
It would be exactly as I planned. He would speak with her. Tell her he could not take her as a wife. Even if it hurt him, even if he still loved her, the betrayal was too great. The vision he’d crafted for himself could not die for something as simple as a woman.
I could have wept with relief, but I followed him to the door and watched as he settled himself back into the saddle. We would be safe. We would leave that night, if possible, and see the next morning in a place where we could build a new life. Watch the sun chase away the shadows.
“If I don’t see Florence, tell her I’ll call on her tomorrow,” he said, and lifted a hand in farewell.
“I will. Keep well, Benjamin.”
Nodding, he clicked his tongue, the horse moving easily under him, and once more, the yard was empty.
I had no way of knowing then, but in town, a noose had already been formed.
A room with three men who wore their holiness as something sharp held my name and Florence’s on their tongues.
It did not matter how many I helped with my knowledge.
Their wives and children all kept from sickness with what I made with my own hands and the earth’s offerings.
The beginning of all I feared unfurled rapidly even as Benjamin came upon Florence just outside the main road, her cheeks flushing prettily as she offered a smile he did not return.
Already, he’d hardened his heart. Already, he saw her as something worthy of dismissal. Perhaps, if he had been in that room among those covenanted men, he would have found the same wickedness within the woman who not even two hours prior had been his betrothed.
But I would not know those things until later.
How, when Florence stumbled home along the main road, her vision blurred from weeping, Phillip Franklin spat at her as she went past, a mumbled “witch” tossed at her retreating back.
How fear grew to overtake sorrow in Florence’s heart as she pressed to go more quickly, the ground blurring beneath her feet as her breath caught in her chest with a pain she’d never known.
Hers was not a body made for running, but she would grow used to it. I would be there to see to it.
I was seated once more beside the hearth when Florence came in. Despite her running, she came in softly, with a quiet that spoke of shame and regret. She did not close the door behind her but stood there, trembling, in the dying light.
I stood; my arms extended as I went to meet my daughter in feigned ignorance. “Florence? What’s happened?”
“Benjamin has ended our engagement. He would not look at me. Would offer no reason no matter how I begged him for one. Said it was as God willed it. And then, on the road home—” She broke into a sob, her hand over her mouth as if she could hold the sound inside.
As if by doing so, it could erase what was happening to us.
“He called me ‘witch.’ Phillip Franklin did. As I passed by him.”
I gathered her to me and pressed my lips to her hair.
Soothed her, in the way only I could. I wished, as I had since she was a child, I could take it all, her pain and worry and doubts.
Absorb them and let her be absolved. Let them scar me instead of her.
But this was a necessary cut. I could not save her from this.
“We cannot stay, Florence. You understand. Once that word is spoken, death is the only thing that can follow.”