Interlude 1751
I did not wait. Even though my body was failing. Even though I wanted to put myself into the earth and wait for the slow death Florence wished upon me. There was no time. If I meant to undo Florence’s curse, to ensure death no longer plagued us, I knew I must act quickly.
I went to the tree that same night. The moon above me bore witness as I moved silently among the sleeping, grief-stricken houses.
By the time I reached it, my mouth was filled with blood brought up from my decaying lungs.
My breath came in shuddering gasps, my heart used up and pumping worthlessly in my chest as I stared at the tree.
I carried my knife beneath my cloak, and it weighed against me as if the blade understood the immensity of what I came to do.
In nature, there was harmony. Predator and prey.
Birth and bloodletting in equal measure.
I always understood that greed was a behavior learned by man.
Their own meanness clouded by the belief God would hold them in esteem for their scant good deeds.
So limited were they by their own wants and desires they had forgotten how simple it was to give and to be provided for in return.
We had given our blood. Had sworn ourselves to this land so our daughters and their daughters on into the future might know peace.
Prosperity. But Florence, blinded with her anger at my betrayal, had made a request tinged darker by her need for what she called justice but I understood as vengeance.
The magic bound within the tree did not understand the good or the ill of the requests made of it.
It was of nature. It only responded in kind.
I took my share of the blame. I had interfered in Florence’s happiness, if only to save her, but I could not turn my face against my own mistakes. I had not given her the words to curse us, but I had given her the knowledge of how to wield them. I had given her the anger that led her to them.
I was not the one who had completed the ritual, but perhaps, I could be the one to undo it.
“Grant us forgiveness,” I said as the knife burned a deep cut across my hand.
“Break the bonds of Florence’s request that those with betrayal in their hearts might suffer.
She saw only anger, and if you will not let it pass by, then I ask you to soften this plague.
Let death pass over those who have spilled their blood here.
Let death pass over their bloodline that will come after.
” I smeared my hand along the bark, squeezed it into a fist and let the drops fall onto the roots below.
The earth swallowed my blood, but I worried it would not be enough.
Mine had not been the only offering. The only intention set.
As in all things, there was a balance that must be struck.
My request did not necessarily outweigh the other.
The snake is not favored over the wolf in the natural world.
They may differ, but they are only variations of a single, deadly beast. I could only wait and hope I had set right what Florence had seen as justice.
I bound my hand, my legs aching as I pushed myself to my feet and, with a weariness I’d never known, finally turned toward home.
WEEKS PASSED, BUT I lacked awareness of time.
The sunrise and sunset meant nothing to me as I curled on my cot, my insides granted an intimacy with death not yet allowed my flesh-bound spirit.
My teeth were gone, the gums so inflamed they split apart if I drew a deep breath.
My tongue eaten through with sores, the deep pink meat of its interior ringed with a sickly yellow.
Every day, I retched more and more chunks of tissue into my palm as I wondered how a body could sustain such loss and still live.
But it was as Florence had wished it. Her blood was a sigil that guaranteed my failing organs’ continual work.
Hope came to see me once more. It could have been months since Joan’s death or only weeks, but it was enough to have witnessed a transformation among those who’d once followed me.
“They plan to build a meetinghouse. Isaac and Gideon will see to it. Gideon has an eye toward the pulpit.”
I watched her from my place on the cot. She did not advance past the doorway, her hands clasped in front of her as she gazed upon anything but my wasting body. I gave her a single nod. It was fitting that Florence married a man who felt himself anointed by God.
They would replicate the town we fled. They would build their meetinghouse and pray to their God and ignore the reason for their prosperity. The tree’s magic and our devotion to it would die with me.
Hope wrung her hands. “I wanted to tell you … I am sorry, Anne. This place, what it has become, it is not as we intended, but this world will not allow for it. He is my husband, and I will follow him.” She took a step backward, the sun outlining her frame. “I will not come here again.”
With a final glance back, she vanished.
It was as she said. I did not see her again.
THE LAST PERSON to darken my door was Florence.
She came to me, both palms cut, the wounds ragged and still bleeding as she stumbled over the threshold.
“How do I take it back? How do I take back what I asked of the tree?” She stood over me, her face reddened, the hair escaping her cap windblown and wild. Her belly had grown heavier, the apron she wore stretched taut. And there, on her mouth, the tell-tale ring of boils.
Florence was sick.
I wanted to weep. To scream. To pound my fists against the tree and earth and demand even a small measure of grace.
My own attempt at a reversal had no effect.
The request could not be taken back no matter what I did.
If only this curse would pass over Florence, I would gladly take it all.
Would go into death without fear or regret if it would not touch her and the child she carried.
“You must know of something else. Some other thing to offer. I have given the tree my blood twice now, and still, this sickness lingers.” She moaned, her hand creeping to her belly. “Tell me what to do.”
Around us the lamplight cast shadows against the wall. Strange devils that had frightened Florence as a girl even as I told her there was nothing to fear in the exchange between light and dark. One was counterpart to the other.
A new understanding grew within me as I watched the shadows, the balance between them.
I forced my rotted tongue to speak. “I didn’t understand, but I think I do now.
” My breathing was thick. Liquid. But my voice was firm.
“I’m so close to the darkness, and my eyes are opened.
I wanted only the good. For all of us. But I’d forgotten.
” I gulped at the air. “There is no light without the dark.
They are sisters, born of the same mother.
When we knelt there and gave of our blood to the tree, there were darker gods.
And they also listen when granted an offering.
“They mirror the wild chaos of our hearts. They give back what is asked of them in the same way any god might. Even the wickedness we try to hide. With our good deeds. With our faith.”
Florence made a strangled noise in her throat but said nothing.
“But we should not fear such things. There is nothing to fear in the untamed chaos of nature. The rabbit eats the clover. The fox eats the rabbit. There is no iniquity in it. Nothing but nature doing as it will. And we … you”—I reached for Florence’s hand then, her palm fever hot from the cut she made—“must not deny the shadowed portions of yourself.”
Florence attempted to shake off my grip, but I held firm. I would never know for certain, but this new awareness held a truth in it I hoped would serve as some sort of salvation for my daughter. For my granddaughter. For Hope. For all the women who would be born and die here.
“You asked for punishment for those with betrayal in their hearts. You cannot let that shadow swallow you. Jealousy. Duplicity. These are such petty, dangerous things to plant in an earth that hears and accepts all.” I drew Florence closer.
“It does not have to be as such. One does not have to snuff out the other.
We can hold all parts of ourselves without denial or shame or bitterness.
The light and the dark. Refusal is ruin.
Disease. Death. You have seen it firsthand. This sickness.
“It is this refusal to accept all parts of the self that has undone us, Florence. You must see. What you asked of the tree cannot be willed away in the same way one cannot extinguish the dark in favor of the light. There is no amount of bloodshed that will undo this sickness. What is enacted cannot be stopped. We can only adapt to its parameters.” My breathing grew more labored, my lungs exhausted from drawing enough air to speak, and I clawed at Florence’s arm.
“Tell Hope. Tell the women who will come to live here. Tell your daughter. Tell them to accept it all. Tell them not to hide their darkness, their shadow selves, for it is only another part of them. If they do not, it will bring further harm.”
With a final tug, Florence wrenched her hand from me, and I felt its absence as a keen pain. “These are the ravings of a mad woman. If you will not tell me what to do, I will find a way to stop it myself.”
“I cannot stop it. There is nothing to tell. Please, Florence, you must listen—”
“I hope you can feel the hellfire licking at your feet even now.” She straightened her skirt and, without another glance at me, left the house that held all that had once been her mother.