Kathleen Kent - The Heretic's Daughter

Aunt’s only comfort at those times was in holding Hannah, who would sit on Aunt’s knee and call her Mama. The smile on Aunt’s face made me long to share my sister’s place on her lap, being stroked and coddled and made much of. In the mornings Uncle would sleep far past cockcrow, and Aunt’s gentle sadness would deepen and solidify around her like a crust. Upon finishing her work, she would tightly wrap a shawl about her shoulders and sit and stare into the hearth for hours at a time.

Finally, in the first week of March, it seemed as though Uncle would not return at all. It was long past dark and we had shared a bleak and troublesome supper without him. When we had finished eating, Aunt perched at the edge of her chair, glaring at the door. Margaret, Henry, and I waited patiently for her to break her silence, sitting until our backs ached while trying our best to keep Hannah from fitful restlessness. The fire fell to embers before we heard the sound of Bucephalus shaking his harness as he approached the barn. Soon Uncle walked into the house and saw the garden of statues sitting at his table. His hair was lifted about his head as if he had ridden into a high wind and his clothes were stained with some dark liquid. He walked to the hearth like a man walking the deck of a rolling ship at sea, and the smell from his clothes was sickly sweet, like flowers rolled in spices. He drank deeply from the water bucket, spilling most of it onto his vest. He turned to face us and laughed, puffing air through a closed, dry mouth.

“It’s time for us all to be asleep. Mary… come now to bed.”

Aunt stood up and, taking Hannah by the hand, walked to her bedroom, closing the door behind her. The click of a bolt lock being slid into place sounded loud through the common room. The three of us, Margaret, Henry, and I, were left sitting at the table, speechless and tense. Uncle stood for a while, his head down, muttering to himself. He grasped the back of a chair as though he would fall without it, but after a time he lurched his way to the table and sat down heavily next to me. His breath smelled strong and sweet and the whites of his eyes were veined with red. Margaret and Henry sat staring at their hands, their heads bowed as though waiting for punishment. Until that time I had never seen Uncle other than smiling and in a good humor.

“Uncle, what is wrong?” I finally asked. “What has happened?”

He faced me, his head swiveling ominously on his neck like a falling capstone, and said, “Magic, Sarah. I’ve been practicing magic again.” His words were indistinct and run together, as though his lips had lost their shape. He leaned towards me, putting one finger up to my mouth. “Husssshhhh… I’ll tell you a secret, shall I… Sarah? I’ve been trying to… disappear .” The word at the last was all but lost in his soured breath.

I looked to Margaret but her eyes were down-turned, and Uncle tapped me on my head to mind his words. “I’ve been trying to vanish, but as you can see, I’m still here. Still here in Billerica. This desert of yeomen and yeomen’s wives and their brats and pigs and dogs… I am a man of letters, Sarah! I served with Captain Gardner as his surgeon …”

He paused for a moment, his voice rising towards anger. His unsteady gaze searched the room as he sighed and slumped farther into his chair. I studied Margaret’s still, passive face and was comforted by her calm. But it was Henry’s face that set me to pity. From under his lowered lashes, tears streamed and scalded his sallow face to pink. His lips quivered and shuddered and, for all of his bullying of Hannah and me, for all of his cruelty, he was still a boy who lived and died on his father’s good words. Uncle reached for me, fumbling for my hand, and said, “You are still Margaret’s twin, are you not?” I nodded and he nodded in kind, painfully squeezing my fingers. “You are as much of a Toothaker as any of us. I’ll be father to you now… a better father than ever a man with blood on his hands could be…”

Margaret stood suddenly, saying, “Father, it’s time for us to go to bed.” She grabbed at my apron and pulled me after her to our room. Very soon after came Henry, scratching at the door, asking to sleep on the floor next to us. For a long while we heard Uncle moving roughly about the common room, until with a groan he bedded down on the floor close to the hearth. I slept only fitfully that night, partnered with dreams of carnage. In my night visions I saw Father approach a hog’s pen, his timber axe balanced over one shoulder. He picked out a grown, bristled hog, dwarfed in size next to his towering height, and dragged it screaming like a man into the shadow of the barn. There was a hidden scuffle, a sweep of whistling air, and then the slapping, meaty sound of metal severing flesh.

IN THE SECOND week of March, Margaret and I sat knee to knee, buried deep in the straw next to the sow’s pen. The air was thick with a pungent smell like melted copper and something else. Like cured meat left too long in hanging. The wind outside blew hard against the planks, causing errant wisps of snow to filter in through the walls. The sow had just given birth to her piglets, and we were watching them suck noisily against the swollen teats, pushing one another away with their snouts. There were six piglets in all and we had made a game naming them after villains of the Bible. The fattest gray piglet we named Goliath. The greediest, a little spotted one, we named Judas. Then came Pi-lot, Herod, and Pharaoh. The last was a handsome banded female. We sat quietly together, my head resting on Margaret’s shoulder, my fingers playing lazily with a strand of her hair fallen from her cap.

“I wish your father were here. He would know a proper name for the piglet.”

Uncle had regained his more gentle spirits and had not returned to the house in a rage, though he still often traveled out at night, coming back with the odor of strong ale on his breath. Margaret’s face remained thoughtful, but she didn’t speak. To fill the silence I asked, “Where does your father go when he leaves us?”

I felt Margaret stiffen beneath my cheek and was readily sorry for my curiosity. She said, “Father goes to town to treat the sick.” I knew by the way her eyes studied her shoes and not my face that she was not telling the truth.

“What about naming the piglet Harlot?” I ventured. I had heard the name from the Bible readings at night and thought it a dangerous name, like a rare perfume made of musk and lilies from the land of Ur. It made me smile to think of naming a pig in such an extravagant way. But Margaret frowned and pulled away, saying, “That’s not a proper name. ‘Harlot’ is a kind of woman.”

“What kind of woman?” I asked, sensing a new secret at hand.

“The worst kind. How can you not know what a harlot is?” She stood up and brushed the hay from her legs in a brusque manner. “A harlot is a woman who goes with men she is not married to.” When I shook my head, mystified, she continued, “A woman who lies down with a man in sin.”

“What kind of sin?” I silently ticked off the sins I knew of, gluttony, laziness, untruthfulness…

She leaned in close and whispered each syllable harshly, “For-ni-ca-tion. Do you know what that means?”

Margaret formed a circle with one hand and plunged a finger of her other hand back and forth through the circle in a gesture that even I could understand. I blushed, only just then realizing that what I had often seen done between the animals of the barn was being done between a man and woman.

She sat down again, pulling my ear close to her mouth, and asked, “Shall I tell you a secret? Do you know what these harlots are called?” She laughed bitterly as I shook my head. “Whores,” she breathed suddenly. Formed with a sharp exhalation of breath, the word sounded ominous and final. “They live in taverns and keep vigil in inns and wayside hostelries to trap men. They press drink on the men and wear shameful colors, without a scarf on their bodice to cover their bosoms. They paint their mouths to match their cunnies and drench themselves in scent.”