Kathleen Kent - The Heretic's Daughter

I held tight his fingers and led him into the house like a prized captive. Mother had been stripping corn and stood quickly, shedding silk from her skirt in a storm of green and yellow. She did not like work-a-day surprises.

She frowned and asked, “What brings you to Andover, brother?”

Uncle replied, smiling, “Sister, it’s been a long, hot ride. A glass of cool water would be welcome.” When she turned her back for a cup, he winked at me. He drank quickly and said, “It appears you have prospered at your mother’s house. How fares your homestead in Billerica?”

“You would know better than I, brother, as you have probably only just come from there. And as you see, we have been here in Andover working.”

There was silence as they took the measure of each other, and then Uncle said, taking a different tack, as a ship will do when facing an imminent squall, “Mary sends her loving regards and hopes to visit soon… when the climate is not so heated.”

“The weather here may stay hot for some time. But my sister is always welcome. It seems, though, that she may be the last one of your family who will come.”

Uncle said, shaking his head, “I fear my son made bad a visit that I had hoped would bring us to greater felicity as a family.”

Mother laughed through her nose. She stood at the table, her arms crossed below her chest, and said nothing.

“I was hoping,” he continued carefully, “that we might come to an… agreement. Perhaps some sort of recompense regarding your mother’s property. It was to Mary, and in turn to Allen, that the land was to go.”

“All that has changed. On her deathbed my mother placed in our hands the care of the land. And this house.”

“Be that as it may, as a physician I know full well what delusions may be brought about by a fever of the brain. It may be that your mother was not in her proper mind when she made those promises. Or perhaps her intentions were… misunderstood.” He said the last without adding extra weight to the words, but it hit the mark nonetheless.

Mother uncrossed her arms and took on the look of a river mink poised over a trout bed. “It is of note to me that you would recall your claims as a physician. We could have put it to good use during the fourteen days I spent caring for my mother. Wiping the pus from her weeping sores and changing the bedclothes at every hour when she had the bloody flux. In truth, it surprises me you didn’t hear her screams all the way to Billerica.”

“Sarah,” Uncle said, turning suddenly to me, “I have brought something for you from Margaret. Go and fetch it from my saddle.”

I ran from the room into the yard and let Bucephalus sniff at my arm so that he would know me again. I reached into the saddle pack and pulled from it a small square of muslin. It had been cross-stitched in neat rows of letters surrounded by a colorful border. I brought the small bit of cloth to my face and breathed in Margaret’s scent. She had only just touched the muslin, perhaps a few hours before. I read the letters carefully, teasing out the words from Proverbs. “A friend loves at all times.” Of course she had not finished the verse, for it reads in sum, “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.” A remembrance of Allen’s sour face came to mind along with the smell of charring wheat. I sat on the doorstep with Margaret’s sampler tucked into the bodice of my dress and listened to the muffled voices coming from the house. I could not hear the words but I could feel the thrust and weight of them, Uncle’s placating voice countering the more strident tone of my mother. He worked like a potter trying to cool a hot mold of sand and potash into a vessel for use. But sometimes even the most careful of handling will bring the fiery vessel to shatter. I sat with my hands over my ears and waited for the inevitable sound of breaking glass.

Father then came from the fields, a large axe carried over one shoulder. He had been stockpiling wood, and his shirt was soaked through with sweat, his hair hanging damp and limp around his neck. He saw Uncle’s horse and hurried his pace to the house. He gave me a glance but did not pause to set down the axe at the door frame as was his habit. As he passed through the door, the head of the axe caught the wood, cutting a deep gash in the frame. He had been inside for the span of a few breaths when all talking within ceased. Soon Uncle rushed out the door, stumbling over me in his haste to leave.

I followed him, calling out, “Uncle, please stay awhile. Uncle, please don’t go,” but he did not turn to answer me. I had had no time to gather up a present for Margaret. What would she think of me when her father returned to her empty-handed? I had not plied my fingers to sewing as I had promised, for the needle she had given me was gone, stolen by Mercy, and I could do no patching without it. The only needle left to me was a coarse one made of bone that was used to mend our woolens. Uncle mounted Bucephalus and snapped sharply at the reins. I ran at his boot heel, panting out, “Tell Margaret… tell Margaret…” But soon he outpaced me, and as I reached for the stirrup, I cried, “I am not like my mother… I am not like her!”

I watched him on the road until Mother called for me, but I dragged my heels until she appeared at the door, her eyebrows forming a line of warning beneath the furrows in her brow. When I came into the kitchen I saw Father’s axe lying heavily on the table, the sharpened edge of the head pointing to the place where Uncle had stood.

THERE CAME A morning in September when Andrew, Tom, and I were together in the barn. I had been house-bound, smoking and drying meat for the winter, and had spent hour upon hour turning the spit. I became careless and singed the bottom of my skirt on the embers and could have within the span of a thought become a burning brand. Mother snatched me from the hearth, saying, “God’s apron, Sarah, will you smoke us all out!”

She sent me to the barn with Hannah to set out a tray of milk for the mice that were eating our precious store of grain. The mice would come to drink and the cats that lived in the loft would have a breakfast of fur, teeth, and tail. I amused myself by watching both the tray of milk, hoping to see a bloody battle in miniature, and my sister’s struggling form. I told myself I had tied Hannah to a post to save her from being kicked by the horse, but closer to the truth was my impatience with her clinging to me and the endless calling of my name. She thrashed against her tether but I drew a hard line and ignored her pleas to be lifted up and held once more. I could hear Tom working in the stalls, laying down new straw. With every forkful lifted, minions of dust Devils spread through the air, making him sneeze in rapid pulses. He bent over double, hands on his knees, spewing spittle in cascading waterfalls. I numbered each successive fit, counting to nine, before hearing the outraged sound of my mother’s voice coming from the edges of the cornfield. Andrew had just finished the milking and almost dropped the bucket from fright. Most times such vocal fury meant that someone was to get a beating.

The three of us ran from the barn, Tom carrying with him his pitchfork, sure that Mother was being set upon by Indians. As we followed her voice, we could not see at first what had angered her so. Her back was to us and she stood with her hands knotted on her hips. Then she turned and we saw a fawn-colored cow in the corn, calmly trampling down the stalks to get to the kernels. Behind her, looking shyly from large liquid eyes, was her calf. They had been in the field a good while, perhaps most of the morning, for they had broken down the remaining ears. The cow looked at Mother contentedly, the little brass bell on her ear tinkling faintly, and continued her chewing despite Mother’s shouting and hand clapping. On the bell were carved the letters “S.P.” Over the sound of the gently threshing hooves came the sounds of Hannah crying. Mother turned with pinched lips and a raised brow and said, “Sarah, go back to the barn and, after you have untied your sister, bring me the tether. And be fast. We will be paying a visit to Goodman Preston this morning.”