HeartFire Page 0,66

more like the calendar. There are holidays, but the rest of the time he loses track, knowing the days will pass one by one whatever he names them.

Mustn't think that way. Write.

Dearest Alvin, I miss you now more than ever. Calvin is such an unpleasant boy, the opposite of you, and yet when I hear his voice it reminds me of yours.

Only the letters were not really written out so nicely. As soon as she saw that he understood, she would cease writing a word and skip ahead. The letter really began more like this: DA, I miss now mor. C is such an unpl boy, the opp of y&yet wh I hear hi voi it rem me of yo.

It was hard to imagine anyone else making sense of these scraps of words, scrawled in a child's printed hand instead of Margaret's elegant script, since printing was easier for Alvin to detect from a distance.

She kept writing: I think you're a fool to stay in that jail a single night. Walk out of it, gather up your companions, and come home. I don't much care for Mistress Purity. She has some good futures but they're not likely, and there's great harm possible, too, if you stay and win her away from New England.

His question: So it can be done?

Yes, but...

Does she hang if we don't take her?

Margaret knew that a truthful answer would leave Alvin no choice but to stay.

Death isn't the worst thing in the world, she wrote. We're all going to do it, and if she's hanged as a witch it has a very good chance of leading to the repeal of the death penalty for witchery, and a much higher standard for conviction. So her death does much good.

In Alvin's mind she saw the immediate answer but she had known it already, known it without looking, for it was in his character: Let's try to achieve that same end without letting them dangle her.

By telling him the truth she had guaranteed that he would linger in that jail.

She wrote: Wasn't last year's imprisonment and trial enough of that for one lifetime?

He ignored her, and framed a question in his mind: Calvin? What does he want?

To be you, she wrote. Or, failing that, to destroy everything you ever accomplish. He seduced a fine lady by giving her irresistible lust. Can you do that?

His reply: Never thought of that. Want me to?

No!!!! Not while you're not here in the flesh, you torturer.

I'm going to be tortured.

They're just going to run you. You'll enjoy the exercise.

The conversation would have gone on for a while, but there came an urgent knock at her door.

Someone knocking, she wrote.

Then she looked for heartfires just outside her door and found one. Fishy.

"Come in?"

"Two White man downstairs a-see you, ma'am."

Visitors, she wrote.

She looked for heartfires downstairs, but found only one man there to visit her.

Honor‚ de Balzac, she wrote. Calvin's partner in debauch. Must go down. Tomorrow?

And his answer: Tomorrow. Always. I love you.

Feeling a lump in her throat, Margaret folded up the paper and put it away. There were still many inches on the page to write more letters to Alvin.

Downstairs, Balzac bounded up from his chair. He was as jumpy as a frog on a frying pan.

"Monsieur Balzac," Margaret began.

"You must to help me with Calvin," said Balzac, his excellent English collapsing just a little. "Where is he?"

"I don't know," said Margaret. "He's not here, if that's what you mean."

"But he is here, Madame. He is here but he is not here. Look!"

When she looked where he pointed, she was surprised to see that Calvin was indeed there, sitting on a wooden plank bench, bouncing mindlessly, his eyes staring off into space. How could she not have noticed he was with Balzac when she looked for heartfires before coming downstairs?

Because his heartfire wasn't there. Or rather, it was a mouse-sized heartfire, and there was no future in it, only a sort of numb awareness of the present. As if Calvin were looking at his own actions through peripheral vision.

As if Calvin were one of the slaves.

But no. The slaves of Camelot still had their heartfires. Weak ones, with their true names lost to them, their passions damped and gone, their futures channeled into a few narrow paths. More, certainly, than was left with Calvin. He kept his name, but very little else. And as for future and past, they were a thick fog. Shimmers and shadows appeared, but she could make no sense