The Heretic's Daughter: A Novel - By Kathleen Kent Page 0,5

are men and men will often fall short of Grace. But you could do no better than to put your faith in the Reverend Dane. He was my sister’s husband and has looked after me since your grandfather died.” She paused with her hand on my cheek and looked suddenly beyond me into the still-darkened common room. The sun had barely risen above the bottom window casing, leaving shadows pooled around the walls like draperies of black velvet. A barn owl at the end of his night’s hunting gurgled out one last protesting song. Grandmother raised her chin and sniffed at the air as though a warning wisp of smoke had found its way from the hearth. Her arm tightened around me, pulling me closer to the warmth of her body.

I have come to believe that some women can see things yet undone. My mother surely had this gift. Often without a word she would straighten her cap and smooth her apron and stand looking down the empty road that led to our house. And before long some neighbor or journeyman would appear at the yard and be surprised to find Goodwife Carrier standing at the door waiting for him. Perhaps that thread of knowingness had been passed to her from her mother. But Grandmother must have known that seeing is not enough to change the course of things, for she released me, starting the action of the treadle once more. Picking up the string of wool she said, “Accept whatever comes as the will of God, no matter how harsh. But if you are ever in need, turn to Reverend Dane and he will find a way to help. Do you hear me, Sarah?”

I nodded and stayed awhile at her side, until Mother called me away. Later I would often think on her words and wonder that she could have remained so kind under the yoke of a God who caused infants to die in the womb, women and men to be hacked to death by stone adzes, and children to suffer and die from the plague. But then, she would not be alive to witness the worst of it.

“WE’VE BEEN GIVEN a warning,” said Andrew, his voice high and brittle. It was dark but we could feel our breaths mingled together as we talked. Tom and Andrew and I sat on the sleeping pallet, our knees touching, our heads covered with the batting to mask the sounds of our whispers. Grandmother had prepared for the Sabbath with lengthy readings from Scripture before supper and it was hours before we could climb the stairs to our garret room for sleep. And so in the dark of the attic Andrew told us of Father’s progress north up Boston Way Road to the meetinghouse, the farmsteads lying along the frozen banks of the Shawshin as many as cones in a forest.

Approaching the village center, they came upon the meetinghouse, larger than the one in Billerica, with a full two stories with leaded-glass windows. It was the constable who unlocked the doors, letting them in to wait for the selectmen. The constable, John Ballard, had been positioned for fifteen years, though he was but thirty-two, and was a great bull of a man who lived less than half a mile from Grandmother’s house. Andrew grabbed my elbow, saying, “Sarah, you should have seen this fellow. He had hair the color of brass and a face that looked like boiled wax. Surely the man was poxed to have such holes on his face.”

It was another two hours before John Ballard returned with the selectmen, having left my father and brothers to shake off the cold below the drafty timbers. There were five patriarchs who finally gathered together in the meetinghouse, each wearing a thick woolen cape, none being turned or patched. They bore themselves with tight reserve and had names that were well known in Andover: Bradstreet, Chandler, Osgood, Barker, and Abbot. It was they who had the power to decide which families could stay and which families would be turned out. They sat together on benches facing my father, appearing as judges at a trial to which one was considered guilty until innocence could be proven. The most impressive, according to Andrew, was Lieutenant John Osgood, a severe and long-faced man who neither smiled nor made any words of greeting. The other men deferred to him in all things and it was he who asked most of the questions. A younger man,