The Heretic's Daughter: A Novel - By Kathleen Kent Page 0,8

him down on the cot. Andrew was insensible, grasping at the covers and then throwing them off again as he was set upon by chills and fevers. Grandmother felt his face and knelt beside him, gently opening his shirt to reveal the first flush of a rash across his chest and belly. Mother came to stand next to the cot, her hand hovering just over the crimson patches.

“It could be any number of ailments,” she said, her voice sounding defiant, even angry. But she wiped her palms against her apron and I smelled fear among the folds of her skirt.

“We will know soon . . . perhaps tomorrow,” Grandmother said quietly as she laced up my brother’s shirt. She carefully inspected each of us for fever or crimson patches and then, without another word, began to prepare food for us and a posset to ease Andrew’s fever.

We ate our dinner in silence, broken only by the sound of the fire and the soft moaning coming from the corner where Andrew lay on his cot. Grandmother and Mother bathed his forehead and tried to force him to swallow whatever they could pour down his throat. Father sat as close to the fire as he could without climbing under the roasting spit and stared into the flames. The sweat poured from his face and he worked his hands together as though kneading beeswax between his palms.

Soon after, Tom and I were sent to bed, but neither of us could sleep. Sometime during the night I heard Andrew cry out as though in pain. I crept swiftly down the stairs in time to see him standing in the middle of the room, his arms outstretched, lit from behind by the fire that had burned low to embers. He had wet himself and seemed confused and wandering in his mind. Mother was trying to move him back onto the cot and he fought her as though drowning. Moving swiftly into the room, I took a rag and bent to clean up Andrew’s mess. Grandmother grabbed my arm and pulled me harshly away.

“Sarah, you must not touch any part of Andrew now,” she said urgently. She softened her grasp and stroked my face. “By touching him you may become ill as well.” She moved me to a chair close to the fire and threw her shawl around my shoulders. She wrapped the rag on a broom handle and cleaned up the clouded water on the floor, then threw the rag into the fire. I fell asleep watching the dark shapes of the two women hovering above my brother’s grasping, restless form.

I opened my eyes to the sound of Father’s voice in the room. It was early morning, and though there was little light, I could see the drawn face of my mother in the gloom. They were speaking quietly but passionately and did not hear me pad on cold bare feet to stand next to my brother’s cot. I looked at the blanket covering him and saw the faint movement of breath. I bent closer to peer at him and could plainly see on his face and neck the slightly raised pustules of the plague, rosy pink to deep purplish red; a pretty color on the petals of a rose or carnation. I took two, then three, steps backwards from his cot, and the thudding of my quickening pulse sounded like the drumming of hussars on horseback, sabers flashing through the air coming to sever our heads from our bodies. Many were the stories of entire families waking together in the morning but by supper all lying dead on the floor, festering in their seeping flesh. He coughed suddenly and I raised my shift in alarm over my face and turned away in fear. The shame over my disgust at his contagion was not enough to stay me as I raced with all the strength in my legs back up the stairs and into the safety of the garret.

ALTHOUGH IT WOULD cost us dearly, Grandmother insisted on sending to town for Andover’s only physician. Richard went straightaway but it took him four hours to come back with the doctor, who stood a good distance from Andrew, careful not to touch anything in the room. Covering his face with a large handkerchief, he looked at Andrew for the space of three breaths, then made a rapid retreat through the front door. But not before being escorted out by my mother’s voice, braying, “You’re no better than