sisters, really. Had they held up their palms, one beside the other, the same love line would have run through each of their hands until the middle of their palms, when the lines were diverted. This is how he’ll hurt you, this is the way you will blame yourself, this is your salvation, this is what you can see if you open your eyes.
Hathorne came into the room in a fury when he heard Ruth demanding that he deal with Maria Owens. Was it his fault he’d been enchanted? He was a victim as much as Adam had been, tempted into sin. “Why have you not sent her away?” he asked his wife.
Ruth threw him a desperate look, but he insisted.
“It’s woman’s work,” he said. “Just as you send away a peddler.”
* * *
Ruth whispered a prayer to protect herself as she opened the door. She wore a gray dress, with her cap covering her hair. She was pretty and pale and confused, but most of all she was frightened.
“He said you must go away,” she told Maria. Her voice sounded small and weak, even to her own ear.
“I’m not here to hurt you.” Maria felt a tightening in her throat. She was the woman she had never expected to be, someone who had broken another woman’s heart. “Please understand. I didn’t know about you.”
“I beg of you.” Ruth closed her eyes, as if by doing so she could make this dark-haired beauty vanish. She did not wish to see Maria’s eyes; people said they were silver, like a cat’s. “Don’t harm us.”
Maria took Ruth’s hand and Ruth’s eyes flashed open. Her eyes were so pale, so blue. They could feel the heat of one another’s blood. Maria let go. All she wanted was for this woman to hear her.
“Let him tell me himself,” Maria said, “and no harm will come to you.”
Ruth went inside and closed the door, her heart hitting against her rib cage. She was little more than nineteen years old, a motherless child, and now the mother of John Hathorne’s only son. Her own beloved mother had whispered in her ear before she and Ruth’s father were exiled to the wilderness of Rhode Island: Trust no one but yourself.
John was waiting for her, his expression wary. Tonight he looked older than his years; she could see the man he would be as he aged, his looks gone, his humor turned dark, a man who sat in judgment of all others. When you make certain choices, you change your fate. Look at your left hand and you will see the lines shifting into what you have made of yourself.
“Well?” he said.
At fourteen Ruth had been grateful that he’d married her, for she’d had no one, and knew nothing of the world. All she knew was this town. The elm trees with their black leaves, the bricked streets, the houses with their wooden shutters, the fields where the crows came to eat corn, the harbor with its boats straining to be free of their moorings, the endless winters with blizzards of snow. He’d told her to close her eyes and pray the first night they were together. He’d said not to cry, for it would displease God. She had done as she was told on that night and ever since, but now she lifted her chin when she spoke to him.
“She will speak only to you.”
“For that I blame you,” Hathorne muttered.
“And I you,” Ruth said in a soft voice.
At last he went outside wearing his coat, his face set in a dark expression. He had not seen Maria for who she was in the bright light of Curaçao, but he most certainly saw her now. He’d heard of such creatures, women who were beyond God’s watch and were said to devour a man’s soul and make a mockery out of decency. His wife’s erratic behavior was one more mark of her power.
“You’re not to come here,” he scolded Maria. He knew the neighbors were watching. They were always watching in this town. He stood on the other side of the fence.
“What coward asks his wife to do what he fears to do?”
“We cannot quarrel. No good will come of it.”
“And yet you came to me often enough.” Maria’s words caused the color to flare in his face. “Would you have ever told me you had a wife?”
There were features Maria possessed that he’d never noticed before, suspicious qualities. A black mark in the inner crook of her