The same old woman who weeks ago had pricked Bristol with the knife led her into a room containing a wooden tub filled with water. The old woman pushed Bristol into the tub and gave her a perfunctory scrub with stinging lye soap. At the finish, the old woman tossed a handful of clothes toward Bristol and ordered her to dress.
The clothes were neither new nor very clean, but compared to her own filthy rags, they were queenly raiments. The old woman eyed Bristol fleetingly and pronounced her satisfactory. Apparently it wasn’t necessary to attack the embedded dirt beneath Bristol’s nails, or curl her hair, or tend to the red rashes of bug bites. So long as she wasn’t offensive to the nostrils of judge and jurors, she would do.
Guards returned her to the pen with instructions to practice standing in order to endure tomorrow’s long journey to Salem Town.
Bristol walked to her rectangle of space and leaned against the fence, her heart still thudding. From the moment they’d called her name, her nerves had tingled in fear and dread. How did one adjust to dying? She’d faced death before—but it was never acceptable.
Uneasily she scanned the compound, seeing that the women avoided her as if she carried a fatal disease. Their eyes slid toward Bristol, then dropped away. Bristol Adams Wainwright was a dead person; they all knew it. Only Divinity Cooper offered comfort.
Divinity settled beside Bristol, and together they watched the sun disappear in a blaze of reds and purples. A glitter of stars appeared overhead. “I’ll miss you,” Divinity said. A rustle of women adjusting themselves in sleep whispered through the night.
“I hope your tall, handsome man finds you,” Bristol answered. Leaning forward, she placed her small hoard of treasures in Divinity’s lap. She had one limp carrot, a ragged piece of shawl, and a battered shilling which had been bequeathed to Bristol in similar fashion.
Divinity accepted the items with tearful gratitude. “Thank you.”
Although neither could think of anything to say, Divinity remained. No words would ease the fright and hopelessness in Bristol’s heart, but it helped not to be alone.
In the restless silence, Bristol’s thoughts ranged through a panoply of years. She recalled herself as a child, as a young adult, and examined the woman she’d become. People whom she’d known and loved paraded through her mind, and she longed toward each, saying good-bye. One face surfaced again and again, but she couldn’t bear to bid it farewell. Not yet. Not until the very last.
“Divinity? Are you awake?” Bristol asked softly.
“Aye.”
“Once, Divinity, I knew a very special man. His name was Jean Pierre La Crosse, and I loved him as life itself, and he loved me...” Her story spun into the starry night. Bristol talked to the distant white twinkles, and Divinity listened, understanding Bristol’s craving to speak his name, to summon his image... to say good-bye in her own way.
When Bristol’s voice trailed, both girls sat quietly. Then Divinity pressed Bristol’s hands. “You’ve been luckier than most,” she said. “You’ve had a great love. Which is more happiness than most here have had.” She didn’t speak with envy; Divinity uttered a simple truth.
“I never told anyone this,” Bristol said in a low, thick voice. “But... I never gave up. Deep inside, I always thought that somehow... somehow Jean Pierre and I would find each other again. When Caleb died... God forgive me, for a while I hoped that maybe... you see, I’ve never imagined growing old without seeing Jean Pierre at my side.” She remembered that she would not live to grow old. “Somehow I thought we’d age together, surrounded by children with gray eyes and red hair.” Her head dropped. “Oh, Divinity, I love him!”
Divinity squeezed her fingers and gently tugged Bristol to her feet. “Come on, it’s time to stand and stretch.”
They gazed toward Boston’s moonlit harbor, both thinking of sea captains and great loves. And because she’d talked about him, in every dark ship on the water Bristol saw the Challenger. Neither girl noticed a glow behind them until Bristol yawned and turned back toward the fence.
“Divinity!” Bristol’s fingers clawed at Divinity’s suddenly rigid arm.
“Oh, God!” Divinity breathed. “It’s happening!” Her eyes rounded in fear.
A long line of flickering torches advanced on the prison, bobbing up Prison Lane from the town proper. Bristol and Divinity distinctly heard a low rumble of angry shouts and the sound of horses.
Dropping to her feet, Divinity wrestled frantically with the iron cuffs circling her ankles. A sob burst from her lips. “They’ll kill us!” she cried. “They’ll kill us all!” One of the sleeping women lifted up and yelled for Divinity to be quiet.
Bristol knelt beside Divinity, her mind racing, “They can’t kill us all! We’re too many.” She clapped a hand over Divinity’s whimpering mouth. “Listen to me! Someone will see the torches. Someone will send for Reverend Mather. Even now he’s probably gathering men to help us.” Was that true, or had Boston exploded in witch fever as Salem had? “I’ve seen Cotton Mather handle a mob before. He’ll help us; he believes in the law.”
“We’re the closest pen, they’ll take us first,” Divinity wept.
First one woman overheard and looked for herself, then another. News spread through the compound like wildfire, and the women woke screaming. The pen erupted into a madhouse of screeching, terrified women. They sprang from their cramped spaces and ran forward, forgetting the iron balls shackling their feet. Many pitched forward into the muck.
Bristol jerked up, blood pounding in her ears. The other pens woke, and screams blew through the prison like a wind from hell. In front of the jail, the torch line broke into two groups, one racing to subdue the guardhouse, the other... the other running toward them. Bristol spun and stared in terror as the gate crashed inward and torches and men spilled into the pen. For an instant they halted, taken aback at the massing of devil’s hags screeching and cowering from the light. Then the men flooded into the pen. The women shrieked and tried to run and could not.
Bristol’s hands leaped to her mouth. Several women were clubbed to the ground like helpless animals at a slaughter. Others huddled against the fence, covering their heads and screaming for mercy.
The men dashed through the enclosure, bending to unlock iron bands with keys mysteriously produced. Brutal kicks herded the women out the gate.
Relentless hands bruised into Bristol’s skin, holding her while another man opened the cuffs on her ankles. Throwing aside the chains, he turned to Divinity. Divinity sobbed and begged, but her cries went unheard in the explosion of noise and screams and shouts. Viciously the men booted both girls into the stumbling crowd of women streaming from the gate. Outside, men circled the women, prodding them with sharp lances into a terrified knot. Others drove stakes into the meadow grass and piled faggots at the bases.
“Burn the witches!” impatient voices shouted. “Burn the hags of hell!”
Divinity clung to Bristol’s arm, sobbing, her body shaking uncontrollably. The women wept and pleaded and screamed for pity.
In the midst of the wailing terrified women, Bristol stood like a frozen statue. Her body quivered in violent spasms, but her mind felt apart. Her death was preordained. Dying no longer frightened her. Burning did. To hang was terrible, but it was also quick; burning was not quick. Eyes wide with horror, she stared at the men stacking dry wood at the stake bases, and her mouth fell slack.
Finished, the men whirled and ran toward the circle of women. Brutal hands flew into the ring and dug into flesh. Bristol felt herself yanked forward. Divinity and five others were pulled out next, all whimpering and falling, weak with terror.
Three men half-carried, half-dragged Bristol to the last of the stakes. They hurled her against a wooden pole and lashed her arms behind her. A cord circled her waist, and another cut into her throat, binding her to the stake. “Please,” she whispered, her voice a terrified croak. “Please.”
They didn’t hear. They ran on to the next stake, cutting lengths of rope to bind Divinity.
Bristol’s head sagged against the pole, and she peered toward the night sky, hidden by bright torchlight. A cracked voice floated across her mind: “... and the one who is not, shall stand in dark flames...”
“But not the others,” Bristol prayed through bloodless lips. “Please, God, save them. Help us, Father, help us!”
Her brimming green eyes looked desperately to the town in the distance, and a flutter of hope quickened in her breast. Tiny dots of light wound toward the prison. Another line of torches streamed up from the harbor. But they were so far away.
The men in the clearing ran back and forth, flickering torchlight illuminating their faces. Seven women were lashed to the stakes. More men searched the meadow floor for additional poles. The remainder gathered behind a man who obviously led the mob; they looked to him, waving swords, muskets, and hissing torches.
The leader stepped forward, a tall man in somber Puritan dress with a face that twisted in fear and loathing. He waved a worn Bible in the night and lifted his voice. “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live!”
“Aye!” roared the voices. A lone shout lifted. “No sermons, Hacker, get on with it!”
“Aye!” came the chorus. “Burn them! Burn the witches!”
Hysterical, Bristol stared toward the dots of light in the distance. “Hurry!” she urged. “Hurry!”
“Have you anything to say?” the leader cried in a parody of legality.
Goodman Hacker earned a torrent of scorn. “Never mind that!” “Burn them!” “Set the torches!”
A dark-haired woman tied to the first stake screamed, “I curse you! God will give you blood to drink! God will curse your babies and the seed of their seed!”
The men gasped and drew back. Then the mob surged forward, and only Hacker’s hasty intervention prevented them from tearing the woman from the stake and killing her with their bare hands.
“Hear me!” Goodman Hacker shouted, running up and down before the line of stakes. “Hear me! They will all die! Blood will cleanse Boston of evil, but blood washed in fire! Blood shall not stain our hands!” He pulled the men from the woman. “Colter! Light the fire on this one! Now!”
The man called Colter began with the cursing woman. He thrust his torch deep within the pile of faggots and held it there. Then he ran down the line. The bound women screamed, and their eyes bulged toward the curls of smoke drifting at their feet and hems. The circle of women awaiting their turn at the stakes covered their eyes and shrieked. They held to each other and watched Colter pausing at each pole, then running forward.
Colter shoved his torch against the wood at Divinity’s feet, ignoring her screams; then he raced toward Bristol. For an instant he stopped and stared into her panicked, pleading gaze. This one was cleaner than the rest; he could see what she looked like. “You’re beautiful!” he breathed.
“Please,” Bristol said. Her lips framed the word, but only a croak emerged.
“Colter!”
The man gave his head a shake, looked about him, then bent with an angry glare. He plunged the torch into the wood at Bristol’s shoes.
A panting silence bung in the clearing of men and whimpering women. All eyes fixed on the gray curls of smoke fogging the women’s feet. In the distance came faint shouts and the pound of horses’ hooves, but no one turned to see.
Then the wood about the feet of the cursing woman caught with a soft burst of flame, and a hoarse cheer broke from the men’s throats. All down the line of stakes, fire blossomed in orange balls around the base of the stakes.
Above a hurricane of fear roaring through her mind, above the crackling whisper of flame, Bristol heard Divinity scream—a long hopeless wail that pierced the autumn night. It went on and on and on. A wavering curtain of heat shot up from the fire nibbling Bristol’s feet, and she blinked at the men’s eager contorted faces through a wave that shimmered and moved.
One or two of the men seemed to suddenly realize what they did, and they sank to their knees with pale sickened expressions. But the mob didn’t see; they waved their fists and shouted triumph until their throats rasped hoarse.
Scorching heat flickered against Bristol’s cheeks, and her hands at her back grew hot and tingled. By straining at the cord around her neck, she could glimpse the woman tied to the first stake. The cursing woman’s skirt caught fire with a soft poof, and flame raced up the oily rags. Her wide mouth opened in a shriek that clawed along mind and flesh.
Frantically Bristol twisted and jerked at her ropes. Her fingers scrabbled at the back of her skirt, puffing it up in clumps, trying desperately to keep her hem from the licking flames. Fire caressed her shoes, and slowly the soles charred and blackened. Heat scalded into her toes and calves and penetrated her hysterical mind. She saw the first woman’s hair explode in a fiery halo around her face. Bristol screamed, a long mindless shrill of sound.
When her eyes snapped open, it was as if her scream had blown the men backward in a giant wind of anguish; they ran and scattered. Foaming horses poured into the clearing, and the women’s screams mingled with a clash and ring of swords meeting swords, of musket fire flashing deadly light. Men from the harbor spilled into the clearing. Fighting, shouting, screaming people ran everywhere.
It could all be seen by the light of the burning witches. A smell of charred flesh wafted outward in nauseating oily drifts. The first woman, blackened on the stake, her white boiled eyes the only dots of color to mark where her head had been. Divinity’s skirt ignited in a flaming column, and the girl screamed in a voice of madness.
Bristol leaned her head against the stake, screaming through cracked lips. Fiery fingers began to stroke her hem, dived, flickered, and suddenly flamed her skirt in a circle of orange horror. The fire raced up her body, seeking flesh and hair and bone.
A tall powerful man broke from the shouting, slashing mob and raced behind Bristol. His sword flashed down the stake, and hand and waist and throat cords fell away. He dragged her from the flames and threw her into the dirt, rolling her back and forth. Smothering hands beat at her body, at the smoking ends of her hair. And she screamed when his hands touched her lower legs, the raw burned flesh.
Her clothes ripped from her body, still smoking, and a man’s cloak dropped over her chemise and charred petticoat. Bristol pulled to her hands and knees and lifted her head. She shook tears of pain from her eyes and tried to see clearly. “Oh, God,” she whimpered. It couldn’t be. “Jean Pierre?” Her whisper was disbelieving. “Is it you? Is it really...?”
He bent, and she saw his face in the blazing firelight. The firm jaw, the ridge of scar, the finely molded nose... and his hard smoky eyes. Pain and joy washed across her mind in red waves.
Jean Pierre’s powerful arms swept her into an embrace and held her against his chest. “Little love! Tell me you’ll be all right!” His hand stroked her hair, touched her face, turned her eyes to meet his.
Bristol’s arms flew around his neck, a cry broke from her lips. “Jean Pierre! Jean Pierre!”
The intense gray eyes closed for an instant. “Thank God!”
Her trembling fingers leaped to touch his face, his hair, his grim mouth, the scar she knew so well. Hysterical laughter welled in her throat. How was it possible? Maybe she’d gone mad with pain and terror. But no, the muscles rippling beneath her fingers belonged to no other. Whimpering, she buried her face in his neck and clung to the smell of salt and sea and man.
“You’re safe now, little one. Safe.” Tenderly he lowered her to the meadow floor, and her hands moved over him, reassuring herself, not wanting to let him go.
He caressed her cheek, his gray eyes flickering. “God, how I’ve, longed for you!” he whispered. Then he was running toward the crush of swords and shouting, his blade in his hand.
She’d believed she remembered everything about him, but she’d forgotten his fluid grace of movement, the easy confidence, and the power in his face, his stance. Bristol pulled into a sitting position and dashed tears of pain from her eyes. She found him in the slashing swirl of firelit bodies, his shoulders straining, his face hard and concentrated. Thigh muscles bulged, his arm rose and struck metal, lifted again and sliced into flesh. Bristol buried her face, then looked again. He was still there, fighting, shouting, living. As she watched, another man stepped free for an instant, saluted her with his sword and a scarred grin, then whirled back into the fight. Mr. Aykroyd.
Bristol’s heart soared in joy. She could have watched them forever, her eyes shining with love, but she remembered Divinity. On hands and knees, wincing and groaning, she crawled to the crumpled, charred heap that was Divinity. Divinity was hurt, hurt badly, but the girl was alive. Bristol gentled Divinity’s head in her lap, lifting the girl so Divinity could see the fight. Divinity’s eyes rolled up, glazed with pain, and she ran her tongue over ash-flecked lips. “Will they burn us again?” she panted.
“No,” Bristol soothed, pushing matted hair off Divinity’s brow. “No, everything will be all right now.”
And she believed it would be. Bristol’s feet throbbed and flamed, her hands were black in spots. But she scarcely noticed. Her eyes followed a white shirt weaving and slashing through the mob. The men from town flooded into the clearing, and Bristol saw Reverend Cotton Mather plunge into the foray atop his white horse. Bending under the force of additional men, the mob gave way and gradually retreated into the darkness. Muskets fired from a greater distance.
As suddenly as it had begun, it ended. The clearing was littered with wounded men from both sides; others milled about aimlessly, swords swinging from their hands, their eyes turning again and again to the charred black things hanging from the first two stakes.
Guards rushed into the clearing, freshly released from the captured guardhouse, and their eyes widened in sick horror at what they saw. Rapidly, voices raw with shock, they rounded up the women and led them back to the pen.
“No! Not this one.” Jean Pierre’s steely eyes fastened to those of Captain Kingston. Jean Pierre’s hand tightened on the hilt of his sword, and his legs bent and tensed.
“They all go back,” Kingston whispered. His face drained of color, and he knew himself outclassed. But he stepped back, positioning for battle. He hefted his sword, testing the weight, readying himself.
A knife appeared against Kingston’s back, and Mr. Aykroyd’s voice hissed softly, “I think not. We saved yer incompetent arse from more trouble than ye’ve got already. Yell have plenty to answer here as it is. We’ll take these two women as our prize.”
Bristol stared up from where she held Divinity, and saw the indecision on Kingston’s pale face. Even with Jean Pierre’s sword at his chest and Mr. Aykroyd’s knife at his back, the man displayed a stubborn courage.
Cotton Mather spurred his horse toward the conflict. “Kingston!” his authoritative voice cut through the tension. “Release these women into Captain La Crosse’s care. I’ll take the responsibility.” He reined his horse and peered down at Kingston. “I have it on good authority that three days hence, the governor will adjourn the court of oyer and terminer. These two would eventually have gone free anyway.”
Kingston’s eyes found Bristol, and she saw in his glance that the termination of the court would not have come quickly enough to save her from the rope. Slowly Kingston moved his eyes from Jean Pierre’s narrow stare to Reverend Mather. “It’s on your responsibility.”
“Aye.” Mather watched Kingston walk away; then he extended his hand to Jean Pierre. “Thank you, Captain, my men wouldn’t have arrived in time. Is this the young lady you’ve been negotiating for?” He smiled at Bristol.
“Aye.”
Mather lifted the reins. “It’s been a pleasure having you in my home, La Crosse. If you lay anchor in Boston again, my wife and I would be pleased to have you and your lady stay with us.”
Jean Pierre bowed from the waist. “Merci. Please extend my thanks to Goodwife Mather for her hospitality.”
Reverend Mather tipped his hat and rode toward a group of men knocking over stakes.
Dropping to the grass beside Bristol, Jean Pierre stared deeply into her wide shining eyes. “I’ve come for you,” he said softly. Gently he moved Divinity’s head, then gathered Bristol into his arms. Their knees sank in the meadow, and he held her tightly to his heart.
Mr. Aykroyd drove his cutlass into the grass and knelt beside them. His scarred face split into a grin. “I swear, gel! Ye best marry the captain quick. I never did see anyone get into such messes on their own.” He shook thin wisps of hair and smiled. “Ye’re the most disaster-prone gel I ever did see! And look how ye’re dressed! A man’s cloak and yer under-things! Didn’t I teach ye anything?”
Bristol smiled, her green eyes luminous. “God in heaven, but I’m glad to see you both!” She reached a hand to that dear ugly cheek.
He covered her hand with his own. “Little gel, ye—” A flash of orange exploded at the edge of darkness, and Mr. Aykroyd’s expression froze. The sound of a musket shot floated into the night. Instantly Jean Pierre jumped forward, catching Mr. Aykroyd before he crashed over Bristol. “No!” she screamed, her eyes blank and rejecting.
Bristol clawed herself up over him, her hair falling against his cheek. A ragged wet flower opened on his lower chest. Bristol’s horrified eyes lifted to Jean Pierre, seeing his expression harden to stone. “Speak to me!” she cried, turning back to Mr. Aykroyd. “Oh, God, no! Speak to me.” Her fingers flew over his face, his shoulders, his arms.
“Well, if that don’t beat all!” Mr. Aykroyd stared up indignantly. He pushed up on an elbow, touching his side and staring at the blood on his fingers. “The fighting was over. Over!” He looked from Bristol to Jean Pierre, then back. He grinned. “Hurts like hell. But at least it ain’t my face this time.”
Jean Pierre’s tight expression relaxed. Winking at Bristol, he bent to help Mr. Aykroyd sit. “That’s good. We’d hate to see your beauty marred.”
Mr. Aykroyd’s grin widened. “They’s a widow in Southwark what feels the same.” He tore his shirt and wadded the material against his wound. Then he looked at Bristol’s frozen face, and his eyes softened. “It’s all right,” he said gently. “I’ve come through worse than this. I plan to bounce yer babies on me knee.”
Her hand shaking violently, Bristol reached out and touched his lips, then his hair and his check. She buried her face in her hands. “I thought... oh, dear God, I thought... I just couldn’t bear it if... not you! I...”
Her shoulders convulsed; then Jean Pierre was lifting her, cradling her in his strong arms, pressing her face into his shoulder.
And the tears came. A wet torrent scalded down her face. Tears gushed from her eyes, and deep shuddering sobs tore her throat. Hot burning tears, the tears she’d repressed for so long—they streamed and flooded and poured from her eyes and heart. She could not stop. Her shoulders heaved in deep racking spasms, and her breath choked in wet gasps.
Jean Pierre sank to the autumn grass, and they remained on their knees, clinging to each other. “If Mr. Aykroyd had died...” Bristol sobbed, gasping and strangling. Her fright opened the floodgates of her heart. “So many died! Charity, and Caleb, and Papa, and Rebecca, and Martha, and John Proctor, and all the rest! And our baby! Oh, Jean Pierre, our little baby!” The tears she’d stored in some secret core burned down her cheeks in aching painful sobs, a torrent of anguish. Her throat swelled raw, and her chest convulsed. And still the tears rivered down her cheeks. Cleansing, healing tears.
Holding her quivering wild body, Jean Pierre kissed her hair, her flowing eyes, her moaning lips. His strong arms circled her, and she wept until each shuddering breath was agony and her throat felt like fire.
When she began to quiet, Jean Pierre pressed her limp body against his hard warm chest, listening to her weak sobbing. “We’ll sail at dawn,” he murmured against her hair. “I’m taking you home to England, my little Bristol.”
She stared up with swimming vision, meeting those deep gray eyes. “Please. Can we leave now? Tonight?”
Jean Pierre glanced over her head at the dying embers of seven fires, and his eyes steadied on the shadows of the pens. Mr. Aykroyd groaned. Then Jean Pierre gently brushed her wet cheek with his thumb. “The Challenger sails tonight, my love.”