Katherine Howe - The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane

The Key and Bible

Peter Petford slipped a long wooden spoon into the simmering

IT WOULD APPEAR THAT WE ARE NEARLY OUT OF TIME,

SINCE ARRIVING AT HARVARD, THREE YEARS AGO, CONNIE HAD SHARED

I STILL CANT BELIEVE SHE DID IT, SPAT CONNIE. SHE

THERE IS THE DISTINCT POSSIBILITY THAT IT COULD BE A

Explain this to me again, said Sam, sliding a heavy

CONNIE STOOD, ARMS FOLDED, BEFORE THE IMPOSING GREEK REVIVAL edifice

THE SHOULDER BAG SLIPPED TO THE FLOOR WITH A DULL

CONNIE STOOD IN THE CRAMPED LADIES ROOM ON THE FIRST

SO WHERED YA WANNIT? ASKED THE MAN, PLOPPING HIS TOOL

HEY, CORNELL! A VOICE SAID, AND THE WORDS FLOATED IN

THE UPSTAIRS SPECIAL COLLECTIONS READING ROOM OF THE BOSTON Athenaeum

FRANKLY, I AM A LITTLE SURPRISED THAT HE WOULD CALL

CONNIE TOOK A LONG SWALLOW OF HER COCKTAIL, AND WHEN

DESPITE HER BEST EFFORTS TO FEEL AT EASE IN GRANNAS

The Sieve and Scissors

THE CARDS SPREAD ON THE DINING TABLE LOOKED LIKE A

The wooden bench in the vestibule outside of Manning Chiltons

A CHIME SOUNDED, AND THE GREAT MASS OF HUMANITY IN

THE BACKS OF CONNIES EYELIDS GLOWED RED, AND SHE BECAME

NIGHT CAME UNDER THE TIGHT CANOPY OF VINES OVER GRANNAS

THE GUARD BARELY LOOKED UP AS CONNIE FLASHED HER LAMINATED

THE SURFACE OF THE DINING TABLE WAS SPREAD OUT WITH

CONNIE EASED THE HANDLE OF THE HOSPITAL ROOM DOOR DOWNWARD,

THE LONG DINING TABLE STOOD CLEARED OF ITS USUAL FLOTSAM,

Marblehead, Massachusetts
Late December
1681

P eter Petford slipped a long wooden spoon into the simmering iron pot of lentils hanging over the fire and tried to push the worry from his stomach. He edged his low stool nearer to the hearth and leaned forward, one elbow propped on his knee, breathing in the aroma of stewed split peas mixed with burning apple wood. The smell comforted him a little, persuading him that this night was a normal night, and his belly released an impatient gurgle as he withdrew the spoon to see if the peas were soft enough to eat. Not a reflective man, Peter assured himself that nothing was amiss with his stomach that a bowlful of peas would not cure. Yon woman comes enow, too , he thought, face grim. He had never had use for cunning folk, but Goody Oliver had insisted. Said this womans tinctures cured most anything. Heard shed conjured to find a lost child once. Peter grunted to himself. He would try her. Just the once.

From the corner of the narrow, dark room issued a tiny whimper, and Peter looked up from the steaming pot, furrows of anxiety deepening between his eyes. He nudged one of the fire logs with a poker, loosing a crackling flutter of sparks and a gray column of fresh smoke, then drew himself up from the stool.

Martha? he whispered. Ye awake?

No further sound issued from the shadows, and Peter moved softly toward the bed where his daughter had lain for the better part of a week. He pulled aside the heavy woolen curtain that hung from the bedposts, and lowered himself onto the edge of the lumpy feather mattress, careful not to jostle it. The lapping light of the fire brushed over the woolen blankets, illuminating a wan little face framed by tangles of flax-colored hair. The eyes in the face were half open, but glassy and unseeing. Peter smoothed the hair where it lay scattered across the hard bolster. The tiny girl exhaled a faint sigh.

Stews nearly done, he said. Ill fetch ye some.

As he ladled the hot food into a shallow earthenware trencher, Peter felt a flame of impotent anger rise in his chest. He gritted his teeth against the feeling, but it lingered behind his breastbone, making his breathing fast and shallow. What knew he of ministering to the girl , he thought. Every tincture he tried only made her poorly. The last word she had spoken was some three days earlier, when she had cried out in the night for Sarah.

He settled again on the side of the bed and spooned a little of the warm beans into the childs mouth. She slurped it weakly, a thin brown stream slipping down the corner of her mouth to her chin. Peter wiped it away with his thumb, still blackened from the soot of the kitchen fire. Thinking about Sarah always made his chest tight in this way.

He gazed down at the little girl in his bed, watching closely as her eyelids closed. Since she fell ill, he had been sleeping on the wide-planked pine floor, on mildewed straw pallets. The bed was warmer, nearer the hearth, and draped in woolen hangings that had been carried all the way over from East Anglia by his father. A dark frown crossed Peters face. Illness, he knew, was a sign of the Lords ill favor. Whatsoever happen to the girl is Gods will , he reasoned. So to be angry at her suffering must be sinful, for that is to be angry at God. Sarah would have urged him to pray for the salvation of Marthas soul, that she might be redeemed. But Peter was more accustomed to putting his mind to farming problems than godly ones. Perhaps he was not as good as Sarah had been. He could not fathom what sin Martha could have committed in her five years to bring this fit upon her, and in his prayers he caught himself demanding an explanation. He did not ask for his daughters redemption. He just begged for her to be well.

Confronting this spectacle of his own selfishness filled Peter with anger and shame.

He worked his fingers together, watching her sleeping face.

There are certain sins that make us devils, the minister had said at meeting that week. Peter pinched the bridge of his nose, squinting his eyes together as he tried to remember what they were.

To be a liar or murderer, that was one. Martha had once been caught hiding a filthy kitten in the familys cupboard, and when questioned by Sarah had claimed no knowledge of any kittens. But that could hardly be a lie the way the minister meant it.

To be a slanderer or accuser of the godly was another. To be a tempter to sin. To be an opposer of godliness. To feel envy. To be a drunkard. To be proud.

Peter gazed down on the fragile, almost transparent skin of his daughters cheeks. He clenched one of his hands into a tight fist, pressing its knuckles into the palm of his other hand. How could God visit such torments upon an innocent? Why had He turned away His face from him?

Perhaps it was not Marthas soul that was in danger. Perhaps the child was being punished for Peters own prideful lack of faith.

As this unwelcome fear bloomed in his chest, Peter heard muddy hoofbeats approach down the lane and come to a stop outside his house. Muffled voices, a mans and a young womans, exchanged words, saddle leather creaked, and then a dull splash. Thatll be Jonas Oliver with yon woman , thought Peter. He rose from the bedside just as a light knuckle rapped on his door.

On his stoop, draped in a hooded woolen cloak glistening from the evenings fog, stood a young woman with a soft, open face. She carried a small leather bag in her hands, and her face was framed by a crisp white coif that belied the miles-long journey she had had. Behind her in the shadows stood the familiar bulk of Jonas Oliver, fellow yeoman and Peters neighbor.