Mercy apologized, and they hugged, proclaiming their love for each other once more. Freya said she needed to be alone to gather herself, and Mercy agreed to cover for her. They separated, Freya strolling deeper into the woods as Mercy returned to the barn raising.
Clouds blanketed the sun, and the forest was shrouded in shadow as Freya walked through the tall pines. She sensed a presence and turned to look back, hoping Nate might have followed her. She spun in a circle, scanning the woods, but saw no one. It must have been a wild hog or a deer.
She took a path she recognized. It wound through the trees coming around to the side of the Putnam farm. She stopped in her tracks. There was the knock of a woodpecker against a hollow trunk, but it had stopped abruptly. The wind picked up. She looked up through the trees at the sky, which had turned metal gray. Again, she spun around.
This time, a tall man stepped out from behind an oak tree large enough to have obscured him. He wore a black steeple-crowned hat with a buckle, a black cape over a red shirt, and black knee-length breeches with ocher socks. The silver buckles on his long black pointy shoes shone. Freya looked inquisitively into his small dark eyes. He had a grizzled mustache and a pointy goatee. She could hear his wheezy breath rattle in his chest. She recognized him from the meetinghouse.
“Why, hello,” he said, reaching out an infinitely long arm from the folds of his cape. He stood in the middle of the path, cutting off her way. “Allow me to introduce myself. Mr. Brooks at your service. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance…” He smiled, his hand still hanging in the air, waiting for Freya to take it.
Freya tried not to laugh. There was something ridiculous about the man, overblown, with the foppish attire and comportment. Mr. Brooks… this must be the uncle Nate lives with, she realized, and to be polite, she gave him her hand. “Freya Beauchamp,” she said.
The man took it, bringing it reverentially to his lips, pushing his cape back while bowing slightly. His dry lips made her grimace with repugnance, and she took her hand back as quickly as possible without being impolite. She curtsied. “A pleasure.”
He sighed, smiling. “It is all mine. I was escaping the barn raising just now, taking a shortcut home.” He placed a spindly finger to his lips to show this was their little secret. “How stupendous to meet such a lovely young maid along the way!”
Thunder roared. She heard the cries of the villagers. Most likely they were running for shelter before the rain came. She could feel that heaviness in the air that preceded a virulent downpour.
“Goodness,” said Freya, looking up at the sky. “I must take my leave!”
“Yes, yes,” said Mr. Brooks. “Go, child, go, get back to the farm before the tempest strikes and until next we meet!”
Freya curtsied once more, then ran as fast as she could the other way. She couldn’t get away from Nate’s slithery goat of a relative fast enough.
chapter twenty-one
Thank Heaven for Little Girls?
A few days later, Thomas Putnam sent Freya, Mercy, and his daughter Annie on the two-mile walk to the parsonage to deliver provisions the pastor had requested during his last sermon. The pastor had a habit of working in what he needed for his house in his railings against the devil. Stepping inside from the bright sunlight, Freya was momentarily blinded by the darkness as she and the girls entered the parsonage. The shutters had been closed to trap the nighttime cool, but the air felt thick and stifling in the middle of the day. A single candle flickered on the large wooden table.
As Freya’s eyes adjusted, she saw little Betty Parris on her hands and knees, scrubbing the flagstone floor with a brush, a bucket nearby. Abigail Williams, her older cousin, had been standing over her, as if supervising the younger girl’s work. Now Abby was striding toward Freya as Betty rose to her knees. The reverend’s girls beamed as if the visit were divine providence itself.
“Sister Beauchamp!” cried Abby, placing a hand on Freya’s shoulder. Abby was very fond of Freya. This was a source of discomfort for her because she sometimes sensed Mercy’s jealousy whenever she and Abby conversed outside the meetinghouse.
“Sister Lewis and Sister Putnam!” said Betty.
The girls joyfully greeted one another.
“Is the pastor in?” asked Freya. “We have brought meal, corn, soap, and candles!”
“Oh, no, he isn’t here,” said Betty. “He is out making his spiritual rounds with Mother and little Sister and Brother. They are to return at dinnertime. For now, we are all alone.” She was a delicate, frail-looking girl of nine, blond with sharp, foxlike features and pale hazel eyes. There was a smudge on her forehead, soot from the chimney. The hearth, Freya saw, had been scrubbed clean. The hall was spotless, precisely ordered, and smelled of orange blossom and myrrh. Freya gently rubbed the smudge from Betty’s forehead as the little girl smiled up at her for the kindness—a sweet little face with ruddy cheeks, Freya thought.
Mercy squinted, peering into the hall. “Are your Indian man and woman here?”
Abby knew of her fellow orphan’s story. “Worry not, Mercy. John is out in the garden. Tituba has just now wrung the necks of two chickens and is plucking them for dinner in the back. I will not let them in until you are gone if that will make you rest easier.”
“Yes, thank you, Abby,” replied Mercy, curtsying.
It still irked Freya that Mercy could not see that the servants were gentle, harmless folk. Abby offered the girls a seat. She said they must be weary and thirsty after such a long walk in the hot sun. Betty took the provisions from them and put them away while Abby lit candles.
“We do not want to keep you from your employment!” Freya said nervously.
“No, we must not,” agreed Annie.
“We know how the reverend is!” added Mercy.
Abby laughed. “Come now! You have brought provisions. The reverend would not mind if you sat for a while and had tea.” She went to retrieve glasses, a pitcher of tea from a cupboard, and some hard biscuits that smelled rancid. “We can have ourselves a trifle of mischief so long as it remains betwixt us!”
“Yes!” exclaimed Annie, who sat beside Betty at the table. The older girls laughed at the childlike enthusiasm.
Scarcely had they all sat when Mercy began rambling about James Brewster. Apparently, there was much to say about the youth’s looks and how she wished she could marry him and that she believed he shared her feelings. The girls listened, but Freya noticed how Abby kept glancing at her.