It is late morning by the time I return home, and the winter sun is hidden behind a veil of drab clouds. The light feels weak and sickly, as though sifted through old cheesecloth. I ride Brutus through the woods and into the clearing, where I pause at a fork in the drive. Right will take me down to the mill, where I can hear the heavy whack-whack of my husband’s axe. But left will take me up the rise to the house where my girls are caring for Sam Dawin.
I am debating which path to take when I see the silver fox.
There, on the slope that leads to the south pasture, clear against the snow, is a lithe creature, almost entirely black, with piercing amber eyes. She is stunning. Vicious and proud. And I’d sooner shoot one of those trappers myself than let them turn her into a fur stole. Brutus twitches beneath me, curious and on edge, however. He is no fan of tooth or claw. But the little beast neither moves nor makes a sound.
After a long, lazy yawn in which her pink tongue unfurls into an S, she turns her pointed head to look up the hill toward the house. Then back to me. And back to the drive. Three times she does this, slow and certain. Back and forth. Then—out of nowhere—she yaps at me, sending Brutus into a wild jerk. It is a howling, barking noise. But not like a dog. Nor a wolf. Not the mean yip and snarl of a coyote. It is a sharp-toothed and feral sound. Caterwauling, my husband would say.
Finally, the fox sniffs the air, sits back on her haunches, and licks one tufted paw, as though satisfied.
She wants me to go to the house, I think, and am so startled by the realization that I gasp. The fox lifts her head at the sound, meets my gaze again, then springs to her feet and trots toward the woods.
“Stay safe, little one,” I tell her, and urge Brutus up the hill.
Our youngest son, Ephraim—a boy just turned eleven and named for his father—meets me at the garden gate. He reaches for the reins as I dismount Brutus.
“Be careful with him,” I say, unbuckling my medical bag from the saddle. “He is in rare form today.”
“No matter. He likes me.” He shrugs, confident he will come to no harm, then flashes a smile that reveals he has lost his final baby tooth.
“Still”—I bend to kiss the top of his head, then gently nip the side of one ear—“he bites.”
Young Ephraim giggles, and I ruffle his shaggy hair as he turns toward the barn to care for my horse.
It is hard to have an oldest child, but harder still to have a youngest. Soon he too will have a beard like Cyrus and an Adam’s apple like Jonathan. Soon he will spend half his nights away, and that will be the end of childhood in our home. I am fifty-four years old, and that boy is my last. This knowledge is both a relief and a sadness—I have brought nine children into this world, after all, and only six are still living. Like all mothers, I have long since mastered the art of nursing joy at one breast and grief at the other.
I stand at the door watching his loping, childish gait a moment longer, then I go into the house to check on Sam Dawin.
“How is our patient?” I ask my daughters as soon as I’m through the door. Warm air and the scent of freshly baked bread rush toward me, vanquishing the chill I’ve felt since leaving home in the middle of the night. “How did you know about him?” Dolly looks up, and I can see
curiosity burning in her eyes. They are the same bright blue as her father’s. “Word travels fast.”
At twenty and seventeen Hannah and Dolly are women, not girls—all hips and curves—racing toward their own lives and away from home. It
won’t be long before they outgrow me, before they outgrow their willingness to be only daughters and sisters. Soon the inevitable will happen: they’ll want to be someone’s wife. Someone’s mother.
“Well?” I ask. “How is he?” “Awake—” Dolly says. “And hungry,” Hannah adds.
“And eager to go home. But we made him stay.”
Sam Dawin is not a small man, nor does he seem the type to take instructions from anyone, much less young women half his size. Curious, I lift an eyebrow.
Hannah stands by the fire, running flax fibers through thumb and forefinger and onto a drop spindle that swings gently near her feet. The heavy spindle twists the fibers into a line of newly formed linen thread that, when long enough, she wraps around the bobbin at its base. Given the eight spools of thread that sit neatly on the hearth, it’s clear she has been at this work all morning. A smile bobbles on her lips. Unlike her younger sister, Hannah has my eyes—wild and brown, like a dust storm. No wonder Moses Pollard has fallen under her spell.
“I hid his britches,” she explains.
In addition to having acquired the exact tone and tenor of my voice, the girls have also learned a way of speaking in which they not only finish each other’s sentences but, apparently, their thoughts as well. They begin another rapid-fire exchange, and I glance between them, trying to keep up.
Dolly stands at the kitchen table, dressing a roast for dinner. Her dark, curly hair is tied back, her hands deft. “He was furious.”
“Wouldn’t let us in the room.” “But then he fell asleep.”
Hannah also acquired my curls, but hers are flaxen instead, pulled into a braid that hangs over her shoulder. “He’s been out for two hours.”
“Shattered with exhaustion.” Dolly ties off the cut of beef with a piece of string.
“Too much excitement.”
Laughing, I slide out of cloak and gloves, then lower my voice. “Where did you put his clothes?”
Hannah nods toward my workroom and mouths “cedar chest.”
From the time they were born, the girls have been surrounded by men. Father. Brothers. Countless patients. And while I have never specifically trained them to deal with the more obstinate sex—the way I have trained them to stitch wounds and spin flax and cook for a small army—I am gratified to see that they are already well versed in the fine art of managing recalcitrant patients.
“What time did Jonathan bring him?”
The girls look at each other, silently calculate the time. “Close to three—” Hannah says.
“Maybe an hour after you left to tend Betsy Clark,” Dolly interrupts. “We were still asleep.”
As a midwife and healer, it is not uncommon for me to hear a pounding on the door in the middle of the night, accompanied by a desperate summons. A plea of some sort. I am used to waking at the drop of a pin. And my family has long since grown accustomed to being yanked from sleep to tend the needs of our neighbors. But it must have been a rude awakening this morning because they were out late last night with their older brothers at the autumn Frolic. This dance, held seasonally for the young people in our community, is the highlight of their social calendar. The girls had barely made it home before I was called away by John Cowan. They seem to be taking it all in stride, however. My daughters are more accustomed to blood and injury and mayhem than many physicians twice their age.
“Was Sam bad off?” I ask.
Dolly wipes her hands on her apron. “Bad enough that he couldn’t walk. Jonathan had to drag him in.”
“It’s a wonder he didn’t die,” I tell them.
“He likely would have. But Jonathan wrapped him in blankets as soon as they got him out of the water.”
“We stripped his clothes and put him in our bed.” Hannah blushes at this, then shrugs. “It was still warm.”
“Dad pulled stones from the hearth and wrapped them in blankets.” “We set them on either side of his head, neck, and feet.”
Hannah and Dolly go back and forth telling the story, like they’re tossing a hot potato between them, holding on to it just long enough to give a detail or two.
“It took a long time for him to stop shaking.” Hannah looks at her sister, eyebrow raised.
“Almost till sunrise,” Dolly adds. “Once he did, we spoon-fed him some tea.”
“Since he held that down we gave him broth.” “Didn’t take long for him to fall asleep after that.”
They look at each other and burst out laughing. Hannah bites her bottom lip for a bit, then cackles even louder. “Woke up not long ago to realize he is naked as the day he was born. Now he’s steaming like a teapot.”
They have seen naked men often enough. My patients, mostly, though occasionally one brother or another shamelessly bathing in the river. Not to mention Young Ephraim, who must be chased down and forced to bathe—a job they are none too fond of. Both girls are typically rather sanguine about the bare human form, and I’ve rarely seen them gawk or blush. But I would imagine that Sam Dawin is a rather more impressive specimen than they are used to.
“Nicely done, girls,” I say. Then something occurs to me. “Where’s Jonathan?”
“He should be back soon. Dad sent him to tell May Kimble what’s happened—seeing as how she and Sam are betrothed.”
“What about Cyrus?”
A brief, furtive look passes between the girls. “He was up and out shortly after we got Sam to bed. Said there was work to do.”
There is always work to be done at the mill, but I’ve never known any of our sons to volunteer for it after a mere two hours sleep. Hannah turns
back to her spindle, and Dolly wipes down the counter. Both turn curiously silent.
“And what’s the thing I need to know but neither of you are telling me?”
Again, that look between them. And this time I see Hannah shake her head. Don’t say it, she silently orders.
But Dolly has always been a bit bolder than her big sister, and she’s not yet learned to keep secrets from me. “There was a fight last night. At the Frolic.”
“Between who?”
“Cyrus and Joshua Burgess.”
I lift my head sharply at this news. Narrow my eyes. “Over what?”
“It’s my fault,” Hannah says, and those stormy eyes flash. But in anger, not fear. “Burgess asked me to dance, and I refused.”
“He kept after her all night, Mother,” Dolly says. “But it wasn’t until he grabbed her arm and yanked her toward the dance floor that Cyrus went for him. The scuffle didn’t last long, but Burgess landed a couple of good hits, and now Cyrus has a black eye and a split lip. He’ll be fine. But I’d wager Burgess will be walking with a limp for a month.”
I open my mouth to answer that he won’t be walking anywhere, ever again, then snap it closed. The girls don’t yet know he’s dead, and I can’t tell them until I’ve spoken to Ephraim.
I extend one hand to my elder daughter. “Let me see your arm.” “It’s nothing,” she says, turning back to her work.
“Hannah.” A single word, a definitive order.
She drops her spindle to the basket and unbuttons her blouse before shrugging her left arm free. And there on her smooth, milky skin is a ghastly bruise, all red and blue, and I can see five angry finger marks. Burgess hadn’t simply grabbed her. He’d had her arm in a vice. Dug into her with his fingernails. Yanked. It is a violent mark, and my stomach sours at the sight.
I run my hand along the swollen skin, furious at what Burgess did to her, but also thankful for whoever broke his fingers.
“What happened after the scuffle?” I ask.
“They kicked him out of the dance,” Dolly says. “Cyrus and Jonathan and Sam. Several of the others too. Hauled him out by his arms and legs and pitched him into the snow. He never came back in.”
I clear my throat so the girls won’t hear the emotion in my voice. “It wasn’t your fault, Hannah. You don’t owe anyone a dance. Or anything else. You were right to turn Burgess down. And Cyrus was right to thrash him for touching you.”
Oh God, oh God. The thought assails me, as I step into my workroom to put my things away. What else did Cyrus do to Burgess last night?
Once I have settled myself, I go back to the main hearth where a large cast-iron kettle hangs over the fire. I ladle a bowl of stew for Sam Dawin.
“Bread’s ready too.” Dolly points at several oblong mounds set on the counter and covered with linen towels.
I add a thick slab of warm bread, covered with three pats of butter, to the tray and go to speak with our patient. I don’t knock or announce my presence, and when I push against the door it swings open with a soft groan. Startled, Sam sits bolt upright, mouth open, hair wild, looking much like a drowned man himself. He grips the bedclothes so hard his knuckles turn white. Sam is a bit worse for wear after his plunge into the river. His face and hands are scratched, and his right shoulder is badly bruised.
“Mistress Ballard.” He offers a polite nod of greeting. “It’s good to see you alive,” I say cheerfully.
Sam settles back against the headboard and pulls the blanket up around his bare chest as though embarrassed, as though half the people in this house hadn’t already seen him wearing only the skin God gave him. He could use a shave, a haircut, and a full night’s rest, but other than that, Sam is in decent shape. He’s a good height with a strong back, and even though his auburn hair would be more becoming on a woman, he usually manages to look ruddy instead of sunburned.
“I did fear for a minute I was dead,” he says.
“You were close. Or so I’ve heard.” I set the tray on the end of the bed and step back. “Hungry?”
“Very much. Thank you.” Sam bends forward to grab the tray and slides it onto his lap. He must have caught sight of one of the girls through the open door because he glares at something over my shoulder. “May I have my clothes? I’d like to go home.”
I have never met a grown man who, when thwarted like a child, doesn’t act like one. His pinched eyebrows give him the petulant look of a toddler, and I stifle a laugh.
“Of course. I believe they’re dry now,” I tell him. Sam plunges his spoon into the stew, but stops with it halfway to his mouth, when I add, “But there’s one thing you can help me with. Before you leave. If you don’t mind.”
“What would that be?”
I shut the door then cross the room and lower myself to the wooden chest that sits below the window. I fold my hands in my lap and give him a reassuring smile. “I’d like to know what exactly you saw under the ice this morning.”
He draws back with a flinch, and stew sloshes over the edge of his spoon and back into the bowl with a tiny plop. Some look—horror or fear or maybe disgust—flashes through his eyes, but then Sam lowers his head and studies his food, hiding whatever he feels.
“Why would you want to know a thing like that?”
“I’ve just come from the tavern.” He looks up at me sharply, and I add, “They called me to examine the body. But it would also help to know what you saw, under the ice.”
“A dead man. But you know that already.” “Yes. But could you tell who it was?”
He hesitates, the muscles along his jaw straining as he clenches his teeth. “Not at first. It was dark. The sun hadn’t come up.”
“But not so dark that you mistook him for a log or debris. You knew it was a person.”
“Well, his face was there, an inch or so below the surface of the ice, staring right at me when they pulled me out. I couldn’t see much under the
water—just a tangled form of some kind. But out of the river it was obvious enough.”
“And did you recognize him then?”
“I’ve seen Burgess often enough to know his face.” “He was hanged, Sam.”
He swallows hard. “Who…”
“I can think of a few people who’d like to see him dead.”
He studies me for a moment before asking the obvious question. “Like Joseph North?”
I lean forward and rest my elbows on my knees. “That will be hard to prove without the rope. I asked at the tavern, but no one saw a rope when they cut him from the ice. Was there anything in the water? Anything at all that you remember?”
“No.” Whatever appetite Sam Dawin might have had evaporates. He drops his spoon back into the bowl and pushes the tray away. “I am grateful for your kindness, Mistress Ballard. I truly am. But I’d like to go see May now. She’s probably worried half to death.”
*
When Jonathan returns from telling May Kimble about the accident, I step outside to speak with him. He has just pulled the wagon up to the garden gate and stepped down from the seat when he sees me.
“I’ve come to take Sam home,” he says. “What happened last night?”
Like half my children, Jonathan has his father’s eyes, and I see the flash of terror in that deep, clear blue. But only for a moment. Only until he shutters the expression and locks me out.
“He fell through the ice.”
“I mean at the Frolic. With Cyrus?”
It’s been a full day, at least, since Jonathan has slept, and everything about how he pushes through the gate says he’s not in the mood to talk, but
he knows I won’t let him pass without an answer of some sort. “Burgess wasn’t invited. But he came and caused a scene, and we handled it.”
“Well Burgess is dead now, and I’m going to need a better answer than that.”
My son is twenty-six years old—a man grown, bearded, and strong— but I am his mother, and I know every expression his face can form. The way he avoids showing emotion by breaking eye contact. The way he sets his jaw when troubled. And cries only in private. I know it all. And in the end, exhausted though he may be, Jonathan’s will is no match for mine.
“He touched Hannah.”
“I know. She told me.” He relaxes a bit then, and I ask, “Everyone saw the fight?”
“Was impossible not to. Happened in the middle of the dance floor and the music stopped and everyone crowded round. But he was alive when we kicked him out. You can ask anyone that was there.”
“People will ask. You know that, right? So you have to tell me
everything.”
“There’s nothing else to tell.”
It’s not that I don’t believe Jonathan; I just have the sense he’s giving me only half the story. But pressing him further will do no good. He needs to get Sam home. He needs a hot meal and a warm bed and a full night’s sleep. And perhaps, after those things, he’ll be more forthcoming with the details.
Sam Dawin rescues him by stepping out the front door. He is dressed and haggard, but he politely tips his hat in farewell. “Thank ye again, Mistress Ballard. I am in your family’s debt.”
I pat his cheek. “Nonsense. I am glad you’re safe. Please give my regards to May.”
*
Once Sam and Jonathan leave, I go back inside and retreat to my workroom. It sits off the kitchen, and the sun slants through the windows,
illuminating the rows of dried herbs that hang from the ceiling. Shelves filled with bottles and little linen sacks—each carefully labeled—line one wall. There are boxes and baskets everywhere. A long workbench littered with other concoctions from my garden in various stages of fermentation and dehydration. A mortar and pestle. Rolls of twine. Bits and bobs. Corks. A scale. And there, on the hearth, a small kettle for boiling roots. There is a rectangular wooden box with leather hinges—long since brittle and cracked with age—sitting in the middle of the worktable. Sharp, slender knives; and smooth, round stones. This is my apothecary, my sanctuary, and it smells of lavender and woodsmoke, basil and vetiver. Mint. Catnip. Lemongrass. Situated, just so, on the side of the house—thanks to good planning on Ephraim’s part—it catches light from sunrise to sunset.
I make my way to a small wooden desk before the eastern window and settle onto the stool that Ephraim built to accommodate my unusual height. Barefoot, I can almost look my husband in the eye. And though there are many things he loves about me, this is foremost.
What a strange beginning to this new day, I think, then take a long breath through my nose, letting the fragrant herbs settle me. I am certain there will be no retreat from whatever comes next. But at least I have a few moments’ peace to record my thoughts on everything that has happened in the last few hours. A large leather-bound journal sits at the corner of my desk, and I pull it closer.
Three times a year my husband orders cakes of ink from a stationery shop in Boston. They come two to a box, pressed into small, round disks, with the word Larkin stamped on top. It costs Ephraim five shillings for the ink and one for the postage, but he pays it gladly even though he says Ebenezer Larkin has a foul mouth and a fondness for whores. This is how Ephraim shows his devotion, making sure that I always have something with which to write. On our wedding night, many years ago, he gave me the first leather journal, identical to the one on my desk now. He said it was a place to keep my thoughts together in one place, and his only request was that I not let it sit empty. I have filled a dozen of them since. The books themselves are easier to come by than the ink, and it isn’t uncommon for
Ephraim to return from a trip to Boston with a new volume filled with blank, stiff pages. I find them on my stool, often with a pressed flower tucked between the pages. Those flowers—now dried—remain exactly where he placed them, while the books themselves reside on a shelf across the room.
I keep up with the journals because I enjoy it, but also because it is my job. One of the duties of my profession. As a midwife and healer, I am witness to the details of my neighbors’ private lives, along with their fears and secrets, and—when appropriate—I record them for safekeeping. Memory is a wicked thing that warps and twists. But paper and ink receive the truth without emotion, and they read it back without partiality. That, I believe, is why so few women are taught to read and write. God only knows what they would do with the power of pen and ink at their disposal. I am not God—nor do I desire to be—but, being privy to much of what goes on behind closed doors in this town, I have a rather good idea what secrets might be recorded, then later revealed, if more women took up the pen.
I suspect that I will need to remember the events of this morning, so I reach for quill and ink.
The journal is spread open to yesterday’s entry. As is my habit, I began with the weather, but left the rest of the entry blank so that I might fill it in later:
Wednesday, November 25—Clear and cold. The ice runs in the river.
I break off a piece of ink cake and mix it with water in a small silver dish, the bottom of which is stamped with an image of a man astride a horse. Below it are engraved the words PAUL REVERE SILVER, BOSTON. Another gift from Ephraim. Another bit of extravagance, though this one rather personal. My husband and Mr. Revere formed a friendship of sorts during the Revolution, and the silversmith has never forgotten him as a result.
I dip the quill, tap it twice on the edge of the dish to knock off the excess ink, and continue the entry:
Cyrus, Jonathan, Hannah, and Dolly attended a Frolic at the home of May Kimble. Got home late. Then Jonathan set out for Long Reach, with a raft of boards. Sam Dawin and James Wall with him.
I lift the quill from the page, pausing. The room is no longer cold, so I can’t account for the shiver that crawls up my spine.
It’s only that fox, I think, and look out the window to where I last saw the little beast. She is long gone, and daylight has chased all the menacing shadows from the woods, but I still feel something looming in the distance, a portent of some kind.
“Don’t be a fool, Martha Ballard,” I mutter, then lower both eyes and quill. Before long the gentle scratching continues.
Thursday, November 26—Clear and very cold. Birth. Charles Clark’s third daughter.—I was called by Mr. Cowan to attend Betsy Clark who was in travail, at the second hour this morning. She was safe delivered of a daughter (her third child, all daughters) at the fourth hour. I left her cleverly and was conducted to Mr. Pollard’s. I am informed that Jonathan and others were attempting to go down with a raft and were enclosed by the ice at Bumberhook Point. The ice makes very fast. Sam Dawin
fell through as he was attempting to go to shore but was
saved….
My hand hovers above the page, and I am about to record the death of Joshua Burgess, but something scratches at the back of my mind, like a tiny itch that I can’t reach, so I flip backward in the diary, searching for an entry that I made last month.
There are no page numbers in my book, but that never stops me from finding an old entry when I need to. The thing about setting ink to paper is that it allows me to remember which side I’ve written on and where along the page an entry lies. I remember ink blots and words I have struck through. Errors and misspellings. Even now, I can see the entry in my mind, see that the top left corner of the page has been torn off and that there is a smudge in the margin. Recalling those details, it is easy enough to locate.
Thursday, October 1—Clear except some showers. We had company this afternoon. Mr. Savage here, informs us that Mrs. Foster has sworn a rape on a number of men, among whom is Joseph North. Shocking indeed! I have been at home.
Oh God, I think, sitting upright on my stool. I have to tell Rebecca before someone else does.
*
The fact that I refuse to ride sidesaddle or pillion has long since ceased to astonish our neighbors. Such arrangements are neither practical nor timely given how often I am summoned to one emergency or another. There is no use in being ladylike when lives depend on my speedy arrival. Once I have changed back into my riding outfit—a brushed twill skirt with two rows of
buttons that, depending on how they are configured, can transform the garment into wide-leg trousers—I go to the barn to saddle Brutus.
Cyrus is there.
For a moment I think it’s Ephraim—so alike are they from behind— and then he turns, and I see the beard.
He catches sight of me in his periphery and startles. But in the time it takes me to blink, his unease is replaced by a quick smile that reaches all the way to his hazel eyes. Then he winces and I see the split lip, the bruised eye. Though I know he doesn’t want me to, I gently set my hand to his face and turn it this way and that, inspecting him.
Cyrus rolls his eyes. Sighs. But allows my ministrations. Nothing is broken. No need for stitches. So I let him go, and step back. These grown boys of mine will allow mothering only in small doses.
“When did you get home?” I ask.
He shrugs, as though time is a construct of little interest to him. And perhaps it is. We do not own a clock, but each and every Ballard—myself included—has an instinct for time, a certainty learned by the angle of the sun and the length of shadows. Even in winter. Even with nothing to work by other than heavy cloud cover and opaque light. Time is a thing we feel, and our days are ordered accordingly.
Brutus hangs his head over the stall door and snorts as though he knows exactly why I’ve come, as though he is displeased to see me.
“I have to take him out again,” I tell Cyrus, with a frown. “I’m sure he’ll be an ass about it.”
He looks to where Sterling is grazing happily in his stall, placid as always, and I know what he’s thinking.
“No,” I say. “Brutus has to get used to me. And riding him is the only way to make that happen.”
When I move toward the tack room, Cyrus waves me away. I watch my oldest son grab the bridle and lead Brutus from his stall. I watch him methodically saddle my horse, testing the buckles exactly the way his father taught him. This is a new thing, his desire to coddle me, to protect. I find it irritating and intrusive. He is beginning to think of me as old.
As soon as Brutus is ready, I take the reins.
“I know what happened at the Frolic.” Those beautiful hazel eyes narrow. He is wary. “And now Joshua Burgess is dead. Jonathan and Sam found him in the river this morning.”
Cyrus stumbles backward as though I’ve slapped him. He lifts his hands, palms out, as though to say he had nothing to do with that.
“I know. But when I get back, you are going to tell me everything.”
