THE BLEU MAIDEN

THE TROUBLES

Lucian D’Arture could see their salvation gliding into the harbor. The three masts belonging to the Bleu Maiden, sails flapping in the wind. Their escape route. Tonight.  Midnight. He would rescue his family from the witchcraft scourge ravaging Salem Village.

He left the docks and wove around the split rail fencing, past the row of thatched roofs and modest homes, smoke rising from chimneys.

Finally he arrived home. As he ducked under the wood framed doorway, the fresh air sent the hearth fire and lanterns flickering.

Inside, he straightened and unbuttoned his coat. “I had to finish a set of horseshoes before I could collect my wages.”

“More salted pork?” His tiny wife nodded at the pelt-covered surprise under his arm.  Dressed in a blue waistcoat and a striped apron, she stood at the end of the table, hair pulled back into a white coif.

“Nothing edible. Something for the voyage.” His gaze swept the wattle-and-daub walls, the two small beds that were empty. “Where are they? The children?”

“Leah will bring them.”

His wife’s older sister. Frowning, he placed the leather-wrapped package on the table, where it bumped against two cabbage heads and sent them rolling. “We cannot delay.  The Maiden sails in two hours.”

“Patience, husband. The docks are a five-minute walk.” She lowered onion bulbs from a hook. She wrapped them in cheesecloth and placed the bundle in a knapsack of herbs, carrots, potatoes and meats preserved in salt. Their possessions and clutter had been packed into the trunk, and the barren walls brought a thickening in his throat. Their home, gone.

But he could not dwell on what was, for this house where they had lived and conceived two children. The ship was docked and they must be on it. Lucian traced a leaf from a cabbage head as she packed several hubbard squash. “Did you tell her of our plans?“

“No.”

He closed the space between them. With his fingertips, he steered her chin upward so they looked directly at each other.

Abigail’s dark eyes watered. “Leah told me that more will hang next week. Alice and Mary Parker. Wilmott Redd. Martha Corey. Giles refuses to confess and there is talk that they will press him to it.”

Press him. Load heavy rocks on top of the old man until he admitted he was a warlock.  Surely the elders would regain their senses. The accused were harmless folk, not creatures of the devil.

Lucian remembered the summer hangings, the gallows rope going suddenly taut, the weight of the body creaking, swinging. The stunned sickly faces of those watching, paralyzed with fear they might be next.

“How could Martha be accused? She has never missed Morning Service.”

“Abigail, you look for reason and logic and there are neither.”

“During Service, the girls claim to have seen a tall man, an apparition who writes in blood.” She fidgeted with the cheesecloth. “Rumors abound . . .  that you are the tall apparition.”

He barked a harsh laugh. “I have no time to be an apparition.” He had not attended morning service where new troubles had been discussed. He’d choose iron tools and an anvil any day over the hysterics of young girls.

“You labor on the Sabbath, Lucian. This is sinful conduct, not in compliance with God’s wishes. You draw suspicion.”

“I draw nothing, woman, for we leave for England!”