Free Susannah Morrow by Megan Chance Page B

anyone.”
    “So you’ve said already,” I said. “I have not gone away, have I? So I must agree.”
    Mary looked at me for a moment, those cat’s eyes of hers seeming to glimmer and grow sharp in the candlelight. Then she glanced
     around the table, at mousy Mary Warren, and Mercy’s hollow eyes, and finally to Betty. “Very well,” she said. “But we cannot
     tell you here, and not today.”
    “Why?”
    “Not on the Sabbath.” She laughed softly. Her voice lowered so I had to strain to hear. “’Twould be a sin to talk about it.
     Meet us at the parsonage tomorrow afternoon.”
    I was confused. “Why the parsonage?”
    Mercy snickered into her hand. “You’ll see when you get there.”
    Mary shushed her. “Tell your father you must take something to Mistress Parris. A loaf of bread or a pail of beer. She’s ill,
     you see. The parson will probably be out. He usually is.”
    “Tomorrow afternoon,” I repeated slowly. I saw the hidden message in Mary’s gaze, the unspoken
don’t disappoint us.
It reminded me of the dares Mary used to throw at me: “You haven’t the courage to do it, have you, Charity? Such a mealymouthed
     girl you are.…”
    I gave Mary a little nod, and then her mouth tightened and her gaze swept past me and up. When I turned to follow it, I saw
     my aunt standing behind me, her cloak put aside now that the tavern was warm and stinking from so many bodies; the clothes
     she wore were startling among the muddied greens and browns and blues of my neighbors—a bodice made of scarlet paragon and
     heavy skirts green as the richest pine tree. Even in the dimness of the ordinary, those colors were so vibrant and bright
     they were almost blinding.
    “Your father’s sent me for you,” she said, but when I glanced past her to where my father still talked ardently with Francis
     Nurse, I knew she lied.
    “I haven’t heard the drum,” I told her. ’Twas insolent of me to speak to her in such a way; even Mercy Lewis looked surprised
     by it. Mary did not take her gaze from Susannah. She stared at those beautiful colors as if fascinated by them.
    My aunt laid her hand on my shoulder, a gentle pressure that was insistent just the same. “You’d best come, Charity.”
    ’Twas a mother’s touch, a mother’s quiet scold, and I resented it. I jerked my shoulder away, but not violently, just enough
     so she would feel it and know I did not want her there. She let her hand fall softly back to her skirt, seemingly undisturbed,
     and smiled at my friends, and I saw how that smile took them, how they were captured by it—so beautiful it was, on that face
     Satan had smiled upon.
    It snared even Mary, though she recovered sooner than the others and gave me a satisfied look that reminded me of the rumors
     I knew now were true. I bade my friends farewell.
    My father looked up as my aunt and I approached the table. “Your mother wished you away from those girls,” he told me. “You
     will follow her desires in this.”
    Francis Nurse said in his low, gruff voice, “Insolent wenches. Tom Putnam deserves those two he has.”
    I was saved by the sound of the drum summoning us back to the meetinghouse.
    I could think of little else during the afternoon service. Master Parris continued his sermon, and I tried to listen, but
     my mind kept turning back to Mary. I knew my father was right. I should stay away from my old friends, but today I realized
     how much I’d missed them, how lonely I’d been.
    The light outside was fading when the sermon wrapped to a close, and the list of my neighbors’ sins was read, their punishments
     decided on. The list was a short one this week, only two: an overly gossipy Hannah Dow was suffered to be put in the stocks
     for an hour for telling tales about her neighbors, and the miller’s apprentice sentenced to three hours in pillory for overcharging
     a buyer and lying to his master about it. Once the prayers over their souls were said, Goody Penney handed