Free The Masque of a Murderer by Susanna Calkins

at Lucy. “Sister Theodora told me that thou hadst returned.”
    “Your husband seems to have been a very generous man,” Lucy said, indicating her hastily written script. “Devoted to helping others.”
    “Oh, how the Light of God flowed through him!” Joan said. “He did petition the king and Parliament, in our name. We must not forget how the Spirit moved him, and we must continue as the Lord wishes.”
    The woman in white began to sway and croon softly again, and Lucy could make no sense of her words.
    “She is Ahivah,” Deborah whispered. “My aunt. She likens herself to the Old Testament prophet, the one who warned Jeroboam that his lost kingdom would soon be restored. She foretold the return of King Charles seven years ago. The king called her his ‘Woman in White.’ That is why she still wears white today. Hoping he will recall her and her ‘strange prophecy.’”
    Was there a hint of scorn in Deborah’s voice? Lucy noticed the other Quakers were starting to frown, although Ahivah paid her no attention.
    “Hush, child,” Joan said, a warning in her voice.
    “Sister Joan, I assure thee, ” Deborah said, a slight emphasis on the plain-speech address, “I am being moved by the Lord to speak.”
    From the corner, Sarah spoke, trying to change the direction of the conversation. “Sister Esther, Lucy was just asking how thou met Jacob. I’m afraid I had lost touch with Jacob before the plague struck, and had only just heard that he had become a Friend at a recent meeting. How did thou and he meet? I should very much like to know, so long as it does not distress thee overly much.”
    “Very well,” Esther said, settling down in the embroidered chair closest to her husband’s corpse. “I was working with a tailor when the great plague struck. He and the rest of the family died. I can tell thee, ’twas a terrible time that I do not care to recall.”
    Around the room there were small murmurs. Everyone had lost someone during the plague. Lucy glanced at Sarah. Sarah’s own mother had succumbed to the great sickness during that dreadful time, as had many of their neighbors.
    Esther continued, “The tailor had left me the shop in his will, being that he saw all his other kin around him pass into the embrace of the Lord.”
    “Was that the Beetners?” Deborah asked. “I think I remember Jacob saying so.”
    Drawing a great breath, Esther put her hand to her heart. “Yes, the Beetners,” she said. “A Dutch family, they were. Good people. I was with them for several years. Went into service with them when I was a lass. My mother, a seamstress, had done piecework, so I’d learned at her knee. My father worked for a mill, delivering the pieces, bringing the wool to women like my mother.”
    “They left you their livelihood?” Lucy asked. “You must have been a good and loyal servant.” She was thinking of Master Hargrave, how he had given her so much when she left his service. He’d even offered her his wife’s clothes, which surely would have set her up nicely had she taken them.
    Esther lowered her eyes. “Yes, I was fond of them, and I believe they returned the sentiment. I managed on my own for a while, but few were buying woven cloths, so the business dried up. I sold what I could, and it was then that I met Jacob. I was but the daughter of a miller’s man, but my dear husband never held my lower birth against me,” Esther said, blowing her nose into a linen square.
    “Oh, what a good man he was,” Deborah said, starting to weep, too. She pulled out an embroidered handkerchief, dabbing at her eyes before spreading the cloth across her skirts to dry.
    Lucy could not help but notice the handkerchief, thinking it was rather ornate for a Quaker. It was adorned by an intricate pattern of leaves and flowers along the border. Within the bower she could see a lengthy phrase worked in a delicate script.
    “How lovely,” Lucy said, pointing at the handkerchief, hoping to distract the woman