The others laughed. “Better at what?” asked Mike Fink. “Whining like a mosquito whenever you see a bee?”

“I don’t like bees,” said Cooper.

“They like you.” said Arthur Stuart.

“Because I’m sweet.” He was joking, but Purity could see that his fear was growing greater. She glanced around, looking for the source of the danger.

Smith noticed the way she looked around and took it as a sign, or perhaps just a reminder. “Come on now,” said Smith. “Time for us to move on.”

“No,” said Cooper. Purity could see his resolve harden. He wasn’t just afraid—he was going to act on his fear.

“What’s wrong?” asked Smith.

“The girl,” said Cooper.

“What about her?” demanded Arthur Stuart. He spoke so truculently that Purity expected one of the men to rebuke him. But no, he was treated as if his voice had equal weight in the company.

“She’s going to get us killed.”

Now she understood. He was afraid of her. “I’m not,” she said. “I won’t tell anybody he’s a papist.”

“When they put your hand on the Bible and swear you to tell the truth?” asked Cooper. “You’d send yourself to hell and deny that you know that he’s Catholic?”

“I am not a good Catholic,” said Audubon modestly.

“Then you go to hell no matter who’s right,” said Smith. It was a joke, but nobody laughed.

Cooper still held Purity in gaze, and now it was her turn to be afraid. She had never seen such intensity in a man, except a preacher in his pulpit, during the most fiery part of the sermon. “Why are you afraid of me?” asked Purity.

“That’s why,” said Cooper.

“What’s why?”

“You know that I’m afraid of you. You know too much about what we’re thinking.”

“I already told you, I don’t know what anybody’s thinking.”

“What we’re feeling, then.” Cooper grinned mirthlessly. “It’s your knack.”

“We already said that,” said Fink.

“What if it is?” Purity said defiantly. “Who’s to say that knacks aren’t gifts from God?”

“The courts of Massachusetts,” said Cooper. “The gallows.”

“So she’s got a knack,” said Smith. “Who doesn’t?”

The others nodded.

Except Cooper. “Have you lost your minds? Look at you! Talking knowledgeably of knacks! Admitting that Jean-Jacques here is French and Catholic to boot.”

“But she already knew,” said Audubon.

“And that didn’t bother you?” said Cooper. “That she knew what she could not possibly know?”

“We all know things we shouldn’t know,” said Smith.

“But until she came along, we were doing a pretty good job of keeping it to ourselves!” Cooper rounded on Purity, loomed over her. “In Puritan country, people hide their knacks or they die. It’s a secret they all keep, that they have some special talent, and as soon as they realize what it is they also learn to hide it, to avoid letting anyone know what it is that they do so much better than other people. They call it ‘humility.’ But this girl has been flaunting her knack.”