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Back The Ninth Daughter
Chapters (37)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. Dedication
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Sixteen
  20. Seventeen
  21. Eighteen
  22. Nineteen
  23. Twenty
  24. Twenty-one
  25. Twenty-two
  26. Twenty-three
  27. Twenty-four
  28. Twenty-five
  29. Twenty-six
  30. Twenty-seven
  31. Twenty-eight
  32. Twenty-nine
  33. Thirty
  34. Thirty-one
  35. Thirty-two
  36. Thirty-three
  37. Thirty-four

Abigail settled the pork and cabbage in the Dutch oven, ringed with potatoes, and buried the whole under shovelfuls of coals. The Reverend Bargest’s father had been a minister, too, she recalled one of her unwilling hosts saying at some point during her night’s stay—clearly one of those who’d believed in the spectral evidence of the devil’s presence in Salem—and she remembered wondering at the time what would become of those young girls she’d shared that cold attic bed with: illiterate as dogs and knowing nothing but labor on the farm, the emotional ecstasies of the House of Repentance, and the Prophet’s authority.

What was it Bess had said, in another context, a few days ago? It is almost impossible to change one’s way of life . . .

She and Nabby were clearing up after dinner when Shim Walton appeared at the back door.

“Mrs. Adams,” he said worriedly as she stepped out into the bedsheet maze in the yard with him, “I remembered what you said, about not telling a soul, and I haven’t. But since I talked to Tim Flowers this morning—he’s the brother to Hap, that’s Mr. Tillet’s junior apprentice—I’ve been thinking about it, and thinking about it, and if you don’t tell someone I’m going to have to tell Mr. Butler. Because Tim says, that Hap says, that Mr. Tillet is keeping a lady locked up in his attic.”

Twenty-seven

Twenty-seven

028

Nehemiah Tillet’s brother-in-law was the magistrate of the Third Ward, and Abigail knew instinctively that he would speak to Tillet before paying a visit to the house.

Thus, Abigail wrote a note to Lieutenant Coldstone, and after a word with Mrs. Butler—Shim’s master being already gone to the ward meeting with John—she dispatched Shim to find a boat over to Castle Island. The boy was back in a few minutes, not much to Abigail’s surprise, considering how quickly dark was falling. With the onset of night, and the brisk wind now setting off the bay, no more boats were putting forth that day.

“But, m’am, they’re saying all along the wharf—and I could hear the men shouting about it in the taverns, too—that the other two East India Company ships have been sighted, the Beaver and the Endeavor. They’ll be at Griffin’s Wharf, they’re saying, with the flow of the tide.”