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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

She was silent a moment, remembering a man named James Otis—a great thinker, a great organizer, a pillar of the Sons of Liberty, who had slowly gone mad as a bedbug. His sister—to whom Abigail still wrote—had spoken to her of his torments, knowing that he could no longer be trusted, of her wretchedness at watching that brilliant mind eclipsed, and knowing that there was nothing anyone could do to save him.

When Orion is sane, she wondered, does he know that he’s mad?

Or does he only suspect it in his dreams?

When Muldoon excused himself to her and rose, and crossed to the other table to make the acquaintance of the men with whom he’d share one of the beds in the big chamber upstairs that night, Abigail sat for a time in thought. She should, she knew, put in a half hour with quill and paper, composing orders purportedly from Lieutenant Coldstone to Sergeant Muldoon instructing him to go where she told him and do what she said, in case it later occurred to him to ask someone else to verify the document she’d shown him.

Instead, when Mrs. Purley came in with another pitcher of steaming cider, Abigail beckoned her. “My dear, I hope that soldier with you doesn’t mean your Mr. Adams is still in trouble with His Majesty?” said the innkeeper’s wife softly. “What a fuss they made, over that horse he left here lame—and by the by, Mr. Thaxter left his pipe here on accident when he came to fetch the beast, and we’ve got it saved for him in the pantry—”

“Thank you.” Abigail smiled, and clasped the woman’s hand. She’d become well acquainted with Mrs. Purley in the years that her own sister Mary and her husband had lived in Salem. “Remind me of it tomorrow . . . And no, all is well, Sergeant Muldoon is inquiring after another matter . . . Would you know,” she asked artlessly, “the name of that girl who was slashed to death so horribly, about ten years ago out toward Townsend?”

1763—or thereabouts—was, she knew, the year that Orion Hazlitt had come to Boston.

Jemma Purley’s round face clouded, and Abigail knew before she spoke, that she was right.

But Mrs. Purley asked, “Which one?” and Abigail stared at her, aghast.

“There was more than one?”