Chapter Text
i.
The burn and everything that follows is really her mother’s fault, but Hannah Miller would never say the words out loud.
She certainly knows better.
Instead, clutching her burned arm and trying not to let the pain show on her face, Hannah does what she always does, what she’s gotten good at over the past several years of her life. She chews the inside of her cheek and says nothing.
And, as usual, her mother does not seem to notice.
It’s only later, hours after the fact, when Hannah is working the heels of her hands into the dough taking shape on the countertop, that her mother flicks an eye toward her arm and the brilliant red welt on the skin. “You shouldn’t be so clumsy, girl.” It’s a repetition of what she’d said after it happened, as though she wasn’t the reason that Hannah’s arm had connected with the cast iron in the first place. “Watch yourself.”
Hannah drives her hands into the dough on the counter and says nothing.
Just as she says nothing when her father asks her about what happened later, eyeing the still aching slash of red across his daughter’s arm with something resembling concern.
And she says nothing, still, when she tosses and turns all night long, the stiff bedding of the mattress needling her hips and thighs as she tries to get comfortable, something that is impossible because of the heat and ache radiating out of her arm. In the darkness of the room, the moon nothing more than a sliver in the sky and offering nothing to see by, Hannah holds up her arm and imagines she can see the place anyway, the long burn stretching nearly from wrist to elbow, red and raw and hot. She’s been burned before but never like this and the inside of her cheek is raw from the amount of times Hannah has found herself chewing on it.
In the morning, Hannah almost wishes that it was still too dark to see the burn in its entirety, because something about looking at the raw slash of skin just makes it hurt even worse and she has to carry the water bucket in her other hand because even the brush of early morning air makes it ache.
Abigail is already at the well, drawing up the bucket with the lazy sort of slowness that lets Hannah know she’s trying to waste as much time as possible, and her eyes flick toward Hannah with interest. “Morning.” Her features brighten at the sight of her and Hannah, too, feels the sort of relief that can come only after setting eyes on one of your favorite people. Not that Hannah has many people in Union vying for that title.
“Morning.” Hannah sets the pail on the ground. “Need help with that bucket, there? Seems awfully slow coming this morning.” She grins, nose crinkling, as she teases.
With a smirk, Abigail lets the rope slips through her fingers and the bucket makes a wet slapping sound as it settles back into the water. “Oops.” Her grin falters as she looks at Hannah’s arm, lifting her eyebrows. “What happened there?”
Hannah glances down at her arm like she could’ve possibly forgotten it was there. “Oh…I…” She grits her teeth around the impulse to lie, even to Abigail. “My mother. She wasn’t paying attention and…” Hannah gestures toward her arm, still remembering the press of the iron, scalding from hours and hours in the fire, as it had made contact with her skin. The smell, first, and then, slowly almost, the pain. “Somehow it’s my fault.”
Abigail scoffs out something that might be a laugh, the press of her lips saying more than Hannah knows their words ever could. Of course. Mothers. “You need to put something on that,” she says instead. “It’s going to get worse.”
In the watery morning light, the burn looks almost ridiculously bright and it radiates heat, pulsing with her heartbeat. “I can’t stand the idea of putting anything on it,” she admits. “Wrapping it, or…even water…”
Shaking her head, Abigail’s brow furrows and she glances quickly over her shoulder before leaning closer to Hannah and whatever Hannah is expecting her to say it is certainly not, “You should go see the witch.”
Hannah blinks, taking a step back on impulse. Like the word, dirty and sticky and dangerous, might cling to her if she gets too close. “What are you talking about?”
Now that she’s already said it, the words seem to come easier and Abigail almost looks delighted to be having this conversation. “The witch. Out in the woods. You should go to her for help.”
The idea of it makes Hannah’s skin crawl, makes her chest tighten and a nervousness coil in the base of her head. “I doubt what I need is witchcraft.”
Hopefully, if God is watching her now, He will forgive the direction of this conversation.
Abigail smirks, like Hannah is the ridiculous one here. “Not witchcraft. Not…for this, at least. She knows medicine too.”
Hannah glances down at her arm before giving Abigail a skeptical look. “And how do you know this?”
At least this question finally causes the amused smile to fall off Abigail’s face. Her cheeks redden and she clears her throat, shifting. “I’ve…been there before. With Lizzie.”
Hannah’s eyebrows lift toward her hairline. “And why were you-”
“It doesn’t matter,” Abigail says quickly. “The thing is…she was able to help me. And I think she would be able to help you, too.”
“But she’s a witch,” Hannah protests, the words hissing between her teeth and sounding a lot like they belong to her mother. In fact, most of what Hannah even knows about the witch in the woods, and the family that had gone with her, years ago, has come from her mother and the rest of the chatty wives in Union.
Hannah’s own memories are vague at best, the cloudy recollections of a child who, at ten, had no understanding of why one of the families in the settlement was being forced to leave, only that the few times she dared to ask she got a palm across the face for her troubles. So she stopped asking.
“The Bible says-”
But Abigail cuts her off with a shrug. “Well, just making the suggestion. She might be a witch but I doubt she can grow your arm back when it rots right off your body.”
Hannah rolls her eyes. “Thank you for that, Abbi. I will be sure to carry that image with me all day.”
That, and the thought of actually going out to see the witch in the woods. Both thoughts coil in her stomach, writhing around like snakes eating their own tails.
Abigail starts wrenching up the water bucket once more, spurred on by the approach of a few more of Union’s townspeople. “Consider it,” she says, helping the tilt the bucket into the one at Hannah’s feet so she doesn’t have to move her arm. “That looks like it hurts.”
“More than you know.” Especially since holding the now full bucket requires two hands.
Throughout the day, Hannah tries a variety of other remedies. She tries dampening a cloth and laying it across the wound. She tries just letting water run from the tips of her fingers onto the skin. She tries a clean, dry cloth. She doesn’t get anywhere with any of them, her eyes filling with tears immediately, teeth gritted against the pain.
After another sleepless night, the idea of disappearing into the woods to track down a witch does not seem so bad.
Especially since the burn is getting worse, as Abigail predicted, unchecked and untended to, weepy and red, and it hurts badly enough that when her mother’s chemise sleeve brushes against it while Hannah is sweeping, tears immediately fill Hannah’s eyes.
Later that afternoon, she goes to see Abigail and the other girl gives her whispered directions while she hangs laundry on the line and her younger sister, Constance, tries to sneak close enough to overhear their conversation, her eyes narrowed with an annoyed curiosity.
It is only in the middle of the night, as Hannah listens to the sounds of her parents sleeping on their own stiff, uncomfortable mattresses, and the noises of Union just on the other side of the wooden wall, that she decides she’s going to go. The inside of her cheek is raw and bloody, just like the mark on her arm, and Hannah is tired of swallowing down when all she wants to do is scream.
And maybe there’s a little bit of guilt in Grace Miller after all, because when Hannah says she’s going to go ask Goody Lane, the midwife, for a suggestion on how to reduce the pain of the burn, her mother huffs out a breath but doesn’t pile her with a dozen things to do instead.
Really, there’s no reason Hannah can’t just go see Goody Lane, except that the woman really is only good for tending to mothers in labor and all but washes her hands of the process once the babe is out and if the witch really knows the things Abigail says she does…well…
Even as she walks now, her pace brisk but easy, her arm stings, the pain radiating all the way to her elbow. The skin is shiny red and hot and in the sunlight that filters through the trees that grow thicker the further Hannah moves from Union, the skin stings and aches in a constant reminder of its presence. The only companion she’s had this consistently since she was a little girl, she thinks.
Hannah has never been in these woods. Why would a good girl, a sweet girl, the pastor’s daughter, need to venture beyond the edges of the settlement? What is out there for her, but wild animals and wild men and the savages that would all eat her up, just the same. Her head is full of all the warnings she’s ever gotten about leaving Union, tales of heathens and ungodly men from her father. Of demons and creatures that would prey on her soul and ravish her body from her mother. And the stories of those who hadn’t been born in Union, who know of the other places that Hannah has only let herself think about in absent moments, wondering how life might be different there than it is in Union.
The path is unfamiliar and uneven beneath her feet and the forest is alive around her, rustling and shaking and snapping, though every time Hannah looks around she never sees anything that might be responsible for the noises. But there are the birds, too, and the occasional squirrel that chitters and jumps overhead, proof of the other lives that are going on whether Hannah can see them or not. The further she walks, the more comfortable she becomes, her feet growing used to the uneven path, the twists and turns that snake her in between trees and Hannah straightens her shoulders, turning her face toward the bits of sunlight that fall in through the canopy. It’s beautiful, in its own way, the leaves a riot of greens and yellows, and the browns are deep in a way Hannah knows could never be recreated on fabric.
Eventually, she reaches the stream Abigail had told her to look out for, cradling her injured arm against her chest as she crosses the rocks that dot the water, trying to keep her balance. Just beyond, the trees start to thin out, the ground slightly clearer than the area she’s just left, proof that someone has been out here after all, all this time.
Still, there’s no sign of anyone. And definitely no sign of…a witch. Hannah hesitates on the opposite river bank, all the easy lightness of the journey leaving her as quickly as someone snuffing out a candle. Is she really going to do this? Find the witch? Talk to her? Ask for help? What would her father say? Her mother… If she’s destined to suffer, then that is God’s will, obviously, and she is a heathen or worse for trying to go against His designs. Especially with witchcraft.
Hannah takes a step back, uncertain. If she goes back to Union, no one will ever know that she was here. And technically, she hasn’t actually seen the witch, can’t even see the house Abigail had described to her, so what is the harm, really? She can claim ignorance, innocence, and not have to worry about what might happen to her soul after having been so close to such a creature.
Swallowing, Hannah turns back toward the stream, fortified by her decision. Coming here was stupid. Foolish. Reckless. What was she even thinking. Quickly, Hannah takes a step toward the stream, and then another, her heart pounding, beating in her throat and making it hard to breathe, but she’s almost there, soon she’ll be able to cross again and-
Something snaps behind her. A stick, breaking under the weight of someone.
Or something.
Hannah stops, turning back, trying to swallow around the slick, bitter taste of fear in her throat. Her eyes scan the ground around her, the underbrush, looking for the source of the sound. A rabbit or squirrel probably.
Or a demon.
The bushes rustle, the sound too loud, too forceful, to be just the wind or even a rabbit, and Hannah can’t move, can’t breathe, can’t do anything but stare at the tangle of brush and brace herself for what unholy terror is about to come forth. What type of demons must lurk around, protecting a witch’s house from intruders like her?
Another rustle and the bushes part and a beast surges forth, black and furry and charging at her on four legs and the weight of it is against her legs suddenly, knocking her to the ground, and Hannah cries out mostly from the pain in her arm but also because of the fear, white hot and sharp.
And then the beast is licking her face and when Hannah reaches up to push it away, her fingers brush against a dog’s muzzle.
A dog.
Hannah blinks, trying to focus on the wiggling bundle of fur that is trying to lunge at her face once more. She holds her arm as close to her chest as she can without actually letting it brush the fabric of her dress and the dog yips, stubby tail wagging so fast the whole backside is going with it and this is most certainly not a demon.
“Hello dog,” Hannah says, looking around for proof of where this beast might have come from. “What are you doing out here?”
In response, the dog lunges for her again, trying to lick her face. His foot jostles her arm and Hannah tries to suppress the cry, her breath hissing between her teeth, and her eyes blurring with tears. Before she can push the dog aside, a whistle cuts through the air and the dog turns quickly, bounding off Hannah’s chest like he hasn’t just sent waves of pain shuddering through her body.
A figure comes into view at the end of the path, cloaked and with features impossible to discern, even out in the sunlight, and Hannah tightens her fingers around her wrist, the sound of her blood rushing in her ears.
“Merryboy! Where are you, dog! What have-”
And then the voice goes silent, the air around them still, and Hannah knows she’s been spotted. Noticed. Here, sprawled out in the dirt, in front of the witch.
The dog finally stops sniffing at Hannah’s ankles and turns, bounding off toward the figure, dancing around her feet and jumping up for attention but the witch ignores him, her focus solely on Hannah. Even though Hannah can’t make out her face, her features, she knows without a doubt that the witch is staring at her, can feel the heat of her gaze scorching her skin.
“You should get up, then,” the witch says finally. “Before he decides you want to roll around in the mud with him.”
Slowly, Hannah eases herself to her feet even as the figure moves closer and a part of her wants to protest, to call out, “No, stay there, I was just leaving” but the words are stuck in her throat, just like her breath, and all she can do is stare, standing there, as the witch gets closer.
The dog runs between them, wagging his tail, only to go bounding off again when he seems to decide neither of them will pay him much mind. The witch is a yard away, close enough that there is no possible way for Hannah to deny that she has set eyes on her and she feels at a disadvantage because the witch still has her features covered by the hood of her cloak, while Hannah feels like she is all too clearly on display. All her secrets, laid bare.
“Did he hurt you?”
It takes Hannah a second to understand the words, to hear them trickle through her mind. A question, spoken in a voice that is most certainly not thick with fire and brimstone. “What?”
“You look like you’ve been crying,” the witch says frankly. “The dog…is he…are you hurt?”
Swallowing, Hannah shakes her head. “No, no. I mean, yes, I…” She’s already here. Face to face with the witch in the woods. She might as well unstick the words from the roof of her mouth. “I am hurt. But it isn’t your dog’s fault.” She swipes the tears from her cheek, surprised to find her skin damp even after the witch’s words.
A pause, and then, as brusque and efficient as she’s been so far, “Let me see.”
When she was younger, the story of Eden always filled Hannah with dread any time her father would tell it or her mother would bring it up to draw out a sense of shame in Hannah. The moment right before Eve reached for the apple, the last possible second where she could’ve changed her mind and avoided damning both her and Adam forever, always made Hannah want to cry out, to beg Eve to stop. Now, she hears little Hannah’s voice in the back of her mind, begging with those same words. Because there’s still a chance. A sliver in time where turning back is still possible.
But still, Hannah holds out her arm, exposing the burned patch of skin to the sunlight overhead and the hidden eyes of the witch.
For a moment, nothing happens. Not instant damnation or immediate bursting into flames, nor any comment or insight from the witch herself. But then, the witch reaches up to brush back her cloak, letting it fall past her hair to her shoulders and she reaches up to let her fingers settle against her elbow and Hannah finds she can’t breathe.
Truthfully, childishly, during the sleepless moments since Abigail had mentioned visiting the witch, Hannah has let herself invision her. This fairy tale creature out in the woods beyond Union, banished years before and left to haunt the shadows and snatch up misbehaving children. She’d thought of a monster, with long teeth and fingernails, a taste for blood and the flesh of innocent, God-fearing townspeople, and eyes that burned with hellfire. But the person in front of her is…none of those things. She’s a girl, Hannah’s own age, with a furrow between her brow and a touch as soft as a whisper.
And it quickly comes back to her, a flicker of memory, a girl in the schoolyard with bright eyes and a sparkling laugh. “Sarah?”
A smile flickers across Sarah’s lips, barely there, and she doesn’t lift her gaze from the burn across Hannah’s arm. “Hannah Miller.”
“I didn’t…I didn’t realize…”
“What? You truly thought there was a witch out here in the woods?”
“I…” Hannah feels heat collect in her cheeks, her mouth dry all over again. Of course. What did she expect…though if her late night thoughts were any indication it was that there was really a gnarled, evil witch hiding out here in the forest. “I…I didn’t realize.”
Sarah shakes her head, seeming more amused than anything, and before Hannah can try and explain herself any further, she just says, “Come with me.” She lets go of Hannah’s arm, turning back to start in the direction she’d come from.
Hannah hesitates, studying her back, the slope of her shoulders, the tangle of hair, feeling uncertain suddenly for a completely different reason. It seems like the world has become completely unbalanced, unrecognizable. It might have been better if she had come out here to find some sort of evil, monstrous creature.
“Are you coming?” Sarah turns back, lifting an eyebrow. “Makes no difference to me.”
Hannah straightens her shoulders and follows, keeping a few steps behind, as though that might somehow make a difference, might excuse what she’s doing here. Sarah doesn’t look back again, whistling instead for the dog, who comes tumbling out of the undergrowth and hurrying over, tongue lolling.
A few steps more and then the house Abigail had described comes into view, though Hannah finds very quickly that Abigail hadn’t really done it justice. The home is nothing like the cramped, crowded shack that Abigail had described, or that Hannah had imagined she would find. The home that Sarah leads her to is smaller than many in Union but seems well-build and sturdy, a curl of smoke coming from a hole in the thatched roof and there’s a garden sprawling out beyond the house, a few chickens clucking around in the dirt. There are a few bundles of herbs drying out in the sun, a mostly empty bucket resting beside the entrance, a much more unfortunate chicken hanging upside down by its feet, dead and waiting to be plucked. The house would be perfectly at home among the others in Union, though Hannah knows more than a few people who would envy Sarah her luscious garden and fat chickens.
Sarah pulls open the door, tipping her chin toward the space beyond. “After you.”
Swallowing, arm cradled to her chest, Hannah brushes past her and steps inside. The room is spacious and smells of dirt and smoke, of the wet earth after rain and the sharp smells of plants. Hannah blinks, trying to let her eyes adjust to the dimness in the room, and she’s just barely able to make out a roughly hewn table against one wall, another pushed against it so it creates an angle in the corner, both surfaces clustered with things Hannah couldn’t begin to name. A book, flipped open to a page that has only been half written in, though there is a drawing of some sort of flower or plant toward the bottom, the same plant resting just beside the book as though posing for its sketch. And other plants too, herbs, tangles of root, and a half-eaten apple.
Sarah leaves Hannah standing by the door, crossing the room toward one of the tables and striking a match, touching it to the wick of a half burned candle. “There.” She shakes the match out, turning back toward Sarah. “Let me see.”
Now that some of the surprise has worn off, Hannah finds herself hesitant to stretch out her arm once more. The skin aches, a throbbing pain that she feels all the way in her teeth, thanks to the walk and the dog and just the raw openness of her arm. Despite the gentleness she can still feel against her elbow, Hannah is reluctant to trust Sarah’s touch once more, as though this time the witch will do what everything else in her life has eventually done and leave her surprised and stinging with hurt.
But, this isn’t a witch, is it? This is Sarah, a girl Hannah remembers from those shadowy, unfinished thoughts in her mind, memories clinging to the corners like cobwebs.
Wincing, Hannah stretches out her arm once more and Sarah studies the burn in silence, brows still pinched together, a serious expression on her face. “What happened?” She asks finally, seemingly reading something in Hannah’s burn that Hannah herself can’t see, considering that all she can really see from it is the hurt.
“Burned myself on a pot,” Hannah says simply, because it feels like a betrayal to bring her mother into this. When Sarah lifts her eyes to Hannah’s face, she adds, “I wasn’t paying attention.”
Sarah’s gentle touch becomes insistent enough to steer Hannah across the room and onto the crudely made three-legged stool in the crook of the tables against the wall. Hannah sits, too curious and resigned to do anything else.
“I have a salve that should help,” Sarah tells her. “It will help with the healing and take away the pain.”
Hannah’s skin tingles with relief, desperate for the promise of these words. “Oh. I…Thank you.”
Sarah nods, her hands moving across the herbs and plants across her table. “It’s quite simple. Just some burdock and honey. Some other things. But,” she pauses, her hand settling against the handle of a thin knife that Hannah hadn’t noticed before, “it also requires the blood of a virgin.”
Sarah turns to look at her expectantly and Hannah feels the color drain from her cheeks even as the tips of her ears flame. “I-”
A smile stretches wide across Sarah’s face, her eyes sparkling, and she shakes her head. “Breathe, Hannah Miller. I am only kidding.” Still smiling, she reaches for a mortar instead. “What stories are they telling back in Union?”
Exhaling, Hannah feels her shoulders loosen, the heat from her ears spreading across her cheeks and to her chest. Kidding. Of course. “They certainly aren’t saying that the witch out in the forest is Sarah Fier.”
Sarah lifts her eyebrows, her focus on the movement of her hands, the steady and sure way she collects the things she needs. “That much is clear.” She picks up the pestle, the easy turn of her wrist reminding Hannah of her own movements in the kitchen, the certainty she feels when she can lose herself in the repetitive movement of baking. “Surely you had some idea though…don’t you remember when…”
She doesn’t finish the words, a flicker of something almost like hurt crossing Sarah’s face, though Hannah can only see her in profile, can almost just imagine the look. But it, like the smile, jogs something in her mind, how Sarah had looked almost exactly like that when her family was being turned out of Union.
“Yes, I remember,” Hannah says softly. “I thought…” She swallows, uncertain. “I thought it might be your mother, out here.”
Judging by the state of the place, the quiet all around them, there is no one else here with Sarah. It feels almost too cruel to imagine a further abandonment, after being forced to leave Union with her entire family; too cruel to think that the family might further splinter from there. So Hannah can only imagine what might have come next, how there was little choice but for Sarah to stay here in the woods, all alone.
“Ah.” Sarah nods, face betraying nothing, wrist turning the pestle steadily. “The people in Union used to come to her for help, you know. They only started calling her a witch after what happened with the Miltons’ child. Some people still did come, even after they decided we were too dangerous to be their neighbors.”
There are so many things Hannah wants to know, suddenly. Questions dangling in front of her, as tempting as the apple in the Garden. But what she says is, “Just like they do now, with you.” It’s meant to be a question but as she says the words, the understanding settles over her.
Sarah shrugs. “A witch can be useful, I suppose, as long as you don’t have to get too close.”
“So where is your mother? What happened-”
“My brother died that first winter. We hadn’t finished all of this yet…hadn’t managed…” Another shrug. “My father was fond of drinking his troubles away before but after that, well…it became more than just a hobby, I suppose. And my mother died a few years later.”
It seems impossible, all of these things, the tragedies jumping from one to the next as easily as a fire spreading. It’s not as though Hannah has never known anyone who lost a child, or several, or other members of a family just struggling to make it from one day to the next, but to hear Sarah tell it, so simple and matter-of-fact, somehow feels closer than it has before. It settles itself in Hannah’s chest, makes it impossible for her to think of anything except that bright-eyed, laughing girl who used to chase her through Union when they wanted to avoid their chores for a little while longer.
“How did you-”
“Here,” Sarah interrupts, her tone finite and clear enough. “I will give you the rest to take back with you. You can apply it as needed but try to use it sparingly, of course, unless you were making a note of how to make it.” There’s a smile on her face that looks slightly more forced than it had been before.
Hannah nods and there’s a pause, a moment of quiet, and it isn’t until Sarah meets her gaze that Hannah realizes that she’s hesitating, apologetic. “This will likely hurt,” Sarah says when their gazes meet.
“It already hurts.”
Sarah presses her lips together but doesn’t say anything more, using two of her fingers to scoop some of the salve from the mortar. It smells earthy and sweet, bitter in Hannah’s nose, and not at all like something that is going to be able to make anything about her situation better. Sarah grabs her wrist tightly while, simultaneously, her fingers start to spread the paste across the burn and she’s smart, that Sarah Fier, because the first thing Hannah tries to do is yank her arm backward, as far from her as possible, as the pain ignites through her body. But Sarah holds her in place, ignoring the hiss of breath between teeth, the whimper from the back of Hannah’s throat, continuing to spread the salve evenly across the ragged, raw skin.
Even as her eyes fill with tears, the pain starts to fade, the skin cooling, soothed for the first time in days. And Hannah exhales, too, for the first time in days, the aching that has matched the beat of her heart finally subsiding momentarily. Her fingers uncurl from where they’ve been pressing crescent shapes into her palm and she lifts her head to look up at Sarah. “How… how?”
Sarah lets her go, setting the mortar back onto the table, and Hannah is half-tempted to grab it up and start slathering the salve across her arm until it’s coated with it. “My mother taught me some things, some I figured out on my own.” She shrugs. “I’ve learned a few things here and there, too, from the others in the woods.”
“Others?” Hannah glances around like they might be there, this very moment, in the room with them.
Sarah nods. “The Natives. And the Widow, whenever she could be bothered.”
Hannah feels her eyes go round as dinner plates, unable to help her response. “The Widow? She’s real? Alive? Still? I thought-”
“Seems like there are plenty of stories in Union,” Sarah says with a smile. “I remember those stories too. About how the Widow would come collect all the misbehaving children and feed them to the Natives.” She rolls her eyes, shaking her head. “I would’ve been dead a dozen times over if not for her.”
“I feel…” Hannah isn’t sure how to finish that sentence. She feels…what, exactly? The back of her neck is flush, sticky with heat, and her heart is jumping in her chest. And then there’s the relief spreading across her arm, the miraculous feeling of not feeling anything at all. And Sarah’s body, close to hers and smelling of the herbs all around them. “It is…not what I was expecting.”
All of it makes the world feel like its tilting, ready to dump them off at any moment. Untrustworthy, suddenly.
Sarah nods, once, the gesture a short jerk of her head. “I’m sure. People in Union likely don’t have much cause to think of anyone else.”
Before Hannah can protest, can even find the words to invent some sort of argument, Sarah is collecting the rest of the salve from the mortar, wrapping it in what appears to be a dingy sort of cheesecloth. “Here.” She hands the small bundle toward Hannah. “Use this sparingly but make sure to use it. It’ll grow worse if you let it fester.”
Hannah grimaces, Sarah’s words immediately calling Abigail’s to mind. “So my arm will rot off?” She says dryly.
“Possibly.” Sarah smirks. “And I don’t have a salve for that.”
There’s something finite about Sarah’s tone, about the way her body shifts away and she turns back toward the clutter on her table, that makes Hannah feel like she’s being dismissed. She stands, clutching the muslin cloth protectively between her fingers. “Thank you.”
Sarah nods without glancing back at her. “You’re welcome.”
It settles over her, that same feeling of hesitation that had so plagued her earlier, keeping her frozen in place on the riverbank. Only this time, it fills her with the opposite impulse. Then, Hannah had been desperate to turn back and now…now she feels almost hesitant to leave.
But there’s no reason to stay, not when all she can see of Sarah is the set of her shoulders and the folds of her cloak that seem to keep her hidden away and when she has what she came here for. And maybe that’s it, maybe what she’s taking as hesitation is actually guilt, brought on by the knowledge that she’s likely doing what everyone else has already done. What people will likely continue to do: visit the witch when they get desperate enough and ignore her otherwise.
Still, Hannah turns. She leaves the house, letting the door close behind her, concealing everything beyond in shadow. Out in the yard, the chickens are offering up annoyed clucks as the dog, Merryboy, sniffs around them, though he gives them some peace in order to follow Hannah instead, dancing around her heels until she gets to the riverbank. Merryboy stands there, watching her cross, tail wagging and Hannah assumes he’s still there even after she can’t seem him anymore.
Back in Union, no one spares her a passing glance. Not even her mother, who seems disinterested in her return or why she’s been gone as long as she has. It surprises Hannah, how effortlessly she slips back among these people, how they can look at her and not see where she’s been.
Just like it surprises her that no one seems to notice that her thoughts don’t stray far from Sarah Fier for the remainder of the day, how she’s able to sit at supper with her parents and so innocently spoon stew into her mouth while thinking of the witch in the woods.
Hannah makes sure to pray longer than usual before bed, letting the wooden floor press into her knees as she bows her head and murmurs something resembling a plea for forgiveness, though she isn’t entirely sure what she’s apologizing for. Especially when she smooths the salve across her arm in the quiet darkness and finds the smell of it immediately returns her to Sarah’s house, to the earthy and wild smell of the place.
In the morning, Hannah can already sense a difference in her arm, the angry red of the raw skin having faded, the hurt fading to a dull presence in the back of her mind. Carefully, Hannah applies more of the salve, soothed by the cool gentleness of it, though her touch is far more timid than Sarah’s efficient, insistent one.
“Looks better,” her mother remarks that morning, as she glances toward Hannah’s arm as they stand nearly shoulder to shoulder at the table, working through the various household chores: her mother, chopping the vegetables for yet another stew, Hannah once more kneading dough to encourage it to rise.
The same things, Hannah suspects sometimes, that she will likely do for the rest of her life. She will go from working in her parents’ kitchen to her husband’s, chopping vegetables and sweeping and gathering water and pulling bread from the ovens while he goes off to do something deemed more important and exciting.
The idea steals Hannah’s breath away, feels like the press of a fist against the center of her chest, and for a second all she can do is nod in response to her mother’s words, her throat too choked to release actual words.
“Yes,” Hannah manages finally, a sharp and bitter taste lingering on the surface of her tongue. “Goody Lane was very helpful.”
She will be sure to pray with extra sincerity tonight to ask for absolution for lying to her parents.
Thankfully, her mother doesn’t press the issue and require more lies and they work in silence until Grace decides to go pay a visit to Goody Berman, leaving Hannah blessedly alone. And, more important, leaving no one around to question way she halves the dough she’d been working so diligently on earlier, shaping two smaller loaves instead and it isn’t until she slides them into coals that she realizes why.
But it isn’t until the following morning that Hannah finally gathers the faint strands of courage that are dangling in her chest, as thin and delicate as gossamer, and steadies herself for another walk into the woods.
Sleep had been largely elusive, despite the bone-heavy weariness that had settled over her by the end of the previous day, and so Hannah is up as the first brushes of morning light color the sky, moving silent so as not to wake her parents. She gathers water from the well, lays out the last of the day’s bread along with the last bit of cheese they have, and stokes the fire so it’s already simmering and warm by the time her mother rises and then tucks the second loaf of bread into a basket, covering it with the half finished embroidery project her mother somehow expects her to complete in between all the dozens of other chores Hannah is tasked with each day.
Outside, Union is starting to stir, the sounds of animals mingling with the groggy grumbles of those in charge of them and Hannah passes more than a few sleepy-faced children gathering eggs or weary farmers grumbling their way through the morning milking. But no one seems at all interested in what has brought Hannah Miller, the pastor’s daughter, out so early, or what sends her in the direction of the woods.
It isn’t until Hannah is already at the river that she realizes there are several flaws to this plan. Namely that she has no idea if Sarah Fier is an earlier riser and if she is interested in welcoming guests at all, let alone one who has decided to call before the sun is even properly in the sky. She’d made the assumption that Sarah was alone, but she hadn’t asked and how carefully had she truly studied her surroundings, trying to parcel out what was going on around her? She’s planning to intrude upon an entire life that she knows nothing about and just expecting Sarah to be all right with her bumbling around with the same amount of ignorance she’d shown previously.
But she’s already mostly there and the idea of turning back fills Hannah’s chest with an emptiness that throbs in time with the lingering ache in her arm and so she crosses the river and walks the path toward the house in the woods.
Sarah is already outside, once more draped in her cloak, the chickens clucking and scratching around her and before Hannah can find her voice to call out a greeting, Merryboy starts barking and Sarah’s head jerks up, expression pinched.
It settles some of the nervousness Hannah feels in her own chest when Sarah’s expression softens, just a touch, at the sight of her. “Hannah Miller.”
“Good morning.” Hannah tries to loosen the strangle-hold grasp she has on the handle of her basket, certain Sarah can read her nervousness in her white knuckles. “I’m sorry to show up so early. I was…trying to avoid my mother.”
Hannah has no idea what makes her say the words out loud, let alone confess them to a near complete stranger, but they slip free easily, full of truth.
Sarah stands, brushing dirt from her palms and causing a few annoyed clucks as she steps around the chickens to move closer. “And just what has you breaking one of the precious commandments this morning?”
At her words, Hannah blanches, heat spreading like groping fingers across her chest and along the nape of her neck and Sarah is right, she is violating one of the Commandments, she is wicked and-
Sarah laughs and the sound seems to ease some of the thoughts rushing through her mind. “So serious, Holy Hannah. Just like always.”
“I…”
“Do you need more of the salve?” Sarah asks, seeming to take some sort of pity on her by prompting her along. Her forehead creases as she glances toward Hannah’s arm. “How is the burn? I can-”
“No,” Hannah says quickly and then when Sarah looks up at her, surprised, she adds, “I mean, it is fine. Healing, thanks to you.” She chances a smile, small and nervous. “I actually…I wanted to thank you. Properly. I didn’t…”
Rather than continue to try and fumble out the words, Hannah just reaches beneath her sampler and pulls out the loaf of bread, offering it over. “I thought you might…just a thank you. For…I don’t feel like I was able to truly express before how grateful I am for your help. So…thank you. Truly.”
Sarah seems to be struck silent, her eyes dropping from Hannah’s face to the offered loaf of bread and back again, and it takes her a moment longer to remember what she’s supposed to do next. She reaches up quickly, letting Hannah push the loaf into her hands. “I…you didn’t have to-”
“Yes I did,” Hannah tells her, turning her arm slightly to show Sarah the way the burn has already begun healing, the pain finally easing thanks to the salve. “Plus now you’ve had to put up with me interrupting your day once again, so I think that merits at least one small loaf of bread.”
Sarah shakes her head, a hint of a smile curling up her lips. “It is not an interruption,” she says quietly. “Though the chickens might be jealous that you’re taking my attention away from them.”
Hannah finds her own smile coming more easily now. “Well, I would hate to offend them. Perhaps they would like some bread too.”
“Oh, I’m sure they would. But I think we should be selfish and keep it for just the two of us.”
Quickly, Hannah shakes her head. “Oh, no, you don’t need to-”
Sarah lifts an eyebrow. “Are you turning down my invitation to breakfast, Hannah Miller? Surely Jesus would have something to say about loving your neighbors.”
“I suppose He would have something to say about that,” Hannah agrees with a smile. “And I should probably be limiting my misdeeds, hmm?”
“Exactly. I am simply looking out for your mortal soul.”
Hannah can feel the grin stretching larger across her face, the gesture almost unfamiliar. “I wouldn’t have expected a witch to take such an investment in my salvation.”
Sarah shrugs. “I have many interests.”
Hannah is still smiling as she follows Sarah into the room she’d seen before and it’s striking how the space immediately feels familiar. The twisted tangle of nerves that had plagued her only days before seem to have slipped away, a dull presence in the back of her mind just like the ache in her arm. In the morning light, much of the room is still hidden in shadow, but now Hannah can fill the haziness in with her memories: the bundles of herbs and plants, the mortar and pestle that Sarah had used with a deft surety, the brittle pages of books. This time Sarah doesn’t head toward the table but deeper into the house, toward another doorway that had completely escaped Hannah’s mind -which is hardly surprising given how her own fear had been her only focus.
Thinking about it now…Hannah can’t put a finger on what she was so afraid of. A witch in the woods? What a childish story to let herself believe, despite her parents’ insistence at the wickedness that lay just beyond the settlement.
This space clearly belongs just to Sarah: a pallet in one corner, a still smoldering fire in another, a stout, roughly made table in the center with a few earthenware utensils set out. Sarah sets the bread onto the table, taking the knife Hannah had seen before, and deftly slicing the loaf into slices and Hannah can only pray that the sound of her grumbling stomach isn’t audible. She’d skipped whatever meager breakfast there might have been, leaving the bread and cheese out for her parents in the hopes that it might distract them from the fact that she’d already disappeared.
Though, judging by the bit of a smile that appears on Sarah’s lips, Hannah is not so lucky. “Are you sure you want to share, Hannah Miller?”
“Of course,” Hannah sputters quickly and it seems that Sarah has quite the talent for conjuring a blush to her cheeks. “It is meant to be for you, anyway. A thank you for-”
Sarah nods, turning back toward a cupboard. “Yes, that’s right. Tell me again how grateful you are for my talents.”
“The witchcraft, you mean?”
“Ah, right.” Sarah turns back, a glass jar in her hands. “I certainly hope you appreciate my efforts. I had to sacrifice a goat to give that salve its power.”
Hannah tries to smile but she’s certain that it doesn’t look entirely convincing, especially when Sarah looks at her and laughs. The sound of it makes Hannah’s smile come easier, more sincerely, if only because it seems impossible to believe in the ridiculous village stories, in the warnings of her father and the Good Book, when Sarah is laughing like that.
“I…of course,” Hannah says, trying to force a touch of nonchalance into her tone, as though joking about such things comes easily. “No wonder it worked so well.”
Sarah twists the top off the jar and dips her pinkie finger delicately into it, touching the finger to the tip of her tongue and Hannah finds herself feeling nervous all over again and flush with heat, the ghost of Sarah’s words likely still lingering in her mind. If ever there was a place where the Devil might be lurking, after all, it would be the deep, dark forest, unchecked and unexplored.
“There is still a bit of jam,” Sarah says, holding up the jar as though to prove her words. “If you would like.”
Hannah, at least, is grateful that the way her mouth suddenly waters is not as obvious as the growling of her stomach. She steps forward before she can stop herself, half-tempted, for one wild moment, to snatch the jar for herself. “Jam.” She says the word with the same sort of reverence her father uses during prayer. “Where did you get this?”
“From the Devil, of course.” Sarah’s expression is so serious, beguiling and genuine, that Hannah has to laugh. “Is that all it takes to tempt you, Holy Hannah? A bit of jam?”
“I suppose it depends on the jam.”
There’s something in Sarah’s smile that makes Hannah feel warmer than she thinks she ever has before, like she’s curled beneath her quilt on the coldest winter morning, warmed by the heat of her own body in the moments before fully waking. There’s something about Sarah’s smile that makes her want to smile back immediately, without hesitation or thought as to what it might make her look like: the silly, vain pastor’s daughter who doesn’t have to get her hands dirty by toiling in the dirt every day to survive. There’s something about Sarah’s smile that makes Hannah feel like she might never be cold again.
“Good answer,” Sarah says and it seems like she means it, like Hannah has somehow done something right, finally. That maybe she’s done everything right since deciding to come see Sarah again. She hands her the jam, lifting an eyebrow.
“I can’t remember the last time I tasted…” Hannah trails off because there are so many ways she can finish that sentence. Jam is a luxury her mother has no use for, much like anything else good or sweet in Union. Not that she should complain; Hannah knows her belly is likely fuller than most…but sometimes she still dreams of the taste of sugar.
Hannah runs the pad of her thumb around the rim of the jar and the jam bursts to life on her tongue, somehow sweet and bitter and full of the same heat that had just flickered through her when Sarah had smiled at her. So few things in Union taste like this, like summer and sunshine and that feeling of having made someone happy for once instead of just being an endless disappointment.
“Where did you really get this?” Hannah asks to keep herself from spooning the rest of the jam directly into her mouth like the wild animal she thinks her mother sometimes imagines she is.
There’s a hint of color in Sarah’s cheeks, visible even though she has her face tipped downward, toward the slices of bread she’s laid out across one of the plates. “The Widow,” she explains, taking the jar when Hannah hands it back, thankfully missing any signs of reluctance that might be lingering in her eyes. “She’s got a talent for making a great many things. And she’s shrewder than anyone else I know when it comes to trading.”
Sarah seems uninterested in how precious the jam truly is, spreading it across the pieces of bread without hesitation, until the jar is empty and the slices are coated with a layer of sweetness, the ghost of which Hannah can still taste dancing across her tongue. “Would you like to sit outside? Or stay in here? I could…” Sarah glances around, a flutter of nervousness across her face for the first time. “I’m not used to having visitors, but I could-”
“Outside is fine,” Hannah says quickly. “If you’re sure you want-”
“Yes, only if you’re sure you-”
“I don’t mean to-”
They both stop at the same time and Sarah’s laugh is contagious and it occurs to Hannah, suddenly, that maybe she isn’t the only one here who is feeling all nervous and knotted up, uncertain of what to say or do next. That maybe this might be new for the both of them, this girl from Union and the witch banished to live in the woods.
“Outside it is,” Sarah says, picking up the plate and leading the way back in the direction they’d come from. “Jam goes better with sunlight anyway.”
Outside the morning is still pleasant, the day just starting to warm as the sun grows brighter overhead, and already this moment is better than any Hannah thinks she would be having back home, under the watchful and always disappointed gaze of her mother. The chickens are still pecking around, scratching at the dirt and fluffing their feathers, wholly disinterested in anything else going on around them. There’s a pig off to the side of the house that Hannah had somehow missed before, a large black sow lazying in a pool of growing sunlight, ears flicking occasionally as the bugs begin their day. “It’s so…quiet here,” Hannah says softly, taking one of the slices of bread from the plate only when Sarah nudges it expectantly in her direction.
Sarah nods, her eyes scanning the area around them, expression unreadable. “That’s certainly one way of putting it.” Her tone, too, is impossible to read.
“I feel like I still have so many questions,” Hannah admits, studying the bread in her hands rather than try to parcel out Sarah’s expression. She’s almost reluctant to take a bite, knowing that once she does she won’t be able to stop and in a few bites she won’t have anything more to look forward to. “I…don’t-”
“And I have a question for you,” Sarah interrupts deftly, causing Hannah to lift her gaze, surprised. “Are you actually going to eat that or do you plan on keeping it forever?”
Hannah rolls her eyes but Sarah has a point and it would be a shame to waste both the jam and the bread she’d put her time into making. And it is good bread indeed, though it pales in comparison to the sweetness of the jam, the way the taste of it dances across her tongue and Hannah is certain she isn’t able to hide the sound low in her throat that follows. She’d be embarrassed if she wasn’t too busy taking another bite.
“Good enough to tempt you?” Sarah asks, after Hannah has somehow devoured the entire slice without pausing to inhale. “Seems that way.”
She’ll be sure to pray extra hard today. “Absolutely.”
Between the both of them, they make quick work of the bread and Hannah is pretty sure that Sarah doesn’t notice when she tries to lick the lingering bit of sweetness from the tips of her fingers, but she has to admit that she’s not sure she would care either way. It seems entirely worth it, making sure that there isn’t a bit of jam gone to waste. It would be a shame to let any of it go to waste.
When Hannah looks toward Sarah again, her cheeks are pink in the sunlight, her lips pressed together and Hannah tries to read any hint of annoyance in her expression, any sign that she might have somehow overstayed her welcome.
“Are you just going to keep staring at me?” Sarah asks, turning her head to meet Hannah’s eyes before Hannah can even pretend like that’s not exactly what she’s been doing. “Try to see if I have horns, maybe?”
Hannah can feel the heat of her blush creep all the way down the back of her neck. “No, of course not.” She shakes her head quickly and it seems ridiculous to even think about…though she knows a part of her might have believed it even a few days before. “I’m sure you keep those too well hidden to see.”
“Of course.” Sarah’s smile is whip thin and just as sharp and it feels like she’s somehow done something important, getting Sarah to smile like that. “I have to keep some secrets.”
“I think you have plenty of those,” Hannah says, gesturing toward the space around them, the well cared for garden and the animals. “I can’t believe you’ve just been out here all by yourself for so long. How did you survive?”
Sarah smooths down the fabric of her skirt, pressing her palms flat against her thighs, brow furrowing as she looks anywhere, it seems, but Hannah. “I…I learned as much as I could, I guess. And the Widow, like I said. She knows far more about these woods than I ever could.”
“But still…isn’t it…” Hannah looks around, certain that as beautiful as the place is now, it would be completely terrifying in the darkness, without the certainty of her neighbors just a few yards away. “You’ve been here all alone. Didn’t you ever think about coming back to Union?”
Expression darkening, Sarah gets to her feet and Hannah feels a surge of regret rise up inside her chest, threatening to choke her. She can tell from the set of Sarah’s shoulders, the sudden tightness in her jaw, that this conversation is over. That she has, finally, out-stayed her welcome, that she’s done the only thing she ever seems to have a knack for and disappointed someone else.
“Return to the place that drove my family out? That thinks I’m a witch?” Sarah doesn’t look at Hannah, picking up the plate covered in nothing but crumbs, and shakes her head. “Why would I want to go back there?”
Sarah brushes the crumbs off into the dirt for the chickens, who fill the otherwise thick silence with the sound of their clucking. Hannah curls her fingers into fists, surprised by the disappointment making itself at home in her chest. “I just meant-”
“I don’t want to keep you any longer from your responsibilities. I’m sure that your mother will be wondering where you’ve gotten off to.” Sarah looks at her and there’s no mistaking the tone of her voice, the closed off expression of her face. “Thank you again for the bread. And I’m glad to see that your arm is doing better. Continue with the salve until there isn’t any left.”
Hannah stands because this, too, this dismissal, is not exactly unfamiliar. Still, it seems to sting a little more coming for Sarah, especially on the heels of the echo of her laughter and the smile on the corners of her lips. “Thank you. For all your help.”
Sarah nods and even though Merryboy follows Hannah all the way to the river, she is certain that Sarah doesn’t look her way again.