Read Online Susannah Morrow by Megan Chance - Free Book Online Page B

already that even through my worn boots I could
     barely feel them. ’Twas dank and musty, and the smell of damp wood and mildew and wet wool filled my nose. The wind whistled
     in a high pitch through the boards covering one of the windows, and the candle on the pulpit flickered and smoldered. We settled
     ourselves in, laying rugs over our legs and sitting up straight on the backless benches, and gradually the voices faded and
     muffled. When it was quiet, and Deacon Ingersoll stood from his place below the pulpit to call out the psalms for us to sing,
     I bowed my head and tried to find God’s voice through the muffled darkness in my soul.
    I sang without listening; I hardly heard Master Parris’s sermon, so focused was I in my own search for the Lord. When Master
     Parris finished the morning service with another prayer, I looked up at the huge hourglass before Deacon Putnam. A little
     over two hours had passed—it had been a short sermon, and I had not yet found relief or comfort.
    Faith’s baptism would be in the afternoon service, and now we were left to ourselves for the two hours until it began. As
     I followed Father into the cold sunshine, I heard people talking about where they would go, what they would do. Those who
     had come a long distance had their horses stabled in the shelter on the swamp-side pasture. Most would go to Ingersoll’s,
     just as we would, as we always did. Mama had always packed a meal, which we ate in quiet on what passed for a green in front
     of the tavern, dodging the sheep Lieutenant Ingersoll sometimes kept there. I had not brought any food this day. When I’d
     tried, Father said we would buy something at the ordinary.
    When we stepped through the doors at Ingersoll’s, I saw Mary Walcott and Betty Hubbard huddled around a long table, along
     with skinny, mean-spirited Mercy Lewis, who was also a servant for the Putnams, and Mary Warren, who worked for the Proctors
     in the tavern they ran off the Ipswich Road. My old friends were laughing together while the church members at the tables
     around them frowned disapprovingly. When my family came in and Betty caught sight of us, they laughed again, more loudly,
     and bent to whisper among themselves.
    I looked away. My father glanced to them, and then to me. “They are silly girls, Charity. You should count yourself blessed
     that you are no longer among them.”
    It warmed me that he had noticed, and it raised that yearning in me again. But when I turned to him, he was already looking
     away; I was already forgotten.
    He led us to a table where many of our neighbors were already gathered: Francis Nurse among them, who was our neighbor Samuel’s
     father, and who served on the Village Committee with Father. Susannah smiled, catching them effortlessly in her light. Wickedness
     had such power. Before long, she had the women snared in the telling of her late-autumn sea voyage.
    I didn’t listen. I could think only of the snickerings that had greeted us when we walked in. Even now, I felt my old friends
     talking about us in the little prickling of the hairs on the back of my neck. I could not bear that Mary’s whispers were true.
     I remembered my defense of Susannah with embarrassment, and I did not want to have to admit I’d been wrong.
    I did not have any intentions of going near them. It was only that I could not sit still any longer and watch my aunt charm
     my neighbors while knowing the truth about her. I meant only to wander over to the windows overlooking the green—it was not
     my fault the ordinary was so small, or that the girls sat so near the door. But once I was close, I did not move. In spite
     of everything, seeing them made me feel lonely, and that loneliness was a curse, I knew—Mama had warned me about it.
    I stared out the tiny diamond windows onto the farmlands below, the village spread before me like the wrinkles of God’s hand,
     but I saw nothing. Despite my best intentions, I moved closer to Mary