Nothing. I could say nothing.
“Miss Malcolm, I implore you. Tell us why you were in the city, and I will have my men transport you to the town gates at once.”
To be out of Boston . . . yet I could not waver. I must decide, now, that I would be strong. That I would serve the cause I loved. I would serve General Washington and all of the Patriots, Mr. Hancock and Mr. Adams, Dr. Warren’s memory, all in Medford, Sarah’s precious little ones, Mary’s memory, and my beloved Noah.
I would serve them with silence.
What was my life, after all, compared to those who depended upon me in this moment?
“I am sorry, sir.” I dragged in a breath, thought again of Father’s stubbornness. I would need to adopt every last shred of Malcolm tenacity to survive this moment.
“You refuse to tell me? You refuse to speak?”
“I cannot, sir. I am sorry.” Beneath my skirt, my knees wobbled.
“Miss Malcolm, I truly, truly wish you would not be difficult. The task ahead is most unpleasant, for I fear the safety of my men and the King’s Army is at stake with the information you hold.” I tried to fix his words in my mind, couldn’t fully piece them together until he turned to the officer in the room. He sighed, swiped a hand over his face. “Captain, take her down. Be as gentle as you can.”
My breath hitched within my chest as the captain led me back into the hall and then opened a door that led to the basement. My boots skidded on the rug as I glimpsed the dark hold below, the general’s words echoing in my thoughts.
“Be as gentle as you can.”
I thought of Father’s immense suffering at being tarred. Of Noah lying wounded on the battlefield, his leg severed. Of Sarah crying at Mary’s graveside, of all the men whom I had dug a bullet from in the Medford field hospital.
I was not made of the same strength as them. How would I hold up to whatever lay before me in that darkness, alone with this red-coated captain? What did General Gage intend? And would I be able to keep my silence through suffering?
When the captain led me below, I expected him to leave me there in the cold. Perhaps allow me to go hungry in an attempt to pry information from me.
Those alternatives would have seemed like heaven compared to what was done me.
After the first blow, my mind and body seemed to go into a state of shock, which aided in my silence through the pain. I had seen the results of the horrors of war on the Medford field after Charlestown. Father had struck me on more than one occasion. I had seen the tortures of his brutal tarring and feathering.
But my brain could not comprehend that such things were being done to a woman. To me. And all for the information I held.
I sensed their desperation, felt they would not have resorted to such measures if they were not so very frantic to know General Washington’s plans, if they were not so very certain that I knew something, if they were not so certain that time was of the essence.
Their blows pummeled me. They were deliberate, methodical—one would not expect anything less from the King’s Army—beginning with the knuckles of my hand and then moving to my middle, where once I had carried a small babe and where I would likely never do so again.
They left me for some time and I huddled around myself in the cold dark, sobbing aloud, begging the Lord to spare me or kill me quickly, begging Him to give me strength not to betray my comrades.
A small window cast light in the very top of the wall and I saw the boots of soldiers walking back and forth. I moved an inch, and my entire body screamed with protest as though a million knives were being plunged along my skin. The blood dried quick upon my knuckles, the air cold and clotting.
I prayed.
I did not feel the peace of earlier, but I did feel a knowing, a certainty. I would see this through to the end. No matter my pain, no matter my fate, I would bear it for my fellow Patriots.
Adrenaline pulsed through my veins when a soldier’s boots returned upon the stairs. I drew my knees to my chest to protect myself.
He knelt by my side. ’Twas the man who had escorted me to Province House the night before, the one who began this torture. He spoke soft. “Please, Miss Malcolm. Enough shilly-shallying. Tell us what we seek. ’Tis not my pleasure to harm you, and I fear it will only get worse from here if you do not comply.”
I looked at him with chattering teeth, wound my arms tighter around my legs, my conversation with Noah long ago playing in my head.
“Which is more honorable—loyalty or liberty?”
Here, now, they lay tangled together, both the honorable choice.
“Miss Malcolm, once I leave this room, you are no longer in my hands, but in the charge of ones whose job it is to force information from you. And they do their jobs well. You will give in. Why not relent now and spare us both the heartache and pain?”
My flesh begged me to. I had never feared so much in all my life. I imagined Sarah in my place. She would spit in the face of this soldier. We were different, Sarah and I.
Could I be so strong?
I remembered the tea chest and the oath it held. The part Noah and I played in this story.
“Very well, then.” The captain rose and left, his boots sounding up the steps slowly, as if he expected me to call out to him. He opened and closed the door and then was gone.
The basement grew silent again. I released a shaky breath into my knees.
I prayed for strength.
Mary’s little voice again.
“Jesus knows about everyone.”
He saw me now, in this moment. A swift certainty fell over me, and I suddenly felt not quite so alone. In a blur of time, I recalled the many stories Reverend Osgood spoke on, particularly those of the Gospels.
Jesus, flogged and on a cross. Beaten for the sake of others. Dead.
“He is not here: for he is risen, as he said.”
As He said.
He did know all.
As I heard the door open and two sets of boots descend the stairs, I pondered instead the strength the Lord must possess to burst forth not only from a sealed grave, but from death itself.
I leaned into it, felt a burgeoning within my soul that He would give me strength in this moment—not because He cared so much about my keeping General Washington’s secrets and not because He cared so very much about the Patriot cause perhaps, but because He cared about me.
“Love your enemies, bless them that curse you.”
The red-coated soldier approached, and as he held up a knife that gleamed in the scant sunlight coming from the window, as he grabbed for my hand, splaying my finger upon a hard rock, choosing the smallest of them to begin the torture, when the other soldier held me still until I could no longer wriggle from his grip, I buried my head in the crook of my other arm and did the unthinkable: I prayed for them.
As blinding pain tore up my arm and into my body until I could no longer tell the source of it, I muffled my screams in my elbow. I did not feel strong.
But I depended on One who was.
I was not alone.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Emma
The passion for liberty cannot be equally strong in the breasts of those who have been accustomed to deprive their fellow creatures of theirs. Of this I am certain that it is not founded upon that generous and Christian principle of doing to others as we would that others should do unto us.
ABIGAIL ADAMS
I’M NOT CERTAIN when I swooned, but the sound of cannons woke me.
General Washington had begun his attack.
General Gage and the Regulars seemed to forget about me in their haste to muster a defense. Two of my fingers had been bandaged—the soldiers likely did not want me to bleed to death yet. I saw the bluish, blood-drained nubs of them not far from me, and I kicked them away, near fainted at the sight of my familiar fingernails upon them.
I heard footsteps above, felt so cold I wished to swoon again and be done with the pain of bone and flesh being taken from me, be done with
the pain of being so very cold it felt my body would freeze like the frozen banks of the Charles in January.
More sporadic cannon fire, bringing me reminders of the battle at Charlestown. I drifted in and out of consciousness. Night descended again, and all grew quiet. I wondered if the Regulars had abandoned the city, if they had left me here to die, if I could summon the strength to move, if I could manage an escape.
The sound of breaking glass startled me, and I assumed a cannonball had blown open the basement window. Shards of glass landed at my feet and in my delusion, I felt as though I were back at my home on Cross Street, huddled with Mother and Father as the rebel Bostonians searched out Father to drag him away.
A form scurried through the opening, but I could not make sense of it, thought I was hallucinating. For only one man could walk with such a limp, only one man could be big enough to take up the corners of my mind with his presence, only one man could seem perfect even as I knew his faults.
I was dreaming, was all.
But the hallucination knelt before me, said my name so tenderly, I had trouble convincing my mind ’twas not true.
“Emma.”
I convinced myself I should swat at the hallucination, even as I tried to reach for it, to test its solidity, at the same time bracing for disappointment.
A calloused finger stroked my cheek. Firm. Real.
“My love, what have they done to you?”
I let out a soft gasp, part cry, still disbelieving that my husband was before me. “Are you truly here?” My words slurred. I could not form them.
Almost at once I was in his arms, felt myself being lifted from the frozen dirt, being thrust through the window into another set of arms—these smaller, more feminine.
I wondered where the soldiers were. The burst of cannon fire sounded louder. And then I was back in Noah’s strong grip, and I did not care if it were dream or real, I did not care how he managed to carry me with but one leg. I only cared that my husband’s arms were there to hold me.
CHAPTER FORTY
Hayley
I RUBBED MY EYES, burning from reading on my phone. I looked at the words of Emma’s story that I’d just read, of her trapped in the cellar of Province House. Facing torture was one of those things I’d thought I was mentally prepared for, had even expected a taste of it at the end of Hell Week. I couldn’t imagine being an eighteenth-century woman, unprepared for such horrors. I wondered, if I were in Emma’s place, would I have held up under such pressure?
I thought of her reliance on a different sort of strength, a strength that came from God.
“Jesus knows about everyone.”
In this lonely hotel room, reading Emma’s story, I felt the truth of those faint whispers. What was more, for the first time, I longed for them. Almost like an invisible force called to my heart.
I thought to shake it off, to cast it aside as emotional weakness while reading a story, anticipating the challenge before me, but the thought of leaving it alone produced such an intense sadness within me, I immediately discarded the idea.
What was it—or who—that Emma trusted in that called to me now?
Though Ethan had sent the e-mail with the attachment of the rest of Emma’s story late the night before, it had taken me most of the day to read it. I hadn’t even gone for my usual morning run, telling myself I would run double as soon as I finished the story.
I couldn’t deny how my blood ran hot at the sight of Ethan’s name in my in-box. I’d hoped he would reach out, and at the same time I didn’t. His words about waiting for me niggled in a wonderful, annoying way. I thought he just might mean them.
This thing—being pursued—was new for me. I never thought I’d wanted it. I wanted independence, to be left alone.
At least that’s what I’d told myself.
I was not alone.
“Jesus knows about everyone.”
I continued scrolling but hit the end of the document.
No.
There simply had to be more.
Was that the end of her story? Emma must have made it out in order to go on and have children, to pass the chest down to the family, to write this very account . . .
But was that the end of what Ethan found? Or had he purposely left me with only this?
I scrolled more, unable to believe he would do this. Or that this was the end of Emma, my eight-times great-grandmother.
I got off the bed, paced beside the large window overlooking a luscious green courtyard.
I’d left Ethan in the midst of our discovery, and now he had, maybe rightly, left me at the pinnacle of Emma’s journey.
I huffed, scuffed the bottom of my foot against the carpet until a slight burn started. Then, before I could think on the consequences, I picked up my phone and dialed.
“Hello?” His tone sounded nonchalant, as if my name hadn’t shown on his phone, as if he didn’t know who called.
“You’re really going to leave me with that?”
“Oh, Hayley, it’s you. Nice of you to call.”
“Please, just answer me. Is there more of her story? You’re not going to leave me with that, are you?” I was being unreasonable. I knew it. I knew it, and I didn’t care.
“And what did you leave me with?”
“Ethan . . . I—you knew I would leave!” I said in desperation as if that were an excuse for my doing so. “We were . . . It was too much. We were getting too . . .”
“Close? Why does that scare you so much? Why can’t you accept that you’re not your mother and I’m not one of her boyfriends? Why do you have to be such a—a . . . ?”
“A what?” I knew what he’d been about to say, and I used it to fuel my anger, to jettison me forward instead of dwelling in the past—both the recent and not-so-recent past.
“Forget it.”
“No. Say it. We’ll both feel better after you do.” I kicked harder against the carpet, almost savoring the rug burn at the bottom of my foot—a physical pain to replace the mental anguish his words would bring.
Why do you have to be such a coward?
I braced myself for the impact of the words. Maybe a normal girl wouldn’t feel so offended at them. But I’d known I wasn’t normal the first time one of Lena’s boyfriends snuck into my bedroom.
And the truth of the words would hurt.
I was a coward.
I was nothing like Emma or Uncle Joe or Ethan.
“Hayley, I’m sorry.”
Wait . . . what? “What in tarnation do you have to be sorry for?”
“For hurting you.”
I sighed, long and deep, the apology breaking something inside me. “I shouldn’t have left, Ethan. Not like I did. Again. Just—being with you, it was like I couldn’t think, like you threaten my existence or my purpose or something. Like you threaten who I know myself to be.”
They were the most honest words I’d spoken aloud in a long time.
“We can go slow, Hayley.”
There it was again. The still-existing invitation. “You don’t give up, do you?”
“There’s something here for us. Even if we have to wade through a whole lot of fear and uncertainty, this—us—we could be worth it.”
“There can’t be anything. You—a relationship . . . it’s not in the stars for us, Ethan. I’m all the way in California. I’m going to be a SEAL. Do you have any idea what that involves?”
“Enlighten me.”
“It means never seeing each other. It means you not knowing where I am or if I’m alive 80 percent of the time. It means you not getting why I will always be more loyal to my team or to my country or to the Navy, more than you.”
I swallowed at the truth, naked between us. It had to hurt.
Silence over the line, then a long intake of breath. “Jed called. You’re really related to her.”
“Emma.”
“Yeah.” His voice sounded low and husky, so close. “You want to read the rest of her story?”
I snorted. “Silly
question.”
“Then I guess you’re going to have to come home and read it yourself.”
“Ethan, that’s not funny.”
He cleared his throat. “I’m not joking. This is your family, Hay. Your history. And you shouldn’t be alone in some California hotel room when you read it. You should be with me. You should have always been with me.”
I winced at the crack in his voice, tried not to imagine a different sort of future, a different ending to me and Ethan.
I thought of Emma, of her fight for not only her country, but for the man she loved. Did it have to be one or the other? It hadn’t for her. But what about me?
“I’m sorry, Ethan.”
“Because you won’t come home?”
“Yes. But I’m also sorry for hurting you.” I sniffed. “But in all fairness, you knew I was dysfunctional from the beginning.”
“You’re not dysfunctional. Think of Emma and Noah. They definitely had some issues. But they worked through them.”
“They’re different.”
“Why?”
Why. Because they leaned on each other. They leaned on Someone greater.
Another sigh from Ethan. “You know . . . I’ve been trying to get you to see my side for some time . . . to control things. Maybe—maybe it’s just not my place. Maybe it’s time I depend on God too. Maybe I shouldn’t try to hold you so tightly.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. He was letting me go. I should be happy.
“I’ll send you the rest of the story tonight.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Hayley
I DID NOT SLEEP much that night, after I read the rest of Emma’s story.
The next morning, I texted Ethan. That’s really how it ended?
Yes. You don’t think that’s a good ending?
I’m glad he rescued her, but I thought we’d learn about their children and why they didn’t hand down the story.
Gerald said there could be more information in Sarah Fulton’s records.
The Tea Chest Page 29
