Flight of the Sparrow

by Amy Belding Brown

  A few feet away a man is snoring. Mary can see the top of his head—a ribbon of coarse black hair—poking up from beneath a deerskin. She sees Quenêke squatting by the fire, fanning the flames with a turkey wing.

  Quenêke looks up at Mary. She speaks, but Mary shakes her head—she does not understand. Quenêke’s voice crackles like fire. She points the wing at Sarah.

  Mary looks down and sees that her daughter’s eyes are wide-open. She covers them with her hand and draws them gently closed. Sarah’s skin is icy and dry. It is strange to see her so still. The girl was so quick about everything, so eager to learn about the world. And so quickly gone from it. Suddenly Mary is weeping again, surprised that she has any tears left in her.

  “She is dead,” Mary cries. “I must bury her.”

  Quenêke touches Mary’s shoulders. “Haste,” she says in English. “Go. Weetamoo.”

  Mary focuses on the whites of her eyes, her flashing teeth. Fear rises in her, like a hot ember scalding her bowels. She stands and starts to lift Sarah’s body, but Quenêke stops her, braids snapping back and forth as she shakes her head. “Go Weetamoo,” she says.

  “Weetamoo?” Mary frowns. “She banished me.”

  “It is bad to die in wetu of sachem,” Quenêke says slowly. “It calls bad spirits. You go now. Not give Weetamoo anger.”

  “No.” Mary shakes her head. “No. Please, let me stay here.”

  It takes several minutes before Mary understands that she has no choice, that when Weetamoo turned her out of her shelter, it was a temporary exile. “Go haste,” Quenêke says, taking Sarah’s body from Mary’s arms and pushing her outside.

  • • •

  Weetamoo does not seem surprised when Mary steps into the wetu alone. She begins giving her orders, assigning her chores with impatient gestures: She must scrape strings of meat from a smoked deer hide. She must keep the fire burning. She must stir the fibrous stew that fills the iron kettle. Mary’s face burns from the heat though her mind is frozen. She can think of nothing but Sarah. Sarah writhing in her death throes. Sarah’s last breath. Sarah’s body lying in her lap as she sat on the dirt floor of Quenêke’s wetu. An icy despair fills her. Life itself no longer matters. She has lost her soul.

  Mary knows that grief is a sin. Joseph often preached against it, admonishing the congregation for their attachments. Do not attach yourself to the things of this earth, but to Heaven alone. ’Tis a sin to place your affection in the flesh, for you belong to the Lord. Forsake your sins, for in sinning you forsake God. He had lectured her in private, warning her that a mother must not cherish any of her children, for it is too easy to slip into the Devil’s snare of serving them instead of the Lord.

  Mary prays as she works. Or tries to, forcing her heart toward God, pleading with Him for mercy. After several hours, mercy comes. Weetamoo sends her to the river for water. On her way, Mary passes Quenêke’s wetu. She cannot keep herself from entering.

  Quenêke is cutting a deerskin into laces. Sarah’s body is not in the wetu. Mary cannot hide her panic. “Where is my daughter? What have you done with her body?”

  Quenêke looks up at her and puts down her knife. “Monchuk,” she says. “Girl gone.”

  Mary begins to shake. “Where have you put her?” She asks her again and again—falls to her knees and begs—but Quenêke gives no answer and goes back to her work. Finally out of patience, Quenêke pushes her from the wetu. Mary stumbles along the path, her sight blinded by tears, and almost bumps into the English-speaking Indian who cut her rope. He is squatting on the path, studying the ground. He leaps to his full height and looks down at her. She cannot read his expression.

  “’Tis you,” she says. Then, realizing how foolish she must look and sound, she steps back and tries to recover some composure by wiping her face with her sleeve.

  It does no good, for her tears seem to have a will of their own and will not be stanched.

  “You seek your daughter,” he says. It is a statement, not a question.

  She stares at him, stupefied, wondering how he knows. “Yes.” Her voice is little more than a croak. She feels as if she’s been screaming for hours. She swallows. “Sarah died in the night.”

  She sees him nod through the haze of her tears. “They buried her this morning.”

  She does not realize until that moment that she has been imagining some pagan desecration of Sarah’s body, not a simple burial. “Do you know where?” she whispers.

  “I do.” She detects a kindness in his expression that she had not imagined possible in an Indian face. She has always perceived the natives as a stern, humorless people. But here is this man, looking down at her with eyes filled with compassion. “I will show you the place,” he says, and gently takes her arm, turning her on the trail.

  He leads her out of the village along a narrow path that winds through a stand of hemlocks, to a small hill that has been cleared of snow. He points to a mound of broken earth. “There,” he says. “She lies asleep in the Lord.”

  Startled, Mary looks up at him. “You are Christian?” she asks.

  “I was,” he says slowly. “I was baptized by Mr. Eliot as a boy.”

  Mary’s mind fills with questions, but they flutter away, like dark moths in the night. All she can think of is her poor dead child lying without coffin or shroud in a shallow grave deep in the wilderness.

  She cannot help herself. She flings her body down, full length, on the frozen clumps of dirt, weeping. An icy cold rises from the earth, penetrates her skirts and bodice and shift, then slides under her skin. As the chill enters her bones, Mary feels a strange comfort. A peculiar thought enters her mind. If she stays here long enough, she will be reunited with Sarah. And with Mari. She senses hazily that she has finally found something real, something true, in the midst of the chaos.

  She feels a hand on her shoulder. The Indian lifts her under her arms, pulling her to her feet. With great reluctance, she stands. He murmurs something and brushes her cheek with his hand. It is the most tender of gestures—and it is like a knife to her heart. Mary is undone; her legs wobble beneath her and she is about to collapse when he catches her.

  She clings to him like a child. Tears pour down her face and her body is wracked by great, wretched sobs. He holds her, and she feels his compassion covering her like a cloak. When her sobs finally subside, she looks up and sees her own sorrow mirrored in his eyes.

  Gently, he leads her back to Weetamoo.

  CHAPTER NINE

  For days, Mary’s thoughts are a jumble of sorrow and confusion. She cannot wipe Sarah’s wilderness grave from her mind. Nor can she stop thinking about her encounter with the English-speaking Indian, the troubling memory of clinging to him as she wept. The comfort she felt as he held her. The way she completely surrendered to the consolation of his presence. Not of his presence only, but of his body. Even at the thought, her face burns with shame. She is as miserable a sinner as Bess Parker.

  She feels crazed and savage. She cannot concentrate on the tasks Weetamoo assigns. She is too restless to sit still. Her feet twitch and she cannot control her hands. She rises up and paces around the wetu until Weetamoo threatens her with a stick.

  She walks through the village, wringing her hands, without destination, without reason. She stops people on the path to ask, with gestures and signs, where she might find Joss and Marie but receives only averted glances and frowns. It occurs to her that the English Indian might know, but she does not see him. Her pocket knocks against her thigh like a child’s hand tapping for attention. She considers what it holds—a spool of thread and a needle, her short knitting needles, a scrap of sweet cake that crumbles to dust in her fingers. Her mother’s silver embroidery scissors, their points sharper than a pup’s teeth. She imagines taking them out and drawing the short blades across her wrists. She wonders how long it will take for all the blood to run from her body. How simple to w
alk a short way into the forest and sit down with her back to a tree and take her life. No one would notice her absence. No one would care when they found her dead.

  There is no greater sin. It is as if God Himself speaks in her ear. She stops and stands still. She remembers Joseph’s sermon the Sabbath after Martha Bard drowned herself. His voice had been filled with fury as he reminded the congregation of their duty to God and to the community. “Who amongst us is so foolish to conceive that we belong to ourselves, that we have the right to choose the day of our death? Who would so tempt the Lord to forsake us? Remember, we live on the frontier by His mercy alone!” Joseph had set everyone in the meetinghouse trembling. Even Mary was shaken.

  She is so absorbed in her thoughts that she hears her son’s voice before she sees him.

  “Mother?”

  She looks up and claps her hand over her mouth. Joss looks taller than she remembers, though it is less than a fortnight since the attack. He is too thin. His breeches and coat are ripped to rags, and his face is filthy with soot and grime, but he is smiling. She nearly falls to her knees.

  Shaking, she takes his shoulders and presses her fingers deep into the fabric of his coat, to assure herself it is truly her son’s flesh beneath the wool, and not some specter of her fevered mind.

  “Sarah?” he asks, escaping her grasp. “Is she well?”

  Mary chokes on a wave of despair. All she can do is shake her head. Her hands, still trembling, fall to her sides. She manages a whisper. “She has perished.”

  “Dead?” His eyes grow wide.

  “Aye,” Mary whispers. “She was sorely wounded, but she went like a lamb. My sweet babe.” Words are like charms, she realizes. If said often enough, they will make it so. “They buried her, but I fear I cannot show you her grave. I know not how to find it on my own.”

  He puts his hand on her arm. “The grave is no matter, Mother.” How like his father he is! She feels a wave of pride. “I have seen Marie,” he tells her. “We prayed together and I promised to watch over her fate as I am able.”

  “Oh, my son!” She embraces him shamelessly. “Tell me—where is she? Can you take me to her?”

  He shakes his head. “It was mere accident that we met. She is closely watched by her mistress.”

  “How did she seem?” Mary thinks of her daughter’s slight frame and quiet demeanor. She has always been a sweet, compliant child. Too compliant sometimes. She hates the thought that she is now a captive. “Is she well? Have they harmed her?” The words rush out of her. What she wants to know, but cannot ask her son, is if Marie has been violated.

  “She weeps a lot,” Joss says. “But she says ’tis out of homesickness, not harm. I know she would like to see you.”

  Mary’s eyes blur with tears, which she tries to quell. Joss takes her hand and strokes it, and his gesture undoes her. The tears run down her face and drip off her chin. He pats her shoulder, murmurs words she does not try to untangle. When she is finally able to control herself, she thanks him and begs him to tell her where he dwells.

  He says he is living with a family in another village a few miles north. They have come to Menameset so his master may join the other warriors in a raid on Medfield. Mary is disturbed by the glint of excitement in his eye. “Pray to the Lord they are defeated,” she says. “Are you treated well?”

  He nods. “Aye. Like a son.”

  A great upwelling of dismay begins in her stomach and rises through her chest. “A son?” She struggles to collect her thoughts, to divert her mind from this new peril. “You must not forget whose son you are,” she says. “Do you pray, Joss? Do you wait daily on the Lord?”

  She catches a twitch of deceit on his face, but it is instantly gone—if it was even there in the first place—and he nods earnestly. “Every day, Mother,” he says. “All my hope is in the Lord.”

  It is the answer she wants—the answer she needs—and despite her doubt, Mary feels a flooding reassurance that her prayers will soon be answered. If her children—all but Sarah—are delivered from torture and death, then there is hope for her. Surely God will spare her husband, and with His help, Joseph will soon rescue them.

  “You must be strong.” She squeezes Joss’s shoulder. “Do not submit to the Devil’s temptations. The heathen life can be seductive for a boy. Remain firm in the Lord.”

  “I will, Mother.” He is again solemn, earnest.

  “I pray for you always.” As Mary embraces him again, she feels his resistance in the slight rigidity of his shoulders and the brevity of his response. When she releases him, she turns and quickly walks away, for she can no longer bear the awareness that she cannot care for him. Knowing that another family has embraced him. Knowing that the only balm to her sorrow is prayer.

  • • •

  When Mary returns to the wetu, Quinnapin is standing outside. When he sees Mary, he passes his hand in front of his nose and flips his fingers at her. “When you wash?” he asks.

  Startled by his use of English, Mary gapes up at him, but when he wrinkles his nose in disgust, she looks down at her skirts. They are streaked with mud and blood and the hem is in shreds. Her stockings are caked in filth.

  “’Tis some months now,” she says slowly. “’Tis unwise to wash in this season. It opens the body to toxic humors and weakens the constitution.”

  He snorts derisively. “You wash,” he says firmly. “Now. And every day.” He grabs her shoulder, his fingers pressing painfully through her heavy wool cape, and shoves her into the wetu. Mary sees at once that whatever is about to happen has been arranged, for Weetamoo and Alawa are waiting for her. They advance—one on either side—and begin pulling off her clothes. Mary resists, thrashing and grappling with the women, but Alawa yanks at her skirt, and Weetamoo rips the sleeve from her jacket. When Mary cries out in protest, Weetamoo slaps her face hard, a blow so powerful that Mary staggers backward and falls to her knees. Weetamoo stands over her, spraying a torrent of Indian words that Mary cannot understand, but their meaning is plain enough—Mary must remove the rest of her clothes. Shaking, Mary obeys, loosening the laces and peeling the grime-encrusted layers away one after another. She takes off her latchet shoes and unrolls her stockings. When she is finally naked, Alawa gathers the clothes into a bundle and throws them outside. Weetamoo shoves a clod of sphagnum moss into Mary’s hand, points to a pot of water, and signals that she must wash. Mary crouches near the fire, and obediently begins to scrub.

  When Mary is clean, Alawa hands her a deerskin dress and a pair of moccasins and signals her to put them on. The deerskin is old and worn, thin as linen in some places. Mary holds the dress against her breasts and looks up at Alawa in alarm. “What of my shift?” She cannot abide the thought of wearing the deerskin against her naked body. Like all Englishmen and -women, she has worn a layer of linen under her garments since she was born. Alawa shakes her head. “No shift,” she says slowly in English. Weetamoo frowns impatiently and makes a hurrying gesture with her fingers. Mary pulls the garment over her head and rises. The deerskin’s folds fall over her like a caress. She is surprised at how easily she wears it, at how comfortable it feels against her skin.

  Quinnapin steps into the wetu. He stands with his arms crossed over his chest, staring at her. He inhales a big sniff and smiles. “You clean now,” he says. He draws a small English looking glass from his pouch and holds it up in front of Mary.

  She sees a woman she barely recognizes. Her face is drawn; her eyes lie like gray river stones deep in their sockets. Her wet hair shines in the firelight. And she is wearing Indian dress. A sinking sensation overwhelms her. Will Joseph recognize her when he comes to rescue her? Will he assume that she has given herself to a warrior?

  She starts to pull at the deerskin. “I cannot wear this,” she says, shaking her head. “I must have English clothes.”

  Suddenly Weetamoo is in front of her, brandishing a stick. “Maninn
apish!” she shouts and jabs her free hand at the doorway. “Monchish!”

  “Go,” Quinnapin says. “Weetamoo want you work.”

  What work? Mary wonders, but does not ask, for Weetamoo has raised the stick again. As Mary stumbles toward the door, Alawa throws a heavy blanket over her shoulders.

  Mary’s clothes lie in the snow in front of the wetu. She stares down at them, considering whether it will be safe to take them. She examines her skirt and jacket. The filth-encrusted skirt has been badly torn along the seam and the jacket shorn of buttons. Her hard English shoes are unharmed, but she has no desire to put them on again; the moccasins are soft and make her feet feel as if they are cupped in a huge, warm hand. She bends and roots through the pile until she finds her pocket. She ties it around her waist and starts along the path. After a few steps she goes back and retrieves her apron, stockings and shift, tying them into a corner of the blanket, unable to leave behind all the bloodstained tatters of her former self.

  She wanders through the village, surprised to find she is not uncomfortable without her jacket and skirt. The dress is surprisingly warm and the blanket is an efficient barrier against the bitter cold. She ventures down the path to the river and stands on the bank for a long time, staring out at the shadows of the trees on the surface of the snow-covered ice. There are several star-shaped cracks in the ice and a black circle of open water pushed up against the shore—a place where she has fetched water for Weetamoo. She feels as if time has slowed down since she was taken captive; she has more occasion to observe the world around her.

  She makes her way down the bank and squats beside the water. Even before she lowers her hands into the river, she knows the icy cold will make her fingers ache. She unties the corner of her blanket and lets the stockings, shift and apron roll into the water. She takes a deep breath, plunges both hands in after them and begins washing the garments, scrubbing them vigorously between her numb hands. She pulls them out and twists them hard to wring the water from them and then slaps them against a nearby boulder. She works with a fierce intensity, determined to draw every drop of blood from the cloth. When she is finished, she ties the dripping garments back into the blanket and resolves to dry them by the fire in the wetu when chance allows.