A Measure of Light by Beth Powning Read Free Book Online

measured energy of her steps.
    Lying on a pallet beside William, Mary remembered the London nights, when no sound of nature could be heard, only a racket of cartwheels, neighing horses, drunken yells, the shriek, perhaps, of a murdered whore. Here, the wind made a restless tugging, causing mournful whistles; she heard no other sound but the howling of the wolves, an eerie ululation, bearing no relationship to the day just past or the one to come. And despite having found themselves a house of their own, she curled against William, burying her face in his neck, feeling the futility of choice.
    —
    A spit of morning rain tapped the windowpanes.
    At the table, the children stood behind the adults waiting to be handed their bowls. They ate their cold cornmeal porridge standing, and did not speak. Husbands and wives and Anne’s two elderly cousins shared maplewood porringers.
    Will Hutchinson gave a lengthy Bible reading. He did not read well and Mary noticed how Anne frowned, exasperated. Mary closed her eyes, comforted by the familiar, ancient words.
    “As for you, my flock, thus says the Lord …”
    The servants listened in silence from their table in a pantry off the kitchen.
    The entire household set forth at the same time to walk to the meeting house. The rattle of drums, not bells, called them to worship.
Rat-a-tat. Rat-a-tat. Rat-a-tat
.
    Men, women, children, servants; all walked clutching Bibles. People stepped from doors, emerged from alleys, a stream of black hats and cloaks, white collars, red stockings.
    As they turned into the square, Mary saw Anne reach for the hands of her youngest daughters and followed her gaze toward the stocks and whipping post flanking the meeting house.
    A pole had been attached to the stocks so that a rope could dangle from high above, mocking gallows; a young woman stood at the end of the rope, a noose draped around her neck and a sign hung upon her chest.
    “A.”
    Watchmen stood at either side, gripping their staves. Mary dared not lift her head, but passed so close she could have touched the young woman’s boots.
    The seventh commandment. A capital offence. Will they kill her? Is this but a warning?
    The ministers marched through the crowd. They were hunched, as if from excessive study, and wore black skullcaps. Clutchingwind-blown papers, cloak billowing, Reverend Cotton led them into the meeting house. Women and girls slipped around to the back of the building, entered through a separate door and filed into square pews with low partition walls, across an aisle from the men.
    Mary settled herself as comfortably as she could. Her distended belly strained the small of her back. She kept her eyes on her knees, like the other women, since one glance had shown her all there was to see. Bare plaster walls. No tapestries, no gold chalices, no stained glass. No rood screens, no statues. No chasubles or surplices. No incense. No hymnals.
    As it should be
.
    Elders and deacons faced the congregation.
    People stood and began to sing. They sang from memory, with neither accompaniment nor hymnal nor a given starting note.
    And he shall be like to a tree
,
    Planted by river-waters
,
    That in his season yields his fruit
,
    And in his leaf never withers
,
    And all he doth shall prosper well
,
    The wicked are not so—
    But they are like unto the chaff
,
    Which wind drives to and fro
.
    Mary closed her eyes. She did not know the music. It rose around her, strange and eerie, in its way.
    Then Mr. Wilson, the preacher, rose. He spoke of the Hedge.
    Invisible but real, he told them, it stood like a bulwark between them and the wilderness, protecting their godliness, keeping evil at bay. The forces of the anti-Christ dwelt in the forest, he said. Devilish spirits possessed the salvages—unfortunate humans who existed in darkness, most of them having no possibility of redemption or salvation.
    He spoke of how, should disorder fall upon the colonists by their own wickedness, God’s displeasure would