Doctor Olaf van Schuler's Brain by Kirsten Menger-Anderson Read Free Book Online Page A

longer shared Sarah’s optimism. Her eyes were red with the tears Sarah would not allow herself, and she preferred to sit as far from Nicolas as the room allowed.
    â€œI need you to sit with my son,” Sarah said. “You’re to offer him water if he wakes and to listen closely for any, for any … he’s sure to be weak.”
    Nan nodded, though her lips pressed tight against horror. Sarah had not seen such fear in the servant girl’s face since the day the child arrived with one change of clothes and the promise that she could card and spin. “Yes ma’am,” she said.
    Outside on the cobblestone pavement, the Van Cortlandt carriage — the finest in town, with its metal trim and high polish — stood loosely tethered. Though Sarah had condemned the carriage, as the other ladies had, for its high speeds and thoughtless presence on the city’s narrow streets, she was more than happy to step, with the Constable’s assistance, into the back and luxuriate on the soft pillows.
    â€œHow thoughtful,” she said, “How very thoughtful.”
    â€œThe Van Cortlandts insisted,” the Constable said. “When they heard about your Nicolas.”
    Despite the cushioned seats, the ride to the Common upset Sarah’s stomach, and the Constable had to demand that the carriage stop. Three times the carriage halted, and three times Sarah alighted with a kerchief to her face to cover the smile the gawking passersby brought to her lips. Everyone would soon know that Sarah Heathcote had ridden the Van Cortlandt carriage. The finest society would watch as she arrived at the hanging, delayed for her, with a nod and an offhanded comment about the violent rocking of the vehicle.
    The Constable offered his thick, sweaty palm as a comfort,and Sarah took it as she listened to his stories of the new fires that raged near the docks. “The black plague,” he said, “has descended upon us.”
    â€œI don’t understand,” Sarah said. “I just don’t understand.”
    The carriage stopped, and she heard the expectant crowd, hitherto concealed by the crack of horse hooves and the clap of wheels on cobblestone and the warm immensity of the Constable. Hundreds had gathered across the green lawn of the Common that abutted Collect Pond. The black men were buried there — a fact not lost to the assembled masses, who whispered that the hanged man would be laid into the very ground he swung above.
    The tavern keepers had shut their establishments and now stood among the most refined gentlemen in embroidered coats and silk stockings. Children ran between the vast skirts of their gossiping mothers. The tanners and blacksmiths, even the staff of McCully’s Dry Goods Store, which had shut its doors and offered a holiday in honor of the occasion, stood out on the lawn vying for better views. Beside them, the British crew of the
Happy Tidings,
which had berthed that morning, leaving the sea-weary sailors scant hours to swallow a few pints of ale before following the barmaids to the Common, hollered and sang and spread rumors that the man who was about to hang had in fact been a dreaded pirate.
    Into the crowd, head high, arm entwined in theConstable’s, swept Sarah Heathcote. She felt the eyes on her, heard her name in the surrounding murmur of voices —
the widow Heathcote … the Negroes have murdered her only son … how well she carries herself … such strength of character …
She turned neither right nor left as the Constable cleared a path for her, and she strode with dignified gait to the front of the crowd. Here she waited with the Constable, despite her expectations, for a full half hour before five stout wardens carried the prisoner, hands tied with a thick length of rope, onto the platform. The prisoner kicked and bit, his lips wide with curses, his eyes wild with fear and spite. And to think he’d once been with the Van