“She’s Rob’s widow… what’s wrong with you? Why don’t you trust her? She’s paid her debt, she’s going to give us a home! She’s a true daughter to you. She’ll find us a new house where there’ll be room for us all, and a garden, and clean air! She’s the savior of this family! She came here, when she could have gone anywhere! She’s stayed here, though it’s so poor and mean and so beneath her! And she’s used our warehouse and our wharf to bring in her valuable dower and sold it to our benefit! She loves us! She loves me!”

Alinor said nothing but looked steadily at her daughter till Alys ran out of words and stood, furiously silent.

“Even if all this were true, I would still be a mother missing a son,” Alinor said steadily. “Even if it were all true, I still would know in my heart, in my bones, Alys, that my son is alive. Even if it were all true, I would not believe that Rob is dead. None of this smells like truth to me, I don’t feel it in my heart, I don’t feel it in my bones.”

“How should you know it?” Alys raged. “How should you feel it in your heart? In your bones? You were ducked for a witch—have you learned nothing? These are false gifts. You have no sight! These are nothing but the fancies of a sick woman. You were a fool once for love! Are you going to be a fool for spite?”

Alinor gave a little gasp, put her hand to her heart as if she would hold her breath in her body. For a moment she could say nothing. Then she raised herself from her chair and went to the door. One hand on the ring of the latch, she turned back and drew a shaky breath. “It’s not witchcraft and never was. It’s my ma’s gift. I had it from her and gave it to my children. Rob had it and it guided him in his healing; you had it, but you put it from you. Now Sarah has it from me. And I tell you this—if my son were no longer in this world, I’d know it. Just as if Livia were a true daughter to me, I’d know it. Just as if her son was my grandson: I’d know it.”

“These things are unknowable,” Alys insisted, frightened at her mother’s ashen certainty. “But money at the goldsmith’s is real.”

“It’s not at your goldsmith’s,” Alinor said with the accuracy of a poor woman.

“Ma, sit down. Forgive me, I spoke in anger… I was…”

Alys pressed Alinor into the chair, and she sat still until she had gained her breath. Alys hurried to the kitchen and came back with a tot of brandy in a little glass and watched her drink till a little color came back to her drawn face.

“I shouldn’t have spoken so,” Alys whispered.

The older woman gave a wry smile. “Don’t take it back just because I can’t breathe. I’m not going to be one of those tyrants who faint to make people obey them.”

Alys gave a shaky little laugh. “You’re no tyrant, and I shouldn’t have abused you. But you’ve done me very wrong, Ma.”

“I haven’t,” Alinor said steadily. “I’ve done something I know to be right. And don’t you go telling Livia where Sarah’s gone. Nor what she’s doing.”

“I’d be ashamed to tell her!” Alys retorted, her voice low. “What could I tell her? That the mother-in-law that she loves doesn’t believe her? That she’s sent her granddaughter miles away, on a long sea voyage, to spy on her? Without telling me?”

A little smile twisted Alinor’s mouth, but she was unrepentant. “Very well. We’ll both of us say nothing. You can say, if she asks, that Sarah’s staying in the country for a month. And in a month we’ll find another excuse.”

“You want me to lie to her,” Alys accused. “The only person who has loved me since my husband abandoned me?”

Alinor nodded. “Do you think she doesn’t lie to you?”

NOVEMBER 1670, HADLEY, NEW ENGLAND

One icy cold day in late November there was a gentle tap on Ned’s door and Red lifted his head and gave a short welcoming bark. Ned opened the door to Wussausmon who was dressed in his thickest winter jacket, and grinning under a hat of muskrat fur.

“Come!” he said. “I’m going to take you fishing!”

“The river’s full of ice,” Ned protested.

“I know, I’m taking you to a lake. Have you ever been ice fishing?”

“No,” Ned said with no eagerness. “Never.”

Wussausmon hesitated. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Ned lied, putting on his big coat and tying his oiled cape on top.

“No—tell me?”

“No, no.” Ned hid his embarrassment in irritation. “Nothing. Nothing, I tell you.”

Wussausmon laughed at Ned’s bad temper. “Ah, Nippe Sannup!” he said, putting his arm around Ned’s shoulders. “Tell me what is the matter, for I can see you don’t want to come fishing with me, though I thought it would be a great treat for you. And you could take a fish to your woman: Mrs. Rose.”

“Don’t speak of her like that,” Ned warned him.

“Not a word! Not a word!” his irrepressible friend promised him. “But what is wrong, Nippe Sannup? Waterman? Netop? Friend?”

Ned sat to tie his moccasin boots, bending over them to hide his shame. “I’m not one of the People,” he confessed. “I’m not one of you. I’m not used to such hard winters that the ice freezes so you can walk on it, dig a hole in it.” His voice dropped lower. “It frightens me,” he confessed. “We have frost fairs in London some winters, but you can see that it’s frozen hard, and there are dozens of other people walking around. I can’t stomach the thought of stepping on a deep lake all on my own, and hearing it crack below me. I can’t bear to be all alone on the ice.”

There was a silence and he glanced up, expecting more laughter, but Wussausmon’s lively face was compassionate. “Of course,” he said. “Why did you not tell me at once?”

Ned shrugged. “It’s not the part of a man to be afraid,” he said.

“Oh it is,” Wussausmon assured him. “We teach our boys and girls to know their fear and step towards it as their friend. To use it as a warning. Far braver to face it than go away. Was that not the path of the Lord? In the wilderness? Facing His fear?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “That’s for Mr. Russell. I don’t know.”

“Don’t choose to be stupid,” Wussausmon begged him. “What else do you fear here, in this land which is not yours and is so strange to you?”

“The forest… the winter,” Ned admitted. “God help me, I don’t want to be a coward; but I keep thinking: what if I fell? Or a branch of a tree came down and pinned me down, or even something as little as I set my foot down wrong and turned my leg and couldn’t get home? It could be the smallest of things and in this weather I would die before anyone knew I was missing.” He took a breath. “They wouldn’t find me till spring,” he said. “They wouldn’t even know I was out there.”

Wussausmon put a gentle hand on Ned’s shoulder. “Waterman, this is not cowardice, these are real fears of things that might really happen. It is true for me too: when I am sent all round the country on strange paths. Like you, I think: What if I were to make a mistake here and wander into country that I don’t know? What if my enemies are waiting for me? What if someone somewhere has lost patience with a man who lives in two worlds but belongs to neither?”