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Weary, dizzy, he knelt in the snow and lowered his head, thinking only to collect himself. But on the snow was a small cluster of blood droplets—those of the man from the crash. Mr. Lovejoy. Or Skye’s cut hand. Maybe even his own, if he’d gotten banged up worse than he realized.
But Balthazar soon lost the capacity to think about them in any rational way. His mind focused on only one thing: blood.
Just a taste, one taste, you’ll get your strength back—
He dipped his fingers into the stains on the snow. The blood had already chilled. But he slid his fingers between his lips—even cold blood would be glorious to him right now—
And then the world went away.
Replaced by a better one.
Chapter Five
Massachusetts, 1640
BALTHAZAR BREATHED IN DEEPLY. IT HAD seemed to him, for a moment, that there was something strange about the fact that he needed to draw breath—but why should that be? They had just walked up a steep hill, which was enough to make anyone pant.
That brief oddness was quickly forgotten, replaced by a rare, deep satisfaction. According to his parents, and to the rest of their community, one’s best was never good enough—no life was industrious enough, virtuous enough, ever. But right now he was alone, save for his sister and his dog, neither of whom judged him. At market in Boston, he had sold the cow for fifteen strands of wampum, three more than his father had expected him to get, which would surely make his parents happy. Goodman Cash had even given each of the Mores an apple—a rare treat, for free, out of nothing but kindness.
As Fido bounded ahead in the high grasses, Charity leaped after him. Her natural exuberance was too great for the strict rules under which they lived, but try as he might, Balthazar could see nothing sinful in it. Perhaps it was not prudent for a young girl to dance around in the sunshine in front of others—that could be seen as immodest, he guessed, though he understood Charity had no such intention. Here and now, though, with nobody else to watch, his little sister could be free, and she knew it.
“Why can’t every day be market day?” Charity said, holding out her hands as if she wanted to catch the sunlight in her palms.
“Because we don’t have something to sell every day, just as nobody needs to buy something every day.”
“I wish we could.”
Balthazar had a flicker of a thought about markets that really were open all the time—even at night—but the peculiar daydream faded in an instant.
“If it were market day every day, then we could have jugglers and singers every day, too.”
“You’ve never even seen a juggler in your life.”
“Mama told us, and she even tried to show us with the potatoes before Papa came in that time. I think it would be fun.”
Their mother made life back in England sound much more enjoyable than life in Massachusetts Bay Colony, Balthazar thought. Their father often reminded them that they were building a city greater than London could ever be—the city of God on earth—but that was poor comfort in winter when the snow piled high, the wind whipped through the crevices at the corners of their two-room house, and there’d been nothing to eat for days but deer jerky and root vegetables. Then their mother’s stories of London—with shops that sold a fragrant hot drink called “coffee” every day and singers that performed in the marketplace for anyone to hear—well, it sounded closer to heaven than Massachusetts Bay Colony was likely to get.
“You like market day, too,” Charity said. “Because you get to see Jane.”
In front of his parents, Balthazar would have denied it; for his sister, he had only a smile. “She looked well today, didn’t she?”
“A green dress. Green!” Charity—who had never worn any color dress but black or brown, and was surrounded by women who considered colorful clothing a sign of pro-England sympathies at best, immodesty at worst—couldn’t get over it. Truth be told, Balthazar himself had understood for the first time just how bright colors could inspire lustful thoughts.
Or maybe that was just Jane. Her sweet face, heart-shaped because of the widow’s peak to her lustrous dark hair, the deep shade of her skin, the lines of her slim waist sheathed in that beautiful green, the way she smiled at him—above all, the way she smiled at him—
Don’t think of it, he told himself. It can never be.
Jane was not from a family among the Godly, the only group with whom Balthazar’s father wanted him to associate. Though they were not currently members in good standing with the church, due to his mother’s dangerous flirtation with the heresies of Anne Hutchinson, his father knew they could regain that acceptance and respectability. Jane never would. She traveled about with her father, an itinerant merchant who peddled his wares up and down the coasts of the colonies. They certainly were not members of the church, and only a special act by the governor allowed them and their kind to be in Massachusetts at all.
Rumor had it they were papists. Among the Puritans, this was beyond redemption—far worse than the heathenism of the Natives who dwelled nearby.
But Balthazar could not see sin embodied in anyone as good as Jane. Though they had only ever spoken at market days, he knew that he cared for her, and that she thought well of him, too. The way her eyes lit up whenever she saw him made the whole world seem to melt—
It can never be, he reminded himself.
“When I grow up, and Mama doesn’t make my dresses any longer, I’ll wear green, too,” Charity said. “Green dresses, green caps, green aprons, even green shoes. Every day.”
“You’d look like an asparagus.”
