Weeks passed quickly. Azubah was so busy tending to her aunt and uncle that she did not notice that Matthew was overdue.

“How many days have I been here, Aunt Faye?” she asked one day as she rolled Uncle Gideon to the side, changing the bed linen under him. “I do not suppose you’ve noticed.”

Faye did not reply. She sat in a chair staring straight ahead, waiting for Azubah to change the bedding so she could crawl right back into bed.

“I think Matthew is late fetching me,” Azubah continued, folding a quilt over Uncle Gideon.

When she finished, she looked at her aunt and sighed. Aunt Faye was fast becoming Uncle Gideon, mute and unresponsive. She was nothing more than a living, breathing skeleton. Her light hair, never full, had thinned; she had lost weight. Azubah thought now, more than ever, that she resembled a child. Sometimes she wondered if there was indeed a curse upon both of them. But then she would remind herself that it was only foolishness and superstition. Uncle Gideon had been struck senseless by an illness. Apoplexy, Grandfather Craft had called it. And Aunt Faye’s malady was a slow deterioration of the mind. She had given up on life.

“I am wondering if something is amiss at home,” Azubah said out loud. But she was talking to herself. Aunt Faye did not respond. She stood up like a sleepwalker, walked past her and crawled into bed.

Several more days passed and Azubah started to worry. “Aunt Faye,” she announced at breakfast. “I must return to Plum River today.”

Faye slowly looked up from her Bible and blinked. “You are leaving?”

“Yes, I am worried. I cannot imagine why Matthew is so tardy.” She unpinned her apron and folded it. “I have fed the stock, left enough prepared food for you and clean linen. I will be back as soon as I can.” She squatted down and took her aunt’s hand. “Do you remember a boy named Bullfrog? He lived in the settlement before it burned.”

Faye drew her eyebrows together, and after a moment, nodded. “Yes.”

“Well, he survived the attack and has been living alone here out in the woods all these years.”

Faye did not react.

“He is alive and well,” Circe said.

“Her wrath came upon them for their evil,” Faye said dreamily.

The words confused Circe and had an ominous sound to them. The hair raised on her arms. “What did you say, Aunt?”

There was no response.

“Anyway,” Circe continued. “I wanted to tell you that I became friends with Bullfrog many years ago.”

“You did?”

“I was afraid you would forbid me from seeing him, so I said nothing. He is a nice boy and will keep watch over you while I’m gone. He is reluctant to come inside the house, but if you truly need him, hang a handkerchief on the door.”

Aunt Faye nodded.

Azubah wanted to make sure she understood. “If you need him, what will you do?”

“Put a handkerchief on the door,” Faye said, mechanically.

“Good.”

Aunt Faye took her arm and pulled her back down when Azubah tried to rise to her feet. She touched her cheek and murmured, “God go with you, my little firefly.”

Why did Aunt Faye call her firefly? She couldn’t know Grandfather called her that name. Was she dreaming again or were there dark forces at work?

Azubah traveled as fast as her legs would carry her back to Plum River; she had to know what was happening. She was far too preoccupied to see that autumn had come to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Ordinarily, she would have felt the changes in the earth. Its pulse slowed in readiness for the long rest; the sap in the trees grew silent, but today there were other concerns. She walked briskly, eyes straight ahead while murmuring prayers. She could not see the transformation all around her. Although the grasses of the marsh were an unremarkable brown, there were splashes of magenta everywhere. Spiky flowers fed on the brackish water and the leaves on the trees were ablaze with color. Some of the leaves had fallen on the path in front of her like a multicolored quilt of scarlet, yellow, and orange.

She stopped momentarily to untie the shoulders of her shift and slipped her sleeves off. The sun was hot, and worry was making her feverish.

As she turned up the road to return home, she listened for the mill. There was no water splashing from the wheel and no voices, but only wind in the trees. When she came around the bend, the wheel was indeed motionless. Ordinarily, at this time of day, wagons would be lined up. Horses would be drinking from the trough and farmers would be everywhere. Grandfather Craft’s millers would be weighing and bagging meal, but the mill was abandoned.

Azubah swallowed hard and ran to the cottage. Usually, there was activity in the garden or the fields, but there was no one. The family slave, Dido, looked up when she burst through the door. She was sitting and sewing near the bedstead in which Azubah’s mother lie. No one else was in the cottage.

Dido jumped up, arms outstretched. “Stay back, girl!”

“Why?”

“It be the smallpox.”

Azubah wailed, “Mother!” She rushed over to her.

Dido shook her turbaned head and muttered an incantation.

Abigail opened her bloodshot eyes and looked up. She was completely covered with pus-filled sores. They were on her arms, legs, torso and face, even in her nose and mouth. They were clustered so closely together that no smooth skin was visible. She looked more reptilian than human. “Get back, Azubah,” she mumbled.

“No, Mother. I’m here. I will take care of you.”

“Where is everyone?” she asked Dido.

“Gone to Ipswich,” the slave replied. “Only the sick and dying remain.” Her head was trembling as well as her hands, but it was not from agitation. The old woman was plagued by tremors.

“My brothers and sisters - are they well?”

“Aye,” the slave replied. “Their father took them away.”

“How long has my mother been sick?”

“More than four days.”

A shadow darkened the door and they looked up. It was Josiah. He stood on the threshold, not stepping inside the house. The sunlight was bright behind him, putting his face into shadow. “So you’re back,” he said to Azubah.

“Yes, Father. Matthew did not come, and I began to worry.”

Looking at Dido, he jerked his head and said, “The girl is here now. Be useful elsewhere.”

“It be God’s will and yours, Master Craft,” she murmured, picking up her sewing and leaving.

“Josiah?” Abigail mumbled. “Are you there?”

He did not answer.

“Josiah?”

He did not come into the room.

“Mother calls for you,” Azubah said. But he was gone when she looked.

*                 *                  *

Azubah did not leave her mother’s side the rest of the day. She bathed her brow with cool washcloths and gave her broth. Abigail was weak and often insensible. One moment she was crying out in pain and the next coughing and gasping. She fell into a swoon by evening.

Helpless to do anything but pray, Azubah stepped outside for some fresh air. The autumn wind felt good on her skin. She looked through the window at her spinning wheel and loom. How long had it been since she had used them? It felt like years. Everything was changing so quickly; she was scared. She was a carefree girl only yesterday, teasing Matthew and stealing away with Bullfrog. Now a dark shadow had fallen.

She looked up the hill at the mill. All was quiet, and she wondered if Grandfather had left with the others. She decided to search for him. She looked up at the familiar stone building as she crossed the bridge over the falls. At least that remained the same, solid and dependable. She stopped and looked down at the river tumbling over the edge to the rocks below. That had not changed either. And it would remain the same for a thousand years.

She stepped off the bridge and started toward the service door, glancing at a bench under an old willow tree. Grandmother Craft was buried there. Many evenings before sunset, Azubah would sit in that spot with her grandfather.

Something caught her eye and her stomach twisted. It was a freshly dug mound of earth. She rushed over and dropped to her knees. The headstone read Enoch Craft.

“No, it cannot be!” she cried. “No, no, no! You cannot be gone!”

Azubah had seen this headstone in the past. Her grandfather had commissioned it years ago. It was engraved with a winged skull, his name, birth date and now the date of his death. Since the Puritans did not believe in consecrated ground, they allowed the Crafts to be buried by the mill.

“I knew it!” Azubah exclaimed in a voice thick with tears. “You said farewell to me through Aunt Faye. I knew it was you, but I didn’t want to believe it.”

She sat crossed-legged by his grave, sobbing, her mind flooding with questions. What had happened? Was it the pox? What would she do without him? He was the only one in the family that understood her; he was the only one who wanted her company.

She sat back on her heels and looked around, wiping her tears. Grandfather had always loved this spot. He said it was the perfect place to be buried. Now he rested here at last.

 

*                    *                   *

Azubah sat by his grave with her knees drawn up until well after dark. When she realized the time, she jumped up and ran back to the house. She lit a lamp with shaky hands and checked on her mother. Abigail’s left eye was covered with sores, but she looked at Azubah with her right eye.

“Would you like some water, Mother?”

She did not answer.

When she put water to her lips, it ran down her mother’s face and onto her neck. She tried again but to no avail. At last, Azubah brought bedding down from the loft to make up a pallet on the floor. Sleep would not come, though, and she was up all night either tending to her mother or pacing. Would her mother live? And what would she do without Grandfather? Finally, she slept until Josiah burst into the room at dawn.

“How is she?”

Azubah sat up, rubbing her eyes. “She speaks little and takes no water.”

He grunted and picked up a chair, walking out of the house with it. When he returned, he took a chest. Azubah followed him out the door. Josiah was filling a huge wagon with household goods.

“Where are you going, Father?”

“Ipswich.”

“Are we leaving Plum River?”

“Yes, tis God’s will that your mother will not be on this earth much longer.”

“But she still lives!”

Stunned, she followed him out to the wagon, watching him arrange the furniture. “Please, we must not give up.”

He did not answer, returning to the house for the kitchen table. Piece by piece he emptied the dwelling. When he picked up the spinning wheel, Azubah cried, “Please, do not take that. I will find a way to bring it when I come.”

He stared at her as if she was daft. “You’re not coming.”

“What?” she murmured.

“You are not my daughter.”

“Father--”

“Do not!” he barked, putting his hand up. “Do not address me thus. I am not your father.”

He climbed onto the wagon, snapped the reins and rode away. She stared at the wagon.

“Azubah!” Abigail called.

When she ran back inside, her mother asked, “Where is my husband going?”

“To Ipswich.”

“Why does he not stay?”

“He must return to the children, Mother.”

Abigail was restless after that. Her breathing was labored, and the blisters started breaking all over her body, pus running.

Early that evening Abigail called for her. She leaned close to her mother’s lips.

“Go,” Abigail mumbled.

Azubah replied, “Go? Go where, Mother?”

Abigail repeated it, but her words were garbled as if she had rocks in her mouth.

“Prithee; say it again, Mother.”

Abigail raised herself up, took a breath and said, “Be gone from me. To look upon your face reminds me that I shall burn in hell.”

Azubah’s jaw dropped. “What did you say, Mother?”

No answer.

It was suddenly hard to breathe, and Azubah stumbled to the door for air. So now in her final moments, her mother had spoken the truth. All of these years she had endured her only as a form of penance.

Can it be true? Should she leave? Her mother wanted her gone, but who would comfort her in her final agony? It wounded Azubah deeply.

But a truly good person would stay in spite of the cruel words.

She looked at her mother, thought a moment, and then walked out the door. Azubah never looked back.