Marcus and Matthew boarded a ferry and crossed the water. When they landed on the other side, Marcus realized that he was close to Hadley. He looked at de Clermont, unsure of why his father had brought him here.
“You should see it again,” de Clermont said, “through new eyes.”
But it was Marcus’s nose that first registered the familiarity of the place. It was filled with the scents of fall in western Massachusetts—leaf mold and pumpkins, cider presses filled with apples, woodsmoke from chimneys—long before the MacNeil farm came into view.
The place was in much better condition than it had been on the day Marcus killed his father.
A woman laughed. It wasn’t his mother’s laughter—he would have known that silvery, infrequent sound in a heartbeat. He stopped his horse to see who lived here now, and de Clermont stopped with him.
A young woman of twenty or so came from the henhouse. She was blond, sturdy looking and strong, with a red-and-white apron over a blue dress that was simple but clean. She had a basket of eggs in one arm, and a pail of milk slung over the other.
“Ma!” the woman called out. “The hens laid! There are enough eggs to make custard for Oliver!”
It was his sister. This young woman—she was his sister.
“Patience.” Marcus kicked his horse and started forward.
“It’s your decision whether or not you speak to your family,” de Clermont said. “But remember: You can’t tell them what you’ve become. They wouldn’t understand. And you can’t remain here, Marcus. Hadley is too small to harbor a wearh. People will know you’re different.”
Then his mother came from the back door of the house. She was older, her hair white, and even at a distance Marcus could see the wrinkles that were etched into her skin. Still, she didn’t look as tired as the last time he had seen her. In her arms was a baby wrapped in a homespun blanket. Patience kissed it on the forehead, talking to it with the rapt adoration that new mothers lavished on their children.
My nephew, Marcus realized. Oliver.
Catherine, Patience, and Oliver formed a small family knot around the door. They were happy. Healthy. Laughing. Marcus remembered when fear and pain hung over the house in a dark pall. Somehow, joy had returned when Obadiah and Marcus departed.
Marcus’s heart stopped in a spasm of grief for what might have been. Then it started up again.
This was no longer his family. Marcus did not belong in Hadley anymore.
But he had made it possible for his mother and sister to find a new life for themselves. Marcus hoped that Patience’s man—if she still had one and he had not been killed in the war—was good and kind.
Marcus turned his horse’s head away from the farm.
“Who is that?” Patience’s question floated through the air. Had he not been a wearh, Marcus might not have been able to hear her.
“It looks like—” his mother began. She stopped, seeming to consider whether her eyes were playing tricks.
Marcus faced resolutely forward, eyes on the horizon.
“No. I was mistaken,” Catherine said, her voice tinged with sadness.
“He’s not coming home, Ma,” Patience said. “Not ever.”
Catherine’s sigh was the last thing Marcus heard before he put all that he once was and might have been behind him.
22
Infant
NOVEMBER 1781
Portsmouth’s harbor was filled with ships waiting to load and unload their cargo. Though it was well past midnight, the docks still bustled with activity.
“See if you can find a ship called the Aréthuse,” de Clermont told Marcus, passing him the horse’s reins. “I’ll ask at the tavern to see if anyone’s spotted her.”
“How big?” Marcus studied the sloops, schooners, brigantines, and whaleboats.
“Big enough to make it across the Atlantic.” De Clermont pointed to a ship at the very edge of the harbor. “There. That’s her.”
Marcus squinted into the dark, trying to make out the name. But it was the French flag flying off the stern that convinced him de Clermont was right.
De Clermont jumped into a small skiff and pulled Marcus in after him. The sailor on watch was horribly drunk and barely noticed that the vessel in his charge had been taken. De Clermont made quick work of reaching the Aréthuse, pulling mightily on the oars so that the boat’s pointed bow rose up with every stroke.
When they reached the ship, someone flung a rope ladder over the side.
“Climb,” de Clermont commanded, holding the skiff steady against the hull.