'Rachel Howarth,' he said. 'I can't say I look forward to making her acquaintance tomorrow. What did you make of Garrick's story?'
'Very strange.'
'A grand understatement, I should think. I don't believe I've ever heard anything quite like it. In fact, I know I haven't. But is it believable?'
'Unless he's one of the best liars I've ever heard, he believes it.'
'Then he did see someone or something behind that barn, yes? But that act he described . . . how in the name of all that's holy could a woman perform in such a way?'
'I don't think we're dealing with a holy situation,' Matthew reminded him.
'No. Of course not. Two murders. It seems reasonable that the first murder should've been a minister. The diabolic would seek to destroy first and foremost a man who could wield the sword of God.'
'Yes, sir, it does. But in this instance, it appears the blade of Satan was a stronger weapon.'
'I'd keep such blasphemies chained, before you're summoned to a higher court by a bolt of lightning,' Woodward cautioned.
Matthew's eyes regarded the green, steamy wilderness that loomed beside the road, but his mind had turned to other sights: namely, the finding of truth in this matter of witchcraft. It was a blasphemous thought—and he knew he risked eternal damnation for thinking it—but sometimes he had to wonder if there was indeed a God who reigned over this earthly arena of fury and brutality. Matthew could sing the hymns and mouth the platitudes with the best of them, in the stiffly regimented Sabbath church services that basically consisted of the minister begging for five or six hours that Jehovah show mercy on His wounded and crippled Creation. But in his life Matthew had seen very little real evidence of God at work, though it seemed he'd seen much of Satan's fingermarks. It was easy to sing praise to God when one was wearing a clean white shirt and eating from china platters, much less easy when one lay on a dirty mattress in an almshouse dormitory and heard the shrill scream of a boy who'd been summoned after midnight to the headmaster's chambers.
SOMETIMES HE DID DREAM of his mother and father. Not often, but sometimes. In those dreams he saw two figures that he knew were his parents, but he could never clearly see their faces. The shadows were always too deep. He might not have recognized them even if he had been able to see their faces, as his mother had died of poisoned blood when he was three years old and his father—a taciturn but hardworking Massachusetts colony plowman who had tried his best to raise the boy alone—succumbed to the kick of a horse to the cranium when Matthew was in his sixth year. And with the flailing of that fatal equine hoof, Matthew was thrust into a pilgrimage that would both mold and test his mettle. His first stop on the journey was the squalid little cabin of his uncle and aunt who ran a pig farm on Manhattan island. As they were both drunks and insensate much of the time, with two imbecile children aged eight and nine who thought of Matthew as an object to be tormented—which included regular flights into a huge pile of pig manure beside the house—Matthew at seven years of age leaped upon the back of a southbound haywagon, burrowed into the hay, and so departed the loving embrace of his nearest relatives.
There followed almost four months of living hand-to-mouth on the New York waterfront, falling in with a group of urchins who either begged from the merchants and traders in that locale or stole from them when the fires of hunger became too hot. Matthew knew what it was like to fight for a few crumbs of hard bread and feel like a king when he came away from the battle bloody-nosed but his fists clenching sustenance. The finale to that episode in his life came when one of the harbor merchants roused the constable to action and men of the law subsequently raided the beach-wrecked ship where Matthew and the others were sheltered. They were caught in nets and bound up like what they were—kicking, spitting, frightened, vicious little animals.
And then a black wagon carried them all—still bound and now gagged to contain the foul language they'd gleaned from the merchants—over the city's hard dirt streets, four horses pulling the load of snot-nosed criminals, a driver whipping, a bell-ringer warning citizens out of the way. The wagon pulled to a halt in front of a building whose bricks were soot-dark and glistening with rain, like the rough hide of some squatting lizard yellow-eyed and hungry. Matthew and the others were taken none too gently out of the wagon and through the iron-gated entrance; he would always remember the awful sound that gate made as it clanged shut and a latchpin fell into place. Then under an archway and through another door into a hall, and he was well and truly in the chill embrace of the Sainted John Home for Boys.
His first full day in that drear domain consisted of being scrubbed with coarse soap, immersed in a skin- stinging solution meant to kill lice and fleas, his hair shorn to the scalp, his nails trimmed, and his teeth brushed by the eldest of the boys—the 'fellows,' he was to learn they were called—who were overseen by an eagle-eyed 'commander' by the name of Harrison, aged seventeen and afflicted with a withered left hand. Then, dressed in a stiff-collared gray gown and wearing square-toed Puritan shoes, Matthew was taken into a room where an old man with sharp blue eyes and a wreath of white hair sat behind a desk awaiting him. A quill pen, ledgerbook, and inkwell adorned the desktop.
They were left alone. Matthew looked around the room, which held shelves of books and had a window overlooking the street. He walked directly across the bare wooden floor to the window and peered out into the gray light. In the misty distance he could see the masts of ships that lay at harbor. It was a strange window, with nine squares set in some kind of metal frame. The shutters were open, and yet when Matthew reached toward the outside world his hand was stopped by a surface that was all but invisible. He placed his palm against one of the squares and pressed, but the surface would not yield. The outside world was there to be seen, the shutters were open, but some eerie force prevented him from pushing his hand through.
'It's called 'glass,'' the man behind the desk said in a quiet voice.
Matthew brought his other hand up and pressed all his fingers against this strange new magic. His heart was beating hard, as he realized this was something beyond his understanding. How could a window be open and closed at the same time?
'Do you have a name?' the man asked. Matthew didn't bother answering. He was enraptured in studying the mysterious window.
'I am Headmaster Staunton,' the man said, still quietly. 'Can you tell me how old you are?' Matthew pressed his face forward, his nose pushing against the surface. His breath bloomed before him. 'I suspect you've had a difficult time. Would you tell me about it?'
Matthew's fingers were at work again, probing and investigating, his young brow furrowed with thought. 'Where are your parents?' Staunton asked. 'Dead,' Matthew replied, before he could think not to. 'And what was your family name?'
Matthew tapped at the window with his knuckles. 'Where does this come from?'
Staunton paused, his head cocked to one side as he regarded the boy. Then he reached out with a thin, age- spotted hand, picked up a pair of spectacles on the desk before him, and put them on. 'The glazier makes it.'
'Glazier? What's that?'
'A man whose business is making glass and setting it in lead window frames.' Matthew shook his head, uncomprehending. 'It's a craft not long introduced into the colonies. Does it interest you?'
'Never seen the like. It's a window open and shut at the same time.'
'Yes, I suppose you might say that.' The headmaster smiled slightly, which served to soften his gaunt face. 'You have some curiosity, don't you?'
'I don't got nothin',' Matthew said adamantly. 'Them sons-abitches come and now we ain't got nothin', none of us.'
'I have seen six of your tribe so far this afternoon. You're the only one who's shown interest in that window. I think you do have some curiosity.'
Matthew shrugged. He felt a pressure at his bladder, and so he lifted the front of his gown and peed against the wall.
'I see you've learned to be an animal. We must unlearn some things. Relieving yourself without benefit of a bucket—and in privacy, as a gentleman—would earn you two stings of the whip given by the punishment captain. The speaking of profanity is also worthy of two lashes.' Staunton's voice had become solemn, his eyes stern behind the spectacles. 'As you're new here, I will let this first display of bad habits pass, though you shall mop up your mess. The next time you do such a thing, I will make certain the lashes are delivered promptly and—believe me, son—the punishment captain performs his task very well. Do you understand me?'
