Losing Abigail

A How to Hang a Witch/Haunting the Deep (prequel) Fanfiction

Chapter Two: I Shall Be Brave For you

When Abigail finally spoke for the first time after their parents' death, Elijah felt as if precious rain was falling over a barren field following a drought.

He had not heard her voice since he was eight years old. He had nearly forgotten how beautiful simple, plain words were when they came from her, from his beloved sister.

Her tone was musical, even when only speaking – and only a few faltering words at that.

The feeling of unbridled joy overcame him so strongly he desired to behave in a very non-Puritan manner indeed – he wanted to cheer, and to whoop, and to cry out in delight and relief, to throw his head back and laugh and laugh and laugh, to throw his arms around her and kiss her cheek and thank God brokenly.

But he was afraid of alarming her, of frightening her back into her withdrawn self and having to begin all over again, so he restrained himself and employed every trick Puritan children are taught in holding back their emotions. Extreme happiness was as frowned upon as extreme anger or sadness. Abigail's quiet mourning might be excused, but had she screamed or carried on in an animated way to cope, half of Salem – if not more – would surely have turned on her, would have whispered amongst themselves that she was a very ill-behaved, wild girl indeed. From early childhood, they were told to show nothing, to keep a veneer of godly calmness on their faces at all times. It was as simple – though not as easy, for inside he was bubbling over – for Elijah, as obvious and unconscious, as combing his hair in the morning or dressing.

Calm as anything, he simply granted Abigail a half smile, one corner of his mouth curled, and said, "It is good to hear your voice again."

And that was it.

No mention of his fretting, of how he had tried to coax her into speaking day after day, evening after evening, prior, without success.

Nobody seeing their exchange would have suspected every night he sat beside her in their parlour and talked enough for the both of them, first about the town, their mutual acquaintances, noting her eyes brightening slightly – small specks of green glittering in the grey – and her clenched fingers relaxing into a softer position when he mentioned his friend William, and then about nothing in particular, pure nonsense to fill the conversation.

She would smile, even laugh, on occasion, and it was almost enough – that tiny bit of approval, of love, of hope she wasn't unreachable yet.

When she began conversing with him again fully, when he could look forward each evening to sitting up late and speaking with her as he had when they were children, he inquired whether she knew if the merchant who had been a friend of their father's, the one they often visited down by the harbour, still made his frequent trips to Europe.

"I believe he does, though I am not certain," she said, wondering why he wanted to know. "Mother still bought paper from him – for letters and recipes – when you were away."

"I have nearly depleted my meagre collection of charcoal," he told her, getting up with the poker in hand and turning a few embers over in the fireplace. "I am down to a few nubs, and I would like to buy some more. I would like to draw for you, to practice in the evenings as we sit together, the way I used to."

"That would be nice." She watched the fire cheer up under Elijah's hand, crackling merrily, golden sparks popping in the grate. "I would like that very much."

"I have also been thinking of your room."

"My room?" Her brow furrowed. "I do not understand."

"I cannot see how you can be happy, or relaxed, in a room with such dark oppressive furnishings – I marvel our parents, God rest their souls, did not think, in all this time, to replace it with pieces more suitable." Goodness knew they could have afforded it. Unforeseen occurrence, and illness, had taken them in the end, tragically, but they had never suffered want of money. They had, therefore, left Elijah with no difficulties regarding funds as well. "With your consent, sister, I should like to replace all of your furniture, by and by. I understand the need for simplicity – even austerity – outside the home, but you should be comfortable in here – you should have pretty things, the sort girls your age like."

She gave her consent, for although part of her longed for everything in the house to be as it was before their parents died, unchanged, she couldn't deny he was right about the heavy pieces in her room – she had never liked them, not really. The tall oaken wardrobe – the one that had been in her room since she was five – in particular cast disturbingly shaped dark shadows across her bed on certain nights when the moon peaked through the drapes in the wrong manner. Then there was the carved owl, looming over the room from the wardrobe's highest point. Abigail actually liked owls – real ones – but the one in her room, with the menacing beak carved slightly askew and the wooden grooves for eyes, was nothing like its outdoor counterpart. The sight could be disconcerting, upon awakening too soon before daylight could expel these shadows, especially for someone who harboured Abigail's penchant for wild dreams seeming to be more than ordinary night terrors.

There were things she dreamed which began to really happen later on.

Once she had woken sobbing hysterically, throwing herself into her mother's startled arms, convinced Elijah had fallen from a tree and broken an arm, that he lay unconscious in a pile of leaves badly hurt for an hour – eyes closed, lips pursed, and forehead bruised – because of his temple striking against a root when he hit the ground, before being discovered at last and tended to.

Two days later, they received a letter from Andover vouching for Elijah's well being.

Abigail had scarcely exhaled in relief, scarcely dared to believe something so vivid could have been mercifully only an invention of her sleeping mind, despite three more weeks passing uneventfully, before another letter came – and all was as she'd seen it.

Elijah had fallen, broken an arm, and he had been hours in the cold, buried in leaves, before a servant discovered him.

He recovered, of course, but Abigail never lost her sense of dread.

She sometimes thought she might be cursed.

Elijah knew of her dream, and presumably so did their relations near Andover, but their parents never told anyone else – anyone in Salem – and she was grateful such was the case.

What would a community which collectively believed laughing too loudly or singing alone in a meadow (she had been caught more than once) could – and likely would – encourage demonic activity in a home think of her if they knew she saw events before they happened?

At any rate, it would be a pleasure to have delicate furnishings, to banish the shadows – it seemed a start in the correct direction.

And that was precisely what Elijah did for her.

Rather than buy pieces from out of town and have them carried through the village, he took to making them himself, though the wood he used was imported from Ipswitch. He was a skilled carpenter, both their father and their relations on the farm he'd been sent to had taught him well, and so he began with a rocking-chair to replace the heavy claw-legged chair by her window.

There were black-eyed Susans and her name in beautiful, blocked letters – A-B-I-G-A-I-L R-O-W-E – carved into its back.

Running her fingers over the flowers, she cried; and this inspired him to decorate all the pieces he did thereafter with her beloved black-eyed Susans to match it.

Her favourite piece was the armoire made to replace the oppressive wardrobe. Technically it was bigger, as armoires generally are larger than wardrobes, but it was made delicately, with care and precision, and its shadow was inexplicably gentle.

If waking to the shadow of the wardrobe falling over her bed had felt like waking to a stranger skulking in her bedroom, the shadow cast by the armoire felt protective, as if its maker were watching over her.

Best of all, the scary owl was gone and there was a secret compartment, made from a wooden black-eyed Susan, she could pull out, revealing a generous hidey-hole.

"It is a place for you to keep all of your secrets," Elijah told her.

And she watched him smiling at her, through the blurring facets of the tears filling her eyes before escaping the corners and streaming down her face, and wondered – wondered so – how he knew without ever being told what he had just given her was the one thing in the world she most desired.

She wondered, too, if it was wrong to love someone as much – as deeply, as irrevocably – as she did her sweet brother this moment.

"Wait but a moment, Bird," panted a voice behind Elijah – who'd thought himself alone and unobserved on his way back from the harbour, walking through the woods around Salem Village with a leather bag full of contraband treasures. "I wish to walk with you."

Jumping like a startled deer and whirling around, his face broke out into a smile when he saw the person hiking her long black skirts and hiking after him was pretty Ann Putnam.

There was something about Ann he instinctively trusted.

Perhaps it was because they had been children together, or perhaps it was because he had seen her daring and high spirits, in this town where such qualities were discouraged when he had – in the span of a single afternoon – witnessed her perfectly mimicking the stance of Reverend Parris to an oddly approving audience of giggling girls and walking – perfectly balanced – the full length of the Walcotts' fence in her stocking feet.

She was not unlike himself and Abigail, born in the wrong place and time and longing for more in life.

It didn't hurt a wit she had become such a great beauty now she was grown, either. He had recollected her in his time away from Salem as an undeniably charming but also undeniably awkward girl – only now she was anything but awkward.

She drew his eye whenever she was present, and he loved to look at her.

She was also the only female in Salem apart from Abigail he felt comfortable jesting with, the only young woman for miles who didn't look at him with scandalized goggle eyes whenever he made a joke. The niece of Reverend Parris had outright cried – throwing herself whimpering into her cousin Betty's arms as if he'd physically harmed her in some way – at a harmless gibe he'd made near her (yes, near her, not even to her) once, and he'd learned quickly not to do it again.

He was desperately glad Ann never reacted in such a way to him.

Well, then, of course, you'd hardly expect a beautiful woman of Ann's age to behave like the Williams child, but still.

"Alone," he teased, slowing his pace so she might catch up with him. "Such a risk you take. What shall you do if there is a scandal?"

"If there is one, I shall contrive to make you marry me and it will be forgotten by the time we have been husband and wife for, perhaps, oh, forty years." Having caught up, she knocked his elbow playfully with her own. "Sooner – as soon as twenty – if we are very, very well behaved and attend church every Sunday without fail – regardless of if one of us is coughing up blood or recovering from an Indian attack and has a hatchet lodged in the back of the skull."

Elijah blushed, colouring vividly from hairline to chin in spite of himself. Then – letting his head loll backwards – he laughed merrily. He thoroughly enjoyed her irreverent humour.

"What have you got in the bag?"

His heart was momentarily lodged in his throat. He was surprised how intensely he ached to tell her – to show her the paints and brushes and charcoal and paper, the leather book he'd gotten for Abigail's songs – but he would not betray a confidence. His own secrets he might play fast and loose with, if he so dared, but not Abigail's. If his sister had not told Ann herself of her songs, then it was not his place without first seeking her permission. As certain as he was Ann wouldn't tell another soul, that she'd understand, he could not simply volunteer such information unbidden.

He swallowed hard. "It... It is only some supplies, for the home." Not a lie, even. Someday he might be at liberty to explain the nature of these supplies without fear she would think he had been secretive.

I would do the same for you, Ann, he thought. I hope one day you will know this and believe it. I would do the same for you as I do now for Abigail. I would keep your secrets.

"Oh – oh, look!" cried Ann suddenly, and she lifted her skirts and ran a few feet ahead. "It is a crow feather." She crouched and plucked the long feather she'd spied – black and glossy and very vividly apparent in the bed of white daisies it had been lying in – and twirled it between her fingertips, laughing. "How beautiful." Her warm eyes met Elijah's when he caught up. "Do you not think it beautiful, Bird?"

"Indeed," he admitted. "It is a thing most beautiful." But he was not look at the feather, but at her, when he said it. He did not admire the feather for its own sake, even as a covet artist, but rather he was entranced by Ann's lovely enthusiasm for the object. "May I?" And he held out his hand.

She handed him the feather, for his closer examination, glowing under his intense gaze, so happy she felt she could burst, could lift off and fly like a crow herself.

Elijah gingerly unfastened the strings of her bonnet and removed it, letting her long brown hair spill out onto her shoulders. Perhaps he should not have been surprised – though he was a bit – it was loose underneath rather than plaited and secured to her head. Then he tucked the feather between her hair and her ear, weaving it in by the quill as he might have done with the stem of a flower.

If there had been any chance of a scandal before, simply by walking together, he was done for if anyone should come upon then now.

She sucked in a breath and put her fingers over where his still lingered, securing the feather in place. "Elijah," she whispered, momentarily forsaking her pet name for him. "Elijah Rowe." Clearing her throat, she added, "How does it look?"

He hadn't an answer ready – it was beyond words for him.

That night, Elijah offhandedly remarked he suspected Ann Putnam of being partial to him, of her attentions toward him being more than a pretty girl's high spirits.

Glancing up from a hose she was darning, Abigail visibly struggled not to laugh. "No – you do not say." How someone as clever as her brother – clever enough to design the beautiful armoire in her room unaided – could have missed someone so obvious a blind man would have noticed was rather hilarious. "You suspect her of partiality, do you? Whatever can have finally drawn your attention to it?"

He arched an eyebrow and cocked his head. He'd never heard Abigail being sarcastic before. "Wait. You knew this already?"

"All of Salem knows," laughed Abigail. "She stares at you and tries to make you look at her all the time – and she used to go around saying your name under her breath, in this little breathy chant, when we were children."

"She did not." His cheeks were scarlet.

"She did – she even kept it up a while after you left." Poor smitten Ann was probably the only person apart from herself who hadn't known quite what to do in Salem without Elijah Rowe, who had been lost the moment he was sent away. "She is in love with you."

"I do not know why she–" He cut himself off, embarrassed – he meant to say he did not understand why she fixated upon him, a boy who had been gone for years and was now an orphan, over all the other handsome young men she must see every day. "That is, I am not one of the better-looking–"

"Not one of the better-looking, my eye," snorted Abigail, shaking her head. "There is no need for false modesty, sweet brother; it does not become you." Elijah knew perfectly well he was prettier than half the girls in town. "The only physical flaw you possess is wearing your hair too long – you need to have it cut once in a while, so it is not always in your eyes."

"I thank you heartily for the advice, Abby." He winked at her. "I shall try to make more of an effort."

"Do not Abby me, Elijah Rowe." He only called her that on rare occasions when he wished to needle her, usually when she was right and he knew it but would not fully concede. "I only speak the truth."

His shoulders shook, and they both burst out laughing in unison.

It was so difficult these days, with things looking up, iridescent blue sky peaking through rain clouds Abigail really had believed might last forever, not to be merry with each other.

As they quieted, the laughter slowly dying out, she felt into reflection.

Sometimes, for all her brother's selflessness, she could sense his natural vanity peeking through in his demeanour. He must have already known, without being told, that with his sweet nature, face, and now – now he'd inherited it from their parents – sizeable property, he could attach anybody he wanted – Ann Putnam, already long fascinated by him – more easily than any other.

So why would he speak self-deprecatingly, then, unless...

Unless he truly believed himself in danger of loving Ann and did not, for all his advantages, yet dare to permit hope to grow in his heart.

There was something Abigail hadn't told him – her cheeks heated, thinking about it. She wished she did not have to tell him, but it would be cruel to keep it a secret. He would tell her – embarrassment be dashed – if the situation were reversed.

"I do not think you will marry Ann Putnam." She hated watching his face across from her own fall automatically, realising she guessed right. Poor Elijah might be half in love with Ann already. But it might not be meant to be. "Tituba told Betty Parris that Ann Putnam would marry someone with a daughter from a previous marriage. She claims saw it via an egg in a glass of water." And Elijah – not yet quite eighteen – had obviously never been married before, let alone had a daughter. "And–" She gulped, resisting the urge to fan her face. "I had a dream. It was like the one about you falling from the tree and breaking your arm. Real. Vivid. In it, you were" – she gnawed on her lower lip – "behaving in a familiar manner with a girl in a green silk dress. She was beautiful – I could see you loved her very much – but she was not Ann. She was not anyone I have ever seen in Salem before."

"I am sure she was – is – beautiful," he conceded. "But girls in Salem do not wear silk dresses – our Reverend Parris would probably flog them if they tried."

"Or make them recite the Lord's prayer to prove the devil was not making them wear it," sighed Abigail, having to agree. "Elijah, I confess, I wish I had a silk gown sometimes – in a real colour, red or blue – sleeves with brocade or lace..." She sighed again. "I would have been envious of your future beloved for owning one, if only I did not feel strangely certain it brought her no lasting pleasure, poor thing. Goody Parris would say I was going to Hell for having such thoughts, I know she would." Even without being coupled with knowledge of the dreams, of her strange premonitions, her envy and desire for something frivolous and material would be heartily condemned if they were known. "Do you think it very wicked of me, to feel as I do?"

"No." He shook his head. "No, indeed. Truly. If it were up to me, Abigail, you could – nay, would – wear silk and ribbons every day, and sing like the nightingale you are on a stage in the public square. Everybody would be permitted to see you as I do."

She folded her hands in her lap, nearly pricking herself with her own darning needle in her absent-mindedness as she did so. "That is one thing about Salem I have never liked – it does not matter much if you are poor, or well off, if you cannot be yourself.

"Our parents left you their money, but you cannot buy art lessons with it. There are no Puritan painters. Likely, there never will be. The governor's family has even more money than us, but their daughter dresses exactly the same as I do – or as little Betty Parris, or as Ann Putnam, does. Their house is enormous, but they can hold no gatherings which do not serve a practical purpose. There will never be dancing or merriment in that house."

"They believe," said Elijah, softly, "that they perform God's will."

"I know, but I have never understood why God would create us with an ear for music, or an eye for beauty, and be angry if we used what he gave us," answered Abigail, rather forlornly. "Everything in nature in beautiful." Her eyes wandered to a black-eyed Susan in a vase, plucked fresh this very day. "Why can flowers wear colours and yet we cannot?"

Elijah chuckled. "Do you remember the time – you might not, you were quite little – Mother had Goody Parris, Goody Proctor, and Giles Corey over for supper?"

She shook her head. "I do not think I recall that."

"Well, it is funny, for I made a similar point to the one you make now, but I was too young to realise one should not say such things in front of company – nor quote Ecclesiastes to a reverend's wife."

"You did not," she laughed.

"Alas, I did."

"Oh, Elizabeth must have turned such a horrid shade of green to be so spoken to!"

"I believe our father, for all his indulgence, would yet have thrashed me for being impertinent to our guests, but Mother was smiling at me so when they left, and I think he did not have the heart. He simply told me never to do it again. He told me I should not equate bravery with being foolhardy. I sulked in bed all that night, supposing him the coward. I think, now, Father was a far braver man than I ever realised – it is one thing for a child to speak up as I did–"

"Out of the mouths of babes," quoted Abigail.

"Indeed," he said offhandedly, then returned to his former point. "It is another, entirely, for a man to stand by – to endure society's scorn – on his precocious son's behalf. I never thought – not until I was much older – how dangerous my words must have been for him, as head of our household. The risk he took not boxing my ears before everyone to show his disapproval that day..."

She exhaled a heavy sigh. "I bring danger upon you, Elijah, wanting what I cannot have."

For his sake she would curb her longings, try harder to pretend she didn't see and know the things she saw and knew; she loved him too well to bring shame upon him. There never was a better brother in the world. Another sort might have done as Goody Parris predicted and set her to servitude in all but name. But he had been kind, gentle, giving, generous, all in addition to being the dearest friend she ever had. Her love for Elijah, her appreciation of his unending goodness, felt at times too large for her entire being to safely contain; she fairly bubbled over with excess of it.

To willfully put him in any danger would be unthinkable.

And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to go into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched.

If she never sang again, if she stopped composing songs – all her pretty lyrics – in her head, it would be like cutting off her hand. She could not bear to give it up for anyone less than her beloved brother.

She thought, then, of what he had said to her – their blood droplets side by side on that handkerchief – when he was eight years old: On the inside we are precisely the same.

For years she had protected the handkerchief from being washed, hidden the bloody cloth under books (Bibles and prayerbooks) and clothes and inside of her shoes respectively, changing her preferred hiding place constantly, and when Goody Smith – who Mother had employed to clean the house when she was eleven – finally got hold of it and returned it to a state of pristine whiteness, Abigail had wept for hours.

For his sake, no sacrifice was too great.

She expected him to sombrely concur, awaited his sad (for he was always sad to cause her pain, to see the smile leave her face) nod, but instead he told her to close her eyes and hold out her hands.

"Do not peek," he ordered.

She clinched them tighter, forcing herself not to try and sneak a glimpse under her lowered lashes.

A small weight was placed into her hands. Soft, as she curled her fingers closed around its bulk, but also solid.

"Open your eyes."

She saw the book – its cover of thick, fine leather – beautiful, delicate, yet – knowing what it must be for without being told – understood it to be as damning as a witch's grimoire.

"Oh, Elijah, I–"

"If you shall be brave for me, Abigail, I shall be brave for you."

"I know precisely who it is throwing rocks at my cows, Elijah and Abigail Rowe!"

"You would think – at nearly sixty – Master Proctor would have learned to relax," Elijah gasped out, stopping at the fence and cupping his hands to give Abigail a leg up.

"Aye, but you would also think by my age I would no longer be frightened of cows," she laughed. "Oh, dear, my skirt is stuck – just here, on the post, see?"

An apple core flew over the fence, followed by more threats from John Proctor.

"Praise be to our Lord in Heaven his eyesight gets worse every year," commented Elijah, freeing her and repositioning himself to lift her over.

"I do not think it matters a great deal whether he is fifty-one or sixty, not when it is so dark out. He could have the eyes of a twenty-year-old and still be blind at this hour."

"That is a fair point." They teetered on the fence post – and Elijah couldn't help thinking Ann Putnam could have tripped along it so easily, so delicately, if she were here with them. "On the count of three, we jump down, clear the next meadow, turn toward the harbour, and it is less than thirty minutes to the shore."

"One," Abigail began.

"The devil take you, Master Rowe, when I catch you, I shall drag you both – you and your sullen sister, who pretends to such piety during the day – in front of the magistrate!" John's raspy, angry voice sounded a good deal nearer. He was obviously sprier than they gave him credit for being.

"Three!" Elijah cried quickly, and leaped, taking Abigail over with him.

They found themselves collapsed face down in a mud puddle they had failed entirely to anticipate. When they managed to get up and running – still before John Proctor reached the fence – Elijah asked if she was all right.

"I am well," she assured him, leaning against a tree to catch her breath. "Although, between ourselves, I think we cleared that fence a great deal more expertly as children."

"Those cows were smaller then," Elijah said. "Easier to distract."

"Do you think so?" She wiped a smattering of caked mud from her brow, then straightened her bonnet. "I recall them being a great deal larger in those days."

"Well, you were smaller, too." In the low light, he squinted. "That dress is ruined. Poor you."

"I am not worried – I shall burn it and have you buy me the material for a new one."

He crossed his arms and the corner of his mouth quirked upwards. "And what, sweet sister, makes you think I would pay for your frivolities?"

"Frivolities, my eye – I shall have nothing to wear to services come Sunday."

"Well, we cannot have that." He pretended to consider, tapping his chin. "Unless... How would it be if we took the wagon out on Sunday and miss church altogether?"

"People will talk," she warned. "They will stare at me the next time I go to buy wheat."

"Of course they will stare." He widened his eyes mischievously. "You have mud on your dress."

Crouching, she picked a soft grass clod from the ground and whipped it at his shoulder.

"Oi!"

At the shore, they might have been children all over again – without the slightest thought for propriety, forgetting about muddied clothes – which they'd shed anyway – and cows and Sundays, they both ran into the waves cheering and flailing.

Popping up for breath and getting seafoam up her nose, Abigail coughed out that she recalled the water being warmer.

"It may have been," Elijah agreed. "If you climb your old rock, can you see if I left the candle lit in the window by mistake and our house is about to burn down?"

She giggled. "You know perfectly well I could never really see our house from here."

He kicked his legs, treading the water. "Do I? You see a lot of things it is impossible to see."

"I–" She turned her head, glancing out into the farther reaches of the ocean. "Elijah, the ship! There's an iceberg! It is going to sink! Her people are on it!"

He glanced in the same direction as her, blinking salt water from his eyes. "There is no ship." And no ice, either, not around here. "Whose people do you mean?"

"The girl in the green silk dress – the girl you were..." She took in a sharp, shaky breath, then let it out. "Her relations are on that ship." She gave a shudder and moved nearer to him. "I am sorry – I do not know where that came from."

"Ah." He closed his eyes, took a deep breath of his own, then opened them again. "This is a ship which has not yet sailed." Perhaps it was one not even built yet – who knew how far ahead Abigail had seen?

It could have been days, or months...

She nodded, droplets of water rolling off her chin, her lips turning slightly blue. Her teeth began to chatter. "I think I need to get out of the water." After what she'd just seen, however inexplicably, floating around like this no longer seemed akin to innocent fun. "I am sorry," she repeated.

A/N: Reviews welcome, replies could be delayed.