“What happened?”
“The family went west to start a new farm. In the winter, we slept all together in the one room, nine of us and the hogs and the cow, so not to freeze. I couldn’t close my eyes, because I would See the succubae coiling around the necks of the animals.” The girl shuddered.
“You cannot be near subjugated creatures, man nor beast,” said Mrs. Hanson, recalling more of the ancient lore.
Hannah nodded. “My brothers and sisters froze anyway. All but my oldest brother, who escaped to sea. He sailed for two seasons on a whaling ship before he drowned.”
“That’s hard.” Even now, the matron feared a similar end waiting for her first and fourth sons. “But how did you come to Lowell?”
“On the day my parents received the news, I started north. I knew they couldn’t bear the sight of me any longer.” As if her own sad history could no longer interest her, the girl reached out and fingered a jar of hazel bark. “You work magic blind?”
“I grope my way in the dark.” The matron shrugged. “You See but you don’t work it?”
“No one ever taught me. And I was afraid.”
“Well. I can answer the first score and teach you what I know. On the second, I cannot help. I cannot make you brave.” Mrs. Hanson put an arm around the ginger girl’s thin shoulders, to soften the words. For truly, this was a wonder and a precious thing: to have a living Seer in her house. Mrs. Hanson blinked back tears even at the memory of the revelation.
Now the girl sat on the windowsill, masticating her plate of beans and coughing into the underside of her elbow when the phlegm and cotton dust proved too great a barrier to her lungs. She looked listless. Unsettled. Recalling Kirk Boott’s questions, Mrs. Hanson wished she had a lesson to read the girl, a scheme of protection or undetectable attack, but they had sounded the depths of the matron’s wisdom and found bottom some time ago.
And now here was Judith Whittier on the threshold, sniffing the air like a hound for whatever food might be on hand. This one. Mrs. Hanson smiled—could not forbear smiling—as she put the plate in the little bulldog’s hand. At least Judith’s name had not crossed Kirk Boott’s lips that afternoon.
She dug in where she stood, too ravenous to complain that the beans were cold. Her fist around the spoon was stout and pugnacious as the rest of her, and Mrs. Hanson wondered what they had got up to today. Out in the parlor, sounds of the usual nightly diversions had crept back into the house, and someone was picking out notes on the piano, shaping a recognizable tune.
Mrs. Hanson returned to her kneading, singing to herself.
“There came a young man from the old countree,
The Merrimack River he happened to see,
What a capital place for mills, quoth he,
Ri-toot, ri-noot, ri-toot, ri-noot, ri-umpty, ri-tooten-a.”
It was an old tune, but these lyrics told a tale not so ancient, well known to the farmers and goodwives in the hills around Lowell.
Meanwhile, the girls spoke to one another at last.
“Did I injure you?” Judith began.
“No.” Hannah shook her head at once. “No. I only—I only wonder why you treated Abigail that way? You were so cold with her.”
“She endangered the entire Union—she could have broken the strike—”
Now Mrs. Hanson gave up the final ri-toot. What was this?
“She couldn’t,” said Hannah, setting her empty plate against the table with a clatter. “None of us could. It doesn’t matter how many boardinghouses evict us, or whether our families starve, or we spend our last penny. We can’t end the strike, Judith. That’s how the spell works!”
Judith’s features, close-packed in the center of her face and best suited to expressions of determination and doggedness, nevertheless gave their best impression of astonishment. “Of course. That was the objective—we cannot end it until the owners give in.”
“And if they never do?”
“Then, when we decide—all together—we end it.”
Hannah shook her head. “You don’t realize, do you?”
“Realize what?”
“You spoke the spell.” Hannah smudged a tear off her cheek. “I didn’t know it would happen this way, but it gives you command of us. I could see it plain as day tonight.”
“I didn’t ask to be in command! I thought we were all equals in this endeavor.”
Hannah smiled, a little chuckle escaping her lips.
“What is it?”
“It isn’t a lie if you believe it’s the truth.”
Judith danced foot to foot.
“You have a very hard soul,” said Hannah.
“What?”
“I only mean—I only mean that you could go on and on, much farther than the rest of us could. Or would.” A coughing fit came over Hannah then, and she turned her head. Mrs. Hanson wanted to go to her, to thump her back and stroke her hair out of her face. Instead, she filled a cup of water and pressed it into the Seer’s hands.
Meanwhile the other girl watched, wringing her hands. “So, the other girls want to end it,” she said, “but they can’t, because I don’t. Is that it?”
“No.” Hannah breathed in cautiously, testing her lungs. When no cough exploded back at her, she continued. “They don’t want to end it, not yet. But I’m frightened for you. If we don’t find a way to win soon, you’ll be beset by enemies abroad and at home. Mr. Boott can’t fail to notice you, and the other girls must begin to tire and fear. Abigail isn’t the only operative with troubles.”
Hannah wouldn’t lie to spare Judith’s feelings; she couldn’t.
“Do you think I ought to end it?”
Upon discovering the question was meant for her, Mrs. Hanson’s eyebrows rose. “And when has my opinion mattered?”
“You’ve been in Lowell longer than any of us,” said Judith. “You’ve worked for them longest. You must know the enemy best. Can we outlast them?”
Always the little general. Mrs. Hanson sighed. “They are looking for new girls to hire, and not only in Boston. And their pockets are far deeper than yours. Can the lot of you afford to stay out a week? A fortnight? A month? I cannot promise to feed you beyond that.”
Judith’s jaw hardened.
Hannah, the reedy young thing, threaded her arm through the matron’s and put her head upon the older woman’s shoulder. Tired and aching as her limbs might be, Mrs. Hanson suddenly felt quite stout, and patted the girl’s pale hand.
“What is that song you were singing, Mrs. H?” Hannah asked.
“That’s the ballad of your friend Mr. Boott. When the Boston gentlemen wanted to build their mills, ’twas he who spotted for them and noticed the might of the Merrimack below the falls. The only trouble was, the village of Chelmsford was already here, enjoying the rush of the river in pastoral simplicity. So, up he comes to the villagers, playing no more than a sheep rancher—and buys up their land for a trifle:
“And then these farmers so cute,
They gave all their lands and timber to Boott.
“Only after the mills were built, the people of Chelmsford knew what they’d given up.”