2: Bedtime
THE CANDLES WERE DRIPPING into the circle by the time the weavers ended their toil. The cloth slipped off the loom like water made fabric, the motley locks of the girls forming a pattern never before seen. Under Judith’s direction, Georgie Hempstead and Florry Bright cut and finished it into bands, one for each member of the Factory Girls’ Union of Lowell, which they solemnly tied about one another’s left arms. Finally, Hannah lit a sage broom, to end the spell-making. Curfew was long since past, but some of the girls went down intent on games in the parlor or walking in the night air, too full of magic to sleep.
Judith and Hannah were last to leave the attic, after scrubbing clear the chalk circle and sweeping up the stray threads of hair. Bells chimed in the factories, announcing half past four: time for the mill workers to leave their dormitories, just as the pair returned to theirs.
The room welcomed them, warm and snug. Three beds filled one wall, close enough that a restless sleeper might roll from one mattress to the next without ever waking; at this hour, Lucy and Lydia ought to be rising from the bed nearest the door, Sarah Payne poking Florry awake in the next. This morning, all three beds stood empty, un-slept in.
Hannah carried the dust pan to the fireplace in the opposite wall, while Judith sat on the trunk they shared at the foot of their bed. “It’s strange,” she said. “I feel sore and heavy as any Saturday after a full week’s work. But my heart is thundering like a loom. If you asked me, I could run all the way to Boston!”
“That’s the spell working,” said Hannah, as she stoked the fire. When the embers glowed, she emptied the pan and watched the strands of her fellows’ hair turn bright as golden threads of sunshine. It was not unlike the Sight—if she closed her eyes, in the darkness she could find the delicate tendrils of genius that belonged to the souls around her, winding about whatever might be cherished or made by its owner: Lucy’s notebook of poems and fancies, hidden (or so the writer thought) below the mattress. Sarah Payne’s knitting needles. Lydia’s silver comb. The corn husk doll Florry cradled each night.
“Can it be broken, do you think?”
“Any magic can be undone.” She turned to find Judith already lying down, on her side. Though Hannah could have claimed one of the vacant beds for her own, instead she took her usual spot next to Judith, facing her so that they mirrored one another across the pillow. The sweet smell of sage and the bitterness of burnt hair filled the narrow space between them. “If Mr. Boott learns the particulars—”
“No girl would tell him. But do you think Mrs. Hanson is sure? Ought we have hidden it from her?”
“We couldn’t. We needed the loom, and the loom belongs to her.”
“We might have gotten to it without her knowing.”
Hannah shook her head. “You can’t do magic on a thing that doesn’t belong to you, not without the owner’s say-so. But you heard her.” She had to pause to fill her shallow lungs, and when she spoke again, it was Mrs. Hanson’s voice that came out. “‘If I had your gift, I’d live nice as a queen.’”
Judith chuckled. “We’re quite lucky you chose the life of a poor mill girl. Others may have thought up the strike, but it’s because of you we’ll win.”
Phlegm choked her before she could reply, and Hannah had to sit up to cough into the crook of her elbow; Judith rose along with her, thumping her back.
When she finally had her lungs again: “I don’t know. We’re only thirty in this house.”
“Operatives in every mill have already agreed to join, and more will soon.” With every word, Judith seemed more certain.
“Lydia was difficult. Many of the others will be worse—the pious ones, and the skeptical.”
“Lydia is always difficult. When the others see us marching, we’ll have their respect and soon enough their trust.”
Hannah marveled anew at the surety. Many times she had closed her eyes to See Judith’s soul ablaze, like some fiery star come down from its sphere to set them all alight. And when Hannah crawled beneath the quilts at the end of a working day, her weary joints unbuckled beside the warm solidity of Judith Whittier. “I would have left months and months ago, if you hadn’t come to Lowell—” She had to stop once more for coughing. “It mustn’t go on, the way that it’s going,” Hannah finished, resting her head at last against the pillow. The allure of freedom—an income and a chance to better their station—drew girls from all corners of New England to the mills. But every season, they worked longer and faster, had to tend more looms to make the same wages, and to obey heavier rules—they were becoming less free, not more.
“It won’t go on,” said Judith, using her fingers to comb Hannah’s curls out of the way before she settled next to her.
Beyond the boardinghouses, the factories rang five o’clock: the working day had begun! Hannah felt a thrill of power in her own belly, for once, to ignore their summons, while her co-conspirator spat in triumph at the rafters.
“Our grandfathers didn’t shed blood at Bunker Hill so we could be slaves to a bell!”
Unwitting, Judith’s words conjured a memory in Hannah.
“Are you well?” Judith asked, for she must have felt the Seer go stiff as a plank.
“No. I am remembering . . .” The vision danced in Hannah’s mind’s eye—a creature of wings and teeth and scales—coiling about a man’s shoulders as he stood upon the auction block. The much-younger Hannah of the memory screamed and wept, as each blink showed her the demon worming its way into the poor soul’s chest, suckling at his heart’s blood.
Between them, Judith’s pinky, ringed in their plaited hair, hooked Hannah’s matching finger. “Can you tell me what’s wrong?”
“I can but—” Their spellcraft would not suffer Hannah to lie to Judith; if the other girl demanded to know, she must tell.
“You do not want to?”
“No,” said Hannah, limbs softening with relief. “I’d much rather forget that vision than describe it.” She rolled to her side, breaking the momentary link of their fingers. “Anyhow”—she resolved to turn distress into jesting—“you never said who you are in love with.”
Judith gasped and snatched the coverlet all to herself. “You witch! NO ONE!”
3: The Boott Palace
MR. BOOTT’S HOUSE STOOD in the center of Lowell. The façade was tall and broad, with a porch of Ionic columns in the style of the ancient Greeks, lawns and gardens spread out like palace grounds.
And why oughtn’t Kirk Boott have a home as stately as his employers’ in Boston? He embodied their authority in Lowell, carrying their orders to every person from the overseers to the youngest bobbin girl. The wishes of the Boston gentlemen would have no meaning whatsoever, except that Mr. Boott, from his starched collar to the golden buckles on his shoes, to his indeed palatial home, conveyed the owners’ tangible wealth and power.
Moreover, Mr. Boott was a godly man, who cared for the town and its mills and its young female operatives as much as any pastor for his flock. He’d provided promenades and parks for their amusement, clean homes for their safety, and firm rules and regulations for the care of their souls. What other factory posted exhortations against drinking and gambling? Which other employer not only provided beds to his workers but told them clearly when to be in (and out of) those beds? What other town could boast five thousand unmarried young women and not one case of bastardry?