Merry reached out to me, her face looking as troubled as I felt. What was wrong with him?
“It was as silvery and shiny as that lady. That beautiful, beautiful lady. She said we ought to take a bottle out into the woods. Have some fun…” He closed his eyes again, swaying unsteadily and sinking to his knees. “But then we heard the shouting. Heard the crackling. Went to see. Went to watch.”
Rebecca frowned, aghast. “Why would you go watch? They needed help; they needed…” Realization dawned across her face, and she turned to the Elders. “He didn’t set the fire! If he wandered over to watch, someone else started it!”
Cyrus blinked heavily, his head nodding like a fishing bobber out on choppy waves. “She did it. That woman. The one with the silver eyes. It was her. Said she loves a good blaze.”
“You saw someone set the fire, and you didn’t try to stop them?” Joseph murmured, his face slack with horror. He took a step away from Cyrus, as if physically repulsed by this strange admission.
“There was no one with him,” Calvin reiterated, his words weighted with exasperation. “He was at the bar alone. He left alone. Look around—do you see any newcomers to town? There is no woman. He’s gone crazy. All that moonshine finally addled his mind.”
Prudence Latheton shook her head, on the verge of laughter.
“What is it?” Calvin asked.
“It’s just funny….You sell all that devil’s brew, and now you’re blaming it for this mess.”
“That’s not what I said at all,” Calvin sputtered. “You’ve been trying to shut my tavern down for years, lording your trumped-up pious sobriety over all of us. Tell me where in the Good Book it says that alcohol is a sin. Christ himself served wine at the Last Supper, or did you just skim that bit?”
“Now, look here—” Prudence said, stepping forward with her finger pointed, as sharp as a dagger.
“Stop it, the both of you!” Amos ordered, his reedy voice carrying with surprising force over the chaos.
Prudence’s eyes flashed. “Just seems to me, if he’d not been intoxicated last night, Sarah Downing wouldn’t be knocking on death’s door this morning.”
“Mama’s not dying!” Sadie shrieked, bursting into tears. “Why would you say that? Papa is taking her to the city. The doctors will help her! Isn’t that right, Merry?”
“Of course it is,” Merry said, rubbing Sadie’s back as Sadie pressed into Merry’s skirts, sobbing. “What is wrong with you?” Merry hissed at Prudence.
“This is why children ought not be in the Gathering House—ever,” the woman said.
“Children.” Cyrus spoke up, as if agreeing with Prudence. “Children are funny things, aren’t they?”
“This is all getting out of hand,” Leland murmured, touching Amos’s elbow. “Perhaps we ought to—”
“You spend their lives trying to keep them, you know? Keep them fed, keep them schooled, keep them safe. But then they’re not such children anymore, and suddenly…” Cyrus trailed off, listing heavily to the side.
“He needs the doctor,” I said, but no one heard me. “Where is Dr. Ambrose?” I tried raising my voice over the melee, but it still didn’t carry.
Cyrus tilted his head, staring into the distance. A gleam of light fell into his eyes, a bright circle of sunlight undoubtedly reflecting off something shiny in the room. There were too many people crushing about for me to see where it had come from.
“You!” Cyrus roared, spotting my brother. He swayed back and forth, trying to heave himself from the floor, but he was like a soufflé made too thick and sludgy to rise. “I thought it was you!”
Samuel’s eyebrows furrowed with confusion. There was another shout from the middle of the room, and my brother took a step closer to hear.
“Last night, in the shed…,” Cyrus was saying. “Didn’t know it was Sarah in there….” His tongue licked at the corner of his mouth with a lazy swipe. “I thought…I thought it was you.”
Philemon grabbed at the ropes, yanking Cyrus toward him. “Say that again, Danforth.”
Cyrus let out a garbled growl. “I didn’t set fire to the fields. I swear that wasn’t me. But when I was watching them burn, I saw…I saw a figure moving about inside the shed. I thought it was this bastard, so I struck a match and prayed to God it would go up fast.”
My mouth fell open.
“Papa, stop!” Rebecca cried, her words as piercing as a barn owl’s call. “You don’t know what you’re saying!”
“It sounds like he knows exactly what he said, exactly what he did,” Philemon said, holding out an arm to keep her from Cyrus.
“You tried to kill me?” Samuel murmured, his eyes impossibly wide. “All because of…” His eyes fell to Rebecca, but he had the decency to stop speaking.
She turned, grabbing at Leland’s suspenders. Tears of pleading welled in her eyes. “He doesn’t know what he’s saying. Please—my father is not well. Let me take him home and nurse him. He didn’t do it; he couldn’t have!”
We were swept from the Gathering House in a crushing press of moving bodies. The crowd marched into the street, and I was like a piece of driftwood tossed about in a storm, utterly helpless in the face of such chaotic momentum.
“Stop!” I shouted as Cyrus Danforth was hauled past the church, past the stocks and hoisted up onto the Gallows. Angry voices cried out for rope. “This isn’t right! This isn’t how things are supposed to be handled!”
“Ellerie, stop!” Samuel hissed. “He tried to kill me—he admitted it himself.”
“Something’s wrong with him—can’t you see that? When he was punched—he must have a concussion, maybe something worse. He doesn’t know what he’s saying, doesn’t realize what he’s doing. He can’t be held accountable for that nonsense pouring out of him.”
Samuel grabbed my elbow and pulled me toward the outer ring of the mob, then yanked and twisted when I dug my feet down in protest.
“It’s not nonsense. Go home if you can’t stomach it.” His words were laced with sharp callousness. I’d never heard him sound so hardened. “But I’m staying to watch. I want to see the Danforths pay.”
“You can’t truly mean that,” I said, grasping at his shoulders, trying with all my might to waylay him. He brushed my hands aside with a look of bitter disappointment. There was a spark of rage and madness flickering in his eyes, burning so intensely, I barely recognized him.