Setting the Twist
an excerpt

The girl seemed sprightly but quivered in her grip, and Elizabeth rocked her gently to get her moving in the right direction. ‘Twould never do, thought she, to have questions this early on. Best move indoors, though thickened thatched roof keep voices low, and comfort the girl.

The girl’s comportment was wooden and automatic, and Elizabeth feared she’d put the devil into her with her call. This would never do, not at all. She hurried her along the village green and over towards her cottage, nodding at Beatrix Banister tending chickens as she soaked her gathered reeds, and hoping magistrate Farnsworth wasn’t near. Best to get the girl acquainted with the local customs, and answer questions before they became of significance.

Smoke, acrid and thick, drifted from the cottages lining the green and clung to the evening sky. Elizabeth turned the corner, around the church toward her humble home. Since she’d been barren she had felt the loneliness of her home when dear Thomas wasn’t near, but today it felt warm and inviting, as she had a guest. A guest who could not return of her own accord, she knew, a fact which did not settle well with her but was a necessary element to her problem. The others would follow now, she knew, and she feared most of all what could happen if they refused to help her, if they left here here, unprepared for what was to come.

“Here, cousin,” she intoned, directing the girl to her thatched hut and pushing the two halves of the thick door out, nudging the girl in.

“What...” the girl began.

“Not yet,” she warned, her tone sharper than she’d intended.

The girl held her tongue, and Lissie worried that her call had damaged her, or perhaps she was so feeble minded, she couldn’t make sense of the world? True, ignorance was no sin (Lissie understood that better than most), yet how could she expect her to do what was necessary if she couldn’t be understood? A glance at the girl’s eyes, brown and rich as the lord’s fields reassured her. She was not feeble, she was frightened. She’d chosen the right one to bring first. She sighed with relief that this girl was, after all she’d been through, obedient.