John found himself oddly eager for Monday. Perhaps it was half because of the usual dull nature of Sundays that made it seem like it was taking far longer than it should have for morning to come, but the period between John's initial trip to Salem and his trip to go and fetch Abigail seemed endless.

When he rose on Monday morning, long before dawn, Elizabeth was already awake and sitting by the door, waiting for him.

"Is something wrong, Elizabeth?"

"I couldn't sleep," she said, wringing her hands slightly. "John, if you don't want to have Parris's kin in our house, then we needn't have Abigail."

"What's this?" He snorted, even as he turned away from her and picked up a piece of rye bread from the table. He shredded it slowly between his fingers, his back to his wife. "You wanted Abigail Williams – has something changed your mind?"

"I fear saying, John…"

"Fear saying what?"

She swallowed, then said in a rush, "I'm afraid, John. Something feels wrong, and the more I think of it, the more I think that the Williams girl should not be in our home. I don't know why I feel that way," she added desperately, "and I don't want you to fear some sort of- of witchcraft…" She dropped her voice to a whisper to say that word, "but I do fear her."

"Nonsense, Elizabeth. You have not so much as met the girl."

"But I feel it, John."

"I will not hear this." He turned back to her, scowling sternly. "I have promised Abigail Williams work. It is the first time Reverend Parris has ever spoken civilly to me. I shall not snub him or his family for no more reason than because you feel it. That is madness, Elizabeth, and I will not have it!"

She looked down, twisting her hands in her lap. "Did Abigail Williams seem… seem good, John? Virtuous and proper, do you think? Was that the impression that you got of her?"

"She did seem good, yes," John said shortly. "Does that satisfy you? Will you let me go now?"

"Yes, John," Elizabeth said, as meek and mild as she had ever sounded.

"Good." He did not look back at her, but stormed out of the house, hitching up the horses while he stewed over his wife's behaviour. Asking whether Abigail Williams seemed virtuous before she had even met her – who was he, John, to judge? Why could Elizabeth not wait and judge the girl herself?

Was it possible that she suspected–

What? Was it possible that she suspected that Abigail had, in her haste to speak to her guest, been a touch careless in hiding her hair? That was no sin – she had been left to answer the door, and had surely not expected visitors, and it was nothing improper that she might have neglected to hide a single curl. There were girls and women in the village who did not hide their hair at all, except on Sundays, of course.

John climbed up onto the wagon and flicked the reigns, and his horses began to plod the familiar route to Salem, over all the potholes and uneven patches that had become so much endless road in John's mind. Dawn had barely begun to lighten the horizon, just colouring it with pale pink and violet. The road was silent save for the chirruping of crickets and one or two far-away birds.

Birds often stayed far from Salem, he had found.

Perhaps the birds that circled over the town and then flew far away were like John himself. Perhaps they, like he, could sense the wrongness that had pervaded the village since Reverend Parris took over and even before that.

John had, he would willingly admit to himself if no one else, never been a great churchgoer. He disliked the stiffness and austerity of meetings, and had been whipped too many times as a child for failing to sit perfectly still upon the hard and uncomfortable wooden benches. The whole matter had left a sour taste in his mouth. But he was a good Puritan man, and his wife a good Puritan woman, and so they had attended meeting every Sunday with utmost solemnity, calmly bearing the changing tides that came with each new minister, until Reverend Parris had taken up the post.

John's dislike for Parris had been immediate and complete. From the moment that he had laid eyes on him, he loathed him profoundly and wanted nothing to do with him, and it had come as a great relief when Elizabeth had fallen sick and John could use her illness as an excuse to avoid going into town. It meant that he had to endure glares and the occasional whispered accusation of lack of piety, but he would rather suffer that then Parris's unending sermons about the futility of life and the fires of Hell.

How Parris had come to have a niece like Abigail Williams, he did not know. He would have thought that all manner of spirit or gaiety, which Abigail seemed to embody well, if with some manner of proper restraint, would have been crushed out of the home of the Reverend.

Perhaps Abigail is as dull as her uncle, but capable of hiding it.

John sighed, tugging slightly on his horses' reins and guiding them over a small wooden bridge on the edge of town. He could see the houses of Salem, just beginning to stir with the early morning movements – and more often than not, the prayers – of their inhabitants, and a fire already burning in Parris's house. Before John had even reached the door, it was flung open, and Abigail stood upon the step, dressed, her hair quite hidden beneath her bonnet and the widest smile that John had ever seen on a woman upon her face.

"Mr. Proctor," she said, inclining her head when she saw him, and he was aware that she was trying to wipe the smile off of her face. It took her a few moments, then she looked up at him, fluttering her eyelashes slightly, and she brushed her hand over her lips, replacing her wide smile with solemnity. "Thank you for coming into the village to fetch me."

"It was no trouble," John told her, extending a hand to help her up. "And it is not safe for a young Puritan girl to be walking alone at such an hour as this…"

"Aye." Abigail nodded solemnly as she took John's hand and lifted herself gracefully onto the wagon bench at his side. "The Indians stay away from the village, but I would not be surprised to see some along this road…"

"I have never seen an Indian here," John told her, in what he hoped was a comforting voice. "I have heard that they are moving further and further away from proper human settlement. There are people who say that they have no quarrel with us…"

Abigail's face hardened instantly. The change was almost disturbing – seconds ago, she had looked as sweetly solemn as any decent young girl, and now she looked so angry that it was almost frightening.

"People who say the Indians have no quarrel with us are wrong," she snapped. "They mean us harm. They would gladly kill any good Christian man or woman who set foot on their heathen land – the only reason that we are safe in Salem is that we have guns…"

"Why say you that, Abigail?" John asked, a little warily.

Abigail fell silent and turned away from him, staring out over the village. John flicked the horses' reigns and they began to plod away from the village, but he kept his eye on Abigail. At last, once they were almost out of sight of the manse, she spoke again.

"My parents were killed by Indians," she said, and John was taken aback more by the venom in her voice than the words she spoke. Many people he knew had family members who had been killed by Indians, but when they spoke of them, it was always with semi-reverent sorrow and occasionally slight resentment. Never before had he heard such obvious anger, and from a girl, no less…

"I am very sorry," he told her, finding nothing else to say. Abigail did not look at him.

"You look much like my father," she whispered at last. "He had eyes like yours… kindly eyes. He was a good man, as I know you are, Mr. Proctor."

Something twisted in the pit of John's stomach.

"It is, perhaps, not proper for you to say… for you to say anything of that nature to me," he chided quietly, and Abigail whirled on the bench again to look at him.

"Of what nature?" she asked swiftly. "I simply said that you are a good man and that you remind me of my father – surely there can be no more proper thing to say than that. I tell my uncle often that he is a good man –"

"There is a familiarity in what you say that I cannot approve of," John told her, rather sharply. "It is improper to speak so- so intimately with a man such as myself… a man you barely know…"

"Oh, but sir…" She shifted towards him slightly on the bench, leaning close and looking up at him with wide and almost innocent eyes. "I did not intend to be too… intimate with you… I am sorry that you interpreted my words as such."

The horse's reigns slipped from John's hands, going slack as the horses continued to pull on them, but he was rendered quite incapable of catching them or even of fully registering that they were no longer held firmly between his fingers. The look that Abigail was giving him – that serious, solemn, oh so terribly sweet look – had him transfixed.

Abigail's eyes flicked to the reigns for a moment, but then back to John, and then her hand moved to catch the leather straps before they slipped to the ground, and as she caught hold of them – never breaking eye contact – her hand brushed lightly against his knee.

"Are you ill, Mr. Proctor?" she asked, and yes, perhaps John did feel a little odd and feverish. He put his hand on his forehead, then shook his head slightly, sighing.

"Not ill," he told her. "Just… perhaps a little tired. I have not been sleeping well," he added, hoping very much that this would be excuse enough for Abigail and that she would not require any further explanation.

"I am most sorry to hear that, Mr. Proctor," Abigail said solemnly. "Perhaps you should not be working in the fields if you are in this state – I have heard tell that exhaustion can bring about all manner of illnesses… there are even those who have died early from it."

"Industriousness is a virtue," he reminded her. "To stay away from one's work for so minor an ailment would be idleness, and you surely know what is said – if the Devil finds a man's hand idle, he will set it to work."

"That is a foolish thing to believe," Abigail told him. "The Devil cannot set a man to work while the man lies abed – it is an idlemind that the Devil will set to do his work."

John managed a small laugh. "Do you fancy yourself a theologian, Abigail?"

"I fancy myself nothing." Abigail's voice went rather cold, and she frowned at John, as though insulted by his question. "I only think about what I hear in Meeting and decide which portions of it are right and which are wrong."

"Be grateful you're a child still young enough for such comments to be taken as naïveté…" His lips twisted slightly and he flicked the horses' reins. "If you were any older, you would be taken for a heretic in a moment. I hope you know."

"Women are not taken as heretics," she said dismissively. "The accusation of choice is witch. 'Heretic' suggests an intelligence that women do not have."

"True." John looked away from her, focussing his eyes upon the horses and trying not to allow himself to look back at her, not allow himself to show how very odd he found the whole conversation. He thought he heard her snort or let out a small laugh, but couldn't be sure and didn't want to look back at her to check her expression.

Abigail did not speak again until John pulled back on the reins and the cart pulled to a stop before his house.

"Thank you," she said, taking his hand and stepping down, looking with the small cottage with an expression of something like disappointment. "Oh… I did expect it to be rather larger."

"My wife and I do not feel we need more," John told her, attempting not to betray the hint of annoyance in his voice. "It is not like the manse your uncle keeps, but it is enough for us."

"Oh, you mustn't think that I was insulting it," Abigail amended swiftly. "I only thought that if your wife needed help keeping it–"

Anger tightened John's throat and it was all he could do not to strike Abigail. "Do not speak against my wife. She is not lazy, do you understand me? She does her best to keep the house. She is ill, that is why she cannot keep it as well as she might wish to."

Abigail did not respond. She looked up straight into John's face with an infuriatingly impertinent look. "Of course. Her illness excuses everything, does it not?"

"Yes."

"Hmm." Abigail let out a small, non-committal noise through her lips, then brushed past John, striding towards the house. She was met by Elizabeth, who opened the door and immediately stared at Abigail as though she had never seen a girl before.

"You are Abigail Williams?" she asked.

"Yes," Abigail said, bristling a little at Elizabeth's tone. "Am I not how you expected me to be? I would hope I am satisfactory."

"Oh, of course," Elizabeth said, softening her voice, and once again, John had an urge to strike Abigail for her impertinence. Elizabeth did not deserve to be spoken to so – by a mere girl, a girl not yet even of marriageable age.

"Do come in," continued Elizabeth. "Come… there's yeast and flour and we need bread by dinnertime."

"Yes, Goody Proctor," Abigail said, her voice instantly turning from hard to sugar-sweet. She bobbed a small curtsey that John might have thought mocking – though he put that idea out of his mind quickly – and then Abigail went inside and Elizabeth turned on John.

"Did she speak that way to you?" Elizabeth demanded in a low voice. "Or to her uncle? As if- as if she's above us?"

"I think she was insulted," he said tentatively, hoping against hope that he would not anger his wife, but feeling an odd need to defend Abigail – a very odd need, he thought, his stomach twisting very slightly, as he had been the one reluctant to take her on. If anything, he ought to have been telling Elizabeth yes, Abigail was horrible to all figures of authority and did not deserve to be in their employ.

"Insulted? By what?"

"By– you were staring, I think…"

"Staring?"

John winced.

"I was not staring! I simply looked at her, nothing more! I would think that a woman has the right to look at a girl before allowing her into her home! I wouldn't want someone who looked… unsuitable to be in our employ!"

"It was not an insult, Elizabeth, I was merely trying to explain–"

"Don't." Elizabeth held up one hand and covered her eyes with the other. "I'm sorry. I've been feeling poorly all morning – go on, take the boys out to the fields, you have your work to do. We'll be fine here."

"Of course…" John leaned forward and kissed Elizabeth lightly on her forehead, and she managed a trembling smile before turning and heading back into the cottage. John looked after her for a moment, then turned away, grabbed the reins of his horses, and led them to the barn.

The motions he went through – unhitching, washing, fetching a bucket and milking the cow – were pleasantly soothing. He rested his forehead against the cow's side, letting his eyes fall shut and working her teats as he had done so many times before, in slow, practiced motions that had become second nature to him.

He ought to tell Elizabeth that he'd told her that hiring on a relative of Reverend Parris had been a poor choice. He ought to tell her that it was her own fault if Abigail Williams didn't respect her authority, because she'd been the one to suggest her as a candidate for the position.

And then, of course, Elizabeth would turn that right around and tell him that he was the one who had hired her on officially, thathe was the one who had actually decided that she would be a suitable candidate – that he had even said as much to her that very morning – and that if he had thought Abigail to be impertinent or unsuitable, he should have said so and not hired her.

And if she did say that?

John did not care to think of himself as a proud man. He ought to have been able to accept that he had made an error in his judgement, that he had been wrong about Abigail Williams. Why should it bother him so deeply to admit that mistake?

He would admit to it if things did not get better, he promised himself. If Abigail did not learn to respect Elizabeth – or him – he would gladly admit that he made a mistake and he would be the one to tell her that she couldn't be in his employ any longer.

But it would only be fair to give her a chance – to give her a chance to prove that she could be a good worker, that she could help Elizabeth around the house and be useful.

He nodded to himself, as though sealing a secret pact with his own mind, then stood up, milking pail in his hand, and started for the cottage again. He listened for a moment before opening the door, and when he heard no sounds of fighting, stepped inside.

Elizabeth was seated at the table with her knitting, and Abigail stood over the breadboard, up to her elbows in flour and kneading a lump of dough with such vigour that, at first glance, John thought that she was beating it. When she turned to look at him, that same lock of hair that had escaped her kerchief when first he had met her was plastered against her forehead once again.

"Thank you, John," Elizabeth said, standing and taking the pail from him. "The boys are awake – I sent them outside to wait for you."

"Thank you." John was aware of a certain cold, distant tone in Elizabeth's voice, but chose to ignore it. "You two are… are fine here, are you not?"

"Of course we are, John – why wouldn't we be?"

He didn't know what answer to give to that, so he turned and left the women without another word.

The sun had already risen, casting the fields over with dull, murky light, any semblance of pure sunlight masked by fog that was not yet dissipating and clouds that hung low in the sky. John managed a tight smile in the direction of Giles Corey, who was already hacking at the rye stalks with a scythe.

"Is the crop going to be all right?" John asked, trying to put his mind off Elizabeth and Abigail and focus wholly on his work. "It's been damp – some people seem to think rye crops can be ruined by damp weather."

"That's nonsense," Giles said, not even looking up. "There's a bit of mould, I'll grant, but not enough to ruin the crop, and you can tell the mouldy stalks just by looking. We'll have bread well into the winter, I promise you."

"Some people seem to think mould on rye is dangerous," John said rather mildly, picking up his own scythe and twisting it idly in his hand, watching the sun glint off the blade. "To hear Reverend Parris tell it, it can bring the devil to whoever eats it… so it's the farmers' fault if Satan is loose in a town."

"That's nonsense though, isn't it?" Giles snorted. "A bit of mould in the food never hurt anyone, and Parris won't know unless we tell him in any case, so if we just keep our mouths shut, there won't be a problem, now will there?"

"Of course not," said John, smiling slightly as his two sons rushed out to join them. "Come on now, boys – get the wagon, we're going to start cutting the rye today."

He watched with a fondness swelling in his heart as his two sons rushed to the barn and returned moments later with the small cart for him and Giles to throw the rye stalks into. They were good boys, and they had enough of Elizabeth's patient and pious nature to excel at whatever task they were set to without complaint.

He wondered briefly what Abigail's children would be like if Elizabeth's children were like this, then he shook himself and tried to put all thoughts of Abigail procreating out of his mind.