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Mary’s view from the dooryard. Where she was once able to see trees blanketing the hills beyond neat fields of wheat and flax, now she faces only stout posts set close together like the brown teeth of a great beast.
    Winter comes, and an icy wind sweeps the hills and cracks the branches of trees. Rain falls and freezes on the doorstep. One night the full moon darkens and turns red as if drenched in blood. Cakes refuse to rise and bake into dense dry bricks. The sparrow no longer sings in its cage. Jonas Fairbanks reports that he heard the blaring of unholy trumpets early one Saturday morning when he walked on George Hill. Thomas Hosmer tells of the birth of a calf in nearby Groton whose head was so monstrously deformed the animal couldnot stand. Witches’ stones crash against the Sawyer house three nights in a row and it is said that the dung of a passing crow struck a man dead on the Concord Turnpike.
    In January, everyone in Lancaster is ordered to take shelter nightly in their designated garrisons. Mary’s sisters and their families are assigned to the Rowlandson garrison, as are their closest neighbors, the Joslins and the Kettles. By day everyone goes about their duties warily, the way a farmer harvests his ripened grain with one eye cast toward a fretful sky. At night, more than forty people crowd into the house, bringing their blankets and food stores and little else, for there is no room to accommodate furniture. Mary’s household, which she strives to order daily, becomes a place of noise and disarray.
    In early February, Joseph tells Mary that he has decided to travel to Boston and beg the governor to send troops for their protection. Mary tries to dissuade him. The night before his departure, as they lie in bed, she pleads with him. “Can you not wait till spring?” She tries to keep her voice low, mindful that the bed curtains do little to muffle sound. She can hear the snores and sighs of her relatives and neighbors who sleep on pallets only a few feet away. “’Tis the dead of winter and travel to Boston is arduous.”
    “Mary, hush.” He rolls to face her. Even in the dark she can see that his forehead has knit into a frown. He strokes her cheek, trying to gentle her as she does the children when they are fretful. “You will infect others with your fears. You must be strong in the Lord.”
    “Send Lieutenant Kerley in your stead! Surely he is more suited to the task.” She whispers the words, hoping that her sister Elizabeth is not awake to hear Mary offer her husband in place of her own.
    “Henry will go. Did I not tell you? He has already agreed to accompany me. But in Boston they will be more persuaded by a minister than a yeoman soldier.”
    Mary struggles to still her tongue, to submit her will to his. Yet fear assaults her again, sliding up her back like a cold snake. “And what are we to do if the Indians attack while you are gone?”
    He clicks his tongue irritably. “Do you think I would leave if I thought that likely? The very reason I go is to insure that we will not be attacked.”
    “But if we are—”
    He cuts her off, and tells her what she already knows. “I do not leave you without protection. The house is well garrisoned. John Divoll and John Kettle are here. Abraham Joslin, John MacLoud. My own nephew—”
    “Thomas is but a boy,” Mary protests.
    “Hush you, now! He is nineteen and more skilled with a musket than I am.”
    Again Mary strives for silence. Again she fails. “Can you not wait until the house is fully secured?” She thinks of the flankers the men have begun building at the corners of the house, spaces a man with a musket can squeeze into and sight the enemy through long vertical slits.
    She hears him sigh and realizes their conversation is over. “The Lord will be your safekeeping, Mary,” Joseph whispers. She feels his warm breath against her ear. “Sleep now. You must trust always in Him.”
    She nods yes , her forehead lightly brushing his chest.