A Traitor Among Us by A.M. Reade

Author:A.M. Reade
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781735522166
Publisher: Pau Hana Publishing

The next morning I hastened to the storehouse and knelt where the jars hid the pistol from view. I felt around for the weapon and once my fingers closed around it, I lifted it above the jars, being careful not to clink the metal or the wood against any glass. When I held it in front of me, I shuddered at the thought of someone using it. I hid it as best I could in the folds of my skirt and returned to the kitchen, where I had left Prissy to prepare the porridge for the morning meal.

When she went into the dining room to make sure there were sufficient bowls and utensils, I hurriedly placed the pistol under a large basket in the corner of the kitchen. I would return to that spot later, once Prissy had left to do her other chores for the morning, and find a better place to hide it.

But I was delayed after the meal, talking to one of the inn guests who needed to know when the ferry between Stites Point and Somers Point might be arriving and leaving again. While I wrote down the time for him, Prissy began cleaning up the kitchen and dining room.

And that was how I came to find her in the kitchen, holding the pistol with trembling hands.

I dared not shout to her, for fear she would startle and drop the weapon. What if she did that and it fired on its own? I did not know if it held ammunition. I cursed under my breath for not asking Jesse. Prissy had not seen me come into the room, as she was staring rapt at the pistol. I stepped very softly backward out of the room and made a small noise in the hallway, one I knew Prissy would hear, so her concentration might break and she would put the pistol down.

It worked. When I moved again into the kitchen doorway, Prissy was standing near the basket, staring at the floor, her hands at her sides. If she was trying to look unobtrusive, she was failing. The pistol was nowhere to be seen, and I suspected that Prissy had instinctively realized it did not belong in the open where people might see it.

When her eyes met mine, I could see the questions that swam behind the blue brightness.

“You found it.” I was speaking in a low voice which I hoped sounded gentle. My mind was racing, trying to think of something to tell her, a plausible reason for a pistol to be in our kitchen. But I was unsuccessful.

She nodded.

I had lied to Prissy so often of late, I could not do it again. “I hid it there to protect Jesse. No one must know it is there.” I stared at her, waiting for her to respond in some way.

She wrinkled her brow without nodding.

“A friend of Jesse’s gave it to him. Jesse has never fired it. But he asked me to safeguard it for him.” It was all true.

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