Children of Salem

Chapter Four

On the cow paths between Salem Village and Andover

Thomas Putnam meant to do his duty.

He was the first man in the village to again wear his military uniform about, his cutlass dusted off and dangling from his belt, his flintlock on his arm. Furthermore, he’d contracted with a known cunning man in Andover—a notorious blacksmith with the gift of sight into the invisible world of Satan, a man with ample knowledge and perhaps truck with Witches. It might be risky business in such times as these, seeing a fortuneteller and seer, but Putnam meant to protect himself, his wife, and his child along with Mercy to whom he’d come to care for in the best sense of it. In fact, since her affliction—so similar to his daughter’s suffering—Thomas wished to nurture Mercy as if she were his own.

He certainly wanted nothing more to befall his accursed house. But he must learn the truth. He must have concrete evidence, not merely conjecture on the part of his wife, or his child, or the supposed ghosts who’d informed them that all his previous children had been victims of murder. Not even the faith in these matters held by his relative, Reverend Samuel Parris was enough for a man whose feet were solidly in this world alone.

This errand without benefit of moon or star, below a black sky and a raging wind forcing him to tie down his hat and hold firm to his cape, pressed like an intolerable weight. Thomas breathed deeply. He’d traversed the hills on horseback, his stiff, sore leg still aching whenever mounted. But he would see Samuel Wardwell, who some called the Wizard of Andover, for a second time.

His first visit had netted nothing of substance, only a slew of innuendos and sly nods and agreements from Wardwell, who had a knack for getting a man to relax his tongue. On their first meeting, the blacksmith and cunning man had asked Putnam many questions, and then suddenly ordered him away, telling him to return in seven nights hence, muttering that at the toll of the seventh night that all answers sought would be revealed to him.

Tonight was the seventh, and so here he was on a fool’s errand or a wise man’s journey? He hoped to soon know which it might be.

The wind chilled his bones, making him believe the old texts that declared Satan the Prince of the Power of Air. That God had offered Satan power over one element, and that the Archangel, being a cunning one indeed, selected the wind over water, earth, and even fire. No doubt old Beelzebub had enough of fire already. The thought made him chuckle and then immediately regret it as it felt like a taking of the Devil’s name in vain, a more fearsome error than taking the Lord’s name in vain, for the Lord had pity from time to time, whereas Satan had none. This fearful worry came as accompaniment to a gust of air so strong it threatened to unseat him from his old mare. Then the eerie coincidence of this happening at just this moment raised the hair on the back of his neck.

Even his horse seemed to shiver beneath him at the precise moment as if it sensed the same. Animals know these things. Putnam shivered at both the gust and the thought of the power behind it; shivered for being alone with it . . . alone with the Devil. How long had he been blind to such subtleties as this? For how long had he remained blind to the old fiend’s straddling his rooftop? Cursed all me bloody, blimey life.

How his and Bray’s and Samuel’s business had become a curse began to make sense with all the other areas of his life, all the failure and death following in his wake. The Salem Iron and Copperworks Mine had seemed so very marvelous when he’d first hatched the idea. So certain was he that the scheme would pay in a year, and if not one then two. For a time, everyone connected with it agreed to the point of investing, and none more enthusiastically than Samuel.

Thomas had several other influential backers with ties to mills in England by way of the West Indies thanks to Parris. These included his cousin John Wolcott, Judge Corwin, Judge Hathorne, and more recently young Nicholas Noyes, clergyman at the First Church of Salem Harbor soon to be. Soon as Old Higginson kicks off. All enthusiastic, true enough, until the cave-in. More failure plaguing my house..

“Cursed,” he repeated to hear some sound other than the swirling wind. “I was once destined for great things in Salem, but others have stole’ everything from me.”

He reached for and found his flask of whiskey, gulping deeply. It warmed him. He knew the truth. That his wife had married him after being rebuffed by James Bailey. Marry a Putnam, she was thinking that she’d be marrying a man who’d become a regular squire when he gained his inheritance. But the old man had remarried late in life, and he had left it all to Thomas’ stepmother who in turn had remarried a Tarbell. As a result, Thomas had lost all hope of the property rightfully his.

The horse whinnied, upset with the rain that began to blanket them. In the distance, Thomas made out the light on the outskirts of Andover, Wardwell’s barn and workshop. As if knowing the rutted path and the destination, the horse continued on without urging.

Thomas wondered if his money might not be wasted on this man named Wardwell; wondered if the blacksmith could really do as rumor said; wondered if he’d have any answers as promised tonight. As he neared, he saw Wardwell as if he’d never left, right inside that brightly lit double doorway, pounding on a piece of flaming metal, shaping it, sculpting it into anything the ‘wizard with wrought iron’ might want or imagine.

Wardwell hardly looked up when Putnam, yet astride his horse, came into his view—coming right through the smithy’s door. In fact, the wizard acted as if it weren’t the seventh night since last they met. Still, with that booming voice of his, Wardwell filled the night with a handful of words. “I see you’ve chose to return, Squire Putnam.”

“Squire? How come you to determine me a squire?” Putnam thought it odd as he’d just been thinking he ought to’ve been a squire and would have if not for circumstances created by his father in the old man’s foolish dotage. “I am Deacon Putnam and Lieutenant, sir but no squire, and now ’tis the seventh day we agreed ’pon, Mr. Wardwell, so why should I not be back?”

“Many who come seeking answers of me, once they have gone never return.” He shrugged and dropped a pair of burning red tongs into water, sending up a cloud of smoke and mist to the ceiling rafters.

Thomas got down from his horse. “But I am here, so have you information I seek?”

“I do indeed have information, sir. Indeed I do.”

“No riddles this time. I want facts, truths. Who are those who would harm me?”

“Those you most suspect, of course.”

Putnam thought about this; thought of all those he’d ever suspected of holding grudges or who held him in low esteem. One such man was Sheriff Williard, Bray’s nephew. Another who came immediately to mind was Francis Nurse, followed by John Proctor, but he must remember what Anne and Anne Junior had said of these men’s wives. “How do you know for a certainty, Wardwell? How? Whom do you consult as I consult you?”

“I consult Endor.”

“Endor? The Witch of Endor as in the Bible?”

“No, Endore is she!” He pointed to an old nag in the first stall. After seeing Thomas’ pinched expression, he laughed like a madman. “Come, come, Deacon. I can’t give away my trade secrets, now can I?”

“All right but tell me, these enemies of mine, can I destroy them? Is there a way? What can I do, Wardwell?”

“You need do nothing, Deacon”

“What do you mean, nothing?”

“It’s all taken care of.”

“How? How is it taken care of?”

“Trust me.”

“Tell me how.”

Wardwell took a final whack at the red poker of metal he’d been shaping, its tip glowing and smoking. H e held it up to Putnam’s eyes so close that the Salem man feared his eyebrows might singe. “I’ve made a curse for you, Thomas—may I call you Thomas?—made it a general one to guard against all thy enemies.”

“I paid for a lousy curse? A curse to guard me? I want names and I want to swear out warrants against those who harm my child and have murdered others before her.”

“I know full-well what you want, Thomas, but this is no ordinary curse. This one has the ear of Satan himself. This curse will loose Satan on your enemies.” He jammed the poker of blazing metal into a water barrel and the resultant noise and smoke cloud steamed about the barn like a mad banshee.

“You expect me to believe you have the ear of the Devil ’imself?”

“If not, why’re ya be here on the seventh night?”

Thomas slowly nodded. “I must be sure.”

“Understood, Thomas. Come with me.”

Putnam followed Wardwell to a full-length mirror on a wrought iron frame filigreed with leaves and wrought iron black birds. Beside the mirror, smoke rose from pitch fires in pots. “Gaze close into the looking glass, Thomas.”

“I only see my reflection. So?”

“Stare longer, harder. Seek in the looking glass your answer.”

“I see nothing.”

“Close your eyes, man, and think on your suffering, your hardship.”

Putnam did as told.

“Think on all the horrors you’ve shared with me here. Think, man, think.”

Putnam’s eyes were closed, but fearful Wardwell meant him some harm, he peeked from time to time as the blacksmith increased the smoke billowing about the mirror.

“Now open your eyes and see—see into the invisible world to behold the devils let loose to harm you and yours, Thomas, and to see who has brought misery upon ye and ye family.”

Putnam gulped and opened his eyes on the mirror where he saw shadowy figures trying to form into whole from the broken, curling threads of smoke like fog trying to find a hold, trying to find rule and order.

“Drink this,” Wardwell said in his ear. “This may take some time but the tea, it will help. Drink . . . drink up.”

Thomas, thirsty from the trip, eagerly gulped down the warm tea, and then he again began studying the curling smoke and his own reflection in the mirror, and he thought if he concentrated that he saw other faces peeking about in the mirror, one set of eyes on his left shoulder, perched there, but then they dissipated, but other shapes wanted forming. Wardwell refilled his warm, herbal tea as he called the bitter drink.

“Takes time this,” muttered Wardwell. “Be patient and you shall see for yourself.”

Thomas drained the second cup of tea. “What am I looking for? I only see me.”

“Exactly what they want you to see and believe! That you are the root cause of all your own problems, thereby casting off any suspicion that that root stems from another source, you see. Clever are the minions of Satan.”

“I see.”

“Yes, you will with patience, if you will only stare hard enough and long enough in the mirror.”

“I am.”

“I know you are trying but it takes some working of your inner mind, man.”

“I have no imagination for such games and parlor tricks, sir.”

“You will! Will it, man, the faces of your deadliest enemies. Not the ones bent on spitting after your heels but those bent on harming you beyond all reason.”

“Those who would murder my progeny, yes.”

“Exactly. Thomas, you and you alone can bring this about. I cannot.”

“But then why did you have me go and return on this day?”

“You alone can see the images of evil here . . . tonight . . . on this the seventh day of our covenant.”

The word covenant made it clear, that he was in league with Wardwell, and God knows who else by virtue of Wardwell’s unusual covenants. A covenant begot a covenant. Then Thomas began seeing movement in the smoke and mirror, a kind of life there, sometimes spherical, sometimes wormlike but all of it moving, swirling, casting ethereal shadows where there ought not be any.

With the drugged tea and in due time, Wardwell had Thomas Putnam seeing what he—Thomas—wanted to see and believe all along, right here and now inside the smoke and inside the looking glass as Thomas’ features coalesced into those of his enemy in slow, sure succession.

In fact, Thomas Putnam was face to face with those who’d murdered his children, and those who’d put an affliction on his womenfolk today back in Salem.