Children of Salem

Chapter Eleven

In a matter of hours, while Samuel Parris paraded about the countryside with the Salem seers, children who continued to unearth witches at every turn for the judges and the ministers to condemn, Jeremiah Wakely worked to get Mrs. Parris and Betty out of Salem as quietly and efficiently as possible. Among the ten young women of the village atop white horses gone to Beverly today, the village of Reverend John Hale, was Anne Putnam, Mercy Lewis, and Mary Wolcott. The fingers of these three alone had pointed out more witchery and mischief than all the others together—and in fact more witches and warlocks than in the entire history of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

It’d become a weekly ritual to place these children in a wagon and on horseback, take them to Ipswich and other neighboring villages to seek out and identify other offenders remaining at large.

# # # # #

From his Inn doorstep down the street, Deacon Ingersoll, unusually quiet and reticent, watched Jeremiah Wakely purchase a carriage at the livery stable and calmly take carriage and horse the back way to the parsonage. A small crowd had by now gathered to watch as Jeremiah and Ichabod, the Barbados man who’d been seeing Tituba on occasion, bundled Betty Parris into the covered carriage, followed by Mrs. Parris, who climbed onto the seat beside her blanketed daughter. With Ichabod at the reins, the horse started off at a slow processional step, but two houses along, he snapped the whip and the horse whinnied and snatched the carriage into a speedy exit out of the village and onto Ipswich Road, racing away.

Jeremy was pleased to have heard Mrs. Parris, the entire time that she’d held tight to the bundled baby girl, comforting Betty and reassuring her with words like going now, escaping this place, crossing water, better on the other side, Mr. Wakely’s right.

Jeremy felt the cold stare of the crowd upon him. He calmly, resolutely found Dancer in the Parris barn, led her out, stepped into the stirrups, and rode with head held high through the village. Over the heads of the crowd, he noted a slight wave of approval from Nathaniel Ingersoll just before the deacon turned and reentered his Inn and Apothecary.

At the same time, a mixed array of grumbling rose from the crowd, a crowd that had only grown and had become uglier as the minutes ticked by. Jeremiah eased his mare through the crowd, making for Gatter’s jailhouse, a place that had become all too familiar of late.

He felt the mean stares of the people trailing him like so many knives being hurled at his back, and he sensed the mob working up its courage like a single-minded animal. He’d seen mobs before, but he’d never been the object of one till now.

“They at our wake, girl,” he whispered in Dancer’s ear where he leaned into her mane. But Jeremy would not give them the satisfaction of acknowledging them whatsoever, and at the same time, he felt a terrible gratification that none of the accusing, gifted children had been left behind by Parris and his entourage. For even so much as a single one of the little devils would surely have pointed him out a warlock for his actions this day. Removing the minister’s daughter from the village. Removing ‘evidence’ from the venue. He realized that once the seer children heard the story of what’d happened his name would be at or near the top of their lists of who must next be accused.

# # # # #

Jeremiah found Serena precisely where he imagined he would, at the barred window of Gatter’s filthy hole, a jail not fit for the lowliest pirate in all history, a place a rat would feel uncomfortable in.

Serena’s two baskets lay empty at her feet where she stood, hands clasped by her mother, Rebecca. Jeremy’s first glimpse of Mother Nurse tore at his heart. She was in need of bathing, her hair wild and tangled with dirt, sweat, and heat. The jail, overcrowded as it was, had become a giant oven, but Gatter had allowed Rebecca a moment outside as he determined her safely shackled.

“Go now, children! And don’t come back,” Rebecca was saying to Serena and Ben, who stood with the wagon, his face a mask of anguish.

When Jeremiah came closer, the crooked, bent jailer, Gatter, held a hand up to him. “What business ’ave ye here, Mr. Wakely? Come to join in the tears and wailin’, ’ave ya?” He followed with a belly laugh that jangled his large keys before the laugh turned into a consumptive coughing that doubled the stunted, little man over. He disappeared in this condition with Rebecca in tow by her chains, replacing her in the grimy dark interior, unfastening her chains, and locking the door behind him.

Gatter shook his head at the young Nurses and Wakely as if they were all fools to be here this way with people looking on. He then wandered off to the back of the short stone building that looked like an earthen oven. In Gatter’s wake followed a chorus of wheezing, snorting, and hacking.

Jeremy understood why people believed in trolls, for Gatter was just that. Rumor had it that he remained drunk day and night. Which meant he had a bottle hidden somewhere nearby—likely where he was headed now.

Ben took this opportunity to pull Serena away from their mother, where she stood at the barred window, her hands wrapped about Rebecca’s. Ben pressed one of the guns he’d brought with him through the bars to his mother, but Rebecca refused it, shoving it back at Ben, who missed catching it. The thing hit the ground but thankfully did not go off. Ben picked it up and gave his mother a hard stare. “Take it, Mother. If not to use on Gatter then to put yourself from misery.” When Ben forced it a second time, she threw it back at him and angrily muttered, “I am no coward, Ben. I do this in His name. Now take your sister and go from here and neither to return!”

This time Ben had caught the weapon sent back to him.

“Father always said you were more stubborn than Maplewood.”

“I am strong in my faith.”

Gatter’s cough signaled his position, just around the corner of the oven. Jeremy grabbed the gun from Ben to slip it below his coat just as the jailer reappeared.

“Be off with ya, now, all of ye!” Gatter ordered. “Time’s up with mum! ’Less you’ve got more funds for ol’ Gatter.”

Ben snatched out his loaded pistol and put it against Gatter’s forehead. “I’d like to pay you in full, Mr. Gatter.”

Serena grabbed her brother, shouting, “Stop it, Ben! Stop now!”

“Ben,” began Jeremy over the crying of Rebecca at the window, “think what you’re doing, man!”

“Go home, Ben!” shouted Rebecca. “And don’t come back—either of you, Serena, Ben! And you, Jeremiah Wakley! You let me down. You promised to get my girl out of this place, yet you’re here! You all know my wishes! You’ve all disappointed me! Now go, go!” She disappeared from the window as if the darkness inside had swallowed her.

# # # # #

“How then did it fare with Mrs. Parris, Jeremy?” asked Serena.

“Yes?”asked Francis at the table back at the Nurse home. “Tell me some good news.”

“Mrs. Parris wanted my advice.”

“Really?”

“What advice?” asked Serena.

“For her child, and at my urging, she has taken Betty and left the village.”

“Left the village?”

“And the colony for family far from here.”

“Parris’ wrath will come down on you the moment he hears,” replied Serena.

“Aye, I suppose so. Let it come.”

“He gets those trained monkeys of his repeating your name,” said Ben from the hearth where he crouched and poked at embers, “and you will be roommates with my mother instead of Serena.”

Francis pounded the table. “I tell the both of you, Serena, to flee, and what do you do? You stay while telling others to run from this madness.”

“It’s the only hope for Betty Parris I believe,” said Jeremy, “in order to come out of the fits torturing her.” Shading his eyes against the setting sun that streamed through the window, Jeremy added, “How goes it with you and Mr. Proctor’s petition before the court?”

Francis bowed his head. “Badly . . . badly, but we have our faith still, and we do what we can to comfort one another. Though there is to be hanging tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” asked Serena, hearing this for the first time. “Mother said not a word, nor did the jailer.”

“Who’s to be hung?” Jeremiah gritted his teeth, silently praying.

“Goode and four others.”

“Four?” Jeremy’s stomach sank. “Four, the number portends no good.”

“Who are among the four?” pleaded Serena.

“Three I know nothing of save they’re all from surrounding villages.”

“Who are they, Father?” Serena had become annoyed with his obvious stalling tactics.”

“Susannah Martin of Amesbury, who spoke as saucily to the judges as had Bridget Bishop, I can tell you.”

“And?”

“Also a Sarah Wildes of Topsfield had a tongue on her, a vile mouth.”

“Father, please!”

“Elizabeth Howe of Ipswich—a saintly lady to be sure.”

“And the fourth?” Serena shook him.

“It was to be Osborne of Salem, but she’s recanted her plea of innocence and has named others. So it fell to your mother, my Rebecca to be tried next.”

“Tried and . . . ” began Jeremy.

“They can’t be serious!” cried out Serena.

“Oh, they’re serious!” replied Ben.

Jeremy stomped his boot against the floor. “Damn the fools! God, I’ve seen it before, both in Maine and in Connecticut. They want a hanging, they will have a hanging. But five in one day, I’ve never seen the like of, no.”

“Goode yes,” said Francis sadly. “Osborne for sure a witch or maybe, but the others? I’d never have guessed it’d come to five found guilty and hung here in Salem.”

“All in a matter of a few months. Doesn’t make sense; doesn’t sit well.” Serena put her arm around her father, her thoughts obviously with her mother, and what this news heralded.

Jeremy thought of Serena hanging onto her mother’s hands through the grimy little prison window. He then imagined Serena and her family having to watch Mother Nurse’s public execution. The others had fallen silent, contemplating their worst fears coming true. If the authorities carried through with a sextuplet hanging, what would stay their hand from repeating the act? And who would be among the next six marked for death? Jeremiah’s own thoughts rang like the bell of the gravedigger, chiming his work done.

Serena returned to the subject of Betty Parris. “Jeremy, how do suppose distance from Salem will help the Parris child?”

“Distance from her father is enough,” Ben replied, a sneer in his tone.

Jeremiah couldn’t help laughing at this. “True, but ’tis also a matter of the child’s seeing a new surrounding, any new surrounding, telling her she’s out of the situation, away from where the curse against her took place. Gives the victim, and no doubt she is just that, a feeling of safety just to cross a body of water. You know the superstitions; how they work.”

Serena nodded at all he said. “I should think that any geography other than that found beneath her bed could help the child.”

“Her mother, too. Mrs. Parris’ health has suffered greatly in all of this.”

Francis Nurse sighed heavily. “I can well imagine. I recall many nights when Rebecca and I were up with our children. To have one as afflicted as that child, from what I’ve gathered, is beyond me.”

Serena wrung her hands. “Will Mr. Corwin and Mr. Hathorne carry through on the threats of hanging the six?”

“Not Corwin nor Hathorne, not technically, no.”

“What do you mean?”

“They haven’t the authority.”

“But it was in their courtrooms the guilty verdicts were handed down.”

“All the same, they’re courts are for petty crimes, misdemeanors, and suits.”

“They signed the warrants, ordered the arrests,” countered Ben, confused, “initiated warrants.”

“All that Corwin and Hathorne can legally do is collect evidence, run interviews, but decisions of life and death are made by the General Court of Assistants in Boston. It’s why Goode and the others were sent to Boston to stand trial there. The system is wise. Take the trial out of the locals’ hands, away from the borough where emotions and feelings run ahead of fact, and where authorities are often . . . well, inept.”

“Jeremy’s right, Ben,” Francis said while squeezing Serena’s hand in his. “Those facing the rope were found guilty in the local courts, but only the Court of Assistants can bring back an indictment of death. Hell, Hathorne’s court has never handled a case involving more than a claim of fifty pounds.”

“Certainly not charges of witchcraft and murder,” added Jeremy. “But they’ve been doing exactly that with the Boston authorities sitting alongside them. They’ve brought the Boston high court to Salem for what purpose? It’s all in all a sham.”

Serena gritted her teeth. “And yet Corwin and Hathorne are-are daily running interrogations, both in their courts and at the prison, where they do searches of the accused prisoner’s body.”

“It’s all been a show,” Jeremy assured his new bride.

“The real show is with Sir William and the larger court,” Francis added.

“Which is a breaking of the law in itself,” Jeremy insisted. “Convening a Court of Oyer & Terminer without consent or even knowledge on the part of the King. Frankly, all of their convictions are in question.”

“Tell that to the hangman,” muttered Ben. “I hear a hangman’s scaffold is being built by that cursed fool Fiske as we speak.”

“Where at?” asked Francis.

“Aside that giant oak top of Watch Hill.”

It was the same hill where Jeremy had hoped to meet with Mr. Higginson on his arrival in Salem, a goodly distance from the village, situated between the seaport and the village, yet within sight of the prison window. It’d mean a good parade of the accused either by foot or riding that cage, the jail cart. A last opportunity for jeers, curses, eggs, rotten fruit, and stones.

“What I fail to grasp,” said Francis, eyes cast downward still, “is why Magistrates Corwin and Hathorne have involved themselves at all; they could well have stayed above it and out of it, but they didn’t.”

“I believe they’ve been unduly influenced by three—no four—forces, Mr. Nurse.”

“Go on, Jeremiah.”

Jeremy cleared his throat. “Ambition, greed, a man named Parris, and the Boston magistrates who visited them.”

“A tangled web they weave?”

“As tangled a web as you can imagine.”

“I can imagine much.”

“And so how, Jeremy,” pleaded Serena, “how do we use this fact to free my mother?”

“At the moment, I’ve no idea.”

“What’s become of promises from Mather’s son?” asked Francis. “Reverend Cotton Mather?”

“I don’t know. Sorry, but I just don’t know.”

“Are we to wait until . . . until . . . ” began Ben, tears blinding him.

“Ease your mind, Ben,” Francis told his son.” Francis went to Ben, reached out and took his face in both hands, and then hugged him. “We are all in God’s hands. Understand that, accept it, and be at peace. What is the worst they can do to us now? Take Mother’s life? It cannot, it will not happen.”

“Stop it, Father!” Ben pulled away. “You’re a fool not to see where they’re headed!”

“Mind what your mother has said to us all, son!”

“She’s out of her head, Father!” he replied, going around the room, waving arms in the air. “She’s like a child! How can we follow her dictates? We must save her from them and from herself! All this nonsense about God’s will!”

“She believes it firmly!” replied Serena. “Says ‘He may have my life, if it’s God’s will, if He has led me to this end, then so be it.”

Francis agreed. “She keeps telling us all to let it be, but how can we?”

“You can’t listen to her!” Ben pounded about. “You sound as if you want her hung!”

Francis moved faster than he had in all the time Jeremy had known him, and he slapped Ben hard across the face. Ben stared in response and quietly said, “All she need do is lie to them; tell them what they want to hear. She is freed then to come home.”

“Those who’ve chosen that route have had to point a finger at others, Ben,” Jeremy said. “Your mother would never indict another.”

Serena added, “She told me that she’d not ever deny her God by doing as others have, by declaring a lie, Ben, by saying she’s abandoned God for the Antichrist. No, she will not!”

“She’s a brave woman, your mother, Ben.” Jeremy patted his young brother-in-law on the back, but Ben shrugged it off.

“Mother pleaded that we not visit again or attempt to see her again,” Serena told her father. “Says we worry her more with our presence; that she is in the Valley of Death and must walk it alone.”

“She fears we’ll bring the full wrath of the most vicious among the villagers down around us,” added Jeremy. “Giving comfort to the enemy will turn eyes on you—and your mother is wise.”

By the same token, Jeremy had himself gone down to the jail two evenings ago by cover of darkness with a handful of coins given him by Francis to put into the palm of Mr. Gatter, that foul-smelling jailer. Jeremy recalled the night visit and the sounds of the suffering inside that damnable, government-sanctioned oven.

Laying the money into Gatter’s hand, Jeremy had said, “Do all you can to make sure the accused are fed properly, Mr. Gatter, and should I learn you have used these funds badly or in gaming, or for drink, I will come looking for you.”

“Awww, ya kin hurt a man to the quick, sir, but for sure, you kin-count on me, Mr. Wakely, sir. I know she’s your mother in there—whether witch or no.”

Jeremiah could hardly abide the smell of Gatter or his twisted features and hair lip or his gnarled legs. He’d spoken briefly with Rebecca through the window, but Rebecca had only one thing to say, and she repeated it throughout: “Get Serena away from here, and if you can, take Ben with you, please. I’ll not budge. Stubborn is my faith.”

“And the authorities, Mother, they will hold their ‘truths’self-evident—that those among you who won’t confess have hearts turned to stone by Satan’s touch.”

“Self-evident, eh? Blindness is evident in this. Look here, I cannot be saved, but my children can be. Do it for me, Jeremiah Wakely, please!”

“But they are deaf to me and to caution. You’ve raised stubborn, proud children, Mother Nurse.”

“Afraid so.”

“Children who don’t run from a fight.”

“Aye but this is no fair fight. Jeremy, convince Francis. Do all you can to get the young ones, and all my grandchildren to safe harbor.”

Jeremy now wondered what safe harbor might be available to any of them. It felt like some cosmic force at work, testing them all. So many things had gone wrong—Increase Mather’s being called to duty an ocean away, Higginson’s being called to the ultimate shore, the Governor’s march off into the wilderness to fight painted but corporeal savages, coming at such a time of avarice, greed, political ambition—all of it at once in perfect blend with the horror on the public mind of demonic overthrow of the entire world beginning with Salem.

# # # # #

At the Nurse compound, emotions ran high, everyone’s nerves frayed at the seams. The old man, Francis Nurse, had once again called all his sons and sons-in-law, and any in the family old enough to carry a weapon. It was to this meeting of angry Nurse-Towne-Easty-Tarbell men, all related and plotting an armed rebellion against the courts in Salem Village that Serena and Jeremy had returned to after a ride that had taken them back to Samuel’s old place, the rustic home where they had first made love for another and more judicious examination with the idea of homesteading there. But before they were through, again they had made love.

Serena kept seeing the bright side of the idea of making Samuel Nurse’s abandoned place theirs, while Jeremy remained skeptical. She’d grown angry with him after he’d suggested they follow Mrs. Parris to Connecticut or return to Boston to set up house there. “In time, I can find work,” he had insisted, but Serena swore she’d never leave Salem until her mother was free of “that dungeon”. “You find a way to free Mother, and I will go to the ends of the Earth with you,” she challenged him.

As they returned to a summit where the main Nurse home could be seen, they saw the standing wagons and buggies about the gate. “Father’s called another meeting in our absence!” She galloped ahead of Jeremy, leaving him and Dancer in her wake.

At the house, Serena pushed through the gate and burst in on them. “Do nothing rash, Father!”

“This is for men to decide, daughter.”

“But Father, how many times’ve you told us that Mother has pleaded that we do nothing rash.”

“This is our mother they have in irons!” Ben charged and menaced her.

Jeremiah stepped in and put up a warning hand. “Serena’s only reminding you all what Mother Nurse has said a hundred times.”

Francis took Serena aside. “We’ve got to do something, girl. We know your mother’s wishes.”

“She wants us safe. She wants us to think of the children, the grandchildren, those yet to be born.”

“We all understand that,” said John Tarbell, joining them. “She wants it left in God’s hands.”

“That may be true,” added Jeremy, “that she believes it’s an ordeal put upon her and you by God, but it’s equally the work of men—black hearted men and well-meaning men. Yes, she’s made some sort of pact between her and her Maker, but Rebecca is also smart. She is willing to sacrifice herself for the rest of you and your land holdings.”

“I tell you,” returned Ben, pacing, loaded gun in hand, “she will accept matters as the will of God when we rescue her from that pit they call a jail!”

“I have a confession to make,” shouted Jeremiah, again interrupting the family he’d so recently become a member of.

“What confession?” asked Francis.

“Two actually. I want to break Mother Nurse out as much as the rest of you, and second . . . this is more difficult, and I should’ve told you sooner, Father Nurse.”

Serena stared at her husband. “What is it?”

“When in Boston, I did some checking on Parris’ recent activities at the court.”

“At the court in Boston?”

“Aye, where it appears he’s had a lawsuit pending for near two years.”

“Lawsuit?”

“Yes, sir.”

“The particulars, Jeremy. Details.”

“The suit is over a section of land.”

“Land?” asked Ben, interested now.

“My land?” asked Father Nurse. “If so, Mother was more right than she knew.”

“A section bordering the Frost Fish and Crane Rivers, sir.” Jeremy exchanged a glance with Serena. “A section once belonging to—”

“Thomas Putnam’s father and sold to Towne forever ago, I know.” Nurse’s words silenced the room.

Jeremiah added, “Parris’ original suit was against the entire Town Council and not simply you. There was no chance of winning such a suit, and from all I can tell, I suspect he got advice.”

“Advice?” Francis paced about the room.

“Of a legal nature, yes . . . say a barrister or a magistrate.”

“Someone in Boston?”

“I suspect so.”

“Do you suspect one of the Boston men who’re now in Salem Village?”

“I do.”

“Bastards!” shouted Ben. “I didn’t want to believe it, but it’s true, isn’t it? It’s been about land from the beginning!”

Francis shook his head, stood, held onto the table a moment, and then paced as Jeremy’s eyes darted among the other men. “From the beginning—” Jeremy continued, his voice filling the silence that had fallen on the room—“land and greed far more than withered old witches and warlocks.”

“My Rebecca sits in that god-awful hole down there because of land alone?”

“Land and politics, yes.”

“A land grab it is,” muttered the imposing Tarbell.

Serena grabbed her father’s arm and embraced him. “How do such men sleep nights?”

“Unfortunately, too easily.” Jeremy raised his hands in exasperation.

“Their hearts are made glad too easily, I think,” added Francis.

“All the more reason to storm the jail tonight and wrest Mother free,” declared Ben, Joseph at his side, agreeing, pounding the table.

“And risk one of you being killed in the bargain?” asked Francis.

Serena now pounded the other end of the table. “Have you not construed Mother’s purpose in all this madness? Look, ye fools! Mother wants her day in court.”

“She’s had it and they’ve declared her a witch!” shouted Ben.

“Nay, nay Ben! That was no true court,” Jeremy insisted. “Your mother wants a real hearing before real judges, not ministers or lower court judges.”

Serena stared into her father’s eyes. “She wants to stand up for God and the Boston authorities to make her appeal.”

“And if she dies of disease before that day comes, Serena?” asked Ben. “Then what, Father?” Ben addressed them all now, waving a hand in the air. “Are you prepared to say later that we let her die in that filthy jail?”

Ben stormed out, but Francis persuaded the others to stay and remain calm. Another round of ale was poured. “Everything must be measured.”

“We wait to see what becomes of the final petition,” agreed Joseph, and Tarbell added, “For the time being.”

Joseph muttered, “And then if they fail to listen to reason?”

Tarbell met Joseph’s eyes. “Then we go young Ben’s route.”

“And in the meantime,” added Serena, “we pray.”

“How much prayer can a single family give up to God?” asked Francis, a tear welling up. “But you’re right, sweet child. We pray on . . . for Mother.”

“And we pray Ben doesn’t get himself shot by Herrick or Williard.” One of the Easty men added.

“It won’t be by John Williard’s hand,” Tarbell shot back.

“What’re ya meaning?” asked Joseph, his brow knitting.

“Word is Williard has quit the court.” Tarbell’s chest swelled. “First sign of discontent in their ranks since this craziness began.”

“So it wasn’t all bluster and show that day at Ingersoll’s?” asked Jeremy. “Williard didn’t take his badge back?”

“The sheriff? Quit?” asked Daniel Easty, who’d remained silent throughout.

“Quit this business entirely, yes,” Tarbell assured the others.

Jeremiah smiled. “Then there’s hope after all.”

“What hope?” asked the Easty. “Williard is only one man.”

Jeremy looked into Easty’s gnarled and sun-burnished features. “If one—just one—on their side can see the lunacy of it all—”

“Then perhaps others will come round, too,” finished Serena. “But when? How long now?”

“If not soon, Mother may not see the day,” added Francis, dropping into his chair, deflated and weary. The toll this matter was taking on him showed terribly. Serena draped her arms about him from above, and Jeremy thought the moment a poignant and beautiful and touching one—like a painting to be hung in a museum.

Chapter Twelve

The elections for seats of power throughout the Massachusetts Bay Colony came and went, and the overwhelming winners were all who held a torch up to the burning issue of witchcraft in Salem. Directly after the elections, two former Towne women, one an Easty, the other a Cloyse—sisters of Rebecca Nurse—saw warrants sworn out against them, thanks to the outcries of the afflicted children, victims of witchcraft torment. The remaining two Nurse sisters were arrested and dragged from their homes by men with guns who’d come in the night. The authorities had also put out a wanted poster for the former sheriff, Williard, who—according to the seer children—had gone over to the ‘other side’.

Increase Mather’s eldest and most successful son, a minister who had his own church in Boston, had come out of hiding himself, and had come into Salem today, riding a white charger that would dwarf Jeremy’s mare, and his arrival was applauded on all sides, a word of his coming had leaked and people lined the main street in Salem Village, turning out for his arrival. Mather reared up on his horse several times, an expert horseman, and he declared to the crowd: “I have come in your hour of need! Come to see first hand the seer children and the nature of this plague of evil that has descended not only on Salem but surrounding hamlets—and now threatening my dear Boston as well!”

When Jeremiah heard the news that Cotton Mather had indeed arrived in the village, having ostensibly come to speak at the First Church of Salem Town, he learned also that Mather had come at the invitation of Reverend Nicholas Noyes. Noyes had asked Mather to give the eulogy for Reverend Nehemia Higginson. Jeremy felt hopeful that at last a person of true education, influence, and intelligence would put an end to the madness—a fitting tribute to the life and death of Reverend Higginson. And now that Mather the younger had come to the area to witness first hand what Jeremiah had described in his letters to the man, something of an official nature would be done for the better. A dictum coming out of the ecumenical side of the two-headed snake of government. Some old fashioned theology ground in logic and rational thought, and a condemnation of the way things had proceeded up till now.

Mather must be the answer to their prayers; he must put an end the accusations and open the cell doors and forbid any further acceptance of ghosts whisperings as evidence of murder in a court of law in Essex County. Never mind why Mather had disappeared or where to, for an end was in sight. Hope ran high at the Nurse compound.

Jeremy immediately sought an audience and to his surprise, it was arranged that he would see Reverend Cotton Mather after his eulogy and the burial. The eulogy was eloquent and not a single mention of the horrors of the witch hunt figured in—a good sign.

They met in the rectory with only Noyes knowing of their meeting. They exchanged kind words about Higginson’s passing.

Then Mather bluntly asked, “Mr. Wakely, exactly what is on your mind?”

“Sir, the Boston judges’ve made a mockery of their offices here.”

“Take care with your tongue, sir.”

“But I tell you, while things looked bad before their arrival, our leaders of the high court have daily rushed headlong into worse territory than ever.”

“Appears a sad state of affairs to be sure, Mr. Wakely, but that’s hardly the fault of Sir William and his judges of the high court.”

“I fear a terrible void’s been left with Reverend Higginson’s passing, a—”

“Indeed, we can agree there, Jeremiah.”

“—a void that will only add to the fear and superstition driving the court proceedings. Strong, decisive action needs be taken, if you ask—”

“Action is being taken, Mr. Wakely, I can assure you.”

“Can you assure me that sanity will be restored? That Parris and Putnam and the judges will be stopped in this land grab?”

“That’s a terrible accusation to lay at the feet of—”

“Is it now? Can you guarantee that my motherin-law, Rebecca Towne, wasn’t targeted to drive the Nurses out? That—”

“There is no evidence of any such—”

“—that Rebecca will not be on the next hangman’s list coming from the high court?”

Mather replied to Jeremiah’s impassioned plea with the same phrase. “Action is being taken.”

“They’ve arrested a pregnant woman, a child touched in the head, Parris’ predecessor—Reverend George Burroughs—a grandmother who’s lived her life as a saint, sir. It is no longer the dregs of society locked up and tortured here!”

“These arrests and excommunications are the work of the clergy; they bring the warrants and the arrests. The judges merely perform their duties relative to the arrests.”

“But the clergy and the judges have stood on the side of the insanity, sir, thanks in large measure to Samuel Parris’ fanning the flames of ignorance and fear and this maniacal search for a Satanist in every shadow!”

The two men stood in the solitude of the rectory, each pacing around the other now like a pair of lions taking the measure of the other. Mather came closer and spoke almost as a conspirator. “You’re aware of Hathorne’s zealousness in this affair. I cannot fathom why over one hundred people have been arrested—and more and more each day! However, it is feasible when you consider what the Indians are capable of—whole tribes of men, women, and children who follow the Devil!”

“Indians? What does the native population have to do with any of this?”

“Consider, Mr. Wakely, how many of our people have been captivated by those pagans and the way they live; how many of our colonists have gone native.”

“Captivated? How many are we talking about?”

“There’re no exact figures.”

Jeremiah’s face pinched. “I don’t follow, but I know a hundred is a low estimate of the number of our citizens sitting in jails all over the colony right now; their only crime having been accused by half-witted children who a few months ago could not get attention from us if they were on fire.”

“I’m not so sure of your point, but yes, so a hundred or more colonists do stand accused.”

“Accused in a mad fashion—pointed out a witch by addled children. Held on the testimony of ghosts and goblins, sir!”

“I am given to understand that whole meetings, filled with eyewitnesses have seen these same addled children, as you call them, under attack by invisible forces. That it’s no longer the gossip of the dead that drives the accusations.”

“I have seen the so-called attacks, and I tell you they are bogus.”

“Come now, Jeremy, it’s not so difficult to understand that no matter if you believe in witches flying across the moon on broomsticks or not, this has become a rather hot coal being passed among the ministers and magistrates—ah, politically speaking.”

Jeremiah stared at the younger Mather, wishing to God that he was his father, that Increase and not Cotton stood here before him. “ Politically, sir?”

“The fact is . . . such indictments are of great political consequence.”

“For those on the side of right, you mean? Reverend Mather?”

“Precisely, Jeremy, precisely.”

“But all the ministers here and the magistrates in Salem, they’re on the side of wrong.”

“Right, wrong . . . it all depends on one’s point of view, doesn’t it, Jeremy?”

Jeremy didn’t like the direction or the tone the conversation had veered toward. He felt a stunned disbelief settling over his mind. Has Mather made his own separate arrangement with the judges since last I saw him?

While lighting a pipe, Mather continued without skipping a beat. “I have it on good authority that the Boston judges believe they are as right as you and those who’ve signed your Nurse and Proctor family petitions.”

“The Boston authorities?”

“Aye.”

“We must be consulting different men in the government, sir.”

Mather ignored this. “My information is accurate. The magistrates in Boston who’ve reviewed the cases at my request are just as certain justice has been done as your petitioners are certain injustices have been done. But in truth, only time might tell.”

“I can’t fathom it, sir. Are you saying that you sent Stoughton, Addington, Saltonstall, and Sewell here? To form this illegally got up Court of Oyer and Terminer?—with the express purpose of . . . of making the witch hunt a political issue?”

“I see nothing illegal about the court.”

Jeremy, exasperated at this limited response, explained the technical reasons why such a court should never have been convened, but from the moment he began, Jeremy sensed that Cotton Mather didn’t wish to hear it.

“We can’t possibly wait for my father to return with a charter to act, Mr. Wakely; by then the demonic forces unleashed here will have won this war of souls!”

“This is no true or holy war, sir, but a twisting of our beliefs—to arrest any who are prosperous among us, to accuse them of making a covenant with Satan for better crops, successful business, healthy children!”

“It brings into question your judgment and your allegiances, Mr. Wakely!”

I’m no longer Jeremy now but Mr. Wakely. “What? You know very well my allegiance is toward the good of the colony and the Crown!”

“Brings into question either your judgment or your allegiance, Wakely--these entanglements you’ve openly had with the villagers, sneaking Mrs. Parris and her child from this place, getting into fights at the local pub, arguing with the duly appointed Sheriff—some say convincing him to be derelict in his duties, for which he now stands arrested, not to mention—”

“Please, don’t hold back any gossip! Is it Parris and Noyes or both who’ve brought you up to date?” Jeremy asked knowing the answer. “I swear by all that his holy and just, sir, that neither my judgment nor allegiance is in question! For that, look to those co-conspirators!”

“Not to mention that you’ve married into a family from whom no less than three witches have been culled—”

“Three innocent women!”

“— while on a mission to help stabilize the parish that has become more unstable than ever, since your arrival? You’ve been a disappointment, Wakely.”

The words stung as they echoed Higginson’s that night he’d met with him in the coach. Jeremy didn’t know what to say to this. Mather added, “A letdown, both to me and my father.”

“You’re hardly being fair, Reverend! I accomplished a great deal. Yes, I admit, to some failures but I won’t apologize for falling in love nor standing with men of conviction and righteousness in the face of ignor—”

“I realize full well, but you’ve managed to fan the flames rather than quell them, Jeremiah!”

“No, that’s been the business of Reverend Parris.”

“You show little aptitude for politics, sir,” Mather countered, pacing and shaking his head and puffing on his long-stemmed pipe like some pagan Indian chief himself. “Look here, Jeremiah, how do you think Judge Stoughton, the defender of Andros’ despicable regime, gained re-election this month?”

“By defeating the supernatural, I suppose.”

“Precisely.”

Jeremy detested the new thread of this discussion and what it portended for Salem and for Rebecca Nurse, her sisters, Elizabeth Proctor, and so many more innocents. And he wondered what Mather wanted him to say or do at this moment?

Finally, Cotton Mather took him by the shoulder and said in his ear, “We must go lightly here, my friend, or we ourselves could be singled out as friends of witches and warlocks. Learning of your marriage to this Nurse woman came as a great shock to me—out of the blue, as it were.”

Jeremy caught the glint in his eye and saw Noyes reflected there, sneakily eavesdropping on their conversation. It’d likely been Noyes who’d clarified the ties of relations between Jeremiah, his bride, and three accused and arrested ‘witches’.

“On the surface of it, you deceived the village minister and people, Jeremiah, and then you aligned yourself in matrimony to the child of a witch.”

Now it came clear. Reverend Cotton Mather wanted nothing to do with taking on William Stoughton and the mob. “Look, Mr. Wakely, whatever happens here, you are a married man now.”

“Married to the daughter of Rebecca Nurse, yes, but that’s got—”

“Take your bride out of here, man.” It was the same advice as Rebecca’s. “Go and take up that property in Connecticut, the land my father signed over for your services there.” He held out a deed to Jeremy. “Go ahead, take it and be gone.”

“He signed it over? When?”

“He insisted I not hand you this until your work here was complete.” Mather shook the land grant at him.

Jeremy opened it to find it all legally signed over to him. It proved that Increase Mather’s influence went beyond the boundary of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Jeremy could only imagine the kind of power the elder Mather wielded. He didn’t know what to say.

“Disappear and begin a life elsewhere. Take your woman and go. It’s my best advice.”

“Are you saying the hangings are going forward?””

Mather breathed deeply. “There is nothing to stop them.”

“But you have power and influence.”

He girded his belly and gritted his teeth. “Nothing can be done. All is in motion.”

Jeremy looked away, looked to the ceiling, to the windows. No answers anywhere. “One favor, no two—two favors, sir.”

“If I can.”

“I’d forfeit my land grant, sir, if you’ll use your influence to free Mother Nurse.”

Mather paced, his jaw set, his hands nervous. “Wakely, I cannot free anyone; I haven’t the influence you believe.”

Jeremy paced in a circle and came back to face him, not allowing Mather to hide his eyes. “This woman is innocent, a woman of God all her days. Yet each day she spends in that hole, her guilt mounts. Those accusing children have made a monster of her, saying even in chains, her shape comes to them in the night and torments them, stabbing them with needles and pins. And it’s all impossible lies.”

“Not all impossible, and not all lies, Jeremy. Enough . . . just enough truth to sway the average mind here. Some of those arrested are guilty of incantations, spiteful hexes, and a love of Satan.”

Jeremy stared at the minister. “That is what you believe?”

“Without a doubt.”

Jeremy muttered, “Without a doubt?”

“No hope for those whose hearts are set in stone against our Lord—as you well know.”

“What of my second request?”

“Which is?”

“To have an audience with the judges, to speak of just how tainted one accuser’s words are—proof of an earlier enmity driving this person.”

“To what end, Jeremy? One accuser proves a liar and is prohibited from speaking?”

“It is a series of straight lines from this single lie to the lies of others. If one major accuser, whose name has appeared on multiple arrest warrants and sworn affidavits is proven a liar, and a wretched one who would use the courts and the officers of the court for personal gain, then how many others? This evil we fight is not in the air or in some invisible place, sir, but here!” Jeremy pounded his chest. “In our blood, in our very hearts.”

“You are certain of this accuser’s usage of us all?”

“I am.”

“Then perhaps she is a witch?”

“No, no—just a pathetic, angry, vengeful heart—as is Parris. I have a copy of a sermon that I made in which he literally predicts Rebecca Nurse’s arrest—weeks before the event.” He produced the document, which Mather examined closely. “I’ve seen the original at Hathorne’s court. It is not enough, Jeremy, to condemn the man or turn the tide. Sadly, you never gave us enough on Parris to turn the tide.”

“But I sent you reams of information.”

Mather gave him a peculiar look, but said, “I will order the court to hear your petition on this suspected witch you have singled out, Jeremiah, behind closed doors. The judges can do with the information what they wish. I hope you have evidence to support your contention, and for my part, I would like nothing better than to see an end to this horrid business.”

“I’m sure you mean that, sir.”

“Contact me tomorrow here for an appointed time to speak to the high court.”

Mather rushed away without another word, pushing through the door and disappearing. As Jeremy watched him go, he wondered at the depth of fear residing in the heart of Reverend Cotton Mather.

In a series of dead ends, for Jeremy, this confrontation with Cotton Mather felt like a brick wall, a final dead end. He folded the land grant and the copy of the Parris sermon, which Mather had mocked as inconsequential and tucked both into his breast pocket. As to accepting the bribe from Mather to get out of Salem, he had little compunction not to do so. I’ve earned it for all the years I’ve done the Mathers’ cloak and dagger work.

# # # # #

Captain Thomas Putnam looked down from his horse at the alternating pattern of light and dark lying across the dusty, pitted, gray roadbed. It’d be dark soon, and he and others would be left in the night . . . on the road, far from Salem, in the company of witches held in custody. To be sure, the witches were shackled and locked away in a caged cart surrounded by the best metals his mine produced, but everyone knew that by darkness, even a chained witch could go out of body to create great havoc, pain, and torture. That a she-devil could turn into a small mouse and slip from shackles and through bars—and nightfall approached.

Thomas Putnam had been named one of several special deputies by the court when Williard had walked away from his duty. Now Thomas was taking orders from John Williard’s deputy of the day before and now the new sheriff—Herrick.

Sadly, criminally, John Williard had gone to the other side, refusing to arrest another accused, saying he’d tired of arresting his neighbors and was done with the work of Satan. Just like that, the man had shirked his duty. As a result, Herrick had been placed in charge. A better man beneath the surface, so far as Putnam was concerned. Never liked that cripple’s arrogance in the first place.

They’d been ordered to Boston to retrieve accused and convicted witches who’d been moved to Boston earlier due to overcrowding in Salem jails. They were now en route to Salem Village where these stonehearted people would face the judges one last time before being hung. Unless their hearts should thaw, and they confessed.

“We should hurry on, Mr. Herrick!” Putnam pointed to the waning sun.

Herrick had already dismounted, and the accused, in chains, shared the covered prison cart. “We’ll rest, Mr. Putnam! If that is all right with you.”

Putnam said no more, getting down from his horse. “Aren’t you concerned about darkness falling, Sheriff?”

“Told you, call me by me given name. Sheriff don’t set well.”

“Well? Aren’t you?”

Herrick pointed to his lathered horse. “This heat is hard on a dumb animal, Thomas. We’ll take a break.”

Herrick allowed the prisoners from the cart to stretch and relieve themselves among the brush here. “Keep your heads high, now! Where I can see you!” he ordered the prisoners.

Thomas asked in his ear, “Have ya give any thought to your fields back in the village?”

“Ya mean the fields I’ve failed to work?”

“Same as I, I know. So busy’ve we become with doing God’s work.”

“Aye.”

“In this witchcraft war.”

“One good thing.”

“What’s that?” Thomas’ features pinched in confusion.

“This war against Satan’s minions allows you deacons to go about in your uniforms—for other than parade days!” Herrick laughed at his own remark. “Aside from that, Thomas, I’m sure you like being needed and made a special deputy.”

Putnam didn’t care for the man’s less than veiled ridicule, and he felt it best to ignore it, but he couldn’t. “Look here, the time and labor of it—working for and taking orders from the likes of you, Herrick— it does wear thin. Neglected fields’ll mean a shortage of food next winter for my family.”

“And mine, and the entire bloody village.”

“You needn’t swear, sir.”

Herrick considered Putnam closely now. “You worried about the gentile ears of the witches or your horse, Mr. Putnam?” Herrick erupted in a hearty laugh.

“What is so funny?”

“You and the others are so sure this witch threat is so horrible, then I guess we’ll all be sacrificing, now won’t we?”

“So many demands on my time,” muttered Thomas. “Worse yet, while away from the village on the King’s work, my poor wife and sickly child continue to be attacked by invisible forces.”

“What kind of forces is that, sir?”

“Imps, dervishes, and succubae! So don’t preach the right or wrong of things to me, Mr. Herrick.”

Herrick released a breath of air that said he carried the weight of an oak tree on his shoulders. “It all seems so damn impossible at times, Mr. Putnam.”

“All impossible things are made possible for those who have Satan’s power. Nothing can hold them.” Putnam pointed to the prisoners. “They might be bound and gagged but the only way to stop their danger is to destroy them.”

“Or save them by breaking them and making them confess to their guilt,” countered Herrick. “Once a witch recants Satan, she goes free.”

“Aye, and many hundreds’ve done just that!” Putnam had raised his voice so the prisoners would take heed. “But many others remain stone-cold Satanists, denying their guilt in the face of eyewitness testimony.”

“Secretly,” Thomas continued, “I don’t believe in the sincerity of many who’ve confessed.”

“Really?”

“I fear their confessions lies.”

“All the same, these people’ve been stripped of their property and voting rights, and already talk has filtered down to men like us, Thomas, that land grant decisions for upstanding Salem citizens do lay on the horizon.”

Putnam looked uncomfortably around as if not wanting those in chains to hear that last bit of conversation. He changed the subject. “So what do you think of John Williard quitting his duty?”

“I have no opinion.” Herrick had taken to using this phrase in response to everything asked him these days.

“A coward or one of them?” pressed Putnam.

“If you please, Captain Putnam, would you please just keep close watch on our prisoners? As I have to relieve meself.”

“Go! These miscreants are going nowhere.”

“Keep a keen eye on ’em.”

Where’re they going?” he joked.

Herrick found a tree to stand behind as he relieved himself.

One of the witches being escorted back to the village was Samuel Wardwell, and he never took his eye off Putnam. “Not so long ago you came to me for help, and I gave you help, Putnam.”

“I’ve memory of it, but then I didn’t know then that it was you who’d fashioned that likeness of Betty Parris recovered from Goode—or the other for Bishop.”

“I’d’ve made one for you, too, but we didn’t get that far, now did we?” Wardwell laughed to himself.

“It was found in her basement. I gave in evidence willingly against the woman.” Putnam picked at his teeth and sore gums.

“Found only because I confessed it, and yet I’m still held prisoner, why?”

“At trial before the Boston judges you’ll have your say.”

Wardwell fell silent, lifting his shackles overhead to the sky.

“What’s it you’re doing there? Stop it now or I will shoot you dead, Wizard.”

“I had a thought to bring down a horrible wind, perhaps to carry you off, Captain!” Wardwell’s laugh came as if from a deep place in Hades. “And congratulations on your promotion. But it’ll do little good when you’re face to face with the Devil, Captain!

Herrick returned and jammed the butt of his rifle into Wardwell’s mid-section, effectively ending the talk and the laughter. Herrick then asked if Putnam needed to take a moment behind his tree.

“Can we just get on toward home, please?”

“Certainly, we can. Everyone back into the cart, now!” shouted Herrick and the prisoners clamored back into the barred cart. Herrick and Putnam remounted. After a moment of rolling onward, Herrick said to Putnam, “Bridget Bishop.”

“What of her?”

“Now if there be witches, she’s my pick. I was in her inn when Jacob Shattuck dragged his sick boy into her place.”

“I’ve heard the tale.”

“No tale. Shattuck called her wicked names that day, terrible names.”

“Claimed she’d bewitched his little boy, did he,” added Wardwell, grinning from behind the bars of the cart.

“Bridget chased Shattuck and his boy out with a terrible club she kept behind her bar,” continued Thomas. “Almost blinded Shattuck with her last blow.”

“Tell ’im what became of the boy,” shouted Wardwell.

“The boy died that same year.”

“Maybe the boy had a deadly illness to begin with,” suggested Wardwell.

“He died of bewitchment!” shouted Herrick and to that one instance, I can bear witness and have in open court.

“Agreed.” Putnam vigorously nodded.

“Your part in all this, both of you,” began Wardwell, “will earn you a seat in hell.”

“Your curses don’t frighten me, Wardwell,” Herrick kicked out with his boot, striking Wardwell’s hands against the bars, causing the other man to howl and fall back onto the other prisoners. Then, rattling his chains, Wardwell added, “No curse, just a fact, you two men of God! Judgment on you from God is no curse, just fact, for doing harm to those you know are guilty of no crime. Those you shower your hatred on!”

“Shut up, Wardwell!” shouted Thomas and peace reigned again, all but the scurrying of vemin and birds about the woods.

Herrick softly said to Putnam, “Aye, I’ve arrested some I thought not guilty.”

“Go on, Captain Putnam, you tell Herrick here how many innocent there are among the accused!” Wardwell shook at the bars, the entire rickety cart swaying with his powerful grip.

“Guilt or innocence, that’s not our decision to make; we just carry out warrants for arrest, right Mr. Herrick?”

“I suppose.”

“And do you really suppose me a wizard, Sheriff Herrick?” asked Wardwell, glaring at Herrick.

“It is our duty to . . . to do our duty.” Herrick wiped his brow with a cloth.

Darkness crept ever closer, but now they could see lights blinking through the trees, the lights of Salem Village coming into view just as a gust of wind swept over them all.

Through the bars of the cart carrying the witches, Samuel Wardwell shouted at Putnam, “So tell me, Putnam. Who among those you arrested did you think innocent?”

Putnam thought it a curious question coming from a wizard. “Giles Corey.”

“Indeed, the old buzzard.”

“An old buzzard, yes.”

“And a fool.”

“Yes, a fool.”

“But you didn’t think him a witch man.”

“No.”

“But I am?”

“Mr. Wardwell, Corey’s too stupid to be a cunning man, but you . . . you are another story. You’ve the devil in you, sure.”

“So you judge a witch can be addled, but that a wizard must be cunning?”

“That’s right. Makes sense.”

“Aha, then it appears your Judge Hathorne has now tried and condemned more witches in New England than any man living or dead, making him cunning, correct? And if a man be cunning . . . eh?” asked Wardwell, pulling at the bars again. “And from all I hear, he’s not found a one of us arrested wrongly . . . not one innocent, despite the lies to the contrary.”

“He is a good man and judge!” shouted Putnam.

“I have heard that Giles Corey is dead,” said Wardwell, his voice calm now.

“Dead? No, arrested . . . but not dead.”

“Crushed to death from punishment, when they tired of his not pleading. He would not plead before the court, neither innocent nor guilty. He stood mute.”

“I know of all that, but he’s not been killed.”

Herrick shouted back from the point position he’d taken, “Wardwell is correct, Mr. Putnam, Corey died of his stupidity. I am told he shouted for his jailers to load on more stones until the weight of it, with his jailers jumping onto the door laid atop him crushed the life from him.”

“Dead of torture,” added Wardwell. “An odd fellow. Friend of yours, Thomas?”

Herrick added, “Died lying prone between two unhinged doors, an interrogation technique approved by the court.”

“Doors?”

“One laid beneath him, the other overtop him.”

“Giles . . . the big oaf? Dead?” Putnam had not believed Corey any sort of witch man. “Sounds as if the fool brought it on himself.”

“Yes but not so dumb, really. He did it to protect his family’s holdings,” explained Wardwell over the noise of the ox cart over the rutted road. “They wanted his mill and land on the river, like they want my shop in Andover and the lands I hold.” He laughed again. “I should be so dumb as Giles. The court’s already seized my holdings on account of my pleading innocent.”

“Corey would not plead one way or t’other,” explained Herrick.

“So they crushed his throat from his head!” shouted Wardwell.

“Shut up, Wardwell!” Herrick rode back. “You want my boot again?”

Wardwell ignored this. “Now if they want Giles’ holdings, they’ll have to start over with his children, arrest them. The fools arrested his wife, but she has no share in his holdings, but ’twas through her torments they got her calling him out a wizard.” Again Wardwell’s laugh filled the darkening woods like a call to Satan. “Looks a bit o’ murder for money, now don’t it?”

“Stop that kind of talk right now, blacksmith!” Putnam lashed out at the bars with a horsewhip. Suddenly, Putnam’s horse missed a step and sent herself and Putnam off the road and into a gulley, Putnam taking a nasty fall, and another powerful gust of wind swept over the scene.

Captain Putnam’s uniform was torn and the man was bleeding as he climbed up out of the ditch long after his horse had recovered the road.

“Didja see that, Herrick? Eh?” called out Putnam.

“Aye, I saw it.”

“Witchcraft e’en from behind bars, enchanting my mare that way! Herrick, did you see it? Did you? Wizard put a hex on my horse, he did!”

Chapter Thirteen

Soon the ‘afflicted’ child celebrities’ began pointing their deadly, accusing fingers at anyone who had ever said an unkind word to them or theirs, or anyone who had used them badly in any manner. The targets being arrested daily now, included shop owners, innkeepers, mill and lumber workers, and one rumor had it that Deacon Nathaniel Ingersoll angered one of the children and was called out at a cunning wizard himself, but somehow this allegation was quashed by officials, and it went no further.

It remained that certain families and folks who owned choice holdings along the Ipswich Road were most in danger of facing a warrant sworn out against them, and in all subsequent arrests, the ‘geography’ of witch accusations began to take on a well-defined appearance. These accusations remained in Jeremy’s eyes an obvious wrong in and of itself, an indicator that greed tainted this holy war and witch hunt. And that it had been driven by the elections. Elections that had overwhelmingly supported the witch hunters, the incumbents.

“It’s the politics of witchcraft that fuels this ugly fire,” he told Serena where he lay in bed beside her, the darkness outside peeking through the drapes in the room that Ben had vacated for them.

She stroked his cheek where they lay under Francis’ roof. “It’s become obvious that the have-nots are pointing at the haves.”

“Yes, afraid so. Seeking answers to the so-called terrible affliction.”

“I’ve seen the terrible affliction put upon the village’s precious, innocent children, and it is an awful sight.”

“If, and I emphasize if anyone is truly possessed of a demon and in need of exorcism, it is—or hopefully was—little Betty Parris. I saw that awful woman, Goode, with a doll one night soon after I arrived, but at the time I had no idea the significance—not until she accosted him in the street that day at the commons. I should have known then what Goode was up to, and had I sworn out a warrant for her arrest at the time—had her thrown in jail for a witch, it would have ingratiated me with Parris, speeding up my work down there, and it may well have ended any further talk of witchcraft and this hunting the countryside for whole covenants might not have gotten underway! I am the fool in all of this.”

“None of this is your fault, Jeremy! Don’t believe what Mather told you, and stop second-guessing yourself. How could you know at the time that—”

“But again I saw Goode with the doll—a second time, at Samuel’s cabin the night she interrupted us, remember? She’d been scorching the likeness at the hearth before she ran screeching out of the place with it. Perhaps if I’d taken action then—gone to Williard and had her arrested . . .”

“Goode has always been a witch; was raised one, and now her daughter, Dorcas is jailed for one as well—a simpleton. None of this madness is on your head! I won’t hear you say so!”

“I did all I could for Betty and her mother, Serena,” Jeremy mused now, “all the while, Parris was busy feeding his only remaining bed-friends.”

“And who might that be?” Serena was momentarily scandalized.

“Hatred, Suspicion, and Greed. Do you know he continues to chronicle his daughter’s condition—as if it remains a fact she is in Salem and still under her affliction.”

“Keeping a chronicle?”

“Believes one day his notes will be useful. Speaks of writing a treatise on the Invisible World; talks of co-authorship with Reverend Cotton Mather.”

They lay in the dark, the moon peeking in at the window, shards of pale gray light filtering through. “I think you were foolish, Jeremy, trusting in any of them save Nehemia Higginson.”

Jeremy had told her every detail now of how Increase Mather had conferred with Higginson and his son with the plan to get Jeremy into a position to spy on Samuel Parris.

“Serena, I have to again ask you to come away with me.”

“Jeremy, you know that I—”

“Serena, we must leave this cursed place.”

She leapt from bed and turned on him. “I’ll not leave Father and Mother in these circumstances, no. I cannot.”

He got up and crossed the room to where he’d hung his coat. “We have land, a place to go to, and I have completed my work here, and have been offered a land grant in a place where I can hang out a shingle as a barrister and one day become a magistrate.”

She thumped her foot at the window where she looked out on the moon. He joined her and held out the signed deed. She accepted the folded paper with the broken seal and quickly glanced at it and tossed onto the bureau top. “What? Now you’ve gained your payment? Now you wish to run for Connecticut?”

“This is earned over ten years of service! This is no payoff.”

“Coming at this time, it smells the same, and-and if you don’t find it odious, then you’ve closed your senses for the sake of ambition like-like some others ’round here.”

“My ambition is to keep you safe, my love—the same ambition as your mother and—”

“I am not running from this place so long as my mother is condemned a witch! We must continue to fight this, and if it comes to it, we use force, just as Ben and John Tarbell’ve decided.”

A terrible rapping at the door startled them both. Jeremy’s first thought was that the fanatics from the village had come for Serena. The authorities had only to get one of the arrested to state a name and a person would be the subject of a warrant the following day.

“It’s me, Ben! I’ve news for you, Jeremy, Serena!”

Jeremy asked they be given a moment to dress, and when she opened the door; Ben rushed in, his face red, hair wild. “You’re a fool, Jeremy!”

“What’s this about?”

“You thought all along you were sending correspondence back to Boston.”

“I did, sir.”

“To influence the great Mather, or whomever he left in charge.”

“The man opening my mail, yes! What of it?”

“And who might that’ve been exactly? The son? The lesser man, Reverend Cotton Mather?”

“I know that my letters, notes, and observations have had no effect on the younger Mather. Your news is old news to me, Ben, but I’d like very much to know how you came by it.”

“How I came by it? Ingersoll confessed to me.”

“Ingersoll?”

“You did entrust him with your mail, correct?”

“He’s the postmaster, so yes!”

“He’s also in Parris’ pocket and has been for years.”

“Are you saying,” began Serena, “that Jeremy’s sealed letters never arrived in Boston? That Mather had no inkling of Jeremy’s opinions until a few days ago?”

“That’s precisely what I’m saying.”

“Mather said not a word about this fact, why?” Jeremy paced, chin in hand. “Why would he not inform me of it?”

“Perhaps the son of the great and powerful Increase Mather has had a design of his own from the beginning, maybe?” ranted Ben, pacing. “Don’t you see? He’s the one set the Court of Assistants onto the matter from the beginning!”

“Men in high office, circling about like buzzards.” Jeremy met Serena’s stare.

“It’s all been a conspiracy from the beginning.” Serena saw past Jeremy that her father now stood in the doorway.

“No doubt of it anymore. To win the elections—set up his men!”

“Making the high court his,” Jeremy said, shaking his head and angry with himself. “They’ll all who owe him a debt of gratitude now and forever—like me, well paid off, and—”

“Bastards all.” Ben slammed a fist against the wall.

“—and to grab off the lands and reissue land grants,” muttered Jeremy, his eyes going to the piece of paper on the bureau.

Serena’s glare bore into Jeremy now. “And the first went to you!”

“What?” asked Ben.

Francis’ face could not mask his rising anger, frustration, and sense of betrayal.

“I earned that land in Connecticut! Earned it over years of service!” Jeremy paraded the land grant about the room. “Look at it. This is my chance to rid myself forever of Salem, and you with me, Serena!”

“The sitting judges have all signed it.” Serena stood toe to toe with Jeremy.

“Earned it, I tell you, and-and not by condemning anyone! Certainly not your mother, Ben, Serena! If I’ve condemned anyone in my letters it was Parris.”

“Why did Ingersoll confide this news, Ben?” asked Serena, going to Jeremy and standing with him.

“I’m not sure, save to throw us in to dissension with one another, perhaps, or perhaps—”

“Perhaps he’s seen one too many neighbor thrown in prison,” finished Jeremy.

Francis added, “Nathaniel’s a good man at heart, always has been. Seeing all this madness, being in the middle of it daily has to work on a man’s conscience.”

“And recently one of the seer girls pointed her finger at Deacon Ingersoll.” Ben, a smug look of satisfaction coming over him, let out a snicker.

“I’d heard Nathaniel came under fire when he dared speak up for old Nehemia Abbott,” said Francis, who then lit his pipe.

“Abbott’s been thrown in jail for wizardry,” Ben added. “His two gnarled canes and all.” Abbott was well known for using two walking canes when he ventured out, and for his advanced age of eighty-two. Few men lived to be so old, and this proved yet another ‘blessing’ turned inside out—as proof of his consorting with Satan, to live to such an age. He must surely have struck a deal with the black minister of the Antichrist, his signature in the black book for the price of his eighty-two years.

Serena rushed out and into the living room area. The others followed Serena out of the room and into the main room and kitchen where she put on some tea.

“So Parris learned of my true purpose early on,” Jeremy commented. “He must have had something on Ingersoll to get the man to rob the mail. Who can trust in the mail, if the postmaster is in the business of breaking seals?”

“Imagine it,” agreed Francis. “Seals broken, contents read. Letters unsent. All at the behest of that devil in the pulpit.”

“He’s a cunning man, Parris. I’d thought he’d kicked me out due to my meddling in his family affairs with respect to Betty’s affliction, and the things I’d said at Corwin’s that night.”

“He feared others might begin to listen to your more rational diagnosis of his daughter’s condition, the way you tell it,” Serena added as the tea kettle whistled, shooting steam into the air.

“He thought my diagnosis quaint and hardly exotic enough.”

“The man uses his own daughter to gain his ends,” Serena said, pouring each of the men seated about the table a cup of tea. “He’ll stop at nothing till he’s gotten everything he wants.”

“And those are considerable wants,” added Ben.

Francis nodded. “Far more than simple ownership of the parsonage home and lands.”

“Ingersoll says he’s quite angry with you, Jeremy,” Ben spoke between sips, “for convincing his wife to remove herself and her daughter from the village.”

Jeremy recalled how Ingersoll had watched as that little drama had unfolded.

Francis emptied his cup. “Using a captain in the militia, a deacon in the church, and a postmaster for his ends is—small measure compared to using his wife and child.”

“Tell us now, Jeremy,” asked Ben. “About your diagnosis of Betty Parris’ condition. I’ve not heard it.”

“Anne Putnam Junior has been afflicted with the fits her entire life, correct?”

“Always, yes. General knowledge that.”

“Parris comes to live here; Betty is in the company of Anne, sees such fits. Anne is bewitched, or so many tell Betty. Betty, being even younger and smaller, must build up terrible fears of being bewitched and thusly afflicted.” Jeremy sipped at his tea, allowing these facts to sink in. “Then this poor child is convinced by a series of circumstances controlled, I suspect by Tituba Indian and Sarah Goode—adults—that she is bewitched by Goode, who has Betty’s likeness and shows it to her stuck with pins and needles.”

Francis and Ben considered Jeremy’s take on this in silence. Serena had heard it while sharing Jeremy’s bed. Francis piped up. “So little Betty, what seven, six? She falls to fits because she is in mortal fear of precisely that?”

“On learning Goode has bewitched her, yes.”

“A thing driven home by Tituba.” Serena pulled Jeremy into her, him sitting, she standing. “My Jeremy is a wizard himself in a way. Tell them of your suspicions surrounding the arrest warrant for Susannah Martin of Amesbury.”

Francis insisted on knowing what Jeremy knew of this matter.

“Ingersoll talks a lot of gossip; I spent a good deal of time around his inn and apothecary for just such information. He told me a queer old tale one day when I asked after the mental state of Mrs. Putnam, Anne’s mother.”

“She’s an addled woman; has been all the years I’ve known her,” replied Francis. “Go on.”

“Ingersoll said she was haunted by the ghost of her brother Henry, whose body had never known hallowed ground as he’d committed suicide by hanging.”

“It is a familiar story in the village.”

“We heard little of the details,” added Serena.

“Anne Carr, Mrs. Putnam was known then, was much older than Henry and she wielded some influence, as she’d been mother to him—their mother having died in a fire. At any rate, Anne refused to allow Henry the hand of a young woman in marriage, which led to the young man’s hanging himself in the home.”

“That’s about how I recall events.” Francis sighed heavily. “To the point, man.”

“The young woman who’d stolen Henry’s heart, his sister refused—was none other than one who stands accused today, whose name is—”

“I recall, Anne’s having said the woman had bewitched her brother,” interrupted Francis. “She put up a big fuss over his not being buried in church ground at the village. Said it wasn’t fair, that a man who’s committed suicide due to bewitching wasn’t the same as suicide, as he wasn’t entirely doing his will but that of the witch’s.”

“Interesting argument,” Ben granted.

“Susannah Martin of Amesbury?” asked Francis. “Yes, am I correct?”

“One and the same.”

“How then does it help us to know this?” asked Ben.

“Don’t you see?” asked Jeremy. “This court’s chosen to rely on spectral evidence, clues and facts handed it by spirits like that of Henry Carr. It is insane of the judges and ministers to accept such evidence as untainted, but they have—and have convicted people to die upon it. But this—this is tainted spectral evidence, don’t you see?”

“Ah . . . frankly, no,” replied Ben, shaking his head.

“This is what I want to present to the judges of the high court.”

“What? Present what?”

“Even the mere hint that an old grudge of Anne Carr’s is being played out here—someone she has singled out not just now but years ago—she believed then as now killed her brother utilizing witchcraft, it’s tainted as hell itself.”

“Do you think it strong enough to make a difference?” asked a hopeful Francis.

“It can’t hold, not even with these judges. It’s a vengeance motive, and it will lead to unearthing the rest of her venom and how it has, over the years, poisoned her child and others around her—and it discredits Mrs. Putnam, who is behind all the early warrants.”

“Her name is affixed to Rebecca’s warrant,” added Francis.

“So when do you propose to spring this revelation on Mather, Parris, and their puppets?” Ben stood and paced.

“I have already. They know of the each fact that if taken together must throw cold water and doubt on every case they’ve tried in Salem—that if Anne Putnam Senior can use the court and circumstances to exact a twenty year old vengeance, then how many other warrants sworn against the accused are also thus tainted?”

“It’s sheer brilliance, Father.” Serena hugged Francis. “It will mean Mother’s freedom. They must listen to this petition.”

“I gave an impassioned argument to the men of court. They appeared shaken by the facts. I have every reason to believe they must make changes now to cast out any and all spectral evidence and bar the door to the seer children and the notion they have powers to see into the Invisible World of Angels and Demons.”

A palpable sense of relief filled the Nurse home when Jeremy revealed this.

# # # # #

Rebecca Nurse dreams now and every day of a future when she will rise up in all her former youth, strength, and beauty to the gates of heaven she knows are awaiting her. This is how her nights and days are spent in the cruel cell she’s been kept in, but she also has nightmares. Her repeating nightmare is filled with humiliation and shackles.

She sees herself taken from the cell in shackles. Taken to the meetinghouse where she is forced to walk the center aisle to stand before the congregation to the sound of those shackles and the heckling of men, women, and children—many of whom she’d helped bring into this world. She blinks and sees herself—Mother Nurse, as she’d come to be called by everyone in and around Salem. Mother Nurse under her own will, climbs down the stairs of her own home, her Bible in hand, telling her family, “God will provide,” adding, “I knew some calamity . . . some ordeal was coming. God’s test for me and me alone. Let it be. Do not interfere. Do not act my hero. Allow it to unfold as His wishes dictated for his only begotten son.”

Rebecca blinks again and finds herself back in the meetinghouse, listening to Samuel Parris telling the congregation that she is to be shunned, that she is declared excommunicated from her church as she has been pointed out a deceiver, a liar, a woman in covenant with the Devil, a woman who’d given her body to the Snake of Snakes, a witch and a murderer of children. She repeatedly uses the phrase, “It is God’s will . . . God’s will, what you do to me. I knew it was coming. God tests me, yes, but he tests all of us together en masse.”

Rebecca has not left the jail cell for over a month. Her arrest and excommunication remains in her mind as if yesterday. She sometimes visits the courtroom where Corwin and Hathorne have been joined by three strangers from Boston, calling themselves magistrates—all in black with powdered wigs. She is again humiliated and here again the crowd scorns her, and the tightly knit, highly organized cadre of children spit pins from their mouths, fall and grovel and swear that Rebecca’s invisible shape, though she herself is in the room! These sad children claim that she has placed the pins in their mouths and into their armpits. Some are stabbed with knitting needles, blood discoloring their petticoats. Again Rebecca’s other self—which they claim to see but is invisible—does the stabbing.

Every day of her incarceration, Rebecca replays these ugly moments in her mind in an attempt to read the hidden meaning, to understand what Christ and God want from her. Each time she hears the same words in her ear—Be my instrument; act as Christ himself when he was attacked and condemned.

“No easy thing to do,” she says aloud to the consternation of other prisoners tired of the old woman’s ongoing conversation with God.

She blinks back the pain and anguish, ignores the sweat and horrid odors of her cell and the blank stares of cellmates. At times, she sees her beloved children and their children gathered around her but not here. No, all are at the gathering place around the tables at the great oak. She sees her beloved Francis, his face and eyes pleading with her to come home—to confess and come home. Others have confessed their sins before the court and have been released, she hears him clearly say in her ear.

“Remain out of it, Francis; stay above and apart from the madness descending on Salem. Be patient, and let nothing wrest your faith from me or God.” Others in the cell think she is hearing voices because she has quietly gone mad.

In her daydream, Francis understands and does as she asks. In her nightmare, Francis comes after her with Ben and her other sons, all armed to the teeth with guns, and they are all killed, and their land is forfeit, and their grandchildren leave their home in a sad parade with only what they carry on their backs.

She pleads daily with Francis, but sometimes her words are not argumentative but loving words. “Francis, you are all that I love, you and our family. But now, at this time, I must do this alone and be left to it. Have faith we will be reunited one day.”

But the croup, a cough that racks her body so terribly that it leaves her in pain, interrupts her dreams and nightmares; the keys rattle and the door creaks open and in come the dogs of the court to again shackle her, to take her to yet another humiliation.

Gatter makes his falsetto apologies that are as meaningless as those from Herrick and his men, all of whom treat her with deference. Some think her deserving of respect, while most think her out of her mind.

Herrick reads from a list. The names of each prisoner to be shackled, hand and foot.

“Oh, it’s a vacation,” jokes Wardwell, one of today’s chosen. “Stay close by my side, Mother Nurse.”

Each is led out into the blinding light and led into the prisoner cart, a horrid little rolling cell that tells anyone looking on that those inside are guilty.

Meanwhile more arrests are made daily as the madness in the village grows like a cancer, spreading out, seeking more victims like some sort of satanic root that touches them all. Each person arrested as a witch or wizard is made to implicate others, the disease metastasizes.

# # # # #

June 11^th 1692

Francis Nurse cornered Jeremy in the barn. Alone, the old man spoke his mind. “I fear I can no longer control the men, especially Ben and Tarbell, Jeremy. Not since this execution yesterday of that innkeeper, Bridget Bishop.”

“Bishop was executed?”

“Aye, yesterday, the 10^th day of June. Some say to test the taste of the public for blood. Otherwise, why hang only one of the recalcitrant guilty as they call those who refuse to indict others and to confess the sin of witchcraft and murder?”

“I’d heard they meant to hang her but—”

“Bishop never broke.”

“—but I didn’t think they’d go through with it. May God have mercy on her soul, and God forgive me for saying so, Francis—it could work in Mother Nurse’s favor.”

“Work in our favor? How?”

“I’ve seen this sort of hysteria to hang witches break out in other parishes, in particular during my time in Connecticut, where the fear from pagan Indians runs even higher than here.”

“What’re you saying, son?”

The old man had taken to calling him son since his and Serena’s return with a wedding band on his daughter’s hand. He’d also expressed sadness that there’d been no proper wedding and party. “Rebecca would have loved to see it, sure,” he’d finished on the day of their return from Boston.

“Often with a witch hung, the bloodlust of the mob is quenched.”

“We can only hope.”

“But as to Ben and Tarbell, I doubt they’d listen to me any more than they’re hearing you, these days, sir.” Jeremy groomed Dancer as they spoke.

“I want you to take Mather up on that land in Connecticut, Jeremy, and to take Serena away from here—out of harm’s way. And do so quickly before . . . before either of you are called out by those awful children.”

“Parris’ puppets, yes. I couldn’t agree with you more, sir.”

“Then will you do it? She’s sure to be the next accused, if not Ben.”

“I want desperately to find a new life for Serena and myself.”

“Then we’re in agreement?”

“We are, up to a point.”

“Up to a point?”

“Serena must come to the same conclusion. If I try to force her, she’ll fight me on it. Sir, not to change the subject, but something nags at me to return to Boston for a talk with—”

“Boston? Talk with whom? Who is left to take our petition to?”

“No one, I’m afraid, but I saw Parris’ Barbados woman in the jail there, and I believe she has a story in her that may bring Samuel Parris down so far that no one here will ever be influenced by him again.”

“Whatever are you talking about? Tituba? What can she possibly—”

“I have no solid proof, but I believe she had a child by Parris.”

“A child? A bastard child?”

“In Barbados, yes—and to protect his good name and reputation, and that of his wife, this child was disposed of.”

“Disposed of how?”

“I suspect in the worst way.”

“You can’t mean killed?”

“Shortly after birth the baby expires or was given away. As for the mother, Tituba, she never once saw the child—alive or dead.”

Serena had been listening at the barn door, and now she said, “That snake of a man! He concocted the entire scenario for how the Putnams’ children died based on a murder he’d himself committed in Barbados before coming here?”

“It’s a theory I have. Not sure he jammed a needle into the child’s brain or heart, but who knows?” Jeremy went to her and wrapped an arm about her.

She pulled away and paced the length of he barn. “He’s put Mother and so many away on the altar of his own bloody hands—and now one woman has been hung to death on the allegations begun in his parish, and my mother is next!”

“It’s why I need to talk directly with Tituba. To confirm my suspicions.”

“But can you be sure she is still in Boston?” asked Serena.

“I fear Parris arranged for her incarceration in Boston in hope of seeing her aboard a ship to leave the colonies altogether.”

“She’s being called an accuser rather than a witch these days. An innocent who tried to save the minister’s daughter.” Serena laughed at the distinction.

“Part of her deal with Parris, perhaps, for pointing the way.”

“Bastards all!” Francis’ fingers turned white with the grip he had round a pitchfork. “Just interested in seeing forfeits of property going back into the commonwealth so’s they can divvy it all anew.”

“I’ve no doubt of it,” replied Jeremy. “Behind the scenes, large properties are being prepared to go to the ‘heroes’ of this debacle—Corwin, Hathorne, Porter, Putnam, Wilkins, perhaps Ingersoll, and most assuredly the Boston magistrates and Reverends Noyes and Cotton Mather.”

Serena sighed heavily and nodded. “Ample incentive for getting confessions from the accused.”

“And paying no heed to your fact-finding, Jeremy, with respect to the Martin woman and Anne Putnam.” Francis jammed the pitchfork into a bale of hay.

“Nor petition after petition.”

Jeremiah stopped Serena’s pacing and stared long into her eyes. “Serena, I know you two are as devastated by the failure of the Boston authorities to alleviate the situation as I am. I’ve one final appeal in writing to Major David Saltonstall, the most rational judge on the Court of Oyer & Terminer, and the last man on the court who appears to have doubts over the use of spectral evidence.”

“Alleviate it, ha! The Boston judges of the high and mighty General Court?” Serena seemed to have stopped listening to Jeremy. “Those swine have made it exponentially worse. Have you not heard? Bridget Bishop was hung yesterday.”

“Yes, we’ve all heard, and it’s terrible news,” began Francis, “but Jeremy says there may be a silver lining to it.”

“Silver lining, indeed? Where? At Watch Hill, at the gallows they’ve built there to accommodate six hangings at once?”

Everyone fell silent; the only sound that of the patient breath of horses and cows in the stalls. Jeremy finally broke the silence. “Rather sudden on the part of the judges to hang Bishop now. Their first arrests came in late February or was it early March. Tituba, Goode, followed by Osborne and only then Bishop whom they released for lack of evidence only to make a re-arrest on the say-so of Mercy Lewis who likely planted the so-called Bishop doll in the woman’s basement.”

Serena shoved him. “So tell me, Mr. Expert, why just one of all the accused hung? What’s behind this mystery.” Serena looked into his eyes. “It’s prelude to more hangings, isn’t it?”

“Perhaps not.”

“How can you say that? Are you gone blind, Jeremy?”

“Often a single public display of this nature, as I told your father . . . well it can have a dampening effect on those making the allegations and adding to the fire. One thing to accuse your neighbor, have her jailed, excommunicated even. Quite another to kill her in some sanctimonious public execution.”

“So Jeremy’s told me this was the case in Connecticut,” Francis said to Serena. “One hanging appeased the mob.”

“Aye, true it was.”

“Pray that Bishop as the sacrificial goat fills their need for blood, eh?” Serena shook her head. “Else this bloodlust continues.”

“It may be the best we can do at this point.” The moment he said it, Jeremy realized how lame it sounded.

“The best we can do? The best we can do?” came her mocking chant. “We should get Mother free of their clutches before she is hung next!”

Jeremy watched her march away from him. The strain of events had taken a horrible toll on Francis, on Serena, and on their relations. He feared Bridget Bishop’s hanging would not be enough for the likes of Parris and Putnam or others who stood to gain property, position, and reputation as witch hunters in Salem. That this situation was far, far different than the one he’d faced in the provinces. Still, he held out a glimmer of hope that the key to ending the mayhem and officially sanctioned murder was locked away in a cell in Boston, and the name of that key was Ti’shuba.