by Alex Flinn
I did not know what would happen, if I would be led up for questioning or if others would testify against me first. I did not know what I would say, except that I had never harmed Ann or anyone. But the jailer led me to a bench near the front of the room, away from where the Putnams sat. He shoved me down. “Sit!”
I sat. I found I was trembling, though it was so hot.
The jailer pushed me. “Be still, girl!”
I tried, but when I looked around, I realized that no one in the room, save James, was my friend. My friends were the women I rotted with in jail, Martha, who was suspected on Ann’s word and because her husband had said she read too many books, and Rebecca. No one would believe me. No one would even care if I was convicted, except for the spectacle of a hanging. Goody Harwood had brought a picnic! I wanted to tremble more, but I summoned my magic to calm me. I breathed. How odd to think that fidgeting and sweating would make me look suspicious when, really, witchcraft was the cure.
In her seat, Ann was trembling too, I noticed.
The judge entered, and everyone stood. I wasn’t sure if I was expected to stand, since I had just been ordered to sit. However, the jailer helpfully yanked me up.
“Hear ye! Hear ye!” a man I did not know called as the judge walked down the aisle. “By the will of God, this court is now in order!”
We stood while the judge said a prayer in a booming voice. I felt eyes upon me, perhaps to see if I flinched at the word of God. I did not. When Judge Hathorne finished, the jailer forced me down to sitting again.
“Who is here to witness against this woman?” Judge Hathorne asked.
Thomas Putnam stood. “My daughter, Ann.”
“She must approach the bench, then,” Judge Hathorne said. “And she must speak for herself.”
Ann stood. She looked smaller than when last I had seen her, thinner and paler. I wondered if she had been ill. Or was it the weight of her lies that made her appear so sickly and trembling? I had seen her many times over the year I had lived in Salem, a boisterous girl, full of humor and mischief. I remembered one day when I had seen her lift her younger sister up to look at a bird’s nest in a tree. The Ann who walked to the front of the room looked like she could barely have lifted a feather.
As if to confirm this impression, Ann fairly fell into the seat beside the judge. When he spoke, his voice was half as loud, as if he did not wish to frighten her.
“You are here to give testimony in this case?” he asked.
“Aye, sir.” Her voice was barely a breath of wind.
“You must speak clearly, girl,” he said.
“Aye.” Ann said in a proper whisper.
The other man approached her. He carried a Bible and held it before her. He placed her hand upon it. “Do you swear to tell the truth in all matters, so help you, God?”
“Aye,” Ann repeated.
The judge addressed her. “You are acquainted with Kendra Hilferty?”
Ann nodded. “Aye.”
“You see her here?”
“Aye.” She searched for me. I did not know where to look, whether to meet her eyes, try to make her understand I meant her no harm. I would tell no one what I had seen if she would just let me go. In truth, I had already determined to leave Salem if released. It would not be the first time I had fled a place, and it would likely not be the last. But what if, by looking at her, I made people think I had enchanted her? I decided to stare at my hands. They were startlingly light for not having seen sun in months. I stretched out my fingers in my lap. Out of the tops of my eyes, I noticed that Ann did the same.
“What have you to say about her?” the judge asked.
“Oh, your honor,” Ann began. “It has been awful. Since Kendra came to this town, I have had so much pain, so much torment at her hands. I do not know why she torments me so.”
I stole a glance up at her just as Judge Hathorne asked, “How does she torment you?”
“She clutches at my throat, so that I cannot breathe, and she causes me great pains in my stomach, and—ouch!” She clutched herself as if she felt a great pain. “She is doing it now! She is looking at me, and making me—ouch!” She gripped herself harder.
Judge Hathorne addressed me. “Why do you do this to her?”
“I am doing nothing!” I cried out, spreading my hands to indicate there was nothing there.
“I am doing nothing!” Ann cried out after me, also spreading her hands.
“Do not do that!” I cried, clenching my fists.
“Do not do that!” Ann cried, clenching hers.
Was she trying to pretend I controlled her movements? Truly? All eyes were upon me now, and I was near tears.
“Ann, please! I bear you no ill will.”
“Ann, please! I bear you no ill will.” As she said it, we both held out our hands, pleading.
“How are you controlling her?” Judge Hathorne asked. “What devilment are you using on her?”
“None! None!” I gasped. Sweat poured from my forehead and soaked through my dress.
“None! None!” Ann’s voice was a pale echo of my own.
I was silent then, shaking, and so was Ann. I was not controlling her movements, but, I realized, I could, if she wished to play at that game.
I stared at her, suddenly feeling cool and calm.
She stared back.
My witchcraft was my friend, my only friend. I could summon it to help me. I would. I did.
Suddenly Ann burst out, saying, “I am a liar!”
I said nothing. I looked, as anyone in that situation would, surprised.
“What?” Judge Hathorne asked.
“I am a liar!” Ann repeated. “My accusations are lies. I am pretending at my affliction. I am a scared little girl who—”
She stopped, midsentence. I had meant to have her say that she consorted with familiars, that she ran with wolves, that she was afraid I would tell on her, but it was as if someone held an invisible hand over her mouth. I saw her lips trying to move, but they did not. She breathed frantically through her nostrils, loudly enough for me to hear in my seat.
“What is wrong with her?” Judge Hathorne asked everyone, the court at large, me.
I shook my head. “I am doing nothing.” I knew someone else, someone not me, held her under an enchantment. I looked to James. By his shocked face, he let me know he had no hand in it. I believed him. My gaze darted around the courtroom, searching for another witch. They fell upon the Putnams in the front row of seats.
Goodwife Putnam bounced in her chair, as if she might run up to save her daughter at any moment. Thomas Putnam was silent, deep in concentration. His wife commenced to screaming, “She is ill! Your honor, she is ill! This woman, this witch, has made her so!”
Before the court, Ann was still struggling, tearing at her mouth.
“We must stop the trial!” Goodwife Putnam shrieked. “She cannot breathe! I beg you!”
Thomas Putnam said nothing. He shook his head.
At that moment, Ann passed out. Was it from loss of breath? Or a spell?
Thomas Putnam ran toward her only then. He shook his fist at me. “Why have you done this to her, Kendra Hilferty?”
His eyes met mine, and I found my voice. “I have done nothing to her. Why would I, when she was on the verge of admitting her deceit, that her affliction was merely a pretense? She is a scared child who should go home and work on her sewing. She should not be here at court.”
“Order!” Judge Hathorne yelled. “Order!” He looked down at Ann, who lay as if dead on the floor. Goodwife Putnam knelt over her.
“Let me take her home,” Goodwife Putnam pleaded.
Judge Hathorne nodded. “The witness cannot testify. We will reconvene on Wednesday.” He nodded at the jailer. “Take the accused back to jail!”
What had I done?
8
Ann Putnam
Later That Day
My father brought his wagon from the farm to carry me home, for I could not walk from th
e shock of it. My brother, Tom, drove, while Father sat beside me and Mother cradled me in her arms. “Will this never end?” I moaned.
“It will end when they are hanged,” my mother assured me, stroking my brow.
My head ached. All these weeks, I had thought Kendra was torturing me, thought Kendra controlled me. But today, today was something different. Today, something had made the words spring from my lips. That something was magic. Real magic.
“I cannot go back there,” I said. “I cannot see her. I will surely die if I do.”
Suddenly the wolf was there, I knew not how, sitting beside me in broad daylight. I glanced around, to see if the others saw him. But they did not seem to. My mother still fawned over me. Tom looked straight ahead, and my father, I could not see him at all. It was as if he was not there.
“You must go back,” the wolf said. “Everyone will believe you a fraud if you do not.”
“Perhaps I am a fraud.” My head lolled on my mother’s lap. “I only wanted to be a good girl, to have everyone know that I am a good girl. Is that vanity?”
“No.” The wolf’s white fur and silver eyes looked so strange against the summer trees. “It is nothing but the truth. You are a good girl.”
“But I lied. I lied about Kendra. I did not want people to know of my sinful ways, that I spoke to you. And now I am caught. I said in front of everyone that I lied.”
Could my family not hear me? Could they not see the wolf?
“That was her witchcraft that made you say that,” the wolf said. “You would be able to testify . . . about the others? Martha and Rebecca?”
I thought about it, though my head ached from when I hit it in my fall. I was now certain Kendra was a witch, that she had been the one controlling my actions, making me confess to what I’d done. Yet it was her I did not want to confront, did not want to testify against. To see Martha or any of the others in court did not frighten me. They were silly old women. Kendra was the one who terrified me, for she, like the wolf, saw me for what I truly was. A liar.
“Yes,” I said. “Yes.”
“Then I will take care of Kendra,” the wolf said.
I nodded, half closing my eyes. When I next opened them, the wolf was gone, and my father again sat in his place.
Our carriage trundled home. The woods were ahead, cold, dark, though it was June, the overhanging tree branches creating shadows that reached out to me, scratched at my arms, and tried to grab me. I cringed against my mother’s skirts.
9
Kendra
That Night
“What did she say then?” Rebecca asked yet again in the darkness of our cell.
“She said that I tortured her, gave her pains in her stomach. And then she pretended that I controlled her actions, that she could only repeat what I said.” I left out the fact of my actually controlling her actions. I had no idea what the impact of that stupidity on my part would be.
“The poor child,” Rebecca said. “The poor child is ill.”
Martha let out her breath in an annoyed scoff. “The poor child is evil. You know that she, of all of them, has reason to lie. The Parris girl is young and stupid, but she—”
“Martha . . .” Rebecca glanced at me.
“’Tis true. Her father has a quarrel with your family, and he has a quarrel with Giles.”
I had heard this before. Giles Corey was Martha’s husband, and he and Thomas Putnam apparently had a feud of long standing.
“That is why we are here on the accusation of his daughter,” Martha said. “He has given her the idea, as surely as if he controlled her lips.”
Rebecca sighed. “The good Lord will save us.”
“He had better hurry,” Martha said.
“If he does not save us in this life,” Rebecca said, “He will save us in the next.”
I envied her this certainty, this knowledge that she was good and would go to heaven. All the women here in jail seemed to have it, all except me.
They continued talking like this, as they did every night, until they drifted off to sleep.
I remained awake. It was strange that Samuel did not walk by to look in on us or to wake the women up, stranger still that James was not there. I had expected him to come, to talk of what had happened in court, to comfort me in my stupidity or to chastise me for not following his advice.
Then he was there in my cell with me. He held a brick in his hand. Before I could speak, he heaved it at the barred window. The bars smashed to pieces. With a wave of his hand, he was gone.
I looked down. No, not gone. Transformed into a crow. He flew up to the window and stared at me until I, too, became my bird self and flew up to the windowsill, then flew down to the ground.
Once there, we transformed back, and I followed James around the side of the jailhouse building. There was a carriage waiting. “Go!” James whispered.
“What do you mean, go?” I asked.
“You are escaping.”
I peered inside the carriage. Two men were inside, John Alden and Phillip English. I knew they had also been accused. How had they escaped? Were they also true wizards?
“I do not understand,” I said. “Escaping? Just like that?”
“I had a thought you might be found innocent. But now . . . I do not think anyone will be.” James nodded toward the men. “These men have been planning their escape. I found out about it. You must go with them.”
“But I . . .” It was insane that I was protesting. I wanted to escape. But I wanted to escape with James, to flee with him, go back home to Europe, where we could be together and pretend there was no danger. Before, I had had no reason to stay in Salem. Now, with his nightly visits and his comfort, I had no reason to be anywhere else either.
“You must go,” he repeated.
“But . . . will I see you again?” I wanted to know whether we would still meet as planned.
“Shh. We have eternity. Of course you will see me again. Of course you will, when this is over, when it is safe for me to leave, I will find you. But now they will only take you. Go. We will meet in a week and make our plans.” He broke away from me and gestured toward the carriage.
I walked toward it. Mr. Alden beckoned to me to get in, quickly. With one look back at James, I did.
He shut the carriage door behind me. The carriage pulled away.
I stared at him out the window until I could no longer see him. As we reached the edge of town, I noticed an animal following the carriage, watching us. A wolf. A white wolf. Ann’s wolf. I watched it through tear-filled eyes until I could barely see it. Then, perhaps it was the moon or maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me, I saw him transform into a man.
It was Thomas Putnam. He watched us drive away.
We escaped to Duxborough, where John Alden had friends who would shelter us. I waited for James for a week, then two. When he did not come, I booked passage to Europe, to a new life.
I did not see James again for over a hundred years.
10
Ann Putnam
August 26, 1706
Every one of Tituba’s prophecies came true. In 1699, both my parents left me. Or, rather, my mother died. I was never certain what happened to my father. It was said he died. There are those who said he was too mean to die, though, and I believed this to be true. I believed he might still have continued to walk the earth somewhere. I took care of my younger siblings. I never married. I was an old maid, just as Tituba said I would be.
When I looked back on the events of 1692, I felt nothing but shame and regret. My pains subsided some—perhaps they were cramps from my first blood, perhaps a nervous condition, perhaps both, but I never fully got over them, even after so many were hanged. In all, twenty people were executed in Salem, many on my testimony. Rebecca Nurse and Martha Corey, good, churchgoing women whom my father disliked, were among the first. This may have been why no one ever married me. While most said they believed me, in truth, many did not. Or they were not sure. I frightened them.
/> I did not blame them. I was not certain if I believed myself. The deaths of those women haunted me, haunted me every night, and every winter after that, I saw the wolf, but I ignored him. He had led me astray. I believed the wolf was sent by Satan to beguile me. Maybe the wolf was Satan himself.
It was because of this that, yesterday, I went to church and read my confession. I apologized to the families of those who died, but I could not make it right. I could not make it right. I could not bring back the women who died because of me. And I could not bring back the goodness that was within me before I spoke to the wolf, before I lied.
May God have mercy upon my soul.
PART 2
Kendra Speaks
After I left Salem, I journeyed back to England, the place of my birth. I had made some enemies in England, based upon a certain incident with a gingerbread house, but presumably, many of those people were dead. One of the grand things about being a witch is the ability to outlive one’s enemies. Many decades—nay, centuries—hence, I would search the online Find a Grave site for members of the Nurse and Corey family, to pay my respects. But in the seventeenth century, I stayed in England a year, then moved next to France, taking a scenic, circuitous route and looking, always, for James.
I did not find him.
I later found out that, after I left, he was arrested in Salem. He was tried, and he was hanged. I know he did not die, though. I did not know where or how he went.
I tried not to wonder if he looked for me.
But, in Paris, I found Charles Perrault, a writer. I told him the story of Ann and the wolf, and he adapted it into a story of his own about Le Petit Chaperon Rouge, a young woman with a red cape. In his version, however, the saucy maid gets eaten alive!
In 1744, I was banished from France (an incident involving a princess and a pea—don’t ask!) and moved again, to Germany. The Germans had finished hunting for witches by then, so it was a nice place to live at that point. I chose Bavaria, where I opened a bookstall at the Viktualienmarkt. I developed quite a following as a storyteller in my own right, so much so that by the nineteenth century, some brother professors came all the way from Göttingen to fanboy in my presence and hear my stories. Many of my exploits (including the one you are about to hear of, involving my assistant, a strange, short young man with rather specialized abilities) would serve as the inspiration for later works of the Brothers Grimm.