“Why do you tell me this?”
“Because I no longer care what the French want. If you will give me all your secrets, I will not call the wind, I will not send sickness. Let the French fight their own wars.”
Mehitabel did not reply; she simply stared at him.
She had no secrets to give him. To yield to Satan’s power would be wrong in any case.
That winter was, indeed, harsh—but Mehitabel wondered whether that was the wizards’ doing, or simply God’s plan.
In the spring, reports came of smallpox and other diseases spreading throughout New England—but even if Mehitabel believed the reports, was it surprising that disease should follow such a winter?
And what could she do? She had no secrets to give.
She endured.
When winter came again, and an early, hard winter, as Pessatawbo had promised, one day Pessatawbo came and sat before her, staring at her, for an hour or more.
“Perhaps,” he said at last, “you do not believe that I called the wind, and sent the sickness.”
Mehitabel didn’t answer.
“Perhaps you do not fear the cold, the wind, the fever.”
She sat silently.
“What do you fear, Englishwoman? Do you fear madness, perhaps?”
Mehitabel tried not to react to that, but Pessatawbo must have seen some response; he leaned back with a satisfied smile.
“You do fear madness. Good!” Then he frowned. “But you are too strong; I cannot make you mad without losing the secrets I want.”
Mehitabel relaxed imperceptibly.
“I do not know if you love your man. Perhaps he beat you and was cruel to you. I know you love children, though—English children. Give me your secrets, Englishwoman, or English children will run mad.”
“I have no children. You killed my baby.”
“Not your children, no—not even the children of your own town, not yet. Instead I will send mad some English children somewhere else, and the madness will spread to young and old alike until you give me what I want. In time, if you do not yield, all the English in this land will go mad and slay one another in their madness. That is what I promise you, Englishwoman. The madness will only stop when you tell me your secrets.”
Mehitabel did not answer.
Pessatawbo stared at her for a moment longer, then rose and marched away.
He did not speak to her again, nor she to him, for some months. Mehitabel judged it to be the first week in February of 1692 when Pessatawbo told her, “The madness has begun.”
She looked up.
“Two girls have gone mad,” he said, “in a place to the south, called Salem. Now they shall spread their madness to those around them.”
“What girls?” Mehitabel asked. She had never been to Salem, had no way of verifying anything that Pessatawbo might say of what happened there; she suspected the old wizard of lying. If he could truly send people mad, why would he choose some place as far away as Salem? That was fifty or sixty miles from Berwick.
“El…Elizabeth Parris,” Pessatawbo said, “and Abigail Williams.” He shook his head. “You English with your names.”
Mehitabel knew no one named Parris or Williams, but the names sounded genuine. She felt a chill.
Then she shook it off. He was lying, she was sure. He had simply learned a couple of names, perhaps from the Baron de Ste. Castine. She closed her mouth and said nothing further.
Throughout the following months, Pessatawbo would come to her every so often with some new tale of madness in Salem, some new name of a supposed victim. Pessatawbo claimed that the people of Salem were blaspheming their God, imprisoning one another, seeing devils and visions. Mehitabel believed none of it.
In June he told her, quite seriously, “They have hanged a woman because madwomen shouted at her.”
Mehitabel did not deign to reply to such an absurd lie.
A little over a month later she was told, “They have hanged five more women. The madness is spreading. Two were from a place called Topsfield and one from Amesbury—it is not just Salem Village that runs mad.”
The reports continued. In late September, when Pessatawbo reported eight more hangings, Mehitabel burst out, “I believe not a word of it!”
“You do not?” Pessatawbo said, taken aback.
“Of course not! ’Tis absurd!”
He nodded thoughtfully. “I must show you I do not lie,” he said.
It was almost Christmas, Mehitabel felt sure, when Pessatawbo stepped into the hut one evening with a document in his hand.
Mehitabel stared. The Indians did not use paper.
He handed it to her without any comment beyond, “You can read?”
She nodded, and took the document.
It proved to be a pamphlet entitled Some Miscellany Observations, by one Reverend Samuel Willard, of Boston. She read slowly, hampered by the poor light in the hut.
At first she could not understand why Pessatawbo had given it to her; it was a learned discussion of various matters, such as what forms devils might take, and the rules to be observed in locating and convicting witches and sorcerers.
But then she read some of the examples Rev. Willard gave of cases where accusations were accepted at face value, against all reason. Mehitabel’s face went pale, and her hand trembled.
Trials had been held at Salem Village, on the accusation of a group of girls and young women. Men and women had been hanged—nineteen in all, with a twentieth dying under torture during questioning, crushed to death.
“This is madness,” Mehitabel gasped.
A broad smirk spread across Pessatawbo’s face, clearly visible in the firelight.
“Now you know I did not lie!” he said. He nodded proudly. “Madness, as I said! Madness that will spread as long as I live and will it!”
A wave of fury swept over Mehitabel, emotion stronger than that she had felt when Pessatawbo and Madockawando led the attack on Berwick, stronger than anything she had felt since she saw her tiny Roger murdered.
“You do the Devil’s work!” she shouted, flinging the pamphlet in Pessatawbo’s grinning face, “and may God damn your soul for it!”
Something stirred within her, something she did not recognize at first—and the smile vanished from Pessatawbo’s face, to be replaced first with a look of astonishment, then with agony. His left arm seemed to stiffen, and his right clutched at his chest. He staggered, turned, pushed his way past the blanket and out of the hut, out of Mehitabel’s sight.
Then she remembered when she had felt that thing within her before. That had been what she felt when the hawk took the crow to save poor Roger from desecration.
She dared not think it was the power of God, moving within her; she was merely a woman, hardly a worthy vessel for God’s wrath. At any moment Pessatawbo would return, she was sure; whatever spasm had troubled him would have passed.
She sat alone, waiting, but no one came. In time she picked up the pamphlet, and read and re-read it until the fire had burned too low for her to see the printing.
Pessatawbo did not return, and at last she fell asleep.
In the morning she was awakened by a kick; she opened her eyes to find Madockawando and Ste. Castine standing over her. Bright sunlight spilled in through the door of the hut.
“Get up,” Madockawando ordered.
Mehitabel obeyed, and was led out of the hut into the sunshine.
Pessatawbo lay on a blanket on the ground before her. He was quite obviously dead, his face fixed in a rictus of agony.
“His heart burst last night,” Madockawando told her. “Before he died he said you did it.”
“God struck him down for his sins,” Mehitabel said, a trifle uncertainly.
“And if we kill you for it, your God will strike us down?”
Mehitabel blinked
at him, unable to think how she should respond.
“My brother says it is accident,” Madockawando said. “He says you have no magic. Pessatawbo said you do. Maybe my brother is right—but I will not take that chance. You go, out of my land. I will not fight the English more. To hell with King Louis and King James.” He turned away.
Ste. Castine stayed a moment longer.
“You have been exceptionally fortunate, Madam,” he said. “Perhaps you are indeed among God’s chosen favorites—or perhaps you are a true witch, unlike those poor fools in Salem. I have done my best to serve my king, but if I am to have any peace in my own family, I must know when to let matters drop. Go, then, and my best wishes go with you.”
Then he, too, turned away.
Mehitabel stood for a moment, too dazed to react.
She remembered what she had felt, that power she had felt deep within her when she had lashed out at Pessatawbo.
Was that some black magic? Or was it some unknown gift of God?
Was she the chosen vessel of God’s wrath upon the unrighteous?
She didn’t know—and didn’t think it mattered. She would never need it again. She flexed her fingers, realizing that she was outside the hut but unbound, that no one was guarding her, no one would stop her.
Then she took a step, and another, and another, and in seconds she was running, down the trail away from the longhouse and the Indian village, southwest through the woods, toward Berwick and her Thomas.
Original Author’s Note:
Mehitabel Goodwin reached home safely, and bore her husband Thomas a son, Ichabod Goodwin, in 1700. Ichabod Goodwin was my six-times-great grandfather.
The events in this story are as historically accurate as I could make them; only two names, Pessatawbo and the baby Roger, are invented. (The records do not mention the name or sex of Mehitabel’s murdered child, and Pessatawbo is entirely my own creation.) The real Mehitabel Goodwin was indeed held captive by Indians for several years after seeing her baby’s brains dashed out against a tree, as a result of the Anglo-French wars; she was a captive throughout the Salem witch trials.
And I’ve wondered how that madness could happen, could spread, and could then end so suddenly.
Additional Author’s Note:
After I wrote the above story and note, one of my sisters turned up additional information. I had a few significant things wrong.
Mehetable Goodwin (she was surprisingly consistent in spelling it that way, and not how I had it in the story) was captured by the Abenaki, not the Penobscot, and not held captive, but sold to the French in Quebec. After she had spent five years as a Frenchman’s slave/wife, Thomas Goodwin found out she was still alive, traveled to Quebec to ransom her, and took her back to Maine.
HEART OF STONE
When they came for the wizard and dragged him from his little house of carved stone and wood, carrying him away to the gallows, she was lost in dreams, unaware of the outside world. It was not until they began to smash equipment and furniture that she awoke and swam to the surface, where she looked out of the wall upon chaos.
None of them noticed her arrival, and she stared in horror at the frenzy of destruction. Jars of precious herbs brought thousands of miles across sea and mountain were shattered on the floor; pages were torn from ancient books of lore that had survived centuries of careful use, and flung upon the wind.
“Smash it all!” a man in a black robe shouted. “Unclean, all of it!”
She stared in silent shocked stillness as the villagers obeyed.
At last there was nothing more to smash, and the dozen men stood, panting heavily, their clothes damp with sweat, their booted feet awash in the wreckage of the wizard’s life, and glanced at each other and around the room.
One of them caught sight of her and stared. He pointed.
“What’s that on the wall?” he asked.
The others looked.
“It’s just a shadow,” someone said.
“I thought it moved.”
“It doesn’t look like a shadow to me.”
“An image in charcoal, perhaps?”
She let herself sink back into the stone in terror until she could barely see the villagers, until they were just vague shapes seen dimly through the thick gray of the wall.
“…gone now,” she heard, faintly. And then came the crackle of flame, and heat and light penetrated dimly into the stone.
She cowered, safe within her wall, for a long time. Then, when the stone was long cold, she cautiously drifted back up to the surface and looked over the ruins.
There was nothing left but bare stone and rubbish. The glass was gone from the room’s one window, and harsh sunlight shone unfiltered on a layer of ash and debris.
She wondered what had become of the wizard, and why the men had come and destroyed everything. The wizard had told her that people feared him—it seemed plain they had not feared him as much as he thought, or they would never have had the courage to do this.
Or no—perhaps their fear had become unbearable, and they had resolved to destroy it the only way they could?
Whatever the exact truth might be, she did not think the wizard would be returning. Even if he yet lived, even if he had somehow escaped their fury, what was here that would be worth returning to? All his precious belongings were gone. The books were burned to ash. The bell jar that had held the homunculus was smashed, the creature itself gone. The scrying glass was shattered.
Only she remained—and she did not think the wizard would trouble himself about her. After all, he had created her in the first place, and if he were lonely wherever he might now be, he could always make another. It was not as if he could take her away with him to some new home; she was bound within the stone of the wall, an image brought to life.
But what was to become of her, then? She could not leave. She needed no food nor drink; the wizard’s spell sustained her, so she would not starve, nor age. She would not die—would she?
She was unsure how long the wizard’s magic would last without the wizard himself present, but clearly, since she was still alive, it had not faded yet. He had gone away for weeks at a time in the past, and she had not suffered from his absence…
Or rather, she had not suffered physically; she had been very lonely indeed during his travels.
And of course, she had always known he would return in time. He had been alive somewhere in the world. This time, she was fairly certain he was not.
No one to talk to, no one to watch as he went about his studies and experiments, ever again—perhaps in time she would die of loneliness.
She stared forlornly from the stone and wept at the thought, fine drops of moisture trickling down the cool stone. Then she could not bear to look at the chamber any longer, nor that fraction of the outside world she could see through the shattered window, and she let herself sink down into the wall, where she could neither see nor be seen, where the cool substance of the stone strengthened her and gave her rest. She sank down to the heart of the wall, where it rested upon the earth itself. And hours later, as she lay deep in the stone, she found herself wondering whether she could pass down beneath the wall, into the earth, and thus be free, to roam the world and find new companions.
For the next few days she spent most of her time deep in the stone, digging downward with fingers and toes and thoughts, trying to pierce the earth, to make an opening between the magical substance of the enchanted wall and the magical substance of the greater world. She made no perceptible headway, but she did not give up—after all, what other choice did she have?
And then she heard footsteps upon the flagstones. Joy burst into bloom in her heart, and she leaped upward—the wizard had returned after all! He still lived!
But when she reached the plaster surface, when her face appeared as a shadowy outline and she looked out at the dusty, wind-scoured ruin of
the wizard’s chamber, the two men she saw there were strangers.
“Look at this!” one of them said, as he stirred the ash with his foot. “They left nothing!”
Thieves, she realized—they were just thieves, come to steal the wizard’s treasures, and disappointed to find none.
But of course, one of the wizard’s treasures did still remain, and wanted to escape. These men might be worthless scavengers, but they were still men, someone she could talk to. They might be able to answer her questions, tell her what had become of the wizard, help her get free—or perhaps, if they couldn’t free her, they would stay to keep her company. She pressed up against the outside world and watched them for a moment, gathering her courage before speaking.
But the shorter one looked up just then and saw her image sharpening into detailed clarity. He slapped the other on the arm and shouted, “Look!”
“What?” the taller man asked, looking first at his companion, then at the wall. He saw her face, and his jaw sagged.
“That wasn’t there before,” he said.
She hesitated, unsure what to say.
“It’s magic,” the shorter man said. “The wizard must have left it.”
She smiled at him, and started to open her mouth.
“It’s moving!” the taller man barked, cutting her off.
She blinked in surprise, and her mouth closed again as she tried to find the right words. Of course she was moving.
“A guardian spell,” the shorter man said. “Let’s get out of here!”
The taller man nodded and took a step backward. “I think you’re right,” he said.
Then both men whirled and hurried toward the door, as she finally found her voice.
“Wait!” she cried softly—her voice had never been as loud as a real person’s, for the wizard had liked peace and quiet.
If the thieves heard her, they paid no attention—unless it was to hasten even more. She stared helplessly after them.
The Lawrence Watt-Evans Fantasy Page 4