Thomas Putnam nodded agreement. His face darkened, and he turned toward Samuel Parris. “That’s right. So here’s the offer I make you and the ministers. One week. All of you decide within one week what hurts our children, or we’ll find the answers ourselves.” His voice broke. “And I’ll move heaven and earth to get the witch responsible! One week. Do you hear me? One week, and that’s all!”
“But...” Reverend Parris stepped forward.
The crowd shot from their seats and carried Thomas Putnam on their shoulders to Ingersoll’s tavern, where they drank into the night and discussed a variety of plans. Few cherished any hope the collective ministers would solve the problem or even come forth with a reasonable line of action.
Later, as she listened to Caleb’s account of the meeting, a line of anxiety deepened between Bristol’s brows. The village had come together on one issue, but the meshing of minds was prompted by violent tempers and a common growing fear. The fragmentation continued to exist, as Bristol perceived it. Court suits were in progress, enemies still sought to wound each other, large and small problems continued to rage. A picture of hot underground flows appeared in Bristol’s mind, bubbling lava streams meeting in one boiling caldron, then exploding under pressure into a million shattered pieces. She shivered.
“I think it’s right to wait and see,” Bristol offered, dropping her nightgown over her curls, her spine turned toward Caleb.
“I just want Charity to be herself again,” Caleb answered in a muffled voice from the bed.
“Aye,” Bristol said quietly, conscious of Charity moaning in the room next to theirs. She lifted the quilts and slid into bed. She held her breath, hoping Caleb wouldn’t reach for her. Sometimes when he’d been drinking, be sought release with her body. When Caleb panted over her, Bristol felt an aching emptiness of despair. The follies of the human heart... the misery of error.
After a moment she heard Caleb’s steady snore. Gratefully she turned her back to him and slept.
Regardless of the meeting consensus, not everyone in Salem Village possessed the patience to wait while the ministers deliberated. Mary Sibley, a young village matron, suggested they end the suspense immediately. She suggested a witch cake be baked to break the girls’ silence. It would free their tongues to name their oppressors if they were indeed bewitched. She led a group of frightened angry women to Tituba, who all agreed had the magical expertise to bake such a cake, and they presented Tituba with urine they’d collected from the afflicted girls. They shouted down Tituba’s nervous protests, then waited silently while Tituba mixed the urine with rye meal and baked the cake. One of the women brought forward a black dog, and Mary Sibley forced the cake into the dog’s throat. They all stood back to watch. If the dog suffered torments by ingesting a cake baked from the girls’ urine, it would constitute positive proof of the girls’ bewitchment and consequently free their tongues.
The dog vomited over the snow and ran howling toward the woods.
The village had its proof.
And the witch hunt began in earnest. Frightened people dashed back and forth, in and out of the village center. They were afraid to be isolated in their homes, afraid to be out among possible witches. The town market sold out of garlic and horseshoes within an hour; everyone copied the Lord’s Prayer and wore the scrap of paper near his skin. No one met another’s gaze directly for fear of a hex. The witches had to be found. And quickly.
To no one’s surprise, Ann Putnam Senior assumed a position of leadership in the relentless push to wrest the names from the girls. Before the village could rid the community of evil, they needed the names of Satan’s disciples.
Ann Senior appeared at Bristol’s door, fresh from the parsonage, where she’d interrogated Betty Parris and Abigail Williams. Her pretty, vacuous face was flushed with victory, and she led her followers into Charity’s room and leaned over Charity. A triumphant glitter lit her blue eyes.
“Charity?” Ann’s soft voice was insistent. “Charity? You can talk now, your tongue is released from the devil’s hold.”
Uneasy and frightened, Bristol watched from the end of Charity’s bed. The women crowded around Ann Senior, and all stared intently at Charity. Charity lay twisted in a grotesque posture. Her right elbow nearly touched her chin, her left elbow strained toward her ribs on the right side. Both legs curled in odd angles. Bristol utterly believed Charity incapable of assuming such a tortured position had the girl been in her right mind. She looked at the women bending over the bed and wondered if one of those wild faces could be responsible for... Pearls of sweat broke along Bristol’s pale brow. Disconsolate, still she attempted a shred of objectivity. But she felt herself being swept up in the village hysteria: it had to be witchcraft. There was no other answer for the girls’ torment.
“Charity,” Ann Senior coaxed softly. “Tell us who hurts you... tell us who does this to you.” She pushed at the carroty strands falling over Charity’s face and looked into glassy green eyes. “Is it Sarah Osburn, Charity? Is it that old hag Goody Osburn?”
Charity’s eyes disappeared; only the whites showed, and her tongue leaped nearly to her chin. The women gasped, but Ann Senior didn’t blink. Her own daughter acted this way too.
“Abigail Williams said she saw a yellow dog with two legs and furred wings and a head like a woman’s. She said that hellish creature turned into the shape of Goody Osburn. Did you see it too, Charity? Did you?”
At the mention of Abigail’s name, Charity’s eyes rolled forward and fixed on the face above her “Abigail said...” Charity’s voice emerged a croak, scarcely recognizable.
“Aye,” Ann Senior soothed. “You saw Sarah Osburn’s shape, didn’t you? Goody Sarah Osburn torments you, doesn’t she?”
Bristol realized she was grinding her teeth. Her knuckles whitened on the brass bedstead. She hadn’t seen Sarah Osburn in years; the old woman had been bedridden since she retired from midwifery. Bristol’s eyes widened; hadn’t Sarah Osburn assisted at several of the stillbirths Ann Senior had suffered?
“It is Goody Osburn tying you in knots, isn’t it, Charity? Charity?”
Charity’s wild eyes swung around the row of expectant faces. “Aye!” she gasped. “Aye! Sarah Osburn twists me up and hurts me!”
Ann Senior’s face flushed with victory, and her eyes lifted to those of the women. Then she bent again. “Who else, Charity? Who else torments you?”
Bristol swayed at the end of the bed. Sarah Osburn. Who could imagine it? And Sarah turning into a yellow dog with the head of a woman... Eyes wide with terror, Bristol jerked her attention back to the scene at the bed.
“I don’t know! I don’t know!” Charity moaned. But all who watched noticed her limbs begin to relax and unwind from the torturous position.
“Is it Sarah Good, Charity?” Ann Senior suggested. Her eyes blazed, and all the women tensed. There wasn’t a woman present who had not extended pity and welfare to Sarah Good, and not a one had heard a proper thank-you. “Does Sarah Good hurt you?”
Slowly Charity’s arms dropped to a normal position across her thin chest. “Aye,” she whispered, seeing the approval in the faces above her. “Aye,” she said. “Sarah Good torments me something terrible!”
“There’s a good girl,” Ann Senior crooned. “Soon this will all be over and you’ll feel well and strong again. We just need to confirm one more. One more.”
“More?” Charity breathed. She blinked the wet glass eyes and tried to read the faces above her. Dark freckles popped over her face like tiny raisins in paste.
“Tituba,” Ann Senior questioned softly. “Doesn’t Tituba hurt you too?”
“Tituba!” Bristol gasped. She simply could not think Tituba guilty of hurting the girls. Scaring them, aye, but hurting them? Tituba worshiped little Betty Parris; it was unthinkable she would injure the child in any way.
But it was true. Charity’s croak confirmed it. “Aye.”
A flood of memory overcame Bristol, and she began to shake. Who but a
witch would have gone into the trance Bristol witnessed? Who but a witch could have known about Bristol and Caleb in the settler’s cabin? Who but a witch would have dared utter such dark words as Tituba had muttered that long-ago day? It had to be true!
“Brissy?” Charity found her sister’s face among the others and lifted weak arms.
Bristol hurried around the bed and cradled Charity’s head to her bosom. Rocking, she patted Charity and whispered, “Shhh. Shhh. Rest now. Everything is going to be all right.”
At first it seemed that it might be. Charity joined Bristol and Caleb at the dinner table that night, the first time in ten days. Her eyes were clear. She felt weak and admitted to a strange drained feeling. “Maybe it’s over now,” she said, sipping her beer with shaking hands.
Caleb toyed with his food, pushing chunks of ham around his trencher. His wary eyes brooded. “Charity... did you really see those things? A yellow dog with wings and the shapes of Sarah Good and Tituba?”
“Are you saying I didn’t?” Charity flared. Pale eyes met his, a challenge in the depths, and her thin lips pressed in a stubborn line. “Do you make light of the suffering I’ve endured?” She paused. “At the hands of the witches?” Softly her tone suggested he questioned the validity of any suffering not caused by him. Anger foamed at the edge of her voice.
Worried, Bristol put down her spoon and watched the hostility leap between them. She’d never heard Charity be sharp with Caleb, nor Caleb question anything Charity did. Something was coming to a head here that Bristol did not fully understand. Caleb faced a crisis of belief; Charity sensed the beginning of a fresh betrayal.
“Caleb,” Bristol hurriedly interjected, “Charity didn’t hurt herself! And she wouldn’t lie! Surely you aren’t suggesting...”
“I’m not suggesting anything!” Caleb answered shortly. His thoughtful stare centered on Charity’s white face. “I just wonder if someone else didn’t put suggestions in her head. Like that crazy Ann Putnam Senior. Ann has sought a focus for her hatreds and frustrations for years. Could she be using you, Charity? Could all of them be using you for their own reasons?”
Shocked, Bristol stared at her husband. “Caleb, everyone knows Ann has been... upset for a long time. But you’re saying she’s malicious, that she’s evil! That simply cannot be true!”
Momentarily Caleb’s eyes flicked to Bristol, then back to Charity’s stony resentment. “I think,” he began slowly, “that Ann Senior truly believes what she’s doing is right. I believe her intentions are not evil, but possibly the tool of evil. I’d not like to see Ann’s desires projected onto others.”
Caleb and Charity stared at each other; an implication hung in the suddenly chill kitchen. It seemed to Bristol that sparks of tension flew between them.
Abruptly Charity jumped from her chair, the quick movement overturning her mug of beer. “I know what I saw,” she hissed, her eyes glassy marbles of loathing. “I know what I felt, and I know what I suffered.” Those terrible eyes didn’t leave Caleb’s face. “And if ever again you call me a liar... you will suffer for it.”
They stared at Charity with open mouths—this wasn’t the Charity Adams either of them knew. This was a person they could believe was indeed possessed. Whatever Charity might once have felt for Caleb Wainwright, now there was only hatred blazing in those glittering glass eyes. Her emotions had congealed into a cancerous lump of frustration, betrayal, and now hatred. Caleb had scorned her feelings once too often.
Caleb started to rise, but the expression on Charity’s face halted him. “You will suffer for it,” she repeated, spacing the words. For an instant an expression strange to the face of an unmarried girl in Salem flitted across her pinched features. Power. Charity had a power, and seeing Caleb Wainwright’s ashen face, she knew it. Whirling, she ran into her bedroom and slammed the door behind her.
Neither Bristol nor Caleb moved. They stared at Charity’s door in shocked silence, each struggling with strange new thoughts. Then Bristol cleaned Charity’s spilled beer. When she finished, she fetched the jug from the hob behind the hearth and poured a fresh hot beer for Caleb and herself. Her hands trembled.
“What’s happening to all of us?” Bristol asked in a low voice. She sat down and pushed away her cold supper.
Caleb stared into his mug. “I honestly don’t know.” He took a long pull from the foaming glass; then his troubled gaze met hers. “I agree with John Proctor, Bristol. I can’t believe in witches.” Bristol gasped, but he went on as if talking to himself. “I can’t believe some person muttering a chant over a soup pot can affect my harvest or the health of a baby or whether or not person A will love or hate person B.” He directed his eyes to the flames. “I can’t believe these girls are tormented by something invisible. I believe in what I can see.”
Bristol twisted the edges of her white apron and closed her open mouth. Stay reasonable and calm, she told herself. “But, Caleb, if witches didn’t exist, why would our government legislate against them? Why would reasonable men make laws against something that doesn’t exist?”
Caleb turned his mug in damp circles on the table; he stared into the fireplace. “John and I discussed that. Government is made up of men. Even educated men make mistakes.”
Bristol leaned over her glass. “Can the Bible be wrong too, Caleb? In Exodus it says: ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.’ Did God make a mistake too, Caleb? Are you claiming that?” Her voice climbed. This conversation frightened Bristol. She wondered if he was closing his mind, refusing to face the situation.
He looked into the flames, turning his mug on the table.
“Caleb, listen to me, please!” Bristol stared into his strong set face, and dots of color jumped into her cheeks. “I know that things haven’t been... all they might be between us, but... don’t put this question of faith between us as well. Every family in the village needs unity now, like never before. Please. Let us agree to see Charity through these terrible times with compassion. Whatever you... whatever you believe, Charity has suffered, and she needs our support and our...” She almost said “love”; then Bristol blushed and altered her thought. “She needs our support and our help.”
“A man must follow his conscience, Bristol.”
In the silence, Bristol felt a hysterical urge to laugh. Aye. Oh, aye. Wasn’t their marriage proof of Caleb’s conscience? As if proof were needed. This talk made her feel giddy and out of touch with reality.
He continued, “The legislature can be wrong—is wrong. And, aye, the Bible can be wrong too.” He directed a plea to his wife. “The Bible also is interpreted by men.” Looking away from Bristol’s horrified expression, he returned his eyes to the fire. “I’m a simple man, Bristol. I’m good with my hands and the soil. I’m not good at putting ideas and feelings into words.”
“Caleb...”
“When this is finally over, I... I want to send Charity to Hannah in England. I’ll talk to her about it when she’s calmer.” He didn’t look up, but Bristol saw a climb of red rising along his neck. He spoke so softly she had to lean forward to hear. “I think you’ve guessed that... that you and I can’t build a life with Charity sharing this house. She and I...” His voice trailed. “I just think it would be best.” Standing, Caleb stretched and yawned and moved toward the bedroom. Passing, he touched Bristol’s hair, his fingers clumsy and awkward with the gesture.
Bristol sat without moving until she heard the squeak of the mattress sagging beneath his weight. Then she rose and cleared the table. Caleb had staggered her tonight. First in his disbelief in witches, then with his tentative effort toward affection. She dropped dirty trenchers into a tub of melted-snow water.
“You cast the seeds, now you must reap the harvest,” she whispered to herself. She’d agreed to this marriage; she must do her part to make it work. But Bristol’s heart held no enthusiasm for the task. Deep inside, she admired Caleb’s resolve. Even feeling as Bristol guessed he did for Charity, he had the strength of conscience to make an hon
est effort with Bristol. He’d looked squarely at their situation and made a decision. Charity must leave. Without seeing Charity every day, without Charity in the next bedroom... maybe Caleb believed he could build a life with Bristol.
Bristol didn’t feel as certain. Jean Pierre didn’t live in the next bedroom, she didn’t see him every day, but he stood between Caleb and Bristol as surely as if he lived in the house. She paused, her hands in the tub of water, her shoulders drooping, and she stared at the soft blue wall in front of her. Jean Pierre. Oh, dear God, how she longed for him during the endless cold nights. How she missed his laughing gray eyes and his teasing grin. No matter how cruel the world might seem, Jean Pierre had always been able to coax a smile to her lips and offer her a fresh perspective.
How would Jean Pierre La Crosse view what was happening in the village? With a sinking feeling, Bristol suspected he too might dismiss the idea of witchcraft. The thought made her uneasy. But Jean Pierre was not a simple man unused to voicing ideas. He would be able to explain his reasons and present them so logically that she too would see things as he saw them. Had the conversation tonight been with Jean Pierre, Bristol knew she would not now be feeling so frightened and alone.
After drying her hands, Bristol hung her apron on a peg in the buttery, then sank to the table, holding a last mug of warm beer between her cold fingers. She stared into the embers dying below a row of gleaming pots. With all her aching heart she wished she were half a world away from Salem. Fate had played a game with her life.
If only she’d known of Diana’s death before she wed Caleb. If only she’d written Noah that he’d been right in the beginning: she and Caleb were not meant for each other. If only. The old familiar hopeless game of “if only.”
If only the witchcraft furor were really over.
But it was only beginning.
29
On February 29, 1692, Sarah Good, Sarah Osburn, and Tituba were arrested. Tempers in the village ran high. These were the hags responsible for torturing the village girls and doing heaven knew what else. Not a person in Salem Village had not suffered mysterious misfortunes at one time or another. Gossip flew and speculation built by the hour; which of the witches had caused which calamity? How deep did the evil strike? For a time there was talk of a lynching party, but cooler heads prevailed and it was decided to wait and see what happened.
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