Salem's Daughter

by Maggie Osborne

  Though all the windows were wide, the room steamed hot, stinking of sweat and sour body odor tinged with fear. Bristol felt a sheen of perspiration break over her skin. She sensed the body heat of those in front and to her sides, but she didn’t glance at anyone. Instead, her eyes fixed on the men whispering and smiling in the jury box—the men whose opinions would alter destiny.

  When she thought she would faint unless she could gulp one deep cooling breath of fresh air, William Stoughton, chief justice of the court of oyer and terminer, finally entered and rapped the court into session. A hush of expectation settled over the mass of people, and most forgot their discomfort in anticipation of the drama unfolding before them.

  As guards led Bridget Bishop into the dock, Bristol studied the man who would have such impact on so many lives. Justice Stoughton wore a dark skullcap over shoulder-length hair partially masking a high brow and triangular face. Beneath a long sharp nose, thin lips clamped in a line, and his large moist eyes grew sober as matrons positioned Bridget’s arms straight out from her body. Judge Stoughton was an imposing man; his voice matched his physical appearance.

  “You are not to move, Bridget Bishop, or in any way torment the good people of this court,” the voice commanded, accustomed to unquestioning obedience.

  Bridget shrugged and appeared uninterested, but none could overlook dark stains spreading beneath her arms. The woman poured nervous sweat.

  Next, the girls were ushered into court, and each took an oath that the prisoner at the bar was the one afflicting her. Bristol’s darting eyes fastened on Charity, praying the girl would glance up. But Charity sat on her stool demurely, hiding her expression by staring into her lap. Bristol bit into her thumb to keep from crying out. Bristol’s heart bled: Charity Adams suffered.

  Deep inside, Bristol couldn’t believe Charity had any comprehension of the evil she wrought. Charity could not have changed that much. And she looked so pretty and young, so innocent, in a pale yellow blouse and brown laced vest over a matching skirt. Her carroty curls hung past her shoulders in long neat coils, framing her face. That tormented childlike freckled face!

  It was impossible to think Charity could allow the madness to continue. Charity would halt Caleb’s trial, Bristol assured herself. When Caleb took his turn in the dock, Charity would rise and recant her accusation. She would! Bristol swallowed hard and blotted her forehead. With great effort she swung her attention from her sister to the questioning.

  Witness after witness offered testimony above the howls and screams of the girls, and the evidence mounted against Bridget Bishop. Within minutes the girls’ careful grooming vanished. Their hair flew in damp tangles about wild faces, they clawed their clothing, bite marks reddened their arms, and hives flared on their bodies. Only Mary Walcot retained any composure; she remained on her stool, quietly knitting a blue vest, her needles making a homey clicking sound incongruous amid hell’s cacophony. The jury agreed Mary Walcot had been struck deaf and dumb; the witch sucked away the girl’s senses. Oblivious of the discussion, Mary Walcot ignored the thrashing storm at her feet.

  She was the only person in the room to do so. Abigail, Ann Junior, and Charity Adams suffered so terribly, several times the judge was forced to halt testimony and ask matrons to assist the girls and offer them relief. He made each girl approach Bridget and grasp her hand, sending the devils back into Bridget’s body and temporarily out of her own. His voice and attitude indicated Bridget Bishop’s case did not go well.

  Indeed it did not. Poppets had been discovered in Bridget’s basement—with shiny pins stuck through them. They created a buzzing sensation when presented into evidence. Bridget hotly denied knowing of their existence—an obvious lie. Next, several men testified the buxom Bridget had appeared during long winter nights and lain on top of them, squeezing the breath from their bodies. Bridget shouted that these men lusted for her, and better they on trial than she. Then a man shivering with fright swore he’d seen Bridget turn into a black cat, then a monkey, and finally into herself once more. When she’d observed him watching, she’d lifted her skirt and exposed her bare backside to him. Bridget denied knowing the man at all, even though everyone knew he was her nearest neighbor and the two had been battling a boundary dispute for years.

  Final testimony came from the matrons. They swore Bridget Bishop did indeed have a “preternatural excresence” on her body. There was a wart inside her left thigh where she suckled her familiar.

  “That’s a damned lie!” Bridget screamed. “Who among you does not have a wart or a mole somewhere on your body?”

  Judge Stoughton silenced her with an icy glare, and nodded for the guards to drag her away. He cautioned the jury to keep silence until the day’s end, and he recessed the court.

  Gleefully the girls danced outside for their lunch, and Bristol watched Charity’s flushed, excited face until the girl passed from view. Bristol’s heart dropped to her knees. Charity appeared as exhilarated as the others, swept with power and the glories of attention. They skipped to their noon meal as if they hadn’t a care in the world.

  The jurors, most of whom remained in the courtroom, wore different expressions. A few looked ill; all wore the sober faces of men charged with a serious, distasteful duty. They turned the testimony in their minds—the poppets, the witnesses, Bridget’s flagrant lies—and none observing could doubt the eventual verdict.

  An icy knot of fear formed in Bristol’s heart and grew. Despite the sweltering heat, her hands turned chill. By the time the guards pushed Caleb into the dock, she shook with dread and misgiving. Seeing his face drove a spear of cold fright into her brain. Caleb cherished no hope; none whatsoever. Bristol read it in his dead eyes, in the listless obedience as he allowed the guards to position his arms out from his body. She saw dark smudges beneath his eyes and knew he hadn’t slept. It appeared to Bristol he’d already lost weight. But it was the obvious loss of all hope that turned Bristol’s palms clammy.

  The girls filed into the courtroom, once again freshly groomed, and each swore Caleb Wainwright threatened their lives and precious souls. For an instant Caleb’s steady sad eyes met Charity’s and their gaze locked. Then he turned his face in despair, and his square jaw knotted. Charity’s head jerked and her pale eyes narrowed.

  Watching them, Bristol twisted her hands and bit her lip until she tasted blood. What had they said to each other in that long glance? What had they asked that neither could give?

  The proceedings began, and for an instant Bristol’s heart leaped with new hope. Charity remained on her stool, her head bowed, and she didn’t react to the shrieking and convulsions foaming around her.

  Then, almost as if she moved in a dream, Charity’s arms lifted and crossed her breast. She began swaying to rhythms deep within her mind. Her pale face opened like a rose and her expression was that of a woman eagerly welcoming a lover. Charity’s lips parted, her thighs relaxed. Slowly her head fell back, exposing a milky column of throat, and a hoarse moan broke from her lips. The screams and wails called to her in a seductive siren song. Hands slid to cup her small breasts, and she dropped from the stool, groaning on the floor, her body thrusting and opening in sexual rapture.

  Gagging, Bristol tore her eyes away. Bile choked her throat. Her hands leaped to her lips, pressing back the brackish liquid flooding her mouth. Hating to look, unable not to, she swung her eyes toward Caleb.

  He stood like granite, arms outspread, his legs wide, and he watched Charity’s virginal plunging with dying eyes, eyes that wept inside. Those eyes burned into Bristol’s soul, blue wells of unimaginable sorrow.

  The testimony began. The jury heard of pigs that disappeared beneath the witch Wainwright’s evil eye, crops that withered in fields Caleb Wainwright passed, a baby that sickened and died after Caleb Wainwright visited the parents’ house. They made note that no tears wet his eyes, and heard of a mark on his calf which the devil had cleverly disguised as an old scar.

  At last the jury drew together for deli
beration, and everyone in the packed courtroom held his breath and strained to overhear. In less than twenty minutes the foreman stood and announced a verdict. Both prisoners were returned to the dock.

  “Proceed,” Judge Stoughton commanded.

  “We the jury find both Bridget Bishop and Caleb Wainwright guilty of malefic witchcraft as charged.”

  The room stunned to silence and all eyes riveted on Judge William Stoughton. He nodded and folded his hands.

  “Let it be posted: Bridget Bishop and Caleb Wainwright shall be hanged by the neck until dead on the morning of our Lord June 10, 1692.”

  The room spun in exploding sound, and dots the color of blood swam across Bristol’s vision. She stared toward Charity, seeing the girl jump to her feet and stare openmouthed in chalky disbelief.

  Then a black wall crushed over Bristol, smashing her to the floor.

  31

  When a matron helped Bristol sit up, nearly everyone had fled the courtroom. A few remaining jurors whispered in sober tones near the front of the room, and an old man pushed a birch broom along empty aisles.

  “No!” Bristol screamed, still hearing Judge Stoughton’s voice echoing in her head. “No! No!” She covered her eyes.

  The matron studied Bristol’s ashen face and signaled the jurors. “I think we got another one down with the affliction.” She leaned above Bristol, her face sly and knowing. “Is it Goody Barnes that hurts you, dearie? It’s Goody Barnes, isn’t it? That nasty bitch thinks she’s better than the rest of us. Is it Goody Barnes who hurts you?” she coaxed.

  Appalled, Bristol stared into the woman’s eager flushed face. She scrambled to her feet, and gathering her skirts, she dashed out of the meetinghouse, running blindly and gulping deep breaths of cool evening air. She ran without knowing her destination, ran until her chest hurt and her feet stumbled and her mind could think only of protesting muscles and nothing else.

  Finally she bent against a stone wall, panting and sucking air into burning lungs. Insane! It was all insane! Slowly her vision cleared, and she recognized the stones beneath her fingers. The cemetery wall. Jumping back as if the rocks were hot lava, Bristol rubbed her temples with shaking fingers.

  No. No. No! Madness laughed through her head. Caleb. It was unthinkable! Her shocked mind shied away and bounced back. She could not accept that they’d judged him guilty; but they had.

  She shook her head back and forth, long hair tumbling from the bun at her neck. Then Bristol flung the red strands from her face and stared upward at stars beginning to pierce a dark sky. She raised her fists. “Where are you, God? Why have you turned away from us?” She screamed the words, her body shaking violently. “Where are you? Help us!” Her voice split. “Oh, God, help us!” she moaned.

  There was no answer. Only a buzz of crickets and the rustle of night animals. And distant hysterical weeping. The wrenching sobs shot into Bristol’s mind like bullets of agony. From somewhere, someone screamed a greater anguish than her own. Bristol turned away, stumbling in the deepening darkness, embarrassed that she and the unseen stranger intruded their grief on each other. Then she halted. Her skirts swept about her shoes, and her face froze.

  Slowly, unwillingly, Bristol retraced her steps and entered the shadowy cemetery, following the sounds of hysteria and knowing in her heart what she would find. In the dim light of a half-moon Bristol located the pale oblong of Noah Adams’ stone. She sagged against the gray freestone and made herself look down. A tormented figure sobbed beside the sunken rectangle.

  “Charity,” Bristol whispered, her voice dull and dead.

  Charity’s head jerked up, and her face was terrible to see. Tears cut muddy tracks down her cheeks; her eyes were wild and foaming with animal torment. Her yellow blouse hung in tatters, and strands of hair flew about her cheeks. Both hands held clods of earth from Noah’s grave.

  “I didn’t mean it!” she screamed, her voice as wild and demented as her face. The clods broke in her fists, and she flung herself across the grave. “I didn’t mean it to go this far,” she sobbed, beating her forehead against the ground. “I never thought they’d find him guilty! Never!” She doubled in agony and curled into a screaming ball, rocking and holding her sides. “I love him! Oh, God, I love him! I love him!”

  Bristol knelt, her knees sinking into soft summer earth, and she gathered Charity into her arms, cradling her like a small child. “Shhh. Let’s go home now, Charity.” Bristol’s heart felt like a deadweight in her chest. “Shhh. Let’s go home.” She pulled Charity to her feet.

  Charity walked like an old, old woman, bent in the middle, shuffling blindly, and moving where Bristol guided. Bristol took her home and laid Charity in the narrow little bed. Throughout a long terrible night Bristol held Charity’s icy hand and watched her with vacant, stinging eyes.

  “I love him! I love him and... oh, God... I’ve killed him! I don’t know what happened... it was like a dream and... I’ve destroyed what I love most!” Charity’s sobs tore her chest apart, ripped her throat raw, and flayed Bristol’s senses until she quivered with savage pain. All through the night Charity screamed and sobbed and moaned and tormented them both.

  Toward dawn Charity dropped into a feverish sleep, and Bristol dozed in a chair, her mind black with nightmares. When they woke, it began again.

  Bristol bowed her head under the torrent of poisonous guilt and agonized love. Her brain felt as if it had been scooped clean and replaced with crawling worms. Darkness and horror chased through her mind—and deep heartbreaking pity for the demented creature in the bed.

  How they endured the next days, Bristol never remembered. She bathed Charity’s wild, twisted face and forced food between her lips and never dared leave her sister’s side. She didn’t wonder what the servants thought as they went about their chores listening to the shrieks and moans echoing through the house. She didn’t care that the kitchen fire died out for the first time in her memory. She didn’t give a moment’s thought to whether or not Charity was missed in the village. Nothing mattered. Nothing. The world as they’d known it was ending. Not with rejoicing and blazing glory as all had expected, but in a shroud of black, smothering evil.

  Then finally the fire in Charity burned itself out, leaving an empty husk where once a bright young girl had been. Her pale, swollen eyes gazed up at Bristol. “It’s tomorrow, isn’t it?” she croaked in a raw voice.

  “Aye,” Bristol said. She stared at the wall, unable to face the expression on Charity’s gaunt, hollowed cheeks. Her throat worked and she gripped Charity’s hand.

  “Go to him,” Charity urged, her eyes begging. “He’ll need someone tonight.” Her thin childlike form scarcely rippled the summer blanket. “And tell him... tell him I love him,” she whispered. Two large tears hung on her lashes like jewels.

  Bristol nodded, her heart in ashes.

  She rode into Salem Town and found the sheriff’s house and the makeshift jail behind it. Dirt-crusted lanterns lit the edges of a wooden enclosure, throwing weak shadows into the night. Bristol knocked at the sheriff’s door, her hand moving in slow motion as if it didn’t belong to her. She felt surprised when George Corwin responded.

  “I’ve come to see my husband, Caleb Wainwright,” she said in a flat, expressionless tone.

  Sheriff Corwin studied her, still chewing a bite of supper. “Aren’t you one of Noah Adams’ girls?” he asked, looking at the red wisps curling from under her dust cap.

  “Aye.”

  He nodded. “I thought so.” He shifted on the porch, his dark eyes looking troubled. “I don’t know the procedure on this sort of thing. Nobody told me. We haven’t hanged anybody in a long time; a man forgets.”

  “Please,” Bristol said simply, her green eyes filling.

  He watched her and chewed at his thumbnail. Then he pushed open the door and waved her inside. “Aw, hell, I knew your pa and I’ve known Wainwright all his life. I guess it wouldn’t hurt anything.” He led Bristol into a small neat parlor and lit a candle. �
��Wait here.” A woman peeped from the kitchen, and Bristol heard a murmur of low conversation; then all was quiet.

  In a few minutes George Corwin returned with Caleb. “Now, you can’t stay long,” he warned Bristol, but his voice was kind. His eyes strayed to the open windows and back to Caleb.

  “I’m not going anywhere, George,” Caleb said quietly. He wore a rough workshirt open at the neck and soiled brown breeches. There was a tear in his left stocking.

  “Just the same, I believe I’ll leave the door open,” George Corwin said with an apologetic shrug. “You understand.” They heard him walk down the hall and into the kitchen.

  Neither moved. They looked at each other across the small parlor. Bristol’s heart squeezed in her chest. He looked exhausted, dark circles stained his eyes, and a calm resignation dulled his expression. She realized he’d come to terms with dying. And this hurt most of all—that a vital strong man in the summer of his life should be resigned to dying. Bristol dropped her white face, and her shoulders heaved.

  “Don’t, Bristol,” be whispered. Then his arms were around her, holding her against his chest, comforting her. Above her shining head, his lifeless eyes stared out the window. “I’ve made such a mess of so many lives,” he murmured.

  “It isn’t your fault,” Bristol cried. She gripped his arms and stared up at his pale face. “Things just... just came together wrong! You did what you had to do!”

  Gently he pressed her head against his shoulder so she wouldn’t see his face. And she recognized his deep need for touching, for the solid warmth of another living, caring human being. “No, Bristol,” he said softly, “I forced my own ideas of duty onto those around me. And I hurt so many.” He stroked her hair. “You were right that day when you tried to tell me.” Beneath his coarse shirt, Bristol felt his heartbeat, strong and steady. One after the other. He lifted a long red curl and pressed it to his cheek, closing his eyes and trying to imprint the silky feel of a woman’s hair on his mind for all time.