by Dana Donovan
“Really?”
“Mister Hilton, establish your witness’ full name and residence please.”
“Yes, Your Honor. Mister Putnam, will you please state your name for the court?”
Putnam responded, “You know my name.”
Hilton, “For the record, please.”
“Fine. James T. Putnam.”
“And your place of residence?”
“666 South Devilry Road, Salem.”
“Thank you. Your Honor?”
“Thank you, Councilor. Miss Adams, are you satisfied?”
“Fuck, why not?”
“Mister Putnam, will you please tell the court how long you have lived in Salem?”
“I’ve lived in Salem my entire life, and so has my family since 1684.”
“I see. So you must be an outstanding pillar of the community then?”
“Objection. This man is leading the witness.”
“Miss Adams….” The magistrate angled in to the side of his bench and said in a hush, “You really don’t get to say anything here. These proceedings are usually one way, as they have been for over three hundred years. I let you object earlier so that you might know who bears witness against you.”
“Are you kidding?” I stood and leaned out over the handrail. “I should be sitting there bearing witness against him. He killed a woman in cold blood.”
“Silence!” He ordered, striking his gavel down hard on the plate. “I will not have you make a mockery of this court.”
“Too late. It’s done.”
“Mister Hilton, continue.”
Hilton bowed gentlemanly. “Thank you, Your Honor.” Returning to Putnam he said, “Mister Putnam, will you please tell us in your own words about your encounter with Miss Adams the other day?”
Putnam nodded with confidence, though his impatience was beginning to show in the way his fidgety hands tooled along the brim of the hat upon his lap. “Well, sir, I’ll tell you. It started the other day after I traveled down to New Castle on business. I hadn’t been in town more than an hour or so when this dog approached me and told me to go to the city’s parking garage.”
“Wait a minute,” said Hilton. “You say a dog approached you?”
“Yes, sir, that’s right.”
“And he spoke to you?”
“She spoke to me. Yes sir.”
“I see. And what kind of dog was it?”
“I don’t know; a big black one.”
“A big black dog?”
“Yes.”
“All right, continue.”
“Objection. Your Honor, pah-leeze.”
Again the gallery erupted in gasps and sighs, and once more the gavel came down hard. “Miss Adams, I will not warn you again. You are not allowed to object.”
“Then how can I defend myself? Where is my council? And why haven’t I been afforded due process under the—”
“Silence. Bailiff, gag this woman.”
“No, no. Don’t gag me. I’m cool. Look, I’ll just sit here and chill. You guys go on. Don’t mind me.”
Hilton waited for the last of the murmurs to subside before returning to Putnam for questioning. By now Putnam had nearly fiddled the brim clean off his hat. He may have testified against countless accused witches before, but I got the feeling he never actually met up with a real one—until now.
“Mister Putnam, you stated that a big black dog approached you on the streets of New Castle and spoke to you.”
“That’s correct.”
“And tell us again what this dog said to you?”
“She told me to go to the city’s parking garage.”
“Did she say why she wanted you to go there?”
“She said she worked for the devil and that she wanted me to go there and sign the devil’s book.”
“The devil’s book you say?”
“Yes.”
“And did you go to this parking garage and sign the devil’s book?”
“No sir. That is…I went to the garage, but I did not sign the book.”
“I see. So what happened next?”
“Well, the dog got angry then. She told me she would kill me and drag me off to Hades if I didn’t obey her.”
“Did you sign the book then?”
“No. I still refused. That’s when she entered my body and killed her.”
“Killed who?”
“A woman who had just stepped out of the elevator. While in my body, she walked up to the woman and stabbed her in the belly.”
“Then what?”
“Then she exited my body. Only she was no longer a dog then, she had taken on human form.”
“You mean a woman?”
“Yes.”
“Is that woman here now, sir?”
“Yes.”
“Would you point her out please?”
Putnam stood and pointed at me. “That woman.”
Shrieks of horror gushed from gallery and jury box alike. One woman fainted; another fell back into the arms of the man behind her. The magistrate called for order, his gavel jack-hammering the plate so hard it broke at the handle. Putnam raked the room with his eyes, perhaps expecting some in attendance to call him out on such preposterous testimony. But no one did; indeed all seemed to accept his wild claim as fantastic and undisputable.
From across the room, I saw Hilton look at me and smile wickedly, all the while fondling that ridiculously large crucifix around his neck. His Honor the magistrate, with gavel head cupped in hand, continued rapping on the plate and calling for order until the outburst had settled completely. Once everyone had reclaimed a seat, the absurd testimony of James T. Putnam continued.
He went on to explain the rush he felt when the devil entered his body; the horror he experienced seeing the woman die at his own hands and the guilt he harbored for his unwitting complicity in her death.
“So even though the devil was controlling your actions,” said Hilton, “you could still see what was going on?”
“Yes,” Putnam replied. “It was terrible. I could do nothing to stop her.”
“I see, and how do you know that woman,” Hilton turned and gestured toward me with a nod, “Miss Adams, how do you know that she made you kill that poor lady?”
“Because I saw her there after she left my body. She stepped out from behind a concrete column into the light and made the sign of the devil.” He demonstrated the sign by holding his hands to his mouth and splaying his fingers in random forms.
“That’s a lie,” I said. “I gasped and covered my mouth when I saw what he had done. It was no devil thing.”
“Ah-ha!” said Hilton. He turned and walked back to me. “So you admit you were there?”
“Yes. I told you that already. I told you I saw him kill that woman.”
“There, you see?” He strolled over to the jury box and addressed the members. “She admits to being there and taking over Mister Putnam’s body so that he could bid the work of the devil.”
“I said no such thing.”
“Silence,” ordered the magistrate. “I will have no more outbursts from the witch’s box.”
“Your Honor, he’s twisting my words.”
“Mister Hilton, will you please continue?”
Hilton returned to Putnam’s side. “Mister Putnam, did you have any further contact with the accused after the garage incident?”
I stood abruptly. “Incident?” Two bailiffs palmed my shoulders and pushed me back into my seat.
Putnam replied, “I spoke to the accused over the phone just today.”
“And?”
“And that’s when she told me that she intended to kill me.”
Again, scattered gasps spilled from both the gallery and jury box. “She said she wanted to kill you, Mister Putnam?”
“Yes. Her exact words were: ‘let this serve as fair warning; I am going to the station’—by that she meant the train station—‘where I will find you and kill you with my own bare hands’.”
“
Taken out of context,” I said. “Tell them what you told me, how you wanted to annihilate me and my kind. Go on and tell them how you killed another woman on the boardwalk. Don’t forget that you little twerp.”
“Is that true?” Hilton asked. “Did you kill another woman on the boardwalk?”
“Yes, most certainly, but only after Miss Adams came to me as an apparition and made me kill her. She took over my body. She wanted me to sign the devil’s book. When I told her I would not, that I serve only God, she became angry and she killed that woman on the boardwalk.”
“That’s a lie.”
“That’ll be all,” said Hilton.
The magistrate said, “Witness dismissed. Call your next witness.”
Hilton rolled his gaze toward the barn door and announced, “I call to the stand, Abigail Mary Walcott.”
All heads turned to meet Abigail, the child whose balloons I helped get down from the tree. “That’s my neighbor,” I said. “You kidnapped a child? Now you’ve really gone too far.”
“Miss Abigail.” Hilton held his hand out and the young girl took it. “Don’t be afraid, darlin`. The bad witch cannot hurt you now.”
“The bad witch? Listen, if you lay one finger on that child, I’ll hunt you down like the dog you are and destroy you. You hear me?”
“Your Honor, I would like the court records to reflect that the accused threatened me with bodily harm in the presence of a minor and of all in attendance.”
“The record shall show it. Miss Adams, you will hold your comments for the hanging; at such time you shall be afforded ample platform for rebuttal. Is that understood?”
“What?”
“Mister Hilton, whenever you’re ready.”
Abigail finished settling in and Hilton began. “Abigail, have you ever seen that woman over there?” He pointed at the witch’s box, and as soon as the little actress laid eyes on me, she began twisting and convulsing in fits like a fish out of water. Immediately, the room broke into hysterics. Men and women on both sides of the bench recoiled in shock and horror.
“She’s possessed!” a woman shouted.
“The devil has her!” another cried.
“It’s the witch,” said one bailiff, pointing at me. “Hide her from the witch.”
With that, the other bailiff wheeled over a box frame with a heavy curtain stretched across two uprights. The moment the screen crossed the line of sight between me and the girl, she responded miraculously by sitting up in her chair as though nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. Hilton approached the jury and took the hand of the distraught woman who had proclaimed the girl possessed and patted it gently. “She’s all right now,” he cooed. “We won’t let that witch hurt her again.”
That seemed to calm the woman greatly, though the evil eye she kept giving me after that told me she wouldn’t soon forget about it.
“Can we proceed?” the magistrate asked.
Hilton smiled obligingly. “Of course.” He returned to the girl. “Abigail, I’m sorry for having to point out that mean witch to you, but—”
“Objection! Your Honor, he’s concluding for the witness that I am a witch.”
“Overruled. Continue.”
“Abigail, that woman on the other side of the curtain; where have you seen her before?”
Her timid voice returned, “In New Castle.”
“Where in New Castle?”
“In front of my auntie’s apartment building.”
“I see, and when you last saw the woman, did she perform any witchcraft before you?”
“Yes.”
“Tell us about that.”
“The first time was when she got my balloons down from the tree. The nice man said he would climb the tree to get them for me, but the witch told him no. She said he should use witchcraft to get them down.”
“What nice man is that?”
“I don’t know. She said he was a witch, too, but he told her he didn’t want to use magic.”
“All right, so what happened next?”
“She went like this and the balloons came to her.”
“Like this?” Hilton stepped around the curtain so that those seated behind me could see him demonstrate a reaching motion with fingers wiggling. After the gallery got a convincing show of that he came back to the girl. “What happened after that? Did you see her again later that night?”
“Yes. I saw her later from my bedroom window. She was flying around on her broom in the mist.”
“Was she alone?”
“No, she was with a bunch of other witches. They were all flying around in the mist. But then she saw me watching her and she came to my window, only then she was a bird.”
“OBJECTION! This child has clearly been coached.”
“Denied.”
Hilton continued. “What kind of bird?”
“A yellow bird.”
“What did the bird do?”
“She pinched me on the arm and on the bum.”
“The bird pinched you?”
“Yes.”
“How did she do that?”
“I don’t know, but I felt it. It hurt.”
“Of course it did. Now, after it pinched you, did she say anything?”
“Yes. She said she wanted me to hurt my sister.”
“How, by pushing her out the window?”
“Objection; leading the witness.”
“Denied.”
“Your Honor,” I stood up and pleaded my case with utmost sincerity. “Isn’t it customary for the accused to face her accuser? I don’t believe little snot-nose here would make these accusations if she were forced to look at me. As a great American once said: Tear down this wall, Mister President.” I figured that last part was probably a bit over the top for the old coot, but one should never underestimate the sense of patriotic virtue among witch hunters.
I watched him crowd his brows in serious contemplation over the issue before ordering the curtain removed. The strange thing was not so much that Abigail failed to respond adversely upon first seeing me, but that she flew into uncontrollable fits only after Hilton cleared his throat to get her attention and then nodded in my direction.
Her performance then was a real showstopper. Once again, members from both sides of the barn clutched heart and soul onto one another, cried for the injustice of a suffering child and wept openly as if the Rapture were upon them. Old blood and guts gavel boy called for order in a hoarse shout, barking out commands for folks to remain seated and for the bailiff to escort young Abigail from the premises.
As the dust settled, Emanuel Hilton came up to me and whispered, “Confess and we will spare you.”
“Confess to what,” I whispered back, “being a witch, or conspiring with the devil?”
“Both.”
I looked him square in the eye. “Sorry, Manny—can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“You know why. We both may be witches, but only one of us has conspired with the devil, and it wasn’t me.”
“Then you will hang.”
“We’ll see.”
“Mister Hilton.” The magistrate pointed to the stand. “Call your next witness.”
Hilton addressed the jurors and announced, “I call to the stand, Lilith Adams.”
“All right,” I said, jumping to my feet with a smile as big as Hilton’s ego. I scurried around the witch’s box with no help from the bailiff and took a seat on the stand beside the magistrate’s bench. There I looked up at him and said, “So, what are you, like a hundred years old?”
One of the bailiffs approached the stand with a King James Bible and directed me to place my hand upon it. “Do you swear to tell the truth, unmitigated, uncompromised and unabridged so help you God?”
I looked at him and laughed. “You’re kidding, right? Do you see that my hands are tied behind my back?”
He craned his neck to steal a peak behind me. “Oh, yeah, well maybe you can just say you do and we’ll get on with it.”
/> I shook my head. “No. You didn’t ask anyone else if they swore to tell the truth. Why should I?”
He leaned in and ushered under his breath. “Just say yes, please, would you? I got to get up early in the morning, you know?”
“You gotta get up early. They want to hang me tonight and you’re worried about getting out of here so you can catch up on some Z’s. I got just one thing to say to you about that. Are you listening?”
“Yes.”
“Come closer.”
He edged right up to the stand and pitched his ear in so close to me I could have bitten it off. Probably should have. “You listening?”
He nodded. “Yes.”
“All right then. GO FUCK YOURSELF!”
He fell back and Hilton stepped in. “That’s all right, Miss Adams. We don’t expect you to tell the truth.”
“Why NOT?”
“Because witches never tell the truth.”
“Maybe in your circle of witches, but I do.”
“Always?”
“Sure, I mean I may not tell you everything I know, but I won’t lie.”
“Hmm, we’ll see about that.” He pulled back a measured step. “Miss Adams, will you please tell the court why you want to hurt the children.”
“I don’t want to hurt the children.”
“Oh? Is that because you like them?”
“Hell no, I can’t stand the little fuckers.”
“So you admit it.”
“Yes.”
“If you don’t want to hurt the children, then why did you pinch Abigail?”
“I didn’t.”
“She said you did. Why would she say that if it were not true?”
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe because someone coached her.”
“Do you fly around in the mist on a broom?”
“No.”
“Abigail said you do.”
“Again, coached.”
“Have you ever shape-shifted into a dog?”
“No.”
“Mister Putnam said you did.”
“Putnam lied.”
“Why would he do that? Mister Putnam is a pillar in this community.”
“Mister Putnam is a murderer.”
“Thanks to you.”
“No, thanks to you and the rest of the gang from Ingersoll’s Witness.”
“So you deny that you directed your specter to approach Mister Putnam and have words with him?”