The FREE Digital Gift Box - Short Stories

by J. Thorn

  ***

  Tituba smiled at Mary and shook her head back and forth.

  “Once dey start the hangings, they can’t git enough. Won’t be long ‘fore they come to place the noose around our necks.”

  Mary winced and turned away. She tried standing until the shackles bit into her wrists.

  “I must leave this place.”

  “Aye, you must,” said Tituba. “No one in da jail ever be guilty of the crimes.”

  “I’m not a witch,” replied Mary.

  “But you had relations with the Black Man. I know dis.”

  “I was corrupted. Tis not of my own choosing.”

  “That matters none to the magistrate and the men of the Holy Book. Your covenant is bonded in blood and they’ll find a mark on you. Sure enough, they’ll find a mark.”

  Mary dropped her head and listened to the cries coming from Gallows Hill. She hoped they’d be loud enough to drown out her own.

  “There be others that fight against the Black Man and his red devils.”

  Mary looked at Tituba. She sighed and shook her head until dirty clumps of hair hung in front of her face. She spit.

  “You lie.”

  “I do not. Dey call demselves Hunters.”

  “What do they hunt?” Mary asked.

  “What do you think, child? Dey hunt Gaki.”

  Mary giggled and then let the laughter explode into rage. She could still hear the commotion coming from Gallows Hill. It seemed as though Constable Herrick was keeping very busy these days.

  “Are they here, in Salem?”

  “I do not know.”

  Mary laughed and yanked on the iron chain keeping her in the cell.

  “You do, slave. You do and you’d better tell me.”

  “Ahh, you’s such a white child. You don’t think the threat of captivity is going to frighten me, do you?”

  It was now Tituba’s turn to erupt into boisterous laughter.

  “Please, Tituba. I need to know we still have hope, that Salem has hope, that my future descendants have hope.”

  “I’m not a harbinger of hope, young one. But I can tell you the stories from my people, the legends of long gone days.”

  Mary nodded and bit her bottom lip, waiting for Tituba to begin.

  “I comes from a long line of seers from the southern tribes. We spent many generations livin’ in the islands that Cristóbal Colón landed upon. Many of us folks never survived the pox he brought with him. But dat be a story for another day.

  “My people decorated their bodies with ink and piercings to honor our gods. We believed that the sun and moon came from da caves. But the people, they stayed inside afraid that the sun would turn them into demons. The people also believed that they came from the union of Deminán Caracaracol. The first flood brought devastation to the world when a father murdered his son. The father put his son's bones into a gourd and the bones turned into fish, the gourd broke, and all the water of the world came pouring out. When our people died, they believed the Jupias, the souls of the dead, would go to Coaybay, the underworld, and rest during the day. At night they would arise in the form of bats.”

  “And what of the Black Man? Was he there, with your people?” Mary asked.

  “You want to know of the Hunters. But first, you must know what they hunt. Different peoples have different names for him but they all sound filthy. Da one now, Gaki, dat is good as any other so we call him so.

  “Caves above the shore is where my peoples came from, up out of the ground with the first fires of da world. The Caribbean was our universe, and as peaceful as our ancestors were, there were always stories of corruption.”

  “The Black Man?” Mary asked.

  “Aye. But they called him Ciboney, the master dweller of the cave. Ciboney came from the underworld where the wicked play and burn in da fires.”

  “Hell?”

  Tituba nodded and continued.

  “People would see Ciboney creepin’ on the beaches, late at night and early in the morn. He would appear, dark, thin, and loping. The Pe-i-man, da one you call shaman, he would sense the arrival of Ciboney and warn da people to hide, to stay in the huts when he was around. But you know people and their curious ways. Instead of listening to Pe-i-man they confronted Ciboney.”

  “What did he do?”

  “What you think, child? He be corruptin’ da souls like he does in Salem. Once Ciboney start to talkin’, folks be caught in his grip. He make da people jealous, angry, and greedy. Da greed would be so much dat they would not stop. Ever. As time went on and the Pe-i-man was unable to keep da people from Ciboney, he decided it was time to fight the evil. The problem is that the more people Ciboney changed, the fewer there were to help the Pe-i-man fight. And so, many of my people were lost in the years when he first arrived.”

  “When?”

  “Many believe on the floating city that brought the Spanish. Many of my people believe Columbus be da Ciboney. Da white man brought the destruction.”

  “We call him the Black Man in Salem.”

  “Yes,” replied Tituba. “No doubt because da white people see the red devils as darkies and the most important one, he be the Black Man.”

  “Go on,” said Mary.

  “The Pe-i-man gathered the few of da people that could resist Ciboney’s persuasions and they fled to the caves in hopes of destroying the evil where it began. They set out to hunt Ciboney.”

  “The first Hunters.”

  “Maybe. Da first of my people to call themselves Hunters, but I believe there is white man here in da colony that be Hunters too.”

  “Who?” Mary asked.

  “I don’t know child, but I feel dem. And dey come for me.”

  The realization struck Mary and she leaned back against the cold wall of the cell.

  “So you’re with Ciboney. You belong to the Black Man,” Mary whispered.

  “Aye,” replied Tituba. “I signed his book.”

  “Then why are you telling me this?”

  “’Cause you still have a choice child. I don’t. My soul belong to the Black Man. To Ciboney. To Gaki.”

  ***

  Reverend Hale stood in front of Mary Walcott, his nose upturned and a step back from her. He could smell the stench from several feet away. Constable Herrick arranged the clandestine meeting and stood by the door of the meetinghouse to make sure the chief justice would not interrupt the questioning.

  “Do you belong to the Lord?” he asked.

  “My name is white.”

  “That is not what others say. They place your specter throughout Salem, dancing with Lucifer.”

  “What’s to stop the girls from placing yours there, Reverend?”

  Hale sighed and looked over his shoulder at Herrick. The constable smoked while looking out of the window at the darkness enveloping Salem.

  “The devil hath no power over me, Mary. We are not here to speak of your guilt or association.”

  Mary turned her head sideways and looked into Hale’s clean-shaven face. Her gaze dropped down past his impeccable coat and polished boots.

  “You finding the comforts of Salem to your liking, minister?”

  Hale’s hand came up and the slap echoed through the empty meetinghouse. Herrick glanced for a moment and then turned back to his burning leaf.

  “Spare the rod,” he muttered while Mary whimpered.

  “I been chained like an animal in a cage and I be facing charges of witchcraft. Your stiff hand be the least of my worries.”

  “I did not bribe the Constable to speak of your guilt or innocence, Mary. You are not the one I seek.”

  “Tituba,” Mary muttered.

  “Aye. The mulatto slave woman.”

  “She’s Arawak.”

  Hale swatted the air as if to dispel the controversy like an annoying gnat.

  “She signed the Black Man’s book. That is my only concern, restoring the glory of God in the King’s land.”

  “I know not of her persuasions, Reverend
. Tituba was the servant in the Parris household. You’d be best asking the Reverend regarding her allegiances.”

  “I don’t believe that. I think you know of her and the contract with Lucifer.”

  Mary laughed and shook her head. A vision of Gaki in the forest crossed her mind and she wondered if it was all too late anyway.

  “I know nothing of her dealings.”

  “That’s quite a shame because you are next to swing from the rope. Stoughton heard the testimony and you will hang.”

  “And so you’ll save me if I tell you what you want to know of Tituba? Is that it?”

  Hale stood, his eyes hard and boring through hers.

  “Take me back to the cell,” Mary said. She spoke loud enough to get Herrick’s attention. The constable stamped on his smoke and walked toward them.

  “Don’t be foolish. Tituba would have you as a familiar. She would place your hand on the Black Man’s book.”

  “You would damn me with yours. If I shall pass, Reverend, it will be of my own hand and mind. Not of your damn manipulations.”

  “You’ll rot in Hell, Mary Walcott.”

  “I’m already there, Reverend.”

  ***

  Herrick finished locking the shackles around Mary’s wrist while Tituba remained still on the opposite wall. Mary could see her chest rise and fall, the only sign of life from the slave woman.

  “You’ll most likely hang when the rooster crows,” Constable Herrick said. He stood and walked toward the cell door.

  “Worry not of my soul, Constable. There’ll be other crimes from which you can profit.”

  He slapped her across the face, spit into the dirt floor, and locked the cell.

  Mary saw the harvest moon through the tiny window and she tried to hold her tears inside. She thought of her parents. They had done God’s will and yet still suffered a violent end at the hands of the red devils. She could remember the night with the clarity of cold, crisp creek water. They bedded down after the evening meal and Mary remembered her father pushing his desk to the door. He laughed, saying the red devils could not study the good book and wouldn’t know what to do with his furniture. She fell asleep until the shouts and screams woke her. Mary could see the flames consuming everything in Falmouth. When she sat up in bed, the door burst open and the red devils stood in the doorway grinning. Mary huffed, decided the memory would go no further, and contemplated her own impending fate when Tituba spoke.

  “Did you give me to him?”

  Mary started to ask what Tituba what she meant when she decided it was too late to be coy.

  “I did not.”

  It was Tituba’s turn to sigh. She waited for Mary to speak.

  “I told Hale I knew nothing of your covenant with the devil.”

  “Honorable of you, Mary, but it no matter. Hale will find the evidence he needs be it spectral or otherwise. Why did you not save your own soul? Why did you not confess to Hale?”

  “I don’t know,” replied Mary.

  “Will you?” Tituba asked.

  “I don’t know,” Mary repeated.

  ***

  The cell door opened before the sun rose. Mary shook the restless sleep from her eyes and looked up. Tituba was awake, staring at her as Constable Herrick stepped in with his deputies.

  “Your time has come, Mary Walcott. Time for you to swing.”

  Mary felt the aches in her shoulders where the shackles pulled at her arms and she almost welcomed the relief of being freed from her binds in order to die in the noose.

  “I’m gonna watch you die. Gonna smell the life drain from you.”

  She looked at Herrick and ignored his prodding, instead turning to Tituba.

  “You can renounce him. Hunt the Gaki.”

  “Nay,” she replied. “I signed his book and he has me soul.”

  Herrick yanked Mary out of the cell and the last thing she heard from Tituba was a deep, throaty laugh that chilled the marrow in her bones.

  ***

  The crowds gathered on Gallows Hill before the sun had an opportunity to burn the frost from the fields. Some prayed while others stood silently. Herrick loaded Mary onto the cart and the horse pulled her from the jail to the base of the hill. She blinked and looked toward her uncle’s house, where she could make out the silhouettes of Bridget, Captain John, and Mary Sibley. She saw her uncle and aunt standing behind Bridget, arms wrapped around their daughter. They were too far away to see each other’s face, and Mary thought it was probably for the better.

  Reverend Hale came down the trail on his steed. Mary’s eyes met his but he rode past her until he stopped and dismounted near Chief Justice Stoughton. For some reason, Mary looked past the Walcott house and saw a flicker of movement in the northern woods, near the path she walked on many nights. Herrick grabbed her and spun her by the arm toward the gallows, but Mary knew it was them. Gaki, the one known to those in Salem as The Black Man, was there to see her swing. Mary chuckled and thought of her predicament and decided that it was time to pray. Whether or not the Good Lord would hear her, she had a few minutes left on the earth and she decided it was time to do what she could to salvage her everlasting soul.

  Before the Realm: Transformation, Act III

  Salem 1692

  She could no longer suppress the violent memories as the Constable led her up the steps of the gallows and to the noose. It was as if the attack of that night had been superimposed on top of Mary’s current reality, synchronized to her execution. Mary saw the red devils in the doorway and she remembered the paint on the demon’s face, the one that stood between the others with a club in his hand. She remembered his guttural calls, and although she could not identify what he was saying, the look on his face communicated that clearly. The warrior grinned and stepped into the house. Mary’s mother and father shot upright in their bed and the devil was to them in one stride. He struck Mary’s father first. She heard the grotesque sound of his skull cracking open and saw the deep, blank look cross his face. Blood began as a trickle, raining down from his hair and into his beard. Mary’s father leaned and the red devil pushed him over, his lifeless body collapsing to the floor. The warrior then looked at her mother, and Mary’s fear stole her breath. She heard stories about the ways in which the invaders would violate the women of the colony, but Mary was too young to fully identify that fear. However it would happen, Mary knew she was about to lose her mother as well.

  The warrior moved with the speed and agility of the battlefield. His club came down on her mother’s head in the same manner, and Mary would be thankful that God’s mercy delivered a quick death. They heard of other attacks on the frontier. Mary’s father told her about the scalpings, flayings, and of men burned alive on a spit. It would be best if she too would be struck by a single, fatalistic blow. Before the red devils could finish their grisly work, the Black Man stepped through the threshold and scattered them.

  When the image slid away from her vision, Mary stood on the platform with a noose around her neck while the residents of Salem pitched and wailed from below. She closed her eyes and waited for the misery to end.

  “You shall receive a stay of execution.”

  Mary heard the words while waiting for the noose to tighten. She expected to feel the deputy’s hand on her back, pushing her off the platform with a final, cruel taunt to send her to Hell.

  “Do it.”

  It was then that Mary realized that she could no longer hear the crowd. The shouts, jeers, and bloodthirsty cries that filled her ears moments ago were now gone. She hesitated and then finally opened her eyes.

  Mary stood upon a platform that stretched between two oak trees. It was several dozen feet in the air and at the summit of a mountain looking down into a forested valley. She felt the noose on her chest.

  “Welcome.”

  She faced the voice to her right and looked into the eyes of Gaki. He discarded the black clothing and stood in the fading twilight, his tubular, greasy form glowing with a gray hue. The others on
the platform, the damned and the executioners, were gone.

  “What did you do?” she asked.

  He snickered and used his long, spiny fingers to tighten the noose around her neck.

  “I’m sending you through the Portal, to another plane.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “So you can come back to me here and help open the one in Salem. You must go through this one first.”

  Mary shook her head.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You don’t have to. You must suffer to emerge from the darkness. I need you, Mary.”

  She thought of the nighttime encounters with the Black Man in the forest, and the conversations she had with Tituba in the cell.

  “I’ve not signed your book. I’m not in your service.”

  “Not yet, but you will be. You will be…”

  Mary felt Gaki’s hands on her back. He pushed her from the platform. Mary’s body fell for several feet before the noose tightened and choked the light from her eyes. Everything turned black.

  ***

  Mary pushed the rope from her shoulder and let the noose coil on the ground like a dead snake. She stepped out of the rope and looked up at the platform overhead. Mary shook her head, her eyes darting about the empty forest as her heart raced in her chest.

  She drew a breath, exhaling slowly and wincing at the pain in her throat as her lungs tried to pull in more oxygen. She smiled from the joy of being alive until the memory of her execution wiped it from her face. Like a leaf at the mercy of the wind, the image of the gallows floated from Mary’s reach. Worry rushed back in to fill her mind as she struggled to find a connection, a reason for being here.

  A brief flash of insight raced through her head and then left. She remembered his oily voice and the face smeared with filth.

  Gaki, she thought.

  She stepped over the jagged rocks and closed her eyes. Silence. It could have been midsummer. It could have been the dead of winter. She could no longer tell, and even if she could, Mary struggled to remember what those labels meant. The wind was still. The creek in the distance murmured like the whispers at a funeral procession. The insects, the animals, the creatures of the wood fell silent. Again, Mary fought to recall hearing any sound.