Predestination Unknown

by Tanya Chris

  Tituba was sent back across the street with the bailiff, the crowds dispersed, and the girls, without an audience to impress, settled down.

  “We must have her back to testify tomorrow,” said the man with the cane who’d observed from a judge-like stance at front-center. Other than the dictatorial thumping, he’d remained silent during the proceedings. “When the veil has been lifted from Tituba’s eyes, we’ll discover more of this evil.”

  “You’ll come again tomorrow, Ezekiel?” the questioner asked. “After services.”

  “It be my duty,” Ezekiel agreed.

  The questioner’s eyes flickered to me, but he didn’t comment. He pulled a large cloak down from a peg on the wall and he and his cane-wielding cohort thumped away, leaving the room silent and surprisingly empty.

  Pews, a few chairs, the small desk Ezekiel sat at, and one lectern-like speaking platform at the front—that was all the large, square room held now. Like the Cheever’s house, the meeting house was constructed of wood, but it’d been painted white, inside and out, making it feel even emptier now that the flock of Puritans had flown off.

  “You’d rather not come back tomorrow,” I observed as I watched Ezekiel clean his quill.

  “There’s so much to do around the farm to be ready for spring, and I’ve lost most of the light today. There will only be time to see to the animals when we return.”

  “Is there something I can do to help?”

  Ezekiel shook his head. He lifted the top of the desk and stashed the quill and inkwell inside. “Not without you should already know what to do. You’ve never ridden a horse …”

  He trailed off as though not wanting to voice his assumption that I was useless around a farm.

  “It’s all right,” I said. “It’s true. I don’t know what I’m doing yet. I’ll learn, but—” But I wouldn’t learn fast enough to help tonight.

  “’Tis only a day.” He rose and collected his own cloak from the row of pegs. “I’ll find a way to make up the time.”

  Well, shit. It wouldn’t be only a day. If Ezekiel was going to be called in to every one of these hearings, he had a busy few months ahead of him.

  “It could go on a bit,” I warned. “You remember Tituba said there were three other witches whose names she didn’t know?”

  “Yes, though I can scarcely credit it. That we should have such evil in Salem. There have been those who tried to warn us that we had become too worldly, that we strayed too far from God’s word, but I did not think it could be true. The town folk are good people, Luther. I do believe so.”

  “Do you know the women who’ve been accused?”

  “Some little bit, mostly to name them. Sarah Osborn has not been to church these many months and I do believe that is how the devil entered her. We don’t have any Baptist churches in Salem,” he said, switching topics. “You’ll worship with us tomorrow, I hope.”

  I nodded. I didn’t want the devil entering me.

  “You needn’t stay for the examination after if you would prefer not.”

  Yeah, I figured I’d prefer not. Watching this stuff happening in real time was spooky and horrible. Unless‍ …

  “I could do it,” I said. “Transcribe the testimony, I mean. I can’t help around the farm much, but I can do that.”

  “You can write?” Ezekiel raised his eyebrows. I told myself not to be insulted. Writing wasn’t a ubiquitous skill in 1692, regardless of skin color.

  “I’ve never used a quill before,” I admitted. “And I shape some of my letters different than yours, but I could pick that up fast enough.”

  Ezekiel dashed over to the desk and opened it. He brought out something that looked like a miniature blackboard and a piece of chalk.

  “Show me,” he said as he handed me the chalk. I bent over the desk and wrote “Ezekiel Cheaver” on the board in print letters.

  He used his thumb to smudge out the A in Cheaver and wrote an E in its place.

  “Now your name,” he commanded.

  I wrote “Luther Johnson” beneath his name. Then, on a whim, I drew a heart between the two. I didn’t know if the symbol would mean anything to him but when he lifted his head up, I saw that it did.

  He gave me a soft, shy smile before smudging the heart out.

  “Your ways are not our ways.”

  “Sorry.”

  He wiped the board clean and stashed it back in the desk.

  “Is it sanctioned in the Baptist church that two men should … should feel what a man ought feel toward a woman?”

  I hesitated. Even in 2017, I couldn’t say the Baptists were wholly on board with that notion, but the church my grandmother went to was at least tolerant. She’d left a church that wasn’t when I’d come out at seventeen. I’d told her she didn’t need to do that—I’d long since stopped going to church myself, and maybe that was part of the reason—but she’d said she couldn’t be in the right frame of mind to pray if people were talking down her baby boy.

  “My family’s church believes people like us are also God’s children,” I told him.

  “But we are not of the Elect. Long have I known that I am not chosen.”

  “Chosen for what?” I asked.

  “For heaven. Were I one of the Elect, God would not have made me with this sin in my heart.”

  Shit, that was some twisted logic. God had made him gay on purpose, but not because being gay was cool, more like to keep him out of heaven. Or something. I couldn’t quite parse it out. Religion was so fucking weird.

  When I’d been young, my grandmother had always told me that God loved me, and I’d believed her, like it was that simple, but when I’d grown old enough to understand what the preachers were preaching, I realized it wasn’t simple at all. God maybe loved me, if I was worthy of it. God had created me, but He wasn’t taking the blame for this thing in me that made me unlovable.

  “I’d choose you,” I told Ezekiel. I was grateful to God or to fate or to whatever had arranged it so that my one friend in this strange time was another gay man, though really it was Ezekiel’s fault I’d broken through that mirror in the first place. Chasing tail always did land a brother in trouble.

  Well, I wasn’t going to chase Ezekiel’s tail, not anymore, no matter how adorable and innocent he might be. Like the way he looked right now—as if just me saying that I’d choose him was the most romantic, sexy thing that’d ever happened to him. It probably was, too. It made me tender towards him in a way I wasn’t accustomed to feeling with my sex partners.

  Sex was usually sex, not a meeting of the minds or hearts. Just a meeting of cocks and mouths and asses and hands and—hell—ears, if that was what got a body off. I’d had a few short relationships in high school, when my pool had been limited and it had paid to go through it slowly, but college meant a seemingly endless supply of options. Something better, or just something new, always awaited me.

  Popping back to 1692 meant that my pool of available gay men had shrunk to one, and it meant, for the first time since those romances in high school, that my partner was someone inexperienced and unsure. I needed to remember how inexperienced and unsure felt and lay off the innuendo.

  “If you write out the alphabet and give me a quill, I’ll practice copying it tonight,” I told him, sticking to what was helpful. “By tomorrow, I’ll be ready to take your place here.”

  “I would be most appreciative.” He held out his hand for me to shake and I took it, hoping that someday he’d be comfortable giving me more.

  Chapter 7

  I hadn’t been looking forward to Mr. Cheever’s reaction to my return, but the Cheever family was so eager to hear what had happened at the proceedings that my presence was hardly noticed. Abigail served me dinner as though I’d been living there forever and hadn’t dropped in out of nowhere the night before.

  Little Tom was particularly interested in hearing about the witches, in contrast to his mother, who feared that mentioning their names might summon them, and Abigail, who peered arou
nd her as if they might already have been summoned.

  Mr. Cheever listened to Ezekiel lay out the sequence of events and asked an occasional question. I wondered if I should volunteer what I’d noticed about leading the witness, but decided I’d do best to eat instead of talk.

  “Mr. Hathorne asked if I’d return on the morrow, as they’re planning to question Tituba again,” Ezekiel told his father.

  “Tomorrow is the Sabbath,” Mr. Cheever pointed out.

  “It’s God’s work,” Ezekiel said, “and it will come in the afternoon, after church.”

  Mr. Cheever nodded his approval.

  “Mr. Johnson may perhaps take my place.”

  “You’re able to scribe at that pace?” the senior Mr. Cheever asked me.

  “I think so.” I’d rather use a laptop, but I’d manage. “I’d like to be of use while I’m here.”

  “We shall practice after supper,” Ezekiel offered.

  “So long as Mr. Hathorne is in agreement.” Mr. Cheever spared me a small smile as Mrs. Cheever and the girls rose to clear the table. I itched to help and then decided—fuck it. I picked up my plate and Ezekiel’s and carried them over to the dish basin.

  When I returned, I caught Mr. Cheever’s raised eyebrows aimed my way.

  “Like I said, I’d rather be useful while I’m here. Mrs. Cheever cooked us a fine meal, so I can help clean up.”

  The table looked at me like I was speaking twenty-first century but Ezekiel stammered out a quiet. “Thank you, Mother, for the hearty fare.”

  I dropped back into my spot on the bench and steeled myself for Bible study, which was mercifully shorter than the evening before. When Mr. Cheever closed the worn book with a muffled thud, Ezekiel fetched a quill and a sheet of paper and wrote out the alphabet across the top of the page.

  “I can write all the letters,” Abigail told me. I was hemmed in by Cheevers—Ezekiel sitting to my left, Abigail hanging over my shoulder, and Tom crowding me on the right.

  “So can I,” I said defensively, “just not fancy like your brother.”

  “I can write them fancy,” Tom said.

  “You can’t either,” Abigail argued. “You can’t write your letters at all. You can’t even say your letters.”

  That prompted Tom to recite the alphabet—or as much of the alphabet as he knew, which turned out to be something less than all twenty-six available letters. While I practiced my penmanship and Abigail called out corrections to us both, Tom, in a dignified fury, recited louder and louder, though not any more accurately. He kept getting tangled up between K and Q and since that was the most fun part of the alphabet song, I sang it for him.

  The Cheevers listened attentively, all eyes on me. Apparently that song hadn’t been invented in 1692.

  “Sing it again,” Tom demanded.

  I sang the alphabet song through a few more times according to his wishes until Ezekiel shooed him away.

  “Mr. Johnson needs to practice writing his letters, not singing them.”

  My first attempt at writing with a quill had resulted in a gigantic blotch, but before long I was flowing ink across the page in letters shaped more or less like Ezekiel’s.

  “You shall serve most excellently,” Ezekiel said, glancing up at his father for agreement. “I’ll speak to Mr. Hathorne at church tomorrow morning.”

  “Also do you have a very fine voice, Mr. Johnson,” Mrs. Cheever said. “I look forward to hearing it raised in praise on the morrow.”

  Tom had already been whisked off to bed by Isabel, his sleepy voice trailing notes of the alphabet down the stairs behind him. I followed the flickering light of Ezekiel’s candle to his bedroom where I changed into my night clothes with less hesitation then the day before. I was still wearing the same boxer briefs and Snoop Dog t-shirt—and what was the upper limit on how many days I could tolerate that, I wondered—but they were safely hidden below Robert’s standard-issue long underwear.

  Once under the covers, I rolled to face Ezekiel’s side of the bed. This haven of warmth next to a hard, sweet man was my only spot of comfort in this strange time and place I couldn’t figure out how to escape from. Not much about my day had gone well, but at least it would end well.

  We mirrored each other—up on one elbow with our free arms curled over our bodies so that our hands nearly touched in the narrow strip of mattress separating us.

  “You’ve been educated.” Ezekiel had blown out the candle, so he was no more than a shadow and the sensation of warmth.

  “I’ve been to college.”

  “Which college? The New college?”

  “Rutgers. It’s in, um … It’s not anywhere near here—back where home is.” Or forward where home was.

  “What did you study? Was it Divinity?”

  “No, it was …” How was I supposed to explain data management and analytics? “Math. Mathematics.”

  Ezekiel’s body settled deeper into the bed. He was tired, no doubt, after a day at the courthouse and an evening madly scrambling to catch up on chores at home, but I didn’t want to go to sleep. Not yet.

  “What would you study if you went to college?” I asked him. “Divinity?”

  “Of a certainty, except that I’m not chosen and that is why I don’t go. ’Tis not really because of the farm, though someone must look after it.”

  There was that word “chosen” again.

  “I’m not a Congregationalist,” I reminded him. “Can you tell me more about being chosen? It might be helpful to know before church tomorrow.”

  As he described his church’s belief system, I remembered the modern word for it: predestination. Puritans believed that God had already decided, before they were even born, whether they were going to heaven or not. Didn’t sound like many people were chosen, and Ezekiel had already decided he wasn’t one of them.

  “How do you know?” I asked. If anyone belonged in heaven, he did.

  “Because I have those feelings.” His voice was quiet and suddenly far away. “A member of the Elite would never feel such a thing. The Elite are Godly. That is how they know—how we all know—that they’ve been chosen—by the way they act. They’re the true representatives of God on earth.

  “So I’m not chosen either?”

  “You’re not even of our faith, Luther.”

  “So I’m exempt from these rules?”

  Ezekiel shifted, like he couldn’t decide whether to move closer or farther away. “If you aren’t of our faith, you can’t be one of the Elite. The chosen would have been chosen.”

  “Chosen to be Congregationalists? You mean all the Elite in the world are clumped together right here in Salem?”

  “There are Godly in England as well.”

  “Yes, but— Ezekiel, do you know how many people there are in the world? And you think only the handful born into this faith will be saved? Not even all of you—just some of you. That’s … evil.”

  “Evil? Luther, are you calling God evil?”

  “Not God, but that ideology, the people who’ve taught it to you. I’ll bet they all call themselves Elite.”

  “Yes, certainly. Our elders are selected by their righteousness.”

  I couldn’t stop the snort of disbelief and anger. “Yeah, their righteousness. I think I heard a couple of your Elite talking this morning.” Plotting how to get out of supporting the poor. Funny, that was what the “righteous” were up to in 2017 too. “I don’t accept it.”

  “You don’t accept what?”

  “That I’m not chosen, or that you’re not chosen either. Let me guess—those women today, the ones accused of being witches, none of them are chosen, are they?”

  “I would presume not, but we can’t know who’s chosen. Only God can know, and a person can know, in their heart, that God calls them.”

  “Then you need to listen closer, Ezekiel. God is calling you just fine. Just because you’re gay—”

  “Oh, but I am gay,” he interrupted. “Do not concern yourself for me. I’m not mournf
ul. I’ll enjoy this life, and do God’s will in it, and be joyful with it. ’Tis my place.”

  “No, not … not gay like that.” Though I couldn’t help but think that Ezekiel was one of the happiest guys I’d ever known. If I ever made it back to my own time, I was going to give a few people, including myself, a stern talking to about how lucky we were. “Gay means … what I am. What you are.”

  “Sodomites?”

  “Oh for God’s sake, don’t say that word. Say gay. Or queer if you like that better.”

  “Queer,” he repeated, and then “Gay. I do like that it’s a happy word. I’ll not say sodomite to you, nor those other words either, but Luther? Will you kindly not take the Lord’s name in vain in return?”

  “Geez, I didn’t mean— Wait, geez is probably bad too. Shit. I mean, I’ll work on it—” my grandmother didn’t think much of that habit of mine either “—but you have to work on believing that you and I are as chosen as anyone.”

  He shrugged. It was going to take more than my say-so to talk him out of a lifetime’s worth of less-than messages.

  “You know,” I drawled, thinking it was time to move to less serious subjects, “since we were born sinners, we might as well sin.”

  “Sin?”

  I loved the edge of nerves I heard in his voice. I leaned over him, my chest pressing his into the mattress. His breath washed over me, smelling of rosemary from the potatoes we’d had for dinner. I dipped lower, bumping my nose against his, nudging them together in a delicate slide.

  It was sweet and erotic, this near-kiss. The thought flickered through my mind that it’d been too long since I’d been laid if I was finding nose contact erotic, but I ignored it. I found him erotic. He was breathing hard enough that his chest lifted mine. His eyes were open, his expression something like a rabbit longing for the wolf.