The Last Witchfinder

by James Morrow

  “If you aim to rekindle our affection for one another, you will not succeed.” She sidled toward the worktable. “I’ll show you no hospitality beyond a piece of cheese and a night’s lodging in my barn.”

  “‘Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way,’” he quoted. “‘First be reconciled with thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.’”

  “I am sensible of the sermon you evoke. ’Tis my recollection the Savior was reproaching those who spurn their siblings without cause. I have cause, Dunstan. I have cause.”

  “Suedomsa’s messenger saw you draw down the lightning-fire. Why hobnails? The hobnails are perplexing.” Reaching into the deerskin pouch on his belt, he filled his palm with bits of stale acorn-bread. He brought his hand to his open mouth as if concealing a yawn, then jammed the crumbs inside. “Explore your western woods—you’ll find the messenger’s hut, his cooking pots, the bones of twenty hares. So many bones in the world. Bones upon bones. Abby’s bones still lie in Massachusetts.”

  “Abby’s bones?”

  “The messenger’s wife. Abigail Stearne. Her bones.”

  “Were I a better Christian, this news would sadden me.”

  “Murdered.”

  She released an involuntary moan. “Murdered?” Swallowing hard, she smoothed out the green silk handkerchief, then laid it atop the cedar cross.

  “Murdered, aye.”

  “As she nearly murdered me with her mendacity.”

  “Murdered by parties unknown.” Dunstan devoured another handful of bread crumbs. He jerked up from the couch and limped to the worktable, casting the handkerchief aside as he might a filthy nose-rag. He seized the cedar cross, and, bringing it to his mouth, kissed the axis. “The messenger acknowledges but one authority in the matter of demonology, and ’tis not the English Parliament. This day Suedomsa will either press the cup of martyrdom to his prophet’s lips, or he will allow that cup to pass.”

  “To give the name of martyr to your hideous little life is to soil a noble word.” She took the cross from him and, retrieving the handkerchief, tied each corner to a separate node.

  Now the rain arrived, large steady droplets pelting the chestnut leaves and making them crackle like spitted meat on a slow fire. Dunstan rushed to the hearth and, for reasons not immediately apparent, removed the glass-chimneyed lamp from its peg. “‘Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill brought low,’” he quoted, tearing the cork stopper from the fount. He lifted the lamp high, inverted it, and—much to her astonishment—showered his head with the fuel, so that the glistery beads rolled down his cheeks like tears. Whale-oil fumes wafted through the parlor, raw and briny, layered like Barbados rum. “The messenger needs another draught.”

  “Dunstan, you mustn’t do this.”

  “Another draught of chrism.”

  “I shan’t permit it.”

  “Another draught.”

  A familiar voice broke upon the scene, rising unbidden through the strata of her brain. “Prithee, do as he commands,” Isobel Mowbray said.

  At first Jennet wondered if the voice might indeed be her aunt’s, drifting in from some hinterland of Heaven, but she soon decided the specter enjoyed no reality beyond her skull. Marching into the kitchen, she resolved to revel in this felicitous ability to delude herself, and so she bid other ghosts join Isobel’s.

  “Bring him what he wants,” Susan Diggens’s shade commanded in tones evocative of rusty hinges.

  “I shall,” Jennet said, approaching the pantry.

  “The man needs his chrism,” said Bridget Bishop of Salem-Village.

  “God forgive me,” Jennet said.

  “Baptize him with fire,” Rebecca Nurse said.

  Jennet took down the earthenware jug. “I did not imagine it would end this way.”

  “More oil,” Giles Corey said.

  “As you wish,” she replied.

  “Do it in remembrance of my father,” said Veronica Junius, daughter of Johannes.

  j

  AN UNCERTAIN INTERVAL ELAPSED. Perhaps she lived amongst the revenants for a minute, perhaps a month—she couldn’t say. She experienced a flying sensation, as if astride an enchantress’s besom, and the next thing she knew she was back in her parlor, clutching the earthenware jug.

  Dunstan still stood by the hearth.

  “Whether a man be Papist or Protestant,” she said, setting the jug before him, “self-slaughter’s a sin.”

  He unstoppered the jug, flung the cork to the floor, and, like a priest of Apollo pouring a libation on an altar, drenched himself with the rendered blubber. “‘Thou anointest my head with oil.’” The dark flashing rivulets spilled down his arms and soaked his frock. “‘My cup runneth over.’” Stinking of whale juice, he returned to the worktable and attached the tail to the kite.

  “If you mean to fly that thing, you must add the leather bridle and put on paraffin boots.”

  “When the messenger and his sister were but children, seven years old, eight years old, their father took ’em to a splendid fair in Ipswich.” He tied the twine to the juncture of the sticks, then bore the kite into the anteroom. “A harlequin had come up from London, bringing with him a trained African baboon.”

  “I remember. You drew the ape’s portrait.”

  “It danced for all the children. You laughed most joyously.” He opened the door and stepped into the rain. “I’faith, Jenny, your brother loved you that day. He loved you more than love allows. He thanked the Almighty for giving him a sister.”

  She followed him across the lawn, the wind whipping her hair, the rain peppering her cheeks and brow, then rooted herself near the mooring post. He continued another twenty paces, stopping beside the lean-to. She shut her eyes and attempted to revive Aunt Isobel’s voice, Susan Diggens’s specter, all the desires of her mind. Apparently the urge to contact occult entities and do other witchy things lay deep within every person’s soul—even those who knew such communion to be impossible.

  She waited. No voices. No visions. Her brain had run through its catalogue of phantoms. She blinked, staring toward the lean-to, until at last a legible image emerged from the blur. Defying the elements, scorning the odds, Dunstan had gotten the kite aloft, his hands wrapped around the saturated fly-line. With icy determination he aimed the device at an immense storm cloud.

  “‘And now also the ax is laid unto the root of the tree’!” quoth Dunstan as the kite dove into the nebulous black mass. “‘Every tree therefore which yieldeth not good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire’!”

  A blinding white bolt came forth, cleaving the innermost of Aristotle’s crystalline spheres. Dunstan fell to his knees, fingers interlaced in prayer, the wet twine still locked betwixt his palms. A second bolt cracked the celestial dome. The great Aristotelian globe shattered. Contacting the pointed wire, the sparks jumped to the fly-line. All along the twine, the hempen filaments stood erect like the fur of an enraged cat.

  Dunstan laughed. The sparks spilled into his praying hands. He simultaneously cried his Savior’s name, released the kite, and burst into flames. The kite shot away like an arrow. Jennet moved to cover her eyes, but the tableau transfixed her. For a full twenty minutes she studied the oily, burning, screaming heap, the raindrops hissing as they met the fire, the fleshy embers orbiting the lean-to, until the last of the sodden ashes settled to earth, and she saw that all goblins were gone, all demons dead, all spirits fled, and there were no more witches in the world.

  j

  SHE SPENT THE NEXT DAY scrubbing the remaining corpuscles of Dunstan from her life. By tramping through her western woods, setting and resetting her course in an ever narrowing spiral, she eventually located his hut, a rude structure suggesting a wigwam assembled by the inmates of Bedlam. She smashed the thing to pieces with her hatchet, then appropriated her brother’s cooking pot and gathered up his three-volume library—La Démonomanie des Sorciers, the Malleus Maleficarum, the Holy Bible.

  That evening she
dug an irregular and unsightly pit behind the barn. She hesitated to inter his Scripture, but everything else went into the hole, his charred pocket-watch, melted spectacles, carbonized bones, malignant books. She shoveled back the dirt. The situation seemed to demand a kind of inverse eulogy, and for a moment she considered reciting one of Barnaby’s favorite imprecations (May your sins consign you to a pit so deep ’tis yet your address after Hell’s been sold to Rome), but in the end she decided that a witchfinder was not worth even the breath required to curse him.

  Three days later, as she meandered through her garden uprooting weeds and trimming vines, she was startled to observe a squat man in a grimy tan surtout making his way toward the farmhouse, a leather valise protruding from his spine like Robert Hooke’s hump. She intercepted him at the midpoint of the flagstone path. Their transaction took but a minute. The mail-carrier strode away whistling, a half-crown gratuity in his pocket.

  She scurried back into the house, shredded the envelope, and, scattering the bits of paper across the floor like a grass-maid seeding a park, unfolded the letter from Paris.

  4 April 1738

  Ma Chère Maman:

  As you well know, my sweet pathetic Father view’d Postal Carriers as the most heroic of Persons, and so I shall honor his Memory by assuming my Words will reach you ere Autumn comes to Pennsylvania.

  This Letter is occasion’d largely by my Acquaintance with a remarkable Englishman, Jonathan Belcher, former Royal Governor of Massachusetts Bay. Upon retiring from his administrative Post, Mr. Belcher spent several Years touring the European Capitals, and his Fondness for Tragedy and Comedy inevitably brought him to the Théâtre Français, where he oft-times observ’d my Portrayals of Corneille’s Heroines and Molière’s Ingénues. Shortly after seeing me in Le Médicin Malgré Lui, Mr. Belcher became the Patron of my Career, supplying me with such Funds as I required whilst awaiting a new Rôle. Lest your Imagination run to lascivious Fancies, let me assert that my Dealings with this Gentleman have been altogether free of improper Conduct. Our Connection is essentially in the Nature of a Friendship, Nothing more, though surely Nothing less.

  ’Twas through Mr. Belcher I learn’d of your Part in the Philadelphia Witch-Trial, which at the Time was much discuss’d here in Paris. Not long into his Account of the Proceeding and its Aftermath, Mr. Belcher mention’d that the Defendant was Blood-Sister to the Prosecutor, one Dunstan Stearne. Knowing Stearne to be your Maiden Name, I soon deduc’d that the Crown’s Advocate was my Uncle Dunstan, the escap’d Enchantress my own Mother. As you are mayhap aware, your Testimony in Philadelphia inspir’d Mr. Belcher to enjoin the Massachusetts Cleansers from practicing their Trade, which Action doubtless prevent’d the unjust Executions of many heathen Savages.

  And so it happens that my Attitude to you hath of late undergone a Revolution. I cannot forgive your Treatment of me, but neither can I shake my Admiration for you. You are still my Nemesis, and yet you are also my Idol. Mr. Belcher avers that such Ambivalence is not a terrible Thing. He says ’tis better to go through Life in thrall to Paradox than indentur’d to Regret.

  For the Moment this is All I have to say, chère Maman. I harbor a fond Hope that you will wish to continue this Correspondence, as I am curious to learn just how astonishing we might become to one another.

  Tous mes amitiés,

  I remain your affectionate

  Rachel

  It was a good letter, she decided, as pleasing a product as might ever issue from the Great Jovian Storm that was their relationship. True, she would rather have achieved the status of mother in Rachel’s eyes than the designation idol. But idol was adequate. Idol would do.

  The following morning she slipped her daughter’s letter into her jacket pocket and took the day-coach to Philadelphia, subsequently consuming a noontime meal of broiled shad and fresh-water mussels at the Black Horse Tavern. At one o’clock she ambled down Market Street to Franklin and Meredith’s Printing-House.

  No sooner had she stepped into the shop, her entrance heralded by the famous brass bell, than Ben and William, huddled over the older Blaeu press, together pulled the spindle lever, rolled back the bed, and peeled the fruit of their industry from the type-form. The boy waved the wet broadsheet through the air as exuberantly as an explorer about to plant his nation’s flag on a newly discovered continent.

  “Mother! Mother! Look what I made!”

  “Ah, I see you’ve taken up your father’s trade,” she said.

  “I did it all on my own,” he said. “Compositing, framing, inking, printing. Father helped only a little.”

  “This man pursues the noblest calling in the world,” Jennet said, kissing Ben’s cheek. “I think of a remark once spoken by our friend the Baron de Montesquieu. ‘I have never known any distress that an hour’s reading did not relieve.’” She passed Ben the pages from Paris. “Look at this.”

  As Ben unfolded Rachel’s letter, William placed the broadsheet in Jennet’s hands.

  “Take care not to smear it,” the boy admonished her.

  WANTED

  by

  HIS MAJESTY KING GEORGE II:

  WILLIAM FRANKLIN

  Age 12 Years,

  for

  * Piracy on the High Seas

  * Daring Mail-Coach Robberies

  * Forgetting to Wash Hands

  * Neglecting to Study Multiplication Tables

  £100 REWARD

  for such Information as may lead

  to the Capture of this most

  NOTORIOUS CRIMINAL

  “I’ve heard of this fugitive Franklin,” Jennet said. “Is he not the lad robbed the Royal Mint last year, making off with two king’s ransoms and a sack of shillings?”

  “That’d be he, ma’am,” William said.

  “My son, thou art surely the second most skillful printer in Pennsylvania.”

  With the back of his hand Ben gave Rachel’s letter an emphatic swipe. “’Tis the very rock on which a reconciliation ’twixt mother and daughter might be built,” he told Jennet. “You must reply anon.”

  The midday sun blazed like a hearth fire, sending trickles of sweat down everyone’s temples and raising red blotches on their cheeks. “I shall draft a letter to Rachel this evening,” she said, fanning herself with William’s broadsheet. “However, I am dubious concerning the ultimate efficacy of such a correspondence.”

  “You’ve ne’er shared my affection for optimism,” Ben said. “There be no need to start now.”

  She cupped her palm around William’s shoulder. “Son, methinks the two of us should go down to the Schuylkill, that we might gain some relief from this uncivilized heat.”

  A smile as wide as Hezekiah Creech’s, and high as the Maw of Folkestone’s, appeared on the boy’s face.

  They arrived at the riverbank shortly after two o’clock. William stripped himself down to his underclothes, and then she guided him along a ramp of sand and into the water, one cautious step at a time. The current lifted her skirt to the level of her hips, fanning it outward like the petals of a lily.

  Placing one hand against his neck, another under his rump, she gradually tilted his body backward—a Deist baptism, she mused, observed with regal apathy by the Cosmic Clockmaker—until the Schuylkill lapped at his sides and touched his ears. When he voiced a fear that he was about to sink, she proceeded to instruct him in Mr. Boyle’s buoyancy principle, explaining that if a swimmer kept his head low and his lungs nearly full, he could not but remain on the surface. Heartened by this knowledge, William inhaled, held his breath, arched his back, and, sensing that he was waterborne, asked his mother to step away. She withdrew her hands, and he forthwith found himself a-float, ready to embrace the aquatic life as joyfully as any otter.

  “And now you are evermore immune to drowning,” she said.

  “’Twas considerably less painful than becoming immune to the small-pox,” he said.

  For the balance of the afternoon they played at nine-pins and fished without success fo
r perch and suckers, then watched the westering sun dip toward the unseen reaches of the wild continent. The waters evaporated from her skirt, leaving behind subtle dots of mud and delicate threads of moss that, depending on one’s attitude to fashion, looked either appallingly untidy or appealingly primeval.

  As dusk settled over the Schuylkill, mother and son started east toward the Godfrey mansion, eating their way from one Market Street stall to the next. William stuffed himself with venison pasties, gooseberry tarts, almond puddings, and corn fritters, washing it all down with apple cider and unfermented syllabub.

  At seven o’clock she delivered the satiated boy to his door. Sour and stubby Deborah Franklin greeted her stepson with an extravagant smile and a firm hug, a ritual that evidently drained her reserves of cordiality, for she neither asked after Jennet’s welfare nor invited her into the house.

  “Farewell, dear William,” Jennet said. “Next time I shall teach you how to swim beneath the water.”

  “Beneath?”

  “Holding your breath.”

  “How far might I go before I must have air?” he asked.

  “From one bank of the Schuylkill to the other,” she replied.

  “Hurrah!” His face glowed like a night-crier’s lanthorn.

  “That sounds dangerous,” Deborah said.

  “Young William was born to the beat of the tide and the crash of the surf.” Jennet stepped off the stoop and started into the darkening mist. “He shall always count the water his friend!”

  The coming of night failed to cool Philadelphia, and so once again she went down to the river. Betimes she came upon a willow tree, as stately as the one that marked Pashpishia’s grave, and there she shed her garments, securing them beneath a stone. She followed the shore to a place where the Schuylkill ran deep. She pressed her palms together and, leaning over the bank, bent her knees and jumped. The water received her. Rolling onto her back, she worked her legs in a flutter kick, her arms as if making an angel in snow. She moved against the flow. How far north, exactly, might she travel via this medium? To New York? Unlikely. To Massachusetts? Certainly not. And yet her great desire that night was to swim to the Kokokehom, seek out Pussough, and take him to her bower by the Hoosic.