by J. Thorn
***
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, h
is 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.
She walked over branches sprawled on the ground and onto a rough path that wound itself farther into the forest. The sun hung at an odd angle, tossing a bland shaft of light ahead, with most of the rays never reaching the ground. Mary looked to the right and saw tattered articles of clothing dangling from the trunks of ancient oaks.
What is this?
Mary looked up into the canopy of branches, which hovered overhead like a worried mother. As far as she could see, ropes and nooses hung empty and cold. Humps lay beneath some.
She continued down the path, knocking aside a shoe, a coat, a satchel. Eventually she stopped and bent down, the aching in her neck causing her to wince. The satchel contained a worn copy of the good book along with a candle and a silver spoon. Mary put them back inside and shook her head back and forth.
Mary threw the strap over one shoulder and shuffled farther down the path. The creek moved closer with each step, and she was happy to hear its meanderings. The natural noise brought a brief sense of normalcy, a memory from childhood: long summer days with her parents on the Maine frontier. She winced as the memory came back like a shock of cold water. Gaki, the red devils, the violent warfare, and finally the witchcraft accusations. Reality crashed on to her shoulders and she fell to the ground under its weight.
She saw more items strewn across the path and kicked a pair of shoes to the side. So many shoes. She wondered why the shoes remained and the bodies did not.
The path curved as it approached the stream, turning right into a grove of high pines, their needles covering the ground. Mary drew a deep breath through her nose, catching the faintest odor of pine, and that made her smile. She savored the distant aroma for as long as she could. It did not last.
She sat on the ground and tried to rally against the mental fog clouding her head. Constable Herrick led her to the platform, the deputy had put the noose around her neck, and… Gaki. The Black Man was there and had pushed her off the platform.
Am I dead? What is this place?
The questions swirled in her mind like autumn.
She looked up and noticed that the sun had dropped closer to the horizon, as if touching the tops of the trees to ignite them. Darkness crept closer, surrounding the far edges of her vision. A chill shook her body, so Mary gathered leaves in her arms. As with the pine needles, she caught a faint whiff of the earthy, organic scent of decomposition. She realized her exposure could mean death, if she was not already dead. Along with the thought came the resurgence of instinct and the will to live.
“Gaki,” she said, unsure whether she was voicing her deepest fear or calling him forth from this new, strange place.
***
Mary sat beneath the oak trees, staring upward at the platform above her head. She knew it existed beneath her feet, in Salem, in 1692. And yet it existed here too. She held her hands over the paltry fire that didn’t seem to rage on the dry twigs the way it should have. The flames felt warm but not hot. Tituba’s words filled her ears and she thought of the slave woman in the cell. Was she alive or dead? Imprisoned or hanged? Mary didn’t know and she thought that she may never find out. Gaki pushed her from the gallows and yet she was not dead, at least she didn’t think so. She was here, in another place. It looked like the King’s colony and yet it didn’t. The trees belonged to Salem and yet they did not. Mary stood and placed her palms over the fire, pushing them down closer to the flame until the top edges licked her fingertips bringing nothing but a mild warming sensation. She held them there, waiting for the searing pain that did not come.
The sun set and Mary looked up at a starless, moonless sky. It appeared more as a gaping hole to an eternal void rather than the celestial home of the heavenly gods. She turned her head sideways and listened for the night sounds. As it had been since she arrived, the forest was as silent as the dead. Mary spread the satchel dow
n on the ground and laid her head upon it. She would sleep and see where or when the morning took her. Her fingers caressed the bruises on her neck as Mary drifted into a shallow, fitful sleep.
***
The morning came, as did her necessary bodily functions. Mary sought some relief in the fact that her body still had needs, a hunger pang tugging at her stomach. She saw the sun rising up from behind the eastern hills as if wrapped in a ball of cotton. It distributed light across the empty forest with a diminished, sullen glare. Mary picked up the satchel and kicked dirt onto the fire that extinguished itself. Her neck throbbed and her back ached without a straw mattress beneath it. There were no birds, insects, or other creatures stirring in the woods. None but Mary.
She walked several paces into the forest and out from beneath the shadow of the gallows. Mary stood there, staring and wondering if another would drop from the air and to the ground as she did. If it happened once, she thought, it could certainly happen again. After several minutes, Mary decided that even if the mysterious gallows dropped another to the ground, she may not want to be around to greet that person. They could be dead, violent, or both. She turned and walked in the opposite direction and heard the slight murmur of running water. Mary followed the sound through the trees until she stumbled upon a creek nestled beneath the trees. She bent down and scooped up a handful of water. When she saw Gaki’s reflection standing behind her, Mary screamed and spun to face the demon.
“First in a vision, and now on this plane. You have come through the Portal as I thought you would.”
Mary stepped backward trying to escape the stench emanating from the creature. She splashed the water upon her face and shook her head.
“Where am I? Where have you taken me?”
“It is disorienting at first, I know. You will adjust.”
Gaki sat on a rock facing her, his bluish-gray skin glowing from the evil within. He had not bothered with the black clothing.
“Adjust to what? Where are the people of Salem, and why is the gallows in those trees?”