by Lara Parker
“What sort of cake?”
“Huckleberry and molasses—your favorite, is it not?” She smiled at him and pulled off her damp cloak and laid it on the bench. He stood dumbly watching her, and she was uncertain how to proceed. After an awkward moment, she took his hand. “Come, sit with me by the fire and I will give it you.” When they were settled on the hearth, she reached into the bodice of her dress and watched his eyes while she extracted a small package. Holding it in both hands, she presented it as if it were a bag of wampum, or something equally precious. He took it and unwrapped the cloth. The cake was perfectly round and nicely browned and still smelled of the oven. Disguised by the cinnamon and molasses were the odors of potent herbs, lovelorn and lavender, and the thimbleful of her urine. Andrew broke off a piece with his fingertips and placed it in his mouth. Soon he was chewing happily, and Miranda saw once again with dismay in her heart that he was only a simple man.
As she listened to the smacking sounds Andrew made while he ate, she looked around the hovel. The floor was dirt and the walls unpeeled pine logs with mud daubed in the cracks. The rafters were cedar saplings and the woven rushes that covered them were thick enough to keep out the rain, which was falling now with a drumming sound on the ground outside. The hut did not leak, but it breathed in such moisture the atmosphere felt damp and cold in spite of the fire that spit and crackled, but offered little comfort. Still the hut was a tidy enough place. The room smelled of Andrew’s leather clothes and his slab of venison that hung from a hook on the wall. She also could sniff cooked fish in a pan, or was it eels? Andrew would be fine on her farm, a man at ease with the earth.
On his rough-hewn table, a tin cup was turned over in a cracked porcelain basin that she thought he might use to wash his food, or himself. Then she saw his musket lying on the larger bench and the metal parts spread out on a rag for cleaning. The horn was filled with powder and his good deerskin coat hung on the back of the chair. The golden hide glowed and the turned-out seams were as pale in the firelight as tassels of flax.
“What are these preparations?” she asked.
“The farmers from these parts are coming for me tonight and we are banding together. That is why you must away.”
“You don’t plan to join the militia?”
“Aye, that I do, and we conduct a raid early tomorrow.” He wiped the crumbs from his mouth. “This time we mean to kill them all.”
She watched him in the firelight as he devoured the last of her cake. Now she had only to wait for its sorcery. When he felt her eyes on him he looked up, and she smiled and said, “What do you see when you look on me, Andrew?”
“What say you?”
She pushed her hair back from her face, and sat tall. “Am I comely to thine eye?”
He blinked, not grasping her meaning. His mouth hung open and she could see crumbs of the cake inside. “Aye, lass.”
“Tell me what you see.”
“Why, dark hair with a shine on it and pale blue eyes. A fair face.” He let his eyes roam over her body. “And a fair form.”
“And do you think that you will have enjoyment with me as your wife?”
His eyes clouded and he looked at the cloth in his hands. Then he ate the last crumb, saying nothing. She saw his face redden beneath his beard; his curly brows fairly flew out into the air.
“Do not go and battle,” she said. “We are at peace with the Naumkeag.”
Rising to this subject as though relieved to be done with the other, he answered. “King Phillip’s sons have returned to the river valley and joined with the Narragansett.”
“Andrew, this is foolhardy. I fear for you grievously. There is a peace. Signed by the Wampanoag and our governor.”
“But still they burn small farms. It is better to go after them where they lie than wait until they attack us here some night in our beds and kill us all, scalp us, and take our clothes.”
Hearing him mouth the words he had learned from older, wiser men made her weary and she rose, walked over to where he sat, and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Andrew, I beg you, do not take part in more killing. The great sachems are dead.”
“What knowledge have you, a mere jade?”
“I heard the Reverend tell Goody Collins that Canonchet, a chief of the Narragansett, has been beheaded. Their villages were burned, their children scattered. He said they go to join the Algonquin in the North.”
“That is only what some would have us believe.”
She sighed. He was dull-witted and stubborn, a dreadful combination in a man. She felt desolate when she looked at him, but where else could she go? And now he was out to kill himself. She knelt at his feet and placed her hands on his knees. “These people were once friendly to us. You remember, do you not, when the two warriors brought you seeds?”
Embarrassed by her forwardness, he rose heavily and began to pace. “Friendly? That is in the past. The Indians are not human beings. They are only bloody creatures who sin against God.” He stopped, picked the crumbs from the front of his vest and ate them. “You don’t know the truth of it, being only a woman. They have no respect, they harrow and saw our soldiers, inflict the most terrible of deaths.” He lifted the little cloth wrapping to his mouth and licked it. “They are demons. Sent to destroy our Christian settlement. We have sufficient light from the Word of God for these proceedings.” He filled the room with his bulk, a giant hovering over his small windows, where rain spattered and brought a misty vapor to the panes. They reflected his shadow and flickered with a dull light from the fire. He has no mind of his own, she thought, but needs must follow the will of others, and he reminded her of a great sheep with wide eyes and fear in its heart that would leap with the herd off a cliff. She was glad for his strength, but she trembled to think of him forcing himself on her. Any minute now. She had only to keep him engaged. He folded the piece of cloth and walked to his pinecone mattress and stared down at it. Her heart fluttered. Then, reaching under the ragged bedclothes, he drew out a long knife with a bone handle.
“Andrew, thou must not go on this raid.”
He turned to her. “Girl, you are ignorant of these things, and would best hold your tongue. We are the instruments of Providence! Divinely appointed to claim the New World from Godless people!” He had learned his lessons well. She searched for a retort.
“Should we not as Christians have mercy and compassion? Disease has already killed so many.”
“The sickness that comes upon them is not our doing. It is God’s way of clearing the way for us.” He stopped and stared at her as though he had only then discovered her in his room. “Shush! Be gone, Miranda, before the others come.”
She rose and went to the door, then turned, feigning helplessness. “In this storm? Andrew, pray let me tarry ’til the blast has calmed.”
He spun on her with sudden anger, perhaps the first sign of the spell, and spit out his words, but only to once more repeat the opinions of others. “We face a grand conspiracy of tribes,” he said, and she grimaced at the memorized phrase. “Algonquins and Pequot, newly gathered. A farm was burned last week near Twicksbury.” He wiped the knife with her piece of cloth, and shook his head as though to clear it. “Still, it is difficult to dominate a people so rebellious and so free—” He caught his breath as though something had struck him, and gave her a look of surprise, his eyes bulging. He stifled a sob, “Wilt thou leave me now, Miranda?”
Instead she chose to taunt him. “Do you plan to attack the women again in a cowardly manner while their men are away hunting? How can you bear so many lying on the ground, gasping for life? I beg of thee, do not join this madness.”
He threw the knife on the bed in exasperation and it bounced to the floor. She could see his body dueling with some demon of its own. “I cannot turn the good yeomen away when they come. What would they think of me?”
“The same as I think of you. That you are sensible.”
He struck at the air with his giant arm. “You know what they will say if
I do not go. That I am weak, that I have not loyalty to Salem Town.”
“You might tell them you will soon have a new wife. That your loyalty is to her.”
Confusion flooded his face and he stood with arms dangling, hands opening and closing, and a shudder traveled through his body. “Wilt thou have them say I am not a man?” She could see the cake was stirring in his blood. His chest heaved and he stared at her from under his brows, while he shifted his weight back and forth. A violent heat came off him. She felt a pulse of fear in her belly. She must find a way to gentle him.
Rising, she walked to the center of the room and stood before him in abject meekness and smiled at him sweetly. “Andrew, we are to be wed. Why do you not take me in your arms?”
Quickly he cast his eyes to the floor and curled his hands into fists. “I pray you girl be gone. I fear humiliation for us both if they find you here.”
She moved to him and leaned her body close. “What you fear they will ask, Andrew, I will ask you the same. Art thou a man?”
He glared at her and his eyes bulged and his face grimaced with pain. He whirled away from her, grabbed the back of the chair where his coat was hanging and hunched his shoulders. “Go!” he said, “Before I strike you! Out of my house! Get thee gone!” His face flushed to such a shade of purple she panicked and saw at that moment he might injure her.
“Very well. As you wish.” She struggled to maintain a calm demeanor. She reached for her cloak and shook it over her shoulders, the damp folds falling to the ground. Then she pulled the hood over her hair. Fearful of looking into his scowling face, she moved slowly, drawing the tie at her throat. But she could not resist one last insult. When she spoke she allowed anger to creep into her voice.
“You have answered my question well enough, Andrew. Thou art not a man. Thou art only a boy, or worse perhaps, a brute, with all the heart for killing and none for love.”
She saw the hair on the backs of his hands, the thick hair on his heavy forearms, his fingers gripping the deerskin, opening and closing. For the first time she noticed how round were the toes of his boots. She waited until he looked up, and caught his eye.
“I will not marry you, Andrew, for you have shown me you do not care for me, and no longer wish to come to my farm with me.” She lifted the latch and turned to see his face, contorted with fury as he leaned over the chair and gripped it with all his strength, before she let herself out the door.
MIRANDA IMAGINED she was moving inside a giant chimneystack, as the night was a sooty black that obscured even the trees. The ground was as wet as a streambed; her feet sank into the mud, her shoulders ached from bending over to spare her body the rain, and her heart was heavy from the failure of the cake. Too strong, and yet too weak. She had not counted on the vehemence of his resistance. If he had struck her, he could have broken her neck.
She would revisit his hut on the morrow and pray that he had returned from the skirmish unharmed. Then the spell would be in full bloom but tempered somewhat, and they would do the deed lovingly. It must be soon. If an attack on the Indians had not been planned, she would have already been summoned before the Court. Goody Collins had told her the girls were crying out they had been abused by witches, and they were being threatened with a whipping if they did not name the ones who afflicted them. She said they had screamed and crawled under chairs like dogs and Abigail tried to fly out the window. Betty now lay in her bed and refused to speak, only stared at the ceiling with unblinking eyes. Goody Parris was beside herself with worry. The threat of a whipping for dancing in the woods had caused them all to begin this shameful pretense, this ridiculous acting out. It was saving their own hides they were after.
In the darkness, she tripped on roots and creepers, and branches across her path struck her in the face. She blundered ahead, her hands held out in front of her, but the sucking sound of her own footsteps in the mud frightened her, and anger began to stir in her that this brute of a man would send her out into such a night with its blackness and its relentless rain. The wind moaned, and branches splattered her with huge drops whenever she moved under a tree.
Her stomach clenched in shame at the thought of Judah Zachery and the humiliation she had endured. Still, she had been wrong to burn his hand. Now he was sure of her. She shivered and drew her cloak about her, suddenly exhausted, and plunged ahead. She made many twists to avoid the trunks, but always turned back and tried to keep to her route, until she saw a dim light ahead and thought she must be at the edge of the village. But as she drew nearer, she heard voices and saw the shapes of men and Andrew’s hut lit up from within. Blundering through the dark, she had walked in a circle. Dismayed, she drew back, but she could hear arguing and loud murmuring voices from the farmers, and realizing the foolishness of her quest on that night, she thought to wait in a tree until morning. Or better still, she might fly up, pierce these low clouds, and sail with the moon. The tempting thought tugged at her flagging will as well as her sodden cloak dragging the ground. Biting her lip in annoyance, she recovered her sense of direction and struck out for home.
Again the darkness and the dense thickets made her way difficult and desperate. She pleaded with the trees for help and her path grew clearer. Then was certain she heard footsteps other than her own, a brutal stamping, unless it was the echo of her shoes slapping the mud. But no, there was something breaking through the brush, snapping twigs and falling against a thorny briar or tripping on a root. It might be a bear, although animals were not fools to wander about in bad weather, or possibly the black man everyone spoke of with his infernal book. She thought she heard a crash and a curse, or a cry of pain. But she could have been mistaken. The spattering of the rain and the rumble of the wind could mimic voices of all kinds.
Finally the fear and confusion took their toll on all resolve and she looked upward for a clear opening in the trees, saw one, hovered a moment, then left the ground. But in that same instant something grabbed her ankles and jerked her back to earth. A man’s strong arms came from behind and caught her.—He was soaked through as well, his clothes wet and cold, but she felt the thick deerskin coat and its heavy seams as he crushed the breath out of her body.
“Andrew, Andrew, stop! You are hurting me!”
She was surprised by his brute force, and knew it was the strength of the spell and all her own doing, and she was ashamed as well to think of the torture he had endured, but his hands were furious under her dress and his fingers tore the skin inside her legs. She wanted him to stop, to let her go, and at the same moment an inner voice said this was the better choice for her, and to endure it. Now the rain roared again like the sound of a deer’s hooves when it is surrounded and chased into a trap with no way out. She jerked back her head to breathe and her mouth filled with water. She twisted in his grasp, he was hurting her, cruel and unmindful of her struggles. She wrenched round in the darkness, pitched forward, and caught hold of a young beech tree. She wrapped her arms around the smooth trunk and held on, thinking; he is too strong for me, and doesn’t know his own strength and will surely kill me, so crazed is he by a spell. She pressed her body against the beech tree, clung to it for strength, hugging for all her soul something rooted to the earth, and wept. She heard the clattering rain and her own heart pounding, and she could taste the sap from the bark, and blood from her mouth where she bit her own tongue, and her own salty tears, even though the sky’s weeping washed over her face. She clung to the tree, straddling it, but he bent them both, and lifted her hips and forced her from behind.
NINE
Salem—1971
SALEM IS A CITY built around its history, a maze of diagonal one-way streets, twists, and rises. As soon as Barnabas pulled off Highway 114 and on to Bridge Street, he was lost. A poor sense of direction was but another of the many infirmities plaguing his human condition. How effortless it had been to glide above the rooftops under the cloak of night, following his keen hearing to his destination. Now he was trapped in a labyrinth.
The r
oundabout, encircling a barren green, spit him onto Summer Street and, seeing a sign at Essex Street that read OLD SALEM, he turned. To his dismay, Essex stopped at a barricade with the street closed to traffic, and he was forced to make his way slowly down a large thoroughfare called Washington.
He turned to the sleeping form beside him. “David, we’re here. I just have to find the hotel.” David only moaned. Barnabas eased the car forward in the darkness until he spotted another sign reading HISTORICAL CENTER, pointing back in the direction from which he had only just come. Annoyed, he turned onto a dark street lined with tall white clapboards which stared down at him through their leaded windows like disapproving parishioners.
Signs with Old English lettering leapt out from brooding buildings: NEW ENGLAND PIRATE MUSEUM, WITCH TRIALS MUSEUM, VLAD’S CASTLE. Another sign pointed to a hill above the pavement and indicated the OLD BURYING GROUND. Intrigued, Barnabas rolled down his window and craned to see the ancient markers; but instead of tombstones, he was greeted by an elaborate display of dangling, white-sheeted ghosts with carved pumpkins for heads. Eerie music, alternating with peals of fiendish laughter, blared from loudspeakers in the trees while grotesque orange grins gaped, and glittering eyes leered at him.
Meanwhile, David slept soundly in the car seat, his head thrown back against the window, his mouth hanging open. They had driven for five hours after leaving Collinsport, covering small stretches of road interspersed with towns, each embellished with an interminable stoplight, as though the little villages sought to hold them captive. More than once he had taken a wrong turn and found himself on yet another dark, tree-lined street. Lying so close to the sea, the area was densely settled and wrapped around bays. Once, when he was forced to stop and turn around, David woke and, yawning, said, “Where are we now?”