“Of course,” George said. “Wait. . .”
He went out into their living room and returned with a photo. He gave it to her.
“It’s called an ultrasound,” George said. “John’s so happy that he made a copy for everyone.”
Em took the image from George. The image showed a yellowish-grey blob. She shook her head.
“I don’t know what I’m looking at,” Em said.
“I’d never seen one, either,” George said. “I guess they can use this ultrasound to look inside the womb. It seems unnatural to me, but John assured me it’s common for everyone to have one now.”
He pointed to a bump on the image.
“That’s the nose,” George said.
“Oh, I see,” Em said. “That’s a face, a head. . . . How cool.”
“And that’s. . .”
“She’s having a boy,” Em said.
Beaming, George nodded. They stood with their heads bent over the photo.
“They want to name him ‘Isaac,’” George said.
“After Mary’s husband,” Em said.
George nodded.
“I think that’s why they’ve been so adamant about getting married,” George repeated.
“You don’t think Bridget and Giles. . .?” Em asked.
George shrugged.
“She was at least sixty when she was hanged,” Em said. “But then, Mary was in her fifties.”
“Killing the demons has brought youthful vigor to us all,” George said with a grin.
They looked at the picture for a moment. George looked up into Em’s face.
“Do you think we. . .?” George asked. “You know that I love children.”
“You had nine,” Em smiled.
“Ten, with Benoni,” George flushed. “I. . . uh. . . I. . . um. . . I’d love to have eleven or twelve or. . .”
George grinned. Em gave him a searching look.
“Susannah told me you don’t have sex with the others anymore,” Em said.
George looked into her face.
“I guess. . . well. . .” Em said.
“You’re wondering why,” George said.
Em bit her lip and looked away. George touched the cleft in her chin, and Em turned to look at him. He raised his eyebrows to encourage her to respond.
“I’m surprised, I guess,” Em said.
George nodded.
“And I’m surprised you didn’t tell me,” Em said.
“My sexual promiscuity didn’t ever have anything to do with you,” George said.
Em nodded. She moved away from him to her dresser, where she picked up the silver cross Detective Donnell had returned to her.
“Your cross,” George said with a smile.
“You knew about the cross?” Em asked. “I thought no one knew about the cross.”
“I’ve seen you naked,” George said.
“But. . .” Em said.
“I knew you didn’t have it when we awoke,” George said.
“I’d given it to Lydia,” Em said. “Lydia Dustin. Detective Donnell is related to her granddaughter, Susan. He gave it to me.”
“Detective Donnell?” George asked.
“Why didn’t you chastise me for the cross?” Em asked. “It was against Puritan law!”
“I know. I should have,” George said. “But, those moments, with you, in Salem — they were the highlight of my life. They were the best, more meaningful moments of my life. I had never felt more alive, so overcome with love and passion. I memorized every detail. I would replay them in my mind for. . . years.”
Em gave him a soft smile.
“There was a moment, when we were done, that you touched your throat.” George reached out to touch the cross. “You touched this cross.”
He smiled.
“I remember every moment, even now,” George said with a nod. He turned away from her. “I guess it seems weird that I was so promiscuous.”
“George,” Em started.
“No, Em, let me finish,” George said. “I was standing on a hill in Laos, 1965. In the valley, our planes were dropping bombs. The sound of people’s terror echoed through the forest canopy. Helicopters flew low, with guns blazing. It was pre-dawn. I was following behind the planes. My team was to clear out any resistance. There was this building. Nothing much. It just looked like. . .”
George shrugged.
“A building,” George said. “I stepped inside and. . . There was this gold statue at the front — a seated Buddha, I think, although the villagers said it was their monk. The villagers spoke of him as if he were alive, which is why I went there.”
George glanced at Em to see if she was following him. She gave him a soft nod to continue his story.
“The statue spoke to me.” George raised an eyebrow when Em’s eyebrows pinched together with concern. “It called me by name. God or demon, I had no idea and no faculty or experience to determine which. The statue said: ‘Who do you love, George Burroughs?’”
George looked at Em.
“I said, ‘Martha.’” George’s voice dropped. “The statue said: ‘Through her love, she gave you the gift of life. That is powerful love.’ I was terrified because this thing knew I was a witch. I raised my machine gun to destroy it, but before I could do anything, the statue said: ‘What do you give her in return?’ And I realized that I had no idea. My entire life had been transformed by your love. I was nothing, no one, until we met in Salem, and this. . . Your love has always been my prize possession, and I. . .”
George shrugged.
“So I stopped screwing around,” George said. “Just until I could figure it out and. . .”
George gave an impish shrug.
“I never wanted to be with another,” George said. “Not ever. I was just. . . foolishly playing with the only thing I valued. ”
He shook his head.
“Now, I only want to be worthy of your love,” George said. “I work every day to be worthy of the love you give so freely.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Em smiled.
“Embarrassed, mostly,” George said. “There I was, a Reverend, an expert in God’s love. Then a love so profound and boundless is given to me, and I. . .”
George scowled at himself and looked down. She tipped his head up and kissed his lips. He looked deep into her eyes before smiling.
“Will you marry me?” George asked.
“I am doing just that today,” Em said.
“That’s very good,” George said.
“What happened to the statue?” Em asked.
“No idea,” George said. “I was called out of there. I never saw it again.”
“We should go Laos,” Em said. “Find this statue that changed your life.”
“You’d leave Boston?” George asked. He voice spoke his surprise.
“Sure,” Em said. “Maybe in November, when it starts to get cold.”
“Good plan,” George said.
He held his elbow out.
“Shall we go?” George asked.
“It would be my pleasure,” Em said.
She took his arm, and they left their apartment. Downstairs, a limousine waited to take them to Bridget’s Beacon Hill mansion and the celebration.
It was a celebration to beat all celebrations.
George officiated the marriage of Bridget and Giles first. Em walked Giles down the aisle. She kissed his cheek and hugged him tight before leaving him to wait for Bridget. Sam brought Bridget down the aisle. She had never looked more beautiful. George led them in a very traditional Puritan service, with solemn pledges and lots of scripture. For Em, who had attended to no fewer than seven of Bridget’s eleven weddings, this was Bridget’s most heartfelt and beautiful wedding. Bridget cried through the entire ceremony.
Mary and John had a more modern ceremony. They walked to the front together. While Bridget had worn white lace, Mary had chosen a lovely, fitted, ivory silk dress that highlighted the miraculous bump in the front of her dres
s. This was both John and Mary’s first immortal wedding. They were the very image of joy. George led them through a modern Presbyterian ceremony that echoed its Puritan roots.
They had planned to wait an hour after Mary and John before George led the community in marrying him and Em. Without warning, Isaac arrived with his entire family in tow. Isaac was no George. He took hold of the audience at once. The quiet reverence of the other weddings slipped away as Isaac led them through a rousing Jewish wedding ceremony, steeped in tradition. Em had never felt as loved or as happy.
The party continued all night. Isaac and his family left around nine. Shonelle and her mother stayed until ten. After eleven, only the witches and their human partners remained. Ann and her fiancé danced. Alice and her once-client-now-boyfriend sat talking in the corner. Martha’s Bruce told jokes and kept their table entertained. For the first time, Sam brought his human partner to the ceremony. His partner was handsome, funny, and a descendant of George Jacobs. They had a ball. The witches danced, laughed, ate great food, and celebrated vanquishing the demons.
Around dawn, the witches began to slip away. Sarah Wildes offered to continue the party at her home, and the witches joined her. Giles and Bridget slipped away to a suite at the Liberty. Mary and John preferred to go home. As a surprise, Alice had booked Em and George a room at the Ritz-Carlton. They left Bridget’s Beacon Hill mansion to cross the Common near dawn. The ghosts of the soldier and the little girl came by to congratulate them. While George checked them into the hotel, Em slept with her face against his shoulder. She vaguely remembered George undressing her. They were tucked into their bed with the “Do Not Disturb” tag on their door before the sun had warmed the Common.
Em fell into a deep sleep. In her sleep, she was transported back to the day she’d seen George for the first time. She had been shopping at the outdoor vegetable vendors. Her son, Thomas, had come with her to help carry groceries. She knew that a new Reverend was due in town, but she could have cared less. Her life was too overwhelming for new Reverends, squabbling churches, or any other nonsense.
She had been standing in front of an apple vendor when George had walked by. He and his first wife, Hannah, were being shown around by Thomas Putnam. Em had been so caught up in trying to determine how many apples she could afford that she hadn’t bothered to look up. She’d felt him move past her like the heat of fire from a moving torch. She’d looked up at the same moment he looked at her. She had felt a shot of electricity run through her. He had nodded and continued moving.
He told her later that he’d asked Thomas’s wife, Ann Putnam, Sr., the mistress of the home George and his family were staying in, about Em. Ann had said that Em was no one, not a member of the church — only a poor woman with a sick husband. A year later, George had arrived on her doorstep as an outreach from the church. In the dream, she found herself opening the door to him.
“Why, you’re not poor at all,” had been his first words to her.
“My father takes care of us,” she’d said.
“I was told you were poor,” George had said.
She’d stepped aside to let him into her home. Thomas was at school, and, as usual, Henry was in their bedroom. George kept his hands tightly clasped behind his back as he surveyed the room.
“They are idiots,” she’d said with a smile. “They believe you’re poor if you do not own land. I have a sick husband, who cannot work the land. It would be foolish to buy land we cannot maintain. And I am no fool.”
George turned to look her full in the face. And she was struck. For a moment, they simply stared at each other. She caught herself first.
“Sir,” she had said and looked down.
“I came to. . .” Her heart was pounding so loud and fast that she didn’t hear a word he’d said. Even in the dream, she felt the sick, nauseous feeling of that moment.
“I love you,” she said, in the dream. George stopped talking. “I always have and always will.”
“I know,” George said. “Because I love you, too. I simply cannot bear a life without you.”
Caught in the dream, Em smiled at this rewrite of history. Of course, in real life, it had taken them almost three years to admit what they both knew at the first moment they’d seen each other. It had taken them more than three hundred years to say it in front of their friends and family.
Em drifted into a deeper sleep. Her life flashed before her. Henry died. Benoni was born. Giles came to make a deal. And then she was sitting in the living room at Giles’s home, talking to the examiners. She’d been so sure she was safe; she was so wrong.
She was standing in the middle of the torture and violence of the jail in Boston. She’d intentionally kept herself out of the gossip around the witch trials. Instead, she worked every day to keep herself and the others alive. She had no idea who might arrive at the jail.
She’s felt the heat of George first and then heard the jeering from the crowd. She’d turned to see who had arrived when George stepped through the doors. People rushed forward to greet him. Within moments, he was leading the accused in prayer. His eyes sought her over their bowed heads. She’d smiled, and he’d nodded.
The days and nights of the Boston jail flashed by in a dizzying kaleidoscope until the guard was wrenching George from her arms. The guards hurled him onto the cart. He’d been so certain that he could convince them that he was a man of God. He’d been sure they wouldn’t hang him. The whispers found her only an hour later. Her beloved had been hanged. The men had fought over his body. Em retreated to a small corner to cry.
The images came fast now. Giles refused to participate in the trial, and the Sheriff took him out to the field.
“Surely they won’t press him to death,” they’d whispered to each other in the jail. Just as surely, one boulder at a time, they did just that.
Her fight seeped out of her. Her heart had broken. She prayed for the quiet peace of death. In a whoosh! she had hanged from the oak tree by a bit of rope. She’d swung and spun. As she slowly suffocated, her eyes had moved over the crowd. Tonight, she saw something she hadn’t recognized at the time.
Her demon was standing in the middle of the crowd. He wasn’t near the front, as a leader, nor was he in the back with the reluctant. He watched her with great intent. Their eyes locked.
“And now it begins.” The demon’s words were the last thing she heard.
Deep asleep, Em watched her body as it was tossed into the common grave. She saw herself awaken in the pit. In this version of her life, the demon was standing beside the grave.
“Why are you here?” Em asked.
“Because you are here,” the demon said.
“Can’t you leave me to live my life?” Em asked.
“You know I cannot,” the demon said. “We will not be denied.”
“What does that mean?” Em asked.
The demon grinned.
“I am supposed to just know?” Em asked. “How can I know what I do not know?”
“How can you, Martha of Truth?” the demon asked.
Confused, Em shook her head.
“Why do you think Weni the librarian went away?” the demon asked. “Where is your father?”
Em was so surprised that she could only blink.
“Yes, Martha of Truth,” the demon said, “I have kept them from you.”
“Why?” Em asked.
“Because you need to do your own work!” the demon screamed.
Startled, Em jumped back.
“Em?” She heard George’s voice from outside the dream. She felt him shake her shoulder. “Em?”
“My work?” Em asked.
“Your work,” the demon said. “I rooted for you. I believed in you. I chose this lunatic John Parker because I believed you would see the truth, and, instead, you. . .”
The demon snorted. Smoke came from his nostrils. He lowered his head so that the rhinoceros horn was pointed at the center of her forehead.
“You will die!” the demon said. “Th
is war will end with your death!”
The demon turned to walk away from her.
“Is there another way?” Em asked.
The demon stopped walking. His shoulders hunched for a moment. She was slipping back into the common grave when he spun in place and stalked back to her. When he neared, she realized that she’d mistaken his mood. The demon seemed happy, almost jubilant.
“Now that’s a very good question,” the demon said.
“What is your name?” Em asked.
“My name?” the demon asked with a smile. “I knew you were different, Martha. I knew you would save us all.”
“Save us all?” Em asked.
Em felt herself flying through the air.
“Save us all?” Em yelled to the demon. “How?”
The demon gave her a little wave. She watched the demon until he was a mere speck on the horizon.
“There is one thing,” the demon’s voice came to her. “Any attempt to increase your ranks will be seen as an act of war.”
Behind her closed eyes, she saw a flash of white light. She felt a burst of cold water. When she opened her eyes, she was standing in the apartment shower, and George was begging God for her release from the trance.
“I’m here,” Em said.
George held her tight. He swooped her off her feet and carried her back to bed.
She sat up in bed. The room was dark. George was asleep by her side.
“What is it?” George’s sleep-filled voice asked.
“I had the weirdest dream,” Em said. “I guess it was a dream.”
“You just got in bed!” George said.
Em picked up the clock. They had been in bed for less than two minutes. The champagne in her glass was still bubbling. The blankets were cool, as if she’d just slipped into them.
George leaned up on one arm to look at her.
“Are you okay?” George asked.
“Yes,” Em said with a smile. “I’m very okay.”
Grinning, George put his head down to go to sleep. Em lay awake, staring at the ceiling.
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