“Oh no, Mother, we must have light all night or the witch that tortures Betsy will descend!” I knew Thenny was not afraid of what she called the witch and she did not expect it to bother her in bed. She was simply wide awake and filled to the brim with new information for her busy mind, and so did not wish to extinguish the candle.
“Thenny Thorn, you are an embarrassment to me.” Mrs. Thorn frowned at her daughter, but smiled warmly at me. “Pay no heed to her silliness, Miss Betsy, for I am certain whatever has visited your home will not bother you at ours. Commence your prayers.” She sat on the edge of the bed and picked at a stray thread from Thenny’s red patch quilt. Bowing her head she began reciting the Lord’s Prayer along with us. “Our Father, who art in Heaven …” I heard her nervously snap the thread off, right when we said Amen.
“Now, quiet.” Mrs. Thorn blew out the candle and left us alone. I looked around after her departure, noticing Thenny’s room was much smaller than my own. There were no windows and so it felt like a cozy burrow. I breathed deeply, relaxing into Thenny’s luxurious feather bed, hoping evil and violence could be left behind by way of a simple carriage ride. But as I snuggled beside my friend, I heard the harsh descent of whistling wind enter the room.
“Betsy!” Thenny screamed and grasped me with both hands. “My hair, something pulls my hair!”
The violence attacked us both with as much force as it had ever unleashed. It ripped the covers from the bed and simultaneously pulled our braids, slapping us with strong ice fingers. I tried to protect myself, curling with my head between my knees on Thenny’s bed. I hoped she would follow my example but she was hysterical, screaming and crying even when the invisible let up actively assaulting her. Mrs. Thorn appeared in the doorway and behaved as though the visitation had not been expected in any way. I peeked from under my elbow and saw she held her candle high.
“Stop it now! This can’t be! I won’t have this in my house!”
Thenny’s screams were louder than the whistling wind, but I detected the smack of lips near my ear, and as I listened it evolved into gulping swallows. I felt senseless having imagined it could have been otherwise.
The next morning, when my brothers came to fetch me, they reported in my absence the disturbances were no less at our home, so we came to know the presence could occupy two places at one time. Over the next few evenings our trials continued and Mother would not allow me back to school. “I would have you near to me, Miss Betsy,” was all the reasoning I could pull from her. The boys and Drewry were allowed to make the journey and I depended on them to tell me all. Unfortunately, Drewry reported that despite her assurances she would not, Thenny had spread the tale that an evil witch attacked our family.
“Did she speak to the source of the witchery?” I felt a coldness in my chest at the thought of what Thenny’s tongue could do, but Drewry frowned and shook his head.
“I did confront her, Betsy, on the inaccuracy of her speech, but Thenny Thorn defended herself to me, relating how the class has buzzed with malignant suppositions concerning what ails us, including the idea that all is the product of your overimaginative mind! ‘I know your Betsy would never concoct such trouble even were she able!’” Drewry managed a cloying imitation of Thenny to make me smile, aware how deeply I felt the pain of these false accusations. “Thenny declared herself to me your true friend and confidante, but at recess she did mesmerize the schoolyard with stories of the evening you spent in her bed accosted by the thing.”
“ ’Twas nothing to the many evenings you and I spend here!” I was frustrated hearing this gossip. How could Thenny be so unkind as to speak of it without me present? And who was saying I had brought it on myself? Though during the day I might suffer the emotional pains of false accusations and fear, come evening I knew I would suffer the real affliction itself, a fact that penetrated my every moment. “Why would I bring such trauma to our home?”
“Never mind, I put a stop to her outrageous talk and hopefully did squash the rumors like so many worms on rocks.” Drewry kept his eyes on mine and his lips twisted in a sly smile.
“Thank you,” I looked away, disinclined to hear what harsh words he had used. I knew it hardly mattered, as there was no stopping malicious gossip once it had begun.
By the next Sunday morning at church, the lack of sleep and physical abuse suffered by all of us was apparent on our faces. The night before, Reverend Johnston had expressed grave disappointment at his inability to communicate with what he believed was an intelligent supernatural force. The whistling wind had developed a voicelike quality and more than before the Reverend expected an answer to his favorite query, “If you can understand, please speak to us, tell us, who are you? Why are you here?” But only indistinct utterances inside the cloud of noise responded. Weak and faltering, what it might answer had been impossible to decipher. He stood slump-backed, leaning heavily against his pulpit while reading his sermon on God’s law, ignoring the murmurs of concern rippling through our congregation.
“Brothers and sisters,” he took a deep breath, “I must speak again this week on the tribulations of the Bells and those who care for them. How great is the darkness! We must pray ever more for the Lord to lift us to the light.”
“Pray, Reverend, is Jack Bell inclined this Sunday to speak to his torment, for all to hear and better know its aspect for their prayers?” Old Kate spoke freely from the back of the church and stood to emphasize her broadcast. “I have seen it myself and would have all know its nature, so they may guard against it.”
“Yea, Kate, I would speak against corrupt minds who talk of what they know not.” Father did not stand but spoke sharply over his shoulder, twisting his jaw like a dog biting its fleas.
“Speak to it, Jack, go on!” A round of spontaneous encouragement for Kate’s suggestion went about the church and Kate sat down, vindicated.
“I will ask you all to do as I have done on the good Reverend’s advice.” Father stood reluctantly, nodding to the Reverend. “Read the Book of Job and ask yourselves as I ask now, Shall vain words have an end?” He quoted the verse and though his voice was solid, it was deep with emotion. A silence fell over the congregation and he remained standing, as upright and sturdy as ever I saw him. I felt full of pride, witnessing his demand for the respect he deserved from our community. Several members shifted uncomfortably on their benches, and I looked to Thenny and saw her head was bowed.
“Please, continue, for verily this sermon teaches.” The Reverend opened both his arms out wide, with serious fatigue in his gesture, inviting all to listen to Father.
“I also could speak as ye do,” Father quoted the text in his firmest tone. “I could heap up words against you and shake my head at you.” I saw Kate turn to her neighbor and make some remark, and a few others began to mumble, but how could they take offense, when we were the ones who suffered? I could see Father interpreted their talk as more of the same treatment we’d already received behind our backs and decided to end his speech without requesting prayers to help us. “People, I know not why, but God has delivered me to the un-godly, and turned me over to the hands of the wicked.” He sat down and I saw his eyes were angry and his back too straight.
“Yea, surely God will not do wickedly,” the Reverend said, looking surprised at the direction Father’s speech had taken. He tempered the effect on the congregation by speaking calmly, with pure confidence. “Neither will the Almighty pervert Judgment.”
“O Lord, O Lord, O Lord!” A disturbance and gasping began at the back and I turned to see Kate Batts on her feet, wobbling from her bench down the aisle to the pulpit. “I am filled with the Glory of God!”
“Blessed be, she is filled with the Spirit of the Lord!” Mrs. Randolph called out her condition and everyone sat up taller to see Old Kate falling to her knees, her straggly long hair loosened from its pins, flying in every direction. Her head jerked rapidly back and forth and she laughed uncontrollably, waving her arms to the sky before the Reverend as if she wer
e drowning and reaching out to be saved.
“Bless this woman for she walks with the Lord.” The Reverend gave the blessing somewhat perfunctorily I thought, and Father looked away from the scene, an expression of disgust on his drawn features. I understood his feeling, as I was also suspicious of Kate’s motives, but I noticed no one tittered as they usually did, though no one called out “Praise the Lord,” either. For the first time our congregation as a whole was uncertain how to act, so no one spoke. We sat in silent witness to her filling with Spirit and it was not long before she collected herself and walked back to her place, wiping her nose with a bit of tattered white lace.
The Reverend ended the service with a short prayer and by the time our family had reached the doorway I saw Old Kate had her wooden cart down at the bottom of the road. She had quickly recovered from the Jesus in her and was attempting to hawk amulet bags of herbs like the scrap she wore around her neck.
“Guaranteed to ward against witchery and demons!” she called out to the crowd.
“How dare she mock us?” Father wished to speak with her and I wondered what harsh words he would say, but Mother insisted we must depart immediately.
“It would be unwise in our situation to issue unkind words to anyone, even someone engaged in profit at our expense,” she said. I thought Father would ignore her advice but instead he listened. He kept his lips tight and drove our buggy swiftly home.
After the Sunday supper I retired to my room, hoping to rest a few moments before the Reverend and Preacher Justice arrived and the evening trials began. I lay down on my bed but I could not get comfortable. On my back all I could think of was the harsh jerking which nearly pulled the hair from my head, and when I rolled over, the beautiful star pattern on the quilt Mother had made for me gave thoughts of the covers flying off. I was sad to realize my bed was no longer a place of rest. I rose and sat in front of my window in the rocking chair Father and John Jr. had crafted. In the distant woods beneath the orchard, beyond the cornfield and past the stream, I saw a light steadily moving through the trees, as if someone walked there, carrying a candle or a lantern, but I knew it was no person. For the first time, I experienced something that was not entirely fear in connection with the presence. I knew that night the thing would speak, as though it whispered its intention in my ear. I had the feeling once it spoke I might discover why it had chosen to torment me and the knowledge gave me strange comfort, though I did not yearn to hear what it might say. I felt soon the violence against me might lessen and I would be protected by the very same force that now abused me. This did not seem possible, but I felt it was. My room was darkening and I heard many footsteps coming up the path, then greetings at the back door. I looked to the light in the woods and saw it flash brightly, sparking from the ground. It was time for me to go downstairs. I held my skirts as I descended and prayed to God most earnestly, please, please, let our torment come to an end.
In the parlor three men I did not know occupied chairs beside Calvin Justice and I assumed correctly they were members of his church in Cedar Hill. Mother shared the bench by the doorway with the little boys, and Mrs. Johnston, Jesse, Martha, Drewry and John Jr. occupied all the remaining chairs, which were placed about in a circle. Father took a quick drink from his flask before sitting in his chair. Everyone faced the hearth where the Reverend stood, clearly anxious to begin his reading from the good book. Mother moved to make room for me but only the edge of my bottom fit on the bench.
“In keeping with the text of this morning’s sermon, I will read from the Psalms in praise of God’s law.” The Reverend took his time turning the pages of his worn Bible and I shifted, uncomfortable in my spot. “Open mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law. It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes.”
I bowed my head, listening for whatever noise would announce the arrival of evil, but there was only silence.
“My soul is continually in my hand: yet I do not forget thy law,” the Reverend read on. Mother took my hand in hers and I in turn took up Joel’s and very near us, from the direction of the front staircase, came the windy whistling. The air in the room bristled with feeling as those visitors not accustomed to being in the presence of the phenomenon confronted their fears. I attempted prayerful meditation. I closed my eyes and tried to breathe deep to the limits of the laces of my dress, praying, God help me to endure all pain and suffering, for I knew it would soon be administered to me.
“I am small and despised: Yet I do not forget thy precepts.” The Reverend spoke with confidence and faith. I felt the warmth and strength of my mother’s hand in mine and I tried to pass the same current through my other hand to Joel, think of others always first. On my cheeks I felt a sudden burning flush, but the room grew noticeably colder. The wind rushed around the room yet not one person cried in fear. All were riveted to the Reverend Johnston’s upturned face or attentive to me. Abruptly the heavy cedar door flew open and slammed shut again so forcefully I thought it would bust off its hinges. Father and John Jr. jumped up and pressed themselves against the door to hold it shut, but it blew open again, hurling them to the stairs before crashing back with a tremendous bang, like a gunshot.
“Reveal yourself,” cried Reverend Johnston. “What or who are you? What do you want? Why are you here?” The lamps were suddenly extinguished. We heard one long tone develop from the myriad of sound inside the wind and the lamps spontaneously lit again. Instead of the indistinct utterances and weak whispering, we heard word for word, in a faltering but clearing distinguishable voice, the sermon Reverend Johnston had read on his very first evening at our house.
We see not our signs. There be no more any prophet; neither be there amongst us any that knoweth how long.
I listened, squeezing Mother’s hand, strongly reminded of my feelings in my room when I had known the Presence would be verbally forthcoming. I wondered if I should tell the company assembled, when all of a sudden I felt as if I was falling from a great height into a dark place. My body was roughly torn from beside Mother and Joel and flung onto the floor where I twitched with unnatural movements, locked in violent convulsions.
“It is a seizure!” One of the visitors from Cedar Hill had been schooled in elementary medicine and pronounced it so.
“I fear she is in the grasp of what speaks to us.” The Reverend looked about the well-lit room with trepidation.
“Jack, she does not breathe!” Mother came to my side and listened at my heart, near hysteria. I wished to comfort her but found I could not speak.
“Release this innocent, evil fiend!” Father used his great strength to lift me onto his shoulder and, clapping my back hard, he forced air into my lungs until I coughed. As suddenly as it began, the seizure ended, but I fell into a state of semi-consciousness where I could not speak and breathed as though I slept. They laid me out on the bench.
“I shall fetch Dr. Hopson,” Calvin Justice said, greatly concerned. His visitors rose to leave with him.
“John Jr., you and Jesse go along, accompany the doctor to our home. Tell him it is most urgent, and Godspeed,” Father commanded them to action. The Reverend, Mrs. Johnston, Mother and Father stayed in prayerful vigil around my sleeping form, but nothing more occurred until several hours later when the doctor knocked at our door and I abruptly awoke.
“How does your Betsy fare?” He entered our parlor, removing his hat. Dr. Hopson was of my father’s age, but his hair and beard were pure white and well trimmed. He wore round spectacles with immensely valuable gold frames. They glinted in the lamplight as he approached me and I was reminded of the sparks in the forest.
“She was cast down unconscious,” the Reverend began explaining.
“And her poor body twitched like a fish out of water,” Mrs. Johnston continued.
“Jack had to pound her back to force her breathing,” Mother said as she took Dr. Hopson’s arm and pulled forward a chair where he could set his large black leather bag.
&n
bsp; “Hello, Miss Betsy. Open wide.” The doctor began his examination by looking down my throat and his glasses reflected away the light so I could not see his eyes. He attended our church, despite its distance from his home, so I knew he had heard of our family troubles, but he said nothing regarding them.
“She appears the picture of good health.” He gave his assessment with a puzzled frown. “She was most likely the victim of fainting. Did you eat your supper, Miss Betsy?”
“I did, sir,” I replied, confused as to why exactly he was there.
“Take these smelling salts.” He rummaged in his bag, placed a packet in my Mother’s hand, then lowered his spectacles before giving over his advice. “I would prescribe less excitement for the girl.” He looked up at the Reverend and my parents as though he wished to scold them for rousing him from his bed late at night and forcing him to ride through the dark for no discernible cause.
“Excitement was not the cause of this,” Father disagreed.
“Pray, know you the cause, John Bell?” The doctor stood tall before him and Father was forced to sigh and bow his head.
“I know not the cause. I know only she did suffer.”
“Yet, I have examined her and found her fine, of robust constitution even, and surely, this must be some excitement for the girl, the sheer numbers gathered at your home this evening.” He looked briefly about the parlor. “ ’Tis late for a young girl, or an old man.” He nodded to the Reverend and frowned at the assembly without saying more. Father and the Reverend exchanged a glance, but neither spoke.
“Have a cup of tea before departing, Dr. Hopson. What news have you of Mrs. Hopson? I trust she is keeping well?” Satisfied I was indeed no longer in danger, Mother took Dr. Hopson’s arm and led him to the dining table. Father and the Reverend did not move. They stared down at me as if my body held some hidden clues to what they wished to know, but did not know, and Father shook his head, dismayed.
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