Centuries of June

by Keith Donohue

  The old man interrupted, at her instruction, my discourse with another passage from Nathan Bonham.

  11 June

  The most unusual event in all my life happened this last night. My wife was severely disturbed after witnessing the execution of Goody Bishop, and when it came time to go to bed, Alice would not, saying instead she would sit a while by the fire, and thus I bade her goodnight. A fitful sleep had I, visions of the body swinging from the rope, and after mid-night but before the dawn, I awoke in discomfort and found myself alone in the bed. I called for Alice, but she did not answer, so I shook off the blankets and went to look for her, finding herself still before the fire. You startle me, she said when I came into the room, but I am glad you are here. I beg you look upon me, she said, to see if you might discover any mark unnatural. She stood before the fire and undid her shift, letting it fall to the floor, so that she was Naked as an Infant, and I had never seen her thus before, for she was so modest, and was amazed by how fine she was in her nakedness, a young woman, and I am ashamed to say my passion rose, but holding myself in check, I examined her skin closely as she had asked, and the bold woman was not afraid to be thus seen, instead holding her gaze upon me as I inspected every aspect, running my fingers over any suspicious bump. Do you fear you are a witch? I asked, and she laughed and said No, but she feared others might call her so, and she wanted no blemish or mole to be construed as a witch’s teat. I found nothing, and she was so happy that there before the fire, she lay with me for the first time since the child was lost, and I was overcome with sensation and a fullness of wickedness. For if she is a witch, she is a bonny one, and if this be sorcery, I am most consumed by pining, even as this I write, for such visions before my mind.

  Red as her dress, Alice blushed so intensely that she threatened to disappear entirely within the fabric. A far-gone memory took hold of her, and she moved next to the old man, embraced him, her head pressed against his chest, and laced her fingers in his hair. With mischief in her gestures, she reached into the wild forest atop his head and extracted a large sewing needle, displaying it for all to see and wonder, and after we admired her prestidigitation, Alice rolled her eyes and indicated that we should follow her gaze.

  Stuck in the ceiling, glistening like razor blades, a thousand such needles loomed, the sharp ends pointed directly at our skulls. We barely had time to comprehend the full danger before she clapped once and down they rained like a thousand tiny daggers, and by instinct, we all covered our noggins with our hands. Each needle struck as softly as drizzle, evaporating when the point struck skin, as if we were standing in a sudden shower without ever getting wet. Until the needles actually hit and proved harmless, we were frightened, and in that momentary interval, a slight cackle escaped from her lips.

  “She really is a witch,” said Dolly.

  “Or a magician,” Jane said. “That was quite a trick.”

  “Aye,” the old man nodded. “She is a magic woman no matter what else she is.”

  I went back to the Noyes journal and turned the page. Tucked between the leaves, several documents needed to be unfolded and read into the record.

  INDICTMENT

  Anno Regis et Reginae Willim et Mariae nunc: Anglia &c Quarto Essex ss. The jurors for our Sovereign Lord and Lady the King and Queen presents that Alice Bonham of Salem Village and Farms within the province of Massachusetts Bay in New-England, the sixteenth day of June, in the fourth year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord and Lady William and Mary, by the Grace of God, of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, King and Queen, defenders of the faith etc., divers other days and times as well before as after, certain detestable arts called Witchcraft & Sorceries, wickedly and ferociously hath used, practiced & exercised, at and within the township of Salem in the county of Essex & aforesaid, in, upon, and against one Ann Putnam, Jnr. of Salem Village, single woman, the sixteenth of June, by which said wicked arts the said Ann Putnam was and is tortured, afflicted, pined, consumed, wasted, and is tormented, also for sundry other acts of witchcraft by the said Alice Bonham committed and done against the peace of our Sovereign Lord and Lady, the King and Queen, their crown & dignity and against the form of the statute in the case made and provided:

  WITNESSES

  Ann Putnam

  Abigail Williams

  Elizabeth Hubbard

  Ann Putnam, Sr.

  Three other indictments, concerning the other witnesses, were included, and folded next to these were four separate depositions.

  DEPOSITION OF ANN PUTNAM JUNIOR

  v. ALICE BONHAM

  Ann Putnam, aged about eleven years, saith

  I being in the home of Betty Parris did see Alice Bonham practice sorcerie with the Maid Tituba, that they did conjure with a green glass an infant child and the baby could be heard crying though she be dead. That Alice Bonham did make a poppet that came alive when charmed and that this doll, in the shape of a child, did come visit me in the night and torment me. And that the child’s mother, Alice Bonham, would also visit in the night to claim her little girl and did find the poppet in my bed and was angered and did afflict me with pains by sitting upon my chest and biting me on my arms and legs.

  DEPOSITION OF ABIGAIL WILLIAMS

  v. ALICE BONHAM

  Abigail Williams, aged about eleven years, testifieth

  That the shape of Alice Bonham does and hath visited in the night and brings a great book and asks me to sign my name in blood and when refused, does torture me with an iron needle pricking me about the legs, and another night did bring the poppet with her who does cry and torment me.

  DEPOSITION OF ELIZABETH HUBBARD

  v. ALICE BONHAM

  Elizabeth Hubbard, aged about seventeen years, testifieth

  Alice Bonham has entreated me to come to her home and to lie with her husband so that another child might be born and saith this child is owed the Devil. She also flies through the window in the shape of a yellow bird and bids me do the same to join the witches who do coven in the woods outside Salem Farms. Alice Bonham also makes claims upon me to follow the custom of the Papist and go to Mary-land and to abandon my masters here.

  DEPOSITION OF ANN PUTNAM SENIOR

  v. ALICE BONHAM

  Ann Putnam, nee Carr, about age thirty-eight, saith

  I woke one evening in May to see the shape of Alice Bonham covering my husband Thomas, baying as if a hound, and when I reached out to strike and drive her from the bed was met with form insubstantial, though he, too, cried out her name and beat the air with his fists. When I confronted her and Mr. Bonham outside Salem Village Church, she denied all and claimed she was a true Christian, though I know she once was a Papist. I later saw her shape in the shed, suckling a hogget, and the ewe bleat in the corner at the unnatural act, and Alice Bonham sung to the lamb as if it were her own child.

  NOTES AND SUNDRY, continued

  Part, the ninth

  Near three weeks ago, on the 29th of June, six were put to trial at Court of Oyer and Terminer: Sarah Good, Rebecca Nurse, Susannah Martin, Alice Bonham, Elizabeth Howe, and Sarah Wildes. We were encouraged by Increase and Cotton Mather, in their letter to the Village, to be cautious but proceed with speed and vigour to try these accused. The day was long in going, for these women must be examined separately, though all proved guilty. At every trial, the afflicted behaved exactly: when in the presence of a witch, they blanched and fell to terrible fits and protests, but when the witch was made to cover her eyes with a cloth and led to lay hands upon the afflicted person, the fit stopped at once: thus proving the causation. Rebecca Nurse, heretofore judged most holy, was acquitted by the jury, though the afflicted out-cried at the verdict. When I expressed myself dissatisfied, the chief judge said we would not impose again upon the jury. When another prisoner, who has confessed to being a witch, was brought into court to witness against her, Goody Nurse said, “What, do you bring her? She is one of us.” When asked to explain her remarks, she said nothing, and the verdict was later changed to gu
ilty, though she later claimed she meant merely that the witness was a prisoner like her, and that she had not understood the charge. So say all. Each failed at their catechism, and we were most sure the jury was right.

  In the docket, Alice Bonham protested that the girls and other witnesses were deceiving and in collusion, that they did prick their own skin, or bite one another, that they did hide tokens and talismans in the accused persons’ homes. When confronted with the Devil’s poppet she had made to conjure her own dead child, Goody Bonham wept so as to break stout hearts, but the jury found she was dissembling. She even cried to me, asking if I recalled the trial of Martha Corey and the pin found in the child’s cap, but I could not remember at the moment such an occasion and only now, in reading over what I have wrote, realize that Alice had made such claims of perfidy against the afflicted long before she stood accused.

  But why would the children tell untruths, or neighbors bear false witness against neighbors? Are we not all good English men and women, under the same King and Queen, and guided by the Lord? It is the guilty who doth protest loudest, and wrong to accuse the poor Innocents who have no reason but to rid this place of Evil. Did not the Lord himself say, Suffer the children. I cannot believe her, and moreover, did think she tried to seduce even me with her greenish eyes and the hair escaping her bonnet. Did not Judas Iscariot have a red beard? Perhaps there is something to be said about the old admonition against the Red-Haired.

  On 16th of July, the six were taken from Salem Prison to Gallows Hill, and the folk along the way treated the spectacle with more disdain than called upon. Old Sarah Good called out to the houses as we passed for a small beer, and at one such, the neighbor, taking pity, handed her a mug, which she drank along the way and did feel much better. Emboldened, perhaps, by the drink, she cursed me as I said the final prayers. “Thou art a witch,” I told her, hoping she would confess and save her life, “You know you are.” She spat out, “You are a liar, and if you take my life, God will give you blood to drink.” Such a wicked spell I cannot forget, and Alice Bonham, too, had turned into a most wretched soul. She saith upon the gallows, “And I am an innocent woman, no witch, and God will punish you and all for your wickedness and falsehoods. I hope Goody Good is right, and more, and your head swell in pain as mine is about to do.”

  It took no more than seventeen minutes for the last to kick once and then pass from this world. Some had their necks broken, and others strangled to death. I turned to Mr. Hathorne and Mr. Putnam in attendance and commented upon the woeful sight of those six bodies hanging in the summer sun. God have mercy upon those who sought forgiveness, and may the families and friends of those who insisted wrongly on their Innocence find some solace in the church and in knowing the will of the Lord be done.

  • • •

  We fell into a measured silence, stunned by the finality of her story and the image of the six hanged women and the mob of witnesses. I could not look at anyone and did not notice how Alice had caused the doll to materialize. Strung on a single thread, the simple puppet was fashioned from a washcloth—with an elementary head and limbs, no features on its face, yet strangely lifelike. Through some manipulation of the string, Alice caused the doll to toddle across the tiles, and then give a little curtsy, and quite extraordinarily, to jump up on the sink and straddle my toothbrush like a miniature witch upon a broom. With a flick of her wrist to snap the noose, the puppet collapsed into plain terrycloth. She then reached into the archival box and handed one more document to the old man.

  Boston, Massachusetts

  20 September 1706

  Dearest Sarah,

  God’s blessing on you and your children, and forgive me for not writing in so many years, but I have heard some news today that I share with you, though I know not how to say it. Word has come from Salem that Ann Putnam, one of the girls who accused our darling Alice, has confessed to her sin. She recanted all and said before the congregation that it was a “great delusion of Satan” and that it was not done “out of any anger, malice or ill-will,” but done ignorantly, and she begs forgiveness of God and from the relations of those she condemned. We have some consolation, at last, that Alice was both truthful and right in reasoning that some base motive caused those girls to tell such dreadfull Stories and send twenty to the Gallows, not to mention poor Goodman Corey, who was pressed to death with stoneweights on the chest, and to stir the people of Essex county into a frenzy of witch hunting. I now believe that there is no Witches, and I am comforted to know she is truly with the Lord. I hope this finds you well. My new wife, not so new any more, is with child, and I feel like Abram, I am so old, and if it be a girl, I shall ask to call her Sarah, after you.

  Sincerely,

  Nathan Bonham

  No further records existed, and her story ended. She filed the last document in the box and shut the lid. A pause, pregnant with sentiment, interceded as we each contemplated this sad chapter from history. I expected her to lift the broom in attack against me as the other two women had done with their weapons, but she merely slumped against the wall and slid to a seated position, her red gown rustling like a sigh. The old man, some thought wrinkling his forehead, sat on the toilet and rested his chin in the cup of his hand. Dolly and Jane exchanged whispers in the bathtub, and I alone strove to make sense of it all. “At least, in the end, the girl apologized. It was not out of anger, but ignorance.”

  “Ignorance?” Alice spoke. Her high thin voice colored echoes of New England. “She was a clueless pawn in a far more dangerous game. The wrath of righteous neighbor against neighbor, the old against the new, the status quo versus change. The anger of values upended, the petty grievances of the true believer meeting the unknown threat of the Other. Red, boiling anger. Not from the children, but out of their parents. The girls themselves may not have even known what tipped their game into madness, but they surely felt it in the long-simmering wrath of their parents and their ministers. A kind of institutionalized, socially acceptable political anger that struck out against the old and powerless, ripe targets for the venting mob. The worst kind of ignorant, misplaced anger. I am surprised that it took you so long to understand, being an educated and religious man.”

  I did not understand the meaning of her last remark, since I do not consider myself particularly religious, but my confusion was superseded by the surprise of her gift of speech. We were all shocked.

  “You can talk!” Jane and Dolly said together, and then to each other, “Jinx!”

  “I told you she was a magical woman,” the old man said. “What concerns me most, however, is: whatever happened to the minister Noyes?”

  Her green eyes flared like a wild animal’s as she spoke, and had I not known better, I would have thought Alice was casting a spell. “Justice delayed is sometimes the sweeter. Nicholas Noyes lived for twenty-five more years after the Salem trials, enjoying a good reputation and coming to regret and apologize for his role in condemning the innocent, but in the end, Sarah Good’s gallows prophecy came true. One morning he woke, coughed once into his pillow, and saw the first red drops. An aneurysm in the brain, a hemorrhage that sent the blood gushing out of his nose and mouth, and he lived just long enough to comprehend the meaning of the red stain spreading on his gown and bedclothes.”

  As if thunderstruck, my head pounded again with the ferocity of a migraine, and the room began to spin, so I had to go lie down.

  Sometimes there is no place I would rather be than under the covers in my own bed in my own house. In The Poetics of Space, Bachelard says, “If I were asked to name the chief benefit of the house, I should say: the house shelters day-dreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace.” By extension, then, the bedroom and, more particularly, the bed in which we spend a third of our lives function as a kind of protective haven for the true self, the subconscious refugee from the assault of the external world. The bed, in situ, becomes the restorative womb, where the imagination is nurtured while our resting bodies are sa
fe. Eyes closed, one drifts in warmth, the blankets pressing gently against the body, one’s own breath as regular as a mother’s heart, and one becomes free of all care. The familiar bed—I can never truly sleep in a strange hotel—is a comfort unlike any other. She—and I cannot help but feminize her—is the house inside the house, the locus of all that renews, and when I am tired or sick, as with a violent headache, into her tender arms I fall. Of course, a bed is many other things, and, as Bachelard also says, “Sleep opens within us an inn for phantoms. In the morning we must sweep out the shadows.” But for its restorative power, I sought my dear bed when I stumbled from the bathroom, my poor skull squeaking with pain.

  Unfortunately, I had forgotten about the women slumbering there. Light from the hallway spilled across their recumbent forms when I opened the door to my bedroom. The remaining five had scarcely moved since last I saw them jumbled in a crazy quilt of bare limbs and quiet faces, with one of the women turned away to face the wall, her bare body curved like a cello. Not daring to wake them, I closed the door in a swift, silent motion, the soft click of the lock against the plate sending a rail of pain to my sinuses. A nap in my own bed was impossible under the circumstances, and the only sensible alternative was the living room sofa.