by Suzanne Weyn
“Aakif and Mary Carmen.”
“Did they bring my bag?” I asked excitedly.
“Yes, we brought it!” Aakif said from the doorway. Before I could rise, he was at my side and we were hugging each other tightly. Mary Carmen was right behind him and we too embraced.
“You will never believe who we’ve seen!” Aakif said.
“Van Leeuwenhoek heard what was happening in town and came to talk to Reverend Parris. We heard he was at the parsonage and sought him out early this morning,” Mary Carmen revealed.
“And Governor Phips has moved to terminate the trials,” Aakif went on. “It seems that someone has charged the governor’s own wife as a witch!”
“Everyone is free?” I asked as Mr. Van Leeuwenhoek entered the cell.
“I’m afraid not,” Van Leeuwenhoek said. “No one can leave until they pay for their board in this horrible place. I find that unbelievable. But you are free. I have paid your way out of this horror.”
“You are too kind to me, but I thank you with all my heart,” I told him sincerely.
“It is my pleasure to help such a brave young woman,” Van Leeuwenhoek replied.
Turning to Tituba, I smiled. “We can go,” I told her. “As soon as Reverend Parris pays your board, you can leave. You’ll be back with Violet and John Indian.”
Tituba shook her head unhappily. “John was here this morning. Samuel Parris will not pay. He thinks I’ve disgraced his family by speaking the truth. John has not the money, either. Parris says whoever wants to buy me as a slave is welcome and must also pay to get me out of here.”
“I will pay,” Van Leeuwenhoek offered.
“Thank you, sir. You will find me a hardworking slave,” Tituba said emotionally.
“You will not be my slave,” Van Leeuwenhoek answered.
Tituba gasped with delight. “It is too much to ask!” she cried.
“Not at all,” he answered, with a gracious bow.
For the first time in months, I was out in the sunshine in front of the prison. Van Leeuwenhoek, Mary Carmen, and Aakif were beside me.
Looking debilitated and stooped, several more women left the prison, squinting against the bright light, surrounded by their families. They came in small groups, not jubilant, but weary and eager to get home.
Tituba had returned to the parsonage to collect her things and rejoin her family. They all assured me that what occurred the night before had been no dream. Bronwyn was resting in Aakif’s room at the Osborne home.
“I have news,” Aakif said.
“What?” I asked. “Is it good or bad news?”
“Excellent news.”
“Tell us,” Van Leeuwenhoek prodded.
“Andrew Osborne lowered the price for my freedom,” Aakif reported. “He knows what it is to be a slave. I had enough to buy my freedom, and in fact, I paid him this morning. I am a free man.”
I gasped and we stared at each other, not quite believing it. “You did it,” I whispered.
He nodded as his expression changed from one of disbelief to that of glowing happiness.
“You did it!” I shouted as he swept me into his arms and spun me in a circle. When we stopped spinning, I held on to him so tightly. He was free! I was free! There were tears in both our eyes.
“It is a great day, indeed!” Mary Carmen cried happily.
When we finally settled down, Van Leeuwenhoek had a question, which he addressed to Mary Carmen. Though we’d told him all that had happened, he was still puzzled on one point. “Isn’t Saint Teresa of Avila considered a Catholic mystic?”
“She is,” Mary Carmen confirmed.
“Then how did she come to call on the seventy-two angels by name? You said she named something called the Kabbalah, a Jewish book, as her source.”
“Saint Teresa’s grandfather was Jewish, but forced to convert to Catholicism by the Spanish Inquisition. But Saint Teresa’s father and grandfather studied the mystic Kabbalah in secret. They allowed her to study it also,” Mary Carmen explained.
“What shall we do now?” I asked. I certainly was not going back to that parsonage — not ever. And what was left for me now in England with Kate and Father gone?
Before anyone could answer my question, the young Indian native who had been with her father on the ship to Salem approached our group. “Greetings,” she said, speaking to me. “I am Winun’na. We have seen each other but we have never been introduced.”
“Hello, Winun’na. I am called Betty-Fatu. I am pleased to meet you,” I replied. I introduced Van Leeuwenhoek, Aakif, and Mary Carmen. “I remember you well. I saw you and your father at my trial,” I added.
Winun’na nodded gravely. “It is a bad business. My father is the holy medicine man of our tribe, which you whites call the Massachuset. As a shaman, he knows that the whites think we worship Matchitehew — the evil one. We do not, of course — but it helps him feel the sorrow of what you are going through. It is true pain to be so misunderstood.”
“That is kind of you to say,” I replied.
“My father is greatly distressed by what has happened here and has been imploring the Great Spirit to aid you. Last night, he sensed a great war between good and evil was being waged. He banged the drum and sang to the Great Spirit all the night through. He sent me here this day to offer his help.”
I took her hand as I spoke. “Something very great has occurred. Tell him we thank him greatly for his help. Last night, a terrible evil was driven away and I am sure — certain — that his chanting and drumming enabled us to succeed.”
Winun’na shut her eyes, genuinely moved. “It will mean so much to him.” I told her too that the prison was being opened and the trials disbanded.
“The people of my village are disbanding as well,” Winun’na revealed. “It is getting too crowded since we have been pushed off much of our land. Some of us younger Massachuset are heading north, to a territory on the shore of the very large Lake of Shining Waters. The Huron and Iroquois People are there now but there is much land and we think we can peacefully make a place for ourselves. We will have no shaman, though, because the People need my father here.”
Mary Carmen looked to me and her eyes were bright. I could have read her mind even if I hadn’t possessed my special abilities. Why not go with them?
Aakif also seemed excited, sensing what we were thinking. He caught my eyes and nodded.
“Mary Carmen is a healer and I know of roots and herbs that heal. Aakif is a shipbuilder. You will need his skills if you are to live on the banks of a great lake. Would you allow us to come with you?”
“You are all welcome to join us,” Winun’na said. “We are a small group and can use the help of skilled workers.”
“I have my work, of course, and cannot join you,” Van Leeuwenhoek said, “but it sounds like a grand and worthwhile venture to me.”
John Indian came with the wagon. Tituba and Violet sat beside him. I spied Bronwyn wrapped in a blanket in the cart. We all surrounded the back of the wagon and I climbed in beside her. “How do you feel?”
Bronwyn clutched her head and I winced at the scar running up her forehead. “I’ll be better soon, pet. Don’t worry about me. The spirit is strong if the flesh is weak still. I’m a tough old bird.”
From the shipyard, a seagull squawked as if on cue, which made all of us laugh. We told Tituba, John Indian, and Bronwyn what we were thinking. “Let’s do it.” Tituba was the first to agree.
“‘O brave new world that has such people in it,’” Bronwyn quoted from The Tempest.
Aakif took my hand and I leaned against him. After all we had faced, we knew that whatever challenges the future held, we would be equal to them.
I no longer wanted to be a witch, and I didn’t even want to live alone using my powers to make money in frivolous ways. Like Mother Kadiatu, like Bronwyn, like Mary Carmen, I wanted to be of help, to use what I could do to make things better.
Aakif would be with me and we would be all right. Th
e words of the song I’d learned just over a year ago came to me.
The water is wide, I can-not cross o’er.
And neither have I the wings to fly.
Build me a boat that can carry two,
And both shall row, my true love and I.
“Tell your people we will be with them,” I told Winun’na. “This world has grown too small for all of us. We’re going to make a new one.”
Suzanne Weyn is the acclaimed author of Empty, Distant Waves, Reincarnation, The Bar Code Tattoo, and The Bar Code Rebellion, as well as The Crimson Thread, Water Song, and The Night Dance. She lives in New York.
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Copyright © 2012 by Suzanne Weyn
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First edition, August 2012
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